Curated Critiques

Welcome back to the LP. It’s gonna be something of a short one today but we have a lot of cool new Pokémon fusions to gawk at.

Today we’re starting off having a look at the exhibits in the Pewter City Museum.

The displays here just give the player a few facts about the Kantonian fossil Pokémon. They don’t add them to the Pokédex as they would have in the original games however.

Woman: Us humans have only been around for thirty thousand years or so! Really puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?

The second floor is mostly just descriptions of the foreign fossil Pokémon, such as Archeops and Tyrunt. We can get rather a lot of the fossil Pokémon in this game, though the rules of the Nuzlocke might prove to be something of a hindrance to collecting them all. The big skeleton here is an exception however:

Due to their internal structure, the DNA of Rock-type Pokémon remains completely preserved, even after millions of years of fossilization. Because of this, these Pokémon can be genetically cloned into living creatures, a feat that would be impossible to achieve with prehistoric Pokémon of other types.

I’m not sure whether this is a canon explanation for why all fossil Pokémon are Rock-type, but it’s as good as any for me and I like it.

There is one small anomaly in this room.

This comes sort of out of nowhere in a museum so obviously dedication to archaeology.

The lab to the right on the ground floor is an early location for reviving fossils. This will inevitably prove useful quite soon. And I like this choice too: I always thought Cinnabar was such a late point in the game to get fossil Pokémon.

We don’t have a fossil to revive at the moment though. Ah well.

But that is that for the museum! Let’s go shopping.

You can buy DNA Splicers and DNA Reversers in any shop. The Reversers are not named well – they don’t reverse the fusion process. Indeed, to separate a fused Pokémon back into its constituent parts you just need to use another DNA Splicer on the fused Pokémon. What a Reverser does is reverse the actual fusion – it will swap the head and body parts so you don’t have to waste two Splicers to split and re-fuse the Pokémon, which is handy if you make a mistake.

Most PokéMarts also have a second merchant with a more limited stock. They usually consist of an elemental gem and a special ball type. I grab some Nest Balls here.

Time to head into Route 3!

I do not remember her but I’m sure would have introduced herself if I’d spoken to her at Oak’s lab.

Assistant: I was doing some field work around here and I came across something incredible. You’ve really got to see this!

Assistant: I saw one of them in this very patch of grass! You can tell when a route has a Hidden Ability outbreak by the way the wild Pokémon sparkle in battles. This is a very rare event. We’re lucky to be witnessing it so close to home! But I don’t expect it to last for a very long time either so you should try to catch one of these rare Pokémon while you still have the chance! Well I’m headed to Cerulean City for some field work so I better get going. It’s right on the other side of Mt. Moon, maybe I’ll catch you there. Good luck with your Pokémon League challenge!

And then she’s gone.

I can’t find much information about these Pokémon on the internet, so I’ll just see what happens as I go through the game! The grass itself doesn’t sparkle but the Pokémon will if they have their hidden ability. But yeah, here’s our next Pokémon.

Let’s meet Peach’s fusion partner!

Well I’ve been happier. It’ll be CUTE at least.

Welcome to the team, Celine. Now let’s get a-fusing.

First, let’s look at the fusion we won’t be using.

Well, Pibuff is cute, at least. But unfortunately this fusion is extremely slow and frail, making it quite a liability in such a dangerous game, despite the great offensive typing.

OH GOD KILL IT WITH FIRE

Despite looking like a marshmallow demon, Igglychu is a bit superior in stats and will make a much more viable team mate. It is severely hampered at the moment but once we get it evolved a bit it might be able to pull its weight a bit better. And hopefully stop looking like the result of a particularly amorous relationship between Satan and a blancmange.

It is now time to take on the gauntlet of trainers in this route. We’ll be seeing a lot of new fusions here!

Meowdle makes for a surprisingly speedy Pokémon that attempts to Bite-flinch my team to death. It’s too weak to succeed though.

This dude is iconic. I too like shorts, because they are comfortable and easy to wear. I’ll wear shorts in winter I’m a bad bitch.

Ben only has one Pokémon but it’s such a high level as to be a bit unfair at this point in the game. With both Focus Energy and Pursuit, it can be quite a danger. I don’t know whether it has Gust, but that would make it even more of a rough opponent.

Leech Seed provide me a great boost before Pecking it to death.

I start leading with April May to get her some much-needed experience.

Quick Attack proves really useful in taking these buggy snakes down.

At the last moment, I put Peach in to try and take it down for experience. She is an extremely weak Pokémon, so she’s not going to see much combat at all for a while.

The next trainer has this cool looking Pokémon, which takes a stiff beating before going down.

The lure of items can sway me anywhere.

Despite saying this, this Bug Catcher has no evolved Pokémon with which to demonstrate his point. I can’t wait to show off how evolution works.

This green mushroom monster wastes two turns using String Shot, which Quick Attack completely ignores. The first Pokémon was a lowly Caterpie.

This trainer has a Nidoran/Pichu fusion that went down to rather a lot of Quick Attacks and Bites. It was a bit troublesome and surprisingly tanky.

Not many left until we hit Mt. Moon now!

April May levels up here and refuses to learn either Poison Sting or Pursuit. There are just better options.

The next two opponents go down to Peach’s ThunderShock, earning her a nice level-up.

This item ball contains a Paralyze Heal.

Now if my knowledge of how this route goes is accurate, this Lass should have some sort of Jigglypuff abomination.

Sure enough, here’s what we would have eventually evolved Peach into had we swapped her body parts around!

Pikapuff turns out to be quite a problematic enemy, having Disarming Voice, Thunder Wave and Disable. It takes a bit of healing before I can take it down.

And there we have it, the end of Route 2.

Inside, we have some of our first in-game hints about how the stat distribution of fusion Pokémon works.

And we also, of course, have this guy. I do think I will make an exception when it comes to the Nuzlocke rules and pick this up purely because I do really enjoy a Gyarados, and hey, it’s my playthrough I can do what I want.

Welcome, Captain Morgan!

As a nice touch, the Magikarp next to the seller disappears when you buy it.

Now, it’s time to see what we’re going to fuse Captain Morgan with: onto Mt. Moon!

It shouldn’t take us long to find some fusion fodder.

Three steps in. Seriously. Three steps in.

I suppose there wasn’t really a chance of not finding a Zubat during this run, just like Rattata.

I don’t know why. It just came to me.

So Captain Morgan and Ike will fuse. But in what order?

What a busy looking Pokémon. Zukarp would eventually evolve into quite an offensive powerhouse, with decently high Speed and a nice chunk of Attack, but it’s not really the best option when it comes to stats, so we will be training up the alternative.

OH MERCIFUL CHRIST WHAT IS THAT

Magibat’s design sucks so hard. But it will evolve into quite a beast with still very high attack and beastly speed. Water/Flying kinda sucks but it shouldn’t be too hard to just avoid all Electric attacks.

I think that’s enough for now. Mt. Moon will be a bit of a trek so I’ll probably dedicate a whole update for the journey to Cerulean City.

Post-Update Summary

This is our team at the moment. I’ll do some grinding to get Peach and Captain Ike up to scratch and then next time we’ll fight our way through Mt. Moon and Route 4. Expect to see some new story content too!

New Pokémon Caught

Route 3: Celine the Igglybuff
Route 3 Pokémon Centre: Captain Morgan the Magikarp
Mt. Moon: Ike the Zubat

New Fusions

Pichu + Igglybuff = Igglychu
Zubat + Magikarp = Magibat