Here's a giant update for the end of Pokemon Sapphire's main story. There will be a postgame post eventually.
The next route was a rainy one, further emphasizing GameFreak’s favoritism to Water types. Explaining weather conditions in full would take up several pages at least, so for now, think of rain as “buff to Water attacks, debuff to Fire attacks”. Lilycove City didn’t have a Gym for some reason, but it did have Brendan waiting outside the department store to challenge me to a final battle with him. He shouldn’t have bothered. His Swellow, Numel, Wailmer, and Grovyle all died in one hit. No Sceptile after the 6th Gym? No Wailord or Camerupt either? What is wrong with you, Brendan? Or maybe he’s attempting a low level playthrough and failing. Team Aqua’s Wailmers blocked the path to the eastern sea. This meant May had to backtrack to Mt. Pyre, a Pokemon graveyard. One trainer inside mourned his Zigzagoon, which makes me wonder how long Pokemon live.
At the summit, Archie stole the Red Orb and fled to the Team Aqua hideout in Lilycove. May backtracked again and beat up all the Grunts easily. At least they tried to justify their weakness by saying they were “stalling for time”! Admin Matt was another unremarkable fight with a Mightyena and Sharpedo. Mightyena’s Swagger powered up NOWEAKNESS’s Shadow Ball to finish it off.
Archie then set off with his stolen submarine to try to find the legendary Water Pokemon Kyogre. May’s next move was to Surf to Mossdeep City to take on the next Gym Leaders. Yes, that plural form was intentional, as you’ll see in a bit. Steven was waiting inside his house and handed the Dive HM to May. Neither of my HM Pokemon could use it, so May fished for a Sharpedo.
Mossdeep’s Gym was Psychic type, which might have been difficult if it had existed in the 1st generation where Psychic Pokemon effectively had no weaknesses other than Bug moves with terrible base power. In the 2nd generation, the Dark and Steel types were created to counter Psychics, so NOWEAKNESS had an overpowering advantage. One hit with Shadow Ball destroyed the trainers who used the Natu, Abra, and Ralts lines, and a Faint Attack defeated a wise guy who thought the Normal/Psychic Girafarig could stop May. The Gym Leaders Liza and Tate were twins who refused to battle me if I didn’t have two Pokemon. I tried taking HM MULE out of the PC and making it faint to a wild Wingull, but Liza and Tate wouldn’t accept having an unconscious Pokemon as a partner. Fine! I’ll use a Revive!
To mimic a solo battle, I had HM MULE use a useless Normal attack on NOWEAKNESS. A Psychic from Lunatone knocked out the Zigzagoon on round 1 after Sableye beat Solrock with one Shadow Ball. Another Shadow Ball on the following turn ended the battle. Being level 58 before the Elite Four is a bit too much for the AI. This battle may have been easy, but I’m very fond of Double Battles. It’s disappointing that you don’t see more of them in the main series, especially because Double Battles are now the Nintendo-sponsored competitive format. Liza and Tate gave May the Calm Mind TM and the ability to use Dive outside of battle. Calm Mind is a great buff for specially oriented Pokemon because it boosts Special Attack and Special Defense simultaneously.
One area that I’d forgotten about was the Shoal Cave to the north of Mossdeep City. There’s a tide gimmick in the area based on the clock battery. Since mine is long dead, there’s no way I can complete the quest to get the Shell Bell, an item that heals you for a percentage of the damage you deal. It’s also one of the few cold places in Hoenn, so if you’re looking for Ice types, this is the place to visit.
Getting to Sootopolis City and the final Gym required Diving underwater to get into its volcanic crater. Along the way, I made sure to catch a Relicanth underwater. Why? It’s involved in a quest later on. . .Anyway, when May made it to Sootopolis, she found a karate master who gave her the Brick Break TM. According to him, “It’s a move so horrible that I can’t describe it”. Fortunately, the game describes Brick Break for us. It’s a 75 base power Fighting move that also destroys enemy Reflect and Light Screen. I was so happy to get rid of Rock Tomb and its stupid base 80 accuracy! GameFreak hasn’t created any Pokemon that resists both Fighting and Ghost as of Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Maybe in the 8th generation, they’ll make a Normal/Ghost type?
The Gym was locked, so May had to find Team Aqua in an underwater cave. The Grunts and Admin Shelly were weak as usual, but Archie was probably the hardest fight for NOWEAKNESS in this whole playthrough. He lead with Mightyena, whose Intimidate prevented a one hit KO from Brick Break. It also knew Swagger, a move that both confuses an enemy and raises its Attack by two stages. Confusion damage is based on Attack vs. Defense, so a high Attack can cause a lot of damage to yourself if you fail the coin flip chance to attack normally. NOWEAKNESS hit himself several times with Confusion, and Mightyena’s Roar sometimes wasted turns switching out to one of my HM users. Crobat knew Confuse Ray to cause even more annoyance. Archie’s last Pokemon was Sharpedo, which was easily defeated by a single Brick Break.
Archie revived Kyogre with his Red Orb, but it started to rain far more than he desired. To prevent Hoenn from being flooded, May needed to go to Sootopolis City and confront Kyogre at the forbidden Cave of Origin. What would a Herman Gigglethorpe playthrough be without killing off legendaries with bottom-tier Pokemon?
May descended into the Cave of Origin, and the screen shook the further she went in. The music stopped when she reached the bottom floor with Kyogre. The fight began when May activated the Blue Orb, and I thought it would be a bit harder than it turned out to be. Kyogre has the Drizzle ability, which summons permanent rain unless someone changes the weather. Drizzle is so good an ability that it lifted otherwise mediocre Pokemon like Politoed and Pelipper into the “Overused” tier when they acquired it. Combine a team-friendly ability with legendary-caliber stats, and you have a Pokemon that ruled Ubers for several generations. The AI is extremely stupid for wild Pokemon, so I stood a chance with NOWEAKNESS. On the first turn, Kyogre buffed itself with Calm Mind. Then it blew any chance of victory by using Body Slam. Body Slam on a Ghost type is sure going to show me, Kyogre! Three Shadow Balls were enough to put Kyogre back to sleep and save Sootopolis. Who needs legendaries when you have a level 60 PU Pokemon?
Wallace’s Gym had mostly Water Pokemon with a level range in the low 40s. NOWEAKNESS Shadow Balled most of the random trainers, and Brick Break on someone who thought she was clever and used a Normal type Azurill. The Gym puzzle made me wonder if it was intended to be an Ice Gym early in development, because it involved stepping on all the ice tiles in the correct order.
Wallace was a bit more challenging than his female fans in the Gym basement. He led with Luvdisc, which died to one Shadow Ball because it’s a joke Pokemon. Whiscash could have been annoying, but NOWEAKNESS got a lucky critical hit with Shadow Ball and knocked it out in one shot. Sealeo was Water/Ice type, and that meant a super effective Brick Break. Seaking barely survived a Shadow Ball and used Rain Dance. For once, the AI used tactics! Seaking must have had Swift Swim, since it outsped me in the rain on the next turn and tried to confuse NOWEAKNESS with Water Pulse. It failed, and a Night Shade softened Seaking up for the Shadow Ball when Wallace healed it with a Hyper Potion. The defensive Milotic was the last opponent, but even that couldn’t take two Shadow Balls.
After beating Wallace, the only plot requirement was for May to become the Champion at Ever Grande City. Before that, it was time for a bit of backtracking. She Surfed southwest to Pacifidlog Town, and NOWEAKNESS gained a few levels from the swimmers along the way. Pacifidlog is another interesting Hoenn town. It’s built on a coral reef, and the residents give some clues about Hoenn’s legendary Pokemon. The currents are strong to the west, so you can only get to it from the eastern side of the ocean. Someone handed May the Return TM there. It’s a bit late for the staple Normal attack TM, GameFreak! (Correction: You can get Return earlier by handing the Meteorite to Professor Cozmo after you beat Team Aqua at Mt. Chimney.)
One boy asked May “Where did you come from?”. The only possible responses were YES and NO. Answering YES made him think May came from Yes Town, and choosing NO generated the response “No? That doesn’t make any sense. You have to come from somewhere. Oh! Wait! You’re not going to say you were born at the bottom of the sea?”.
After reaching the final town in the game, I needed to catch a Wailord for the same reason I needed Relicanth. Why? You’ll find out in the postgame. It was easy to find, because it was the first random encounter while May was Surfing on Route 129. After that, the only place left was Victory Road and Ever Grande City.
Hoenn’s Victory Road was similar to other Victory Roads, but it wasn’t as visually interesting as Vast Poni Canyon or Unova’s Victory Road. It required most of May’s HMs to get through, especially Strength, Surf, and Rock Smash. It was a dark cave too, so Flash helped. The trainers tended to carry Pokemon in the 40s level range, and NOWEAKNESS couldn’t one-shot all of them thanks to his lousy stats. They were still mostly easy. Wally appeared at the end to challenge me with his improved team of Altaria, Delcatty, Magneton, Roselia, and Gardevoir. Altaria took several hits to beat due to its high defenses and Wally using a Super Potion. NOWEAKNESS karate chopped Delcatty and Magneton with Brick Break. Shadow Ball took care of Roselia and Gardevoir.
Before taking on the Pokemon League, May bought some supplies and managed her inventory. One of the annoying things about the older Pokemon games is the limited inventory space. It isn’t like Etrian Odyssey where each item takes up one slot in an effort to prevent overuse of healing items. It’s the more annoying version where you can carry ridiculous amounts of Full Restores, but one Rare Candy won’t fit in your inventory. I had 6 Rare Candies left over, so NOWEAKNESS went up to level 74 with these stats:
HP: 181
Attack: 146
Defense: 117
Special Attack: 127
Special Defense: 124
Speed: 120
Sidney was the first Elite Four member, and his preferred type was Dark. There’s never been a Dark type Gym in a Pokemon game, but there have been several Dark Elite Four members (Karen, Sidney, Grimsley). Yes, the Dark type is “Evil” in Japan, but the games emphasize that Pokemon are only evil if a trainer forces them to be that way, so it doesn’t make much sense. Giovanni was both the villain and the Viridian City Gym Leader of the original games, so it’s not like GameFreak is averse to an “evil” Gym Leader. Alola doesn’t have Gyms, so I guess GameFreak thought a Dark type Kahuna was fine.
All of Sidney’s Pokemon were weak to Brick Break, so one karate chop took out Mightyena, Sharpedo, Cacturne, Shiftry, and Absol. Perhaps he should have considered adding a Sableye? The only “difficulty” during this battle came from Mightyena’s Intimidate forcing me to use an X Attack on the first turn to undo the debuff.
Next up was Phoebe, the Ghost type member. Ghosts are weak to their own attacks, so guess what that meant. Shadow Balls bowled over two Dusclops, and two Banettes. (Ghost was a very rare type for Pokemon then.) The greatest difficulty came from, ironically, a fellow Sableye! Shadow Ball from NOWEAKNESS wasn’t enough to take down his rival with one hit, and the enemy Sableye responded in kind. Two Night Shades defeated the doppelganger after Phoebe healed it with an item.
Glacia was more difficult than the first two, despite having even less variety than Phoebe. She was an Ice specialist, and she only had the Spheal and Snorunt lines. Lorelei from the Kanto games had more than that! Ice is a rare type in the Pokemon series, and Hoenn is a warm region. NOWEAKNESS’s subpar stats were beginning to catch up with him here. The first Glalie and Sealeo barely survived a Brick Break, and caused residual damage with Hail. Hail was new at the time of Sapphire, and is a weather effect that makes all non-Ice Pokemon lose 1/16 of their max HP per turn. Hailstones and Blizzard attacks kept making May feed Hyper Potions to Sableye so he could stand a chance. Is Sableye a good candidate for a no item solo run? NO!
Using a Night Shade before Brick Break helped to get around Full Restore healing. Another Sealeo and Glalie went down, and Glacia sent out her strongest Pokemon Walrein. Walrein could take away almost half of Sableye’s HP with Blizzard, and Hail damage meant he would die in about 2 hits without healing. A Night Shade and a Brick Break eventually clubbed the walrus to death.
Drake the Dragon master was the final Elite Four member. Like Phoebe and Glacia, he suffered from a low variety of Pokemon and had to use several from the same line. He led with Shelgon, the defensive middle form of Bagon. Starting with Rock Tomb lowered NOWEAKNESS’s Speed for the rest of the fight. Two Night Shades were enough to crack its shell. Next came Flygon, an annoying opponent. It used Sandstorm to inflict residual damage similar to Glacia’s Hail, and paralyzed Sableye at least twice with Dragonbreath. Dig allowed it to dodge an attack too. The Night Shade and Shadow Ball combo worked. The second Flygon and Altaria weren’t as bad. Salamence came with Intimidate and Fly to cause trouble. Trying to predict the AI’s Fly turns was useless, because it seems to act randomly at times. An X Attack undid Intimidate, and a Shadow Ball combined with a Night Shade slew the dragon.
Steven was the last opponent, and it was nice for a recurring character to be the Champion. In Pokemon X, you see Diantha only once in the game before it goes “Surprise! This character you barely know is the final boss!” Steven had everything the rest of the Elite Four lacked, including a decent variety of Pokemon. He led with a Skarmory that knew Toxic. Toxic doubles in strength every turn unlike the regular Poison status, so NOWEAKNESS was doomed for sure without Full Restores. Night Shades were needed because Skarmory was one of the best physical defenders in the game, and it resisted Faint Attack.
The Bug/Rock Armaldo was scary because it received a buff to all its stats from a lucky Ancientpower. Night Shades and Shadow Balls sent the fossil back to the museum. The Ground/Psychic Claydol set up Reflect and Light Screen for his team, but its Ghost weakness made it die to a Shadow Ball after Night Shade. Using Brick Break on the Steel/Rock Aggron not only capitalized on its weakness, but also destroyed Reflect. No, I wasn’t clever enough to think of Brick Break’s Reflect dispelling property at the time. Cradily also had Ancientpower, but it didn’t get that lucky buff to all stats. Brick Breaks smashed the Rock/Grass fossil.
Steven’s strongest Pokemon was Metagross, a Steel/Psychic spider with a 600 base stat total and only Fire and Ground weaknesses. Its signature move Meteor Mash made NOWEAKNESS lose more than half his health, so he never would have survived without an X Defend. Meteor Mash also has 80% accuracy, so a few misses gave me time to heal. It took 3 Shadow Balls to scrap Metagross because its Defense was so high. And after that came the shortest Hall of Fame scene ever! The play time was a little under 14 hours, but it was really less than that because I was writing these updates as I was playing.