Pokemon Platinum - 0 Exp Run Part 3: Commander Mars

Channel:

MoogleBoss

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Published on April 22, 2014 3:52:39 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JUFc7MQOZ8

Game:

Pokémon Platinum (2008)

Duration: 2:18

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25

Challenge playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbSv8zSDR9c2Ou_dZZ5hjDdZH4wlLX0gV

First battle against a Galactic commander. Not all of these battles should be worth recording, but I'll show off who has become part of my team because I think that is very interesting, and almost central to playing a no exp challenge in Pokemon, since you catch new Pokemon all the time.

Mars is... a cheater - have a look at his lv. 17 Purugly, which normally evolves from Glameow 21 levels later! He's not the first to do it in Pokemon though (maybe the first in such proportions? somebody help me compare here) and if you know what Team Galactic does it even kinda makes sense that he'd do it. But nevermind about that.

He leads with Zubat, and the Galactic bosses' Zubats seem to have all sorts of TM moves they don't naturally learn. This one gets Toxic, which is really helpful considering I'm leading off with...

a lv. 15 Heracross that I lured off a tree with honey! Took a while, but I'm on an emulator and, while the RNG is still fixed in stone and resetting was necessary to get one of these, I could just change the time on my computer quickly and keep trying to get one (3.5% chance). I don't know if I would have the patience to go for a lv. 15 Munchlax if I had a better trainer ID (+secret one), but on this run my ID didn't allow me to get one early. For the best probably, because that would've been a ton of resets.

This Heracross has Guts as an ability, not Swarm (very nice because no bug-type moves are available this early), not to mention a +atk nature! You can imagine how much backsides this Hera kicks this early into the game. Kind of like RBY Dugtrio or GSC Red Gyarados.

Guts is perfect for switching into Zubat, since Toxic gives Heracross an attack increase. Purugly switching in packs Fake Out though, and that's two turns Heracross will be taking poison damage. We don't want that, so I switch into Shinx, which is actually necessary to ensure Heracross doesn't die from Purugly's attacks + poison damage.

Shinx is really handy for those attack cuts on switch-in (you might've noticed I've done these a lot on my runs, mostly with Gyarados in gen 3 and up), later somewhat obsoleted by Staravia (you get some high-levelled ones, but never a Staraptor sadly, but there's one move Staravia gets that makes it fairly competent even with poor base stats and a level disadvantage).

Shinx's Intimidate utility shouldn't be overestimated, but it's there I guess.

Horn Attack and Aerial Ace is decent enough earlygame coverage for Hera, and I also taught it the Rock Smash HM, whose BP got boosted to 40 this gym, and with STAB it becomes a reliable 60 base power attack to throw around during the earlygame.

That said, between gym 1 and 2, Heracross is actually not the wielder of the strongest attack. I'll be sure to show off who that is in the next video.

As for Mars - he got owned with a crit! Not like I needed one!

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