Where did we leave off last time? I’m in a bit of a post-Next Fest haze given it takes me almost 2 weeks to cover the event. There’s just…a lot of demos to play, curate, and then (eventually) write about.
Right! Jasmine. Of course. How could I forget? Which means the next leg of our journey is to hoof it back to Goldenrod to deal with the incursion of the Radio Tower at the hands of Team Rocket.
While we could immediately depart for Goldenrod, there are a few other things that I’d like to handle first. Luckily, we can take all the time we need to deal with my todo list since there isn’t actually any urgency to the story in Pokémon Silver. That is, the Rockets will continue to be disruptive indefinitely, and everyone will patiently await our arrival to oust them from the Radio Tower.
Though, I say it’s a todo list, but it’s really just grabbing a couple of levels on Pinellopi, and Daisy Jr before we tackle the Rockets.
Thus far, I’ve been really struggling to make good use of Pinellopi, but I think the Steel typing that she gains upon evolution will be a huge boon against the deluge of Poison type foes that are strewn throughout the upcoming dungeon.
As for DJ – I need an answer to Kevin’s Typhlosion, and the Rocket Exec’s Houdoom. I’m sure I could slug through both fights with Winston, who has repeatedly demonstrated that he is not to be trifled with, but it’d be nice to have a proper Fire type counter now that we’re 7 badges deep into this challenge.
As such, we’re taking a brief detour down to the basement levels of Union Cave. This area isn’t accessible until after you’ve bested Morty, but it has unusually strong trainers for that point in the game. Personally, I prefer dealing with it a little bit later. I feel like I get a little more value that way since I’ll actually have an appropriately levelled team by battling this handful of trainers a little later. Plus, we just…need the extra experience if we’re going to get Pinellopi, and DJ ready for the Radio Tower.
That said, we had a surprise encounter along the way to Union Cave:
Side tangent: did anyone reading hate roaming legendary Pokémon as much as I did? As a kid, I found their inclusion super frustrating. You have to slowly whittle them down across multiple encounters, and you only get 1 opportunity to try capturing them before they run off. It’s super tedious, and that’s assuming you even find them in the first place.
Though, I can’t fault GameFreak too badly here because I think I understand the logic behind handling legendary Pokémon in this way. Basically, they wanted the legendary Pokémon to actually be rare, and illusive. By turning them into a random encounter that most players wouldn’t actually see, they accomplished this. Suicune, Raikou, and Entei became the stuff of schoolyard legends in a league similar to Mew. Some kids never even saw them, nor did they believe they existed without tangible proof. The same could not be said for Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, which were staple members of every kid’s team during the Red and Blue days.
Having said all of that, Suicune is not a valid encounter for this playthrough. As such, it’ll be free to continue roaming around Johto terrorizing random NPC trainers.
Anyway, we shuffle down to the bottom of Union Cave, and…oh boy. Pinellopi mostly gets her ass beat, while the rest of the team grabs a little extra experience.
The problem here is twofold.
The first issue is that Pinellopi is unevolved (still), so she’s experiencing the same problem that Winston had before I was able to evolve him. Basically, her stats just aren’t competitive with the bevy of evolved Pokémon that I’m battling at this point in the game. It’s a bit of a compounding problem because the longer that the stat deficit persists, the worse it becomes. Basically, I can’t use Pinellopi because she’s weak, but I can’t make her stronger without using her.
Before anyone mentions the EXP Share: DJ has a stronger claim to that because she’s lil’ baby. She’s still a solid 10 levels behind the rest of the party, so she needs to keep siphoning some experience away until she can fight her own battles.
Regardless, the second of the aforementioned issues is that Pinellopi’s selection of attacks is…kind of terrible. She can go boom, and that’s about it. As such, I’ve really struggled to find places where she can meaningfully contribute even during random trainer fights. There’s almost always a better fit for whatever I’m facing than to use a Pokémon who’s only claim to fame is killing themselves in a blaze of glory.
I think that second point is especially noteworthy because, as a reader, you only get to see what I’m willing to share. As such, you’ve seen a very curated, and protracted version of my complete playthrough of Silver. Despite this, I’ve still attempted to highlight how meaningful team members like Mabel, and Trevor have been at handling random trainer fights along the journey. Sure, they’re not as good in the gym fights – Winston has been a nearly 1 man wreaking crew in that regard – but they’re still doing something!
The same isn’t really true for Pinellopi. She’s been a benchwarmer since the moment I caught her outside of that 1 time that I made her blow up to defeat Kevin in the Burned Tower. Otherwise, she has been exactly as unremarkable as you might’ve guessed based on how infrequently I’ve mentioned her.
That said, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Pinellopi finally caught a break when I entered Goldenrod, and started to ascend the besieged Radio Tower. Rocket Grunts are one of the few trainer classes that regularly carry unevolved Pokémon, so Pinellopi was actually fighting foes of a comparable power-level as we made our way through the lower floors of the tower. This allowed her to creep up to level 31, where she (finally) evolved into Forretress. Her available attacks are still underwhelming, but at least her stats are somewhat comparable to the rest of the team’s now.
I suppose the newly added Steel typing doesn’t hurt either. Pinellopi now resists attacks from 9 types, as opposed to the 3 that she resisted as a Pineco. She also only takes Super Effective hits from Fire type attacks, which is very handy because it’ll mean we can finally leverage Rollout more effectively against the ungodly number of Flying foes that are littered throughout this game. Plus, she has a Poison immunity now, which is always a handy attribute.
Regardless, with Pinellopi finally caught up to the rest of the party, I swapped over to primarily using DJ for the remainder of the Rocket Grunts in the Radio Tower. It was during this time that I remembered just how inextricably broken basically every Water Pokémon is thanks to Surf. This move does ridiculous damage to everything thanks to the 50% damage boost it receives from being an on-type attack. Truly, there are no E tier Water Pokémon, regardless of what that Smogon post that I’m using as a guide said.
Though, I did swap out DJ for Pinellopi during the first of the Rocket Exec fights. My thought process here was that I could use Rollout to easily finish off the army of Koffing. Plus, Pinellopi resists Selfdestruct, so she could easily tank the hit if any of our opponent’s Koffings decided to go boom.
Unfortunately, my plans for another Rollout sweep were foiled. The reason being is simple: all of the Exec’s Pokémon know Smokescreen. They immediately hit Pinellopi with several Accuracy drops, which made using Rollout borderline impossible. I’m sure there’s a version of this fight where I continued to use Rollout and got lucky, but I wasn’t willing to go gambling.
As such, I pivoted over to Vanessa to clean up the remainder of the fight with Dig. Thankfully, this strategy works in older games since Koffing doesn’t yet have Levitate. Plus, Dig gave me an opportunity to dodge any attempted booms, which was nice.
Anyway, with the first Exec sorted, we trundled down to the Goldenrod Underground, which is where we have our next run-in with Kevin.
Though, I forget exactly which tile the fight starts on, so I ended up triggering it by accident before I had a chance to swap my team around. As such, I led DJ into Kevin’s Golbat. That’s not the end of the world, but I would’ve preferred leading Mabel. She can outspeed, and potentially KO with a Magnet boosted Thunderpunch. Or, at the very least, she could’ve set up Safeguard to prevent Confusion.
Either way, DJ is swiftly confused, but manages to land an Aurora Beam through the Confusion. However, I doubt she can make it through Golbat looking at the damage she just did, and I want her for Typhlosion, so I decide to pivot to Mabel on a soft Bite.
Mabel goes for a Safeguard on her first turn to prevent further Confusion, but she eats a meaty Wing Attack for her trouble. This just about 1-shots her, which immediately cements our position on the backfoot. Thankfully, she outspeeds Kevin’s Golbat so she is able to land an incredibly powerful Thunderpunch on the following turn before she goes down to another Wing Attack.
I’m a little sad that she was just shy of the knock out there, but Mabel set up an easy KO for DJ.
Unfortunately, DJ doesn’t outspeed Golbat so she ends up taking a ton of damage from Bite. Evidently, Horsea doesn’t have the most Special Defence. That…might prove problematic as we continue forward in this challenge.
Regardless, KOing Golbat lures out Kevin’s Magnemite, which requires a little switch-a-roo from our end. I decide to swap into Winston, which might seem like a repeat of the mistake that I made the last time I fought Kevin, but I have a plan this time. I can easily KO Magnemite with Fire Punch, and then follow that up with a Rollout. That should easily take out both Kevin’s Haunter, and newly acquired Sneasel. Then I have the remainder of my team to take on Typhlosion. Plus, my whole team has evolved (aside from DJ), so there shouldn’t be as much of a disparity between our Pokémon.
The next few turns go as expected. Magnemite is downed by a single Fire Punch, Haunter drops to 2 Rollouts, and Sneasel drops to the third Rollout. Admittedly, I’m fairly confident that Sneasel would’ve dropped to just about anything since it has almost no Defence, but this is just as well. Now we’re poised to nail Kevin’s superstar Pokémon, Typhlosion, with a fourth turn Rollout.
Or not.
I erroneously assumed that he always had the final evolution of his starter for this fight, but apparently that isn’t true. The other 2 starters evolve earlier, so if he has either the grass, or water stater then they’ll be a Meganium, or Feraligator respectively.
However, Quilava doesn’t evolve until level 36, so Kevin is locked out of its final evolution during this fight.
Admittedly, I think that’s a little odd given how frequently GameFreak makes exceptions for illegal Pokémon during boss fights throughout the series. In Silver alone Falkner, Morty, Chuck, and Pryce’s teams all feature evolved Pokémon at early levels. Heck, Lance has 3 early Dragonites. So this is just…super weird.
Either way, we miss our fourth turn Rollout, which puts us into a bit of a situation. Winston was afflicted with a Curse by Haunter, which means that he’s just about out of steam after missing that Rollout. As such, I opt to hit Quilava with a beefy Return before Winston goes down for the count.
Also, yes – we picked up Return from the Goldenrod department store. In fact, it’s just as readily available as Headbutt was, though we’ll need to do a bit of time travelling (like we did during Part 5) in order to secure several copies of it for our team. This is because you can only receive 1 copy of the TM every week as a gift, instead of buying it outright from the clerk.
Normally this once a week restriction makes Return a little balanced, but…we know how to time travel. As such, I can, theoretically, obtain as many copies of Return as I have Pokémon. Though, for now, I’ve only grabbed the 1 copy and taught it to Winston as a replacement for Headbutt.
Anyway, Return just about 1-shot Kevin’s Quilava. I don’t know for certain how strong it was since its base power is related to your Pokémon’s hidden friendship value, but I’d estimate it was somewhere around 80 to 90. Coupled with a Same-Type Attack Bonus since Winston is a Normal type Pokémon and…uh….yeah that’s going to hurt.
Unfortunately, Winston goes down before he’s able to finish the job, so Vanessa has to come in and clean up Quilava with a Dig. Surprisingly, she actually gets to move first, so she scores a clean KO against Kevin’s final Pokémon.
With that rival battle sorted, there wasn’t much else to report for the remainder of the Goldenrod Underground. Well…okay that’s not totally true. DJ evolved into Seadra, which makes her the single strongest Pokémon on the team. Her Special Defence is a bit of an Achilles Heel, but otherwise she’s…very fast, and very strong. Traits that she demonstrated quite admirably by completely dismantling the remainder of the Rockets, including the Execs who sat atop the Radio Tower.
Yes – we are skipping right along to the end because the remainder of the Rocket Hideout is, quite literally, just DJ systematically destroying every single Rocket member with a combination of powerful Surfs, and Aurora Beams. The poor Rockets never stood a chance.
Well…that was a bit of an anti-climax. Evidently, DJ is just that good now that she’s evolved.
With that nonsense at the Radio Tower sorted, we receive the Silver Wing, which is completely useless to us. Similar to the Suicune that we encountered earlier, we can’t catch Luigi, so there’s no point in returning to the Whirl Islands. I suppose we could just KO it for the experience, but that feels a little excessive given it’s a bit of a hike out there.
Anyway, our next destination is Blackthorn City, which we can only reach by heading East of Mahogany Town, and traversing the Ice Cave. Along the way there, I did manage to find Raikou, but otherwise nothing noteworthy happened during the remainder of our journey to, and through Ice Cave.
Though, this dungeon is what gifted me my love of ice puzzles. I was the first kid in my group of friends to figure out the puzzles, so I got to teach my friends how to finish the Ice Cave during recess. This was kind of a big deal for 7 year old me because I was, by far, the worst of my friends at video games. However, this dungeon gave me a very rare opportunity to shine.
Anyway, the team made it through to Blackthorn, and were poised for the final gym fight against Clair. However, I’m going to save that for part 9 because I think it’ll flow better. More specifically, I kind of want the Elite 4 and Champion isolated to their own post, and I’m fairly certain that’ll run long with a play-by-play of what happens in each fight. Ergo, I need a little more content for Part 9, so Clair can wait for next time.
Though, Clair marks a fairly significant fight for our team. She’s basically your tutorial for Lance, so I’ll get an opportunity to see how well DJ works as our dragonslayer.
Either way, I hope to see you next time, and thank you for reading!
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