Medic Plays A Real Pokemon Game for the First Time – Part 13

I need fairy types. Like, right now. I don’t have a single one with me and I need some. Coming up next was the Dark Gym in Spikemuth, and I have pretty much nothing available to take the gym down. So I need to go and do some farming. And the first thing I do is go to Ballonlea, because that’s where the fairy gym is. I’m almost certainly going to find some fairy types there!

Well, not really.

I find some. But I also find a ton of psychic types, most notably Galarian Ponyta. Such a pretty pony. It makes me sad that Galarian Ponyta isn’t pure fairy, because it doesn’t look like pure psychic. Galarian Rapidash is half psychic, half fairy, but that’s been done already with Gardevoir. And not only does Galarian Rapidash exist, we also get the Gen 8 Hattrem that evolves into Hatterene, that evolves exactly the same way. Normally, that’d be fine, but I’m fighting a dark gym, I don’t want my Pokemon taking extra damage when they don’t have to. However, eventually, I find two Pokemon, Morgrem and Shiinotic, two fairy types with secondary typings that are a bit less painful. Morgrem evolves into Grimmsnarl and is a dark/fairy type, which will be pretty useful since dark resists itself.

I also grabbed some sort of fighting octopus that could clearly swim but was a pure fighting type.

Now it was time to level them all up. I’ve been looking everywhere for the best place to level my Pokemon. I tried using the high level Pokemon in the wild areas, but they don’t respawn quickly enough. So I find myself grinding on the route before whatever town I’ll be fighting in. It’s slow but consistent.

Eventually, I am satisfied with my team’s levels and make my way back to Spikemuth. I’ve already let myself in because of the secret path, but now I’m inside and ready to do the challenge. Except, there isn’t one. You just fight a couple of Team Yell grunts, and a handful of gym trainers wearing Team Yell disguises. Honestly, this was pretty refreshing. The Mr Mime blocking the path is quite annoying but all you have to do is beat some Team Yell guys to get past.

Once I’ve managed to get through to the main room, I find myself in what might as well be an inner city basketball court. Piers, the gym leader, challenges me to a fight. One without Dynamax shenanigans.

Kudos to Piers, his team is actually quite interesting. Especially the Skunktank he uses at the end, which blocks off most of my fairy Pokemon. He ends up dying to Charm the Salazzle though.

One thing I’ve noticed though, I don’t seem to need to power my Pokemon up that much, since my two mains are far higher. Both Charm the Salazzle and Grohl the Rillaboom are over level 50. Piers’ team was mostly 42-45, which is where my fairy and fighting types were level-wise as well. But even though Rillaboom is weak to poison, he could still just tank hits, and his attacks hit hard because he’s 5-6 levels above Piers’s team.

Either way, I beat Piers. Then Marnie, who is actually Piers’ little sister, battles him. But not before explaining why she doesn’t want to take over the dark gym. It’s quite cute, and the whole relationship is similar to Hop and Leon. Speaking of Hop and Leon, as I exit Spikemuth, there’s big crashing sounds. Leon is outside and telling me to be careful, then runs off. So I race my way back down routes 7 and 9 and run into Hop. Amazingly, he doesn’t want to challenge me, and he wants to know what’s going on too.

Apparently Pokemon are Dynamaxing at random, and Leon has been defeating them to return them to normal. He and his Charizard are working overtime clearly. And the adults are all of the opinion that I should just focus on gyms.

I probably should, actually. All that’s left now is the Dragon Gym. And I’ve already got some Pokemon in mind for that battle…

Part 0
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13 <- You are here
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Part 19
Part 20
Part 21