PPPB Part 3 Have You Learned the Basic Elemental Wheel Yet?

Part 3

Have you learned the basic elemental wheel yet?

Welcome back to Panzer Plays Pokemon Black! Last we met, we had a bit of a plot/tutorial dump. I've also recently found out that most of the towns in B/W are named after clouds. Interesting.

However, no Cloud nor Squall will stop me! Let's get back into things!

There isn't much else of interest in the town so far. I saw a couple people ask me to listen to them play music. However I play with the sound off. Because I'm not playing with the smoothest of emulation, so the music is turned off.

However the game showing off multi tiered towns has not escaped my notice. There's plenty of stairs around and a decent view of two items in a spot I cannot reach just yet.

There's also a kid who plays "Pokemon Paper Rock Scissors"

It's a simple way to show a simple elemental weakness chain, although why this is called Pokemon Paper Rock Scissors is beyond me. It's like wanting to play soccer but then call the game Football. Totally weird.

Before I leave the town I have to go through this station, which has a helpful area that shows the date, weather, and some tips for the player.

Heading out, I get another call, this time from mom.

 

Really, I don't see why you even bothered calling me if you're just going to hang up...

  
It's almost like a kid and their new toy. Any excuse to play with it.

Anyway, among the chatter she also give me the running shoes. Has the Pokemon protagonists ever learned how to run without running shoes?

She also reads off the instructions to the running shoes, says I'm not truly alone with my Pokemon, and goes off.

This is this game's first instance of Trainer battles out on the field. But there's only a couple, and I'm soon reunited with Bianca. Who runs up to me and challenges me to another Pokemon battle.

Beating her I await Cheren to pop up out of nowhere and fight me again too.


But now I've reached...

Striaton City

]

Such progressive feminism!

I head to Fennel's house, the friend the Professor mentioned earlier, but I cannot meet her just yet as some kid won't let me go upstairs to meet her. Very well, then.

There's another area I can train in, Dreamyland, so I head off there. I can finish off going through the town later.

Someone here offers me a Pansage and, well... might as well take it. After my first thought of "let me google what a Pansage looks like" I've decided what to name it.

 
 
Well, it looks like a Monmon, so I named it Monmon.

This also marks the first non-normal type Pokemon I got barring Tepig.

The area seems to end, with my way blocked by a traffic cone.

 

 
She doesn't say anything about it... but it looks suspicious!

I head back into town to check out the rest of it.

 


So that's how that works you "surprise" a Pokemon in a way that they are unable to evolve.

Anyway, I meet up with Cheren here who... well of course he battles me.

I check out the town some more, see an area I can't go through because a guy is saying I'm not strong enough as I have no badges. However I do manage to find the gym leader (I couldn't get to him prior to doing certain events).

Right before I go in, though, the gym leader specifically notes that I have a fire type, and it would be weak against a water type. The one who gave me Monmon also said something similar, which is why she gave me that pokemon in the first place.




Anyway, this gym (located in a restaurant) is puzzle based, but it's simple, though. figure out what button to press to get through a curtain, fight a trainer. You do this 3 times.

I can see that this game *really* wants me to learn the Grass Water Fire elemental wheel. Normally, considering that the gym leader also teaches trainers about Pokemon, I can understand an emphasis on this sort of mechanic. However, other people have made mention of this as well. Okay, I get it! Don't need to constantly remind me.

So I get to the end I get to the gym trainer. Turns out there's 3 of them, but the one I fight is determined by who my starter is. And as I picked Tepig, my opponent will use water Pokemon.

Still, I admit, I lost. The trainer had a Pokemon that constantly buffed and also was healed midway through so by the time I got to his second Pokey I only had a near dead Tepig against a water type.

Now, this is kinda funny because of the order of events that happens.

The game states that my character paid the trainer for her loss. *Then* blacked out. *Then* rushed for the Pokecenter.




I mean... jeez. It was much simpler when you just whited out and found yourself at the Pokecenter.

I would have grinded first, but at the point the trainers are the only ones giving good EXP. The wild pokemon don't give enough at the moment, and I think the higher leveled my Pokemon are, the less exp I get from them.

Anyway, second time's a charm, and I get my first badge, as well as my first TM, Work up (which was the ability that screwed me over the first time).

Overall... barring it's theme this is probably the weakest first gym I can recall. Mostly because it's basically a tutorial gym.

Heading outside I meet up with Fennel. She gives me the HM Cut, and tells me to get some mist from Dreamyland. But that will have to wait until later! See you then!