#hobokemon

[hobokemon]

Delayz fo Dayz

So I played through about 4 hours without saving (bad call) and then the emu crashed (queue rants about how I should play the cart instead; rebuttal about how my physical gold cart save has over 80 pokemon ready for use in competitive play; eat me). I got really discouraged (and then oddly busy) and sort of neglected playing for a month or so.

Regular updates start again this week. Hold on to yo hats. Shit's about to get cray.

[hobokemon]

Season 2: Now with more fiber!

Season 2 of Hobokemon has officially begun!

Since you last saw me I have lived an incredibly lavish lifestyle of fame and fortune (par for the course with being the new Pokemon champ). Parties every day, parties every night. I had more cash than I could even imagine to do with. The hobo life was no longer a life for me.

I went back to the pokemon mansion on Cinnabar, refurbished it and hired a staff of butlers and the like to serve me on hand and foot, but I wasn't happy. Money didn't bring me happiness, but you know what would? Making Blaine miserable. I used my considerable wealth to buy Cinnabar Island in its entirety for myself and kicked him out. I hear he's living in a cave in the Seafoam Islands or something hilarious like that. Haha, whatta nerd.

So now I owned an entire Island, prime Kanto real estate, had the best food and was adored by everyone. What's left to do? Blow the rest on meth, of course. Shit gets you craaaaazy high. So high, in fact, that one fateful day I wasn't even aware that the volcano on Cinnabar was erupting.

It destroyed everything; It burned my house to the ground and my island became inhabitable. Now with my reputation as a meth-head who lost it all, I had no option but to run away and change my name (and hope to rebuild).

So that's what I've been up to. Fall from grace, etc, etc.

Back to square one.

I arrived in Kanto and decided to hit up Prof. Elm for a pokemon because he's silly and will give them away to anyone. I figured "do what you know" and I only know how to beat up pokemon with my pokemon. On a budget.

Also, since I'm on a budget of exactly zero dollars, I'm gonna have to give up meth. It's not going to be easy, or... maybe it will. We'll see. Whatever.

I decided to pick Totodile because I don't think I've ever actually picked Totodile before (and I've had Gold since the week it came out). Totodile will be played by Bryan Cranston, seeing as Breaking Bad is on a year hiatus, he needed the work and I was more than willing to give him a shot. Plus, it's not a huge jump in plot from Breaking Bad, so he should fit right in.

In hour one I managed to clear out Sprout Tower, beat Falkner and pick up the Togepi Egg (also played by Bryan Cranston; he's just so versatile). With B-Cranz at level 17, it was a productive hour, and I will give more in-depth play-by-play starting next post.

Welcome back, scrubs.

-----------------

Notes:

Totodile @ lvl 17

Beat Sprout Tower

Got ZephyrBadge

Got Togepi Egg

[hobokemon]

Fuck it...

I’m so tired of playing around with fucking iMovie. I’ve wasted too many hours of my life trying to get this fucking video working and I’m officially sick of aggravating myself.

/rage

So here is the play by play in classic Hobokemon fashion. No video. I’m sorry I couldn’t deliver, but I’m ready to put my fist through my screen so this will have to make due. But hey, you get to see “awesome” drawings!

When we left off, Mew and Lapras aced Bruno and Lorelei respectively, so it was up to Agatha to try and derail the pain train.

SPOILER: She couldn’t

Using Archimedes, I spammed dig on every one of her pokemon for quick OHKOs except for her second Gengar, who missed a Hypnosis and was then Psychic’d to death. Easy peasy livin’ greezy.

Lance was no different and was completely steamrolled by Lapras. Not much I can say on it other than I had to use some full restores to make it through.

Incidentally, Dragonmurder is a solid band name.

This is turning out to be drastically anticlimactic.

So last but not least, we have Blue: the only fight in the game that might pose a serious threat. Plus, losing against him would make this all for naught.

Against Pidgeot I threw out Lapras again for a quick kill with Ice Beam. Against Alakazam I put my Charizard into action for the first time in the entire Elite 4 (and the first time I fought with him in probably 10 hours of gameplay). Slash still works like a HyperBeam without a cooldown, so the massive physical damage was something Alakazam couldn’t deal with. I put my Gyarados up against Blue’s only to remember I never actually gave mine any good attacks. It promptly got its ass handed to it.

Poor Cassius, you were an invaluable member of the team (until I got pokemon much better than you and totally neglected you).

In Memorium

This made me sadmad*. I unleashed the full wrath of Daedalus on Blue and wiped out the rest of his pokes save Blastoise. At this point I realized I hadn’t once used Icarus, my Dragonite who I worked so hard to grind up and, as you might recall, gave him an evil combo of Toxic and Wrap. I figured it would be funny to win that way, so I sent him out. I started the combo by using Toxic, which ended up missing and leaving Icarus open for Blastoise’s Blizzard.

I hadn’t thought of that. Which is stupid, considering the whole Dragonmurder thing.

With Icarus now in single-digit health I recalled him, said “fuck it” for what was probably the millionth time since this playthrough began (this has been my de facto motto for Hobokemon), sent out Daedalus, used Thunderbolt, and destroyed worlds.

There. Done. Happy?

It seems like I was comically overprepared for the Elite 4. My team was set up so I could beat a comparable human opponent with pokemon of the same level. I forgot how stupid the AI in Gen 1 was. I didn't even need to use the majority of my team at all.

This makes me uneasy as to how I will play Gen 2. The Johto Elite 4 is definitely harder to counterfight/counterpick (I suppose the word "Counter" would have sufficed) despite the overall lower levels of the pokemon within it (compared to gen 1). I assume I’ll be much more brash and a lot less careful regardless. Should be fun.

I hope you guys enjoyed this, despite the lack of video. Again, I’m sorry, but my mental health is somewhat important to me and I couldn’t deal with it anymore. <3

Season 2 will start soon. I promise.

*Legitimate emotion; different from frustration.

[hobokemon]

Hour 27: The Big Reveal

For the last few posts I had been talking about a surprise for the Elite 4. I probably oversold it by a lot, but...

I will be posting videos of each stage of the Elite 4.

There. No more surprise.

I was originally going to attempt to livestream it, but the logistics of getting a consistently clear shot of my gameboy while playing live are somewhat perplexing. I'll probably just post videos to Youtube or something equally mundane.

Coolstorybro.jpg

***

Now that i've got that out of the way, I can tell you guys about my strategy for the Elite 4. In a short rundown, here's what you can expect:

Lorelei -- Specializing in Ice types with high Special stats

The obvious counter for this battle would be Daedelus, my Lapras. Zero weaknesses against her pokemon, incredibly tanky and possessing the ability to spam Thunderbolt repeatedly against all of her minions. With that said, I might switch over to someone else to help carry the burden since Daedelus will be extremely useful against Lance.

Bruno-- Fighting and Rock pokemon with high attack and abysmal special.

Bruno will be no challenge. I have tons of anti-rock and anti-fighting on my team. I might use Julius, the Aerodactyl against the fighting types and Archimedes against the Onixes. Technically I could sweep Bruno with Archimedes alone with very little trouble, but I won't because...

Agatha-- Ghost and Poison that need to be killed quick if I want to beat this game.

Archimedes will be indispensable against Agatha. Psychic will tear through all 5 of her pokemon (as will Dig, which might actually be a better choice due to the Gastly family's low defense; we'll see).

Lance --Well rounded Dragon types and Hyper Beam spammers

Like I mentioned earlier, Daedelus could be handy against Lance, due to Dragon-type's weakness to Ice, Aerodactyl's weakness to Ice and Gyarados' 4x weakness to Electric.

Blue-- ???

Despite being the strongest opponent in the game (other than Prof. Oak; more on that later), I don't really see myself having any problems against Blue. Hopefully I will have a full-heath Charizard, Gyarados and Dragonite to counter-fight anything he puts down.

Interestingly enough I have built my Dragonite to be super annoying should the need arise. His moveset is Wrap, Bubblebeam, Toxic and Hyper Beam. I might get rid of bubblebeam for something else prior to actually fighting the Elite 4, but the other three are just how I want them. Toxic->Wrap combo is not only a great way to remain at near-full health against high defense enemies, but it's a hilariously douchey combination: one I find incredibly satisfying. Hyper Beam will probably just lay waste on its own, but if I know there's a situation where it won't, I'm not worried.

Wait, yeah... I have a Dragonite now.

Stay tuned for video updates starting with the next post!

---------------------

Notes:

- Cleared out the Power Plant to get Mew some more experience

- Charizard @ lvl 50

- Gyarados @ lvl 50

- Lapras @ lvl 51

- Aerodactyl @ lvl 47

- Dragonite @ lvl 55 (used four Rare Candies. I'm a busy man, dammit!)

- Mew @ lvl 46

[hobokemon]

Hours 23-26: 127 Hours

Much to my liking, Archimedes became self-sufficient at level 27 when I decided to teach it Dig (which has a type advantage against every enemy in Pokemon Mansion). This drastically reduced the amount of time I needed to grind him up. I reached level 40 with him in no time. He could demolish almost any enemy in a single hit by this point already, and by level 35 he could even OHKO lvl 40 Muks and Weezings.

If you recall, my plan was to get all of my pokemon to at least level 40 before approaching Victory Road. With my 6th pokemon at level 40, I ventured onward. I cleared out the dungeon and Moltres in an hour or so (I was constantly microsleeping, which sort of hindered my progress).

There is one problem though: Icarus (the Dragonair) is going to be severely underpowered until it evolves, and seeing as that's still roughly 14 levels away, it's going to be a long time until he's useful. I don't know whether I should try and get him to level 55 or just say "fuck it" and take on the elite 4 now. Maybe I can teach him some better TMs and make him useful as-is?

Blegh... I don't think I thought this Dragonite thing through very well.

So I leave the question up to you, loyal readers. Should I grind up to level 55 with my Dragonair or should I throw caution to the wind and take on the League?

Next post I'll be talking preliminary strategy as it applies to the Elite 4. I know you're pumped about that.

---------------------------------

Notes:

- Cleared Victory Road

- Ate Moltres for tasty, tasty experience.

- Charizard @ lvl 50

- Gyarados @ lvl 50

- Lapras @ lvl 51

- Aerodactyl @ lvl 47

- Dragonair @ lvl 41

- Mew @ lvl 42

[hobokemon]

Hour 22ish: More Stuff

First off, I'm surprised by the number of random followers I've acquired over the last 2 days. Still a very modest amount, but I'm genuinely thrilled that people I don't personally know enjoy this blog.

Thanks to you all, and tell yo friendz!

--------------------------

I'm still grinding away, and there isn't much to talk about. I'm just keeping the blog alive at this point.

I've decided a few things, however. Archimedes will be powerful enough to hold its own at level 40, so I won't be leveling it up an extra 10 levels prior to Victory Road. This is kinda moot right now as I haven't even really started training him at all, and he's still level 14. I'm just trying to find ways to cut down on monotony. I think I can probably do the same thing for Icarus who will have average stats for a level 40 and may need to be babysat a small amount, but will eventually be unstoppable at level 55.

Grinding in the mansion is becoming increasingly difficult. Icarus isn't particularly useful against poison types with high defense, so I really don't fight any Koffings or Grimers with him. I did, however teach him Bubblebeam to take advantage of the high exp. yield dropped by Ponytas (and the considerably smaller boost dropped by Growlithes, I suppose).

Icarus has abysmal defense, and since the key to grinding quickly is minimal trips back to the PokeCenter (ie, taking as little damage per fight as possible), when fighting faster opponents I always start with a Thunder Wave. With the opponent's speed now cut by 75%, I use the fairly reliable, and often overlooked Wrap attack to attack over and over again without fear of retaliation. Once the opponents has low enough hp to be knocked out with a single Bubblebeam, I go in for the kill.

Also, Icarus has hit his growth spurt and grown some wing... ear... things. They grow up so fast, don't they?*

* Hint: they don't, or else this would be a much shorter run-through.

But yer, now that Icarus is adolescent, my main focus will be raising Archimedes to a similar level.

I've had a few questions about what I'm going to do after I beat the game. Don't you worry your pretty little heads. I have a few tricks up my sleeve still. As far as the Pokemon League goes, there's also some surprises in store for that, so stay tuned!

---------------------------------------

Notes:

- Charizard @ lvl 50

- Gyarados @ lvl 50

- Lapras @ lvl 50

- Aerodactyl @ lvl 43

- Dragonair @ lvl 33

- Mew @ lvl 14

[hobokemon]

Hour 20321u9sh432ce: A New Home

I decided to move into Pokemon Mansion. Seems only logical: giant building where I can squat and never be found, easy access to healthcare, on a tropical island. Literally no downside. Also, it gives me a lot of high level wild pokemon with type disadvantages to me to grind against, but that's less important than finally having a roof over my head.

I'm not sure what this technically makes me, as squatters are basically hobos still, so I dunno what I am anymore. I've lost my hobo-identity, as it were.

Anyway, I've been grinding like crazy since I got new batteries. I'm on hour 21 now and I've got some substantial level increases under my belt. Unfortunately I probably won't enter Victory Road until I'm at the 25 or 26 hour mark at this pace, but I'll do regular updates regardless (maybe 2 or 3 a week).

There isn't exactly a whole lot to report on to be honest, but I got Julius to level 40 before babysitting Icarus with him. I want 6 level 50 pokemon before entering Victory Road, so my rationale for this is that by the time Icarus evolves (at level 30) and no longer needs support, Julius will be around level 44, and then I can use him again to babysit Archimedes until he can take care of himself as well. Hopefully by this point he'll be at roughly level 50 and any clean-up levelling can be done in Victory Road itself. Seems to make sense. I dunno. I'm just a hobo.

Or am I?

--------------------

Notes:

- Went back to Cinnabar to grind inside Pokemon Mansion

- Ponytas give ridiculous exp output. It's awesome. Note that none of them know Fire Blast... (Blaine, I'm looking at you)

- Charizard @ lvl 50

- Gyarados @ lvl 50

- Lapras @ lvl 50

- Aerodactyl @ lvl 42

- Dratini @ lvl 27

- Mew @ lvl 14

[hobokemon]

Hour 17: Seel Clubbin'

Immediately after defeating Blaine, I flew up to Viridian to take care of Giovanni and the 8th gym. Again, I did almost the entire gym with Daedalus and switched him out once or twice because I didn't want him to faint in battle. I think it's safe to say I'm done grinding with him after this hour until I get my Julius and Icarus up to level 50ish (55 for Icarus; I want me that Dragonite).

I decided to go and defeat all the trainers in the water routes between Fuchsia and Cinnabar for some extra grinding on Daedalus (and hence the reason I no longer need to grind with him) before getting lost inside Seafoam Islands. This was aggravating. I had still forgotten to pick up HM04 (Strength) so I couldn't actually finish the puzzle and defeat Articuno as I had originally planned. More than this, however, I realized how maze-like the Islands really are if you're trying to navigate your way through avoiding the water at all costs (dem currents). I had an escape rope left, but I really wanted to save that for Victory Road if need be.

As painful as it is at times, Seafoam Islands is definitely my favourite dungeon in the first Gen of Pokemon based on layout, puzzle elements and selection of Pokemon. I really like ice-type pokemon, despite the fact they're pretty much statistically horrible. Maybe it's their design or something less tangible, but I've always thought they were awesome. I think I also like the cave because it's the only place to find Seels and Shellders, and I love Cloyster (the pun/portmanteau of that name is seriously genius) and I guess I don't mind Dewgong (also a simple yet effective pun). For a pokemon that doesn't exist anywhere else, it's kind of funny once you realize that Seels are the Zubats of Seafoam Islands (despite the fact Zubats actually live there too). I roasted many-a-Seel for hobo-sustenance with the help of Daedalus' Thunderbolt.

Dem's good eats.

Articuno was my favourite legendary until the introduction of... well, I've never actually been the biggest fan of any of the legendary Pokemon design-wise (except Articuno and Zapdos). I'll probably come back once I get Strength and kill it for experience, because hobos dun give a fuck about 'Uno.

As much as people like to complain about the new generations of legendaries, look at Mewtwo. Just really look at him and take all emotion and nostalgia out of it. He's a ridiculous looking Pokemon. I blame laziness. He's supposed to be genetically engineered and has a cable or something running from his brain stem, but with the exception of that, there is nothing about him that makes him look unusual or man-made. On top of this there is absolutely nothing fearsome about the way he looks (he's purple for fuck sakes...). Mewtwo is still awesome, but I know a lot of people who need to get over their nostalgic infatuation with Gen I and realize than a lot of the Pokemon from each Gen are hilariously bad/ugly/unnecessary/whatever (Exeggcute? Really? Also, eggs and coconut trees have nothing to do with each other. Sorry, Japan).

After FINALLY getting out of Seafoam and beating all the trainers around it, I decided to go back to Fuchsia, get Strength and arbitrarily check the stats of the pokemon I caught in the Safari Zone. Turns out the Rhyhorn I caught was special: that's to say that it had a very low Special stat. 20, to be exact. With one rare candy, this would bring his Special stat up to 21. Damn straight, you all know what that means right? The hunt for Mew begins. I used the Ditto Method of the Mew Glitch and found myself face to face with an actual Mew. In the wild. Asking to be caught. Well, not really. At level 7, paralyzed and at less than 3 hp, it still avoided a great ball AND an ultra ball. I decided to make the tough call and use my Master Ball on it. Feels like a bit of a waste, but I had no other way of catching it (as you may recall, my rationale for going through with the Mew Glitch was that I was not allowed to keep retrying until I caught it with a weaker ball; if a ball was lost, it was lost: no do-overs). Suffice to say, I now have a Mew.

I thin my artistic skills are really coming along.

The next few hours will involve tedious grinding as I try to get my 3 weaker pokemon on parity with my stronger ones. I might not have an update for hour 18 (or 19, or 20 etc) for this reason. We'll see if anything interesting happens, but regardless: be forewarned.

-----------

Notes:

- Got HM04

- Got Earthbadge

- Charizard @ lvl 50

- Gyarados @ lvl 48

- Lapras @ lvl 48

- Aerodactyl @ lvl 31

- Dratini @ lvl 15

- Mew @ lvl 7