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On one hand, I love a massive difficulty spike. On the other, I really, really, really hate Team Xen's end goals and their floaty pals. I wish there was a take-over-Bladestar route divergence since destroying Xen at any cost is a noble goal, but Flora has the tactical smarts of a below-average Bellsprout. Still, I wasn't expecting any sort of real route split, so this is really cool too.

I've had an idea percolating about an "alternate path" fic or maybe mod where the protagonist joins up with Bladestar permanently. The thing is, Flora's not wrong about wanting Xen exterminated no matter the cost, seeing as --she's just an idiot about it. I mean, she's got the most powerful pokemon in existence completely loyal to her, and she uses a bomb on the tournament? It's like she's designed the best flyswatter in existence, and throws a bucket of water at a few flies in her house. It makes a mess, makes everyone mad at her, and misses the flies by a mile. No. Use the darn Ferrothorn to rip apart the venue and target the top seats if she has to, but setting off a bomb when she has a few targets (among them Xen, which are notably durable except for the human Admins) is just stupid and doesn't do anything but serve to turn people against her. If the protagonist and their allies were at her side, they might serve to temper her rashness or at least serve to be the Lin to her Solaris and take over Bladestar and turn it into a true anti-Xen organization if Flora's already too far gone.

The way I got 3 King's Rocks in a matter of minutes was to catch everything in Tanzan Cove except for Poliwhirl and give my Compound Eyes pokemon the Magnetic Lure held item acquired by giving one of the NPCs in Beryl exactly $5000 at once. Poliwhirls only appear in the mornings. That way, you will only encounter Poliwhirl and have a good chance of having it carry the King's Rock. Huh. I was wrong. It turns out that Megahorn is an egg move for Karrablast from Heracross or Scolipede, not something it or Escavalier learns by level-up. One would think that a Bug with a horn would learn Megahorn on its own...

Are you utilizing the EXP candy trainers in the Grand Hall and the Power held items (from the dept store)? Those'll make grinding much faster. As for Karrablast, save and make sure you're actually able to evolve it with a Link Stone before you train it. If not, you'll need to catch a Shelmet from Azurine and trade it in Spinel Town to get Escavalier. Escavalier would make an excellent King, actually, but as you'll want to invest in its HP, you should try to get a King's Rock from the Poliwhirls in Tanzan Cove (morning, bring a pokemon with Compound Eyes such as Butterfree or Venonat and catch them or use Thief/Covet) and give it to Escavalier before the fight to lock it into being the King and fire off priority Megahorn and Iron Head.

Recommendations: Tsareena utterly destroys Radomus. Her Queenly Majesty ability completely nulls Metagross (the King) and boosts her damage by 1.5x, easily letting her 1HKO Slowking while protecting whatever else from Metagross. I've had Radomus with Metagross just sitting there like a lump while Tsareena was out, allowing me to gang up on his other pokemon until Metagross was alone. Tsareena is easily acquired as well, as all it takes is getting the Glameow from the Glamazonia, showing it to the happiness checker in the other salon, and beating her lv45 Tsareena. Spiritomb: Its priority attacks in Sucker Punch and Shadow Sneak are effective on Radomus's team and receive a boost from the field. Take an Odd Keystone to the back room in Bysbyxion Tunnels to catch one. Honchkrow: It's slow enough that it isn't ideal for most gyms, but a well-placed Brave Bird should send Gallade packing and its Sucker Punch is boosted by the field. Just be careful of getting hit by almost any attack that isn't Psychic type, as many attacks will have Rock added. Honchkrow is more complicated, as it requires clearing the Aqua/Magma gang questline then bringing Pokesnacks to Aqua's hideout at night while it's windy.

I just beat him on Pulse2 (all enemy pokemon have +252 EVs in each stat and 31 IVs) + 0 player EVs passwords active with three pokemon. It shouldn't be as nearly as hard without those passwords enabled, so I recommend you use: Forretress: Set up Spikes, maybe deal with Cincinno if you don't want it to be the active enemy pokemon. Gyro Ball should hit fairly hard and the Grassy Field will help keep Forretress active. Male Meowstic: Prankster dual screens with Light Clay is excellent for sweeping his entire team. You can also use Charm to cripple Cincinno or others, but Noel may switch it out after one or two uses of Charm. A setup pokemon. I used Blaziken since it was my starter and pretty much the strongest there is, but Klinklang may work as may a pokemon with Quiver Dance, Calm Mind+Simple Swoobat, or others. Note that for the Quiver Dance pokemon or Swoobat, you'll want them to set up on a special-attacker and thus you'll need to get rid of Cincinno first. That may necessitate a pokemon with Mach Punch if possible. Notes: Clefable has Magic Guard, not Unaware, so it won't break your sweep easily. Bewear has Fluffy, which makes it resist all contact-making moves (i.e. most physical attacks) that aren't Fire-type.

If Lin's too young to have her current body, but Terra isn't, then I would guess that lends credence to my theory of Lin and Terra inhabiting the same (Terra's) body. If Terra changed around when Lin arrived, that could be the start of the possession. Whether Lin's body still exists anywhere is unknown, but if she was somehow harmed by Sigmund, I expect he would be very, very dead. This is a woman who killed a worthy opponent just to have her out of the way and sacrificed her ally's son. The fact that Sigmund is working with Meteor and is still alive probably doesn't agree with him ever having hurt Lin.

Is there anything to the theory that Lin and Terra are the same person? Or at least inhabiting the same body, similarly to ZEL Terra has been shown to be able to create life: the digital world she made and lures the player into has real Pokemon that can be brought out and used outside of it. They are living beings, and they aren't just Porygon. The ability to generate life ex nihilo would arguably make her the most powerful "human" character in the setting. Lin herself also has an anomalous ability: she's seemingly immortal. There's also the orphanage connection between the two of them. What if there's some sort of power split between them: Terra gets Arceus's ability to create life (as seen in HG/SS with the baby legendaries, as one example) and Lin has the blessing of invulnerability.

Not sure about the whole Victini thing. If we're doing literal Pokedex entries, then we can go ahead with Pulse-Apocalypse: Magcargo 18,000 degrees is twice as hot as the Earth's core. Team Meteor could just drop one on Reborn city, and that'd be it for everyone.

Lin and Terra are linked by the orphanage and Sigmund in some way. Each of them has shown non-human abilities: Lin and Sigmund's surviving otherwise lethal incidents, and Terra's bizarre ability to create a data world (world creation? Arceus?) None of the other characters we've seen have had abilities that I would genuinely call supernatural with the exception of the Shade (might never have even been human) and El with his Arceus-ditto mojo. At least, as far as I can remember, might be missing some.

He's kind of a mysterious character, and we know that in at least one scenario Lin can survive an otherwise-fatal sword wound. Ol' Siggy Balls Sigmund Fraud might be a similar superhuman, especially if he's a link to the Lin/Terra conundrum.

Tyranitar also is only 6'07 and 445.3 lbs according to the 'dex. In other words, it's about the size of an extra large person or a rather svelte bear if the entry is to be believed. It's entirely possible that humans in the Pokémon world are in fact built to withstand Pokémon attacks quite well, also.

And I thought the spriting I've done took a lot of time. Icons are small on their own, but this is an amazing amount of work and a level of passion for a project that I've seen almost nowhere else.

I have rather strong feelings on children being online at all, but being this a Pokemon website and thus infested with them I'll keep my opinions to myself. If folks feel the need to kvetch about anything, they should be taking it out elsewhere on the official Pokemon games, for which developers are paid to make subpar products for the most lucrative franchise in the world. Either that, or we might be dealing with capital G Gamers upset about our new cute new Meteor admin and making trouble in ways that won't get them caught instantly. Keep up the good work! I've played thousands of hours between every Pokemon game since the first generation up to SwSh, so I like to think I know what I'm talking about when I say you've done a wonderful job over the years.

I've never found the story to be too bloated. My biggest complaint in terms of story was always that Corey and the bridge came way too early and it might turn off some starting players. I enjoy and prefer dark themes, but with how little screen-time and he got and how early it is in the game, it feels less like a logical conclusion to his character knowing what Meteor is like and more like something done for shock value. "Did that guy just jump off a bridge? In a freaking Pokemon game?" sort of thing. For example, if we knew at the time that Meteor has a penchant for feeding defectors to a Chandelure, then death at one's own hands makes a lot more sense if Corey had decided he no longer has any more motivation to keep working for the group. Also, I'm looking forward to those super-difficulty passwords!