Badge #8: Route One & Vanhanen Castle

Welcome to Route One!

Maybe it's just me, but finally stepping out into a numbered route after ten hours was a massive relief. We're finally out of that fucking city! The game starts to get really good from here on out, with the Pokémon choice opening up widely. It's a shame the writing isn't very good.

Oh yeah, and also there's fucking Fern. This one's easy if you have a Shift Gear Klinklang as his poor teambuilding and the inability of the AI to switch out really hurts him.

The first thing you might notice is that there's a lot of ledges here stopping your progress. Don't worry about that; go all the way to the left of Route 1 to find the Nature Centre, which acts as a Pokécentre. Inside, you can find a man offering to trade you a Tyrogue for a Dunsparce on the roof (yikes). If you didn't get the Item Finder early in the Slums, you can also get it by talking to a scientist inside the Nature Centre. If you talk to the scientist by the computer on the bottom floor, you can trade Kantonian Taurouses for eggs of any kind of Paldean Tauros, and one of them on the bottom floor will give you eight Honey items. If you talk to one of the scientists on the second floor, he'll mention how he lost his glasses in the forest...

If you walk all the way to the bottom... you might think you're stuck, because there's only ledges behind you. What gives?

Here's the gimmick of Route 1; as you would have noticed, there are pairs of Bouffalant and Tauros battling eachother throughout the route. If you talk to one, and defeat it, the opposite Pokémon will be available for you; you can ride the Tauros, but the Bouffalant will charge off in the opposite direction and break things. Tauros can hop over ledges but can't go into really tall grass. Defeat a Bouffalant to ride the Tauros up again to where the Nature Centre is; you may need to dismount (with X, on my Pro Controller) to have a Bouffalant move logs for you.

If you really want, you can get department store sticker now with a rather long puzzle; you can also catch either a Heracross or Pinsir at the end (they're both available normally in the wild after Badge #13, though).

Route 1 Heracross/Pinsir Grove Solution

This is assuming that you solved the puzzle to get the sticker as linked above; if not, go fucking do that first.

Kill the Tauros at the eighth exit (the furthest right one) to move the log up. Then enter the eighth exit to the woods. Walk along the new route until you find the honey tree.

Spawn the bug pair using this tree, and kill each bug once to break both the spider web and the log.

Finally, return to the third entrance whilst riding a Tauros; when you get to the area where the Tech Glasses were, continue going to the right instead and go through where you just destroyed the spiderweb and the log. Keep going until you reach a patch of tall grass; dismount the Tauros and you'll find the two Pokémon battling eachother. Kill the opposite to the one you want, and the other one will join you. You'll also find TM40 Aerial Ace here.

After solving the South Aventurine Woods puzzle, we turn our focus to the north of the woods. There's nowhere near as much content here, but nevertheless. These woods will be the death of me.

North Aventurine Woods puzzles

The first and second entrance to North Aventurine Woods just connect to eachother, so we'll skip them. Instead, go to the third entrance from the left; directly below is a Tauros/Bouffalant pair. Defeat the Tauros to have the Bouffalant move the log inside the woods upwards.

If you hop on a Tauros and enter the third entrance you can travel up the first ledge, but the route from the second ledge is blocked by a web. Dismount the Tauros and walk through the long grass to the left to find a honey tree; spawn the bug pair and have Heracross destroy the spider web.

Before returning to get another Tauros, walk through the long grass on the right and directly down to find this tree. Summon the bug pair twice and use one of each to destroy the nearby log and spider web, respectively. At the bottom left you will find TM86 Grass Knot, and at the bottom right you will find a Leaf Stone.

If you then return and get a third Tauros, you can ride all the way up both ledges from the third entrance into Celestinine Mountain B2F, the lower half of Celestinine Mountain B2F. Solve the ice puzzle like so by following the red arrow and then the blue arrow, and then walk upwards to find TM22 Smack Down, as well as an Ice Stone. The strength boulder prevents you from going anywhere else, sadly, so return to the woods and exit back onto Route 1.

Next, make your way over to the fourth entrance. Directly below is a Bouffalant that you can use to remove the log blocking you; this will open up an area to the left that leads to a house and an area to grow berries. Go inside the house to find... hundreds of Pikachu, as well as an NPC on the upper floor who will heal your Pokemon. Y ou can also find the Pikanium-Z behind said house. This will also rename the PC, similar to in the mainline games.

To the right of the fourth entrance is another unhoneyed tree; you can have the Pinsir destroy the log if you want but there's obviously nothing there. Have Heracross destroy the spiderweb to find... another log. The fifth and sixth entrances both connect to eachother, but there is a small cutscene you can discover in there, so go to the seventh entrance instead (the very last one).

Bouffalant, log, etc. If you walk up through the tall grass to the left, there will be a honey tree next to the log blocking you from the previous step. Destroy it with Pinsir, then use a Tauros from the fourth entrance to find a small grove with some mints. It's also a mandatory area for the post-game, so it's good to have it accessible already.

In the tall grass on the right of the final exit, you can make it to another honey tree. Have the Pinsir destroy the log you moved out of the way to access a small set of (fishable) pools. This is the only place you can find Dewpider or Araquanid until the postgame. If you come back here after you get the 13th badge, you can get the Sharpedonite too.

After solving all of those puzzles, at the very far right of Route One is a fork in the road. The north leads to Agate City, which is currently inaccessible as there is nobody to man the gates. To the south is Vanhanen "Labyrinth", the location of your next gym.

The "maze" here is nothing special; your goal is to the bottom left. You can look at the map overview provided above if you get lost. You can find the Hypnotite just before the exit to the castle as well. Once you get to the castle, you find Luna, the mystery runaway from Spinel Town. Walk up into the next room and then talk to her for a (bad) cutscene, whereupon Cain will arrive... and you have another mandatory battle.

You should know the drill by now; this is a fairly easy fight given where you are and your Pokémon choices. Shift Gear into Gear Grind deals with his Mimikyu, his Goodra is dealt with by any Fairy type, and Water types will deal with his Nidoking handily.

After beating him, Radomus (if you held text skip - he's the gym leader) receives a message from El (the guy who abducted Bennett in Spinel Town) that his annoying weird Gardevoir has been captured (hopefully, killed too!), so I guess it's up to you to go rescue it. You can buy some really good TMs from the attendant with the Indeedee as well.

Your next destination is... Reborn City (again). You don't have to go the long way around anymore; you can go through Route 1 to the Grand Gate. The gate isn't open to the city just yet, but you need to go into the side room with the broken cogwheel; once the cutscene finishes, talk to Radomus to jump down into the cave below.

The tile sprites don't make it very obvious, but there are stairs here that you can follow down all the way to a ladder; then follow the path all the way to a cave entry at the right side of the new map. Eventually, you'll make it to a tunnel that's behind the sealed door you saw earlier in chapter 5. Move forwards to make it to the Citae Astrae!!

There's lots of star pieces here that you can later sell if you're hurting for cash, as well as the Meteorite which will let you make a special form of Solrock and Lunatone. Once you've finished the cutscenes, you can make it up through the Citae Astrae using your Ruby Ring on the ruby door.

Talk to all of the statues to activate the teleporter. Chimchar is Dark, Monferno is Dark, and Infernape is Light. If you go back into the Amethyst teleporter, you can get an EXP Candy XL. Proceed upwards to talk to Adrienn, saying you won't give away your Ruby Ring. (This is a silly cutscene.) Use the ring again and solve the second riddle: Tyrogue is Light, Hitmonchan is Dark, Hitmonlee is Light, and Hitmontop is Dark. Walk forwards and talk to El for more cutscene; Side with Radomus during this cutscene as it's another part of the route requirements. You'll be drawn into a battle with El and his fake Arceus.

After defeating him, choose not to exit with everyone else and walk back down to the bottom of the tunnel to get a small easter egg that only really makes sense if you've beat the game before. Once you return to the surface, you find that the Grand Gates are now open, finally giving you an easier route between Route 1 and Reborn City. Go to the Coral Ward for another cutscene, and then agree with Cain to teleport back to the Castle.

Psychic Gym

This one's fun. The goal for every room is to put the Black King in checkmate by moving all of your pieces. Cute puzzle, but very unintuitive. The room on the left will show you what the fancy Pokémon pieces actually correspond to as it isn't immediately clear. If you don't know anything about chess, the pieces will also explain which each piece does in a game.

Luckily, I know things about chess, so this is a solution to all of the puzzles. If you get stuck, you can leave and re-enter the room to reeset the pposition of all the pieces. The controls here are a bit terrible, so here's a guide:

• All pieces except the Bishop and Pawn are pushed into place by walking up to them in the direction you wish and pressing A.
• The Bishop is pushed by either pressing it from its left/right sides and pressing up/down, or pressing it from its top/bottom sides and pressing left/right. It moves in the combination direction of (side, button).
• Pawns can only move straight upwards.
• If you want to do this the easy way, recreate the board in the Lichess Editor and move the pieces around until the "Continue from Here" button is disabled.

Checkmate #1

Your pieces are a king and a rook.

Solution for the first puzzle

This is a simple checkmate; box the black king in with your king and then place the rook immediately below it.

Checkmate #2

Your pieces are a rook, a knight, and a bishop. The problem is that your pieces can be captured by Black's pieces too, so the King needs to be in check multiple times. Additionally, the bishop is on the black squares so it can't move onto the white ones.

You also need to consider that you can't maneuver your pieces around to the right side of the chessboard properly, which presents an additional challenge.

Solution for the second puzzle

The rook needs to be at the top to place the King in check, but it also needs to not be on a square that can be captured by the queen instantly. The bishop can't be manuevered to the right side, so it needs to protect the square immediately below the king. Finally, the knight can be slotted in next to the black knight to protect the two diagonal squares that the king can move to.

Checkmate #3

There's a LOT of pieces here, but the solution is deceptively simple.

Solution for the third puzzle

If you're even slightly good at chess, you see that King in the corner and immediately recognised this is a smothered mate situation. The problem is you need two knights but you only have one.

If you move the second to right most pawn up to the top of the board, you can promote it into a knight. From there, you can move both of your knights into position to achieve checkmate. Make sure not to accidentally softlock yourself by putting the knights next to a piece so you can't move it. You'll have to reset the room again.

Checkmate #4

The Rule of 3 sadly doesn't apply here. There's a lot of noise in this puzzle that you'll need to tune out to win.

Solution for the fourth puzzle

This one kinda sucks to work with. Move the B2 pawn to the end of the board and promote it to a bishop. From there you can move it down to E5 to block off the squares directly above and to the left the black king (on H7).

Then manuever your knight onto E7 to block off both the squares directly next to the black king diagonally. Next, manuever your white square bishop to E4 to place the king in checkmate. Unfortunately this has now put you in check, so move the lowest knight to C2 to block the black queen, winning you the match.

The Gym Fight

Now it's time for the actual boss fight, Radomus. This is a very hard fight with the field effect, but it's not insurmountable. As usual, the tricks and tips:

• His Hatterene will use Trick Room turn 1. Unless you're countering with a slow team, that's almost definitely game over for you. Fake Out will stop it that turn, at least.
• But! The field effect means that the first two Pokémon sent out have a built-in Focus Sash! This means you can't just one-hit kill it and be done with it, you need to flinch it -- or use a multi-hit move.
• If his Hatterene doesn't get Trick Room, then Malamar will do it Turn 2. Again, you need to make sure it doesn't -- and with Contrary boosted superpower, it will make quick work of your team if it has the chance.
• On top of this, both his leads have Magic Bounce so you can't poison them easily to force progress and/or bypass the focus sash. This means you may need to sac something.
• Tinkaton will handily deal with lots of his team; Play Rough with a Fairy Gem helps wipe Malamar and Gigaton Hammer helps wipe his Gardevor and Hatterene.
• A lot of moves here get Rock as an additional type, so Fire types won't help you to deal with his Kingambit. Something that knows Close Combat as a coverage will, though, or any sort of Ground type. Good thing the AI doesn't understand how to use Supreme Overlord.
• His team, in general, is set up to counter Dark and Steel types with plenty of fighting coverage as off-moves, as well as two straight up fighting types. In addition, Flying types and Bug types will be hit super-effectively by certain moves so they won't help you here. You'll need coverage and neutral resists.
• You can fight fire with fire by making your own slow team. His only truly slow member is Hatterene, and the rest are medium slow -- so if you go even slower, you'll be the one benefitting from Trick Room. This will dismantle him completely.

Once you exit the gym, you find that the hypnosis on El didn't really work (the least surprising twist ever...). Use the light shard outside and proceed downwards until the bottom wall of the maze, and then walk straight into the Meteor on the left to find out that it's Radomus in disguise. He'll show you to a set of stairs that you can use to walk over the hedges, and then exit out to Route 1 at the top. Your next destination is once again Reborn City!