Badge #18: Operation Overlord

It's time to finally liberate Labadorra City. When you've done everything you wanted to do at Agate City and beyond, return to Calcenon City. There's a few NPCs to talk to for some story; then, talk to Hardy in front of the barrier for a long cutscene.

The plan is thus: Let Bennett carry the body of Mengele through the barrier and then deactivate it from the other side. Talk to every character here (except for Amaria, if she's here) for some bonus cutscenes too.

For some bonus cutscenes, go into the house with Julia outside to find the sisters. Talk to Charlotte for some exposition, then cancel the dialogue option for +1 relationship point with her. (Or say Yes/No to piss off one of the sisters instead). The writing seems to have swerved at the last minute to imply the psychiatrist is also a child rapist, which makes a certain postgame scene much worse for no real reason.

When you're ready, talk to Bennett and say yes for him to cross the barrier and free the Underground disable the barrier. Enjoy the horrifically cringy Marvel-esque cutscene then walk up the stairs to finally enter Labadorra City.

Battle of Normandy

Just a fair warning: the grunts here are more dangerous than usual due to PULSE2. All of their Pokémon have 252 EVs in everything but HP, unless you have Litemode enabled. Proceed to the south to fight a single Schutzstaffel agent, then slip through the area next to Victoria to find a second Schutzstaffel guarding the path forward.

After defeating them, move upwards for a small cutscene; you're blocked from going any further as you need to go and defeat the PULSE Clawitzer. The space where Victoria was battling before is now clear, and leads to a room where you will find two Schutzstaffel who will double battle you alongside Victoria.

Inside, you'll find... either Solaris (on the R route) or Taka (on any other route), with his eye cut out. Enjoy the cutscene, then walk outside and down the stairs to the left to get ambushed by one more Schutzstaffel agent. The door at the bottom is locked, so walk up to the door at the top here (from the side!!!) In it, you'll find... Sigmus, who will run away as soon as you approach.

Walk up through the corridor next to said building to get ambushed by two more Schutzstaffel agents. On the Z route, you'll need to fight them alone; on the R route, Amaria (of all people) will be your Doubles partner.

Get ready. Walk into the building up above you and traverse all of the floors. You'll get ambushed by two Schutzstaffel scientists before you can exit out onto the roof. Save before the ladder.

After you get up there, you'll get a cutscene - and then a fight against Zero and the PULSE Clawitzer.

This thing has 252 Speed, 252 HP, four extremely strong moves, Contrary, and is Water/Dragon. It will outspeed you. Zero is hardcoded to always send it out last, so you need to keep at least something healthy in order to one-hit kill it, maybe with a Focus Sash, some strong sucker-punch users, or Focus Sash Trick Room. It's not that hard, I promise!

After taking down Zero (and the first of the two ridiculous PULSEs), make your way back to the upper area of Labadorra for some more cutscenes. Return back to that locked door to finally return to the LCCC (imagine how much shorter this game would be if anyone could, you know, move rubble out of the way?)

You'll eventually find this area of the LCCC. Make sure to save here. You'll be fighting a double battle against Sigmund's corpse and PULSE Mr Mime, a troll Pokémon that is Dark/Ghost, has Wonder Guard, and knows exclusively Entrainment and Instruct. It also has 252 speed. There's like six hidden Fairy gems further up too.

Luckily, there's a handful of easy strategies for this one. Something with Mold Breaker will ignore Wonder Guard and can hit the entrained Pokémon for neutral or resisted hits, and Fairy type moves will still kill Mr Mime. You can also use passive damage such as Toxic or Sandstorm, and once you've killed the PULSE it's a 2v1.

That doesn't actually net you anything. Leave and return to the central area of Labadorra to find that everyone has gone missing.

The Tournament Arc

The only thing standing between you and Victory Road is a series of overtuned battles! There's a few things you might want to do first:

• If you haven't caught every pseudo-legendary, now is a good time.
• You can get the final sticker, giving you access to the penthouse.

As soon as you enter the arena, you'll be greeted by a long cutscene. It starts off bad, then gets really funny.

This is a gigantic tournament. You'll be paired up with somebody as your battle partner and forced to fight for your survival. Who your partner actually is depends on the route; on the R route, your partner will be Cal. On the Z route, your partner will be Florinia. You'll be facing Lumi and Eve in your first round no matter what. All the fields here are specifically designed to be as irritating as possible, for bonus effect.

Oh yeah, and all the cutscenes are like ten minutes long. We needed another Vietnam War to thin out the millenial generation a bit.

Round #1

Let's get straight into it. Here's your partner teams:

And here's your opponent teams:

Partner Cal uses Fire, Fighting, and Psychic types. Partner Florinia uses Ground, Grass, and Steel types. On the other side, Lumi uses mostly Ice types, and Eve is simply trying to fucking kill you. Don't get too excited by Cal's team...

Also, you'll be fighting on an Inverse Field. Wonderful. When you're ready, enter the door on the left side of the room to begin the battle. You'll want to bring some Grass, Dragon, and Psychic types here to win.

Round #2

After the silly siblings die, leave the arena to find out the next round. Entirely predictably, you will be fighting the person you just partnered with.

The field effect here differs depending on opponent. When fighting Florinia, it's the Glitch Field; when fighting Cal, it's the Dragon's Den field. When you're ready, enter the door on the right side this time.

Round #3

This one is really funny as the Steel-type trainer lost to a Grass-type trainer on a favourable field. That's one hell of a fucking choke. (Or, alternatively, she loses very quickly to Cal instead). Talk to Hardy in the main room to continue the cutscene.

No surprises here; you now have to fight Florinia/Cal; whoever you didn't fight before. Likewise, you'll be on the field effect that you didn't use last time (so Glitch/Dragon's Den). Very creative.

The Final Gym

After that, only one more battle remains: it's against Saphira. She tells Terra to load up her gym, making this your final gym fight and your final badge. Of course, being a gym, it has to have a gym puzzle. Right? Right??

No. This is not a puzzle. This is a test of your sanity. You're surely not going to drop the game now, after all of that work, right? Right?? If you walk into the left side and talk to Saphira, she'll beckon you to meet her at the top of the gym.

Find your way to this giant treasure chest at the topo and interact with it to begin the struggle session. Answer the question in any way you want, really; you're pretty much guaranteed to lose relationship points.

After that, the "gym puzzle" begins. You need to kill every enemy that appears on-screen before it gets to your chest. There is no guide or walkthrough I can give to you here; you will have to take things as they come.

Turn on Debug mode and heal your party after every battle. Quick-save after every battle. That is the best you can do. The only other advice I can give you:

• Don't try and go to things; you'll be caught out by something faster moving. Let them come to you.
• The exception to this is the Magneton, which you have to go to (when it starts lifting the chest away). You have to go all the way to the bottom and up the left-most pillar.

After, like, a good ten minutes of that, you'll fight the Ultra Steelix from before (I guess the devs really wanted to use that set piece again) and the path to Saphira opens up. Take your place on the right side of the arena to begin the final gym battle. As per usual, some tips and advice:

• This is the joint-hardest single Gym fight in the game, next to Charlotte, and it's entirely down to the disgustingly overpowered field. It boosts Dragon attacks, but it also boosts fire attacks and massively nerfs Ice attacks. This means that she hits INCREDIBLY fucking hard and has no real weaknesses.
• Whilst nominally the only way to get rid of the field is to use Surf twice, it actually gets overridden by the four vanilla terrains (Grassy, Electric, Misty, Psychic). The one you specifically want is Misty Terrain, which shuts her down completely, but the other three may also be viable—they all make sure the Dragon's Den field is gone.
• Florges is bulky, has Misty Surge, and can hit back hard with Moonblast. Keep a Amplifield rock on it and you'll get eight turns to dismantle her.
• Musharna has Psychic Surge, so it's similar as above.
• Togekiss has Aura Sphere which is handy against her Archaludon, and Moonblast as your main STAB. It's just too slow to fish for flinches with Air Slash, sadly.
• Primarina is bulky enough to survive a hit that will activate Berserk, from which you can then Moonblast away. You might even be able to activate Recover to get multiple Berserk hits in, which will surely let you get off a one-hit kill.
• If your field effect runs out, or you're trying one of the other fields, you may want to try Klefki with prankster Thunder Wave. It can also use prankster Misty Terrain to get the field back up.
• All the while Dragon's Den is up, steel types are useless because they will take extra damage from fire type moves. Once your own terrain is up, however, they can tank Dragon type hits.
• The AI is smart enough to switch out from the Choice Scarf locked items, but that does give you a free turn for set up.
• Mega Z Garchomp is fast, and can hit her Dragons super-effectively when using its own Dragon Rush.
• Whilst the field is up, Vanilluxe can do massive damage—and it can finish off her Salamence with the chip damage from hail. Same for Baxcalibur and its ice attacks.
• Flash Fire and a fast Fire type can let you muscle straight through her, especially her Archaludon which is neutral to fire. The resistance is counteracted by
• Dragonite has exactly one weakness thanks to Multiscale and the Dragon's Den field, which is Dragon itself. It is also unbelievably bulky, has a boosting move, and has Extreme Speed, so if you can't kill it under your own terrain it's game over.

You finally get your last badge, and the level cap is increased to one hundred. You'll also have to suffer through another AO3 Therapy Session. I recommend getting out your normal team (or, some ice types) before exiting.

Return to the lower area of the arena and go through the exit door... then talk to Florinia for a LONG cutscene. Make sure you healed your Pokémon before this, as you have the FINAL battle coming up.

Terra deletes your fonts, so you have to fight her without any text available. Cool, whatever. This is an easy battle if you kept your Misty/Psychic Surge Pokémon from before

When you've beaten her, you can finally exit the building through the rear, at the left side. It's time to finally cross the Rhine.