So, in my house, my brother-by-love is the big time gamer. He's awesome at pretty much any game he picks up. He's an absolute natural at everything from WoW to Pokemon and back again. So yesterday, when he was playing a Pokemon Tower Defense game, he suddenly IMed me with a strange question. Due to the developer's wording of the description of a specific move, Sucker Punch, he couldn't figure out what it would do within the game he was playing. So he said to me:
"As the resident Pokemon Master, I thought you might know this. What exactly does Sucker Punch do?"
Now, I respect my brother as the most amazing gamer I've ever met. So when he called me "the resident Pokemon Master," I got possibly the biggest ego boost I'd ever had as a gamer. I was beyond thrilled. I had an answer for him, too, though I did have to look it up to be sure.
For those who are wondering, the move Sucker Punch is a hugely powerful Fighting Type move that always lands first and hard - but ONLY if the Pokemon using it would have naturally gone second due to their speed. In the terms of the game, "A powerful attack that will always land if the foe is readying an attack." Now, even *I* am not sure what that will do in the context of a tower defense game, but, but the fact is that I KNEW what it would do was cool. And my brother calling me a Pokemon Master was even cooler.
However, later that night I remembered WHY Sucker Punch was so memorable to me, even though I never use Fighting Type Pokemon (the Girdurr in my current PB party notwithstanding). And it had to do with a gym battle that changed the way I looked at the game completely.
Back in the good old days of the GBA (Game Boy Advance), the hottest Pokemon games were the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald series, set in the Hoenn region. Prior to them, I had played Silver, and Red - beaten both completely, but on power alone. In my original Silver game, I played as if I was in the TV show - only my favorite Pokemon really ever came out to do battle. As a result, by the time I got to the Elite Four, I had a level 80+ Typhlosion that could one-hit KO almost every one of their Pokemon, even with type disadvantages. When I played Red, almost the same thing happened with my Charizard. So I powered my way through the game, like a true fire trainer - all big explosions, massive impact, and very little staying power if I ever lost that primary Pokemon. But in the early games, you could do that.
In the Hoenn generation, that changed. And changed massively. Partially, it was because I had, for the first time, someone to play with. My then best friend and now fiancee, played with me once I'd gotten her into the games via some ROMs I had. We started link-cable battling as well, and I quickly learned something that most Trainers who'd always had someone to play with probably already knew - power cannot flatten strategy. Lona played with the finesse of a water trainer, and already had the type advantage on me. I soon learned that my power play style of playing would get me nowhere when we crashed into each other in battle. So I had to change my style.
I began careful leveling, keeping my entire party in level line with each other through use of rotation, EXP Share, and other techniques. I raised a varied team, I carefully schooled them all in each of their moves.
And I still couldn't beat Lona.
The one time I came close involved knowing her team very well - they were all male. I had a female Gyarados. I taught her Attract. And the combination of that move, the genders of my opponent's pokemon, and the fact that she was caught off guard by my NOT relying entirely in big ticket power moves and actually using a stat changer (which I loathe in-game), ALMOST pulled a win off for me. Then her electric type managed to ignore the Attraction once, and that was all it took. She slammed my team into the ground after that. But I came CLOSE. Because of strategy. However, I'd never had to think strategy when dealing with the Gyms and trainers in-game before.
All that changed when I met Norman.
Norman is the leader of the Petalburg Gym in Hoenn, and according to the in-game story, also your (the player's) father. He is, I believe, the 4th Gym you come to. And he is a trainer of Normal Type Pokemon. Now, the only thing that's super-effective against Normal Types are Fighting Types. Well, I didn't have one. However, I didn't expect it to be too big of a deal. After all, my Pokemon were being carefully trained and raised. I wouldn't be screwed if I lost one - so I went into the battle quite confident.
And came out with everyone fainted.
Norman has two Slakings with two devastating moves - Focus Punch, in which the Pokemon takes a turn to "charge" up, and then slams HARD on the next turn. It can be interrupted, however, if that Pokemon naturally goes first, causing it to lose the next turn, essentially. However, Slaking is SLOW. Naturally. Therefore it always went second, to any of my Pokemon, and as a result, we got Focus Punch'd out. The other move, however, is Sucker Punch. Which, again, was horribly effective, since because of the Slaking's natural slow speed, it always naturally went second - which meant that any time this move was used, it went FIRST, and landed hard. My team was decimated.
Three more attempts later, and several level gains on my part, I realized I wasn't going to beat him without either a LOT of running around in the grass nearby and training (which I hate and gets incredibly boring incredibly fast)... or some strategy. I'd been up against his team several times now and I knew that I could take out his Vigoroth that always came out before the two Slakings. I knew I could sometimes take down ONE Slaking, but my team was so far gone by the time the second one came out that I was no match. However, I knew his moves. I knew his pattern. And then, suddenly, while going through my bags to find things to sell to buy revives and potions to try and outlast him in the next battle, I found my trump card.
The item is called a Macho Brace. It greatly ups the strength of the Pokemon that's using it, but slows them down horribly at the same time. I suddenly realized that, if my strongest Pokemon was holding this, it would make me slower than Slaking, thereby making both of the moves he kept destroying me with completely useless. If my pokemon naturally went second in the battle, Sucker Punch would never land. If I was slower than Slaking, he would use the "rev up" part of Focus Punch before I got my turn, and therefore I would be able to interrupt him far more reliably, rendering that move useless as well. I gave the Macho Brace to my Combusken, and went in to challenge the gym again.
This time, I swept the Gym without losing a single Pokemon. Which is good, since I only had ONE Macho Brace, and therefore if my Combusken had fainted, I would've been back in the same loop I'd been in the previous fights.
However, this fight changed the way I look at Pokemon battles in-game. Which is good, because as I'm playing through Black, I'm realizing that they've changed the game enough that a varied team isn't enough - you NEED strategy for each fight, especially the boss and Gym battles. Having one Pokemon with a type advantage isn't enough anymore - you have to KNOW what you're doing to win.
And it all comes back, for me, to exactly why I knew what Sucker Punch did off the top of my head, when my brother called me a Pokemon Master.
And you know what? Maybe I am.
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