Last time, Rock Tunnel

Now, Lavender Town.

And suddenly death.

It’s interesting how much worse Team Rocket gets. First, they’re just digging up fossils like everyone else. Then it’s using pokemon to commit crimes and valuing pokemon based on what they’re worth. Now, it’s killing pokemon.

Quick, let’s get away from the depressing.

That didn’t help at all.

You can see how this place inspired creepypasta about the music inducing suicides and stuff. It’s not that the games are lighthearted precisely, but this kind of stuff just doesn’t exist before now. The darkest it’s been is the fact Surge was in a war and if you think about it wars involve killing.

Fat chance.

I wonder if this is meant to bring to mind the noble gases, since ghost pokemon are gas pokemon.

On a completely unrelated tangent, that term always bugs me. They’re called the noble gases because they don’t do anything with anything? Insert your favorite aristocrats joke here. The noble ones should be the ones who’ll react with absolutely everything but refuse to form lasting bonds except with the same element.

Right, back on the depressing train.

I’m sure that won’t be relevant to the plot soon.

Earlier there’s a reference to one of the evil things Team Rocket does is abandon pokemon they don’t think are worth it, and now we’re getting confirmation that abandoning pokemon is bad, they can’t survive on their own…

…but we can still release pokemon at will, because that’s totally different. Different word and everything.

This was like a minor version of the SS Anne business. What if you could find some other magazine and enter the drawing and get a cool pokemon? Because that’s totally how games work, all the code for anything you could think of existed if only you could set it off somehow. Looking back, I’m surprised I never considered if there was some gameshark code to do it, gamesharks also being magic. I may well have asked if there was a way to be on the SS Anne when it left using gameshark codes.

Looking back it’s pretty ridiculous. I mean, if I’m treating this like it’s a real place I’m just accessing via an imperfect avatar, so I totally could find another one and have stuff happen, it’s a lottery, sending it in doesn’t mean anything more happens. It’s only videogame logic that says you’ll always get something for doing something.

…

And here’s the baby she’s talking about. Poor orphan!

Say no and it’s

This irritated me as a kid because it seemed she was just being contradictory. But that’s because I generally assign a negative connotation to being called a believer in these sort of contexts. People who believe in ghosts/crystal energies/tarot cards/aliens tend to be the sort who believe it because they want to and not because they have any rational reason. It rankled particularly much because if I make my little avatar here say yes after seeing, battling and capturing pokemon officially labeled ghost types, I don’t believe in ghosts, I have objective proof.

Speaking of objective proof, this is ghost girl!

NPCs don’t have a set path. Instead, they’re programmed to walk in a particular sequence. So, if you get in their way, they’ll try to walk that way, fail, and then continue on with whatever else was in that sequence. This makes their movements look relatively natural when the player’s walking around.

If you shadow them so they can’t go one way, they’ll end up only going in the other and moving across the area. They don’t take into account any transitions – remember in Pallet the girl got stuck in my house’s doorway. That means you can aim them out of a city and they’ll walk across the boundary. As soon as you pass the line, however, the game loads new data for the new area and stops caring about data from the old area, and the NPC disappears.

I discovered this by accident when trying to herd her out just for the sake of herding NPCs.

But it’s fitting, isn’t it?

Time to go into the tower.

This actually made me panic, but not for any intentional reason. I vowed to always pay attention to entering and exiting after the first trouble getting out of the house, but up to this point, I’d found those to always be marked with some sort of mat. And then I enter here, and it doesn’t have that.

Nuzlocke runs have really ruined this place. When I first came here, I assumed the pokemon here died of old age – that’s what I knew pets generally died of. But under the trendy new thing, his clefairy probably died because he insisted in using it in pokemon battles despite how dangerous those can be. He cries because he’s filled with not only loss but guilt.

Of course, no one here seems to assume a trainer here to pay their respects is a sign the trainer may have done anything wrong, so I think my original view is correct.

Nice use of the passive voice there. Officially, no real word on why the pokemon are dead and whose, if any, fault it is.

…shouldn’t you do something about it then?

No? Okay then, I’ll just go ahead.

As you can see, Gary’s here. While he’s been jumping me out of nowhere before now, here there’s advanced warning. It’s a pretty good scare.

You can walk around near him without triggering anything.

Gary does not seem particularly reverent.

He seems more aggressive, though. I can’t read his “pal” comments as sincere, although I can’t say if he’s pretending to be friendly in the same way his past conversations can be read a fake-friendliness or if he’s being sarcastic. The limitations of text…

As you can see, we’re pretty evenly matched despite his pokemon being several levels higher here. And the AI is an idiot, so my pidgeotto wins handily with the use of some sand attacks.

Also, just look as pidgeotto’s awful moveset. The pidgey line learns only two flying moves total, and only one of those is a straightforward attack move. And that won’t be until L31. In contrast, spearow knows a flying type move from the start and a fearow will learn the strongest useable flying attack in the game, drill peck, at about the same time a pidgeotto is learning its first flying move, which has the same power as tackle.

Really, the only thing it has going for it is that you shouldn’t have any qualms sticking fly in there when you get it.

Where did he get this? Maybe it’s a traded pokemon.

Gary’s gyarados is a cheater.

A very cheaty cheater. Dragon rage is learned not too far past this level, but hydro pump? Quite a ways off.

Continues to be an unimpressive pokemon.

I thought rage was so cool back in the day. It was an attack that also boosted stats.

That’s all for his pokemon. You may notice the lack of a raticate among them.

The theory is, you kill his pokemon and he’s here to pay his respects. I’m not really seeing it, though.

The losses seem to be worsening his temper.

Like I said, no idea which way to take “pal”.

Like I said, I’m not too convinced by the theory. Gary is far too flippant and he gives his reason for coming here that’s not at all about mourning, though I suppose he might be covering for his real purpose. But still, even if something did happen, I don’t think it’s the protagonist who’s to blame for it – he didn’t get upset last battle nor does he seem particularly vengeful now.

And on that note, he leaves.

Does identifying them really do all that much?

I don’t see why, but okay, key item to get, huh?

Here’s why I need the scope. For some reason, it identifies ghost and for some reason, unidentified ghosts can’t be battled.

Also, for some reason they can talk in this form. Or maybe they all can and people just don’t care unless they’re scary ghosts moaning threats.

I was never too clear on what was up with their dialogue. Like, is she calling you an evil spirit because she’s possessed, or was that what she said to the ghost that possessed her right then, or do possessed people repeat their last words or what?

For some reason, you can see the channeler’s ghost, which is presumably actually the ghost possessing her, just fine. I guess they couldn’t code things to allow you a way out of a trainer battle so they needed you to actually be able to win.

Ghosts are actually pretty tough at this stage. As you saw with pidgeotto, it’s easy to have a pokemon that only knows normal type moves. I have two pokemon that know bite, but that’s still normal type in this generation. And the typed moves I do have access to are ones like poison sting and vine whip, which aren’t exactly good.

The channelers don’t pay much for your exorcism services, either.

It always confuses me how aware they seem to be of everything. How total a possession is this?

Well, that’s all that can be done in the tower for now. I’ll need that scope if I want to catch pokemon and go up to the top without cheating.