Curated Critiques

We are back in the world of Kanto and today we will be taking on the iconic location that is Mt. Moon! We have already caught our Pokémon for this area, a Zubat that was unceremoniously fused into a Magikarp to make our new team mate: Captain Ike. He joins Peach as a weakling who can’t really be trusted in battle just yet, so we’ll have to wait a while before we can safely level them.

Without further ado, let’s head in!

The layout of Mt. Moon is like many other locations in the game: recognizable but subtly different, and quite condensed. Which is a relief – I don’t want to fight any more Zubats than I have to.

Lass Iris here leads with the cutely named Jigglyfairy.

A mixture of Leech Seed and Sleep Powder means that I get through this battle with no trouble, despite her using both Disable and Encore, both of which could have screwed up my plans.

To the left of Iris is Ken.

Having a Flying-type this early in the game is great coverage: Kanto is full of weak bugs at this point in the game.

Two points to whoever can guess what this fusion is going to be. It sounds like a failed music device touted by Windows, huh?

Adorable. Weak, but adorable.

Now this is exciting! You’ll see why very shortly.

Thank you, I am not a suspicious man. I just beat up your bugs and demanded you give me money for the pleasure. That’s all. Good luck in the cave full of bats and shit, dude.

Our first evolution!

Our Hootsaur evolved into a Hootsaur. Yeah, the naming conventions will lead to some funny things like this. Obviously, this sprite isn’t as pretty as before, but it’s still pretty cool. I like that the bulb looks like some large, cracked nut.

So, evolutions in this game work pretty elegantly – each part of the fusion evolves separately. We once had a fusion of Bulbasaur and Hoothoot, and now we have a fusion of Ivysaur and Hoothoot. When we hit level 20 we will have a fusion of Ivysaur and Noctowl, and so on. This also works for stone evolutions. Trade evolutions and happiness evolutions have been replaced with level evolutions though.

TM09 contains Venoshock, a pretty powerful move which does double damage if the opponent is poisoned. I instantly teach it to both April May and Captain Ike who could do with the coverage and damage boosts.

Level grinding on trainers is very much a viable strategy in this game that I deeply appreciate.

This dude has some interesting looking Pokémon.

They go down quite quickly but they’re nice to look at. I really love how Voltdude is literally just a Voltorb with arms.

A Potion for our troubles!

First one of these so far, they’ll probably come in useful later for boosting up Peach or Captain Ike to useable levels.

Do you remember my theory that putting Caterpie or Weedle’s head on something was a very easy route to making a cute Pokémon? Well I think the opposite is true for Zubat. Horrifying stuff.

First detour of the dungeon!

This area has a very notable new addition. What’s this machine doing here?

And now our first battle with a Team Rocket member!

Two Zubat and a Zuans. This place is just chock full of the annoying blighters.

Notably, you can’t rematch with Team Rocket members.

Let’s head back.

This is another new addition to Mt. Moon!

This man gives us the TM for Rock Smash, which is a neat little detail. I teach it to April May as she’s already my Pokémon with Fighting-type coverage and Rock Smash isn’t a terrible move.

Item collection montage time!

In addition to these I get a Heart Scale and two encounters with Geodude. Okay, moving on:

This one here is interesting, as this is an Oddish fused with a Gloom. What happens once it hits level 25? Does it become just a normal Gloom? Weird.

The battle could be dangerous with Glooish’s status effects but it falls quickly to Valefor’s mighty Pecking power.

Another off-shoot to explore up ahead.

Another Team Rocket to fight. And you can see here it pays to teach Rock Smash to a Pokémon.

This Peter Griffin-looking motherfucker is just silly.

Totally worth it! Now let’s head back and finish up this laborious cave.

Dude, I know. I’ve been making this journey since 1997. Anyway, this guy has some rats.

Rattata: Who are you?
April May: I’m you, but cuter.

April May: Who are you?
Nidoshrew: I’m you, but cuter.
April May: 😦

After that battle I heal up back the Poké Center as both April May and Valefor are looking a bit worse for wear, and we don’t want to risk them dying anytime soon.

Other than two quite boring Geodude, Marcos here has one extremely notable Pokémon.

It’s moments like this that make this game utterly worth playing. Look at how angry it looks!

We’ll be rolling in money soon enough! Which is good, as we need a lot of healing items to get through this game.

A hop, skip, and a ladder later and we’re in the final map of Mt. Moon. Not long left, folks.

Heading north through the breakable rocks gets me this nice little gift that I’ll probably end up selling because who uses vitamins anymore?

I wonder what they’re going to use the moon energy for?

Glare continues to be one of the most annoying moves in the game.

Hitting level 16 is great for April May as it’s netting her an evolution at the end of the battle and a very nice new move all at once. Hyper Fang is twice as powerful as Quick Attack and she’s speedy enough as it is without a priority move.

This is so cute I might die.

And yet again, the Pokémon’s name doesn’t change at all. Nidotata evolved into Nidotata. Kinda hydrocephalic, but she looks like fun, right?

Not a terrible find but I can’t realistically see me ever using this.

This area I believe was added in Gold and Silver.

At nighttime there are Clefairy here which flee when you head down the steps. I didn’t manage to catch a screenshot so you’ll have to just trust me that they were there. Only when you scare them off do you get the Moon Stone here – this is very useful as we have two Pokémon who will eventually evolve with one.

The house is a nice little stop on the way to Cerulean too. Mt. Moon can be a bit grueling at the start of the game when you don’t have too many resources and there are constant wild battles to take on. The lady on the right sells Fairy Gems and Moon Balls – I pick up a few of the latter mostly because I think they look pretty.

Back in Mt. Moon and we pass the Team Rocket we fought earlier.

And here’s the massive machine from earlier too!

Sorry babe, I’m more of a Carrie.

This ugly thing goes down handily to two Hyper Fangs, but not before paralysing me for good measure.

Oh no, boo hoo.

Walking up here gets us a completely new cutscene! Also, note the two fossils on the left there.

????: … Stones. We will then use the giant antennae we’ve placed here in Mt. Moon to broadcast them to the entire region. This will cause wild Pokémon all over the region to fuse with each other, causing chaos and mayhem everywhere.

We get control, and it seems like it might be time for a boss fight!

????: We have no time for this. I’ll take care of him myself.

The boss slowly walks up to us menacingly.

This might be the end of the LP as we know it…

He sets a fucking Kangaskhan on us!

Oh, is that it? One bop and now you’re just going ahead with things?

The screen pans down to the antennae and we hear some noises that confirm it’s powering on.

Oh dearie.

And then they just leave. Just like that. Looks like not taking any chances just means giving us a wallop and leaving us to now have an actual motive for revenge.

So this is a thing now. We obviously don’t know the password yet so we’ll have to leave this be for now.

Now, what was that guy saying about wild Pokémon fusing?

Oh. OH.

Yeah, now you can encounter natural fusions in the wild. This game just got a whole lot more complex!

Before we delve into the complexities that this opens up for us, let’s get out of this cave.

Miguel manages to be a genuinely challenging trainer who likely serves as the true boss battle of Mt. Moon, thanks to the Rocket boss (who I’m fairly sure will just turn out to be Giovanni but I’m not naming him until It’s confirmed) not fighting us.

Pictured: me at McDonalds after 6 hours of clubbing.

While Koffmer isn’t very challenging, Oddorb is a threat with SonicBoom and decent typing.

Confusion and Poison could make Zufing annoying too, though you have to admit it’s an awesome design.

The age-old question: which fossil do we take?

Spoilers: Omanyte is cuter.

Ah, freedom.

We’re going to leave it there as we’re already over 100 images for this update. Next time we’ll explore this Route, Cerulean City and see if we can’t take on the next Rival fight!

Post-Update Summary

So quite a bit has changed since last time despite not catching any new Pokémon! We’ve had two evolutions and a decent amount of leveling. We can evolve April May with the Moon Stone at any time but we might also want to wait for Peach to evolve so we can get a Wigglytuff in the mix too. The next routes could also bring us some useful additions to the team, like a Sandshrew or an Ekans of our own. We shall have to see next time!

New Fusions

Hootsaur (Hoothoot + Bulbasaur) evolved into Hootsaur (Hoothoot + Ivysaur)
Nidotata (Nidoran Female + Rattata) evolved into Nidotata (Nidorina + Rattata)