Pokemon Ruby: The Flygon Solo Run

 

 

Getting an extra serving of Gen III, just because I can! I became fully aware of the Flygon line’s existence as I was cruising through the Desert on route 111 and stumbled upon a Trapinch right as my Repel stopped working. The thing is, I always cross the Route 111 Desert on Repels; and this was probably the first time ever I encountered a wild Trapinch in Hoenn. My curiosity aroused by this creature, I looked for its evolutions on Bulbapedia — and the rest is history. 

 

 

My little Bloodstone — which, to quote Wikipedia, is an “opaque green jasper with red inclusions of hematite” — boasted an Adamant Nature, which I deemed perfect as the line’s learnset is overwhelmingly physical. I cheated a bit by sending the Dragonbreath TM from my breeding Emerald cartridge, along with the Lucky Egg; but apart from that, I dutifully stuck to the line’s normal learning path. Scroll down to ckeck the evolution of my move pool — and let’s pause to appreciate the subtle irony of a Mon wielding Earthquake while being totally immune to Ground Moves thanks to Levitate.

 

It should surprise no one that my run was a blazing festival of one-shooting, with little to no obstruction. I reached the Elite Four at a measly (by my standards) Lv. 90, which didn’t prevent me from mopping the flour with basically every Trainer and Mon. In a nutshell: I one-shot everything bar Dusclops, Claydol, Cradily and Armaldo. I spent the whole showdown spamming Flamethrower and Dragon Claw, using Earthquake solely for Sealeo and Walrein and not using Return at all. Strange fact: Steven sent Metagross in third place, which I didn’t even know was possible — didn’t do anything to help his case, though.

 

A couple of other queer things happened during that run. First, my team of Zigzagoons picked up an uncannily low number of Rare Candies — roughly ten over the whole run, which is definitely the lowest performance I’ve seen on that front. Incidentally, I also gave them names this time around; and I couldn’t help but feel paranoid about a causal link — even though I was probably just unlucky, and we were dealing with a coincidence. 

 

 

Secondly, and more sinisterly: as I booted my GBA one fateful day, the cartridge informed me that I had erased my save data, and presented me with a New Game opening screen. I felt the blood drain from my face, and stood there frozen for a couple of seconds — before using the tried-and-tested trick of rebooting my GBA. This time, my save file appeared as normal, and I uttered a giant sigh of relief. A bit of research revealed that this is a documented occurrence; it might be due to connectivity issues, or to the cartridge just plainly getting old and starting to fail. Well, be it; I’ll write another day about the obsolescence of all pieces of kit, and the impermanence of gaming as a whole. For now, I’m sailing towards new and exciting runs, of Pokemon or else. Take care, dear fellow gamers!