17/07/2018

Pokemon Y: The Tyrantrum Solo Run


Back to beautiful Kalos, for the second part of my fossil runs! I managed to squeeze my playtime even more and was crowned Champion after a mere 14 hours of roaming 'n' grinding. Not that shrinking my Pokemon solo runs is a goal per se, mind you; but it's undeniable that I like them better on the short side, a sweet and grindy treat that leaves me sated yet hungry for more. Honestly, I'd much rather have two 15-hours runs in a row than a single 30-hours run. But let's go back to the subject at hand, dear fellow gamers.

Tyrunt is much more straightforward than his fellow fossil Amaura: he's a pure Physical Attacker, with the Attack and Ability to match. Although he doesn't have the widest Move pool of them all, he's granted sufficient Type coverage to take care of most of the Kalos fauna. My Tyrunt wielded four Moves belonging to four different Types during my whole run, and those Types were — amusingly — pretty consistent: Dark, Normal, Dragon and Ground/Rock. The evolution of my Move pool pretty much consisted in replacing my initial Moves with more powerful Moves of the same Type as I progressed — my final Move pool comprising Crunch (Dark), Return (Normal), Dragon Claw (Dragon) and Earthquake (Ground). I unfortunately had to renounce a couple of interesting Moves because they lacked precision or involved self-damage, all things that are hardly beneficial in a solo run. As for Type weaknesses, Tyrunt is afflicted with a whopping six, just like Amaura; however, unlike Amaura, Tyrunt doesn't have to deal with double Fighting and Steel weaknesses, and that made fights against 'Mons of those Types a bit less of a struggle.

These two barebones, no-frills runs of X and Y allowed me to entirely reassess the Gen VI pair. I used to think that they were too darn long — and mind you, they were; however, they were too long only because I spent inordinate amounts of time doing things I didn't like much, things that didn't add anything valuable to my Kalos runs. Sure, Pokemon Amie is cute, but I don't play Pokemon for mini-games. Sure, being able to change my Trainer's attire is neat; but I don't care about fashion in real life, and neither do I in video games. Sure, fighting wild 'Mons gives good XP; but X and Y are so easy anyway that you can make it do just by fighting Trainers. Sure, Lumiose is the biggest Pokemon city ever created, with all sorts of fun places to visit; but if I want to stroll down fancy boulevards, I'd rather go to the real Paris, merci beaucoup. It all boils down to what I actually want to do in my Pokemon solo runs; and as it turns out, I want to grind and cruise regions in one fell swoop, from my modest hometown to the Elite Four summits. I totally approach and play Pokemon games like dungeon-crawlers: cute, mellow, heartwarming dungeon crawlers, but dungeon crawlers all the same, with each region acting as a giant self-contained dungeon. In that regard, the less fluff and diversions along the way, the better.

Kalos also went through a well-deserved bit of rehabilitation in the process. Once I got rid of all the unecessary interruptions, I could at least feast my eyes on Kalos unhindered and take in the region's sheer beauty. And boy, is there a lot of eye-candy to be found there indeed. Kalos is undoubtedly the Pokemon region that offers the most variety in terms of landcape and decor: no town is similar to the next, no Route looks like the one that preceeds it, and even the interior design of houses is unique to each and every locale. Kalos features every possible type of landscape, from the traditional forests and grassy plains to more exotic locations such as mires, a rocky defile, french gardens and a windy steppe, without forgetting a bit of shoreline and what is probably the most gorgeous snowy area ever featured in a Pokemon game. Not only that, but Kalos also offers the most beautiful, well-designed and inventive Gyms in the whole series. They all take full advantage of the 3D to offer exciting puzzles and crawling, as well as splendid designs that are really easy on the retinas. GameFreak truly reached the apex of region and Gym design with Kalos; how sadly ironic, then, to see them drop all their progress on those fronts in the Gen VII games and revert to designs even more barebones than the ones featured in Gen I.

At any rate, those runs gave me the precious opportunity to reassess the Gen VI games in the most glorious way. Soloing those games used to be a bit of a hassle; but thanks to all my clever tweaking, it's now pure, unadulterated pleasure. And that's an most excellent development indeed, because Kalos bristles with solo run candidates that are just itching to prove themselves on the battlefield. (My imagination running wild.) Expect much, much more Kalos goodness in the future, dear fellow gamers! Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!

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