Hello, and welcome back to the Eldiw region! This is entry number 19 in my Text Play of Pokemon Xenoverse!
As is tradition, I wish to warn you that I will be spoiling this game.
As such, I highly recommend you play the game for yourself before reading this Text Play. You can download the game here. And with that out of the way, let's go!
Hopefully, this time, we'll finally get to Queen Nuphar herself. Last time, we made our way through the first challenge of the Ishtar Gym: The Game of Farfetch'd. But once we went through that, we found ourselves having to deal with the second challenge of the gym: Unown Checkers. And yes, it was very annoying. But we have to get through them to get to Nuphar herself. So, let's play some Unown Checkers.
The rules are simple. The floor is full of tiles with various Unown in the form of letters in the English alphabet. We just have to get on the tiles in order from A to Z. We're on the "A" Unown tile now.
See the square on the upper right area of the tile? That's a teleport pad. We use those to go to the different tiles. Easy peasy, right?
It never can be easy. You see, the path has some tricks. There are plenty of pratfalls here, and some of the pads may take you backwards, so we need to use your heads, and also hope that luck smiles upon us. So, yeah. Let's do this.
The teleport pad on the "A" tile naturally takes us to the "B" tile.
As you can see, there's only one pad. And there are no bridges or walkways to other tiles. So, we have to use this.
Welcome to the "C" tile. So far, so good. This tile has two pads. The top left pad takes you to the "D" tile. I chose this pad on a whim, and I got lucky. Yay!
For those who are curious, the bottom right pad just takes us backwards to the "A" tile. Meanwhile, on the "D" tile, there seems to be no teleport pad. But there is an Advisor waiting for us.
The Advisor, named Idris, challenges us to a battle. He thinks that the Unown writing will make him stronger. Let's disprove that, shall we?
1st Pokémon: Octillery (Lv. 32) - Defeated by Phantump.
If you beat him, he vanishes...and it turns out he was hiding the teleport pad. It takes us to the "E" tile. the "E" tile has one teleport pad on it. It takes us to the "F" tile, which has two teleport pads on it.
The top right one takes you back to the "E" title.
Abbas did warn us this would be tricky. The bottom left pad takes us to the "G" tile.
As can be seen in the screenshot (look at the tile on the top right. I think that's the "L" tile), it's obvious that the further we go, the trickier this little journey is going to get. If you're going through this area, you may want to take some notes. The bottom right pad takes you to this chamber here.
We end up in this nice little rest area.
In all seriousness, I actually think this is a nice little surprise. It's not unreasonable to assume that a team of Pokémon would take quite a beating during our journey through this gym. Having this little surprise rest area is a good thing, in my opinion. We can use the Porygon Center while we're here. The pot on the left contains an X Attack and the pot on the right has Max Revive. The teleport pad in the room takes you back to the "G" tile. The top left tile takes us to the "H" tile. Like on the "D" tile, the teleport pad is hidden by an Advisor. You'll have to battle him to reveal it. The advisor here is named Jafar, ha ha. He advises us to never challenge an Adviser. Hey buddy, we don't have much choice here. We have to battle you to move forward!
1st Pokémon: Floatzel (Lv. 32) - Defeated by Harrowk. Jafar's Floatzel has Pursuit, which allowed it to hit Phantump hard. Pursuit is a Dark-type attack, and Phantump is part Ghost.
After the battle, Jafar remarks his mask hides his bitter tears of failure. Dude, it's just a Pokémon battle. You'll be fine. Anyway, his defeat reveals the teleport pad. The revealed teleport pad takes you straight to the "I" tile.
The top pad will take you to the "J" tile. The bottom pad takes you nowhere. The "J" tile only has one pad, which takes you to the "K" tile. That tile also has only one pad, and you can go to the "L". This tile is the one that kicks you in the teeth.
Yeah. Ishtar gym took it up to eleven with this one. Four pads. The top right pad takes you nowhere. The bottom right pad takes you all the way back to the "A" tile.
The bottom left pad takes you back to the "I" tile. The top left pad is the one you want, as it takes you to the "M" tile. And then we go to the "N" tile.
The "N" tile has two pads. The left one will take you to the "O" tile. The right pad takes you back to the "M" tile. Like the "D" and "H" tiles, the "O" tile has a pad hidden by an Advisor named Karim. He likes crossword puzzles, even though he's not very good at them.
1st Pokémon: Sharpedo (Lv. 33) - Defeated by Phantump. Sharpedo was able to hurt Phantump bad, though. It had Bite. Bite is a Dark-type attack.
The teleport pad he reveals takes you to the "P" tile. The next tile, "Q" has three pads.
The top right pad takes you back to the "O" tile. The bottom right pad takes you to the "R" tile. The top right pad takes you nowhere. From the "R" tile, we can go straight to the "S" tile.
The left pad takes you nowhere. The bottom pad takes you back to the "R" tile. Which means to go forward, we have to take the pad on the right. We next hit the "T" tile, which takes us to the "U" tile.
The bottom pad takes us back to the "T" tile. The top pad next takes us to the "V" tile.
Like tiles, this one has four pads. You don't have to pick any particular one here. They all take you to the "W" tile. From there, we go to the "X" tile.
This tile only has two pads. The bottom left pad takes us back to the "V" tile. The top right tile takes us to the "Y" tile. The pad is concealed by an Advisor named Lau, who proclaims himself the final obstacle to the end.
1st Pokémon: Bibarel (Lv. 33) - Defeated by Harrowk.
With Lau beaten, we are at the final tile: The "Z" tile. At last. We're through it.
I know. It feels good to get through this whole thing.
...yeah, I see no point to having two pads on the last tile. The top left pad takes you back to the "T" tile. The bottom right pad takes us to a stairwell.
The teleport pad takes us all the way back to the "A" tile...if it wants us to. Yes, unlike all the other teleport pads here, this one is not automatic. You can turn down its offer to take you back. We came all this way, so I'm going down these stairs. And they take us here.
Wow.
I'm amazed. You see, I thought we were going further downwards with these challenges. As in, these challenges were being held in the various basements of the Gym. But here...it's so green and bright. It's really bizarre compared to the previous two challenges. And yes, this is a third challenge.
Thankfully, this one can arguably be considered easier than the previous two.
Abbas explains this challenge to us. This challenge is called the "Palm Tree Game". See those colored oyster-like things behind Abbas? Each of those oysters has a Water Pearl that matches them. A pink pearl, blue pearl, and a yellow pearl. Abbas explains that the reason why this area of the pyramid is so green and lush is because of the water. Remember, Ishtar's water is supposed to be really fantastic. It still doesn't explain why it seems so much brighter than the previous levels. Maybe there's a bunch of sun lamps in the ceiling?
In fact, the water here is so rich, it attracted a bunch of the Alolan variant of Exeggutor. They live down here, and they help out with the game. The Exeggutor hide three access panels. Each of those panels is where you can find the Water Pearls. Once we get them, we can put them in the oysters, and finally get to face Nuphar herself. Talk to Abbas again, and he lets us in on a little secret. You see, he's actually Joel.
"Wait", you may be saying. "Who is Joel?" We first met him back in entry #12. We helped him free Ishtar from the spell of the X Gengar. He still feels indebted towards us for saving the city, so he wants to pay it back for a battle!
1st Pokémon: Crawdaunt (Lv. 34) - Defeated by Phantump.
After beating him, I wonder why Joel was disguising himself as an Adviser. Maybe he does that to help bodyguard Nuphar? Anyway, with him beaten, now we got a new goal: Find the Exeggutor that cover the panels. The chamber has three lines of grass with Exeggutors standing on them. The lines are bisected by a path, resulting in creating six patches of grass with two Exeggutor on them each. It's logical to assume each path is hiding a Water Pearl. Three Water Pearls, three paths. Makes sense. Let's start with the first line, the one right next to the stairway that brought us here.
Yes, this one. To try and find the panels, you just have to try and talk to the long-necked palm tree-looking Pokémon. The first panel is found hidden under the Exeggutor to the left of the stairway.
I swear, I just picked one at random. I did not intend to find the panel so quickly. Anyway, the panel leads to three sarcophagi.
I assume one of them contains the Water Pearl we're looking for. The left one is empty. The middle one contains the Red Water Pearl. The right one contains a guard named Mazhar. He claims he couldn't breathe in there.
1st Pokémon: Birigiri (Lv. 32) - Defeated by Phantump
2nd Pokémon: Birigiri (Lv. 32) - Defeated by Phantump.
One Water Pearl down, two to go. We go to the middle row of Alolan Exeggutor next. Josh/Abbas is standing in this row after you beat him. And we find the second chamber here.
Inside is another chamber with three sarcophagi like the first one. The right one is empty. The left one contains the blue Water Pearl. The middle one contains an Advisor named Nasha.
1st Pokémon: Wartortle (Lv. 32) - Defeated by Phantump.
Two Water Pearls down, one to go. Finally, we go to the top row of Alolan Exeggutor. The path can be found right here, the Alolan Exeggutor standing in the top right of the chamber.
Like the previous two chambers, there are three sarcophagi. The left and middle ones here are empty. The right one contains the Yellow Water Pearl. Three down, none to go.
With all three Water Pearls found, we head back to the big colored oysters. You, know, this challenge wasn't really as grueling as the other two. All three of the challenges do have the theme of trial and error to them, but this last trial seemed to be the easiest. Putting the pearls in their matching oysters makes them vanish. You don't have to select the pearls from the Item menu, you just have to interact with the oysters, and the game automatically puts the right oyster in for you. And with that, it's time.
Time for the main event. The reason we are here. It's time...to face Queen Nuphar herself.
She has been waiting for us. The Queen is quite impressed with our skills in getting through the Gym. She tells us the Palm Tree Game was originally called "Lillipup and Lucario", because...I don't know why.
Don't worry, Nuphar explains the old name. The old name was symbolic. Whenever the game was played, it always ended with Lillipup getting devoured...and we're the metaphorical Lillipup here. At least, she thinks so.
1st Pokémon: Birigiri (Lv. 35) - Defeated by Phantump.
2nd Pokémon: Honchen (Lv. 36) - Defeats Phantump, but Phantump managed to use Leech Seed on it. Nuphar used a Hyper Potion. Honchen has moxie, which increases its attack every turn. Dragon tail caused it to be switched out for Bremand. Defeats Bremond. Defeats Swadloon. Defeated by Ampharos.
3rd Pokémon: Milotic (Lv. 38) - Defeats Ampharos. Defeats Hystearic. Withdrawn.
4th Pokémon: Cofagrigus (Lv. 36) - Defeated by Harrowk. Milotic is switched back, and gets defeated by Harrowk.
Nuphar's team is no joke. She nearly wrecked my entire team. That's not an issue. A good Gym Leader is supposed to be difficult to beat, despite them tending to specialize in one Type. With that, the Tidal Badge is obtained.
She also gives us TM55 (Scald). It's a Water-type attack that can leave a Pokémon with a Burn status, but it's not a good idea to use it on a Pokémon with the Frozen status. What I guess that means is Scald can thaw out a frozen Pokémon. With her gym beaten, we can now go to Sunflare Canyon out eastward. To leave, we just use the green teleport pad near the entry stairwell. it takes us to the first chamber we were in when we entered the Gym.
Once I left the Gym, I went to the Pokémon Center and got my team all healed up. They took a heck of a beating, and they deserved some R&R. Once they got rested, I used the PC to switch up my old team back to its regular configuration. Once that was done, it was time to take our leave. Ishtar City is a beautiful place, but we can't stay. We still have four more badges to earn. Not to mention the threats of the Xenoverse and Team Dimension have to be dealt with. With Nuphar defeated, the guards are no longer blockading the tunnel to Sunflare Canyon.
Going through the tunnel takes us to the canyon.
When we first enter the canyon, we start to feel a gale force breeze on our faces. While on the way, I started to add to my Pokémon collection. One of the Pokémon I caught was the Bassist variant of Bremand.
I imagine this Pokémon on stage playing bass like the late John Entwistle of The Who used to. Just standing there playing his bass while Daltrey and Townsend do the showboating. Nearby the entryway to the Canyon is a trainer.
You can battle the Trainer, if you wish to. Or you can avoid him by going around behind the cactus. His name is Pico, and he's a young trainer out to prove himself.
1st Pokémon: Rufflet (Lv. 30) - Defeated by Harrowk.
2nd Pokémon: Natu (Lv. 30) - Defeated by Harrowk.
Keep training, kid. You'll only get better from here. If we keep going to the right, we find ourselves at a bit of a crossroads.
We can keep going right, or we can go upwards. If we go upwards, we'll see a sign that refers to Sunflare Canyon as "The Torrid Winding Path of the Sun". I do like that the space theme is still stuck with here. After all, stars do flare up. Our own Sun, which is a star, does flare up. So, shouldn't it be called Starflare Canyon? Eh, Rule of Cool. Anyway, this path leads up to the entrance to the Equinox Village.
Equinox Village. Heh. Anyway, you may have noticed an item box in the screenshot. It contains a Choice Scarf. The two guards have orders not to let anyone in without the approval of a person called "The Cardinal". Sounds like a character in a Tom Clancy novel. So, yeah. we can't enter the village for now.
Since this path is a temporary dead end, we'll have to go back to the crossroads, and then go to the right. As we do, the scenery transitions from the harsh browns and oranges of the desert-like canyon to the cooler greens of a grassy plain. It's also here that we meet...an unusual critter.
This could be another X Pokémon. Regional variants tend to not appear in the overworld. looks like some odd version of Ponyta. Which makes sense, wild Ponyta can be found in Sunflare Canyon. It looks frightened. Maybe it will let us help it. We carefully approach it, and the ground starts to rumble.
Oh, this might be its mama. And yup, it's an X Pokémon. Good thing I got lots of Xeno Balls. The X Rapidash is a tough cookie. And you can't catch it, you have to defeat it. I think it's at least part-Flying type. Sound-type attacks can hurt it bad. The X Ponyta is happy to see it, and the two vanish. And someone is unhappy to see the battle.
Oh, hey Trey. How're you doing there, Metal Face? It's been a while since we saw this guy. I believe we last met him in Newtron City, all the way back in entry #6. I wonder what he's been up to in all that time?
Anyway, he's not interested in fighting us. Which is good, as two of my Pokémon got wrecked by X Rapidash. he does remark that I have some talent, if I keep meddling in Team Dimension's affairs. What is he talking about? I'm not trying to hunt down Team Dimension. They just keep appearing!
Trey theorizes that the X Rapidash attacked us to portent its baby. That does make sense, but I never intended to harm the little guy. I thought he just needed a hand. Trey points out that Team Dimension is here as well. Well, that's just perfect!
He thinks they're after the X Pokémon. That makes sense. Trey knows this because he's got links to them. He refuses to elaborate on it. He claims that he's been forced to come here against his will thanks to said bond with the group. Despite his bond, he's not too fond of them. As such, so he has no intention of getting in our way if we plan to stop them from going after the X Pokémon. After all, if we can handle them, what makes them think they can handle the Xenoverse? He then vanishes. With him gone, we can move forwards. There is a box in this little grassy area.
Open it, it contains a Light Ball. What's a Light Ball? I have no idea. Well, according to the game, it's an item specially to be held by a Pikachu. It raises the Pikachu's Attack and Special Attack stats. Neat. From here, we go upwards. And here's something neat.
A trainer riding a Ponyta. That's pretty cool. It's neat to see things like this in fangames. You can battle them if you wish to. Appropriately enough, his name is Colt, and his character design is reminiscent of Lucky Luke.
1st Pokémon: Rhyhorn (Lv. 32) - Defeated by Phantump.
2nd Pokémon: Tauros (Lv. 32) - Defeated by Sandygast.
Going upwards from here, the ground transitions into another green grassy area.
There's another Trainer that can be battled here, as well as a box. Her name is Cassidy.
1st Pokémon: flaffy (Lv. 32) - switched out for Miltank.
2nd Pokémon: Miltank (Lv. 32) - Defeated by Trishout.
With Miltank Defeated, Flaaffy is brought back out, and defeated by Trishout.
The nearby box contains a Nest Ball. From here, we go upwards to this pathway.
This pathway leads upwards to this area.
The box in the screenshot contains...well, I have no idea. We can't get to it right now. Interacting with the tree implies that it can be cut down if we get the proper addition to our HM service. We'll have to remember this.
To keep going upwards, we'll have to face this member of the Scovill Riders named...Half. Yeah. Somebody needs to give better names to these guys. He rides a Vroombug.
1st Pokémon: Pepequeno (Lv. 31) - Defeated by Pelipper.
2nd Pokémon: Vroombug (Lv. 31) - Defeated by Harrowk (Electric-type attacks are super-effective against Vroombug).
3rd Pokémon: Sandslash (Lv. 33) - Defeated by Phantump.
Defeating him makes ol' Halfy claim I sealed my doom. Sure, Jan. we keep going upwards and to the right until we find ourselves nearby another trainer.
Yup, gotta battle them, too. His name is Agul. This is why you get lots of supplies at the Pokémon Center.
1st Pokémon: Skarmory (Lv. 35) - Defeated by Trishout
He's no Lord of the Sky, that's for certain, ha ha. That's the dialogue he greets you with before the battle. Once we get past him, we can go a little further to the right.
We can avoid this trainer if you want to. All we have to do is go all the way up and hug the rock wall. But if you do want to battle her, it is perfectly fine. Her name is Lisa, and she demands that the Earth be respected.
1st Pokémon - Vullaby (Lv. 32) - Defeated by harrowk.
2nd Pokémon - Xatu (Lv. 33) - Defeated by Harowk.
After defeating her, she points out that the Earth belongs to nobody. She's loud about it, but she's honestly not wrong. We go further to the right, and we find ourselves in this nice grassy area.
I do have to say, I have to give a shout out to the graphic designers here. I love how they made the grassy areas, showing a diverse array of plants and fungus. It gives it a rather unique look, not to mention cool. It can be hard to see in the screenshot, but there's also another item box here. Also wandering around the grassy area is a redneck trainer. He's none too happy with what he calls the "bird-people" in "his estate". ...I think the moonshine wrecked your brain, pal.
Anyway, time to give this redneck a whuppin'.
1st Pokémon - Bouffalant (Lv. 35) - Defeated by Harrowk
After defeating him, he seems to come to his senses, realizing this isn't his land. The nearby Item Box contains a Wacan Berry. If we go further to the right, we find a little area with another Item Box.
Looks like we can't get to it, right? Well, we can! All we have to do is go downwards to these rocks.
And from there, we go up to the Item Box. It contains a Nest Ball. Once we get it, we go back down to the rocks shown in the last screenshot. Nearby is an entryway, and there's a Vroombug rider patrolling it. The rider moves left and right, allowing you to avoid battling them if you don't want to. If you do, he remarks that he loves the Canyon, as he can go wild without bothering anybody. Yeah, the redneck who thinks this is his estate may disagree with you there, pal.
1st Pokémon: Crawdaunt (lv. 34) - Defeated by Harrowk.
Once that's done, we go on the walkway. It takes us to the next area. Man, this Canyon is long!
Anyway, I recommend taking the little staircase on the left in the screenshot. Once you take that, go downwards.
You'll have to face this Hiker named Pete, who remarks that this canyon must have been formed by a very mighty river. That's not that outlandish, look up how the Grand Canyon was formed.
1st Pokémon: Excadrill (Lv. 33) - Defeated by Pelipper
2nd Pokémon: Goombear (Lv. 33) - Defeated by Phantump.
Once we defeated Pete, we can continue our journey. We head back downwards and find ourselves at a walkway.
Hey, another one of those portals. Oh look, another one of those glitched-out areas. Anyway, we head into the walkway.
An area with a Porygon Center! Thank goodness!
We'll be able to get our Pokémon healed up, and our team adjusted if we need to. Nearby, there's a stairwell. If we go down it, we end up here.
We'll need the game's equivalent of Cut to get past that tree in the lower right of the screenshot. The path on the left doesn't lead anywhere, except to that Native trainer named Dakota. We can battle them.
1st Pokémon: Cacturne (Lv. 34) - Defeated by Trishout.
2nd Pokémon: Peckabone (Lv. 34) - Defeated by Pelipper.
Since there's nowhere else we can go here, we have to head back up.
From here, we go to the left. We find ourselves heading towards a clearing. If we go downwards, we see another stairwell. It leads to a merchant.
I bought a bunch of Leppa Berries from him. They can restore Power Points, allowing your Pokemon to keep using attacks. I also battled him (just try to open the item box next to him, as part of one of the game's achievements.
1st Pokémon: Kecleon (Lv. 37) - Defeated by Pelipper
2nd Pokémon: Meowth (Lv. 40) - Defeated Sandygast. Defeated by Harrowk.
Six merchants beaten, five to go. He gives you a Rare Candy if you beat him. If we follow the upward path next to the stairwell, we end up here.
Inside the item box is some Leftovers. Leftovers are a handy item to give to Pokémon as they restore a little HP on every turn. You may notice the ledge nearby. Going off it just takes us back to the area where we battled Dakota. We head back to the merchant's hideaway and go back upwards. We try and go to the left, and...
Oh God, these Team Dimension guys are at it again! What are they doing now?!
Hey, wait...that's the X Ponyta and X Rapidash we encountered earlier! And Team Dimension must be after them, led by this Cruella DeVil wannabe! Also, the Team Dimension goons are robots? Wait, Trey looked like he may have been a cyborg, and he said he had a link to Team Dimension. Are the Team Dimension grunts actually cyborgs? Maybe Trey was once one of their soldiers, and he somehow broke free? Huh.
Anyway, Cruella here is clearly trying to bully the X Rapidash into working for her by threatening her baby X Ponyta. We've seen how much of a Mama Bear she can be if she thinks her baby is in danger.
The game offers us an option to step in, and yeah, we should. I mean, that X Rapidash did wreck our team, but it was just protecting its baby. Now, I know what you may be thinking, "Why would we not help?" Well, a player might not be ready to face what's coming next. And that's understandable. The X Rapidash is a powerhouse, and it wrecked my team before it ran off. Despite the risks, we have to stop Team Dimension from bullying that Pokémon.
Cruella doesn't think much of us, but her minions inform her that we've given Team Dimension problems before. That's right, lady. We're sent your goons packing before, and we can do it again.
It's here we learn that her name is Dahlia, and she gets ambitious when she learns of us. If she can defeat us, her General will be so proud. And if she gets two X Pokémon on top of it, well...she really is excited for the praise she'll get. Sorry to disappoint you, lady. But bullying Pokémon? Even extradimensional angry Pokémon? That's something we can't abide by in these parts. She tells the X Rapidash to fight us, but it refuses. So she tells her robots to...take care of X Ponyta. And naturally, the X Rapidash is infuriated. The screen flashes yellow. The clouds get overcast. The X Rapidash's body glows yellow, and its cloudy mane gets dark. We're in for a rough ride.
And true to form, the X Rapidash wrecks us. This "Thunderstorm Form", as I like to call it, is a powerhouse form. Its stats are higher than my Pokémon, and it went through my team like a scythe through wheat. I am not joking. My dumb arrogant self believed I could take it on, but I should have learned from the last encounter. Stay humble, kids.
And that's where we're going to have to stop this month. Join me next time as I prepare to face the X Rapidash! Wish me luck! Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves, and each other! Stay safe, stay healthy, stay home, wash your hands often, wear a mask, and get your vaccine/booster! See you next time!
Pokémon Obtained:
(Sunflare Canyon)
- Vroombug
- Ponyta
- Natu
- Skarmory
- Peckabone
- Cubone
- Sandshrew
- Rufflet (90th Pokemon! Whoo!)
- Cacnea
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