Warlords Battlecry 3 [3] – Gorgon and the Three Keys

March 30, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

Dux, the Ssrathi Assassin

Another weekend is here, which means I’ve spent another day on and off Warlords Battlecry 3. Switching my hero to an assassin was definitely the right move and the game is a lot of fun for me now, especially since I can complete missions a lot faster, so I can advance the game a bit every time I can squeeze in another fifteen minutes or so.

I don’t think I’ll ever max out some of those titles and ranks.

Dux is now level 29 and I think I won’t put any more points into Assassination. I have a 30% chance to outright kill my target with every swing and I swing about twice per second. Odds are, if I tackle an enemy here, they will be dead five seconds within the encounter at worst. Now, I need raw damage, so I can start taking down buildings just as fast.

Well, after doing some research, I found out Assassination doesn’t actually outright kill anything. Instead it adds 500 extra damage to an attack, so I guess I might have some trouble at higher levels. Still, I’d prefer to keep my hero more interesting and not just invest into a single ability.

Etheria Wikia – Warlords Battlecry 3 – Assassin

Since I don’t have many useful abilities other than Assassination, I decided to now focus on Wealth, which increases my gold income by 15 per minute for each point invested, as well as Running, which increases speed by 1 with each point invested.

The Retinue

I haven’t been paying as much attention to my retinue as I did last week, mostly because all I need my generals for now is mine conversion, since my low Charisma gives me a horrible command radius. For those unfamiliar with the game, this probably needs explanation.

How to Get Resources in Warlords Battlecry?

There are several ways to earn income in Warlords Battlecry. You can learn a skill which increases your income with one of the four resources. You can build unites which provide income in a resource. The primary way to do it, though is to convert neutral or enemy mines on the map. You do this by standing next to a mine and using the “Convert” command. This command converts any building within range, including enemy bases and unit training facilities. It doesn’t convert towers, walls, quest buildings or shops.

You can see the command radius and a couple of converted mines here.

What is the Command Radius in Warlords Battlecry?

The conversion range is tiny for most units able to use the command. For the hero, the range is bigger and it’s determined by the command radius. The command radius is a stat represented by a circle around your hero. Friendly units within that circle gain a morale, speed and combat bonus and the hero’s conversion command works on buildings within that radius. Items and the Charisma attribute are what increases this radius. The speed of conversion, on the other hand, is affected by Dexterity.

My Basic Strategy in Warlords Battlecry 3

In any case, my hero’s Charisma is low, so my radius is terrible. Because of this, I usually take a general or two into battle with me, to help me convert mines faster. Once I convert a couple of mines for each resource, I start hunting down enemy heroes. If I think I need protection, I command my generals to guard my hero, so they follow him, but I don’t control them as a group, to make use of my hero’s fast walking speed. You see, when you control a group of units in Warlords Battlecry, they move at the speed of the slowest unit.

Once I hunt down enemy heroes, I either take down their bases myself or I build up a large group of Fire Priests and use them to destroy everything. This works on most levels.

The Campaign

Last time, I failed hard at the Wastes, looking for Gorgon, the fifth horseman. This time, I wasn’t a complete idiot, so I cleared the mission and found Gorgon’s iron fortress. The game then sent me back to Khazdul, where I head to fight some Dark Dwarves to gain audience with their Runelord. He finally told me what I needed to do. I need to find the three keys of Gorgon’s fortress, defeat Gorgon and lock it inside the fortress. Then, the Runelord will use a spell to bury the fortress underneath the wastes. I wasn’t told where the keys are, but at least now I sort of know what’s going on in the game’s story.

Warlords Battlecry 3 - Gorgon´s Fortress

Whenever I get to an important part of the story, I get stuff like this.

After that, I did some business with the High Elves and allied myself with them in the area of Lunarion and Ehlariel. They have a problem with the Dark Elves, so allying myself with one side meant going to war with the other.

The Garb of Tyatis

Next up was the island where the Dark and the Wood Elves lived. There are three areas here where I can find pieces of an item set – The Garb of Tyatis. One of them meant fighting and angering the Wood Elves, so I skipped that one, mostly because I got that item already from a random Dark Elf ambush. Another piece had me fight the Dark Elves again, so I was fine with that. What I wasn’t fine with was that the item was meant for magic users, so it was useless for me. Since the third piece of the set was guarded by Knights, I decided to just drop it, since I probably won’t be using the set anyway.

More Barbarians and the First Fortress Key

I got through the islands of the central sea, so I decided to circle back North to see if I missed something. I got ambushed by Barbarians along the way, but I didn’t find much, especially at the Plains of Ar which turned out to be completely empty. At Ylarie, I helped the High Elves defend against Orcs and got another artifact as a reward – a Frostwyrm Pelt. This gives me an extra 15 frost resistance.

My artifact collection is getting bigger.

Next up, I got to the Lands of Death, where I helped Lord Bane defend against a siege by Gorgon’s forces. The reward for this battle was the first of the three fortress keys, as well as a chance to ally myself with Bane. I didn’t accept this, though, since I was told the Knights wouldn’t like it and I’m trying to be the good guy here, sort of.

After getting the key, I went back to the Barbarian area, around the Plains of Ar. At the Gap of Ar, over the course of two missions in which I fought the Minotaur, I recovered two of the five fingers of the Hand of Sartek. I then found two more at the Plains of War and the last one upon returning to the Plains of Ar. This gave me one more artifact – the Hand of Sartek, which gives my hero 8 extra Combat.

The Humans and the Dwarves

The last thing I did was to go the Knight lands, but I didn’t find much there yet. I did get into an extremely annoying mission – Troll Hunting. This one takes place on a map full of “neutral” trolls and, pause for effect, sheep. The joke of this game is that trolls, which usually hurl boulders at you, can pick up sheep and hurl them instead. Basically, on a map with sheep, they can get limited, but extremely powerful ammo. I’m not sure if sheep bypass armor or something, but Dux was getting hit hard on this map, so I had to take it extremely slowly. Since the goal of the map was to kill all 40 “neutral” trolls, it took me a while to get through.

Trolls also ambushed me after the mission. On a bridge!

After that, I scouted through several areas of the human and dwarven lands, but found almost no missions, other than replayable ones. As for the Dwarves, they hate me now, so I’ll have to find a way to get back on their good side, if that’s even possible. The irony is, the Dark Dwarves actually kind of like me. Well, not really irony, just fact.

Anyone Else Playing This Game?

I’ve done some googling to see if anyone else is blogging about this game. I always thought it had a lot of fans, but this doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. I mean, sure, there are wikis and old fan sites, but not many people are actively creating new content. I found a review and a mod which I intend to check out, but that’s about it.

Oh, by the way, the CRPG addict is actually playing a game I know off, so I strongly recommend visiting him.

The CRPG Addict – Knights of Legend

Babel Rising [2] – I Didn’t Like It [COMPLETED]

March 27, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

I invested two more hours into this and today, I managed to complete Babel Rising. First, let’s get one thing out of the way…

How Many Levels Are There in Babel Rising?

Fifteen. There are fifteen levels in this game. Considering the amount of actual content it has, that’s about ten to many. All you ever really need are one level for each of the four elements and one level where you can freely pick two out of those four and use them. Maybe one or two levels added to that, and that’s about it. Everything else in Babel Rising is just padding and completely unnecessary.

Finally! Now just leave me alone!

Other than the fifteen campaign levels, there are three more survival levels with two degrees of difficulty per level.

Does Babel Rising Get Any Better?

It doesn’t. All the way to the final level, you are limited in which two powers you can pick and nothing new is ever really added to the game. At one point, siege towers are introduced which approach the central tower and spawn workers and priests, which start at already higher levels. At one other point, special sequences are introduced where the camera switches to the nearby sea and you use fireballs to destroy approaching ships. None of these two things add anything to the game.

The final level. At this point, the objective really pissed me off.

The only thing that really changes is that the level objectives take longer and become more annoying to achieve. That’s it.

How Long Does it Take to Complete Babel Rising?

Steam says “3 Hours Played”. As soon as the game was over, I took a quick look at the menus to make sure I’m not missing anything and then I left it. I’ll tag it as completed in steam, uninstall it and try to forget about it.

I’m sorry, but Babel Rising is not at all a good game and even the developer approaching me in the comments won’t change my opinion. Babel Rising is uninteresting and unfun. There’s nothing saving it. There’s a DLC for it, called “Sky’s the Limit”, but from the description, it just seems it adds more padding and nothing substantial.

Oh look, another completely irrelevant and empty addition.

So why did I complete it? Because it didn’t take long, it was pretty to look at and I just had an itch to get it over with. I’m weird like that. I’m sure some of you can name a game that did the same to you. I’d be interested to hear about it, so feel free to mention it in the comments. The silence is sort of starting to bug me 😀

So yeah. I’ve completed the game, but It didn’t give me enough to write about, so you get this. I’m sorry.

Babel Rising [1] – I (Don’t) Like It

March 26, 2013 by Nikola·2 Comments

A while ago, UbiSoft had some sort of special deal on their site where you could get a certain amount off of most of their games. This meant that you could actually get Babel Rising for free and it included a Steam key. This was nice of them, and I truly appreciate the gesture. They have a bad reputation on the PC and it seems like they’re trying to restore it.

One thing is for sure – Babel Rising is a pretty game.

That being said, I don’t really like Babel Rising. I tried to like it. Since it seems like a relatively short game, I might even try to complete it. I just don’t enjoy it. It seems like an interesting idea, but it needs more than what it is right now.

Babel Rising is sort of like a tower defense game, except you don’t build any towers. Instead, there’s a bunch of villagers trying to build the Tower of Babel (or one of the two other structures you can unlock) and you, being an angry god, use your powers to punish them and prevent their success.

Sounds pretty cool! I bet there’s a lot of powers you can use!

Not really. As far as I can tell, there are four elements with three powers each, Two of those are used regularly, while the third is a chargeable ultimate attack you can use a couple of times per level.

But I bet those powers get upgraded!

Wrong again. Well, to be fair, I might be the one that’s wrong, since I’ve been playing for only a couple of levels. Still, in those couple of levels, there were no upgrades at all. I got to try out all four of the elements and I got to pick two out of four to carry with me into battle, though on the levels I played through, I didn’t really get a proper choice, since I could only pick two specific elements on each level.

Earth and Fire are the first two powers you unlock. By level 5, you unlock all four.

What about the multitude of funny looking enemies?

I’ve seen a total of three enemy types in the first five levels. There are regular villagers or builders, who just climb up the tower and build it further. Then there are priests. These create a protective shield around them which blocks a single element, so you have to use another one to break through. Finally, there are cursed jar carriers. They climb up the tower for a while, carrying a jar, eventually drop it and a while later, the jar disappears. If you hurt them or the jar, you get punished by having one of your six powers blocked for a certain amount of time.

That “Restart” button makes me think I missed something.

So what’s good about it?

The game is very pretty and nicely designed. It would probably work great on a tablet and it’s obviously made for that. It’s just not deep or engaging. As I said, the idea itself is great, the incorporation of physics into the mechanics works amazingly well, and overall, it’s nicely polished. I’m sure a lot of people would like it. I just need more from my tower defense game. From what I’ve seen, this is just an exercise in clicking.

So no more Babel Rising?

That being said, Babel Rising just might be short enough for me to complete it. I got through 5 levels in about an hour. I know there are at least five more, though there might be more than that. I tried some light googling, but I couldn’t find out exactly how many levels are there in Babel Rising. If I do get through it, I’ll be sure to write this information down, since I’m sure there are other people wondering about it to.

I managed to win a few levels with my ultimate powers still doing their thing.

I know there can’t a lot more than ten levels, since with the five I’ve unlocked, I got 3 out of 12 achievements and unlocked two out of three Survival levels, as well as an extra difficulty in Survival Mode. I also got to try out all four of the elements.

There might be just 10 levels in total, or at most 15. I’ll try to find out, but I can’t make any promises.

Pokemon Platinum [7] – The Sinnoh League [COMPLETED]

March 25, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

Pokemon Platinum is hard! This is something that absolutely needs to be said. Cynthia, the League Champion of this game, actually has all of her Pokemon around level 60. Level 60!

You Need to Evolve in Pokemon Platinum

Suffice to say, I had to do a lot of training. This time, I actually used the Exp. Share for training as well, hoping to get Gible to a high enough level so he’d be useful, for once, but even at level 50, I did not get a chance to use it properly. In fact, even Pikachu was for the most part useless, not to mention Buizel. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but the stat gap between unevolved and fully evolved Pokemon in Pokemon Platinum seems to be far bigger than in the previous games. My level 55 Pikachu had about 130 HP, while my Torterra reached 200 with a lower level.

Thanks to Surf, Buizel was easy to train at the Victory Road.

Aaron and Bertha Are Easy

It didn’t take long before I was consistently able to beat Aaron, the first of the Elite Four and a bug user. Once Infernape got to the mid-50s, it could sweep through Aaron’s entire team. Soon after that, I could also sweep through Bertha, a Rock user. My Torterra was able to handle it, but I was also able to use Buizel here, once its speed got high enough to make it act first in battle. Before that, though, a single hit, even with a type resistance, would often nearly kill it.

If You Can Get Through Flint, You Have a Chance

Flint, a Fire user was the first hurdle I needed to get through. He was also the one I couldn’t get through until I got Buizel to the high 50s. Once I managed to do that, I was able to sweep through his three weaker Pokemon. His Magmortar and Houndoom gave me trouble, though, Magmortar far more so. I really couldn’t find a way to beat it without abusing items.

I finally beat you, you bastard!

Once I got through Flint, Lucian was relatively easy. I didn’t really have a proper type advantage against any of his Pokemon, but by using Flame Blitz, I could still sweep through most of them, thanks to Psychic Pokemon having low physical defense.

Cynthia is Hard!

Finally, I got to Cynthia and by this point, I decided to win it, no matter what. Most of my Pokemon got close to or even beyond level 60 thanks to my many failed attempts, so I was able to survive a hit or two on occasion. I used these opportunities to generously throw items at my team, mostly Revives and Hyper Potions.

I think Cynthia is my favorite Champion.

Cynthia’s Milotic and Garchomp and Togekiss gave me the most trouble, in that order. The other three, I basically one-shoted, but these guys burned through almost my entire Potion and Revive supply. I pretty much had to wait until their strongest moves ran out of PP before I could even act. Once they did, though, that was it. I won!

A Cheap Victory

Yes, it was cheap. I threw money and items at the League instead of winning it by grinding. I can live with that. Grinding is simultaneously my most- and least favorite part of Pokemon, depending on my mood and the general situation. In this instance, I just fought random battles for so long already, I didn’t feel like doing it any more. It’s not like playing for a couple of more hours would somehow made me more skillful or smarter, I just wouldn’t need as many potions.

It looks like I lied. I didn’t get even close to the 60s with most of my team. My memory is bad.

In any case, there’s only one generation left, and this one will be tough to incorporate into the challenge. As far as I understand it, the anime didn’t get to the League yet and we already have two games for the generation, with a next generation game (Pokemon X & Y) already announced. I’ll see what I can do. I might just go with Black 2 or White 2, since it technically is an upgrade of the first two, kind of like Platinum was an upgrade for Diamond and Pearl, etc. Sure, the story is a bit different, but it’s no more or less true to the anime. Right?

Warlords Battlecry 3 [2] – A Restart, An Assassin

March 24, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

I Restarted the Campaign

So yeah. My High Elven Archmage was absolutely not fun to play. There’s no point to having access to more than one or two magic schools, really and I kept losing him in battles because he was squishier than an Ancient Wisp. Being forced to babysit something that’s supposed to be your most powerful unit makes Warlords Battlecry 3 not very fun. Because of this, I decided to restart the campaign with a different hero. I took the easy way out. I made an assassin and picked the Ssrathi as his race.

Meet Dux, the Ssrathi Assassin

Assassins get extremely powerful once you get their Assassination skill high enough. Assassination, you ask? Well, this skill starts out with giving each of your auto-attacks a 4% chance to outright kill the target and it increases by 1% with each skill point invested. After about 15 to 20 points invested here and with a fast attack speed, you can basically take out whole armies. Of course, you’ll still have issues with buildings, but we have Strength and Crushing or Fire damage for that, not to mention the excellent Ssrathi Fire Priests.

Seeing screens like this one makes me happy for some reason.

Ssrathi Fire Priests

The Fire Priests are the sole reason I picked the Ssrathi. You see, I suck at strategy games. I can do some nice micro management, but I always neglect my economy and macro, so I end up losing to most human opponents. I can deal with AI, for the most part, but it still makes it sort of a stressful experience. Well, with the Ssrathi, macro is easy. You build the home base and a couple of Worker Sects, followed by a rush to tier 2 and tier 3 soon after. Then you just train Fire Priests and upgrade their range once you reach level 3. These things, combined with some retinue generals and my assassin hero are basically unstoppable. They’re cheap, outrange towers and do fire damage. They also have a healing spell to help them.

Warlords Battlecry 3 - Fire Priest Formation

Formations in this game are mostly useless, but there are exceptions.

The Campaign

I started out mostly focusing on Dexterity, with a couple of points into Strength just to make it easier to stay alive at early levels. I put most of my points into Assassination, with a couple of points into Running to increase my movement speed.

I was having a hard time figuring out what to actually write about, but once I got to the map node called Dragon’s Maze, I decided to just keep a log of all of my missions and what happened. Here goes…

Dragon’s Maze

I had three treasure hunting missions here. They were basically just regular skirmish battles against Minotaur and Barbarians, but each of the enemy bases had a couple of chests with minor treasures in them. My strategy was the usual – train fire priests, kill enemy heroes early and eventually obliterate everything. I got all the way to level 8 during these missions and started to get assassination kills on a regular basis.

Al-Diraq and Daros

I had a couple of battles where building weren’t allowed. My Naga generals are extremely helpful in these, due to their shield ability which increases the armor of nearby units. The trick is to dodge the enemy long enough for their mana to charge. This can be an issue on smaller maps, though, since the AI just loves to charge you in a straight line.

Titans are the game’s ultimate units, extremely expensive and strong. This is the Ssrathi Sun God

I started fighting the Swarm in this area, which is annoying since some of their units have poison attacks. Thanks to one of the missions here, I can hire level 6 Warlords for my retinue when I need them. I got to level 10 in this area and found two awesome items. The Ice Blade adds 25 frost damage to my auto-attacks and the Giant’s Helm provides mi with a whopping 12 extra combat.

Tongu, Kalpaxotl and New Selentia

I fought my own people in these areas – the Ssrathi. It was worth it, though. The Gifts of Couatl mission sequence gave me a bunch of nice items and I got an artifact which gave me permanent +2 to the sight range of all of my units. The items I got were strong, but sadly (or luckily) I quickly replaced them.

Northern Diraq and the Realm of Famine

I got into a couple of Swarm ambushes here, which was actually awesome because one of the enemy heroes dropped an awesome new cloak. It was an upgrade to the armor I wore in every aspect and it didn’t have the penalty to Spellcasting that the armor had.

The game tracks statistics in something like a basic achievement/ title system.

In Northern Dirax, I allied myself with the Barbarians, so I can lead them now if I want to. I also got another awesome artifact during the Desert Winds mission, called “The Winds of the Desert”. This thing gives my hero a 50% attack speed bonus, which is probably the greatest thing I can get for an assassination hero.

Twilight Woods

This was the Fey area. I had to protect them from the Dark Dwarves and the Swarm during several missions. This gave me the ability to train one of my Reaver generals to level 10 and gave me another artifact – The Dreamcrystal Shard. This artifact gives me a 25% bonus to mana regeneration, which is pretty much useless for me right now.

Warlords Battlecry 3 - Artifacts/Bonuses

This is the most artifacts I’ve ever gotten in this game.

In the final mission, I had to defeat some banshees in a trial and this got me an alliance with the Fey. I might actually use them in the future, since as a race, they might be even easier to play than the Ssrathi. Other than the alliance, I can now also trade gold for experience by talking to the Queen of the Fey and I can hire level 5 Unicorns at the Unicorn Grove.

Khazdul, Ragnar’s Pass and The Wastes

At Khazdul, I improved my relations with the Dark Dwarves after burying them into the ground during the Twilight Woods missions by helping them with an Orc slave rebellion.

In Ragnar’s Pass, I met a Frost Dragon who agreed to join me if I helped him clear the Orcs, Dark Dwarves and the Undead from his home. It took me two missions to do this and I still had to pay him 100 Crowns to get him to join. The best part? It costs a total of 26 army points to get him into the battle – NOT worth it.

Finally, at the Wastes, I went to search for Gorgon, the Fifth Horseman. This was a mission where my hero wasn’t supposed to die, so naturally, I decided to be an idiot, risk to much and have him killed. The worst part about it was that I lost my two high level generals – a Reaver and a Naga.

This was too much for me, so I decided to take a break for now. I’ll find Gorgon some other day.

Pokemon Platinum [6] – The Sunyshore Gym and the Victory Road

March 22, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

Beating Cyrus and Getting Rid of Team Galactic

So last time in Pokemon Platinum, I beat the gym and was ready to tackle the final of the three Lakes – Lake Acuity. I didn’t really tackle it though. There was no battling to be had. Instead, my rival actually turned out to be a nice, normal guy and I was sent to the Team Galactic base in Veilstone City.

This scene gave me a flashback to Metal Gear Solid 2.

Once there, I fought through the place, listened in on a speech given by Cyrus to his grunts, and then fought and beat Cyrus. Even with all these battles, it still sort of feels like I’m falling behind in levels, though. I freed the three legendaries Team Galactic captured and then I had to follow Cyrus to Mt. Coronet, where I caught him summoning the two greater legendaries. These two, in turn, summoned Giratina, the final legendary. I have to say, the word “legendary” lost all meaning in Pokemon Platinum.

In any case, this opened up a new area where there were no random battles, but I had to fully explore it with Cynthia’s help in order to finally beat Cyrus and move on with the story. It took me a while to get through it, but I didn’t mind, because this “shadow dimension” looked amazing. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, whoever said that Pokemon games don’t advance enough between sequels has no idea what they’re talking about.

Awesome use of limited resources.

It’s hard to explain, but the area is basically a 3d maze, with the floors becoming walls and walls becoming ceilings at random. I can’t find the words to describe it, but suffice to say, it looks really, really cool.

Anyway, I got all the way to Giratina, beat Cyrus and then had the chance to catch the legendary. Since Ash didn’t catch any legendary whatsoever and it really makes no sense to do so in the anime, I just beat it instead. Sure, I could go with “adding it to the collection”, but there’s no collection to speak off, since I’ll be switching to the next game soon.

Preparing for the Electric Sunyshore Gym

In any case, the Team Galactic part of the game was now beaten, so it was time to go to the final gym at Sunyshore City. Again, it still looked like I was behind in levels, so before I challenged Volken and his electric gym, I decided to do some training. I took the opportunity to fully evolve my brand new Infernape and Torterra and I gave Gible the Exp. Share so he can catch up with the rest of the team.

Ash get’s three fully evolved Pokemon in his final team.

Oh, did I mention that? After the last gym, it was time for Gliscor to be replaced by Gible. In the anime, Ash leaves Gliscor behind similarly to how he did it with Charizard. It still technically belongs to him, but he rarely ever uses it.

Once I hit the level range between 45 and 50 with my three combatants meant for the Sunyshore Gym, I went in. About 15 minutes later, I gave up on the rule to only use Pokemon Ash used in the gyms. It’s just not meant to be. Volkner’s Electivire just swept through everyone. I even had to use several Revives in order to finally beat it with Torterra.

Where to get HM07 Waterfall in Pokemon Platinum?

With that out of the way, I thought I was stuck. To get to Victory Road, I need waterfall and, while I had the badge I needed in order to use it, I did not have the HM yet. A couple of seconds later, I remembered this game isn’t exactly complex. The HM was given to me by a girl on the northern shore of Sunyshore City.

This is where you get the Waterfall HM.

The Victory Road

I took the route north, fought some trainers and entered the Victory Road. I think I fully explored the first two rooms, but I ended up finding the exit before fully exploring the final room, so I got out thinking I could heal and go back. The thing is, before I could heal, my rival attacked me. With most of my Pokemon at zero PP and with very little health, I had to use a lot of medicine to get through this fight. Still, the alternative was to restart back at entrance Pokemon Center, so I felt it was worth it to waste the items. I beat him, healed, stocked up on items and saved my game.

A wasted move slot fur just three such obstacles.

A Remark

I really, really hate the HM system and I’m glad the Black and White sequels are reducing its effect for a bit. It forces you to use mostly useless moves and stop you from fully enjoying the best part of the game – assembling a team. A good example is Waterfall in this game. You don’t need it in any other area of the game except the Victory Road. What’s worse, it’s not like you can teach it to a temporary Pokemon, since you need it once to enter the place, once mid-way through and once at the exit to reach the League building. Even worse, if you want to grind at the Victory Road, you need a team member with waterfall to get back into the cave after healing up at the League building.

Maybe they should turn it into a passive skill or something.

Pokemon Platinum [5] – The Iron Island, Canalave and Snowpoint

March 21, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

Last time in Pokemon Platinum, I played for about ten minutes at night, just to level Gligar to Gliscor. What I didn’t mention in the edit of my last article, though, was that I also allowed the game to troll me a bit while I was at it. You see, there is a guard at the entrance to Canalave City. When you talk to him, he says he’s thirsty.

Damn you, game!

Pokemon veterans know what happened here. I went back to the Veilstone department store and bought one of each of the three drinks from the vending machines at the top floor, hoping I could give it to the guard. Turns out, I can’t. What the guard says is just flavor. That’s about five minutes of my time “wasted”.

The Steel Gym of Canalave City

In any case, when I started my proper session today, I went for the Canalave gym, but before I could enter it, I nearly got my ass kicked by Barry, or Gary, which is how I named him for some strange reason. I really should start thinking more when I’m starting the game. Gary certainly isn’t Ash’s rival during the Sinnoh seasons. I barely beat him, with only one Pokemon left conscious, so it was clear I was severely underleveled now.

Where to get HM04 Strength in Pokemon Platinum?

Luckily, I had a chance to do some training by going to the nearby Iron Islands before challenging the gym. The Iron Islands are where you get the HM Strength in Platinum as well as a place where you get some extra items and a lot of extra experience. It’s a cave filled with mostly rock types and Golbats, with some Steelixes near the bottom. About half way through, you can get a companion so at that point, training is extremely easy. I got everyone except Buizel close to 40 before I got out. With this added experience, the Steel gym was much easier to beat, mostly thanks to my Chimchar and his newly learned Flamethrower move.

Team Galactic was also at the Iron Island cave.

The Pokemon that really took the victory, though, was Gliscor. Byron’s last Pokemon was Bastiodon and he swept through both Buizel and Chimchar with ease. Since Ash only used those two and Gliscor, it was basically up to Gliscor, even though it was doing barely any damage to Bastiodon. For some reason, though, Bastion outright stopped doing damage to me, using mostly Taunt and Metal Defense until the battle was over. It took me a while and I nearly ran out of PP, but eventually, I burned through the Full Restores and the large amount of health Bastiodon had.

Byron is actually Roark’s father. Makes since, since both names are awesome.

Next up, I needed to visit the three lakes to deal with Team Galactic. Lake Valor was first and there, I beat Commander Saturn with relative ease. After that, it was Lake Verity, where I fought Commander Mars again. Finally, I needed to go north to Lake Acuity, but I never went there before, so it was a lengthy trip. Since I now beat the sixth gym, I used the opportunity to evolve Staravia to Staraptor, which means an Everstone freed up, so I gave it to Buizel.

The Ice Gym of Snowpoint City

Before I could reach Lake Acuity, I had to get to Snowpoint Gym to get the badge which unlocks the usage of Rock Climb in the wild, so that’s where I went next. I gained a few more levels on the way north, so it wasn’t too hard to beat the ice types in the gym, mostly thanks to my new Staraptor. Abomasnow was the only one of Candice’s Pokemon that gave me any trouble, but I dealt with it via some item usage.

Ice gym means there will be sliding puzzles.

This means I now have a total of seven badges and I’m finally ready to go to Lake Acuity. Next time in Pokemon Platinum, I intend to get to the League.

Where to get HM08 Rock Climb in Pokemon Platinum?

By the way, I got HM08 Rock Climb completely randomly, by stumbling into it on Route 217. It was on the western side of the route, slightly behind one of the houses there, as a regular item pickup. I’m glad I ran into it because I would have hated going back and getting it after Snowpoint.

Pokemon Platinum [4] – Pastoria Gym and Celestic Town

March 20, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

I tried to be smart, so I flew to Hearthome City as soon as I loaded up Pokemom Platinum today, hoping to take a shorter route to Pastoria, but it turns out that route was closed. I had to go back to Veilstone, south past Valor Lakefront and then east to get to Pastoria.

Pastoria Gym

At first glance, Pastoria seems like one of those tiny little towns you get between gyms in Pokemon games, since it’s nature themed, but it’s actually a mid-sized city with a gym of its own. The gym’s type was water and for once, Ash wasn’t a complete idiot in the anime, so he used his Pikachu, Buizel and Turtwig. Of course, he is completely incompetent, since neither Turtwig nor Buizel evolve up to this point, so I still had some trouble clearing the gym, mostly due to the Aqua Jet move Crasher Wake loved to use.

Crasher Wake is… different.

I got through the gym and then another Team Galactic sequence started, where I had to chase a grunt all the way back to Valor Lakefront, only to have him run away anyway. Then I met Cynthia again, who gave me some medicine for the Psyducks north of Solaceon Town. This opened up a route towards Celestic Town, where I went next.

Where to get HM03 Surf in Pokemon Platinum?

Once there, I got another “cut scene” after which I finally fought Cyrus for the first time and then I got HM03 Surf, which I’m able to use immediately, thanks to the badge I got in Pastoria.

Where to get Razor Fang

Since I’m now five gyms in, Gligar and Turtwig are finally supposed to evolve. Turtwig was not an issue here, so now I have an awesome new Grotle. The issue was Gligar. First of all, he needs to hold an item in order to evolve – the Razor Fang. Lucky for me, I got one on route 214. It’s a secret item found in one of those tall grass areas on the route. Being secret, you need to use the dowsing machine to find it, or you can just search the only clear area in the large tall grass square surrounded by a fence, with a trainer inside.

The generation of Pokemon Platinum limits the areas you can explore more often.

Other than holding the Razor Fang, Gligar also needs to level up at night. The issue with this is that it was still the afternoon when I ended my session, so I will be doing a quick grind when the night is finally here, just so I can get that evolution.

Grotle down, Gliscor to go.

EDIT: As promised, I quickly loaded up Pokemon Platinum and leveled up Gligar by one level, just so I can get the evolution. I have a Gliscor now!

While I was doing all of this, I got back to Jubilife city, where I acquired a couple of brand new Poketch apps and then I went further west, towards Canalave City. As soon as I got there, I saved my game and that was it for today.

Pokemon Platnum [3] – Hearthome and Veilstone Gym

March 19, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

Last time, I got all the way to Hearthome City, got invited to the Contest hall and then I saved and quit the game. I also managed to catch all the Pokemon Ash caught in Sinnoh, though I can’t use one of them yet.

Hearthome Gym

This time, I gave the Hearthome Gym a shot. In the anime, Ash gave his new Buizel a chance to shine, but also used Chimchar and Pikachu in the battle. The gym type was Psychic this time and the trainer in charge was Fantima. Her trainers weren’t giving me much trouble, but I had she managed to beat me several times before I finally got her. I even grinded for a level or two.

If your child produces this sound, it’s time to see the doctor.

HM04 – Defog Sucks

Beating her gave me the ability to use the Defog HM in the field, but I didn’t have it yet. All I could do was to move on to the next city, to that’s what I did. Before I got to Solaceon Town, though, I paid a visit to the Lost Tower, which is the Pokemon graveyard of Platinum. I got all the way to the top, only to find out I needed Defog to get the prize.

The Solaceon Ruins are basically a maze of stairs.

Finally, I got to Solaceon Town and then went to the Solaceon Ruins, where I got Defog, as well as a Thunderstone, a Fire Stone and a Water Stone. I also fought a bunch of Unkowns, but I didn’t even try to catch any. During all of this, Buizel started trying to evolve so I’ll probably edit my save and give it an Everstone before my next session.

I got back to the lost tower to get the prize -some held items. Finally, I moved on and after a lengthy route and a lot of trainer battles, I finally got to Veilstone City, where a fighting gym was waiting for me.

Veilstone Gym

A couple of annoyances here. First of all, I had to use Staravia, Chimchar and Buizel. Chimhar was behind in levels by now, and Buizel wasn’t that tough either way. Staravia had the type advantage, but the issue here is, I have yet to see a flying Pokemon which is actually tough and can handle more than two or three hits, and Staravia is no exception.

Maylene is tiny, but tough.

Basically, Maylene’s Lucario was kicking my ass, hard. It would easily one shot both Chimchar and Buizel and even kill Staravia before I could harm it enough. That’s just the first annoyance, though. An even bigger annoyance is that, in order to get to Maylene, I have to go through a lengthy sequence of puzzles. I had to do this every time, on every single one of my attempts, meaning every failure was more annoying and tedious than the last one.

HM02 – Fly Rules

I ended up getting Staravia up to around level 35 before I finally managed to beat this gym. During my training, I got all the way south to the Valor Lakefront and even beaten most of the trainers there. Eventually, though, the badge was mine.

Looker is constantly late to the party.

About five minutes later, another awesome thing was mine. I stormed the local Team Galactic warehouse and got my favorite HM – Fly. I can now go anywhere, but my next stop is Pastoria City.

Pokemon Platinum [2] – From Eterna Gym to Hearthome City

March 18, 2013 by Nikola·0 Comments

Last time in Pokemon Platinum, I got to Eterna City and saved my game. Aipom, Turtwig and Pikachu were ready for the gym and I already caught a Buizel to replace Aipom once Gardenia’s Gym was beaten.

Eterna Gym would have been easy if I could have used Chimchar, but since Ash was being an idiot in the anime, I had to be an idiot to. Luckily, Pikachu knows Iron Tail, so at least I had some advantage, for a while. I beat the gym, got HM01 Cut and was able to tackle the Team Galactic building, finally.

Whoever says the graphics in Pokemon didn’t improve is a liar.

I know you’re supposed to figure out the correct route to get directly to the boss, Commander Jupiter, but I decided to clear the whole place for the experience. The boss actually managed to beat me twice, so I ended up going back to Eterna Forest to clear the Old Chateau and get some experience there. Clearing the haunted house was more than enough to beat the annoying Skunktank and finally move on. The next part is something I had to google, so it gets a title of its own.

Where to get Exp. Share in Pokemon Platinum?

You get at the southern exit of Eterna City, from professor Rowan’s aide. He’s in the building that connects the Cycling Road to Eterna City and he gives it to you if your Pokedex contains at least 30 (I believe) seen Pokemon. So you don’t have to catch thirty, just see them.

I’m not sure why I haven’t used Exp. Share before. It makes no sense not to if it’s available.

I decided to take the Exp. Share and use it to avoid annoyingly grinding Buizel. While I was at it, I also dropped of Aipom at the Pokemon Center, since it belongs to Dawn now, and I got the Bicycle from the store owner, whom I rescued from the Team Galactic building.

Also, I forgot to mention that Cynthia came by when I got the gym badge and gave me an egg to carry. I accepted the egg, just for kicks, but whatever hatches, which I think is a Togepi, I won’t be using.

Above and Below the Cycling Road

Next up was the Cycling Road. There wasn’t much to do on top of it other than fighting lots of trainers, which I naturally did. Once I got through it and healed up at Oreburgh City, it was time to go below the Cycling Road, onto Route 206 and into the Wayward Cave.

I hate the concept of Flash. It’s a useless move that you’re forced to use.

I went to the correct entrance first and went all the way through the area without Flash, primarily because I thought that’s where I can catch my Gible. Of course, that ended up being completely wrong. I got some items, guided Mira to the exit and got some experience, but overall, I don’t think it was worth the time or the annoyance. Here comes another heading because I had trouble with it.

Where to Catch a Gible

The Wayward Cave has two entrances. One is visible, while the other’s view is obstructed by the Cycling Road. This secret entrance leads to a Cycling Course in the basement level of the Wayward Cave, where Gibles are actually quite common. This is where you catch one, not in that hellhole of the ground level. You don’t even need flash.

Gible grows in to an amazing Pokemon, as long as Ash doesn’t have anything to do with it.

Moving On

Next up, I went to Route 207 and into Mt. Coronet, where I met Cyrus again. Then I got through and to the other side, where I remembered I need to go back to Route 206, below the Cycling Road, to catch a Gligar. I went all the way back (so annoying), grinded for a bit (even more annoying) but eventually, I caught one. This means one thing.

No more Pokemon catching.

There will be no more catching Pokemon in Pokemon Platinum. I got every single one of my team mates, so now it’s just a matter of getting to a point where I can start using them. Gligar will be in my team for now and Gible will replace him eventually, though with a slight delay.

I got back through Mt. Coronet, through Route 208 and finally got to Hearthome City, where I saved my game. Now I have to beat three gyms without any of my Pokemon evolving. I saved my game and that was it for now.