Last time, the boring walled town.

If you don’t raise your Pokemon with love and care, they’ll grow up to be sad Pokemon that don’t want to battle!

When parents talk like this, I feel bad for their kids. Yes, clearly only reason your kid might want to do something different than you want is because you misstepped somewhere. If you’re properly controlling devoted, they’ll be exactly what you want. That’s the deal.

Aaaand there’s some weird green thing!

Kikwaaa! it shouts in spikey form.

And now it’s just standing there. So, I guess I get to catch it now? What’s the point of this even.

Kikwaaaa!

And yeah, fight time. Virizion.

It’s really easy to beat. It’s L45 as well, and now my escavalier can use false swipe to get it down all the way. It won’t actually get in the damn ball, though. Eventually, it struggles and knocks itself out. This really isn’t fun, Nintendo.

Ah, fucking finally.

Weird one.

Legends say this Pokemon
confounded opponents with
its swift movements.

And it only took thirty ultraballs.

Also, its shiny form:

I think I like that version better.

Buizel!

It inflates the flotation sac around its neck and pokes its head out of the water to see what is going on.

I can’t do much here. There’s a place below I can’t get to, because you can only get there by going down a waterfall and apparently that also takes the move to do. And there’s also stuff above another waterfall. It’s all very striking and all very irritating.

Iris: Yahoo! I haven’t seen you since I ran into you in Castelia City! Are you here to battle Grandpa?

Right, you could just tell him I need to talk for actual real reasons.

Yep! Opelucid City’s Gym Leader, Drayden, is my grandpa.

I get that. On a practical level, though, I really need to-

We’re not really related, though!

Uh…okay. Didn’t know that. Wonder what it means.

Oh! The Gym is that way!

You’re not listening to me, are you?

Before challenging it, you might want to go to Route 9!

Okay, look, two pokemon who are supposed to be the badass protectors of the rest of the pokemon just showed up for me to capture, which I figure either means that something so big is going down that they need to team up with me to stop, or something so big they’re scared of it.

Still, your Pokemon really respect you!

This conversation is just a string of non sequiturs.

I feel how much fun they’re having, even from inside their Poke Balls!

Half my team is fainted, so you’ll forgive me if I’m not impressed with your psychic acumen.

Good luck!

You’re not even going to tell me why you want me to go to the route?

And yeah, she just walks off.

I reached heights I could never have reached because I had Pokemon by my side. And I believe my Pokemon became tough because they were with me!

This is a decent retort to Team Plasma, given they inexplicably decided to start arguing pokemon only become strong when left alone. Not really doing anything for the happiness issue.

Why do Pokemon stay by our sides? If we could talk to them, we could ask. I’m a bit scared about what they’d say.

Someone sounds guilty.

There was a group that told people to release their Pokemon. They were great big liars, but it created a good opportunity to think.

Did it? I didn’t see anyone doing that last game. I guess you started doing it after I saved the world. So, what have you thought?

…nothing more to say, huh. Let’s find more people.

A person called N had the legendary Pokemon with him, but was he really the hero?

Well, let me think. The criteria for being a hero was…

1) Be a person.
2) Have the legendary pokemon.

So…yes, appears he was.

Inside a house there’s this “game” where one person says something, then you have to pick one of the three other people who say the game thing. It is hideously boring and there doesn’t seem to be any reward for it at the end.

It also looks like there’s some development, with those caution barrier things.

I wonder if the Elite Four in the Pokemon League like Pokemon more than anyone else. If you don’t like Pokemon, you’ll never get good at battling, right?

I actually liked how in the third gen had people raising pokemon for purposes other than battle. The bits of the anime I saw about Johto also had a lot about people working with pokemon in more varied ways.

This is just between you and me, OK? I used to be part of Team Plasma. But, I felt like if I were just going to do what I was told without thinking, it didn’t have to be me doing it.

That is a remarkably bizarre reason.

So I left Team Plasma. Don’t tell the story to the guy on the opposite side.

He’s totally going to be secretly in Team Plasma too and ask me not to tell, isn’t he?

This is just between you and me, OK? I’m really not very good as a Trainer. So I think Team Plasma might have had the right idea when they take Pokemon away from weak trainers.

What.

Okay I have no idea any longer what the game is trying to do here. Are they seriously settling on “while some trainers are good, others are bad…and you can tell by which ones you beat?”

I do feel sorry for the people who were robbed, though.

Between assuming they’re keeping their pokemon in misery by owning them without being stronger.

Hey, wait! According to this guy, that purrloin would have been miserable to belong to Failry’s sister, given apparently she’s not even a trainer – Failry makes it clear he’s the only one who tried to fight back.

Anyway, on to the gym.

It’s pretty – there’s a big standing white dragon and you have to fight trainers standing on its limbs by making the other dragon slowly rear up. It’s more of a puzzle than I’ve been seeing – you get a choice of two trainers, and beating one gets you up a level. It’d have been appropriate for an early gym. Also, there’s only two levels. Actually, that’s been true for a while, there’s barely any trainers in these places.

In this one, it’s probably because this seems ridiculously dangerous. It’s not just that you stand around balanced on a statue, but the statue actually punches out to smack into another statue. The gym leader probably used his mayor powers to force insurance to cover it anyway.

Welcome. Thank you for coming. I am the Opelucid Pokemon Gym Leader, Drayden.

You know what would be funny? If he then goes “Oh, pokemon trouble? I’m sorry for making you go through all this trouble to talk to me! Let’s get going immediately to deal with that, gym battles can wait.”

As the mayor, I’ve given everything to developing the city. As a Trainer, I’ve simply been pursuing greater strength.

Technically, you can’t be giving everything to the city when you’re also devoting yourself to a completely different pursuit.

But what I’m searching for now is a young Trainer who can show me a bright future.

Burning everything counts, right?

Perhaps you can show me that future, the way Iris has?

L50 Druddigon
L50 Altaria
L50 Flygon
L52 Haxorus

…and that’s it. It’s over.

It really wasn’t that hard, and I don’t even have a single L50 pokemon yet.

Wonderful. I’m grateful that we had a chance to meet and battle. It reminded me that Pokemon battles are about working with others to meet our challenges together.

And I get the fina-

Second to last badge, the Legend Badge.

Well, now. You’ve obtained seven of the Gym Badges in Unova. That means Pokemon up to L80, including those received in trades, will follow your commands obediently.

“So basically just trade for a mewtwo and you’re good for the rest of the game.”

I also want you to have this. It’s a TM I’m particularly fond of. It’s called Dragon Tail. Dragon Tail is a move that returns the damaged Pokemon to its Poke Ball. In other words, it switches your opponent’s Pokemon.

These metabattle moves make less and less sense.

Professor Juniper asked me

YOU FUCKER – YOU KNEW? YOU KNEW THE WHOLE TIME THAT I WAS HERE ON IMPORTANT BUSINESS AND YOU STILL FUCKING MADE ME FIGHT YOU?

to tell you about the legendary Dragon-type Pokemon that created Unova.

Finally I get to hear what I learned last game.

Please wait outside.

ARG! Then why’d you make me come all the way up here?

Oddly, the scene doesn’t just warp there. I have to make my way down on my own, it seems.

Trying to talk to him again just produces: It is not the passage of time that causes Pokemon and people to age. When the energy that flows in their heart dries up, that’s when they get old.

Fun fact: a lot of life-affirming platitudes are actually really victim-blamey!

The heart’s energy is powered by truth, ideals, or maybe dreams…

And that’s why Grandma’s dead, kids.

No doubt it changes depending on what you most hope for in life.

Because you were such disappointments she didn’t want to live anymore.

Anyway, I go back out. There isn’t even an option to go straight out like there is in most gyms.

Drayden: I’ll show you the way. Follow me.

WHAT IS WITH PEOPLE MAKING ME GO PLACES BEFORE THEY’LL TALK?!

Huh, and then the game makes me actually walk after him. And of course, this being a pokemon game, you can’t even move while someone else is walking on screen, so it’s less following and more finding. Why not have me just autofollow? What’s the point?

We’re here, he says, in front of his house. OK! Come inside.

I mean, I do in theory like having control over the character, but the autofollow bits were never a complaint, it was always kind of entertaining, and of course there’s the utter horror when one triggers and you’re unable to stop yourself from walking into a battle you aren’t prepared for. And in this game, where it’s all long cutscenes that keep repeating the same information, all stuff I don’t want to do, and stuff that shouldn’t actually affect whether or not I can progress, then giving me the “choice” of walking forward on the rails provided or turning in circles until I do so is just making my powerlessness all the more obvious.