POST-GAME PART 1 - January 10-22

No sense in calling it a "day" or whatever anymore. So anyway, here's the deal. Obviously it's been a really long time since the last update. I have been playing the game still, and making a mediocre amount of progress (considering the fact that I'm still actively avoiding training my team, and I haven't started the main post-game quest yet), but I haven't really been documenting it. I mentioned earlier how updating this text LP has sort of killed my enjoyment of the game, but I still don't want to abandon it entirely. So here's what I'm gonna do.

For this post-game stuff, I'm just gonna sort of summarize what I did in a faster fashion than usual, since I haven't noted down most of the details. As far as I'm concerned, the main purpose of doing these writeups is to point out my specific reactions to parts of the game in a humorous fashion whenever possible, or at the very least, provide some sort of commentary on it instead of simply saying "I go here, I do this". I don't want it to completely devolve into that, since it wouldn't be very interesting to read. And I also don't want to try and force every minor thing I did in the past two weeks into one huge segment either. So if it seems like I'm sorta skipping through big chunks or leaving stuff out, it's probably because I've either forgotten the details by now, or I decided it wasn't completely worth including it. Don't get me wrong though, it's still probably going to be stupidly long like usual.

To start out, here's my spoils from the most recent Vinesauce Wonder Trade session:

- A Rowlet with the OT "Jolyne"
- A Spanish Litten with the OT "kote". Yes, two starters in a row.
- An Eevee hatched in a Premier Ball with the OT "Dock".
- A Level 3 Lucario hatched in a Luxury Ball with the OT "Nick".
- A Midday Lycanroc named "Geode", caught in a Quick Ball, with the OT "Sydney".
- A Cosmog named "Nebby" with the OT "David". Well, that's nice to have for the living dex, that'll be one less thing to try and get off the GTS. Kinda wish it wasn't nicknamed that though, since it doesn't quite fit with the "actual" Nebby, the Lunala. Still, won't complain.
- A Yungoos with the OT "Samuel". Caught at Level 2 with an Ultra Ball, totally not a waste of resources at all.
- A Japanese Pom-Pom Oricorio
- A Geodude with the OT "Kris", hatched in a regular Poke Ball.

And that's it. The Cosmog's definitely cool, and I guess it's nice to get extra starters (even though I didn't need them for anything), but the rest is pretty dull. And believe it or not, this was the last Wonder Trade session he's done, despite the amount of time that's passed since the last update. Mainly because of Elite Four stuff, and now that Vinny's finished the game, he hasn't done a stream of it in a while (despite saying that he would do postgame, it's yet to be seen).

So aside from that, I guess I'll just go through a list of stuff I did. Much of this was brought to my attention through a "postgame checklist" found here: http://pokemonpostgame.com/src/sumo_checklist.html

By talking to Professor Kukui in his lab, I got the Lucky Egg. Even though I already did most of the evolving that I needed to do for the Pokedex, this is still definitely appreciated. Can't wait until I need to level up Deino, with its insane Level 50 and 64 evolution levels. Kukui also gives the TM for Substitute after talking to him a second time, which wasn't even remotely obvious. Before leaving, I check out Lillie's loft area and find that a Murkrow has pecked the lock off her diary, allowing it to be read. I remember hearing about this being a fairly big deal, but it honestly doesn't reveal anything that wasn't already known. It's just a recap of the events that happened to her from the moment she left Aether Paradise to the start of the game with the bridge incident. I suppose it's nice to have for flavor text, but yeah, not all that amazing.

After checking that out, I remembered that there was some stuff I could do at the Trainer's School, so I went back there. After fighting the Blackbelt guarding the door to the principal's office, it's made pretty clear that these post-game battles are no joke. He wasn't terribly hard, but the principal herself was, and I actually had to reset to beat her. That's going to be sort of a trend in a lot of upcoming fights.

Winning that battle gets me a King's Rock, which is needed to evolve Slowpoke into Slowking and Poliwhirl into Politoed. Politoed, of course, can be found in the wild through a very annoying process, and if it wasn't for my insistence on catching everything from the wild when possible, I'd probably just get another King's Rock to evolve it. Except it turns out that the only way to do that is to get them off certain wild Pokemon (as I assumed), and every single one of them is an SOS encounter aside from Hariyama, which I (at the time) didn't realize was even found in the wild anywhere, since the Pokedex doesn't indicate that it is. So yeah, have fun getting more of those.

It was around this time that I was invited to provide a Mystery Egg to Snivy (a Discord chat member, and one of my youtube fans). If you're not sure what that means, it's when you do a playthrough of a Pokemon game with six eggs provided from other people, so that what you end up using is a surprise. I decided to send a Drampa, since it's encountered at the very end of the game and therefore isn't feasible to use in a team in most cases.

I also decided to go a step beyond and breed an Egg move onto it, Hurricane. The problem with that is that the only things that could learn Hurricane in Drampa's egg group are Gyarados and Dragonite. I didn't have a Dragonite yet (and wasn't feeling up to evolving a Dragonair, since that would take a long time), and Gyarados learns it at Level 48. So what I ended up doing was Solid Snaking my way past all the trainers in the later sections of Poni Island in order to get to Poni Meadow, where high-leveled Magikarp and Gyarados could be found. After a bit of SOS chaining, I managed to snag a male Level 57 Magikarp, and then spent a few minutes getting it to gain a level and evolve. Then it was a simple matter of using a Heart Scale to learn Hurricane, catching a female Drampa, and breeding them.

I ended up making twelve eggs, and then saved before hatching them to see their natures and abilities. The best one of the litter was sent off as my donation to the Mystery Egg run, and the other eleven (plus their parents) are currently hanging out in a PC box because I don't feel like releasing them.

Here's where things are just going to turn into a series of short "I did this" snippets that I can't really link together in any meaningful way, so I might as well just list them off.

- While leveling up the Magikarp earlier, I ran into and caught a Sensu Style Oricorio. This is the first of many captures, which I'll start listing off later when I get to them.
- I scanned the Magearna code, but didn't pick it up yet since I'll want to reset for nature and whatnot.
- I did some more QR Code scans, caught a Horsea as my first Island Scan Pokemon aside from the Serperior from way earlier. Fast-forwarding quite a bit, I tried to make an effort to do two Island Scans a day (using the "special" QR Codes that give 20 points instead of 10), but I ended up forgetting on many of the days. I currently have, in addition to the Serperior and Horsea, a Venipede, Litwick, Cyndaquil, Totodile, Spheal, Deino, Luxio, Honedge, Roselia, Chikorita, Bellsprout, Marill, Axew, Gothita, and Rhyhorn. I've not done any breeding or evolving with them yet, and as with all my other living dex stuff, I will be catching multiples of the lower evolutions. So that's gonna take quite a while to finish.
- After deciding to check out Hau back in Iki Town, it appears that he's training Skull Grunts to sumo wrestle apparently. Except as usual, they're just sort of gesticulating at each other.
- Game Director Morimoto (in the Gamefreak building) is too high-leveled for me to beat. I gave it a few attempts, but couldn't really come close. I'll eventually want to do this, if not for the sake of completion, then because he gives the Oval Stone.
- Some random NPCs scattered around give away some decent items. Kiawe's Dad in Paniola Town gives a Protector, Kahili in the Great Hano Resort gives the TM for Trick Room, and a person in Mallow's restaurant in Konikoni City gives the Whipped Dream, Sachet, and Dragon Fang.
- I checked out the Po Town Pokemon Center, because I heard you can buy a Team Skull Tanktop here. That was true, but it costs a ton of money and I don't particularly want it (aside from completion purposes), so I'll be holding off on that, as with most of the clothing options and all the TMs I haven't bought yet.
- I picked up the free Porygon and Up-Grade from Aether House. At some point later on I do end up evolving it, then breeding for another. Along with Joel's Porygon-Z (which he doesn't care about keeping), that makes that family complete in my living dex.
- In the Seafolk Village Pokemon Center, I battled a guy with a shiny Exeggcute. After beating him, I get six nuggets, which is thematically fitting I suppose. I think this is the first trainer-owned shiny Pokemon in the series since the ones in the Trainer Tower in Gen 3.
- At Poni Breaker Coast, there's two female swimmers that call themselves the "Hidden Maidens". Beating them in a double battle gets me the TMs for Surf and Waterfall. Ha, Hidden Maidens, Hidden Machines, I see what you did there. Maybe because you made it really obvious in the dialogue. Apparently their plan was to sell them somewhere in Alola since they'd be valuable TMs and you can't actually sell HMs back in their home region... I still don't get how it sort of "changes" depending on where you are. Region-locking? It's weird.
- On Route 8, I ran into Colress again who gave me the four Genesect Drives for some reason. And he did so one at a time, very slowly. And then once again he left, realizing that his purpose in this game is nearly non-existent.

I could continue that format of writing for ages, but I already said earlier that it's fairly uninteresting and a waste of time, so hopefully the next few things will actually be slightly related and worth talking about.

At some point after getting the free Porygon, I decided it would be worth it to head over to Aether Paradise and get the Type: Null from Gladion. I ended up deciding that I'd rather reset for a good one though, so I still haven't actually done this yet. And speaking of things I haven't done yet, I haven't battled Faba there for his Dubious Disc, since he's pretty high-leveled. Of the trainers I'm currently ignoring, he's probably the easiest though. The other ones I haven't fought (at the time of writing this) are the Game Director, a certain callback trainer that I'll mention later, and Guzma. Remember wayyyy back to Route 2, where there was a house where a kid with a much of trophies used to live? Turns out that was Guzma. And though it's not spelled out super obviously in the English version, there are at least hints towards the fact that his dad used to beat him with golf clubs for not being good enough, leading to his current personality.

Back at Aether Paradise, I went to the basement area to check out the Secret Labs again, only to run into Wicke. She explains a bit about why Lillie went to Kanto - apparently it's because of Bill's Pokemon fusion machine, since Lusamine was sort of fused with Nihilego back in Ultra Space. They're hoping that his machine might be able to reverse the damages done. Kind of an interesting callback, I suppose. She also gives me two Big Malasadas for no particular reason.

In Secret Lab A, I don't find anything related to Type: Null, but I do get some other legendary-related items from a random employee: the DNA Splicers, Prison Bottle, and Soul Dew. Gotta love the need to shoehorn like 80 different items into every game. And lastly, in Secret Lab B, I receive ten Beast Balls from Wicke, saying I'll be needing them soon. I suppose there's no point in putting it off anymore then, I need to go check out the motel on Route 8.

And so here's where things are probably going to be sped up like crazy. Everything you've read so far was done over the course of a day or two, and I actually did have some basic notes on what I did in that time. Beyond this point, everything's going to be purely from memory.

Upon entering the motel, I come across none other than series mainstay Looker of the International Police! And also his boss, who is ... some random chick named Anabel! Apparently she's the Frontier Brain of the Battle Tower in Emerald, I sure as hell didn't remember that. Probably because I never bothered much with the Battle Frontier outside of the LP, and I'd like to forget about that experience as much as possible.

So here's the scoop: Ultra Beasts are being sighted across the region, and I need to catch them before they cause any major harm. But first, for no real reason whatsoever, I have to battle Anabel to prove that I'm strong enough, since apparently being the Champion isn't good enough. I joke about such things, but there's quite a level gap between Kukui and Anabel here. I was almost prepared to say screw it and not bother with this until later, but somehow I did manage to get through the fight with five Level 50s (I forget which ones) plus the always-unused Nebby, and I only had to abuse healing items for her last Pokemon, a Weavile.

With that out of the way, I'm told to go check out either Wela Volcano Park or Diglett's Tunnel, because Nihilego has been sighted there. Now, remember how I took the game super seriously back with the whole "Nebby wants to go on a journey with you" thing? I'm doing pretty much the exact opposite here, since my actions are not only putting people in serious danger, but also costing the government untold millions of dollars. Why? Well, here's the deal.

The game intends you to use those ten Beast Balls for Nihilego. After you catch it, you get ten more to go after the next Ultra Beast, and so on until you have them all. In the event that you use up all the Beast Balls, you can talk to Looker for one more, but he says to be extremely careful with it because they cost over a million each. He'll only give you one if you don't have any in your inventory. But you can abuse the system by giving it to a Pokemon to hold, since he won't check that.

So what followed at this point was at least five hours (probably quite a bit more) of me grabbing six Pokemon from the PC, then talking to him, getting a Ball, putting it on a Pokemon, talking again, etc, then taking those six Pokemon to the PC, getting six new ones, and repeating. I did this until every single Pokemon in the PC is holding a Beast Ball. Yeah, it's every bit as tedious as it sounds. At the time of me writing this, I currently have 428 of them. Keep in mind that from Looker's perspective, he seems me come into the room, say that I don't have any more, and then he goes into his whole "What? You used them all? Well ok, I suppose I can part with one..." spiel. He gives me the ball, I give it to a Pokemon to hold, and then immediately ask for another. And he continues to do this. It's kind of excellent, really.

Why am I doing this? Here's the thing: I DON'T KNOW. I do plan on catching the four Tapus with Beast Balls (which I imagine is going to be complete hell, since they have a x0.1 catch multiplier, and the Tapus have the standard legendary catch rate of 3), but I don't think that's my specific reason for hoarding them. Mainly it's just because they're rare items and I want as many as I can reasonably have, drawing the line at catching new Pokemon specifically to fill the PC to hold more Balls.

Also, I haven't actually started the UB quest, since I'm doing the opposite thing with them from what I'm doing with the Tapus: I want to catch all the Ultra Beasts in Apricorn Balls. Well, not the duplicate ones, but one of each. Not all of them match up perfectly, and I'll have one ball left over at the end, but I figure I'll do Lure Ball for Nihilego, Love Ball for Pheromosa, Fast Ball for Xurkitree, Friend Ball for Celesteela, and Heavy Ball for Guzzlord, leaving only the Level Ball left over. (And Necrozma will go in a Beast Ball because, again, it's the hardest thing I can use for it). I've not started any of this because I fear for my sanity.

So ignoring all that, I still have a large portion of Poni Island to explore. And since I didn't take any notes on it, you can expect this part to go by pretty quickly. First, there's a battle against Dexio to get the Mega Ring. He uses a Mega Alakazam in the battle, which I manage to take out with Laylee through a combination of spamming Calm Mind and healing when necessary. He gives the Alakazite upon defeat, the only Mega Stone in the game that isn't a huge pain to get, since all the rest have to be bought with BP or require getting a streak of wins in the Battle Tree. Ideally I would like to get all of them for collection purposes, but I dunno if I see that happening.

Poni Grove, the first area available, is short and pretty unremarkable. I did spend a fair amount of time SOS chaining for a Lucario though. Had to restart a few times because Chanseys kept showing up and giving more experience than I'd like. But I did eventually catch one, plus a regular Riolu afterwards.

The next area, Poni Plains, is quite large and took a good amount of time to fully explore. There's a number of different ways to encounter Pokemon here - regular grass, rustling shadows in the grass, moving shadows of bird Pokemon, and two different sets of rustling bushes with different Pokemon in each. All together, I got Primeape, Mandibuzz, Mudsdale, Hariyama (replacing my existing one evolved from a Makuhita), two Scythers, Emolga, and Hypno (again, replacing my evolved Drowzee). The Thunderbolt TM is also here, which is generally a nice thing to have, but Crazy Bus is more of a physical attacker and none of my other Pokemon really seemed to benefit from it. And speaking of TMs, one of the worst ones in the game, Quash, is given from the local "beat everyone first" trainer.

Located in Poni Plains is Poni Meadow, an area I already visited earlier briefly when I needed to catch the high-level Magikarp. So there wasn't anything new to catch there, but I never actually explored the area. Turns out it's mostly vertical, with a lot of climbing on tree branches and such. Reminds me of the Root Cave from Metroid Prime, actually, which is pretty cool. And at the top of it is the entrance to Resolution Cave, a fairly empty and useless cave in the grand scheme of things. It has a couple trainers, wild Crobat (which took me freaking ages to encounter), the TM for Earthquake, and a few other cool items like the Life Orb and Light Ball. I've read that it's supposed to be similar to Terminus Cave, the place in Kalos where Zygarde is found, but I'm not really sure of the connection personally.

The next area is Poni Coast. Not Poni Breaker Coast, mind you, just Poni Coast. I kinda hate how all these areas are just "Poni [noun]", especially with so many of them being similar. But I guess since there's no towns or anything, they didn't feel the need to rename any of them to Route Whatever. But yeah, this place is pretty barren. Just some rocks to break, the Dark Pulse TM, and a double battle against some tourists. I do like how the game gives this opportunity to see the original forms of the stuff that gained Alolan Forms, and I believe I have all of them registered in the Pokedex except for Grimer and Muk. Not sure where you see those, maybe the Battle Buffet. I do mean to go back there at some point. Anyway, moving on to the last area...

Poni Gauntlet, a location that is pretty much what the name sounds like. It's a series of difficult trainers (for me, at least, since I'm underleveled) and what I assume are the highest level wild Pokemon in the game, going as high as Level 59. Again, since I didn't take any notes on this area, I don't have any warstories to share or anything. The only battle that is super noteworthy here is against Mina, the extremely baked-looking trial captain that isn't actually a trial captain that I met earlier. Her team of Level 61 Fairy Pokemon seemed fairly threatening at first, but I managed to get through it with relative ease due to her bad AI attempting to use Shiinotic's Spore against Dreemurr continuously, allowing me to get up three Swords Dances and sweep the remainder of the team.

Also located at Poni Gauntlet are wild Bewears and the ability to get Dragonite through SOS chaining, which didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would. I also didn't expect it to show up at Level 10, so the only way I was able to catch it was to inflict paralysis and throw balls at full health, which is always a joy. After catching Dragonite (and doing a bunch of trade evolutions a few days earlier), my living dex was almost complete aside from legendaries, with the only missing things being Metang and Metagross, Trevenant, Poliwrath, and Politoed. The first three things on that list are there because I'm still hoping to get them from Poke Pelago, though I did eventually cave in and catch two more Beldums and evolve them. I still don't have a Trevenant at this time, and I'm hoping to not have to cave in and evolve a Phantump. That leaves the Polis.

I've already discussed how annoying Politoed is to catch, and Poliwrath isn't much better, aside from the fact that it can't kill itself with Perish Song. But through persistence and a lot of tedium, I did actually manage to catch both of them. Poliwrath actually didn't take that long to show up, and it stayed in the ball pretty quickly.

Politoed, as I predicted, took many hours of attempts and resets to actually show up, and it was a very stressful event when it finally did. I was using Skeeter (holding a Damp Rock) as my Rain Dance user, since they'll only show up through SOS calls during rain. I also had El Grapadora with me with Taunt on its moveset, since that's one of the only ways to prevent Politoed from using Perish Song and completely ruining everything. When it finally did show up, I just had to hope to lord Arceus that it didn't use Perish Song on the turn that I switched out, and luckily for me, it didn't. Taunt only lasts three turns though, including the turn that it's used on. So to switch out to a Pokemon to do something else to it, I'd have to use one turn to switch, another to use a move, and a third to switch back before getting in another Taunt, which poses a problem. I took the risk to do this and get in a Thunder Wave, and once again I lucked out, but it attempted to use Perish Song on the exact turn that I Taunted it after that, so I figured it was too risky to attempt False Swiping it with Garchomp (which I had with me just in case). It was an annoying process and took about 15 or 20 Premier Balls, but I finally got it. And with that, my Pokedex is at 99% for each Island Dex and 95% for the total one.

That leaves only one other thing to write about, and no, it's not the Eeveelution sidequest (I forgot about that for a while and then decided to not start it until after writing this). It's the matter of the Battle Tree... and not even the Battle Tree itself. Pretty much immediately after stepping foot on the far end of Poni Gauntlet, everyone's favorite jerkass and silent protagonist show up: Blue and Red, respectively. There's a bit of dialogue with Blue before he gives the option to battle either him or Red. I decided to go for Blue, since I find him a bit more interesting (since he actually has a character) and Red was already the ultimate boss of the Johto games.

And yeah, my team of Level 55s does not appear to be good enough for the job. I could probably get through it with enough Revive spamming, but that's really cheap and really boring to do, so I'm just gonna hold off on that for a bit. I'm not in any huge rush to get to the Battle Tree anyway. So at this time, I'm left with a few difficult trainers that I'll need to beat at some point, the Eeveelution quest, lots of legendary catching, and some other assorted riff-raff like finding all the Zygarde Cells. I don't really have any plans for how to tackle it yet, but I will mention that I'm at least somewhat considering picking up a new set of team members comprised of Ultra Beasts and Tapus to go along with Nebby and possibly Silvally. I've said before that it's been ages since the last time I've actually used legendaries for anything, and while it feels weird to consider breaking that tradition, it might be kinda fun. We'll see how that goes.

Current status:

"DAY" 23 - January 8-9

This one's gonna be short and to-the-point, since most of this will be covered in the video. If you're following this either in real-time as it's updating, or reading through all of it right after it was posted, you've most likely watched my video (or original stream) where I complete the game. But first, a few things to point out.

The night of Jan 7th (or early morning of Jan 8th if you want to be anal about it), there was another Vinesauce Pokemon stream, so that means more Wonder Trades. Here's what I got:

- A Japanese Abra hatched in a Great Ball
- A Golbat with the OT "Alex" that is mostly unimpressive, but was caught at Level 48.
- Another Japanese Abra, this one hatched in a plain Poke Ball. Exciting.
- A Sandygast with the OT "Serena", hatched in a Heavy Ball
- Something I'll explain in a minute
- A Vulpix with the OT "Oxalis", hatched in a Love Ball.

Aside from the Apricorn Balls, most of those were fairly forgettable, but then we have the one I intentionally skipped over. The reason I skipped over it is because I'm not sure what to make of it. It's a Level 100 shiny Kommo-o. OT is "Moon.", with a period at the end. It's Lonely, was hatched in a plain Poke Ball, and appears to be EV trained to max out Speed and increase both Attack and Special Attack.

I'm inclined to think it was hacked, or at the very least, cloned from a legit one, since I doubt anyone would Wonder Trade it away if it was completely legit, even if they were hoping Vinny got it. It's probably a similar situation to his Level 100 shiny Tsareena named "Femdom", in that it apparently was given out by some streamer that either genned or cloned a bunch of them. Either way, I've got it now, and I'm not going to release it or anything, but I don't plan on using it for anything either.

Last time I mentioned I was up to Goodra in the Pokedex, in terms of filling it out. After writing that entry, I continued to work towards that goal, but did so without actually using any of my party members for bait-and-switch. So for the first time in the playthrough, I turned on the Exp Share and let the stronger Pokemon do the fighting, while going back to heal very frequently. Goomy took a very long time to evolve - I attempted to speed up the process by cancelling the Sliggoo evolution (since a Pokemon gains extra experience if it's beyond its evolutionary level). I'm not actually sure how much that helped though, since even relying on Muddy Water's power boost in the rain of Route 17 didn't put much power behind its attacks, so it took quite a while to hit Level 50.

The other late evolutions included all the fossil Pokemon, Palossand, Krookodile, Vanilluxe, Flygon, and Garchomp. I think I ended up evolving them in roughly that order. I know Flygon and Garchomp were the last two, at any rate. And the reason I distinctly remember this is because they were the only Pokemon in my team when I ran into a shiny Gumshoos on Route 16! Luckily it didn't put up much of a fight when I threw Premier Balls at it (I didn't even risk attacking in case of a critical), and with that, I have my first non-traded shiny of Gen 7. Can't say I'm happy with what Pokemon it ended up being, but I'll take it over nothing.

And that's about it before the video, so I'll just link to that and... yeah. I'm not going to summarize it.

Not much else to say, really. It's been a long trip, and there's still a lot more to do.

Current status:

"DAY" 22 - December 23 - January 7

Well, it's certainly been a while. A few things can be blamed for that, partly the fact that I spent a few days busy with moving to a new apartment, but mostly because I've been putting off progress yet again. Because it's been so long since the last write-up and I only took notes for the first few things I did, a lot of this is going to be kind of vague and undetailed. Well, here goes.

After the events of the last segment (Nebby evolving into Lunala, going to Ultra Space, battling Lusamine, catching Lunala), the only thing left to do in the plot is to climb Mt. Lanakila and challenge the Pokemon League. But before I can do that, Gladion shows up for one last battle at the base of the mountain. I didn't write down any notes regarding how the battle went, but I remember it coming down to the wire. His team is fully evolved now, including Null, who is now a Silvally! This is (as I know from out-of-game knowledge) the "Type: Full" mentioned in the Aether Foundation's notes, and has the ability to become any type by holding different memory discs. His is holding the Fire one as a way to counter my chosen starter of this run. Between that and his Crobat, Weavile, and Lucario, it was a fairly challenging fight.

The climb up the mountain afterwards is actually fairly uneventful. Unlike most "Victory Road" type areas, there were no trainers here at all. Taking a page from Johto's design, I see. But yeah, mainly it was just a couple small outdoor areas and an icy cave that was vaguely maze-like but not actually difficult to get through. While exploring, I caught a Sneasel and Drampa, found the final Z-Crystal (Icium Z), and got the Ice Beam TM to teach to Ratzenberger. Drampa is specifically notable for being something that I originally wanted to use on my team, but because it's obtained in literally the final area before the Pokemon League, it wasn't really something I could consider without trading one in earlier. And I generally don't like to do that, so Drampa got a pass and was replaced by Komala. Overall it actually worked out pretty well, since Dreemurr turned out to be surprisingly strong.

Oh right, and SOS-specific encounters are still a thing. So I got to spend some fun time getting a Glalie to show up. After catching it, Malone happened to get enough experience for a levelup, and therefore an evolution! Crabrawler's another location-specific evolution, and much like Charjabug, it certainly took a long time to get to the point where it could happen. But unlike Charjabug, I'm actually going to be using this one, so Malone evolved into the part-Ice Crabominable and my team is pretty much complete! Oh, and after the evolution, he learned Ice Punch, which I replaced Dizzy Punch with.

Speaking of replacing moves, the Pokemon Center at the top of the mountain contains the Move Relearner, so I spent a decent amount of time going through everyone's possible new moves and deciding which ones were worth it. I'm not going to list all the changes here (no point in doing that, really), but I did make it a point to only teach things that wouldn't already be learned at Level 50 or lower unless they were the "move relearner exclusive" type of moves. Why Level 50? Because I figured I'd probably end up grinding a bit before the Pokemon League anyway, so there wasn't any reason to waste the Heart Scales.

At this point, the only thing between me and the League was a battle against Hau. I actually lost the battle on my first attempt, and ended up putting it off for a couple days before finally going for it and winning on the second try (without having to specifically level up beforehand). Unfortunately I didn't write down anything about this fight, which is a bit of a shame because it's the final one (at least before the postgame, there might be more later) and I do remember it being pretty close. All I can really say is that his team was Raichu, Flareon, Komala, and Primarina, all Level 53-54. My team was about 44-45 at the time. And I did indeed keep Nebby on the team for this (and the previous Gladion battle), so although I did have more Pokemon than him, it was only 5-4 instead of 6-4, so the level gap was a lot more noticeable.

Here begins the long, LONG period of me not really doing much of anything. By that, I mean I spent a few days basically not playing the game at all aside from checking Poke Pelago, and then I spent a few more doing nothing but catching extra Pokemon for the living dex. Basically if I only had one of something couldn't catch its evolution somewhere, I'd catch another of the first form, and so on. This includes Vanillish, a weather SOS encounter, and the last Pokemon that could be found somewhere in the wild that isn't either in the postgame or starts with the prefix "Poli". Yeah, Poliwrath and Politoed are still on hold, they're just too irritating to deal with.

At some point in the middle of doing all this, I did another outfit change, going with my overall favorites in each category (instead of trying to try out different stuff for the sake of variety) while still making it look decent overall. I ended up with a green shirt and red plaid skirt with purple shoes and a blue bag... which incidentally happens to be almost exactly the same outfit as Donna, my character from Pokemon Y. The only real differences are the hair and hat, with slight color differences on the socks and bag. I did sort of intend for this to be the case when I started putting it together, but only specifically the shirt and skirt. The rest just kind of happened that way. As usual, you can see the final outfit in the trainer card at the end of this post, and here's a picture of Donna for comparison:

Anyway, back to something that isn't playing dress-up, part of the reason I was doing this is because of my attempts to not specifically grind at any point of the playthrough. I'd rather catch stuff that I need and have my party level up in the process than specifically battle a bunch of wild Pokes. It's slower, yes, but it was just sort of the principle of the matter. But eventually I ran out of things to catch, and my team was still around the 46-47 range. So at this point I had three options: Try the Pokemon League anyway even though I'm probably pretty underleveled, start actually grinding, or move on to evolving things for the living dex and get experience that way. If you know me, you probably know what I ended up going with.

But first, an interruption. Remember my attempts to get a Snivy named Vine Snek to Vinesauce Vinny during one of his streams? Well, there was another attempt at that when I managed to catch his December 31st stream live. I got 8 trades in during that stream, and none of them were with Vinny himself, but I definitely got some good'ns this time. Here's the loadout:

- A Skarmory nicknamed "Skarmoney". OT is "Jack". It was caught at Level 28 in a Quick Ball, but leveled up to 40. I'm not sure if the nickname is supposed to be a pun on "money" for some reason, or if it's a reference to how Vinny pronounced it when he first saw it and didn't realize it was spelled with an R and not an N. I'd personally spell that as "Skarmony", so I'm not sure.
- A hatched-in-Dusk-Ball Wimpod with the OT "Aeraki". According to a youtube comment on part 11 of my Skyrim LP, this is from the friend of "birdinabag". I don't actually know who this is, but I find it cool when I know who I traded with, even vaguely.
- A hatched Mareanie with the OT "Dan". Doesn't seem special in any other way, but I believe it came from the stream chat member "Neoxe9". It was kind of unclear, there were two chat members with similar names that got "Vine Snek" when I asked about it, but apparently there was another person besides me sending them out with that same nickname, except theirs were in Beast Balls.
- A French Lillipup named "Ponchiot" with the OT "Thomas". It's caught in an Ultra Ball and seems completely ordinary otherwise. And apparently "Ponchiot" is just Lillipup's French name, so it's not actually nicknamed.
- A Psyduck named "Scoot" with the OT "Voltaire". It was caught in an Ultra Ball at Level 16 and then leveled up to 18. If you're unaware, Scoot is a duck from Animal Crossing that is one of the random villagers you can get. He's become somewhat of a Vinesauce meme, which is interesting because he was also my favorite villager from the original Gamecube game.
- A non-nicknamed Snivy hatched in a Beast Ball (not one of the Vine Sneks I mentioned earlier) that has Pokerus. The OT is "Chrissy", and it's Level 5.
- Another Psyduck, this one not nicknamed, caught in a Repeat Ball. OT is "Carol".
- A Japanese Gengar caught in a Dusk Ball. Unfortunately I have no way of knowing if it was caught as a Gengar or if it was evolved from a Haunter, since the fact that it has no experience gained from its "Level Met" is irrelevant for trade evolutions.

That's the haul. Oh, and one little thing I forgot to point out: SKARMONEY AND SCOOT ARE FREAKING SHINY. Yeah. People give away some crazy good stuff during these streams. Vinny got a shiny Mimikyu, Tsareena (though that one was almost certainly hacked, or at least cloned), and Honedge, and the fact that I got two myself here proves that there's certainly many more where those came from. It's kinda funny though, I always record these Wonder Trade sessions with my webcam just in case something cool happens, and I typically watch the recording window rather than the game itself. Skarmoney was the first trade of the night, and I didn't notice it was shiny when I first got it. Scoot was pretty clear though, and that one definitely caught my attention. With the name it was given, there's no doubt in my mind that it was intended for Vinny.

When I looked through the box later on to investigate what I got, that was when I discovered that Skarmoney was also shiny. I'm not 100% sure that it was meant for Vinny, but seeing as how it's a shiny distributed through Wonder Trade at the exact same time that he was streaming it, I'd say it's pretty likely. So yeah. I have no idea what I'm going to do with these, but they're definitely cool things to have. Scoot especially, because of the name, and the fact that Psyduck was my first ever shiny back in Sapphire. If I had received them earlier in the playthrough, I might have actually added them to my team, but it seems a bit pointless to do that now.

Anyways, that aside, it's been about a week now since that stream and I don't have much to show for it in terms of actual progress, but I've worked on the Pokedex a fair bit, and my team has also reached Level 50. I also did some minor stuff like showing the Garfielf to Samson Oak and the Raichu to the person who wanted to see that. (Got a Love Ball and the Aloraichium Z, respectively, from doing that.) I was actually planning on completing as much of the Dex as possible before moving on (currently I'm up to Goodra as the next thing I need, going in Dex order), but since I just hit a nice round number, it's probably a good place to stop. I don't want to actually be overleveled for the League either, and from what I looked at (trying my best to not pay attention to who the trainers actually are, and not paying super close attention to the Pokemon either), they range from Level 54 to 58. I feel like I can pull that off if I'm smart about it. So I'm going to stop here and figure out what I want to do next.

For the Pokemon League, I can either do what I've been doing (just play through it myself, take notes, and then write about it afterwards), I can record it, or I can stream it. I'm not really sure which I should do, I'd be fine with any of them, though leaning towards the non-text options. Trying to make a Pokemon battle sound exciting in written format is kinda difficult, and the note-taking process is annoying. And regardless of how I approach it, there's a couple other things to address. First off is the matter of what team I'm using. Nebby's taking up a slot of her own (and will most likely not be used unless I get desperate), and the three starters should be an all-or-none sort of package deal. I think I do want to use all of them, so that leaves two other choices. Trying to avoid doubling up on types as much as possible, I think Malone and Lubba work out pretty nicely. I put them into a team weakness calculator and between the five I'm actually using, there's no types that more than two team members are weak to, and of those types, I've usually got a couple that resist it. My worst matchup is Rock, with two weak and no resists. So we'll see how that goes. Thinking towards the future a bit, I usually like to run through the League a second time with the B-team, but in this case, I'll still have a Pokemon that will be left out, since Nebby's hogging up a slot the first time. Eh, I'll deal with it when it comes.

Lastly, here's my full team movesets, for reference. I'm sure a few of them could be improved a bit, especially as far as held items go, but I've been pretty happy with most of this for a while now.

Fellana (Decidueye) @ Decidium Z
Serious, Overgrow
- Leaf Blade
- Spirit Shackle
- Brave Bird
- Synthesis

El Grapadura (Incineroar) @ Muscle Band
Timid, Blaze
- Flare Blitz
- Darkest Lariat
- Flamethrower
- Swords Dance

Lena (Primarina) @ Wide Lens
Relaxed, Torrent
- Moonblast
- Sparkling Aria
- Blizzard
- Aqua Jet

Crazy Bus (Charjabug) @ Eviolite
Lonely, Battery
- Wild Charge
- X-Scissor
- Dig
- Thunder Wave

Malone (Crabrawler) @ Leftovers
Jolly, Iron Fist
- Power-Up Punch
- Ice Punch
- Crabhammer
- Rock Slide

Laylee (Pa'u Style Oricorio) @ Leftovers
Lonely, Dancer
- Revelation Dance
- Hurricane
- Calm Mind
- Roost

Skeeter (Araquanid) @ Expert Belt
Rash, Water Bubble
- Leech Life
- Liquidation
- Poison Jab
- Crunch

Ratzenberger (Wishiwashi) @ Waterium Z
Calm, Schooling
- Scald
- Ice Beam
- Bulldoze
- Aqua Ring

Aleene (Palossand) @ Quick Claw
Lax, Water Compaction
- Earth Power
- Shadow Ball
- Giga Drain
- Hypnosis

Dreemurr (Komala) @ Normalium Z
Lonely, Comatose
- Return
- Wood Hammer
- Swords Dance
- Yawn

Lubba (Minior) @ Rockium Z
Timid, Shields Down
- Power Gem
- Psychic
- Shell Smash
- Stealth Rock

Napstablook (Mimikyu) @ Fairium Z
Adamant, Disguise
- Play Rough
- Shadow Claw
- Shadow Sneak
- Thunder Wave

All of the above are Level 50, have maxed out affection in Refresh, and have random EV spreads. And not sure if this one even really counts, but here's Nebby, who has not been used in a single battle. I've gotten her affection up to three hearts. In the case of desperation, I could probably replace a couple of the moves (and the held item) before starting, but I don't plan on doing so.

Nebby (Lunala) @ Soothe Bell
Naughty, Shadow Shield
- Moongeist Beam
- Cosmic Power
- Night Daze
- Shadow Ball

Other than listing off everything I still have to do for the Pokedex (which I did actually write down but see no reason to include it here), that's about all I can say. So yeah, guess we'll see what happens next. Probably a video or a stream, maybe not. And then there's postgame stuff, which I might write about at least a little. But I said before this game came out that I wouldn't start seriously working on my Pokemon tabletop RPG until I was done with Moon, and that was before I planned on doing a text LP. Now that I've been putting off finishing it for so long, I really should get it over with soon so I can start work on that.

Current status:

DAY 21 - December 22

Let me get something off my chest before I write anything further for this entry. This Text LP is somewhat ruining my experience with the game. I've been in the same place for almost a week now because I've been afraid to make any progress. And the reason I don't want to make any progress is because I hate transcribing what happens in cutscenes. If I was just playing this without writing about it, I would have probably finished it ages ago, which by itself isn't necessarily a problem. I kind of like taking it slow and making it last. The problem comes with me basically avoiding progress because "I can't take notes to remember what I did for this section" or "I hate having one entry being split across more than one day, so I should probably wait until tomorrow to do this". Now that I'm almost done with the game, it's sort of a moot point, but that's the reason for the delay. And if I get kind of lazy with the cutscene writeups after this, you now know why. (I'm writing this intro before actually continuing in the game.)

Also, one other thing to include here before I move on: there was another Vinesauce stream, and therefore another Wonder Trading session. Here's what I got:

- A Japanese, hatched-in-Premier-Ball Jangmo-o. It's Modest, so either it was meant to be a special attacker or it's just a randomly bred one with no desire to go for good stats.
- A hatched-in-Luxury-Ball Budew. OT is "Kirk". Doesn't seem remarkable in any other way, but it is an Island Scan Pokemon, so that's something.
- A Japanese Porygon. It's hatched from an egg, so it doesn't get bonus points for being an "original" Porygon, but hey, it's still a cool Pokemon.
- A Grimer with the OT "Tyler". It was apparently hatched, despite being Level 22 when I got it.
- A Graveler (which evolved after being traded, of course) that seems to have a lot of effort put into it. It's Brave (+Att, -Spe), has the Hidden Ability Galvanize, and was hatched in a Heavy Ball. It's nicknamed "GROBO!!!" and has the OT "Kiwi". I'm assuming this one was probably meant for Vinny, but I don't get the reference if so.
- A Munchlax caught in a Nest Ball from "Sirrle". Nothing else about it seems special, but hey, it's semi-rare and not hatched, so that's something.
- A Torkoal with Drought and the OT "Tio Chepe", but nothing else noteworthy.
- A hatched-in-Premier-Ball Jangmo-o from "TinyB♥" named "Devino-o". This one was sent out by the Twitch chat member "Bagel_Spanker" (in-game name "Kim"), after having received it themselves from someone else. I learned this from the chat, after noticing they said they had gotten my Snivy.
- An Abra caught in a Quick Ball from "Tove". From what I understand, these are fairly common Wonder Trash.

Overall, not a bad haul. That Golem is pretty sweet, and I like when I get stuff from other chat members too. But with that out of the way, let's finally move on with the story!

I exit the opposite end of the trial site and enter the Altar of the Moone. It's basically a temple-like structure on top of a big hill with a crapton of stairs leading up to it. Yeah, if you think I'm going to actually write this professionally, may the use of the word "crapton" there show you otherwise. Lillie and Hapu come in, and explain that not only was that Dragon trial the first one to ever be held in Alola, but it's also the final one. I kinda figured it was, but I wasn't sure if there was going to be a Fairy trial by Mina. I mean, there might still be if she creates one later, but I dunno. Rotomdex temporarily turns into Shaggy by pointing out "Zoinks, look at all those stairs!", and I begin the long climb up.

At the top, Lillie says she can "feel the strong power of the moon" despite it being day. I mean, the moon's still up there I guess, you just can't really see it. After a bit of talking to Nebby and restating her motivation for anyone who forgot (not including myself, even though it's been like a week), she realizes the same thing and says that we should wait until the moon has risen to actually do anything. So... time skip!

What follows is one of the game's actual decent cutscenes. You can tell because Luna actually has a different face for a part of it. She and Lillie stand on opposite platforms in front of the altar, and play a short tune on the Sun and Moon Flutes. I'm not sure where they learned the tune, or how to play the flutes in general (I personally don't understand how anyone knows how to play woodwind instruments... or most brass and stringed ones for that matter, there's too many finger combinations to remember), but I guess we're not going to worry about that. And since this is apparently a Zelda game now and things can be activated through music, this causes the circular symbol on the altar to open up and fire out a giant laser beam. Nebby somehow manages to fly over to it while staying inside the backpack that Lillie was wearing at the time (how did it move the straps? Ok, I'll stop asking about stupid details when there's far more fantastic things going on) and becomes surrounded by the energy. This causes it to warp-Digivolve into Lunala!

And that right there is where I wish I hadn't spoiled myself on the new Pokemon beforehand, because I probably wouldn't have guessed that Lunala (and Solgaleo) were the final evolutions of Cosmog. That would have been an actual shocking moment, I think. Bit of a shame, but I can't help myself, I like learning stuff as early as possible. Lillie, of course, has all the wonder and awe that I wish I had, and is amazed that Nebby evolved into the Pokemon of legend. After a brief chat, Lunala then a-fires its lazor to open a wormhole, scoops us both up, and flies into a different world. And I didn't even say goodbye to my mom yet. I suppose I had a week to do it though, so nobody to blame but myself for that one.

We emerge from the wormhole in "Ultra Space". It basically looks like Dark Aether from Metroid Prime 2, but without the poisonous atmosphere. Seriously though, it is actually fairly cool looking, despite basically just being a cave. It's a cool cave. Nebby, for whatever reason, has to stay put while Lillie and I go ahead. I assume it has to keep the portal open or something. Speaking of which, you can go back to the regular world if you need to, which is slightly anticlimactic, but I suppose it makes sense in case you came here unprepared. I should also point out that Lunala has a slightly different appearance when in Ultra Space. It's a lot brighter, and has a third eye open on its forehead. I seem to remember the official website giving a name to this form (Solgaleo also has one), but it's not recognized by the Pokedex as an actual separate thing, kinda like White and Black Kyurem's "overdrive" forms. And yet, Xerneas has the whole Neutral/Active Mode thing despite it being the most useless "form change" ever, if you can ever call it that. Yay for consistency.

A short distance away from the starting point, we come across Guzma sitting up on a ledge. He utters the memetic "Y'all are stupid!" line, in reference to the fact that even he, who's never afraid of anything, is basically terrified of this place and has no idea how or why we came here. He tried to catch one of the jellyfish beasts, but it apparently possessed him. But I guess he ... got better? He doesn't seem possessed anymore, unless he means it just messed with his head a bit and didn't actually take over. And according to him, Lusamine is way worse off, and she's been completely taken over. Lillie ain't havin' none of that though, and wants to try to save her no matter what.

It goes about as well as you'd expect. The jellyfish disappear and summon Lusamine, who goes into a bit of a villain speech. Basically all you need to know is she's completely nutso and doesn't care about anything but beautiful things and her love for them. She's also completely awful towards Lillie, not that this is really anything new. She also finally reveals the jellyfish's name as "Nihilego", which means I don't have to act like I don't know it anymore. She also brings up the point that all she's really trying to do is live here in a world where she's happy. I guess that's not really hurting anyone, aside from the whole "summoning powerful beasts into the regular world" thing from earlier.

There's also another interesting point brought up - if trainers can decide their Pokemon aren't good enough for them, why can't she decide the same thing towards Lillie? The answer to that is basically that the Pokemon world doesn't really follow real-world logic, and abandoning pets would still be quite frowned upon if the game ever decided to touch on it. Which it kind of does at times, but the player character is always exempt from this and free to amass a collection of hundreds of Pokemon that just sit in a PC and look pretty, so there's a bit of a disconnect there between story and game mechanics.

And then Lusamine gets absorbed by the Nihilego that she caught and becomes some kind of horrible monstrosity. Battle start!

Mega Lusamine starts off with a very smug looking Clefable that also randomly has a Special Defense buff like a Totem Pokemon. I'm guessing this is going to be a trend. I lead with Dreemurr, because I've got a pretty big level difference going on (43 vs 50) and I need to take this a bit more safely than usual. So I lead off with Yawn, and she uses Moonblast, bringing me below half HP. I heal on the next turn, and luckily she uses Cosmic Power instead of doing any more damage. While it sleeps, I get in two Swords Dances and a solid hit with Return, but it survives the hit and wakes up on that turn. Luckily for me, it uses Metronome and got a fairly unimpressive move in Bullet Seed, so I finish it off with another hit.

Her second Pokemon is Bewear (with a Defense buff). This thing wrecked face the last time I fought it, so I somewhat prematurely decide to go for the Z-move and hope to take it out with a single Breakneck Blitz. It was a good hit, but it hung on with about 10% of its HP left. It then proceeds to use ... Take Down. Not a fighting move, for some reason, but Take Down. Dreemurr hangs on due to Refresh (that has been really kicking in a lot lately, and I'm not complaining), and Bewear is taken out by the recoil damage.

Next up is a pissed-off Lilligant (with a Special Attack buff). It outspeeds but uses Teeter Dance instead of an attacking move, and I manage to hit through it, taking it out with a single Return. You know, I certainly didn't plan to solo this battle with Dreemurr, but I'm not about to end a good winning streak either. Next comes Milotic (with an Attack buff that it probably can't make any use of), and I decide that it's probably best to try and put it to sleep rather than attack directly. It outsped me though and used Safeguard, so that idea isn't going to work. Deciding that I should probably just take the hit here and get the free switch-in rather than waste a turn switching, I leave Dreemurr in, who once again exceeds expectations and dodges a Hydro Pump, then manages to one-shot the Milotic with Wood Hammer. Of course, the knockback led to a double KO, but that was still a fine performance. And people say that Komala is disappointing without an evolution.

Lusamine's final Pokemon is a Mismagius (with a Speed buff), and not knowing this beforehand, I sent out Crazy Bus so I could at the very least get in a Thunder Wave. I attempted this, only to realize that Safeguard was still in effect. I forgot that was a thing that stuck around like Reflect/Light Screen. Luckily this didn't really matter, because the Mismagius (or Lusamine, not sure which) was stupid and used Pain Split for no real reason, causing a small amount of damage to itself and none to me. It then used it again on its second turn, weakening itself further before I got in a Wild Charge and took it down to about a third of its HP. Following yet another Pain Split (raising its HP to about half, at least it was actually beneficial that time), I went for another Wild Charge and got the KO. And that's the story of how I beat the villain of the game with nothing but a Komala and Charjabug that were seven levels below her team.

Furious that she lost the battle, Lusamine realizes that she's kind of a Pokemon herself now and prepares to unleash some sort of attack on us, but Nebby intervenes with a blast of its own. Lusamine herself doesn't seem terribly bothered by it and is ready to attack again, but the Nihilego that absorbed her took the hit poorly and starts writhing in pain. We're spared the cutscene where it craps her out and instead it fades to black, then the Nihilego returns to its Pokeball as Lusamine collapses to the ground. What follows is another surprisingly good scene: Lillie rushes forward to see if she's ok, and Lusamine reaches up to touch her face. "When did you...start becoming beautiful?" This is accompanied with some pretty music, and I just wish it went on a bit longer than it did, because that one line's pretty much all you get.

In standard Metroid fashion (I told you this place was Dark Aether), the place starts to rumble and shake as a bunch of Nihilego show up and ... float there, menacingly. Before they get a chance to actually do anything, Nebby moves from its original spot (a whopping 50 feet, maybe) and warps me, Lillie, Guzma, and the unconscious Lusamine back out to the normal world. We get greeted by Hapu, who says a line that probably shouldn't have made me laugh but did anyway: "I was concerned so I ascended". She's glad to see that we're all unharmed... except for Lusamine making friends with the floor. Eh, she's fine. At least Hapu seems to think she is. Guzma puts her up on Mudsdale's back and they ride off into the sunset (or broad daylight, as the case may be. Wait, wasn't it night when we left?).

And of course, any meeting of a legendary Pokemon must traditionally be followed by a catching of said legendary Pokemon. Lillie and Nebby have a bit of a heart-to-heart, reflecting on all the people they've met and all 400 "get back in the bag" moments over the course of their adventure. And despite the fact that they've been together all this time, Lillie wants me to be the one to take Nebby and properly catch it in a Poke Ball. Her logic is that she isn't a trainer and I am. Well I thought you said you wanted to be a trainer earlier on, goddammit! What kind of better starter could you hope for? Again, I'd be perfectly content travelling with Lillie and helping out if she's really as useless as she claims to be. But alas, that's obviously not what is going to happen here. I could just leave (the game doesn't seem to have a problem with that... not immediately, at least), but I know I won't be able to progress until this happens. So you know what, fine. Let's do this.

*Some time passes*

Well, about six or so resets later, it's done. The first few all ended the same way: I'd lead with El Grapadura and use Darkest Lariat, which would take out less than half of its HP. I'd use it again, and for some reason it would KO despite not being a critical hit. I'd blame the RNG for giving weird damage range, but it happened about three or four times in a row. I don't get it. Then on the next attempt, it broke out of the Moon Ball, so I had to reset. Yeah, we're doing that. It's too fitting, how can I not? There's only one Moon Ball in the game, and I see no reason to not use it on the Pokemon that represents the Moon, no matter how annoying it may be. I mean, with a catch rate of 45, it's not going to be THAT bad. And sure enough, on the second attempt that actually ended with me throwing the ball and not KOing it, it was a successful capture. I formally named it Nebby (it only seemed right), and I've gotta say, the nature and characteristic it ended up with are very fitting for what it was like as a Cosmog: Naughty and Mischievous.

After catching it, there's a rather sweet cutscene of Lillie saying goodbye and whatnot. I'm gonna go ahead and quote the whole thing here:

"Lunala... No... Nebby. Nebby, you belong with Luna now. She will be the one to raise you. Just like any parent should raise their child. She will be your mother now. I may not have been able to do anything for you, Nebby...but I’m still glad I took you that day. So go with Luna and see the world! Have battles against strong Pokémon where you can use your full power. Meet other Trainers who will make your heart dance with the thrill of it all... That’s the kind of world that Luna can share with you!"

"If it’s you, Luna... I know I can trust you to raise my Nebby well. Take good care of it!"
(Lillie starts to leave, but keeps turning back to say something else)
"And I...will go to my mother. I need to see for myself that she’ll be all right."
"Nebby! Don’t always be trying to get out of your Poké Ball the way you always wriggled out of my Bag!"
"And...and don’t forget that you’re strong now. You’ll have to be careful not to accidentally hurt anyone until you get used to your strength!"
"And...and you can’t just go running off to some other world anytime without telling anyone! You’ll make Luna worry!"
"OK... I’m really... I’m really going this time."

What's that? Don't mind me, someone's just cutting onions. But seriously though, despite being a little cliche, I found that scene pretty emotional (not enough to make me cry or anything, but I could tell they were trying at least). And now I'm left in kind of a weird position. This is just a game, and I really shouldn't be putting this much stock in it, but ... I feel really guilty just leaving Nebby in the PC now. I haven't used a legendary in a serious playthrough of anything since my Nuzlocke of Platinum about six years ago, and prior to that, not since the original Silver. I consider it kind of cheap to do so, and I prefer leaving them untouched as collector's items. But that's just the problem. The game has beaten me down with so much stuff in the last few scenes that I can't help but want to bring Nebby with me.

Exhibit A - The cutscene with Lillie and Lusamine in Ultra Space:

"Children... Children are not just THINGS that belong to their parents! Pokémon are not just THINGS that a Trainer can do whatever they want to!"
"I am alive! Cosmog is alive!"
"We are not things for you to collect!"
"We’re not made for you to just discard when you get bored with us!"
"That is terrible, Mother! You are terrible!"

Exhibit B - From a minute ago:

"Nebby, you belong with Luna now. She will be the one to raise you. Just like any parent should raise their child. She will be your mother now."

Conclusion: If I treat Nebby like a "thing to collect" and just box it, then I'm a terrible mother.

Screw you, game. Why you do this.

So. Here's what we're gonna do. From this point forward, Nebby stays in my team, but doesn't actually get used. Within the context of the game's story, I'm taking it ("she", honestly, I don't care if there's no gender marker in-game) with me to see the world and whatnot. She doesn't actually get to participate in any battles though... at least not at first. I might change my mind on that eventually, but I'd like to get through the main story without her. This means that in addition to managing my rotating team of 12, I also only get to actually carry five usable Pokemon with me at a time. YEAH EXTRA CHALLENGE CONDITION COOL.

Oh, and after Lillie leaves, Nanu abruptly shows up and says that now that I've completed all the trials, I have to beat all four kahunas in a row. But since they're forming a new Pokemon League, things will be a little different this time. So... Elite Four, then? I wonder if it will actually be the kahunas or it it'll just be new people. (Spoilers - I kind of already know the answer to that, but only partially.) Nanu offers to bring me there, but I decline. "Not many kids make it all the way to the final trial, but there’s a handful every year. You won’t be able to go easy on this one. These are real battles. No holding back."

I think that's a good stopping point for this. I may not have progressed very far, but obviously some major things have occurred.

Current status:

"DAY" 20 - December 17-19

Prepare for a short and substanceless update here. Basically this is the result of me seeing that some major stuff is about to happen, but not having the time or ability to actually go through it while taking notes, so instead I decided to put it off as much as possible. You know, because I've never done that before.

To start off, I'll be picking up from where I left off last time, saved in Vast Poni Canyon before a series of trainers. I sure did fight them. Yup. Not really a whole lot to say about that part, but I do remember the last guy causing me to reset due to some bad luck. But that's about all I can say on that subject. And for that matter, that's the only non-wild Pokemon combat you'll be seeing here. Well, technically. Because you see, the cave entrance in front of them has some trial gates on the side of it, meaning that there's a surprise trial coming up. Will this be the one set up by Mina, who showed up briefly and did nothing of consequence? As far as I can tell, no. It's just kind of ... there.

After switching up the team and such (always gotta have the ones that need experience the most, you know), I head into the cave and find a little stone pillar thing with a message on it, basically just saying that to pass, you must complete the trial. Funnily enough, I had worked that out on my own. Still no idea who's running it though. After taking a few steps in, I shortly get set upon by a Jangmo-o. It, unsurprisingly, doesn't offer much of a challenge. It does, however, drop a Heart Scale after being defeated, which is kinda weird. After beating it, I also gain access to a small alcove with the TM for Dragon Claw just kinda chillin' out. I mean, I guess so. Nobody on the team can learn it, so whatevs.

A few more steps down the hallway and I get attacked by a Hakamo-o. Definitely didn't see that one coming, nope. It falls about as easily as the first one did, and I move on to the end of the very short trial area, where the Z-Crystal can be found on a pedestal. I'm gonna give three guesses as to what'll happen here:

A) I collect the crystal and nothing happens, the trial is already over.
B) The crystal turns out to be Lock Capsule, which I have to transfer backwards to Black/White and use it to get the Snarl TM. Doing this randomly unlocks the Hall of Origin in Pokemon Plaid version, which will be released next year, but for it to work, you'll need to buy the special bluetooth adaptor to sync up the two games.
C) A Kommo-o attacks and it's the Totem Pokemon of the area.

So yeah, Totem battle, and it gets a +1 buff to all stats, much like the previous ones. Kinda surprised it's not anything stronger than that, actually. I lead with Lena and go for Dazzling Gleam immediately, since it's 4x weak to that. Unfortunately it uses Protect on the first turn, and summons a Hakamo-o for help. Well whatever, I do it again the next turn. This is a one-hit KO on the summoned help, and takes the Totem down to about 40%. I get hit with a Flash Cannon, which does only about 25%. On the next turn, as I probably should have expected, it uses Protect again and summons more help, but this time it's a Scizor. That's actually somewhat interesting to see, and would be slightly threatening in many other situations. However, the Scizor is stupid and uses Leer instead of something actually dangerous, and another Dazzling Gleam finishes the Kommo-o off. At this point, Lena's actually taken a fair amount of damage, since she got hit with a Sky Uppercut before the KO, but I stay in anyway out of stubbornness. Scizor uses Metal Claw, I survive with 1 HP due to the Refresh benefit, and Scizor goes down to a Sparkling Aria. Easy peasy, didn't even have to switch Pokes.

And with that, the Dragonium Z is mine. That actually means the only Z-crystal left (the only typed one, anyway, since I know there's several Pokemon-specific ones) is the Ice one. Oh, Gamefreak. You sure do overestimate the power of Ice types, it's kind of sad really. There's never been a game with an Ice gym that was earlier than the 7th one, they're extremely rare to find early in the game (the earliest I can think of is the random gift Lapras in X/Y that you get after the 3rd gym), and yet the type is still fairly underpowered. I dun get it.

The area after this cave, as far as I can tell, is going to be definite progress and the start of a whole bunch of climactic story stuffs, so this is where the actual progression stops. Yeah, after about 20 minutes of gameplay. So here's a summary of everything else I did just for the sake of record-keeping. I won't claim that any of it is really that interesting.

After checking Pokemon locations and such, I found that there's apparently a hidden area in Vast Poni Canyon that I hadn't explored yet. It's accessed through a crawlspace under a tree to the left of that last line of trainers. It leads to another cave with a single trainer, the Flamethrower TM (which I'd love to teach to stuff but the only Pokemon capable of learning it is El Grapadura, who I'd prefer to stick with physical moves), and a couple new Pokemon. I also find and catch a Golduck by surfing in here, and manage to fish up a Dratini in the rippling spot. The Pokedex mentions that it was "first confirmed to exist" after a fisherman caught one following a ten-hour struggle. Gotta love how stuff is actually way more common than how it's described, at times.

It's around this time that I decide to go after some more Pokemon that I haven't caught yet, since any extra levels that I gain from doing so will probably be appreciated in the coming sections. This includes the Weather SOS exclusive stuff, which is one of the most annoying mechanics imaginable. My first step here is to get the Damp Rock and Icy Rock to elongate the weather moves, and I find that they're available in the "Community Center" back in Malie City. ... Huh, I have no idea what that is, actually. So I go back to find it, and sure enough, there's just an entire building next to the library that I never explored and never realized it existed in the first place.

It's still pretty unimpressive though. There's a room with people selling stuff, including a young bab who is trying to sell a Dusk Stone (not going to bother, though I am curious if his stock changes after buying it) and a pink girl selling really expensive shoes that are also fairly ugly. I'll pass. I do come across someone who gives me all four of the weather stones (one by one, may I add) after answering very easy questions about them. So with that obtained, along with the TMs for Rain Dance and Hail (purchased from the Pokemon Center in Royal Avenue), I can begin the GRAND HUNT.

First is Goomy. It appears in a few areas, and can only appear if another Pokemon calls for help while it's raining. So yeah. Route 17 is one of the areas it can be caught in, and it's always raining there, so that should be pretty easy. But I'm the worst person ever and actually care about getting stuff in the earliest location possible, so I specifically want to get one in the Lush Jungle. It was moderately annoying, but that THAT bad overall. Probably took about 20 minutes if I had to guess.

While working on finding and catching the Goomy, I was lucky enough to realize that Vinny was streaming Pokemon, so that was the last thing I did that night, since I wanted to take part in the Wonder Trade stuff and hope to get lucky. Predictably, I was not. I'll go ahead and list what I did get, though:

- A Japanese Mimikyu. It's Jolly and was hatched from an egg. Might have good IVs, but I have no idea.
- A Chinese Magnemite. Fairly bland in all other respects, but the OT is B I L I ♂ [smiley face in a square], which is pretty good.
- A Rattata that is unremarkable in all ways. OT is "stitch".
- A hatched Comfey. Bashful (neutral nature). OT is "Ardi".
- A hatched Gastly. Timid, and allegedly 31 IVs for HP, Defense, Special Defense, and Speed. OT is "Despair".
- A hatched Cleffa named "BEP BEP BEP" with an OT of "LEMMONBEATLE". I find this one kinda interesting because I'm pretty sure this person did manage to get through to Vinny in one of the previous Wonder Trade sessions, so this is like, one step away on the Bacon Scale or whatever.
- A hatched Beldum. Impish, no idea if that's a good nature for it. OT is "Ruby".
- A Spanish Salandit. It's male, so yeah, it's trash. OT is "Axebrín".
- A Chinese Machop that is once again unremarkable aside from the language. OT is "BLACK*", with the * at the end being an actual star shape.

Overall nothing all that great, but I'll keep 'em anyway just for the heck of it. I've not released any Pokemon yet and I'm kinda curious if I'll ever actually need to. Depends on if I start breeding for good stats in the postgame, I guess. Oh, and after the Wonder Trading segment of the stream was over, I managed to find and catch a Vanillite in Tapu Village. Having to constantly reuse the weather moves sure is fun, I tell ya hwhat.

On the next day (Sunday the 18th), I made no progress other than catching some more Pogeys: Lycanroc (Midnight Form), Umbreon, Garbodor, Pangoro, Electabuzz, and Poliwhirl. Poliwhirl's noteworthy for being another Weather SOS exclusive, and also for taking FOREVER to show up. I swear it took me at least three hours, and I wonder if the problem is because I was trying to chain off of Pokemon other than Poliwag. It really shouldn't matter as far as I can tell, since the Weather SOS stuff isn't based on species, but I can't understand why it would have taken so long otherwise. To skip ahead a bit, I started looking for Politoed a couple days later, and ran into like 10 Poliwhirls without even trying. More on that later though.

The next day, I caught Gengar, Sliggoo, Dragonair, and Kommo-o, meaning that I've caught every possible wild Pokemon except for Poliwrath and Politoed. They're uh... they're pretty freaking awful. In addition to being Weather SOS Pokemon, they also have about a 1% appearance rate according to Bulbapedia, and better yet, Politoed is notorious (with me personally, at least) for being a complete arse to catch. Mainly because it knows Perish Song, which will end the battle in three turns if it decides to use it. It's this combination of awfulness that made me decide to not really bother going after them yet.

... Until the next day, that is. I did try a bit to find one. I didn't succeed. Gengar was enough of a nightmare on its own, with the insanely low encounter rate that it had going on (no worse than Snorlax or Salamence, honestly, but the Haunters also did a ton of damage and didn't have very much PP, making the process more annoying than it needed to be), so when you add the other crap on top of this, they're just thoroughly awful. I will try to get them eventually, but not now. And for anyone else attempting this, I'd like to recommend bringing a Pokemon with the Soundproof ability so Politoed can't use Perish Song. I personally am too stubborn to use anything other than a dedicated team member (up to this point I've managed to avoid getting a single exp point on any other Pokemon in my PC, so I'd like to see how long I can keep that going), so I'm going with Taunt instead, but that's not quite as reliable since it wears off after a few turns.

But yeah, that's it. I'm fully aware that this was a useless update, and it was kind of meant to be one. Next time, story progression. Probably a lot of it.

Current status: