My Rowlet solo run
showed me that defensive 'Mons with a reduced offensive move pool can
nonetheless be decent solo run material; and in the wake of that discovery, I
suddenly needed to tackle a male Meowstic solo run. The deed didn't seem
so impossible after all, especially considering how shamelessly easy X and
Y are.
No sooner said that done; I stuck my still unplayed Y cartridge into my
3DS and before I knew it, I was roaming Route 6 and hunting for Espurrs. I must
confess that I actually had this wild fantasy of attempting to cruise Kalos
with a shiny male Espurr—nevermind
the fact that I never ever encountered a shiny 'Mon in any of my Pokemon
playthroughs. However, after it took me roughly two hours to capture a
dozen male Espurrs, I realized how futile this hope was and moved on with my
run. Now, why capture so many Espurrs, you may ask? Well, because I wanted to
take advantage of another feature I had failed to take into account until then;
and that feature is none other than Pokemons' Natures. See, I wanted to give
myself as good an edge as possible and to compensate for my future Meowstic's
unavoidable weaknesses by choosing the most fitting Nature. I didn't go as far
as to hunt for a specific Nature, mind you; I recruited a bunch of Espurrs and
chose the one with the Nature that best fitted my purposes. The lucky winner
turned out to be an Espurr with a Quiet Nature, which was quite a good bargain
considering that Meowstic's Speed is fairly high and could thus tolerate a bit
of lowering; and since Meowstic's most powerful offensive moves are Special
moves, an increase in Sp. Attack was definitely most
welcome.
The ensuing
run went incredibly smoothly and was pure delight from beginning to end.
Despite the fact that male Meowstic does indeed has a ridiculously tiny
offensive move pool, I managed to end up with a quartet of offensive moves
belonging to four different Types by the end of my run, which was more than I
had dared hope for and allowed me to handle pretty much all battle situations.
Since this is Pokemon Y we're talking about, my Meowstic obviously
reached the big 100 level-wise before the credits rolled and could take care of
the Elite Four without breaking a sweat. Now that's a job well done, especially
for a defensive 'Mon.
Cruising Kalos again right after Alola was a bit of a trudge, I must admit. The
fact that you simply cannot get rid of those cursed roller blades is
infuriating, and the sheer abundance of towns in Kalos still doesn't sit well
with me. And gosh, Serena is the less stimulating rival ever. Not only
did she seem less than enthusiastic to spar with me, but her incredibly
sorrowful expression at the end of battles made me feel horrible for repeatedly
beating her. I want my Pokemon rivals to rile me up, damnit, not to make
me want to hug them and rub their back after every fight! Good thing Game Freak
ditched the rival pattern entirely for Sun and Moon instead
of offering yet another half-hearted rival.
On the other hand, playing Y right after Sun made me realize how
painfully slow the latter is. I knew that already, but being thrown on
Kalos' roads literally two minutes after starting the game really drove the
point home. And we're not talking solely about the general pacing: battles in Y
are also ten times snappier and brisker than their Sun and Moon counterparts,
with their endless intros and slow-emptying life bars. On the other hand, Y
sports considerably more of these annoying caves full of Zubats, and I was none
too happy to be reunited with them. The swift and flowing pacing also
deteriorates in the second half of the game, which is way too drawn-out for my
taste. So if I had to pick up my favourite pair of games between X/Y and
Sun/Moon , I'd still choose the latter over the former despite
their diluted pacing and combat that feels likes you're battling through
molasses.
I actually wonder if Game Freak may
have been somehow testing the waters with X and Y before
rehauling the Gym system in Sun and Moon. The Gym distribution in
Kalos is quite unusual when compared to former entries, with Gyms seemingly
popping up randomly in towns—so randomly,
in fact, that I always lose track of the number of Gyms I've cleared at some
point and invariably end up surprised when I'm told that I can now challenge
the Elite Four. Gone is the rock-solid and long-enduring "One Town, One
Gym" pattern, and in its place comes a much less linear repartition of the
game's famous eight milestones. Could this more haphazard Gym distribution have
been envisioned as a way to break the traditional Gym mould and subtly
introduce players to a different structure while gauging their reactions, or is
it just me reading too deep into matters? We can't know for sure, but I really
fancy thinking that Game Freak had things mapped out long before the first line
of code for Sun and Moon was even written.
With that, I'm done with my male Meowstic solo run. It was an incredibly
pleasant run that made me want to attempt even more solo runs with 'Mons that
may be considered poor solo run material at first glance. Thanks for
reading, and be my guest anytime!
6 comments:
Kumiko5 February 2017 at 16:08
If you want another challenging solo
run (assuming you're not sick of pokemon for a while), try one with a staler. X
and Y even have a really good early pokemon to do it with: Bulbasaur. It's
grass/poison typing give it natural access to a lot of the moves preferred be
stalers, namely leech seed and toxic, and it has access to a few moves that
counter both its weaknesses thanks to TMs. In nuzlockes, this type of pokemon
is extremely reliable, able to eventually take out anything your remaining team
can't handle as long as the rival pokemon is not strong against it. They can
save a team from many deaths and survive a lot of otherwise "oh crap"
moments. Given that I currently only play pokemon with a nuzlocke challenge,
sometimes with further restrictions like a wedlocke, level limit or no items, I
have a gained an appreciation for these pokemon. Bulbasaur even became my
favourite gen 1 starter, surpassing my childhood love of Charmander. Pro tip:
stick earthquake on it to deal with fire types and either hidden power
(fighting type) or rock smash to deal with ice types. The two remaining moves
can be toxic and leech seed, and the item you use can be leftovers for extra
security.
In a solo run I can see them making the run a bit more challenging, or at the
very least a bit more lengthy. But I recommend you to try nonetheless, if only
because it seems you haven't played around with status effects much. The next
step up from that would be playing around with buff/debuff moves, a necessity
if you ever try a run with a level limit.
Isleif6 February 2017 at 06:31
Thanks a lot for the advice! I'll
keep Bulbasaur in mind for a future solo run. Since I'm not planning to replay
Blue any time soon, it would indeed be a neat idea to tackle a Bulbasaur solo
run of X or Y instead.
I'll make a confession: if I can get away with playing RPGs in general and
Pokemon games in particular without resorting to status effects and buff/debuff
moves at all, then I'll gladly do it. The reason is simple: I don't like these
moves, which I deem too sophisticated and roundabout for my taste. That's why I
solely focus on offensive moves in Pokemon solo runs, even when playing with
mainly defensive Mons. Blame this love for brute force on the fact that my
first foray into RPG-dom was made through super-simplistic Action-RPGs à la
Landstalker.
I don't think I would ever try a Pokemon solo run with a level limit. Not only
is overlevelling pretty much mandatory for a successful solo run, but I play
solo in Pokemon mostly to bask in the glorious feeling of being able to blaze
through the game. ^___^
I'm not a big fan of the Pokémons
from X/Y's generation but Meowstic is one of those whose design I absolutely
adored from the beginning. Except the pre-evolution, which is really unnerving,
with those big dead-like eyes. What moves did you end up with on your Meowstic?
And encountering Shiny Pokémons or, even worse, PokéRus is an exercise in
frustration. The odds are way too low, something like less than 0,0001% if I
recall correctly, although they bumped it up starting with the X/Y games. I
still remember when I encountering my first Shiny back in 2000 and something, a
golden Oddish. I thought it was a bug so deleted the save and started over and
then no one at school believed me the next day. Good times.
Ironically enough, I've encountered PokéRus several times over the last 2
decades playing Pokémon, which has even worse chances of finding compared to
Shiny Pokémons.
Isleif7 February 2017 at 14:34
I ended up with Thunderbolt,
Psychic, Disarming Voice and Hidden Power (I unfortunately don't remember which
Type it was). These moves were rather weak overall, but they were the best
choice available in terms of Special Moves. Disarming Voice got me out of a
bind more than once despite its low power; Thunderbolt, on the other hand, was
an uninspired addition that I soon came to regret. With hindsight, I should
have hold onto the move I erased to make room for Thunderbolt, i.e. Psyshock.
It was more powerful than Thunderbolt, not to mention that it gained a power
boost thanks to the Type matching. Oh, well; this mishap sure didn't prevent me
from finishing the game, now did it? :P
Wow, you met a Shiny and didn't capture it? And you deleted your save file to
boot? Now that's hilarious!! But didn't you, like, tear your hair out when you
learnt what had actually happened and what you had missed? :P
I'm not sure I'll ever encounter a Shiny, to be honest. I mean, I only ever
encountered one Legendary Pokemon in the wild, and they are much more common
than Shinies... But gosh, I sure would have loved to play with a gorgeous
golden shiny Meowstic! ^___^
I have to agree, that sounds like a
very lackluster movepool. Well, it's not like X/Y are hard anyway, so you have
a greater leeway using sub-par Pokémon and/or movepools.
To be fair, I was around 10/11 years old back then and the internet wasn't
exactly an accessible place like today, otherwise I'd google what the hell was
that. And, in hindsight, I was pretty dumb because I'd already had catch the
story's shiny Gyarados in a prior save but didn't make the connection. Oh
well... :p
Shinies are really, really, REALLY rare. There some ways to trick the newer
generation Pokémon games into increasing shiny rate, though. I never tried
since there's really no advantage to getting a shiny but I admit there's always
that feeling of accomplishment of finding one legit Shiny in the wild.
Isleif8 February 2017 at 12:00
I've read here and there on the
internet that Tipping increases the probability of encountering Shinies in X
and Y, but it's never been confirmed.
If I encounter a Shiny in any of my future solo runs, I pledge myself to
capture it and clear the game with it, no matter how far I've come. *hand on heart*
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