Pokemon Omega Ruby: The Delcatty solo run

So, I'm back to ORAS again, after ditching my Delcatty solo run one year ago. The reason for that most unexpected comeback is pretty simple: I recently discovered that ORAS are an utter and complete treasure trove of 'Mons that are incredibly hard, if not impossible, to find in other games. Glameow, Larvesta, Lopunny, Ponyta, Deerling, Clefairy: you name them, they roam Gen VI Hoenn. Heck, even super-duper rare Venomoth itself can be found in the wild in ORAS! And don't get me started on all the Mega Stones lying around, which are just begging to be picked up and slapped on my next One and 'Monly. Mega Audino, here I come! Anyway, pair that sheer wealth of 'Mons and MS with the very convenient possibility to trade with X&Y and pretty lenient Obedience conditions, and you get a massive amount of potential Gen VI solo runs.

Well, now you have.

Of course, gaining access to that treasure trove of solo runs involved finishing at least one run of ORAS; and if you remember well, Omega Ruby and I didn't exactly part on the best of terms. However, I had an inkling at the time that I could like ORAS with a bit of tweaking — namely, to treat it as its own unique game, and to avoid playing it back-to-back with Ruby and Sapphire. Luckily, I hadn't erased my OR save file from last year; and so, I was able to dive right back into my aborted Delcatty run and to finish it in one smooth, clean go. And mind you, it didn't even hurt; in fact, I daresay that I really enjoyed OR this time around. Not touching Gen III for a whole year really cleaned up my memories of Hoenn, allowing me to start anew with OR and to appreciate it on its own merits. It's still too early to elaborate on my impressions of those remakes; but I'll sure get around to it once a have a couple of runs under my belt.

At any rate, I enjoyed the second half of that Delcatty solo run, and I took the purple feline all the way to the Elite Four and beyond. And it wasn't even that hard, too! Although I had left my Delcatty with a crappy Move pool made of Secret Power, Assist, Feint Attack and Dig, I had no problem progressing and vanquishing the opposition. And with my run firmly back on track, I launched into the Great Quest to Get a Decent Move Pool. Mind you, my Move pool from last year was serviceable enough: Secret Power hit quite hard with added status effect bonus, and Assist allowed me to access six extra Moves — Surf, Brick Break, Strength, Cut, Fly and Dragon Breath. However, I wouldn't be able to rely on Assist during the final showdown; and thus I needed more Move options.

There's no such thing as 'too much water' — but more on that in a future post. Yup, teaser!

And thus began the most backtracky fetch fest of them all, which had me Flying, Surfing and Diving all around Hoenn to get my hands on a measly four TMs that didn't even have the decency to fully exploit my Améthyste's stats. See for yourself:

Shadow Ball: Inside Mt. Pyre's — probably the easiest to find.

Thunderbolt: In New Mauville; obtained by running an errand for Wattson, after beating Primal Groudon.

Ice Beam: In Sea Mauville, obtainable only with Dive.

Return: Available only in Pacifidlog, i.e. at End Game's door. RSE let you get a second Return TM from Professor Cozmo in Fallarbor; ORAS offers no such convenience and forces you to go all the way to Pacifidlog.

Those four Moves made the cut to the Pokemon League; they could have been a dope set indeed, if not for the fact that my Delcatty boasted a Careful nature and thus a lowered Sp. Attack — meaning that she couldn't make the most of Shadow Ball, Thunderbolt and Ice Beam. And since I Moon-Stoned her before she hit lv. 46 and learnt Play Rough, I was stuck with a mere single Physical Move to exploit her most powerful offensive stat. Now, did this hinder me in any way? Not at all; I steamrolled the Elite Four and the Champion just the same — and all the other Trainers before them, for that matter.

All's well that ends well.

At any rate, I now have a finished OR run under my belt, which means that the stage is set for serial recruiting, breeding, MS-picking and trading. Ditto being kinda hard to find in ORAS — how very ironic indeed — I already recruited a specimen in X and sent him to my OR cartridge for immediate breeding purposes. As for the other half, I have a number of runs already lined up; but for suspense's sake, I'll keep the identity of my future One and 'Monlies under wraps until I post my reports. Until then, dear fellow gamers, keep playing and take care!