20/05/2018

Pokemon Ultra Sun: The Alolan Raichu Solo Run


It had to happen, dear fellow gamers: I had to put the sparkly face of the franchise, the most iconic and recognizable 'Mon of them all, through the solo run test. Or more like wringer in that particular case; but more on that very soon.

It pains me to admit that, but Pikachu is not good solo run material overall. In my personal solo run chart, he'd probably lounge somewhere on the mid-tier, around 'Mons such as Liepard and Rowlett — not horrible, but not stellar by any means either. Pikachu suffers from a bad case of limited offensive Move pool, so much so that I had to hang onto the same four Moves for most for my run — namely Grass Knot (Grass), Brick Break (Fighting), Psychic and Thunderbolt (Electric). Granted, that Move pool allowed me to dispose of most of the local fauna; but gosh, did it get boring to spam those four Moves after a while. Both Pikachu and Raichu are also afflicted with low HP and a truly abysmal Defense stat, which were a genuine thorn in my side during my whole run. I quickly lost count of the number of times my Electric lone ranger fainted, knocked out cold by a 'Mon with sky-high Attack. And it's not like he got to one-shot 'Mons with abandon, oh nooo: even in the late stages of the game and towering 15 to 20 levels above opponents, one-shooting was not guaranteed. I could never rest on my laurels with that most famous 'Mon of them all, and I had to strategize up until the last battle — which was interesting, but definitely not relaxing.

As for Alolan Raichu specifically, he's terrible solo run material — that is, in Alola. The entire issue stems from his double Typing: Pikachu gains the Psychic Type upon evolving into Alolan Raichu, which slaps three extra weaknesses on top of his Ground weakness. Those extra weaknesses happen to be Ghost, Dark and Bug, which is just the most unlucky setting ever in the Alolan entries. Because if you remember well, those games are the ones that took upon themselves to single-handedly rehabilitate those three often forgotten Types. We have a Ghost Trial and a Dark Trial, and then we have to fight Ghost Captain Acerola two more times — one of them being an Elite Four fight, thank you very much. And then we have bloody Guzma and his bloody team of bloody Insect 'Mons, fronted by a bloody powerful Golisopod that somehow always managed to strike faster than my Raichu. And oh, did I mention that we have to fight him three bloody times? I suffered a lot through that run, let me tell you that. To add insult to injury, Alolan Raichu's double typing doesn't even bring anything worthy to the table solo run-wise: he can only learn two offensive Psychic Moves, which is definitely not enough of a pay-off considering all the hassle caused by his Psychic Type. A truly indecent amount of Battle Items were gobbled during that run and dirty strategies were used, let me tell you that.

Although that Alolan Raichu run was definitely not the blast I had hoped for, it didn't make me swear off the series' mascot entirely. In fact, I consider that I have unfinished business with Pikachu: technically speaking, I still have to run solo with regular Raichu in a different game, which could change the course of things entirely. Given Pikachu's distribution, that different game would have to be X&Y or Red&Blue; and knowing those games' forgiving difficulty levels, I allow myself to think that the resulting Raichu solo run would be much smoother indeed. And of course, I still have to play Yellow and see if Starter Pikachu can reach the Elite Four on his own. As for my Alolan Raichu run, as much of a trudge as it was, it was redeemed nearly entirely by Alolan Raichu's unbearable cuteness. Gosh, hearing his cute little peeps and seeing his adorable happy expressions in Pokemon Refresh totally made me melt every time. Outstanding solo run material he is not; but when it comes to cuteness, he sure as heck lounges in the top tier. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!

20 comments:

  1. Friendly advice: hold off on that yellow run until at least E3, to see if they announce the Pokemon switch game by then. If the rumours of a yellow remake are true, there's no reason to go back to the original yellow with it's awful dated mechanics. The inventory system alone makes me weep, never mind the lack of physical/special split, one-use TMs, and overpowered psychic types. Even nostalgia goggles can't save it.

    Raichu is in general too frail for a nuzlocke, much less a solo run. So I can't imagine how painful it is to use in a region tailor-made against it.

    While I haven't played gen.7 yet, I doubt it did more for bug types than gen. 5 did. Holy crap was that generation awesome for them. Though I'm sure gen. 7 did more for bug types than gen. 6. That was just embarrassing after gen. 5.

    As for me, still playing Ever Oasis, which is also why I haven't replied to your other comment; I want to finish the game before giving my thoughts on it.

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    1. If there's one thing I miss from the series' beginnings, it's definitely all the Bug Trainers lounging around with their freshest catch. We still have Water Trainers in bathsuits and fancy bird Trainers, but Bug Trainers have all but disappeared. More generally, it really bothers me to see that some Types are constantly sidelined while others get to be in the limelight game after game. Why have so many Types if you're going to all but ignore half of them? I'd really love to see Dark, Steel, Bug and Ice 'Mons get more love and stage time.

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    2. Out of all of those I think Ice mons need it the most; not only is it the rarest primary type but it's also the worst type by far. It only resists its own typing and is vulnerable to fire, steel, rock and fighting, literally some of the most common types out there. Adding Ice as a secondary typing literally only makes the pokemon weaker as a result, yesh.

      But their existence was excused because it was the type to use against dragons. Then came generation 6 and fairy types...

      Honestly, there should be a new type added that Ice is resistant and super effective against, just to save the whole thing. Like fairy did to poison types; before generation 6 that was considered the most useless type, despite poison stalling having been a thing since generation one. Which gave all the bug/poison types even more usefulness.

      Honestly, I think Bug is in a relatively good place now; it's effective against many types and there's a lot of variety in secondary types thanks to generations 5 and 6, many that nullify its common weakness, instead of being stuck with bug/poison or bug/flying. A shame the bug/water types came when HMs were written out though; I'd have loved to do bug-only runs in earlier games. But we even have tanky bug types now, so in general I'm happy!

      It is odd that bug catchers don't exist anymore though, especially considering the whole series was born due to one of GF's head honchos having fond memories of catching beetles as a child. The series was, essentially, created by a bug catcher.

      I guess if the rumors about the yellow remake are true, then it's one thing to look forward to; but since they'll be stuck with weak weedles and caterpies, I doubt many people would be happy about that. A shame, since a bug catcher with Scolipede, Vikavolt, Golisopod, Crustle, Durant and Volcarona would be something to remember.

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    3. I really want Ice 'Mons to get some love, as well as a wider and better distribution. It's infuriating to see them appear so late and be restricted to tiny snowy areas in every single entry. I guess that's realistic, in a way; but I'd rather kiss realism goodbye and get a good roster of Ice 'Mons. GameFreak might actually be aware that they are neglecting that Type, since they made Delibird available after the first Trial in S&M and US&M; but oh dear, is there still a LOT of work to do before Ice 'Mons become viable choices, both in regular and solo runs.

      I'm kinda obsessed by Volcarona, to be honest. It's so gorgeous, you'd think it's a Legendary. If there's any way to run solo with that magnificent bug, I'll definitely make it happen.

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    4. Guess what? Let's Go Eevee and Let's Go Pikachu has just been confirmed.

      And you can't battle wild pokemon.

      You can only catch them.

      By flicking the joycons.

      Also, there's only the original 151 pokemon + some alolan forms.

      Which means no Goldbat, no Espeon, no Umbreon.

      A pokemon game. With no wild pokemon battles.

      Which means leveling up works like in GO.

      Which means battling and Gyms work like in GO...

      SCREW YOU GAMEFREAK! SCREW POKEMON!

      I don't care if it's a spin off! It's a terrible spin off! Why not make more pokepark instead?? Or rangers, or conquest, or mystery dungeon, or anything else. But no, just port one of the worst mobile games ever and charge 70$ for it! Oh thank you so much gamefreak.

      I hate pokemon right now! Seriously, porting magikarp jump would be better than this! Ugh, to see the series fall so far, so fast. Well, I'm sure discouraged from buying a switch now. I also have half a mind to drop pokemon forever. I did it with the Sims, I can do it again.

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    5. Yeah, I saw the trailer (I was honestly nearly expecting the rumours to be false at that point, given that we didn't hear a peep about the games until now); and to tell you the truth, I was surprised by my own lack of reaction to it. I just cannot bring myself to care about those games one way or the other: I'm not angry, but neither am I pumped up. I just... Well, I just don't care. That's it.

      If I had to say something about the trailer or the prospective gameplay, I'd say that the over-sleek art style is really not my cup of tea (I'd have raspy, rough pixelated art any day of the week over that phony phone-game shine), that the MCs look even more ridiculously young than in core Pokemon games and that the whole thing looks too simplistic for my taste. But hey, I'll take a look at those games when they finally come out and see if they warrant a purchase or not.

      My lack of interest in these games is actually part of a bigger picture... But more about that in my next post.

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    6. They say the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference, so your views on Pokemon right now might be worse than mine. Even in gaming that's true; I hated TS3 with a passion but I still cared about the sims. Once TS4 came out and was awful, I lost all interest for it. I didn't even knew a PS4 port was being made until I saw it on PSN. Naturally, I'm extremely unlikely to ever buy into the series again.

      Yes, it's weird how the MC looks so young, especially when they look relatively tall. Once again generation 5 did it better; I seriously can't believe we never got older protagonists again.

      Bulbasaur following the protagonist around is seriously cute. It almost made me want to try out the game. Until I remembered that GO isn't actually a game, and that it will likely cost at least 50$. If following pokemon isn't a thing in the next mainline games, I'm dropping the series for good, I swear on this.

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    7. In a way, I prepared myself months ago and got used to the idea of giving up on the Pokemon series. As you probably remember, I was not planning to purchase the Switch until very recently, so I kinda renounced Pokemon in my mind already. If it turns out that I can finally play and enjoy new Pokemon entries after all, then it's all pure bonus.

      (Sorry about the late reply by the way, I was sick to death the last three days.)

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  2. Ah, I see your point then. I always planned on buying a switch, for SMT V and Story of Seasons if nothing else, so playing pokemon was an eventuality for me, hence why this crap hurts. Ironic that you ended up buying a switch before I did in the end. Though I have been wanting to try breath of the wild lately...

    Don't worry about it, and feel better soon! This ever changing weather doesn't help at all.

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    1. There's still hope for a true-blue, solid gen VIII Pokemon game later down the line though, isn't it? I cannot see GameFreak throwing away all the mechanics they worked so hard to implement and perfect during the last 20 years in favour of a Go-inspired cash grab reboot of the franchise. Unless, of course, the Pokemon Let's Go games sell like hot cakes (read: more than the 3DS core games); but given their outrageous 60 bucks price tag, I'm not quite sure that will happen. Go was such a huge hit because it was free, and I cannot see all the casuals that tried their hand at it shelling out 60 bucks for a similar experience on the Switch. The only gamers that are likely to spend such a huge amount of money are long-time, faithful Pokefans, and they don't seem to be massively sold on the concept. But hey, let's wait and see.^^

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    2. They did say "core rpg" entries were coming in 2019...but after the terrible years the franchise has had, I'm not holding out hope for that going well. Depending on how well GO sells, who knows what crap they bring over from there. Probably not following pokemon, the only thing people actually.

      Well...the local co-op doesn't look bad. In fact, I might buy a copy of the game because my mother saw the trailer and expressed interest in playing it with me. Who would say no to that? And the switch is perfect for it, since I can bring the dock into her room and play it with her on the big tv, then bring it back just as quickly. Still not sold on it though; GF doesn't translate the game to my language, so I'll have to see if I can still understand the game in spanish. Plus I want to see how battles and grinding will work; if the candy BS from GO is brought over, then I don't want it. Not for 60$.

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    3. I'd love to play with my sister, if only as a throwback to those awesome days of kicking arse together in Streets of Rage and Sonic 3&Knuckles; but given that she gave up on Platinum after a mere 15 minutes and deemed the game way too grindy, I doubt this dream scenario will ever happen.:P

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  3. Holy crap, I just saw the E3 gameplay video, and the game doesn't even let you enter a gym if you don't have a pokemon with a type advantage. So you can't enter Brock's gym, for example, if you don't have a grass type or a water type. What.the.hell. Or at least you can't do it on Brock's gym; from the way the NPC spoke, other gyms might have other requirements, which also sucks. Just let me challenge the gym leader with a lvl 5 magikarp if I want.

    Exp share for the entire team is always turned on. Which I guess is good in the end, since you mostly get experience from catching pokemon, and catching pokemon is my least favourite system (screw that stupid catch 'em all tag, let me play how I want!) and it's even worse in go, where you have to use bait like in the safari. And everyone just loved the safari system...you can also gain exp from fighting trainers, but no word in re battling them, so you don't know if you can level up from just that. If not, this majorly screws up the game; if you catch another pokemon later on (to say, challenge a gym you don't have a type advantage to), good luck getting it to catch up to the rest of the team.

    Even if you can rematch trainers and gym leaders, the gym restriction alone makes solo, mono type and nuzlocke runs impossible! Yay! Then again, gotta make sure that the players don't even have the option of making this game hard. Nope, just dress up Pikachu instead, that makes up for it. Oh, but nothing on trainer customization, so don't expect that to be in.

    The new rival is a bland friendly guy, which I don't care about in the newer games, but gen.1 had the legendary jerk, Buttface, I mean Gary/Blue, so to see him replaced with a bland piece of cardboard...guess we don't want to scare away GO players by having a guy that says you suck and that he'll smell you later and totally beat you next time. No, that might instill a sense competition, and we don't even want that in the main games rivals anymore!

    This game costs 60$, with an optional 50$ controller to go with it, plus a 300$ system, so I doubt most of the GO crowd will buy this game like Nintendo wants. That playerbase has dropped massively after the craze was over anyways! And the main fans are pissed because we asked for LESS hand holding, not more. The graphics aren't even good; it looks upscaled from the 3DS and that's it.

    So yeah, I'm not personally buying it, even to play with my mother. Since it's close to Christmas, I'll probably still get it as a gift, as it's one of the few franchises my family knows I've consistently liked (it's how I got Ultra Sun despite having no plans to buy it), but I'm not dropping a dime on this.

    Bulbassaur following you is cute though. I'm so gonna flip if they don't include following pokemon for the 2019 tittle.

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    1. There's also the rumor going around that local trading is in, so you might be able to trade pokemon is you have two switches next to each other. But I didn't hear this from the video, so take that with a grain of salt.

      I also just saw on reddit that apparently you can turn EXP share off, or at least it SEEMS like you can...frankly, the video is confusing and way too long, so it's hard to even sit through.

      Some good changes include being able to change the nickname of a pokemon anytime, and the PC is now available through the bag (good for nuzlockes). Pikachu and Eevee also wag their tails faster whenever you're near a hidden item, which is a neat, stubble touch.

      In handheld mode, you catch pokemon with the gyroscope. HMs are confirmed to not be returning, but no word on the rental pokemon system from Sun&Moon that replaced HMs. You can have any pokemon follow you, and you can ride big pokemon.

      Bad things besides what was in previous post include: Pikachu and Eevee can't evolve (beats the entire point of an eevee), and it's confirmed that it's 151 pokemon only. So pokemon like Crobat, Magmortar, Rhydon and all other eeveelutions are out. Alolan variants are in, but you might have to transfer them from GO...? Pokemon that require trading to evolve still need it, so screw GF for not actually making more accessible the one feature I want it to be accessible. You have to transfer pokemon from this game to GO to get candies to level up stats like hp, attack, etc, so items like Iron, protein and such may be gone. Maybe?

      Oh, and beating trainers rewards you with pokeballs and money, beating you over the head even further that you're meant to catch 2 billion pokemon. Thanks GF, the always annoying catch'em all shtick was not enough I guess! This has given people hope that you can rematch trainers, but I'm keeping my hopes low.

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    2. The more I learn about those games, the less I want to purchase them. I was already not fond of the plasticky art style, the excessive simplicity, the Go orientation and the price tags; but as a gamer with shitty motor skills, the gyro aiming is a complete deal breaker. And of course, as a proud solo runner, I just can't be bothered to play a game that tries to coerce me into handling a party. At the end of the day, I think I'm going to ignore those spin-offs entirely and wait for the proper Gen VIII games.

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    3. Even though I was not expecting anything from it, I must say that I found Nintendo's E3 performance pretty underwhelming and disappointing. So much so, in fact, that I'm more worried about the Switch's future right now than six months ago. Where are all those third-party developers that were so eager to develop for the Switch one year ago? Where are the system-sellers? Where are the exclusive titles? Sure, the Switch has tons of indies and niche RPGs lined up; but niche RPGs alone won't sell a console by the millions, as the Vita debacle abundantly proves, and indies are a dime a dozen on all platforms under the gaming sun. I don't really care about the Switch's future anymore, mind you (see my newest post for more on that matter), but still... That's a bit of a worrying trend we're witnessing here.

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    4. Yeah, it seems they blew all their steam last year; it's getting indies sure, but most indies are also on PS4, which already has a 75 million userbase, so how many of those people also own a switch, and how many will repurchase stuff on the switch? I had plans to re-buy some games just for the portability aspect, but after seeing your latest post, I've changed that policy.

      As for pokemon, man, call me an alarmist, but this GO crap combined with their slow descent these past few years, the eradication of non-mobile spin offs, the handholding, the crappy stories with unskippable cutscenes...this does not bode well for the future of the franchise at all. At least there's digimon and Yokai watch to fill the void, but it's still sad to see.

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    5. It's just hilarious to see hardcore Nintendo fans try endlessly to justify Ninty's poor performance and lineups by claiming that great games are bound to be announced just a little bit later. "Sure, the last Nintendo Direct was garbage - but you just wait until E3! There's gonna be plenty of announcements there"! "Right, Nintendo's E3 conference was a pile of horseshit - but there's still the Treehouses, they're gonna show something sweet then!" "Okay, Nintendo's E3 sucked overall - but wait until the September Direct, there's gonna be some big stuff there!" And so on and so forth, year after year. But the harsh truth is that Nintendo has no games to brag about, and the Switch is shaping up to be yet another Nintendo console bereft of third-party support, with only a handful of big first-party titles to support it.

      "This GO crap combined with their slow descent these past few years, the eradication of non-mobile spin offs, the handholding, the crappy stories with unskippable cutscenes...this does not bode well for the future of the franchise at all": you voiced the thoughts that lurk deep within my heart, the thoughts I never dared to write down or say aloud for fear of jinxing the series. But with those upcoming Go spin-offs, it's getting harder and harder to ignore the series' bastardization and cazualization. I'm now pinning my hopes on the Gen VIII games; and if they suck, I'll just turn to the retro entries and replay them till the end of time.

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    6. Exactly; I'd be super mad with the switch if I didn't have other consoles. And all the excuses makes me flashback to the wii u era, wonder why...

      There's hope Sony might try to do a hybrid console as well for the PS5, because honestly, after VR and the PS4 Pro, there's not much they can add to a new console in terms of power without making it as expensive as a super pc. The pro was already too expensive, what with needing a 4k tv as well. They have no announcement for a vita successor, and they have copied Nintendo before with the PSP and the Move so...it's unlikely, but possible, and they did announce that the PS4 is entering is last lifecycle one year after the switch released, so the timing gives me hope.

      Because I'm honestly not seeing Nintendo making a 3DS successor, and it's so freaking easy to port games between the major consoles now, that what reason is there to have something be a switch exclusive unless Nintendo owns your studio or you're using a Nintendo property? Heck, I think Atlus is retarded for making SMT V a switch exclusive; it's not like they haven't abandoned Nintendo for other consoles before, instead of this weird crap of Persona being on sony and everything else on nintendo. Made sense with the 3DS, since handhelds are cheaper and the Vita was considered dead, but now it doesn't. Oh well, Sega owns them, so they might step in and make it a timed exclusive like they did with the yakuza games.

      As for pokemon, I don't even want to think about gen VIII, since I don't think the handholding and the stupid stories will; in fact with all the extra capacity for cutscenes, I'm expecting even more of them. With an even worse festival plaza that bludgeons you to get an online subscription! Yipee!

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    7. I can only hope that GameFreak will heed the complaints and tone down the bloody handholding in the Gen VIII games. Sun and Moon's endless introduction and tutorials didn't sit well with an awful lot of players, starting with reviewers. And given the sales figures for the Gen VIII games, all that spoon-feeding doesn't seem to have brought a whole new generation of players to the fold, which was probably the initial plan. So, hopefully GameFreak will come to their senses and revert to the old approach of teaching the gameplay mechanics through NPC dialogue.

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