Curated Critiques

Hi everyone! It’s been a while. Today we’re going to start using our newly acquired ability to use Surf to explore some areas that were previously inaccessible to us and pick up some new, useful items. In addition to that, we’re going to follow up on some rumours and head to some brand new locations. Firstly, we need someone to use Surf:

This is Carol Kane. Welcome back, Carol!

Our first new pickup is in Viridian City.

One very quick swim later…

Bulk Up is a nice move. It finds less use than its specially-oriented alternative Calm Mind, but it’s still a good set-up move. For those who don’t know, Bulk Up increases your Attack and your Defence by one stage each. Use it twice, and you’ve doubled your Attack and Defence until you faint or have to switch out!

Now we need to get onto a new area that I totally stumbled upon on accident.

This is the Secret Forest. It’s an area that opens up after acquiring 4 Gym Badges and it holds quite the secret.

There’s a nice haul of items on this first screen. And of course, it would have been hard to collect all of those items without running into a new team mate!

Ledian is a pretty Pokémon. Notice the yellow name? That means it’s one of those special encounters that we learned about oh so long ago. It has Iron Fist, Ledian’s Hidden Ability which makes all punching moves stronger. This is very useful on strong Pokémon. Ledian is not strong. Oh well.

Ledian took a long time to catch, I must have used about 10 balls to finally get it.

Our patience pays off.

At the other side of the woods, there’s another exit.

It leads to Route 16. This is a nice shortcut that leads right to the house where we acquired the HM for Fly. Of course, shortcuts are largely useless thanks to both Fly and Teleport, but this might be a nice hint for anyone who somehow missed those and didn’t know about Fly in the first place.

There is another, more hidden exit at the south of the Secret Woods.

This is the Viridian River, another totally new area. You might notice a familiar sprite there.

Looks like we’re railroaded into this area’s encounter!

Quick Balls are honestly fantastic. This one works without a hitch.

Ta da!

Heading west from the entrance to the river leads back to the Viridian City map. The river has some pretty standard water encounters for us, and we can catch Marill and Goldeen here. It’s a good thing we had Surf when we discovered this place.

We pick up some BrightPowder here, which is nice. BrightPowder gives the holder Pokémon the ability to evade some of the enemy’s attacks. It’s unreliable, but nice in a pinch.

Heading east however leads to this house.

No surprise boss battles here, just an old man.

This man gives us a big hint as to the main draw of the Viridian River. This is where you can encounter Mew, of all things! Not under a truck or through some bullshit timed event, but randomly here at the river. It apparently has a very small chance to appear in this area when the player has positive karma – an almost invisible stat that goes up when you complete quests or do other nice things.

I don’t have the patience for that. And anyways, I have a Treecko now, so there.

Oh boo.

On my way back, I noticed this fella hanging out. We already have a Cyndaquil, and caught a Treecko here besides: it looks like this place is somewhere you can catch multiple starters.

Next up, we’re going to explore the areas north of Cerulean City! Before that though, we some business to attend to.

Cyndaquil and Ledian DNA Digivolve toooooooo:

A Horrible Bug!

Real talk, both of this fusion’s options are hot dogshit and I hate both of them. I’m merely going to fuse it into the one with the higher attacking stats and shove it in a box, hoping to never have to darken this LP with its sights.

Sigh.

I think I prefer the sprite of the original.

Five Mouse. Also known as: some mice.

Before we head north, let’s check on the Unknown Cave. It’s blocked off for now, for good reason.

Yeah, it’s purple, for one. For two, it almost certainly holds a synthetic Pokémon designed to be a weapon. They are never stable beings. Remember Emil from Nier? That fella from Akira?

I mean… by default.

I’m not a huge fan of Ground-type moves for Ketchup’s longevity, so we’re going to make a quick change.

Valefor comes out and Sandshrew Fury Swipes about half of its HP away! Petal Dance then demolishes it.

Next up is this totally badass sprited Paras/Steelix. Petal Dance doesn’t work well but it manages to soften itself up quite a lot with Slashes vs my Rocky Helmet.

Dragonbreath gets the paralysis off, however.

Lastly is this cool Pokémon. This battle showcases some really cool stuff but we severely outlevel the lass. April May however comes in and gives the Scislash a nice one-two Fire Punch combo.

Why did you have to use two question marks?? Oh no!! Now I’m doing it!!! Oh no!!!!

Heading north from Nugget Bridge and we are reminded of this. Let’s make yet another note to come back here once we have Strength.

We have brought Carol Kane back to her ancestral home. Well, the Poliwag half of her anyway.

I need to think hard about what to use this on, in a party that switches around as much as mine. And one where a Pokémon can end up permanently benched seemingly at any time.

We have some very high level wild encounters here. I almost regret fishing here.

Heading north, we come upon yet another new area! Say hello to Route 23.

That is a high level. I’m almost concerned that we’re coming here a tad too early.

Thunder Wave plus Electro Ball is quite a devastating combo, though.

This is why we’re coming up here!

Now that we’re in a new route, we can catch a new Pokémon! And today, it looks like a Seel! Beautiful!

Beautiful stuff, truly. I love Seel. Dewgong is one of my top 10 Pokémon almost every time I think about it.

Oh bitch, I see you there with your Steven Universe references.

Of course she’s called Jasper. I don’t know why I expected anything else.

Hmph. My Seel is cuter.

True to her namesake, Jasper forsakes all fusion and has a roster of two Seel and a Seadra. Nice Pokémon, but they all go down without so much as scratching Ketchup.

It’s because I’m Stronger Than You.

Up these steps and we find this lady. She is doing laps of this area really quickly. Like, upgraded bike quickly.

I’m Team Rocket, gimme ur fkn Pokés.

This Dewlee is pretty awful looking, huh? Well, first turn it weathers an  Electro Ball and sets up Mind Reader, ensuring that its next hit will surely strike. The more experienced and pessimistic among you will see where this is going.

It happened so quick I couldn’t even register what was happening. A Mind Reader’d Sheer Cold gives me the most bullshit death of this entire LP. This is the hardest death so far, by far.

Citizen Snips comes in for the revenge kill. The sneaky fuck tried to set up Mind Reader again but Zen Headbutt rules.

Dewchan just uses Aqua Jet before being smashed in the head. Bye bye.

Talking to her after the battle gets you a handful of the various berries used in Pokémon Go, but I was too bitter to take screenshots.

Not bad. Would have been a nice move for a certain fucking someone.

So this is what happens when the game devs have to design trainers on their own, huh? A bunch of immersion-breaking references.

Citizen Snips does quite well in this route of Water and Fighting Pokémon.

Quite enjoyed this sprite, I love the detail of the badge-earring thing.

Oh, we’re doing puns now?

Sorry to break your Zen with my Headbutt.

That is a Prime example of how to not fuse your Pokémon well.

Yeah just fuck off I’m still mourning my big hard snake.

That battle got us an evolution thanks to EXP. Share. Are you guys ready to see by far the MOST underwhelming evolution?

She went to Primark and bought herself some gloves. Good for u hun x

Back into the waters we go! Lovely weather for a midnight swim.

Or maybe get out of the water.

I hate this. No other commentary, I just hate it.

I got a twinge of actual anger reading this. Edgy little thing ain’t she?

Okay actually yes that’s terrifying and I’m going to kill it with impunity. Things like this should absolutely not be allowed to exist.

Thank heavens.

The wild Pokémon encounter rate in this place is a bit bonkers, so I’m using the Black Flute for the first time. It doesn’t completely rule out encounters, but they’re far fewer and less annoying.

A little detour to an almost blocked off area lets us pick up some loot. TM105 is Aqua Jet, which is a great move for a strong physical Water-type. Citizen Snips would qualify, but he has Crabhammer, which is better.

On the way back, we encounter this freak. Thought I’d get a snap before it gets frizzled by ThunderPunch.

One last trainer in this route!

His first Pokémon was a Seadra, and I genuinely guessed when the name came up that the Seaking would not be a normal Seaking. I was right.

And here we are! Crimson City, the completely new area new to Pokémon Infinite Fusion! Next update, we’re going to explore this place a bit more. Before we go though, I know of some items to pick up now that we have Surf.

Behind the Fisherman’s house in Vermillion City we pick up another PP Max. Oh, and… we have something to do, don’t we?

On the slightly brighter side, we have some proper abominations to gawk at. Have you been missing the awfulness? Yeah, me too. It’s been a while since we’ve seen something as utterly cursed as Peach’s early days, or that of Caledfwlch.

Yeah I don’t even know

Same, Pokédex, I would also give up halfway through trying to describe this monstrosity. Three ‘e’s in a row. Jesus wept I feel like I’ve had a stroknk,

The superior alternative is no less cursed a sprite, but it does have superior typing and better stats.

Isn’t he cute? Water/Grass is okay, but he’ll end up as Ice/Grass which is cool offensive typing, though Fire will destroy him.

Rounding off the update, we’re going to explore two more places. First, this little pond/sewage lake in the middle of Celadon.

If we hadn’t gotten our sadly deceased Eevee in Celadon, we could pick up a Grimer here.

Not a bad gain!

The final pickup tonight is Wild Charge, a nice physical Electric move which we find just the other side of the river by the Power Plant. Might have been nice for Ketchup, too, if it could learn it. I suppose we’ll never find out.

That little river to the south brings us from the Power Plant to the route just north of Lavender Town, another nice little shortcut that Surf grants us!

And with that, good night.

Post-Update Summary

Not exactly much progress here. We picked up some nice items and bulked out our roster with some nice finds, but it was quite to our detriment as we lost Ketchup, one of the lynchpins of our team. A very crushing blow to our long-term chances of success, and to something as cheap as Mind Reader/Sheer Cold too! Ugh.

New Pokémon

Secret Forest: Kainé the Ledian
Viridian River: Greebo the Treecko
Route 23: Lamiroir the Seel

New Fusions

Cyndaquil + Ledian = Cyndaian
Seel + Treecko = Seecko
Omawag (Omanyte + Poliwag) evolved into Omawhirl (Omanyte + Poliwhirl)

Into the Graveyard

Ketchup the Magnebok 😦