25/05/2019

Pokemon X: The Sylveon Solo Run


Here comes my second Eevee run, dear fellow gamers! After little Flareon, it's time for the Kalos variety of Eevee to be put to the test. Is Sylveon an ace in his home region? Well, he kinda is indeed! That most frilly fox boasts three assets that make him a 'Mon of choice in Kalos: first, he's a true powerhouse on the Special front, with a pretty high HP to boot. Secondly, he has the learnset to match, full of powerful Special Moves. Last but not least, his Type weaknesses, Poison and Steel, are hardly a hindrance in Kalos: there's nary a Poison 'Mon around, and Steel 'Mons hardly ever appear before the Elite Four. Overall, pure Fairy Type works really well in X&Y; and while having a 'Mon perform honourably in his debut game may seem like the most obvious thing in the world, local Raichu's poor solo performance in Alola has proven that it's far from being a given. So let's rejoice, and let's enjoy the awesomeness of the Fairy Type on its oh-so-frenchy turf.

When it comes to Moves, cruising with Sylveon was very much a case of being content with what you have and making the most of it. The Fairy Eevee has a tiny offensive learnset by default, with only twelve offensive Moves available through TM and nine by leveling up. The latter include four Special Fairy Moves of various power, a perfect setting for Sylveon given the combination of his high Sp. Attack and the STAB. But wait, there's a catch and a massive one at that. See, Sylveon learns three of those Fairy Moves before lv. 20; yet in X&Y, Eevees can only be recruited right after the second Gym, at lv. 20-22. Heck, I think we all see the big issue here: in a regular X&Y run with no breeding involved, you're gonna miss on Sylveon's first three Fairy Moves no matter what; and by the time you reach the Move Reminder, you won't have any use for these Moves anymore because of their low power. GameFreak visibly spotted the problem and tried to mitigate it in Gen VII, by making Sylveon learn Fairy Wind upon evolving; you still miss out on Disarming Voice and Draining Kiss in the process, but I guess that's better than nothing.

Getting deprived of three quarters of Sylveon's Fairy Moves is already galling enough, but that's not even the end of Sylveon's learnset troubles. The Fairy fox-meets-rabbit suffers from what I dubbed 'The Great Move Gap': he doesn't learn any offensive Moves by leveling up between lv. 20 and lv. 37. Add to this the fact that the offensive TMs he can learn appear very late in the game, and you get the situation I wound up in during my run: until my Sylveon reached lv. 37, I was stuck with the base offensive Move pool he wielded as an Eevee namely Quick Attack, Bite and Swift. I managed to make do with those Moves pretty neatly, shall I say: Swift as my main choice, Quick Attack to finish foes, and Bite for anything immune to Normal. Still, as I saw levels pile up and no new Moves come my Sylveon's way, the whole thing started to look like GameFreak was taking the piss out of me, and I seriously wondered if we were dealing with some trolling of Pidove proportions there.

But then came the fated lv. 37; and oh dear, was it a turnaround indeed. Moonblast: Fairy Special Move, 95 power nuff said. My Sylveon was still just as starved of Moves as before, but he suddenly became able to one-shoot everything with abandon. Needless to say, I spent the rest of my run spamming Moonblast. Even after I got hold of Psychock and Shadow Ball in the late stages of the game, Moonblast remainded my go-to Move thanks to its enormous power and the STAB. I really cherished that Move, because of how long I had to wait before I got hold of it and how much it changed my fighting fortunes. But I cherished even more Swift, which remained in my Move pool during the whole game. As a multi-target Special Move with 60 power, it remained relevant all the way to the Pokemon league, and I always found good uses for it. Fun fact: in french, that Move is called 'Meteors', which I deem ten times more evocative than Swift on top on hinting nicely at the multi-targeting capability of that Move.

In the end, Sylveon exceeded all my expectations. This is not the most popular eeveelution of them all, and I half-feared that he would let me down on the battlefield; but despite his tiny learnset, my Sylveon did a great job on that front and conquered the Pokemon League without breaking a sweat. See you soon for more Pokemon goodness, dear fellow gamers! Until then, as usual: thanks for reading, and drop by anytime!

5 comments:

  1. Honestly, the best way to get a good sylveon in gen VI is by trading with the maid lady that stays at the hotel; she gives you a level 5 female Eevee with a rare candy and a docile nature. You can get her to trade you at the first hotel you come across if you wait and talk to her for several days(she rotates hotels daily, so it can take a while depending on your luck).

    It has an incredibily stupid name though; Stevie. Come on, even I can name pokemon better then that. And a for a female eevee? And since GF is still retarded about not letting you rename traded pokemon (a feature I'm sure the many poor souls who got pokemon names like "ButtFace" or "DragonKum", or just a Muk spelled backwards, absolutely loved before the profanity filter got added), you're stuck with it. I seriously hope they remove this sometime, but they didn't even do it in let's go where you can do in-game trades for the alolan version of gen 1 pokemon, so I got stuck with pokemon I can't nickname. Better than a dumb name, but it hindered the bond I could have with my alolan vulpix who I desperately wanted to name Arles. Why GF, why?

    As for Sylveon...unpopular opinion, but one of the least cute, if not the ugliest, eeveelutions there is. It's the eyes that bring the whole design down for me, they creep me out. I think the pastels combined with the bright pupil-less eyes does not work. There's a serious lack of contrast that could have been easily fixed with some pupils or a deeper shade of eyes. I've doodled Sylveon with both combinations and it looked miles better to me, but it's just my opinion. Everyone else seems to like it, but I was creeped out when it looked at me in pokemon amie.

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    1. Why, I didn't know you could get an Eevee so early in X/Y! Thanks for filling me in! I'll probably go for that method if I ever tackle another Eeevee run in those games, because waiting for after the second Gym is just too tedious. I can deal with the crappy name, I think. Wonder if this is an homage of sorts to Stevie Nicks? I cannot see the connection, but who knows. GameFreak can be pretty weird with references sometimes. :P

      I laughed so hard at the mention of "Muk spelled backwards", I swear! :D Too bad they added that profanity filter; but then again, as long as you cannot change the name of a traded 'Mon, it's probably better that way.

      What I hate most about Sylveon are his ears. This is a fox we're talking about; so why on earth does it have rabbit ears? Those ears don't go too well with the rest of his body and give him a slightly goofy look that I could have done without.

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    2. I barely even noticed the ears, because they're hidden by that huge ribbon. Wasn't one ribbon enough? At this point, it feels over designed. It's a design that looks good at a glance, but falls apart the more you look at it. Thankfully, it's my least favourite eeveelution, so heh, but then again, it's pro baby my least favourite because I don't find it cute in the slightest.

      Wonder if we'll get a new eeveelution for generation 8. On one hand I love the gimmick, on the other hand, I already don't like 2/3 of the designs we've seen for sword and shield, and we've only seen the starters. Doesn't bode well.

      *bug type or ghost type, bug type or ghost type, bug type or ghost type, please!*

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    3. Oh, now that I think about it, that stupid ribbon is probably why the ears are so large. Smaller ears would be barely noticeable, and I'm guessing they want the blue inner ears to be seen at a glance, since there would be too much white and pink otherwise. Again, this could be solved by only having one ribbon instead.

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    4. A single ribbon would have been much better, no doubt about that. It would have been more noticeable by sheer virtue of being, well, single; and since the Eevee sex ratio is overly skewed in favour of males, there was really no reason to go overboard with feminine features. Sylveon would have been Fairy-ish enough with one ribbon. And then his ears could have been smaller, dang it!

      Talking about Gen 8, I watched Sword&Shield's trailer again lately; and oh boy, did I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I realized that the areas were just way too big for my taste. I've been traumatized by XC2 and its overly large game world; and since then, I've become pretty much allergic to games that make themselves bigger than necessary just because. Pokemon games are all rushing around and grinding like crazy as far as I'm concerned, and I don't fancy too much exploring in my Pokemon.

      Oh, well; why do I even worry at all? I don't have a Switch anymore! I have all the time in the world to investigate Sword&Shield before I ever get to play them, and I can give them a pass easily if they're not to my liking. Problem solved! ^^

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