BDSP BDSP Travelog Thread

[CynthiaLover]

I'm currently up to Route 216. I got to Celestic Town and dealt with Team Galactic, along with other things. I then went into the Grand Underground and finally found my Snorunt: Frostbite, though it took a couple of room resets to get him. Sadly, he doesn't have Inner Focus but he'll do for now. I also caught several more Mons for later. I managed to beat Fantina. She gave me a bit of trouble, I have to admit, mostly Drifblim. Now with Surf I made several side-quests to places like Fuego Ironworks, the area near Ramanos Park, and any other place that needed Surf to access, battling along the way. Frostbite ended up evolving into Glalie after a while, though I'm still building up his Friendship/Affection.

After completing all side-quests I went to Canalave City. I battled Barry and beat him pretty easily before heading to Iron Island to work with Riley and get the Riolu egg. After doing all that I beat Byron and got my next badge. Then it was time to head to each of the three lakes and deal with Team Galactic. I beat Saturn at Lake Valor and Mars and Lake Verity. Now with Strength I was able to backtrack to Wayward Cave and not only catch a Gible but also got the Earthquake TM. While the bike controls are rather wonky, I won't deny that they do have one advantage over their previous versions: you don't need to build up speed when going up slopes or over ramps like in Gen 4, as you'll automatically go up/jump over the needed spots when you face them. That's a helpful perk.

Anyway, after backtracking to every area I could now that I had Strength I made my way though Mt. Coronet to Route 216. Most of my team are in the upper 40s, with Hotshot and Hawkeye being in the 50s. I'm still debating on some final moves for my Mons, mainly Slick and Frostbite. I'm not sure if I should teach Slick Ice Beam or Sludge Bomb. Both will deal with Grass but the latter will also deal with Fairy, even though there aren't that many Fairy Mons in the game. But given my only offensive coverage against Fairies is Kazap's Flash Cannon I'm seriously debating if it'll be worth teaching him Sludge Bomb over Ice Beam. As for Frostbite I'm not sure if I should teach him the Earthquake TM I got and either Crunch or Shadow Ball. He currently has Freeze-Dry, Ice Shard (priority), Bulldoze (for Fire, Steel, and Rock), and Bite. I'm tempted to give him Earthquake and Shadow Ball so he'll be a mixed attacker like Hotshot (especially since his offensive stats are only a few points apart) but I'm not sure. Any suggestions would be fine. Speaking of moves, Hawkeye is now fully equipped with his final moveset, as is Kazap and Skyfang. I still need to find a way to evolve Skyfang before post-game. I might have to ask for a trade for a Razor Fang from someone at this rate. Have to take a break now as my Switch Lite needs recharging.

 

[Sakuraa]

Lots of progress today, for once I made it through Eterna Forest with Cheryl and thanks to her healing me, I was able to train Sparkling (Pachirisu) quickly. I also battled a trainer with a Piplup which I was glad to see because I remembered a random trainer having a Chimchar in DP which I liked. Got to Eterna City were I had to do a lot of work to get ready to catch my next team members. I went back to Floaroma town to buy loads to honey to start slathering on honey trees. Then I went back to Eterna to meet the Underground Man. I headed to the Grand Underground where I wandered around until found the Grassland Cave there I found Cherubi. This is Pokemon replacement I needed. I wanted to use Leafeon if it was available before the post game, but since it isn't my backup plan came into play and thankfully I don't need a Honey Tree for it since I need that for another team member. Btw, you would think Cherubi was 75% male based on how many dudes I found before finding and catching a female. Her name is Twinkling and thankfully she was level 22 meaning she was stronger than Sparkling and I didn't need to grind!

I headed to Eterna Gym to battle all the trainers and my gosh some of those trainers were tough. I mean, one chicks Turtwig knew Iron Tail!

Gardenia was not too hard, but pretty challenging since I didn't want to just sweep through with Flaring (Monferno). I started with Sparkling who paralyzed and weakened Chreubi with Nuzzle and a couple of Sparks. Cherubi didn't do much but use Safegaurd after already becoming paralyzed but it ensured that I had to wait a bit before using Nuzzle on her next Pokemon. Since Shimmering (Bibarel) didn't get to battle against Roark, I swapped her in and she took out the half health Cherbui with a Headbutt. I switched to Sparkling again for Turtwig. Safeguard was still up so I used Charm to weaken it and it used Reflect. Then it used Work Up and my plan was ruined. Every Charm I used, it responded with Work Up. I used Nuzzle once the Safe Guard ended to Paralyze it and swapped by to Shimmering. She used Reflect again and I started Rollout. It got paralyzed a few times, but continued to use Work Up. I was hoping the Charm attack drops were enough to keep Turtwig from hitting too hard, but sadly Shimmering went down to Grass Knot. She has a defense lowering nature so the attack drops must not have mattered either way. Flaring took it out with Flame Wheel. I switched back to Sparkling to paralyze Roserade. It was faster since Sparkling was two levels lower and has a speed lowering nature. (Yes my Bibarel has a plus speed, minus defense nature and my Pachirisu has a plus defense, minus speed nature ) Petal Blizzard did a lot of damage, but Sparkling was able to stay in decent health got off a Nuzzle. I switched to Flaring to finish things off. Flame Wheel got it to red and it healed with a Sitrus Berry and Grass Knot crit. Since he has higher special attack, I used Ember to finish off Roserade.

After that victory, I must say, I am SO GLAD Ball Capsules can be accessed from the menu now. Having to go to the Pokemon Center every time was so annoying. Gardenia's floral stickers look great on Twinkling's Quick Ball.

Anyway, my next move is to battle Team Galactic.

 

[Okido]

Byron has been defeated! Pikachu managed to oneshot his Bastiodon with a single well-timed Focus Punch, so that was somewhat satisfying. I also beat Saturn and Mars, so right now I've just reached Snowpoint. I kind of skipped right over Iron Island while I was in Canalave, so I intend to backtrack after Candice. Wearing the Winter style sure is fun for these snow routes though.

When I got to the basement of Mt. Coronet, I decided to try the painstaking process of fishing for Feebas. I was absolutely not expecting to encounter one before giving up, but lo and behold, only about 10 tiles in, I happened to find it!

Spoiler: screenshot

I have completely used up all of my good luck on this and things can only go downhill from here.

40:02 playtime, six badges, 114 Pokémon seen... at the time of writing.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

I’ve spent like 20 hours with two gym badges just to grind out a Spiritomb, I’ve got more fossils, plates, shards, and evolution stones and statues than I know what to do with. I’m almost done but then that’ll give me my third member for my team. My team right now is:

-Prinplup
-Pachirisu
-Mew
-Jirachi
-Manaphy
-(empty slot for Spiritomb)

I don’t use the mythicals all that often, only in an emergency when I run into something Prinplup and Pachirisu can’t deal with. I should be able to wrap Spiritomb up soon and move onto Pastoria City or Veilstone City, assuming I can fight the leaders in either order. I might take on Crasher Wake first to let Spiritomb level up a bit for Maylene’s Lucario, I don’t want Prinplup to evolve quite yet though, since it gains a Fighting weakness on evolution, but it wouldn’t be too big of an issue to be perfectly honest. Empoleon is strong.

 

[Greninjaman]

I have become the champion!
My team: Empoleon, Crobat, Golem, Roserade, Houndoom, and Mr. Mime.

I considered replacing Golem with Garchomp, however, I decided, no I want to do it with the team that got me this far! While Garchomp is very powerful (being a psuedo-Legendary), I wanted to do it with Golem on the team.

Also, interesting fact: My entire team other than Houndoom is male.

 

[zoroarctic]

Defeated Crasher Wake and Fantina yesterday. No problems with Crasher Wake; Leona Volt Switched Gyarados right off the bat, and Slider took care of the rest without trouble. Fantina on the other hand may have been the most difficult gym battle I've had in a long time. (This was partly due to my team choice - I boxed some of my regulars that were getting overleveled. Even so, I had plenty of favorable type matchups but she still gave me a run for my money)

 

[Alola]

So, I made it to the GU today and immediately began to explore the caves. I was hoping to find a Togepi when a Lickitung caught my eye during my exploration. After looking up its movepool, imagine my surprise to learn that its evolution move (Rollout) had been moved down to level 6 for Gen 8 - this means one could easily get a Lickilicky unlike before! This little big guy was at 20 and thankfully still knew the move - it wasn't forgotten in favor of his Egg Move Thrash; thank goodness for Prinplup's newly available Charm, otherwise we would have been Rollout'd and Thrashed into sheer unconscious. After several Poke Balls, it finally relented (was even holding a Lagging Tail too) and now I'm the proud owner of a level 21 Lickilicky; the team's up to four members now. I've never used the species before, so I'm a bit excited; I also now have something neutral for Gardenia, so I feel a bit better. I just thought this was notable to share.

Also, all the Roselia in the GU made me feel sad my Budew is still a Budew... Ugh. It's so tempting to just catch one instead and bypass the friendship stuff (as well as enjoy Leech Seed & Magical Leaf, which my Budew has missed out on); I miss Platinum's early Soothe Bell.

 

[EmpoleonProd]

I finally caught my Spiritomb so now I'm quickly training it in the routes around Veilstone and Pastoria so it catches up to my Prinplup and Pachirisu in level, Prinplup is level 35, Pachirisu is 33, and Spiritomb is 30. My plan is to actually go fight Crasher Wake first so Spiritomb gets as much experience as possible before I need to fight Maylene. I will also be keeping my Prinplup from evolving until I beat Maylene, as I don't want the Fighting weakness that Empoleon brings with it quite yet. Even if I get to level 36 or 37, Empoleon doesn't learn anything of note via level up that Prinplup doesn't learn, so holding off on evolving it brings no real downsides with it, and actually gives me an advantage against Maylene's pesky Lucario. My plan today is quite frankly to steamroll through as many of the gyms as possible, now that I got the long and tedious Spiritomb grind out of the way. The remaining three members I want for my team are Lucario, Garchomp, and Weavile so if I could get into Snowpoint City by tonight that would be ideal.

 

[RavenRaziel98]

I visited every pokemon hideout today, caught some pokemon (Glalie, Caterpie, Swinub, Dratini and more). Also I just caught around 15-20 Bidoofs because I need to sacrifice them.

 

[JFrombaugh]

Finally got around to playing this game, and I have to say that in addition to the massive nostalgia wave I've been waiting years for, so far it's actually exceeded my expectations!

Although I didn't care for the chibi art style at first, it really isn't that bad once you get used to it, and I felt like they did a good job balancing that with more fleshed out backgrounds. The forest backgrounds in particular look beautiful.

As expected, the shared experience has made the story all too easy for me compared to the originals, but oh well. Pretty much everything else is as I remember, although Turtwig learning Leafage was a very unexpected surprise.

And not having to actually use HMs is definitely the right choice, again. Threw away those worthless Rock Smash TMs as soon as I found out you can just use the move via Poketch instead.

Currently up to Eterna City, taking a break to do some more exploring of the Grand Underground before I challenge Gardenia. It is still a lot of fun, but it's a crying shame the traps & Secret Base furniture didn't make the cut and instead we got these silly statues. But I want to try to recreate my original Platinum team (as best I can within the Sinnoh Dex limitations) so I'll just have to keep going down there since a few Pokemon I need are rare spawns available from the start.

My team as of right now is:
Grotle L21
Luxio L19
Staravia L21
Geodude L19
Absol L18

 

[Sakuraa]

Lot's of progress, thank goodness. I went from Eterna to Hearthome today. First I was lucky enough to catch my 5th team member from an active honey tree; Beaming the Burmy. I was thankful I got a male on the first try, through if I'd gotten a female I would have just bred her once I got to Solaceon. After dealing with Team Galactic and getting a yellow bike, I made my way to Hearthome. I went through the Amity Square and poffin shenanigans before running into Shine. The battle was simple with no issues and I was happy to see that he had stickers on his Prinplup's ball capsule. Beaming and Twinkling (Cherubi) evolved after the battle.

After spending time making some poffins, I had to check out the new contests. I'm disappointed that there are no ribbons for winning the contest anymore , but I think the updated contests are fun. I don't really get how they work, especially which ball capsules work in which contests, but I suppose I can work on that another day.

 

[RavenRaziel98]

I just caught a Cresselia with at least two perfect IVs.
Edit: Same thing with Mesprit, makes me wonder if it's supposed to be that way.

 

[UxieLover1994]

I just got my fourth badge in Pastoria, but mainly been doing the Grand Underground in the hopes of getting Spiritomb. Without access to HOME, or having something akin to Wonder Trade/Surprise Trade, it is just too hard to fill the dex through trading when people reject your offers all the time, even my BD offers to a SP player, or at one point, refusing to help me evolve a Kadabra while rubbing his Alakazam in my face. (I don't have a trade partner IRL)

I've been ill these past few days, so I've not been playing much. I've finally decided on a nickname for my Pachirisu, and managed to add a new party member onto my A-team.

Infernape ♀ (Gertrude)
Gastrodon ♂ (Siegfried - West Sea)
Pachirisu ♂ (Streifen)
Skorupi ♂ (Stachel)

 

[RavenRaziel98]

Infernape ♀ (Gertrude)
Gastrodon ♂ (Siegfried - West Sea)
Pachirisu ♂ (Streifen)
Skorupi ♂ (Stachel)

By any chance, do you have relatives in Germany or something?

 

[UxieLover1994]

By any chance, do you have relatives in Germany or something?

I have German ancestors through my father. Also, the city of Adelaide was named for a German Princess (and British Queen), and we have a town on the outskirts founded by German settlers. My idea of giving my BD team German names is mainly because I want a theme. My LGE team has mainly Spanish names (Nina, Gaspar, Raquel, Abelardo, and Nestor) apart from a Clefairy nicknamed Cupcake.

 

[RavenRaziel98]

I have German ancestors through my father. Also, the city of Adelaide was named for a German Princess (and British Queen), and we have a town on the outskirts founded by German settlers. My idea of giving my BD team German names is mainly because I want a theme. My LGE team has mainly Spanish names (Nina, Gaspar, Raquel, Abelardo, and Nestor) apart from a Clefairy nicknamed Cupcake.

Really cool idea, maybe I'll try something like that too one day ^^

 

[charlycicero]

Man, I already said it in other thread and I will say it again. I am so thrilled the game gives you the option very early in the game to use three cute Mythicals and with your OT. I am playing with Manaphy and Jirachi because I never could before and loving it. I boxed the Mew because I played with one in LGE and because it overlaps with Jirachi.

And I also love the fact that I could get Spriritomb recently early too. I couldn't do that in the original Diamond, because I picked up the game just a few months ago, never played Sinnoh before that, and by that time the online functionality was already non existant. It was a 15 year old game at that time, so no surprises.

And the underground is amazing, especially the hideaways.

I am loving SP much more than I anticipated before release and I'm glad.

 

[Okido]

To summarize the last day or two:

• Candice has been defeated. But not before I accidentally walked right out of the gym as soon as I solved the puzzle, thereby resetting the whole thing The good news is that I'm now further than I ever got in my first playthrough of Diamond! I got stuck here back in 2007 because little kid me was trying to tank the whole game with Torterra alone lol
• I caught Dialga in a plain old regular Poké Ball because I'm a showoff and I thought it was funny. It looks adorably small walking around on the overworld though.
• After much trial and error, and lots of futzing about underground, I finally managed to get Spiritomb to come out of the Hallowed Tower (can I get a "Yulaaah!"). I caught both a male and a female one thanks to that autosave exploit (shhh don't tell) and ended up breeding a new Spiritomb, with a Calm nature. Now I finally have my last party member!
• After catching a whole boxful of Pikachu, I gave up on trying to nab that 5% chance of finding a Light Ball, and put an Absol with Super Luck in the first slot to increase that chance to 20%. Wouldn't you know it, the first Pikachu I ran into next was holding one. Why I didn't do this from the beginning, I have no idea. The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma. Pikachu has its Light Ball now.
• After missing out on seeing it organically at Fantina's gym, I set the clock back on my Switch to go catch a Drifloon at Valley Windworks for my dex (shhhh don't tell I'm not cheating I swear ).

Today I intend to 1. grind up Spiritomb in levels so he can keep up with the rest of my team, 2. fill out any spots that I missed in my Pokédex, and 3. potentially take on Volkner and head to the League.

Currently at 53:25 playtime, seven badges, 126 Pokémon seen.

 

[Sakuraa]

I made my way to Veilstone where I accomplished my life's mission of changing my outfit. I bought the Spring Style because it is cute as hell. Then I bought a bunch of TMs from the department store, including Fire Blast, Flamethrower, Thunder, and Thunderbolt. I taught Flamethrower and Thunderbolt to Flaring (Monferno) and Sparkling (Pachirisu) and I'll probably upgrade them to the stronger moves later down the line. Then it was time to battle Maylene.

I decided to lead with Beaming (Mothim) for his first gym battle. Her Meditite started with Light Screen and I used Quiver Dance. I tried to stall the Light Screen with Protect as she failed with Drain Punch. I used Gust which almost KO'd Meditite. I expected a heal so I used Quiver Dance again, but she just used Drain Punch. The next Gust finished it off. Then it was Twinkling (Cherrim) vs. Machoke. I used Leech Seed to start and Low Sweep did nearly half damage, but my recovery helped out. I used Sunny Day to prepare a one turn Solar Beam and it used Low Sweep again. The 3rd Low Sweep nearly killed (and probably would have if I didn't have a Leech Seed up) and Solar Beam did a decent chunk before Light Screen finally wore off (I didn't even realize that the screen was still up at this point, so that Meditite must have had Light Clay). Next turn, we both healed at the same time. My next Solar Beam nearly took Machoke out thanks to the screen being gone and Leech Seed finished it. Last was Flaring vs Lucario. Lucario only used Bulk Up and thankfully my Sunny Day was still up, so Flaring one shot it with a single boosted Flamethrower.

I ended my day by helping Lucas retrieve his Pokedex from Team Galactic. Next mission is heading to Pastoria.

 

[Okido]

And we're finished! I went straight through Volkner and Victory Road this morning and was crowned Champion by later that evening.

I somehow managed to beat the Elite Four and Cynthia all on my first try, too. Her Milotic gave me a bit of trouble, because at one point I must have backed it into a corner with Gastrodon and it was trying to stall me out with Recover, but Pikachu managed to eventually outspeed it. Hall of Fame time was I believe something like 57:48 (leave it to me to completely forget to take a screenshot of that). My final team that took on Cynthia was:

Spoiler: list

Torterra ♂ Lv. 68 @ Leftovers
Nature: Naughty
-Wood Hammer
-Earthquake
-Stealth Rock
-Curse

Gastrodon ♂ Lv. 69 @ Mystic Water
Nature: Relaxed
-Surf
-Earth Power
-Ice Beam
-Recover

Clefable ♀ Lv. 71 @ Charcoal
Nature: Hardy
-Moonblast
-Flamethrower
-Calm Mind
-Metronome

Pikachu ♀ Lv. 68 @ Light Ball
Nature: Adamant
-Spark
-Attract
-Nuzzle
-Focus Punch

Bastiodon ♀ Lv. 72 @ Rock Incense
Nature: Bashful
-Flash Cannon
-Ancient Power
-Iron Defense
-Metal Sound

Spiritomb ♂ Lv. 63 @ Quick Claw
Nature: Calm
-Shadow Ball
-Psychic
-Nasty Plot
-Confuse Ray

Immediately after this, I finished up my Pokédex by seeing Mesprit, catching Azelf and Uxie, looking at a picture of Palkia in Celestic Town, and realizing I somehow completely missed seeing Unown in the Solaceon Ruins. I got the National Dex and Poké Radar (I tried a few radar chains but didn't manage anything above 28), got an Eevee from Bebe, and checked out Ramanas Park. After digging up some shards and trading them in for slates, I managed to catch Regice there.

Since then I've just been checking out the Hideaways underground and catching some of the new Pokémon that are showing up there now. I really want to find a Squirtle specifically to add it to my postgame team but it's totally evading me lol. I'm also going to be catching Porygon and Eevee at the Trophy Garden, doing more stuff with the Poké Radar, and checking out more of Ramanas Park and the Battle Zone when I can, so I can very slowly fill out the rest of my dex.

62:06 playtime, 202 Pokémon seen!