LogFAQs > #941864305

On the outskirts of Azalea town, two men were fighting. One in a black uniform struck the other and sent him running, and then stood outside the town well blocking access. Dylan just walked past him.

He wanted to buy some water and something to eat, but the only store in town sold Pok balls and potions but nothing else. He ended up doing some work on the local kiln in exchange for a meal. The charcoal workers wouldn't tell him where they'd gotten it from.

Another black-uniformed man was blocking the way to the Gym, so Dylan decided to move on and tried to walk through Ilex Forest to the west. Eventually he found his way blocked by a small tree, which someone told him could be cut by a Pokmon whose trainer had the Azalea Gym Badge. He doubled back to town.

A local man named Kurt offered to help fight the black-clad gang, which he said were called Team Rocket. They had formally disbanded three years ago after a boy named Red (what kind of name was that?) had defeated them. They were in Azalea town cutting the tails off Slowpoke to sell, presumably to fund a rebuilt operation. Kurt successfully scared away the man guarding the well, but once Dylan reached the bottom of the ladder he found the man standing still and complaining of back pain. He insisted that Dylan fight the Rockets instead, which he was not enthusiastic about considering they were full-grown men and he was ten years old. Finally, he convinced himself to try - he didn't want to be stuck in this little town for the rest of his life. He went into the well, fully expecting the beating of his life, only to find that the Rockets challenged him to Pokmon with weak and untrained critters and then quietly left town when he won. He saw a Slowpoke with an intact tail wandering around and caught it just to keep it safe.

With the town settled down, Dylan was free to challenge the gym. He had heard it was a simple maze with a leader who specialized in the weak Fury Cutter move, but there must have been some renovations recently because instead he found a set of puzzles based around redirecting a mechanical spider by lowering strands of its rope web via levers. The gym leader was a kid named Bugsy who talked for a while about his studies before the battle. Dylan couldn't help but imagine him getting bullied at school. He used a Scyther with an impressive moveset of Leer, Focus Energy, and Quick Attack, but it went down easily to super-effective damage from Romeo's ember.

As he prepared to leave town, Morris walked in and challenged him to a battle, ranting both before and after about how he despised the weak. He seemed strangely curious about Team Rocket having been in town. This was a chance for Cupid to shine, easily taking down Morris' Croconaw with Vine Whip. Morris also used Zubat and Gastly, which tried annoying strategies with supersonic and hypnosis, but not to much success.

In Ilex forest, Dylan helped the charcoal guys deal with their disobedient Pokmon and they gave him the Cut HM as a reward. He caught an Oddish and a Paras, and then made his way to Goldenrod City.

Pokedex: 47 seen/21 caught

Team

Sawyer (Gastly) lv. 11
Romeo (Quilava) lv. 20
Cupid (Bellsprout) lv. 19
Cedric (Hoothoot) lv. 16
Rattata lv. 4
Slowpoke lv. 6

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I really like the reworked Bugsy fight. He actually beat me the first time I tried by KOing Quilava with a quick attack crit after leer. The use of U-Turn is an interesting way to make his Metapod and Kakuna slightly less irrelevant. The change to the Farfetched capturing was also welcome, since the original method was kind of tedious.

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I'm playing every game from GotD 2020! Games Completed: 5/129
Currently Playing: Pokemon HeartGold Version