Bethany Plays: Pokemon Sun Wela Volcano Park: Value Pack

Just before we make it to the back side of Royal Avenue (where we're starting this update), we get one last NPC in the front who talks about the joys of fishing. Sure thing.

Anyway, the back half of Royal Avenue. There's only one building here, but we've got two areas and several brand new encounters to pick up afterwards. This is compared to the front side- the update contained one new route with no new encounters, cleanup in Heahea City, and then a few NPCs around Royal Avenue before the Battle Royal. It turns out USUM added a lot of stuff in that time period, and comparatively less in this part of the game, where there was already sufficient content.

Over in this south-east corner are some normal punks. The fact they look like Skull Grunts does come up from time to time, but they are otherwise unaffiliated. It is often more accurate to claim that Skull Grunts look like Punks.

Is that the lesson we take from the Guts Ability?

As much as the mechanic exists, this Murkrow was made a Pokemon we can play with in USUM.

Litter over here.

And two time-locked Zygarde Cells, the Day one over on this side.

Good to keep in mind when I get my driver's license in... five years, right?

...Car accidents in the world of Pokemon must be terrifying.

Been there, done that, not until I've got a team of badasses too.

Well, my animation's the same, not sure what that says about me.

It's really hard to justify except as a neat mechanic, though. Like, if you can't find a Pokemon to register as Seen, you might as well look up its catching location online anyway?

Litter item behind the building.

We saw this mentioned in the Pokemon Centre, but this is the Alola region's location for the Thrifty Megamart- despite how I phrased that sentence, this is the only Thrifty Megamart (and indeed, the only value store of any brand) in the series.

It even has its own tinny mall music. It's charming.

Strangely, rather than have actual lower prices than Poke Marts, they have the same prices, and give every customer a discount coupon that slashes the price by 50%.

The worst part is, there are good odds this is actually a mechanical issue.

I think showing the original price before selling for the discount is, strictly speaking, the more profitable tactic, but still.

Remember that value stores aim directly at people too poor to afford a big spree... mostly because this is where they can afford necessities. Mixed feelings on them on that front, but that mechanical issue could resolve those in some way.

They sure knew where the best place to put the value store was. ~~The second time.~~

This kid is a surprisingly odd encounter, but his suggestion to check out his Drifloon is a good one.

That is probably the most surprising continuity thing I have ever seen. Just randomly dropping the payoff to the Hapu encounter in the middle of a random building you have no reason to visit. I love it.

So long as it puts you back down near home.

The merchandise around here actually has price points. I was surprised to start seeing these.

...Those are Pyukumuku body pillows? The Toucannon huggers are also a little weird to me, although that's because of the eyes.

There's even generic NPCs in here. It fits, but still.

As mentioned, value stores are the place to go get your necessities if you have any financial issues, in spite of the issues one might expect. How much of a problem this is depends on your opinion of value store product.

Remember how I said their ability to choose a location worked better the second time? Yeah, uh, we don't talk about that first one.

That Soda Pop is being sold at less than a quarter of the price of a dozen of the Soda Pop we can get from vending machines, and the Moomoo Milk under a seventh (the asking price is 500 Poke a serving in games that have buyable Moomoo Milk). The Fresh Water's pretty expensive, though, although that is Hokkaido Mountain Water being sold in Hawai'i.

Some fish over in this frozen section, now that I've found the prices. Not sure what "fish tips" are, but I'm impressed the markup for importing fish from Kyushu is only 50 Poke.

Although I do wonder what Pokemon are being served as the delicacies here.

Slowpoke Tail is a surprising one, as far as series history goes. In GSC, you encountered Team Rocket harvesting Slowpoke's tails for money. There existed an NPC who offered to sell you one for a million Poke (more than you could carry in those games), and the only place the player could acquire some was in Team Rocket's fake souvenir store before flushing them out. This clearly portrays Slowpoke Tails as both a delicacy and a black market product, with many NPCs in the town where Rocket was harvesting Tails calling them out for their cruelty. Since then, while they referenced both elements in random dialogue, Slowpoke Tails would first reappear in explicit form in a high-class restaurant in XY, before finally showing up here, of all places. In addition to many of Slowpoke's Alolan Pokedex entries talking about Slowpoke really not caring about losing their tail, it seems this element of Slowpoke's role in cuisine has been... shifted. There's some debate on what Slowpoke is- some kind of hippopotamus, lizard and shellfish crossover seems to be the main guess. The "Slowpoke Tails are OK to harvest" thing is coming from the lizard bit.

Despite this, there was actually a reference to Slowpoke Tails being black market product in the SM Demo- a Police Officer was staking out what he thought was a Slowpoke Tail deal, but it turned out to be innocent. I wonder if we're meant to be find the cop stupid as a whole or he would have been right had it actually been a Tail deal.

I'm not sure what Tamato-themed chips are supposed to be, but sure, that for a bag of chips. The Lava Cookies are 200 Poke each in Hoenn, so as long as there's more than five, that shipping damage was worth it. The Poffins are not purchaseable items in Sinnoh, but rather items you made yourself to increase your contest stats.

As a side note, that is, I believe, the only place I've ever seen that actually uses the denonym for "Sinnoh". Most denonyms picked up in use with the introduction of regional forms (with "Kantonian form" being the usual designation for the classic designs). As of SV, Sinnoh is the only region without a regional form, leaving this one unused for now. Honestly, I kinda feel like they wasted a few good denonym alternatives like "-ese", "-ite" or "-i"- Sinnohan sounds clunky compared to Sinnohese or Sinnovish.

There's not many shopping shelves- most of them are duplicates of these two.

If a Backpacker overspends, they'll cause problems for their return trip. Keeping the odds of that low is just common sense.

I know way too many with that feeling.

Looks at Stufful.

Looks at shelves.

Good boy, Stufful! Keep up good work!

Berries are all based on particular fruits and vegetables, so seeing Berries for sale in a produce aisle just makes sense.

One thing that kinda amazes me is that Berries have never been sold for Poke in any mechanical store.

Be that as it may, that Slowpoke isn't doing anything else with its turn. Just as long as you're meeting your quota on your shift.

Various pastas on this shelf. Not sure what makes the Goodra ones so special, but these are based, in order, on a crab, a snail, and a fugu fish. What these have to do with noodles, I don't know, but I don't like Qwilfish noodles.

Just beneath the noodle display is a Hypno to attend to.

...Uh... no? That just sounds... creepy?

...

Yeah, no, know when to fold 'em.

Somebody get this guy out of the value store, though.

Dangit, a scammer. Still, though. Don't mess with real Hypno.

And yes, I maintain you should leave this place. If not out of courtesy, out of the fact that most people looking for discounts aren't looking to use their savings on donations.

With that said, the 1000 Poke donation does score us the TM for Rest. Rest is a Psychic Status move that fully heals the user and inflicts them with the Sleep status (even if they already had a non-volatile status ailment). It is the only move that fully heals a Pokemon- most moves that allow you to act the following turn are only 50% heals- and it only works if you can fall asleep (ie, you cannot have an Ability that blocks sleep, you can't use it during Uproar, etc.) Nothing says you can't have a Berry that wakes you up, though.

Nice to have, and definitely cheaper than the TMs on sale in the Poke Marts...

...So is he an employee or a scammer? I'm still a little lost on that one.

Well, see if I ever donate again.

You can buy things from the various clerks here (no queues, what miracle is this?), but this Veteran is not a clerk.

...Now that is an odd request. Guess we're coming back as a Champion, then.

The first click from the left sells only Poke Balls we've seen before, and as mentioned, those are the sticker prices seen in Poke Marts.

As part of the process of purchasing items from the Megamart, we actually spend the cost it would take to make the full purchase.

We are immediately refunded the difference between the sticker price and the actual purchase price, but I'm fairly sure that this interaction we cannot make purchases that would put us below zero of the sticker price, even if we could afford the same purchase at the discount price.

You know, real value stores don't have this part of the problem.

And I think we get as many as we want, so this is the place to go for Timer Balls. I can't really recommend any of the others- we're getting to the point where Nest Balls are losing their power.

...This woman might actually be suffering from that!

The next clerk sells the basic tier of all the other useful supplies- so, not that great, you're largely going to want the more pricy stuff. Although if you care about bang for buck, Potions bought here are probably the best HP recovery compared to Poke cost.

The third clerk sells an item that was first found in XY. It was given by a Backpacker who claimed it came from a hitherto unseen region. In USUM, she sells five.

I find it weird that it's still called the Strange Souvenir despite ostensibly being something from Alola. I would have made it actually mean something, with that buildup. If it was meant to be a joke, I'd have leaned into that.

This guy hands out free samples of several berries, one a day, with the set he can choose from having been chosen almost absurdly at random. Despite this, however, I somehow managed to get the same result with all three of Bethany, Ailey and Ray. This also wasn't a "day of the week" thing- I didn't do Ray's run on the same day.

(I forgot to check this guy when I came here with Noah.)

Kanto region? Kanto has never been a Berry growing region! Besides, "fresh from Kanto" in Hawai'i? But still, Tamato Berries are probably the best thing you can get. The full list of Berries is Rawst, Oran, Bluk, Sitrus, Mago, Pinap, and Tamato, and regardless of which one you get first, the one you get tomorrow will be the next one along the list.

Of the three we have not yet encountered, Bluk and Pinap are useless for combat purposes, existing only to be grown and used in Pokeblocks and Poffins. Razz, Nanab and Wepear Berries served the same purpose to complete the set of flavours, but these Berries are impossible to acquire in Alola. Tamato Berries, meanwhile, have a very important effect: They raise a Pokemon's friendship when used, "but" lowers the amount of Effort Values it has in the Speed stat by 10 The set of six Berries this belongs to are almost exclusively the sole means of lowering Effort Values in the game. We can get the full set of six Berries later, but this is a nice place to get Tamato early for our tanks. Pity it's not Grepa or Qualot, though.

Again, Melemele has fields to get fresh ones from.

For some reason, I think of the door on the right as an entrance and this one as an exit, but they both serve both purposes. I think this is just an instinct I adopted from my experiences with real-life shops, many of which have the entrance on the right and the exit on the left. Similarly, I prefer to walk up to the cashiers from the north, as if I were actually in a real shop.

This one might be a real Hypno, though.

Thanks. Feels a little odd, but considering the lore, she probably genuinely means that one.

We have finally made it to Route 7! This place... is pretty empty. You see that Trial Barricade on the other side? That will take us off Route 7. That path to the west? Not Route 7.

That path to the west is where the Trial is. We're going to be looking around out here some, though.

Route 7 itself: "Just a bit of beach, really."

No comments in general?

Nice tip, I guess...

Hidden litter item that reappears here sometimes.

The water around here is fairly large and has four Swimmers to fight, as well as items to collect. There are two new encounters here- one found by Surfing and one found by Fishing. All four files struggled finding that Surfing encounter despite it being allegedly 20%.

There is also an Island Scan Pokemon here, a Spheal with Aqua Ring in SM and Belly Drum in USUM on Mondays.

Zygarde Cell here. I think there's also a hidden Star Piece in this alcove, although I only really found it in the USUM files- maybe that's because its a replacement for this Cell? Or maybe I didn't look too hard for a second treasure after grabbing the "visible" Cell.

This is over to the west of that Cell, just north of the beach where you could get in to the water from. This place loops around on itself in a way that makes more sense from the map.

There's a sandy path up here with six holes in the walls, with visible encounters burrowing from one hole to another. They will always go in a straight line to the middle, along the middle, and then in a straight line to their target hole- unless they intend to go to the hole directly opposite.

They will always be Diglett. I am told these Diglett are capable of dropping a Big Root item, something some of my files would appreciate, but which I am content to pass up until the reliable source.

Litter item up here. There's a fishing hole just to the east of me, but I don't think I can fish from it from on top of this cliff. Sometimes you can, but this one seems to be a bit too high for the game to like it.

You can just about see the female Swimmer up there. I don't want to fight her yet, but I think her vision might catch me if I swim from here. Better launch from the east.

...Sure, I guess...

This swimmer stands here and does stretches, but she's possible to avoid. Just remember that, when she touches her toes, she can see you through her legs.

I find I get the best luck finding bubbles in this fishing hole in SM.

Staryu (Ultra Sun): In many places, there are folktales of stardust falling into the ocean and becoming Staryu.

Ah, another old favourite from the RBY meta, Staryu. A pure Water type for now, it will turn into a Water/Psychic type on evolution. Staryu has high Speed and decent Special Attack, high enough in both to turn it into a terrifying sweeper in a meta that was scared of the combination of Psychic, Ice and Water attacks it could unleash. In the modern day, though, its Special Attack is a smidgen too low to continue that reputation, although that allows it to have surprisingly decent bulk for a sweeper, and it has junk for Abilities- at least Tauros got Intimidate. You can hardly go wrong with Staryu in a casual playthrough, though, particularly in vanilla SM, where it gets access to its endgame STAB moves early. As a stone evolution, it can have problems with that otherwise.

Staryu's Abilities are Illuminate (makes wild encounters more likely) and Natural Cure (cures non-volatile conditions when switched out of battle). Natural Cure, since it does something, is far superior, but they both stink. Its HA is Analytic (boosts its power when it is the last to act), which is a good Ability, but not one that belongs in the hands of a Pokemon whose highest stat is Speed.

Staryu have a 50% chance of holding Stardust and a 5% chance of holding Star Pieces. Not bad for money, although there's an easier place to find them if you want them for that purpose.

In SM, this island has the TM for the move Thunder Wave. We're pretty familiar with this move- it is an Electric Status move with a 90% accuracy that applies Paralysis on any opponent is able to hit (so, not Electric types, Limber havers, or Pokemon immune to Electric moves). We've mostly seen it on the Electric types Pikachu, Flaaffy and Magnemite so far, but you'd be surprised what can learn it with the TM.

USUM replaces it with the TM for Double Team. This raises the user's evasion by one stage with no negative effects, like Minimise, and this is a global TM- the only things that can't learn this are Pokemon that aren't supposed to learn moves like Magikarp, Caterpie and Smeargle. How this move is loathed in any serious matchup.

Both TMs aren't available too much later in the story for either game- SM gets Double Team sooner than USUM gets Thunder Wave, but the difference isn't too large. I'd say the big thing with the T-Wave delay is that it prevents us from using it on the next two Totems.

Pyukumuku (Sun): It lives in shallow seas, such as areas near a beach. It can eject its internal organs, which it uses to engulf its prey or battle enemies.

Pyukumuku is a sea cucumber, and may also be based on the sea bunny that Japan was starting to get fond of around the time of SM's release. It is a pure Water type built to tank, with high Defences (and middling-to-low HP), no Speed, and a movepool with one rather unique comment: There is not a single direct attacking move to find here. Pyukumuku learns a wide assortment of useful support and status moves, but the only moves not categorised as Status in its set are Bide and Counter, which rely on the enemy dealing damage to redirect it back at the opponent. Oh... and this counts TMs, Tutors and Breeding, by the way. If you're using a Pyukumuku, do not count on a fast fight.

Pyukumuku's only normal Ability is its signature, Innards Out. When it is KOed, it will inflict damage on its opponent equal to the amount of HP it had before the final blow was landed. Because Pyukumuku is built "high defences, low HP", this usually doesn't turn out as devastating as it sounds- winning a fight with Pyukumuku is better done in a "death of a thousand cuts" kind of way, and Innards Out wants to be devastating on a Pokemon that can be oneshot. It has a HA in Unaware, which makes it ignore any stat stages that would make the opponent do more damage to it than otherwise entitled. While certainly not terrible, it only does so much for it.

Don't you just love when a Pokemon Safeguards after the status ailment has landed?

Before I fight the Trainers, there is a Pokemon that is going to be added to the team, and I want it to benefit from some of the EXP on offer in Route 7, so I'm going to collect the Wela Volcano Park new encounters. There are five Pokemon available here, each one of them hitherto unseen in Alola- rather surprisingly, there are no new ones in USUM or with Island Scan. I guess they knew they already had enough options.

It's Cubone! Although Cubone is a pure Ground type now, it evolves into a different type entirely as an Alolan form, making it a Ghost/Fire type in this game. In its evolved state, its highest stat is Defence, with a decent Atk and Sp. Def (not supported by the greatest HP) and some low Speed. It makes a fairly terrifying physical attacker if it has access to its unique hold item, but for the most part, that can only be found as a 5% find from Cubone. On top of that, Ghost and Fire are not types particularly well-known for access to good physical STAB, and Cubone suffers huge from not getting access to the Move Reminder for some awful reason. I will actually be using a Cubone in one file, but it won't be one caught here in Wela.

Cubone's Abilities are Rock Head (does not suffer recoil damage) and Lightning Rod (makes it immune to Electric moves, forces Electric moves to target it, and raises its Sp. Atk if it's hit by one). Lightning Rod wasn't too great outside its redirection properties outside Alola, but since its evolution isn't a Ground type, it likes getting a spare immunity. Rock Head changes to something pretty bad on evolution. Its HA is Battle Armour (critical hits are impossible), but that also changes on evolution... to Rock Head. No, I don't get it either.

Fletchling (Ultra Sun): While it's an amiable Pokémon, if you touch it unexpectedly, it will heat up its body in an instant, and you'll be burned.

Fletchling is the resident three-stage bird of the Kalos region, and in what might be a surprise to everybody at the time, it was the first time it broke the Normal/Flying rule for that family. While Fletchling itself is still Normal/Flying, it evolves into a Fire/Flying type for its final stage. Fletchling is fast, but the rest of its stats are merely OK- this thing suffers a lot in its home game because XY actually has Charizard to compete with it on a typing front. With that said, Fletchling has a HA that terrified the XY meta.

Fletchling's only normal Ability is Big Pecks, which makes it immune to having its Defence lowered by opponents. Not great, but it turns into someting else on evolution- although that was hardly any better. Its real prize, of course, is its HA, Gale Wings. Unique to its evolutionary family, Gale Wings applies +1 priority to any Flying type move in its kit, which allowed it both terrifying sweeps with Brave Bird and even annoying sets benefiting from priority Roost. The competitive balancers nerfed it this gen, though, so it only works if you're at full HP at the start of the turn. Still good, but hardly worth hunting for.

Magby also appears in person here, the first Pokemon that actually starts as a Fire type we've found here, and one that stays a pure Fire type the whole way through. Magby achieves its final stage with a trade evolution, but its middle stage isn't terrible for the main story's purposes. The big thing you get out of it is it being one of the few Fire types to learn Thunderbolt to terrify Water types with. Magby in general is built to be a Special attacker with decent Speed, although it does lose some of it when it evolves to the final stage- another reason to stick in the middle some. Also worth commenting- despite Magby being a Baby Pokemon, it can't summon Happiny in SM, although it can summon its evolved stage. They fixed that for USUM.

Magby's only normal Ability is Flame Body, which gives Pokemon that attack it a 30% chance of being Burned. Nice for much of the same reason Static is, what makes Flame Body better than Static is its more popular field effect. If a Pokemon with Flame Body is in the party, the amount of Egg cycles needed to hatch an Egg is halved. Not so great in the main story, but essential for Breeders. Its HA is Vital Spirit, making it immune to Sleep. Er... sure?

That was my 25% threshold in the Alola Pokedex, although there doesn't seem to be a comment about it. Weird.

Salandit (Sun): It burns its bodily fluids to create a poisonous gas. When its enemies become disoriented from inhaling the gas, it attacks them.

This will be Bethany's new teammate. Salandit is a Poison/Fire type added to the Alola region, and it has a fierce Sp. Atk/Spd combo to distinguish it from Woodstock despite the shared Poison typing. Salandit itself is fairly weak and doesn't evolve until 33, which will be a bit of a pain, but Salandit does have its perks where it counts. Sadly, Poison/Fire isn't quite as synergistic as it wants to be. There's also one more gimmick to the line, and one that might pose a problem, depending on your luck.

Salandit's only main Ability is Corrosion, its signature (until a Paldean Pokemon got it). Up until now, I have said, truthfully, that Poison and Steel types are immune to the Poison status ailment. A Pokemon with Corrosion is able to bypass that. It cannot inflict Poison on Pokemon that are protected by Safeguard, Immunity, or some other means of blocking the Poison status, but if type is the only thing in its way, well, it don't care. Its HA is Oblivious- while really funny in the "Abilities it wishes it had" sense, is terrible for normal purposes. Maybe if it blocked Captivate, too- Salandit is uniquely weak to Captivate.

Normally, I don't comment on gender, because Pokemon is content to ignore it too. Salandit is one of those exceptions- only female Salandit are capable of evolving. This is not the first time Pokemon has pulled this trick- DPPt's Combee did it too- but it is frustrating, particularly because Salandit evolves later and is generally more useful than Combee. With Combee, you're kinda expecting evolution to be worth noting. Both Combee and Salandit are frustrating to collect because they also share a 7:1 gender ratio, so you're more likely to find a male than a female by a significant margin.

This was my first Salandit.

I think that deserves a Premier Ball.

...OK, seriously, that was my second Salandit. Are we apologising for Bagon and Pyukumuku, or should I be worried about the 10% encounter I hope to catch on the next route?

(It's worth noting that, with S.O.S., you can find Salandit's evolution in USUM. Not in SM, though).

This one's not Bethany's luck, but I forget who did get this. The Smoke Ball is a 5% find on Salandit, and it is an item that, if held by a Pokemon, grants it a guaranteed escape from a wild encounter, regardless of trapping effects. Annoyingly, we won't get the freebie until much later.

Kangaskhan (Ultra Sun): Kangaskhan protects its child by keeping it in its pouch. It has zero forgiveness for those who harm its child and will beat them down.

Kangaskhan is a pure-Normal type that is popular among RBY players, although it wasn't as great as Tauros was in its home metagame. A single stage with both great bulk and good Atk/Spd stats, though, and it does splendidly at any role you require of it in the main story. It's a Pokemon I love a lot too, although considering my backup files (the ones that allow classic Pokemon that appear in the original SM Dex) are using Snorlax and Tauros, I struggled and ultimately failed to fit this one on the team. Sorry, Mama Bear.

Kangaskhan's Abilities are Early Bird (halves the amount of time it must spend Sleeping) and Scrappy (allows it to hit Ghost types with Normal and Fighting moves). Scrappy is encouraging as always, and while Early Bird is not that great in a game with Sleep immunities, it's still not terrible, and allows it to use Rest. Its HA is Inner Focus, to make it immune to flinching.

Kangaskhan is a single-stage Pokemon, and does not and has never been evolutionary related to a normal Pokemon. However, certain glitch Pokemon in the original Gen 1 have been known to evolve into Kangaskhan, which in early days, raises suspicions that Kangaskhan and the Cubone evolutionary family were originally planned to be related. To our current understanding, this was never the case, and the reason the glitch Pokemon evolve into Kangaskhan is because of Kangaskhan's index number (it was one of the first Pokemon designed, having an index of 2). Kangaskhan appearing in Cubone's S.O.S. chains may be interpreted as a cute nod to this theory, but the official explanation is that Kangaskhan is a Mama Bear to all lost children (its Shield entry even says it will adopt a human child if it finds one), and in addition to the baby in its pouch, it will violently protect baby Pokemon of any species it encounters, and happens to encounter Cubone often because Cubone often loudly cries.

In addition to being found in Cubone S.O.S. chains, it can also be found normally... at a 1% rate. The Cubone S.O.S. chain might actually be the easier method, especially if you're using a Gastly- Cubone only know Normal and Ground moves. 1% encounter rates aren't great, but I like examples like this where they exist, but they can be subverted in a manner that makes sense with its lore. Kangaskhan can call for help from other Kangaskhan, but I'm not sure if Kangaskhan found in a Cubone chain can.

Since it's relevant, I should mention that, despite its Sun and Ultra Sun entries, Cubone can't call for help and summon Mandibuzz. While Mandibuzz is available in the Alola Pokedex in both games (it's the evolution for Vullaby), it is a Moon exclusive, and I guess they didn't want to subvert that for cool lore without giving something equivalent for Braviary, and there were no options? Shame- I would have loved more examples of predation.

Making great use of that accented e character. Flambebe doesn't have great stuff to start with for the most part, although it does have one surprisingly powerful move in there- Dragon Rage. Dragon Rage is a Special Dragon move with a unique offensive property: It will always do 40 damage. While we are no longer in the stage of the game where our opponents are scared of this being a oneshot, we are still in a stage of the game where this can be a twoshot. Don't forget that, in the right situation, this might actually do more damage than one of our normal moves. For now.

Time to start cleaning up the Trainers, and all their miscellaneous Pokemon. Of the four Swimmers on Route 7, Dakota, in the first pool of water, is the only one with two Pokemon in both games.

In SM, he uses Surskit and Dewpider, a good chance to use a Flying type instead of your Water counter.

Switches to Basculin and Psyduck in SM. That Basculin can be terrifying at this point in the game- note that it's Rock Head and knows Take Down.

...Sounds good, but do they not have that? I'm confused by what exactly the difference is between these two competitions.

I mean... this is a public beach. I'd suggest Kala'e Bay, but I've also been there, so, you know, not much help there.

Alomomola in both games. Fortunately, slightly less disturbing than the Swimmer with her Corsola.

She actually caused Zapple a bit more grief than I was expecting. She is still a competent single stage compared to the humble Pikachu. Sometimes, the power of Pikachu thanks to the anime and all the alternate Pikachu forms gets one to think the real deal has the stats to go toe-to-toe with things without evolving. No, not really.

The number of things the yellow-bikini female Swimmers say with that pose and manage to sound slightly disturbing just keeps getting greater and greater.

Well, there's no shortage of those.

Strength and endurance. You can't stop swimming until there's ground for you to stand on.

SM gets a Mareanie encounter to add it to its Seen logs! In USUM, he has the Surskit instead.

It's a weak offensive Pokemon, it's weak to Ground, why not, let's have Murphy take point.

Turn 1: I deal most of its HP, it sets up for a switchout. It would probably have more of a foot to stand on if my switchout wouldn't have happened before the Spikes went out.

Turn 2, the expected result occurs. Mareanie's one of those Pokemon I always think has the Poison Point Ability (the Poison equivalent to Static and Flame Body), but no, it does not. Stomp away.

Surprisingly, no Pokemon in the SM Alola Pokedex has Poison Point. They added one for USUM, though.

Now that's a move for Dottie! Feather Dance is a Flying Status move that inflicts -2 Atk on an opponent. It's probably the only move that could really replace Baby-Doll Eyes and Intimidate as a "you don't get to hurt me" strategy against Totems.

...OK, you do have to look at that for longer than a few seconds for it to parse, but that is a grammatical sentence. Even if most people would have phrased it "Toned muscles flex spontaneously". Considering the male Swimmer's intro pose is a flex, it's an accurate one.

You have a point, but that's not the point. Even the most finely honed strategy only works if everyone involved is capable of making the moves selected for them.

...Lady. I am in front of you.

The weirdest part is that she's actually trying to stop us exploring this little island with the bubbling fishing spot and freebie TMs. Ostensibly.

In USUM, she only has the Shellder. Not sure why they took her second off her.

I thought this would be a good chance for Oatchi to show off his power.

Skill Link Icicle Spear. Frankly, the fact that it took all five hits of the x4 Icicle Spear for Oatchi to go down says more about Oatchi than it does about Shellder.

Right. Flambebe, you want EXP, let's earn some.

...Next turn.

There we go. Resistance to Fire and Smog being a 30 BP 70% accurate jobber move doesn't mean much in the face of a move that would nearly oneshot you. (At level 18, a Shellder with a 12 IV or lower in HP would be oneshot by Dragon Rage, but this one has 15.)

Her second mon in SM is a Corsola, and Murphy takes point again. I'm not sure what it has, but both of its types are SE on Salandit and Corsola has plenty of HP to take a Dragon Rage.

Don't worry, I already looted it. You can have the place to yourself. Hell, I probably got rid of the nosy Trainers. Onto the Volcano Park.

Starting with this litter item in the second grass.

Did you notice the Trainer Tips sign to Beth's immediate east? I didn't.

Ailey scoped it out. A nice reminder of that nifty Free Space feature- any item in your Bag can have its location reassigned to the Free Space pocket, so you can look in there and find only items you care about.

As a neat fun fact, if you assign an item to be placed in this pocket and then acquire another copy of the item, the text will actually change to say "You placed the item in your Free Space pocket" instead of the pocket the game assigns it to.

Our first Trainer is just before we get in, and it's SM's first encounter with the female Sightseer design.

Mariah is the Sightseer with the Kantonian Meowth I alluded to when I pointed out Perdita kinda already did that. Oh well, there are only so many Alolan forms that need to turn up.

...All of a sudden, K9 getting Screeched for -2 Def seems more worrying.

Eeyup.

Owowowowow... that brought me to 1 HP. And Meowth is faster, so it wins-

...K9, you are a queen.

I think part of the reason female Sightseers caught on was because this was the losing quote of the first one. This is peak social media hen behaviour, and the juxtaposition between the dialogue and the pose (which, on top of being a "taking a selfie" pose, actually has the sort of expression someone would wear when taking a picture in this situation) makes it jump out immediately. Add in an actually cute design and no wonder she took off.

I'll be doing that Trial in not too long, just hang in there.

Now then, let's discuss Wela Volcano Park, a gigantic volcano cave. In series history, there have been many long caves to plunge into and explore thoroughly, possibly getting lost in the maxes of various twists and turns. We're at roughly the point examples like RBY's Rock Tunnel, DPPt's optional Wayward Cave, or XY's Resolution Cave started cropping up. Kiawe's Trial is at the top of a volcano.

Well, we can't accuse that cute Seismic Sister of lying.

There's a weird thing with caves and Pokemon design going on here. Caves are common, they're considered an essential part of the formula... but they're often inconveniences to the player, and a significant investment of their funds is to buy Repels to shrug off the "inconvenience" of an always-on encounter rate. Compare this to other RPGs, where dungeons are intended to be tests of endurance, and Repel item equivalents are much rarer "get me out of here" emergency buttons at the cost of valuable EXP. Pokemon naturally struggles with this idea from the words "Power Points". Watching various dungeon opportunities in SM slip by, and seeing the continued decline of such locations in SwSh and SV (to the point that SV doesn't even have an Escape Rope item anymore), one wonders if their absence is less "the developers don't want to spend the resources designing them"- hardly an invalid theory- and more "the developers realise more readily than most players that players don't actually want more caves".

The fact remains, though, that not even having an interior to this volcano was a bit excessive.

Your full heal is appreciated, but is not helping the whole "what happened to that interior" point.

Note that, to get to here from Royal Avenue's Centre, the only danger we encounter is two short patches of tall grass and a Sightseer with a Meowth.

You know, I think there is another question to be raised here- there's actually more to Wela Volcano Park, but the way she phrases this line implies the tunnel we just used to be a shortcut back down. I wonder if the real mixup made here is "the devs decided, for some reason, to make the shortcut the main route and the area with all the interesting content the part you go down the mountain with". In hindsight, while there's not a lot of extra stuff, the buildup this NPC's existence hints at would probably have been satisfied had we travelled through that entire path, not just the starting area.

Ah, there's the NPC who reminds us what Fire's weaknesses are. Water, Ground and Rock is a complete list, while Fire-type moves are NVE against Water, Rock, Fire and Dragon types.

If we didn't just get 20 Water types, I'd be more worried. I will warn you, though, both SM and USUM make substantive use of a non-Fire type in the Totem.

This is starting to reach "suspicious" levels.

Zygarde Cell on the way back down.

And this is a bit of a painful item to mention. Charcoal is the 20% item for Fire moves, and this is a perfectly normal place for it.

USUM exchanged it for a Float Stone. They moved the Charcoal somewhere absolutely ridiculous. I don't get why.

Another of those jump-cut paths, and I'm getting a definite vibe that we should be climbing this mountain by circling around those rocks that are blocking the path behind both Seismic Sisters here.

I have no idea what you're doing here. Well, frankly, the three of you feel like you could be gushing about cooler volcano facts, but also why are two out of three of you discussing the same tunnel, when we could only possibly approach this tunnel from one direction?

Anyway, now for a Trainer that feels like he should be on the main route, here's our first regular grunt Ace Trainer.

And his signature Ace, Kadabra. Kadabra is what many Kanto Trainers found him to be: fast, powerful, and makes good work of anything not resistant to Psychic. As an Ace Trainer, Jim has made investments in it- it has a 30 IV in Spd and has custom moves, Psybeam and Disable. Didn't need the rest of those anyway.

Disable doesn't work when you're the one going first, mate.

Jim has upgraded to two Pokemon, leading with a Noibat before going into Kadabra. I can't really say the Noibat helps him hard-counter Darks, but it does make a nice trap for Trainers who remember this Kadabra from SM. It knows Wing Attack, Bite and Supersonic, and both it and Kadabra have a 30 IV in both their respective offense stat and Speed. No EVs or Natures in either game, though.

Oh yeah, Illusion totally lets you pull these shenanigans on Psychic types, even against Trainers who "should know better". To be fair, this Kadabra doesn't exactly have other options even if it knew this was a Zorua.

...Come to think of it, how does an Illusioned Anna pull off a Scary Face with someone else's face?

Nice charming joke here- Ace Trainers are always the closest equivalents to PCs among the enemy Trainer Class roster.

And, almost a little late, Snaggletooth finally achieves its evolution to Gumshoos! May it continue to be a Normal type solution to loose ends until it finally gets phased out by being the wrong type. Or not.

This also happened to Melia when she evolved into Kadabra, but if the first Pokemon you log as Caught in the Pokedex is Shiny, even if you have seen it non-Shiny, the entry that is logged will be the Shiny. I believe I can change it so that the non-Shinies are displaying despite not owning a non-Shiny Gumshoos, but I'd sooner change it so they're both Shiny.

Don't worry, Blaine, we have Burn Heal!

Also on this mountainside, the TM for Rock Tomb! Rock Tomb has 60 BP, 95% accuracy, and is a Rock Physical move that lowers the opponent's Speed by one stage. Keen-eyed watchers are probably asking what's the difference from Bulldoze? Aside from being single-target, not much, although it was worse than Bulldoze from its introduction in RSE to the BW games. Presuambly, it got buffed in XY because ~~it was the prize TM for the Rock Gym Leader~~ the devs realised it was literally an inferior Bulldoze to basically everything that learned it, even the Rock types. It's still less accurate, though.

...Right. I kinda forget this, because both Murphy and Paul have Bulldoze, but we don't actually have that TM yet. We just got lucky to not need it.

This precarious spot is good for the Poke Finder, allowing shots of Cubone, Salandit, Fletchling, Fletchling's evolution Talonflame during the Day, and Magby in USUM.

Now that's a man who knows his life goals.

Although he has two mons in SM, he lost his spare in USUM. I'd joke he gave it to Jim, but it's clearly not the same Pokemon.

Woodstock's going for the slow and steady approach for Roggenrola. Mainly, I want him on standby for the Totem.

And if it turns out he has better ideas, good for him.

It's a lot harder to win by accuracy cuts if you're already suffering from both Poison and Infested. Woodstock already has time on his side.

His spare is a Machop. And that in-between pose is pretty neat.

Razzly gets a chance to show off. She won't be good on the Totem, for what turns out to be multiple reasons, but she is pretty good for the next one...