Episode 3: Wrap Party

They might not be much to look at. But believe you me, this kid is gonna make us a star. For one, peep that name. "Drakelet". That sure sounds like a Dragon type to me. And this is the first one I've seen too, so it's gotta be rare. But that's just the future. What about the present? What's the short-term value proposition here?

Let me hit you with Drakelet's entire moveset. I'll give it to you in two words. Wrap. Glare.

This kid is OU ready. We're playing Moneyball here, and we scored a star player for 200 of whatever the currency in this game is called (Is it still Poké? The symbol is the same. They probably just forgot to change it lol). Glare has 75% accuracy and Wrap has 85%, hit both of those chances and you're soloing any Starbie in the league. This is our angle. This is our ticket to the pennant.

Doubters might say "Wait, this thing is just Poison type, why is it named Drakelet?" To the haters I say, I have no clue but I'm rolling with it. Doubters might also say "What's up with this nickname?" Non-doubters would probably say that too actually. And I can tell you with certainty the thought process that led to this nickname. We start with "Drake" in the name and it being the "B. BASILISK" Starbie. Basilisks turn you to stone. So we've got "Drake" and "Stone". Drake Stone was a supporting character in the 2010 film The Sorcerer's Apprentice starring Nicholas Cage. Drake Stone was played by English actor Toby Kebbell. "TOBY KEBBELL" was too many letters for the nickname entry box, so I dropped one of each of the doubled up consonants. See? Very simple.

Welcome to the team, Toby Kebel. You're gonna go far in this industry.

With a team of three powerful allies and also Stanko, I returned to the grass to train, and immediately realized that Drakelets are actually not rare at all. Apparently I just got very unlucky. This led to several thrilling duels with even-leveled wild Drakelets who also had Wrap and Glare. This is the kind of gripping gameplay that only Generation 1 can provide.

Before long, I had Toby at level 7 and decided I was ready to give Slashopper another shot. And I didn't even bother getting another screenshot of the fight, because it was a pretty hilarious anticlimax. Toby took one not-very-effective Double Kick, landed a Glare, and proceeded to click Wrap unimpeded for the rest of the game. The bug never even got to take another action before it was caught. That's what we're looking for, baby. That's what we're here for!

Gave this critter the nickname "The Don", which felt fitting for a scary boss waiting in a little hideout. It's likely not going to stick around on the team long-term, but I'd be silly not to keep it in the party for now with these stats. It having Double Kick will also be handy for the first gym, assuming it's still Rock themed.

While I was in this cave, I decided to check if there were any other new encounters just walking around. And there was!

I would not have ever guessed that this thing was Rock by looking at it, but that seems to be the case since it resisted Wrap. (Or it could be Steel I suppose if Dark is in the game. Or maybe a new type? Is this thing Gas are we Pokémon Browning this shit?) I kind of don't like looking at this thing so I'm gonna pass for now. This also seems to be all that's available in the cave, so we're done here for now.

Before we finally head north from Viridian, there's a couple houses and spots I didn't check. One house is pretty unremarkable, other than having a Bird sprite overworld Starbie that's referred to as a "Tomaroc". Stands to reason that that's the evolution of Roc. The hidden potion on the Cut tree is here and accounted for. The Old Man's catching tutorial is also still here, and he catches a Spriggle. It was at this point I realized that I never saw a second Spriggle in all the time I was grinding on that route, so that was the actual rare encounter. Oh well. But the real juicy stuff is the replacement for the Trainer's School.

The teacher screams at you in all capital letters that "I'M NOT A STALKER, YOU'RE A STALKER!" The blackboard, as you can see, is full of "REASONS WHY JUSTIN IS JUST THE CUTEST". The flavor text for these options is probably what you'd expect, including making threatening comments about his girlfriend Stacy.

When I mentioned "ROM hack humor" in the first post, this is exactly what I was talking about. This is the funniest thing in the world to the person that made this hack. Does it feel like it fits with the rest of the game? Oh hell no, every finger on this hand is a sore thumb. But if I saw someone with a hand like that? I would think about it every day for the rest of my life. It's things like this that make these games special to me, it's something where you see through the work itself into the creator, and you really appreciate that this is a work of passion by an individual who just wanted to make the kind of game they'd want to play. It's kind of art in its purest form. It's like, the direct successor to the lineage of the earliest humans singing songs around fires or painting pictures of animals on walls. Or some shit like that, I dunno. They did it cause they loved it, and they hope you'll love it too. And I absolutely do.

Alright, now we're actually out of here. I poked my head in the Route 2 grass to see if there was anything new, but I didn't see anything in a couple encounters so I decided to just move on. While I was here though, I did happen to notice that overworld items aren't actually balls any more, they have a unique Chest sprite. Scans, but it weirdly makes them look way bigger than the old Balls even if they're not actually any taller or wider. Not a big deal though.

Dear viewers, I know what you're thinking. You want one last diversion before we go into Viridian Forest, right? We haven't wasted enough time. Well have I got news for you. Inside the Viridian Forest gate is an old man who's offering an in-game trade: Slimogg for something called Climpale.

Stanko, I always knew I caught you for a reason. Your time has come. Let us all take a brief moment of silence to remember Stanko and all he contributed to the team. (Functionally nothing). Say hello to Mildred the Climpale, who will probably contribute about as much.

This is basically just a Shellder, down to the similar cry, but I'll give them some grace since this is probably one that originates from Vast Fame trying to imitate Shellder for their own game. The name Mildred, by the way, apparently comes from this old guy's dead wife. He took in this Climpale off the beach because he was lonely, but it never took a liking to him so he wanted to trade it for a Slimogg which are supposed to make better pets. I hope Stanko is enough to fill the hole in his heart.

So! Viridian Forest! Right from the start there's an NPC I didn't remember who was looking at the big tree. It's a Bug Catcher, who says he "found it first", referring to something that's apparently in the tree that he can't reach. In any case, he does challenge me to a battle.

I suppose now is a good time to mention: Both of the battles against Varik we've had so far have had very intense music. I was wondering whether that was special music added just for Rival fights in this game, or if all trainers would have that tune. Sounds like it's just for the Rival, since the BGM here is the Normal Duel theme, once again from the TCG game. Honestly, I'm not sure it fits quite as well. It's a very chill track, which works great for a card game, but I feel like a normal RPG battle theme could use a bit more energy. I can't complain too much since it's still a great track, but that is a piece of criticism I would levy towards the game.

After thoroughly trouncing the Bug Catcher's Scorpsy, I check the tree to figure out what it was that he was looking for. I'm rewarded with an item called a "Steely Gene" which, beyond being the name of my Steely Dan cover band, sounds like it's probably some sort of evolution item. This is confirmed by it being usable with the same "NOT ABLE" interface that evolution stones have in vanilla RBY. Handy to have just in case, but not of any use quite yet.

Our next trainer fight is against a Lass, who says there's more than just bugs in this forest. Case in point, this thing.

The problem with Electric types is that there's not actually a lot you can do with Electricity beyond just like, "this is an animal but it has electric powers now". Game Freak themselves keep making different electric dogs and stuff, so it's hard for me to criticze an electric capybara either. Especially since I'm so on board with Rowsdower. But I do really, really wish they went with "Zappybara". Like that's so much better it's unreal. Rename Zapodi if you have to. Oh well.

This battle was actually surprisingly annoying. I missed one Wrap, and it got to land a Thundershock which paralyzed me. I then got very unlucky with full paralysis and wound up having to switch out to clean up the fight. This is also the battle that made me realize how important PP management is going to be with the Wrap strategy: Even with 20 PP, you have to use the move many, many times to accomplish anything, so I had to go back and heal up Toby Kebel's PP stocks before venturing further into the forest.

This Bug Catcher says he's looking for a Dragleam. They're supposed to be "rare and powerful", evidently, and another unrelated Bug Catcher mentions that he would've won if he had one. I do enjoy the idea of the rare encoutner in an area being something that everyone is looking for, it really makes the player want to search for it themselves. I'm kind of liking my team right now, so I don't know if it's something I'm gonna spend a lot of time hunting for, but I think it's a cool decision.

Alright, that's the last of the dialogue that I really wanted to mention in the forest. The rest of it is largely unchanged beyond what you'd expect (i.e. the "CATERPIE won't cut it!" guy now mentions the Starbie he uses instead). So now it's time for a lightning round of every new Starbie I saw in here.

This thing barely looks animate that's just a bunch of leaves. Maybe it makes more sense in its Stardex entry? I dunno, I only ever saw it from a trainer.

I encountered my first Mulcrunch after my first Mulchoon, but looking at them now (and knowing that a Bug Catcher had Mulchoon) I'm fairly certain that Mulchoon is actually Mulcrunch's "Metapod". As a reminder to our viewers who did not commit every single piece of dialogue to memory like I do, Mulcrunch eats meat and is stronger, but slower than Cupeedle.

Speaking of, here's Cupeedle. If you put a gun to my head and asked me to choose whether I like Cupeedle or Mulcrunch more, I'd probably start crying. (For reasons unrelated to Cupeedle and Mulcrunch I would just be really scared.)

And here's what I'm led to believe is Cupeedle's evolution. The "Somn" in the name here makes me think this thing might learn some sort of sleep move? I have no evidence of this though. I suppose Butterfree does learn Sleep Powder, so it wouldn't be too out of left field.

Finally, there's this guy. This is not a Star Beast, as much as it looks like one. It is, in fact, a person, who takes the place of the ionic Level 9 Weedle Guy from the original games as the "boss" of Viridian Forest.

This fight certainly feels more like a "dungeon boss" than Level 9 Weedle Guy did. For one, this is just a memorable looking dude. He's also got different battle music than everyone else: I wonder if this means different enemies have different battle themes depending on their trainer class, EarthBound style. That would be kind of sweet actually, and honestly makes me a little softer on the music choice for the other trainer battles if it's only used for the weaker enemies. Most importantly though, it's the moment you've all been waiting for. The grand reveal of...

This guy! What a little critter. If Star Beasts released instead of Pokémon, this is who they would've put into Smash 64 instead of Jigglypuff. It was a worthy foe for even the mighty Zap Rowsdower too, with its Pounds doing just as much damage as Rowsdower's Bites even while they were both neutral damage. Still, we were able to win the day through Dragleam's Disable hitting Screech which, I will remind the audience, does literally nothing for Rowsdower currently. (That's how Disable works in Generation 1 by the way, it's just random lol).

Maybe this Collector should talk to the guy in the gate to the north here, he doesn't seem to believe "a magical pink creature living in the forest" is real. Again, genuinely fun bit of small worldbuilding to have so many NPCs talking about this rare Starbie. Big fan.

Comments