Episode 20: Grocery Bag

If this game had given me an opportunity to tell my mom I love her after Varik's spiel in Beast Tower, that has now passed, since she gives the same dialogue as the original game here.

Not really much else to see in Pallet, so we might as well take to the high seas. I don't recognize the surf theme, if you're wondering, but I imagine it's from something because it's a pretty nice tune. Among the fishermen and swimmers of this Sea Route (that's what they're called in this game) are a couple tidbits worth pointing out: For one, Thunderbolt was Not very effective against Mistme. or at least it said it was. At this point in writing I've learned that the NFE bug is just a visual error. But it still tells me that this thing has to have at least some Electric, Grass, or Dragon in its blood. Out of these Dragon sounds the most plausible.

The only actual fish in the game continue to be the Sillish line, so we've got a guy with 5 Sillish and a Harlefinn replacing the 6 Magikarp dude. Plenty of Climpales around as well, and in addition we finally get to see what a Tussel is, as was mentioned all the way back in Jellyelly's Stardex entry. Looks like it's Climpale's evolution.

Also here in the ocean is a Swimmer who seemed to be overly defensive about being allowed to swin. On fighting him, we learn that's because he's actually a Cue Ball that just has the Swimmer's sprite in the overworld. This Cue Ball also gives us some insight into something I had misinterpretted earlier: All of Rocky Dan's Earthquakes say they "miss", not that it "doesn't effect" Eradicane. This combined with Rowsdower's Thunderbolt being super effective tell me that this "miss" text is actually telling me Eradicane is a Flying type, and it's just a quirk of the way RBY displays immunities. This wasn't the case for other immunities like Electric on Ground or Dark on Psychic, but I guess it makes some sense that this interaction would be specifically coded to say that it "misses". I apologize to you, Rocky Dan, you didn't let me down back during that gym battle. This was operator error. I should never have doubted you.

After the fight, the Cue Ball has some text getting mad that Stella said it looks like he should be wearing a "studded inner tube". I wonder if this is setting up a Rule of Threes gag with a third Cue Ball that we make fun of after the battle, since it's very similar to the text where we told the Electric-type user Cue Ball that he should use his head as a solar panel. Maybe in Victory Road? We'll see.

As soon as I landed at Cinnabar Island, I went over to my notes document to jot down that I was slightly disappointed that the music in this area was unchanged. Before I finished writing that note, the music went to its loop, and I got donkey kicked in the groin by Meet the Flintstones. Like a real full genuine SilvaGunner bit. I cannot believe this is in the game. Incredible stuff. I am in awe.

The townsfolk of Cinnabar are all abuzz talking about Velid, the Gym Leader. Apparently he's hundreds of years old, and is also a Wizard, two things that are probably related. There's also an NPC that mentions he's really into parkour, and that if you wait around for long enough you might see him climb onto the roof of a building, which vindicates me in potentially expecting that guy in the Cycling Road gate to have dialogue like this.

The Lab that revives Beasts from Souls (not the kind of souls that evolve things, the other ones) has the slogan "We solve entropy, one SOUL at a time!" The NPCs in the place all have very normal dialogue.

This is also where you can get the other evolutions of Flewnicorn if you're going for Stardex completion. NPCs are offering to trade all of Kurayami, Hellbrand, and Cheppi for Flewnicorns. Curious that there's three extras on offer, I suppose it might be backup in case you knocked out the one in the Secret Garden? Or could there be a fourth secret Evoflewtion? (That's what I'm calling them now by the way.)

In any case, we're here to get our Angel Soul revived, and revive it we do

For being supposedly extinct I sure did see multiple of them on trainers' teams. Whatever. Onto the Beast Mansion!

There's not much to say about the Beast Mansion, really. The layout is the same as the original game, the crooks running around have more or less the same dialogue, and the same items are all around. We do get the Blizzard TM, which I mentioned earlier, but to my surprise literally everybody on the team can learn it. Rowsdower's got the highest Special on the team, and Boltbeam coverage is famously great, so while I was originally considering giving it to Tubi I think it absolutely makes the most sense to teach Blizzard over Super Fang here. Rowsdower's pretty damn near unwallable now, between Thunderbolt, Bite, Hurricane, and Blizzard, although I do hope we get a Dark move with some higher firepower eventually.

There's at least a good variety of wild beasts around: Shochran, Vulandron, Sabrantis, Tearwulf, Screamer, Needolf, Hellbrand, Electrio, Warnado, Reekoon, and Inoyu were all ones that I saw. There was also one new Starbie on a trainer's team, which looks like the evolution of your friend and mine, Shocknroll.

The main attraction of the mansion is, naturally, the diary entries. They seem to be from Gym Leader Velid himself, and imply some exciting things about his backstory that we'll get some more expounding upon in his gym. For now, I'm just going to relay to you each of the diary entries, in the order I read them.

"AEON's destructive power is beyond anything I could ever imagine... I fear we may be treading where mankind mustn't tread..."

"I saw him. SIVAK, the BLACK DRAGON. He's just as terryfing as the legends foretold. If only we could communicate with him, learn the secrets of his immortality..."

"I narrowly escaped my encounter with ALVARIS. The rest of my research team... They didn't make it..."

"I have seen the face of GOD, and I do not wish to see any more. From this day forward, I am no longer a man of science..."

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