Been a while, I know. The truth is, I got caught up in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and basically avoided LeafGreen for a time. As a general rule, I try to keep one active game per system - setting LeafGreen aside to play Kingdom Hearts was an anomaly, but it points to the lack of compelling content in LeafGreen. When I was deep in Sapphire, almost nothing could sway me from its grip (over 150 hours!) LeafGreen just sort of skates along in Sapphire's wake. In fact, I'm kind of steamrolling through LeafGreen now so I can get to Minish Cap.
Tri-Island recap. Lostette: Home. Islands' narrow-minded Kanto prejudice: eliminated. Pokemon PC storage system: Fixed. Me: Returned to Cinnabar.
Continuing on the continent's clockwise sweep, I swam north for a glorious return to Pallet Town. But I wasn't really interested in a homecoming; Pallet is a rural suburb of Viridian City, the true goal... for now the Gym is open.
After sabotaging his plans back in the Rocket Hideout, Giovanni goes back to his day job as a Gym Leader. I levelled him, and Blastoise's Surf did most of the work. We must have some kind of gentlemen's agreement, because I made no effort to tell the authorities that Viridian's Gym Leader is actually the leader of a notorious crime gang. I must have felt sorry for him since the battle was so one sided. The puzzle paths in his Gym are lame too.
After polishing Giovanni off and receiving my eight badge, I'm now equipped to head to Indigo Plateau for the ultimate championship challenge.
I guess this is intentional, but it sure seems inconvenient. The only way to Indigo Plateau and the Pokemon League headquarters is through a long empty forest path followed by a deep underground cave maze. The greenery section is devoid of conflict, but the cave - Victory Road - is the usual mess of wandering trainers and random battles. I did catch a wild Marowak and Sandshrew though.
There's more boulder-shoving inside Victory Road, and judging by the number of trainers apparantly lost inside the maze, I have to wonder why the League doesn't just bulldoze a tunnel straight through. I guess it keeps out the riff-raff. The notion must be solid, for both Johto and Hoenn have since adopted the big obnoxious cave for their own League building front yards.
Now is when I need to consider who will be on my winning team. The Blastoise and Gengar are a given. The Growlithe (evolve already!) and the Snorlax are likely. I may keep the Gyarados in for some easy EXP so I can push him to higher levels. My trusty Meowth is out, however. His role is that of sneakthief and cutpurse, not as a champion battler.
So who to bring in? One of the Legendary Birds seems obvious as they are all at level 50. The next closest fighters currently lounging in storage are the Marowak and Sandslash I just caught, both in their mid-40s. Like the Gyarados, I have a bunch of pokemon in the upper 30s waiting for a chance to shine: a Machamp, Persian, Weepinbell, Rapidash, Tentacruel and Magmar.
Given that I'm committing to a water-type (Blastoise), fire-type (Growlithe), ghost-type (Gengar), and the big normal-type staller Snorlax, it may be wise to throw in the grass-type Weepinbell instead of my Meowth... and then either stick with Gyarados for his dragon-type attacks or dump him for a total weenie who I want to evolve. Or forget about the weaker guys and fill out the roster with the Zapdos and Articuno... but it seems cheesy to rely on the Birds to carry me through the Championship since I've done nothing with them up to this point. We'll see how the battles go before I call on the Birds to bail me out. If this League runs like the previous Elite Four sequences in other games, I won't hit real trouble until halfway to two-thirds through.
Time: 41:26
Badges: 8
Pokedex: 89 (Seen: 137)
Party: Growlithe lv47, Blastoise lv54, Katamari (Meowth) lv39, Gengar lv59, Gyarados lv38, Snorlax lv49
