Episode 13: Average Day in Cleveland

Welcome to Celadon City, the land of opportunity. As long as the opportunity is related to gambling.

I'm not going to mention every single NPC that does this, but there's a lot of dialogue that mentions how to evolve various Star Beasts. Scorpsy with a Steel Gene, Leeghoul, Tomaroc, Charcold, Flewnicorn and Canghoulit all with Fire Stones, Rocken with either a Steely Gene or a Holy Soul, Sackran with either a Holy Soul or a Dark Soul, and there's even more that I didn't mention. I do genuinely appreciate this, having to look at the documentation kind of ruins some of the fun of playing blind, and being able to organically discover this stuff by talking to people is much more rewarding anyways. There's a lot of item evolutions in this game, it seems like. I wonder if that was an intentional decision so that these NPCs could be placed around the world to lead to cool moments of discovery for the player. Whatever the case is, this is a good decision, big fan.

In the apartment building, the lady who has a Meowth that brings home money in the vanilla game instead has a Pumajin that does it. Thank goodness I don't have to see one in this room, otherwise I'd be running away and dropping all of my money too.

Upstairs is the Soul Valor meeting room. I wasn't sure if Soul Valor was the name of the team or the name of a person, but I guess this confirms it's a team. It's pretty easy to have a dev room that comes off as pretty corny, but they mostly stick to similar dialogue as the vanilla game here, which is nice. The story writer says they really like Ivy, Mizu, and Sabrina: I assume Ivy is the Grass-type gym leader here in Celadon, and this also gives us confirmation that Sabrina is still the same as the vanilla game. It's the story writer who's telling me this though, so I assume they've got something going on there. The only other thing of real note is the programmer, who looks like this.

Only other thing is this building is, naturally, the Eevee room on the roof. Here, it's labelled as "TOP SECRET RESEARCH FACILITY", complete with some commentary from Stella that still isn't in parentheses.

Inside is... whatever this is. The game is prompting me to nickname it, but I still haven't seen it yet, so that's going to make it harder. I can at least make a guess about what it is based on its name, though.

I'll be honest I was drawing a blank, so I just tried to come up with something that would be funny in a vacuum. So I guess welcome to the team, Tubi.

The typing here is actually quite interesting in the context of our team. This would be our second Steel type, but Rocky Dan and Tubi wouldn't actually share any overlapping weaknesses: Flying negates Ground and Fighting, and Rock negates Fire. Especially with the type matchup bug, having these dual types with synergy helps even more, since those neutral hits will become not very effective. Not to mention, you can't walk 2 feet in this game with running into another Steel type, so this was kind of inevitable.

Even more interesting, the blackboard behind the table gives some more interesting info on this thing. It stands for "Technical Machine Artificial Intelligence", because it's capable of learning any TM or HM using its "Technique Analysis System (or TAS)". It also says it has the defensive ability to "change its element type at will", which I assume is just referring to Conversion, a move it starts with. Its starting moveset is pretty stacked already honestly, with Flash Cannon and Recover giving a really good baseline. I think Tubi will actually make for a pretty solid addition to the team, and it comes at Level 30 for free. Welcome to the team, scary robot pal.

Evidently, these machines were being developed in the hope they could be mass produced and sold as weapons, but they'd need more funding to make that practical, which they aren't getting. In its own way, it's probably a moral good for me to take this prototype away, just in case Lockheed-Martin decides to buy out the rights to it or something.

Unfortunately, this means that Mr. Bungle is leaving the team. His contributions will not be forgotten, but being a Poison type is a real liability, and I think our two Wrap users is more than enough to still have a thematic team.

Well, if we're doing to have a Beast that can learn every TM, we might as well swing by the department store and see what they've got for sale. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da is playing here, which scans to me. Although if I was working retail at a place that played nothing but Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da on repeat I'd probably end up on the news. In any case! Their selection of TMs includes: Double Team, Reflect, Hurricane, Horn Drill, Egg Bomb, Dragon Claw, Take Down, Submission, and “FLCPNCH”.

Now, I had a guess as to what this abbreviation meant, but I didn't want to say anything before I checked it to be sure, so that I wouldn't look like a fool if I was wrong. I was in luck though, because my gut was completely correct.

This fucking rocks. This is some real 2009 PokéCommunity forums Hack of the Month shit right here. The most epicest attack evar. It's the freaking Falcon Punch dude. God. I love it. I love this game. I'm teaching this to Tubi yesterday. I don't even know what it does. What type is it? Fighting would make sense, but Flying would as well since it's "Falcon" punch. Is it really low accuracy? Does it have a charge-up turn? Does it have a recharge turn, even? I cannot wait to find out.

The video games floor clarifies that there's no trade evolutions in this game, which I didn't really need to know I think I could've guessed that. One of the Game Boy kids complains that the Lunozen he wanted to trade to evolve actually evolved at level 40 instead, and that he "hates not being inconvenienced!" The flavor text for the SNES games is also mostly the same, including my single favorite line of dialogue in the first generation.

The floor above that we get to the evolution stones. Importantly this is where we're going to get to evolve Zorotl. I'm almost certainly going to turn it into an Aquamentus with a Water Stone, since we no longer have a Water type on the team, but I do want to see all the other options anyways. So I dropped a save state and starter with the Fire Stone.

I sure am glad I didn't need to fill the role of a Fire type on my team, my lord. Real horses are more than scary enough, we don't need to go out of our way to make a scary horse. It's a Fire/Dark type as well, and I definitely don't want a third Dark type on my team.

Okay, well that was a bust. We might as well check the Thunder Stone evolution, hopefully it's not as horrible as this thing.

See, this is more what I expected. "Thunder Hawk" is actually the full name of T. Hawk from Street Fighter, not sure if that was on purpose but if this guy learns a move called "Mexican Typhoon" I would pop off. Electric/Flying, which is good, but makes me wonder what Aquamentus's secondary type is going to be. If anything, maybe it's just Water.

Alright, neither of those two options were really what I wanted, and it would've felt kind of wrong to not make Zorotl into something blue anyways, so Water Stone it is.

It is, in fact, pure Water. Its stats look pretty similar to Vaporeon's but with maybe a little more Attack. That's handy, since we probably won't have a good STAB special attack for a bit... Maybe I should've saved that Bubblebeam TM for longer, lol. Once we get Surf we'll be fine, and until then I can grab the Ice Beam TM off the roof and use that.

I did consider giving Ice Beam to Tubi instead, especially since I'm more likely to use them in the upcoming Gym than I am to use Zorotl. (And in hindsight I maybe should've just waited to evolve it so I could have another thing that resisted Grass and had super effective STAB, rather than something that's weak to Grass, lol). But Zorotl needs a Special move in the short term. If I still want to give Tubi an Ice attack down the road, I can always give it Gen 1 Blizzard. I also grabbed the Counter TM, which everyone on my team can learn, but there's a whole lot fewer Normal attacks in this game than in the original, so its utility seems a bit limited unfortunately.

The roof has some unique music, oddly. It definitely sounds like another chiptune version of an existing song, but I was unable to identify what it was. The three drinks had different names: "Aloe Juice", "Ash Coffee", and "Tabascoda". I know people who would probably buy Tabasco Soda, to be honest, but I'm just gonna stick to Aloe Juice. I think if I gave Tabascoda to the gate guard he probably would not be put in a good enough mood to let me through. Oh, and there was a minor graphical glitch in the dialogue with getting the Ice Beam TM where the text went a little bit off the dialogue box.

Right next door to the department store, there's a cop standing outside a new building. He said there's someone inside screaming about a "bird", and he's too scared to go in because he doesn't want anything to happen to his precious Roc.

Stand aside, chump, I'm going in.

Inanimate objects with unblinking eyes? Faceless people trying to plead for help? The signs are bleeding and pulsating like human hearts? Buddy I've been to Cleveland this shit ain't nothing to me.

This sign says "The sign speaks! RUN! GET OUT OF HERE, NOW! WHILE YOU STILL CAN! … You don't like this sign." I should really stop commenting on every Undertale-y piece of dialogue I read in this game, I worry I'm starting to come off as a guy who has only seen Boss Baby. But that's totally what they were inspired by for lines like this, right. I'm not crazy. I promise.

There is one door in here, which seems to be the only way out. Good thing too, because the music that plays here is really hard on the ears. The next room just plays Lavender Town's track, nice and comforting. It still looks like this, but you know, it's an improvement.

This dapper fellow indeed talks about "The bird! The bird! BIRDBIRDBIRDBIRDBIRD" and whathaveyou. I wonder, with the glitch city aesthetic going on here, is this supposed to be alluding to the Bird type? As in Missingno.?

After some more talk about "THE BIRD!" the game brought me to a menu that prompted me to "Choose a Beast". Not sure what's going on here, but just in case I'm losing whoever I select here, I'm picking Tubi as the sacrifice since I just got it and I have the least attachment to it.

He didn't like that much. Lots of "NO! NOOOO!" and "THE BIRD!" and this.

Afterwards, to my surprise, everything seemed normal. Nothing's changed with Tubi or the rest of my party, and it seemed to just let me leave through that door. The door took me to the inside of the apartment building back in Celadon, none the worse for wear.

"THE BIRD!" has to mean something. I'm guessing that the cop outside being afraid for his pet Roc (not to be confused with a pet rock) is supposed to a hint: Maybe this is just a dressed up in-game trade? I remember there being wild Rocs just to the east of Celadon, so I resolved to go catch one and offer one of those to the headless man. Before I leave the hotel though, it looks like my old pal the as-yet unnamed Gym Guide is staying here.

Speako serves to point you in the direction of the guy at the diner who lost all his money gambling, so you can get a Coin Case. "You don't wanna end up like him! You gotta earn your money the respectable way! Getting Beasts to beat the crap out of each other!" Brother, ain't that the truth.

Turns out the two have some history, though. The Coin Case guy lost his job as the Gym Guide to Speako, and now he's lost all of his savings at the casino. You can't help but feel bad for the guy, but I guess taking away his Coin Case is the responsible thing to do.

Enough stalling, though. Let's prepare the sacrifice.

So I ventured back through Hell and met up with the headless man again. Just as I suspected, it's a trade. Complete with the traditional in-game trade Words of Power.

Tragically, all we get in RBY is "TRAINER" for the name of the NPC, but the whole time I was holding my breath waiting to see what it was. And it's...

It's Giygas. Like, even before I realized its name was just Giygas backwards, I was thinking "This is Giygas". Even before I read its Stardex entry or saw that its nickname was "MOTHER", I was thinking "This is Giygas." I'm pretty confident that Giygas is not the "Mother" in question, for the record, but the point is made.

Part of me is disappointed, I was sort of expecting something scarier and weirder. But honestly, even that doesn't take away from my appreciation from this whole segment of the game:

In general when we're talking about criticism of games, there's a thought that if you can see "through the seams" of a work, so to speak, that it means that the work is not doing its job well. If a game is selling you on a wondrous world of escapist fantasy, you shouldn't be thinking about the methods of its creation. If you aren't immersed, then it's a failure. From my perspective though, I really enjoy viewing the end result of a game holistically as a product of the process of its creation, and the lives of the people who helped to create it. This lens of analysis is more common in the worlds of the more traditional arts: Your music, your painting, your poetry and prose. Many of these mediums are intrinsically more personal, as they're often or always the work of an individual. Once you get to something as multidisciplinary as a game, it becomes harder to see an individual's vision really shine through. This is one of the reasons why, traditionally, games have been considered more of a subset of software than they have of art. To this day, even with the broad understanding that video games are art, we still more often talk about "the games industry" than we do games as an artistic field that progresses in the same way the more "respected" arts do. Games are seen primarily as products, or increasingly, as services.

This is one of the reasons I love amateur projects like ROM hacks so much. Most games like this aren't created out of a desire to sell something to fill a niche in a market, they're created because someone thought "wouldn't it be cool if..." They're almostalways created by people whose only game development experience comes from ROM hacks and fan projects. To that end, they're in conversation with their medium in a very unique way. When I'm playing Star Beasts, I'm always thinking not just about the content of the game, but why it was made like that. What the thought process was, what the inspirations were. That means I'm not immersed, in a sense, but it certainly doesn't mean I'm not invested.

None of this is meant to demean the work of professional game developers. There's an even more fringe school of thought that postulates that great art can never be created with a profit incentive, and that any commercial work is artistically worthless. I don't remotely agree with that, my annoyance with games being limited to an "industry" extends equally to a lack of willingness to give serious artistic credence to triple-A releases as it does to a lack of consideration of the smallest titles. But I do interact with these two clades of gaming in very different ways, and there's nothing that can replace or replicate the feeling of playing a weirdo ROM hack. (Other than, perhaps, a bootleg! Full circle moment, you love to see it.)

All this is to say: This whole segment of the game has been delightfully inside baseball. The visual language of "glitch city" doesn't just require you to be a Pokémon fan: It requires you to be an online one. Understanding the EarthBound reference here requires a particular fandom overlap that the devs were (reasonably) betting their audience would fall into. The whole willingness to have a bizarre, tonally dissonant creepypasta horror segment in this game speaks to a real stream of consciousness design process that I can't help but have an admiration for. Soul Valor made the game they'd want to play, with no compromises. And that owns.

Oh yeah, and peep these stats.

I absolutely don't want to put this thing on my team because it kind of looks not remotely fun to use, but I'm glad I have it. With that little adventure done and dusted, it's time to go see if it's viable for me to buy a Hyper Beam TM from the Game Corner yet.

Short answer, no, even if I put all of my money into coins I would only get about halfway there. I could gamble, of course, but I do eventually want to finish this playthrough, so we're just gonna continue on without Hyper Beam, as much as I love it in this game.

The Star Beasts for sale at the Game Corner are Rumpel, Dragleam, Robby, Xiaolong, Cheppi, and Flewnicorn. Flewnicorn is the most expensive, so I'm glad I had the wherewithall to go back to the Secret Garden and catch the one there. Evidently, the TMAI robots used to be sold here as well, based on this guy's dialogue: "Apparently, selling weapons of war to minors is, and I quote: 'Morally wrong.' What's this country coming to!" I suppose that makes sense, it's got Conversion and a very Porygon-esque cry. I definitely wouldn't have gotten one if it had cost 9999 coins, so it's a good thing they stopped so I could just get this thing for free.

Before heading into the hideout, the only other point of interest in the Game Corner, is DJ Double Cut's brother, DJ Single Cut, who's sat down at a slot machine. He's evidently trying to win enough coins to train up a powerful team to beat the Gym, and become famous that way. I'm not sure gambling is the best way to make that happen, but you do you dude.

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