Orasha

I'm gonna say Luna. You did say Dark was one of your favorite types, after all

Chapter 14: Squashing the Firebug Since we got the Badge, its time to go back to Fiore Mansion and get our HM. On our way there, we spot an ominous Pokemon... Well, we all know what that's about. Titania and Amaria have a falling out, and and then literally fall down a Waterfall. Titania basically forces us into rescuing her eventually, but when I do it'll mostly be for Amaria. The path forward is blocked by an enormous ice wall, so Hardy, Cain, Aya and I decide to go to Calcenon instead. Due to plot contrivance Team Meteor's assault, we get separated, so Aya and I end up facing Team Meteor on our own. And by accident, too! Eventually we have a rematch with our old friends, Aster and Eclipse. Eclipse seems... less enthused then she used to be. Huh. VS ASTER AND ECLIPSE Eclipse has a change of heart, and deactivates the PULSE Clawizter for us. She and Aster argue about Team Meteor's goals, and Eclipse's father being in the firing line has changed her mind. The ends justify the means no longer. Eclipse is about to spill the beans about Lin and how she made things worse, when Sirius shows up and sends her soul to the shadow realm. Sirius attempts to kill us too, but Aya pushes us out of the way. Luckily, she doesn't touch Chandelure, but Sirius ends up taking her hostage and retreating. With that finished, we can get to Calcenon! In the gym, Laura runs out, distressed over something. Charlotte informs us that: I'm assuming Bennett took her place. Guess we can look forward to that match. Maybe he'll have a strategy other than Quiver Dance by then. We tell Cain and Hardy the bad news, and Hardy doesn't take it well, and the wall around Calcenon erodes his patience. While we're here, we also reunite with the orphans, and our favorite character of all: So Fern has joined Team Meteor, to the surprise of no one. There's some further drama about Heather's Ruby Ring and the absolute faith the Belrose sisters have in each other, and then its time to take on Charlotte. This is my team: Charlotte gives us a speech about how she feels no guilt for her parent's deaths, and I'm not sure if she's mildly sociopathic, just blocked her feelings due to trauma, or what. Its a shame Sigmund appears to be the only psychologist in Reborn, cause she should probably talk to a professional about this. VS CHARLOTTE Well, after that, I don't think there's anything else I can do but end the installment. See you next time!

Well, its still a good thing to know Hm, well since you just beat Aya, I have a few ideas of who it could be. Me too I was definitely worried about him.

I have so many theme team ideas it's ridiculous so, here are some in no particular order: Herpetology (reptiles and amphibians) Ninja Desert theme Witch or haunted house theme RPG class theme Extraterrestrial pokemon Swamp theme Mono-egg run Only use pokemon with no secondary types Kaiju team King Arthur team team based on fauna of certain countries/positive stereotypes (so an American themed team would have bibarel and braviary) Ballroom theme Mimic team Blade based team Only pokemon with large noses Bioluminescence team Pirate team I hit enter too fast the first time oops. But yeah you can get at least a team of 6 out of all of these theme ideas.

Huh, didn't know that. I learn new things about this game all the time I'll have to try it out when I get back to Reborn. I imagine it'll come in handy for Adrienn. Who's your favorite character?

Chapter 13a: Breaking Bennett After defeating Radomus and getting our badge, plus Trick Room, all the lights go out. Elias offers us an escape route, but to the surprise of no one it's a trap. Cain offers to stay behind and sacrifice himself, partially because our Pokemon are still weak from the gym battle, and partially due to his low self-esteem: Radomus has escaped as well, and creates a path that lets us walk on top of the hedge maze, avoiding capture. How the Meteor Grunts don't see me is another question. Maybe Radomus hypnotized them... He also says that we should look for Luna at 7th street. 7th Street is kinda weird to me. Like I get having an underground black market and giving it a cool name, but the streets really do skip 7th Street, so was it intended? Did the 'real' 7th street get destroyed or something? I have questions. We run into Bennett, who offers us to lead us into the cultists lair. Of course, he's wearing robes now, so... this is an obvious trap. Our only move? Spring Rock the trap. Before going after Luna, however, I decide to get some more grinding and breeding out of the way. Rather than do the sidequests for the Helix Cultists (a group which, back when I was trying to have this be a RP playthrough, I claimed to be a part of), I just cheat generate them with Sandbox mode. Maybe my cultist buddies just hooked me up. Tyrantrum is really great, with access to Rock Head Head Smash, and can run a variety of sets. I decide to go for the Dragon Dance one, mostly because I have other people to provide type coverage. In order to breed a Tyrunt that knows DD, I have to get an Altaria. Rather than run around headbutting trees for a Swablu, I cheat save time generate one at the level it knows Dragon Dance. Also, its shiny sprite is AWESOME: With that, I can breed, and after some grinding, this happens! After waiting for it to become nightfall, I also train up my Amaura so this happens: As for sets, King Cold is using a somewhat suboptimal one of Hidden Power Ground (a stand-in for Earth Power), Frost Breath, Freeze Dry, and Nature Power. Nero is using Dragon Dance, Dragon Claw, Head Smash, and Earthquake. All in all, it looks pretty good. It's at this point that I realize I have far too many Pokemon in rotation, even though I generally only use a select few. So I decide to retire some of them. My new rotation consists of Root Jr., Dame Helix, Plume Knight, Rhino Knight, Kusanagi, Nero, King Cold, the Boulder, and Shell Squire. I'm actually surprised with how much type coverage my team has, and despite their many weaknesses, they check each other very well. Anyways, back to the plot. We follow Bennett in, and it was a trap. How surprising! So we get put in prison, and thanks to a friendly Klefki we're able to escape. There's an interesting stealth segment (did you ever expect a stealth segment in a Pokemon game?). After reading some Arceus lore and completing a puzzle, we get to shake up the ritual a bit. Luna is rescued, Bennett is further humiliated, and everyone escapes. After Radomus and Gardevoir teleport away, Luna invites us into her dark caverns... As we make our way through Iolia valley, Bennett follows us. Rude. At least he stopped wearing his cultist robes. In the caves, we find a Protector, allowing us to evolve Rhino Knight into: Bennett eventually finds Luna thanks to us, and apologizes and asks her out in the most cringeworthy way possible. She rejects him, and he... doesn't take it very well. He decides to take his anger out on us, so its time for another battle! VS BENNETT Bennett does some self-reflection, and decides to go back to Elias so that he'll get stronger and make Luna jealous by being the Best There Ever Was. This also makes Bennett one of the few bad guys in Reborn to actually have an on-screen arc. Neat. After healing my Pokemon, we meet up with Luna and exchange pleasantries VS LUNA Chapter 13b: The Terra Begins After stocking up on important items like Type Gems, Type Berries, and healing, its time to head into Agate City! Things in Agate are weird, and everything starts to get dark as we're overcome with sleepiness. And then... the nightmare begins. Yes, its none other than the Queen of B00ty herself, Terra. I just... what do I even say about her that hasn't been said? I get that she's supposed to be ridiculous and be comic relief, but she kinda ruins the mood and tone of the game. Also, apparently she's a lion tamer, even though none of her Pokemon are lions and I'm pretty sure there are only like 2 lion Pokemon. So while Aya got hit into the Circus, Hardy went somewhere on Route 2. It's up to us to grab him, which leads us to the Fiore Mansion. There we're reunited with Amaria and... In a great comedic moment (contrasting the weird comedy of Terra), Titania wakes up her brother, a Rock specialist, with a super-effective Fighting move: Titania and Amaria have Surf, which we need pretty badly, but they won't give it to me until I defeat Samson. I really don't know why. They do give me a battle pass though, which is convenient. Back at the circus, we get some foreshadowing about Titania's personality: and get to face Samson, after a ton of dialogue. Here's my team: VS SAMSON Since we've defeated the Big Man in the Big Top, I think that's all for today! See you next time!

Oh yeah, you're right. Oops I'll go fix that right now...

Chapter 12: Heresy Everywhere After defeating Noel, he implores us to look for Saphira, even though he doesn't think she survived. Unfortunately, all suspense is lost as we run into her, and she gives us the Ruby Ring and Amethyst Pendant. Through the cave is a vast forest, and we run into Fern again. For once in his life, Fern isn't the worst part of this area. VS FERN Route 1 is, by far, my least favorite part of the game. I don't even consider it to be a puzzle, really. But I'd rather not write a huge paragraph complaining about something that I'm pretty sure everybody else also dislikes. The only notable things to happen on Route 1 are our first introduction to Titania: Charming And some hilarious passive aggressive graffiti: After making our way through hell, we reach a small maze and a large castle. Here we're introduced to Luna, Radomus, and his talking Gardevoir who is also a newscaster. Gossip Gardevoir... makes me a little uncomfortable We learn a little bit more about the ~drama~ surrounding Radomus, El, and Luna, and then Cain shows up! He's not dead! Of course, since this is Pokemon, he wants to battle, and he has some new tricks. VS CAIN After the battle, El kidnaps and ransoms Gardevoir, leading to a long chase through a secret sanctum under Reborn. This is honestly one of my favorite parts of the game and I'm not going to ruin it by backtalking everyone with rock puns. Eventually, El is cornered and has his Ditto turn into Arceus, which sounds broke af. VS EL With El defeated and the mystery solved, Adrienn ascends and discovers things aren't quite the way he left them. Gardevoir continues to be a little bit cruel: But overall, Adrienn takes it well. He resolves to fix Reborn City, and everyone else heads back to the castle to get the gym challenge underway. My team for Radomus: VS RADOMUS Well, that's all for now! Tune in next time when we face the Mistress of Darkness herself! (And possibly Samson).

Yeah, I don't really think Archeops deserves its ability. Its a Pokemon with great stats but like... not to the extent where it warrants an ability like that.

Dark has a longer way to deal with Solaris: Prankster Purrloin with Air Balloon can usually get Garchomp to -6 accuracy, allowing a dark type with embargo to block his full restore and leftovers, allowing you to chip away reliably. 2 Mightyenas with Indimitate can be used in conjunction with this to lower his attack to -6 as well. Once Garchomp's attacks are neutered, it's basically only a matter of time before you defeat him. (Sure, this takes more time then Murkrow with Prankster Perish Song, but it could be useful if you forget to SR, evolve into Honchkrow too early, or prefer an egg move like Brave Bird or Roost)

Chapter 11: Just Another Normal Battle After we defeat Serra, Bennett and El leave, leaving Serra to say one of biggest understatements of all time: Also, the PokeMart has miraculously been teleported off the top of the mansion. Convenient. Anna pours the medicine we get all over her doll, but gets better anyway. Convenient. She's real hype about us battling Noel, but when we take our place, Saphira swoops in with some bad news! Convenient. Sigmund and Sirius have teamed up to bring the orphans down, and we're left to defend the house. Since we faced Sirius before, we get to trash Sigmund this time. VS SIGMUND Sirius drags himself in, since the rest of the Meteors have been killed by Saphira. Huh. Gonna have to watch out for that one. He vows to check upstairs, but we're staying and keeping an eye on Sigmund. Saphira comes back and is very threatening, before pulling a Solaris: Saphira is basically the same kind of person as Solaris, except she's on our side for now. There's probably a deeper meaning here about how the ends don't justify the means, even if they're the ends you want. Titania sort of brings that point home as well, though I think she's more of a mirror to Sirius or Lin. Sirius comes in and knocks Saphira out with his Seviper, and apparently he defeated Laura easily. How he did that is a different question, since his team didn't seem that strong when we faced him with Cain, and Laura is like a member of the Elite Four... I guess it would effectively set Sirius up as a badass, but we already defeated him so... All this does is kinda make Laura less threatening. Sirius basically dares us to come after her and then Laura decides to give us some sass She decides to go rescue her sister, and we follow along cause why not. This'll be the team we're rolling with for the time being: Since we got Saphira kidnapped, significantly less Meteors die (well, at least initially. I'm not sure if the grunts or scientists in the base die when she destroys it with Steelix. It makes me feel better, that's all). When we finally get there, it turns out Saphira has escaped all on her own: After getting to the end of the base, Sirius, ZEL, and Sigmund aren't exactly having a fun time. In a twist, it turns out that Solaris isn't even the real boss of Team Meteor: its actually led by someone named Lin. Neat. (This sort of feels like a later addition to the story, since everything before this sort of set up Solaris. I don't really know that much about the development of the game so I could be wrong) Anyways, Abra teleports Laura and me into the depths of Tanzan Mountain, where something is NOT HAPPY. Eventually we contact Saphira, and then face the BIGGEST BOY. VS BIG OL' STEELIX Despite being a little kill-happy, Saphira proves to be a badass and rides the damn thing After escaping on a giant Steelix, Saphira instructs me to take on the Meteors and Abra, which is fine. Abra is being a real pain for ZEL, and they want us to take it out too. They don't even stand in our way or use their other Pokemon. VS ZEL PULSE ABRA After handling that, Sirius brings some bad news: Lin is here! I'm supposed to pretend to be a new recruit, but it doesn't fool the green-haired girl for a second: Everyone involved might have died, Saphira starts attacking the base. Lin goes out to stop her, in an epic showdown: After sort of making friends with Lumi, we head out of the base and back to the orphans. Understandably, they're worried about Saphira, and there's a whole lot of plot exposition. The different stones, which were already macguffins, are actually keys, something which Solaris basically told us back underneath the Grand Staircase. It's nice that everyone else knows this now, though. Since we finally have some downtime, Anna wants us to battle Noel again. This time, the plot doesn't decide to intrude, so its another gym battle! VS NOEL I probably could have beaten him on my first try if I didn't put an item on Archeops and didn't have a misplay with Cradily. Speaking of, Cradily is proving to be a vital Pokemon, thanks to Storm Drain and its incredible bulk. I don't know where I'd be without it That's all for now! I'm not sure how long it'll take for the next part to come up... the Route 1 puzzle always makes me procrastinate...

I remember him mating with Echidna to produce monster babies, which is why I chose it Drapion and Corsola are the unsung MVPs of the run. I have a soft spot for Trubbish since early game Toxic Spikes helped me immensely with Julia my first few runthroughs. If I hadn't relied heavily on Trick Room last game, I would totally do it here. Maybe for someone like Terra and her Garchomp... Bennett is so socially inept that it doesn't surprise me, but it is disappointing. I kinda want to do a "lepidopterist run" where I only use Pokemon based on butterflies and moths, just to show Bennett that his specialty has more depth then Quiver Dance (namely, Wormadam forms and Forretress), but I'm not sure if it would even be doable. Would be a fun challenge though

Chapter 10: Que Serra Serra With Strength in hand, its time to head back to the railnet. Cain's there, and he'll be cemented to us for a bit. He seems pretty happy about it, at least. Together, we ascend the decrepit building, encountering, surprise surprise, more Meteors. At the top we have a choice that you're probably familiar with: do we stop Sigmund, or go upstairs and face Sirius? Generally I like to face Sigmund, even though his team is designed for doubles and the field favors him more (plus Cain is bloody useless), and it always feels weird to just walk by Heather. However, I also like to keep Saphira from killing an excessive amount of people, so we let the Doctor do his thing and go on to face Team Meteor's most cartoonishly evil villain. My team: VS SIRIUS Didn't get the versus screen, oops. The screenshots in the chapter are a little dicey. Sirius takes the pendent and runs, so really we only defeated his resolve and will to live. I'd imagine being beaten by two teenagers at something you're supposed to be good at can't be good for the ego. I find the railnet key, and so our motley band of orphans run through the sewers. With the railnet, we get access to a TON of useful stuff, but let's talk about Aron first. I could never really find a place for him in my Gen III teams, but Aggron is pretty cool. Certainly a better Steel type for our purposes than Bastiodon. Its normal movepool is somewhat shallow, but it learns some good moves from breeding. One of its best attacks, Superpower, can't be learned until after the return to the Reborn, though. Still, it's nice to have some offensive steel moves in my toolbox. If only I had picked Totodile as my starter... There's another department store sticker, which lets me purchase type berries. They're useful on runs in general, but especially so since most of my pokemon have 5 or more weaknesses. Most importantly of all (in the long run at least) we can finally open the Move Relearners house and get her services. With that, I decide to do some breeding that I procrastinated on by putting Shuckle with the same Drapion that fathered Kusanagi (I named him Typhon, btw, after a monster from Greek mythology said to be the father of many foul creatures. @JessI'm pretty sure that's right) so my Shuckle-spawn will know Knock Off. Her attack stat is SO awful that it won't be KOing anything with it, but Knock Off is still a great utility move. I'm a bit torn with Shuckle's 4th move, though its really only a placeholder until we can teach him Stealth Rock. Eventually I settle on Encore, Bide, Knock Off, and Sticky Web. Encore is slightly less useful against the AI since they rarely set up (and I swear it reads inputs sometimes and likely wouldn't set up if you used Encore anyway), and Bide is really the only way Shuckle can do any damage. I name her Shell Squire. After grinding up my new additions, this happens: So after all that, its time to go back and help the kids escape. As we head through Tanzan mountain, and Anna gets sicker, I come across a Solrock. Solrock is... kinda trash. The only move that excites me is Will-O-Wisp, but other then that, Lunatone basically has its niche covered. He will be boxed indefinitely. I also pick up a Roggenrola, who is also underwhelming. Gigalith is interesting since it can have Sand Stream (which makes Cradily an even better tank), but its speed is so low. The only way I could justify it is if I used Trick Room again, but I don't think I'm going to. Looks like the weird lil rock is gonna stay boxed as well. When we arrive in Tanzan Cover, Anna becomes very sick, and we're given the next part of our quest: Things in Spinel town and Chrysolia Forest aren't good, as something nefarious is lowering the frame rate teleporting everything around. When we reach the Pokemart, it simply vanishes, winding up on the mansion's roof. With nothing better to do, I decide to challenge the gym leader of said mansion, Serra. While there, I meet a totally rational and well-meaning man: But before we can get the badge, I decide to head the the museum. Team Meteor is there too, of course, and after defeating them I'm given a choice between Archen and Tirtouga. I take Archen, obviously. Carracosta is slow as heck and yet another Rock/Water type, and I already have 3 of those. Archeops also helps us check Grass, and more importantly: FIGHTING. I decide to procrastinate even more by picking up a Remoraid from a teleported fountain, and then going back to Reborn City to do even more breeding. Remoraid knows Aurora Beam, which I can breed onto an Omanyte. Since Ice Beam isn't an available TM yet, this will have to do. I also breed my Archen (who I made sure was female) with my Corsola to get a baby that knows Earth Power. After tons of grinding, meet two new party members! With all that nonsense out of the way, I make my way through the gym and finally face Bennett. I'm quaking in my boots VS BENNETT After watching Bennett get effortlessly destroyed thanks to Stealth Rock, type advantage, and the hilarity of Acrobatics, El decides that he should join the Elite Four. Bennett says it better then I do: With that out of the way, I can take on Serra. VS SERRA And that's it for this time. I was pretty scatterbrained when I played through this part, so sorry for the crappy screenshots. The next installment will be much better

In terms of starters, a lot of them are hindered either by being trash (Chikorita), not doing too well in the early game (any water starter not named Mudkip or Froakie), or simply being outclassed by the other available starters (cyndaquil, chimchar, tepig, oshawott, totodile, and piplup and treecko to some extent). Chimecho. I love Chimecho's design. Its a real cutie. But it is garbage. There is 0 reason to evolve one from Chingling, other then getting Chikorita, though really why would you even want to do that? I sort of dislike Piplup as well, but that's mainly because Empoleon doesn't do well against Charlotte and made my first experience with her... bad. But you know who I really hate? Monkey Pokemon. I don't really mind Mankey or Aipom, but Chimchar is where they started to just grind my gears. You also have Slaking, which doesn't even resemble its fucking pre-evolutions. I don't know what they were going for, since prehistoric ground sloths were awesome. It almost feels like they had a 2 stage evolution and just tacked on a random design for its final form. But then we get to the absolute worst, the elemental monkeys. I hate them. Not only are they superfluous, they are also terrible. They are not worth your evolutionary stones. They aren't even worth the cost of the pokeballs it takes to catch them. Pansear is the first fire type you can catch outside of your starter, but its so horrible you won't even want to use it. Waiting until after Julia for Numel or even Slugma is a far better option, because Pansear will just die to everything, even resisted hits. Panpour is useless. Wingull (which is sometimes in its place) and Pelipper are superior Water types, but unless you pick a water starter, Water isn't even a type you need in the beginning since Poison, Grass, and Electric are so common in the very early game. By the time you actually want water coverage, you have way better pokemon than Panpour to use, because Panpour is garbage. Same thing goes for Pansage: by the time you can catch it, you already have much better grass options. Not only are their stats garbage, but the elemental monkeys take up 6 slots that could have easily been filled by animals that are far more interesting. Monkeys are kinda cool, but at the end of the day they're not that weird. Nature is full of so many oddities that would make amazing pokemon that I hate it when they're glossed over by yet another lazy primate design.

Next time I'm playing on a Sunday I'll have to give him some real PUNishment Expect an update later tonight! Though I must admit I didn't get that many screens against Serra (you'll see why)

Great idea for a themed run! This is definitely an inventive and thematic restriction. It'll be fun to see you bring some light to the dark corners of reborn

Iirc absol is based on a mythological Chinese animal that isn't really doglike (though the design is more catlike than anything else IMO). In terms of type coverage honestly you should do pretty good, even with the heavy team restrictions. Mightyena with Sucker Punch and Moxie is a great late game cleaner. EDIT: don't forget that smeargle is actually a dog too! It's actually based on a beagle

I was thinking of doing Sticky Web instead of Trick Room, since I've used Trick Room in Reborn already. It's unfortunate that Stealth Rock's tutor is in Episode 16, though... but I'll probably alternate between Golem and Shuckle as leads (or use neither and opt for type coverage). Im actually surprised at how many different Pokemon I want to use, since Rock is such a poor type defensively. Aw, thanks!

Chapter 9: Getting the Strength to Carry On After we defeat Solaris, he's a little bit salty. Kiki comes in and things get bad, as Solaris does in fact, attack her Life Points directly. Cal and Victoria don't take it well. Oh yeah, Cal is a traitor. Huh. Cal destroys PULSE Camerupt, and Team Meteor retreats. Cal attempts to apologize, and Victoria really should have slapped him, but eventually he runs away too. Back at the dojo, Victoria finally hands over what's rightfully ours: Victoria can't give us the badge, so it looks like we've been bamboozled again. Fortunately, Aya is only a stone's throw away... Victoria also tells us she's staying: So I head back to the Coral Ward and go North, where Cal wants to talk to us in secret. He tells me his side of the story, and asks if we believe him. I forget which one I picked not that its too important... After changing my team around, its time to take on Cain and finally get this friggin key. VS CAIN That one was pretty easy. Since we have better type coverage, and especially a good source of Psychic STABs, Cain went down easy. Trekking through the Byxbision wasteland is pretty simple by now (though I think I did get lost my first time), and we arrive just as Fern beats Aya. Wow Fern, you must have been lost forever, because you told us you had the key and were battling her after you reported Corey's death... that's like... in-game hours ago. After some careful consideration, this is my team for Fern: Before he challenges us, Fern talks smack, like usual. We're also introduced to a new character: Without further ado, Fern acts as a gatekeeper. VS FERN That one was much simpler. Fern breaking his monotype made it much easier for me, since I wasn't cripplingly weak to most of his moves anymore. Roserade did scare me, and could have been a large problem if Vulcan had been KOed, but I think Kusanagi would have still been able to tank it and take it out. All in all, not that bad. Aya comes back, but before I fight her I heal up and change my party around (and equip useful items). My team for the mistress of poison: Before we face her, Hardy decides to annoy me: VS AYA Won that one on my first try too. My early strategy was really effective, but it almost fell apart since Gengar knows Focus Blast. If he had used it more liberally, I might have been defeated. The AI was really weird in this fight; Gengar didn't Focus Blast Lord Skull, and Drapion kept using Aqua Tail even though it would fail due to Storm Drain. I guess Aya really wanted to lose... After the battle, Hardy continues to erode my patience. With that, we get another badge, and can finally use Strength out of battle! Its time to save those kids!

Since the very beginning I think I had trained mine with 252 Atk and 252 sp def, and I didn't really want to go back and redo that (also, since I don't have access to friendship berries, that would sort of be breaking the rules anyway). I might retrain her in HP, since her main uses now are nuking with Counter and have priority with Sucker Punch. Thanks! I hope I don't run out of puns

Chapter 8: Stomping Solaris After being defeated, Kiki collapses, and doesn't end up giving me the badge. Victoria brings up that Cain hasn't arrived yet, and that we should go look for him on an island. Speaking of which, how did Victoria get here? Maybe her Kirlia knows teleport, but that's all I can think of... On Azurine island, I discover one of Cain's earrings. He is here! And after some exploration, we find a building, with Aster and Eclipse skulking around inside! And it looks like they'll get to team up on me this time... VS ASTER AND ECLIPSE They escape (somehow), but there's a hidden entrance. Before I go in to face Taka, I decide to grind everyone a bit, and this happens: Banter ensues before we fight Taka yet again. VS TAKA I beat that on my first try, but I'm not proud of it. Chatter and the confusion RNG absolutely tore through my team. Chatot is a super annoying menace in this part of the game. After being defeated, Taka retreats, but not before he spills the beans about Team Meteor's plans for Pyrous Mountain. Very coyly, he tries to convince us to stop the PULSE Camerupt. Cain and I rush back to Apophyll and start to ascend the mountain. I'm joined by a rather proactive Victoria. What, you didn't feel like standing in my way this time? I guess things only matter if they're the things you like... After battling through Team Meteor grunts, knights, and dames, we reach the summit. Cain has his hands full taking on Taka (and presumably Cal? Or maybe just Cal, since Taka battles Victoria) by himself. Solaris is super smarmy and just a tad overconfident. VS SOLARIS That battle was... interesting, to say the least. I kind of feel cheap, but I'm pretty sure I could have won even if Garchomp didn't miss twice. To be honest, I wasn't sure if I would be able to defeat him when I first started this run, but Sturdy + Counter is a hilarious way to nuke your opponent.

I highly recommend it! Though I do use Shift for trainer battles to get EXP easier

That's a really interesting idea, I don't read Pokedex entries so I didn't know that. Hm. Considering how Reborn pays attention to Pokedex entries, especially darker themed ones, that seems pretty believable. Hopefully there will be more information about their relationship in episode 17.

This is my first time playing on Set ever and it's certainly more difficult, and it forces you to sacrifice or take damage on a switch more. IMO the biggest problem with Set is that the AI doesn't really switch their pokemon out, so you can't really predict switches like you can against a human opponent. It's possible that you found the Poison run easy because you had previously done Bug? I think Bug is harder to monorun.

The only thing I can add to Jess' response to the first part is that, had Taka escaped the region earlier, more people would have died. Without Taka, we wouldn't know about Team Meteor's plans for Pyrous Mountain. Sure, Kiki would have lived... a little while longer, but all of the students would have been killed. In terms of that "age old question," IMO the grunts are basically innocent. The reasons why Simon, Aster, and Eclipse joined were basically due to personal trauma, and Team Meteor (falsely) claims it can alleviate that pain and suffering. You can argue that killing the higher-ups like Solaris, Sirius, and Lin would save people, but killing the grunts does nothing because most of them are victims as well. I feel sympathy for at least some of the grunts, because they're being taken advantage of. Of course, we're getting plenty off topic now