This is a part of series about my current/recent playthrough of Pokémon Pearl. While some Fan terminology and some more advanced techniques will be mentioned, this post or a previous post will provide a summary of said topic.
Day 3
After I leave Jubilife City, on the way to Oreburgh City, I bump in to Barry. And Barry wants a Battle. It was a close thing as Turters is currently the only one who can really fight him, but being at both a numbers and type disadvantage. Both Starly and Chimchar are Flying, and Fire types and both are effective against Grass types like Turters the Turtwig.
The fight end up being turned around by using the Potion I had picked up on a earlier route, as I was one hit from being taken out, while I needed at least two hits to win.
The Route to Oreburgh City goes through a short Rock Tunnel. As I Travel though a Hiker points out some piles of fallen Rock in the path, and tells me how to get rid of it, using the Pokémon move: Rock Smash. To perform this move you need to beat the Orreburgh Gym.
The wild Pokémon was no issue for Turters, as he now learnt several grass type moves that was super effective over the local Rock and Ground type Pokémon.
Upon reaching Oreburgh City Entrance, I get welcomed by some kid, who takes me to the Gym. However the Gym is closed, as Barry has already beaten the Gym Leader Roark. Barry also tells that the gym leader has gone in to the local mine to train, and he won’t be coming out until the next trainer arrives.
So one Trip down in to Oreburgh Mine is in order, which has most of the same Rock and Ground type Pokémon as the previous tunnel. It we soon find Roark in the mine, and he shows off Rock Smash move and how it can be used outside of battle. He also agrees to battle us.
After a trip to the Pokémon Centre, I’m ready to Challenge the Gym. As Oreburgh Gym is a Rock-type Focus, currently Turters is the best candidate to lead this challenge, I got some back up by catching some local Machop, that live around the north Entrance to Oreburgh City.
It turns out a very one sided battle, with us clearly winning against Roark. We earn our First badge. As a Prize, Roark give us a copy of TM76 -Stealth Rock.
Mike’s Thoughts
Two topics for this one: Gyms and TMs.
The Pokémon Gym system is pretty much standard for all games, where they’ve had a Gym Challenge for every main line game, baring the 7th Generation aka Sun and Moon games.
Roark is third in a line of Rock Gym being the first gym in the game. Roark’s ace Cranidos is a Glass cannon compared to the other two members of his party. There have been more then one occasion where Cranidos has wiped the entire team. Also, at this time of the game, there was no way a player could have seen Cranidos, or even catch one. For a new player this is a big challenge, made even more harder given that this is one of the few brand new Pokémon to the series, at the time. (Cranidos is a version exclusive and limited to the Underground, which the players will not have access to yet. We’ll cover the underground in the future.)
This game is the last time that TMs where single use. TMs back in Diamond and Pearl that worked identically to how the Sword and Shields TRs work today. Unlike TRs which one can try to obtain more of the same TR, most TMs in this game only had one source for a single TM, and one use per TM. This often force players to Hoard TMs, just in case it will become useful later.
TM76’s Stealth Rock is actually one of those Moves that actually became useful later, as the effects really changed the meta game of the Competitive/Online Battling. During Normal story gameplay, Stealth Rocks was nearly useless as most battles didn’t have the other Party swapping, assuming that the other side had more than 1 Pokémon. However it got really powerful in the Smogon meta game. Until HeartGold and SoulSilver where one could buy TM76 Stealth Rock, the only way to get more TM76 was to restart the game, but most players would only need less than an hour to get to beat Roark, and trade the TM over. Here’s a video about Stealth Rock.
Just to give how powerful it still is in Sword and Shield, Most TR are powerful moves, and Stealth Rock is TR76.
This bring me on to another topic, which I’ll be covering next week: Online or the current Lack of it.