So, when last we left off, it was time to charge back into the fray. Things went really well from the very start, with Saurius picking up two swaggers and proceeding to sweep the whole battle. Knowing what to expect, I keep Silver around to icebeam the flygons, and make it to Steven. My other pokemon do a little, and then, it’s Groudon time. One earthquake finishes the armaldo off. Steven sends out his L57 aggron. It endures my lava plume, however, and manages to strike back with an earthquake that halves Groudon’s HP. He then heals his aggeron and it’s brough back to 1 HP by the next earthquake, and his next turn he swaps for a L57 claydol. Lava plume halves its HP while it blows the turn on reflect, and a second lava plume removes it for good. He sends out the nearly dead aggron again. Mercilessly, I order another lava plume.

Metagross. L59.

Steven has a mega stickpin apparently, and the metagross mega evolves. A split second later, lava plume hits and it faints.

So I, the champion, fall in defeat…

It sure was anticlimactic, wasn’t it.

Know what’s more anticlimactic?

So, I was pretty busy and you know how back in the day, our handheld consoles could maintain a damn charge? I put the thing down for a good bunch of being super busy and kind of sick, and the charge ran out. Incidentally, I didn’t save after fighting the elite four the first time either, so…

I decide that rather than leveling by fighting the elite four again, I’d rather go fight all those people swimming around.

They paralyze prey with poison, then drag them down to their lairs, five miles below the surface.

I’m enjoying the ace trainers complaining about how they don’t want to be here. Hoenn especially should have people in the water who are there because they have to do something involving it, just like me.

Also!!!!!!!!

My second shiny!!!!!!!! Oh, Omega Ruby. You are not a good game in many ways, and yet, I’m willing to forgive you!

Okay, still haven’t reached the floating log town, but I didn’t want to level too much. I decided everyone should be L49 (and I’m turning off the exp share for the battle this time, so they’ll have to earn their L50) except for Silver, on the basis a wartortle being dragged into the endgame will still get beaten bloody even with a few extra levels. Also, Groudon’s L50, because God should be higher level than the rest.

Also, let’s try not to use revives as long as possible!

First battle: perfect sweep by Saurius, who hits L50 after beating the cacturne. Wants to learn synthesis. Why would you ever want that, Saurius? You’ve got harvest.

To prove my point, I don’t heal Saurius. I just replace his sitrus berry.

Next up, ghosts! So I lead with Irin, but swap her out when she gets hit by curse, then the sableye will not die and gets poor Flare down to a single HP. Irin then kills the rest of them handily.

I replenish Flare’s berry and nothing else.

I decide to face ice with Irin, who takes down the initial glalie only to be knocked out by the first froslass’ blizzard. I try Flare against her, but he can’t win against the power of a full restore. Raiden, though, manages to take them both out and then the walrein that follows. I try using Silver against the final glalie, and it uses freeze-dry. Well. It did about a third of Silver’s health, so finally a time to use mirror coat!…and Silver promptly gets frozen solid.

…Can’t say that’s not fitting. Okay.

Groudon, murder it.

Groudon murders it.

Okay, so time to pull out the revives. In my defense, you just shouldn’t be allowed to use two full restores in a row on a pokemon. They cheapened this slog first.

Dragon time. I lead with Silver.

What will Silver do?

Ice beam forever.

Altaria uses cotton guard! It’s not a very effective choice. Drake used full restore! It’s not a very effective choice. Altaria faints.

Flygon uses boomburst and then dies a cold and miserable death. Silver levels for the first time since entering this place and is now L56.

But a L56 wartortle is still an unevolved joke, and Salamance puts him in his place. Silver goes down, sitrus berry uneaten. Raiden! I don’t see you being useful otherwise, so why not. Raiden manages to paralyze the salamance. You know, probably should’ve swapped him in so Silver wouldn’t get hit. I then swap in Saurius for the next flygon, who thinks now is a good moment for trying to use supersonic. Shockingly, the terrible move misses and it moves on to using the comparatively accurate rock slide, but it doesn’t do enough damage. I decide to leave Saurius out against the kingdra, since it’s the last pokemon – but it’s too fast, so it knocks him out immediately. How about you, Irin?

Irin tears it apart and I am again victorious. Silver again tries to evolve. Nope!

Right then, Steven time.

Welcome, Lucki. I was hoping I would get to see you make it here one day. Tell me… What have you seen on your journey with your Pokemon? What have you felt, meeting so many other Trainers out there? Traveling this rich land of Hoenn… Has it awoken something inside you? I want you to come at me with all that you’ve learned. My Pokemon and I will respond in turn with all that we know!

This is all set up nicely, I must say. It does a great job of making this feel like a weighty moment, even though I already saved the world and enslaved a god and this is just a bunch of people playing king of the hill.

Let it begin! he howls in spikybox. Also, it’s nice he just jumps you, so if you’re in the habit of healing after you see who you’re up against, you’re in trouble! It’s a nice callback to Gary.

He leads with Skarmory. I, by chance, had Flare ready. It uses spikes, Flare lava plumes. It’s L57, though, and survives it. Then for some reason it toxics Flare. Haha, Flare, your life is suffering. Flare wins and finally hits L50. He’s badly poisoned, BUT next pokemon’s an aggron, so I want to keep him out. Besides, the aggron will probably murder him fast enough the poison won’t be a concern.

Oh yeah, there’s the earthquake. Sadly, lava plume didn’t burn it. How about you, Raiden, can you paralyze it? Apparently yes. And Steven will use full restore, because of course he will. Raiden paralyzes it again, then almost discharges it to death but doesn’t quite manage that last sliver. Irin, you’re up. She finishes it off and then has to face his armaldo. It goes as expected, and yet again infuriated by the idea of anyone actually standing against her, Lucki pulls out Groudon. DEATH!

The claydol takes two lava plumes, but it doesn’t matter because for some reason it blows its only turn on reflect. The cradily does better, managing a confuse ray, but you can’t confuse something that only lives to destroy and the attempt it futile.

Steven pulls out his metagross. As in the alt timeline, it evolves. As in the alt timeline, it then goes down to lava plume.

I expect he’s less of a pushover if you have Kyogre rather than Groudon. Difficultywise, this is probably even, since Drake would be a pushover with Kyogre, but narratively it’s weird that the final one we’ve spent the game building toward would go down so easily.

So I, the champion, fall in defeat…

Yup.

Just as I have come to expect. Lucki, you are truly an excellent Pokemon Trainer. Congratulations to you! And thank you… I had wanted to learn how you feel about this world, what kinds of ideals you have developed with your Pokemon… I feel I was able to find the answer in our battle. The feelings you have for your Pokemon… And the way that your Pokemon gave their all in battle in response to those feelings… Those two together created a great power.

To be clear, yeah, I totally went into that without bothering to heal my pokemon and with two of them outright fainted.

That is how you seized victory today.

Groudon is how I seized victory today.

Really, the whole friendship moral makes particularly little sense when you give me my god pokemon prior to the elite four. At least in the originals, you can only kick off one of your pokemon for Mewtwo AFTER beating everybody.

I felt a thrill of excitement in my breast when we first met, and now I know for sure that feeling was not misplaced! You are rightfully the Hoenn region’s new…

And now Brendan’s here for some reason.

Lucki! Before you go to challenge the Champion, I’ve got one last thing you’ve got to… Lucki… You didn’t… No, you couldn’t have… Did you already beat the champion?!

Equivalent May dialogue:

Name, wait! I’ve got some advice you’ve got to hear before you challenge the Champion… Huh? Wait–what? What? Name… Could it be that… It’s already over?

So similar, but Brendan manages to sound like more of an asshole. Where is the hack that gives me May as a rival instead.

Birch comes running up.

See? What did I say, Brendan? Didn’t I tell you that Lucki would be just fine? Lucki, you’ve finally done it. When I heard that you defeated your own father at the Petalburg Gym, I thought perhaps you had a chance… But to think you’ve actually become the Champion! But congratulations on today’s victory!

…wait, what? Is this just another editing snafu?

Now go in there with your head held high! Birch concludes.

Lucki… says Steven, who is undoubtedly super sad these dweebs busted in when he wanted to have a moment. No, I should call you he Hoenn region’s new Pokemon League Champion… Come with me, Champion.

Brendan tries to follow and is promptly shut down: I’m very sorry. But only a Trainer who has successfully become the Champion may go beyond this point.

…hey, wait. Does that mean no one else will see my hall of fame stuff? Or is it just the recording of it that’s secret?

Well, either way, someone will one day boggle at the fact there’s a wartortle here, and that’s really all I ask.

You’ll need to wait outside with the professor, Steven continues.

Wha– Brendan spikeybox howls. … Can’t be helped, I guess. Them’s the rules, right?

Or Steven just wants to get away from you. Either seems plausible.

That’s awesome, Lucki. Congratulations…really!

Another question – does the fact he’s appeared means he actually fought everyone along the way? Seems unlikely, so probably he tagged along with his dad.

The game saves itself for me after I enter the hall of fame room, then the next cutscene starts. So…if I turn it off, will I just go through the cutscene again?

This room… This is where we maintain the records of Pokemon that prevailed through the harshest of battles. It is here that League Champions are honored. Come. We will use this machine to record your name and the names of the partners who battled along with you to triumph over the Pokemon League!

Hm. So come to think of it, it does kind of sound like this is something that’s only for those in the clubhouse.

The perky music of this hall of fame doesn’t impress me much. I like dramatic stuff. Also, it’s just hilarious to see a congratulations banner next to Groudon.

Then…another cutscene? Of me walking back out. When will it end. Brendan is standing with his eyes closed.

Welcome back, Lucki. I just, uh, you know… We set out on this journey together, right? So maybe we should finish it together, too. D-don’t go trying to read anything into it, though! Now, come on! We’re going home! Back to Littleroot Town!

And he heads off, and Lucki follows him for some reason, and the camera angles up to look at the light coming in the window…

Also all of that was a full auto cutscene where I had to go to youtube to get the words because it went by too fasst.

And there’s the credits, showing they actually did animate May riding on a bike but it’s not shown in the game’s opening because we wouldn’t want boys getting turned off by the faintest implication the female protagonist was equally legitimate and not just a non-canon knockoff option.

And now there’s more cutscene that’s too fast for me to type and will have to be copied off youtube and Brendan wants to fight and no Brendan it’s sleeps tiem nao.