26: Taking Care of Business Part II

26: Taking Care of Business Part II

-- Striation City --

We are done here for now, so Fly Striation City and heal up your team, then save.  Head west into the park and Surf over to the spit of land in the northwest to get the gift of a Big Pearl from the Trainer there, then head to the northeast corner to Dowse up a Zinc.  Follow the Dowse to the left of the exit for a BalmMushroom -- that's big money, mate!  Remember the maid in that trailer buying grub?

Follow Route 3 past the Daycare Center and take the south fork, running down and onto the long bridge here.  Surf north off of the bridge to a narrow spit of land and grab the Full Heal from the treasure ball there, then Surf west to the shore and hop off.

Before you go up the stairs head to the west and get the Max Ether from the treasure ball in the middle of the grass here -- nice one!  Now up the stairs and follow the Dowse to grab the Rare Candy, then have you a battle.

Pokemon Breeder Galen has a Level 32 Simisage, Level 32 Simipour, and a Level 32 Simisear.  At the end of the battle she gifts you a Lum Berry.

Grab the HP Up from the treasure ball, and then backtrack to the water and the bridge and head west through the gatehouse into Nacrene City.  May as well hit the Poke Center to heal and save now.

Continue west and into the woods, following the twisted path until your Dowser tells you there is a prize in view!  The Tiny Mushroom is in the hollow stump, then follow the path back to the main route and a bit south to the east break in the guard rail, and follow that path all the way to the stairs, down the stairs, and to the water.

Surf under the route (bridges) and up the stairs on the far bank to get to the treasure ball we could not reach before -- grabbing the SilverPowder from it.  Excellent!   Backtrack and grab the Rare Candy on the shore using your Dowser -- and when you reach the stairs keep going east to grab TM22, SolarBeam, from the treasure ball in the grass down there!

Right then, it is time to head back west and north, up the stairs and then to the east, following the path north through the hollow tree, grabbing the Hyper Potion from the treasure ball in the hollow stump, and then backtracking tot he main road , as we are done here!

-- Liberty Pier --

Cross the Skyarrow Bridge and hit the Pokemon Center in Castelia City and buy a good supply of Ultra Balls, then save your game...  Assuming you have the Liberty Pass and that you have not already done so, head for the last dock on the main road and enter Liberty Pier.

Talk to the bloke by the ship to go to Liberty Island, where it seems that Team Plasma has beaten you to the punch!  Head around the path to the first Grunt and have you a battle!

Team Plasma Grunt has a Level 18 Patrat.

Continue south to the dock where the Plasma Ship is docked and take out the Grunt there...

Team Plasma Grunt has a Level 17 Sandile, a Level 17 Patrat.

Head all the way west to the vending machine and grab the Ultra Ball from the trash can there, then hit the vending machine if you need to replace any kit.  Head up to the lighthouse and battle the Grunt there...

Team Plasma Grunt has a Level 18 Sandile.

-- The Lighthouse --

Stepping inside you will find a guard who can heal your team, and then head down the stairs to the next battle.

Team Plasma Grunt has a Level 17 Patrat, and a Level 17 Scraggy.

Inside a Team Plasma Grunt shares waaayyy too much information with you -- they are really good about that, right?  You would think that with so important a Pokemon they would have sent an officer at least, but oh well...

Team Plasma Grunt has a Level 20 Watchog.

Capturing the Legendary Victini

-- The Sad Case of Victini -- the Grief Pokemon --

All that is left is for you to step up to Victini and begin the battle!  Remember the point is to capture it, not kill it -- I remind you of that because you are very likely to WANT to kill it as this capture plays out.

By now you have discovered that the nice folks at Game Freak who made this game for you have gone back on their promise not to add grief code to the Legendary Pokemon in the game.  In the 3rd Generation of games there was such a bitter reaction to the overly grief-rich process of capturing the legendary Pokemon -- it could and often did take literal hours of throwing ball after ball and failing time and again before finally getting lucky and capturing...

Gamers reacted to this by complaining -- and it is understandable that they did!  Having it set up like this just leads to frustration -- which is why in the 4th Generation of the games Game Freak made it less tedious, with an average capture within 25 throws -- and they made sure that the fans and gamers knew that this change was a reaction to their hatred and frustration of the old system.

I have bad news for you...  That new system they put in place in the last games?  It is not present in this one.  Be prepared for hours spent failing to capture Legendary Pokemon.  I wish I could say it was not so, but the grief code is back.

Using Ultra Balls and Victini weakened to a sliver of health I threw 126 Ultra Balls, 65 Great Balls, and 33 Poke Balls in a row, no capture.  I had to reload the game for a second try as I had run out of balls, and the second time through?  122 Ultra Balls later I caught him, but by the time that happened I no longer cared and, more is the pity, will probably never value this Legendary because of that.  Thanks for nothing, Game Freak.

I had to put the game away for a few days after this, as capturing Victini made me lose my desire to play it.  I hope that does not happen to you.

When you exit the Lighthouse after the horrible process of capturing Victini you are confronted by a crowd of people -- the Professor is here and Team Plasma has been captured -- or at least the ones that were here anyway. 

She explains why Plasma was after this Pokemon, and some of its history, including the odd number assignment in the Unova Pokedex.  She takes off with the police after that, and you are done with this part of the game -- assuming you had access to this part -- if not, then sorry bruddah, we feel for you not having this most awesome Pokemon!