Pokemon Journal: The Incompetent Team Plasma!

Welcome back to Unova! When we last checked in, Team Plasma had stolen the Dragon Skull from the Nacrene City Museum. Together with Burgh, Cheren, and Bianca we all set out to find them and return the Skull to its rightful place in the museum. Unfortunately for everyone else involved, I was being lazy and called it quits for the day. So now that Team Plasma has had some time to escape, let’s see how far they managed to get.

Obviously, Team Plasma has escaped through the Pinwheel Forest and is heading towards the next town, so Burgh and I head after them. However I was a bit disappointed when we made it to the forest. I was fully expecting Burgh to stay with me and we’d fight double battles for the whole duration of the forest, similar to what happened several times back in Pokémon Diamond. Instead, Burgh offered to take the direct route to the exit and block it while I took the long way on my own to try to weed out Team Plasma.

So I’m now forced to trek through the twisting path of the Pinwheel Forest on my own. Along with all the normal trainers in the forest, there are also a few Team Plasma grunts waiting to slow me down. Apparently they too took the long way through the forest, and one of them is carrying they Dragon Skull. But why? When given the option of a straight paved path out of the forest and to the next city, or an overgrown twisting maze full of monsters, why would they have picked the twisting maze? What level of stupidity do they possess that would make them feel that was the better escape route?

It takes some time, but we eventually make it through the whole forest, and there is one last Team Plasma grunt to fight. After defeating this final grunt, Gorm of the seven sages shows up. He at first seems displeased with the grunt’s defeat, but quickly reveals it’s not important. It turns out the Dragon Skull isn’t what they were looking for after all. So it really doesn’t matter that they had to return it to me. He is however annoyed with my interference in their plans. Before he can act, Burgh and Lenora show up and Gorm decides to retreat for now, admitting he would rather not start a fight with a pair of gym leaders. So everyone is happy now, Lenora get her Dragon Skull Back, Burgh is ready to head back to his own gym, and I get to follow after him and try to take him on.

As we head out of the forest, I can’t help but be impressed with the journey over the Skyarrow Bridge to Castelia City. It really shows off the new dynamic camera angles the game uses. All the previous games have been purely tile based with a fixed camera. Starting with this generation the world is actually built as 3d models. Not only does this look a lot better, but it allows for some great shots with new dramatic camera angles. Whether it be spirally behind you as the climb the ramp to the bridge, or the way the camera tilts and dives as you’re crossing the bridge, it is a great addition to the Pokémon series and I want to see more of it.

I’m quite impressed when I finally get to Castelia City as well. This is probably the most heavily populated city I’ve seen in a Pokémon game to date. The town is quite massive, with several important buildings. A few restaurants, an ice cream stand, the Battle Company, the Game Freak Building, and even the Passerby Analytic HQ where you can poll people with street pass. The streets are also overflowing with people. Sure they’re just generic pedestrians, but it still gives a lot of life to the city. Eventually I find the Castelia City Gym, and it would seem Cheren beat me here and has already claimed the gym badge.

I would love to battle the gym as well, but Burgh follows Cheren out and makes an unpleasant announcement. Apparently he just got word that Team Plasma is causing trouble here in town and he heads out to find them. We make our way to one of the ports to find Bianca with another girl, Iris. It appears Team Plasma has actually stolen one of Bianca’s Pokémon, so of course we have to find them and get it back.

One of the Team Plasma Grunts was stupid, and returned to the scene of the crime. They were however smart enough to run away as soon as they saw us all gathered there. Unfortunately this led us straight to their hideout, which just happened to be directly across the street from the Gym. After forcing our way inside, we find ourselves face to face once again with Gorm, as well as another of the sages, Bronius, and none other than Ghetsis himself. Bronius admits to intentionally setting up the base across from the gym, thinking it would be a funny joke in the end. He was however surprised to be found out so quickly. I was fully prepared for a tough battle here, but Ghetsis proved to be a very reasonable person. He told us all virtually his entire plan, something about reuniting the hero with the legendary dragon. After that he very calmly told the grunts to return Bianca’s stolen Pokémon and then they all left town, never to return.

Now that that is taken care of, everyone is happy again and I can finally take on the Castelia City Gym. The layout is actually quite interesting, though I’m not sure it would actually work in real life. The whole gym is set up to resemble a honeycomb, complete with sheets of honey stretched out between several gaps. These honey walls might look solid, but you can actually force your way through them with some effort. There are also several switches around the gym that need to be pressed in order to lower gates around the gym which impede your progress. After all the previous battles, none of the Jr Trainers were able to put up much resistance, and I quickly made my way to Burgh.

Burgh		Insect Badge
Whirlipede	Dwebble	Leavanny
Level: 21	Level: 21	Level: 23

Since Burgh is a bug type trainer, my Swoobat ended up being my go-to Pokémon for most of this battle. yes it is half psychic, which are weak to bugs, but that wasn’t much of an issue because the flying type attacks were super effective and took out Burgh’s Whirlipede in just one hit. Burge switched to his Dwebble which was also one hit killed by my Palpitoad thanks to Dwebble half rock typing causing it to be weak to water. Burgh’s final Pokémon, Leavanny, was the easiest yet. Since Leavanny is a dual bug / grass type Pokémon, it has a 4x weakness to flying type attacks. So you better believe my Swoobat was able to one hit kill that as well. Amazingly I was able to defeat Burgh without taking any damage at all, and with that I earned my 3rd gym badge, the Insect Badge.

Bianca		Dewott
		Level: 20
Herdier	Pansear	Munna
Level: 18	Level: 18	Level: 18

As soon as we leave the gym, we get a call from Bianca looking for a friendly battle. Apparently Iris has been trying to teach her to become a better trainer and she wants to show off what she has learned. We meet up inside the gateway between Castelia City and Route 4. After receiving permission to battle here, Bianca shows off the efforts of her training. She’s still fairly weak, especially after we just fought Burgh, but she’s getting better. It’s only a friendly battle after all, so she’s not too upset when we beat her.

After all this excitement, we can finally move forward with our adventures, but that’s going to have to wait for another time. So join me again next time as we head out to Route 4 and see what more trouble Team Plasma can possibly cause.

Current Team:

Swoobat	Servine	Liepard
Level: 27	Level: 25	Level: 25
Palpitoad	Munna	Herdier
Level: 25	Level: 25	Level: 25

Play Time: 14h 30m

Badges: 3

Pokédex Entries: 35

It’s been a while, but i finally got a few drawings done this time for another Pokémon art gallery.

First up is the Legendary Pokémon Lugia! The Guardian of the sea, this Pokémon is the only thing that can calm the 3 Legendary Birds, as seen in the first Pokémon movie. Personally I’ve always thought his wings looked weird. They’re just so finger-like.

Next we have the Pokémon Series mascot Pikachu! This drawing was the final challenge for the apprentice level lessons. As such it puts together all the lessons learned so far for what is easily the best drawing I’ve done yet.