Combat – Pinkie's Paradise

Pinkie Played Monster Sanctuary : Pokémon ..but it’s a Metroidvania

My little lights! As you may have noticed.. or may not I have been using the term “Pinkie Plays” for my Let’s play style blogs! This one is titled Pinkie Played.. past tense! That is because this will be the format for my game reviews. I recently saw a let’s play of a game and I immediately fell in love with this game. It was a game called Monster Sanctuary. After completing the game… I am STILL in love with it. Oh Team 17 you made me one lucky moth.. I can destroy creatures and gather strength on my own! Happy days!

What is Monster Sanctuary?

Monster Sanctuary is a game published by Team 17, it was created by Moi Roi games and designer, Denis Sinner. If mister Sinner would fail as a game designer, he will always have a career in porn with a name like that. He might have to change the pronunciation of his first name a bit. Do I think he will ever need to go into porn?! Hell no! This game is whoops sitting meat. Scoring an 8.1 audience score and a 7.5 score on Metacritic with a very positive review rating on Steam, this game is sitting well. Myself would probably even rate it a smidge higher than the Audience score.. at an 8.6 or 8.7 or so. Monster collecting games in general review a bit lower than most of their peers because there is also a lot of hate for the genre. People who know this type of game isn’t for them to review it anyway in the hopes to burn it down and that is a shame. Because even if you aren’t a big Pokémon fan there is a lot to love here! With a 16 bit esthetic and the 2d exploratory platforming.. this is a monster collecting game like no other.

This game plays much more like Metroid than like Pokémon. Except there is no shooting. When you touch monsters, you engage in combat.. which is turn based and involves Monsters selecting their moves. These moves can either be magical or physical and belong to one of the four elements. (Air , Fire, Water and Earth). Some attacks can be neutral as well. Every enemy has a set of weaknesses and resistances you have to work around and explore. To a Pokémon fan it would feel as if 4 types aren’t enough but it is handled remarkably well.With very deep combat, that is also very easy and much more intuitive to grasp. Each monster can be examined before a combat round starts and weaknesses are always available to you.. so no need to learn all 101 monster’s typings and stats. This game makes collecting monsters more fun than in Pokémon. If you want to beat Pokémon you need to catch a decent team of 6, and while here you also battle with a squad of six, you are constantly encouraged to find the eggs of more monsters. That’s right, you do not capture monsters in this one.. you hatch them! You can gain eggs from random groups of monsters..by performing well in combat and using tactics and playing smart!

The reason why you need to capture more monsters is because there are plenty of monsters that offer you new ways to travel around the world. In the first area you might for example discover a small crevice you can’t fit through. Samus would use her Morphball to get through but since you do not have a fancy suit.. you will need to capture a Changeling that DOES morph you into a ball.. or cuter, a Rainbow Slime that can turn you into a slime. You might need a bird to hover to a treasure high above.. but your current bird can’t fly far enough. You might need to catch that derpy looking Dinosaur you saw flying in the other room.. but that one is hidden behind a switch with a lighting icon above it.. what monster do you need to activate THAT! While you can only train up 6 monsters at the same time you can travel with basically endless monsters so you can make sure you can use your favourite monsters to get past a certain obstacle. Wanna clean up . .you can always donate monsters to the army or bring some of the monsters you can not currently use to the farm. There are so many options!

What do you do in Monster Sanctuary?

In the game you take the role of a nameless Monster Keeper.. a Keeper is the word use for those who try to keep the Sanctuary safe by taming monsters. Humanity lives in a sheltered habitat that is called the Sanctuary and it’s many zones are inhabited by many monsters, that for the most part have been ..fairly friendly but recently the creatures have become a bit restless. As more Monsters of “Champion” Quality appear. It is the task of a Monster Keeper to defeat these Champion monsters before they can rile up the monster populus and make the area uninhabitable for humans. You play a boy or a girl, who is part of one of the four important bloodlines. There is the Bloodline of the Eagle, The Wolf, The Lion and the Toad. All belonging to a certain elemental bias. Such as the Eagle belonging to the Wind and Fire element. The Wolf of Water and Wind, the Lion of is Fire and Earth and the Toad is Earth and Water. I of course chose the toad.. why?! Well it’s a Toad that belongs to the grass element! That shall forever be my starter and my number 1.

The Journey starts with you traveling across the land , searching far and wide to find enough Champion monsters to increase your Keeper Rank so you can finally live up to your three rivals and your grandfather’s reputation. However you soon uncover that an evil organisation of Alchemists is trying to destroy the Monster Keepers. Performing all sorts of weird and unsanitary experiments with Alchemy. One name keeps popping up! Marduk, a leader of the Alchemist that supposedly has found a way to make himself immortal. Now he seems to have found a way to take away monsters that are bound to people and his motivations seem to be rooted deep in Monster Lore.. something evil is coming! You have to increase in rank faster than any Monster Keeper before you.. to stop whatever is hiding in the dark. Of course this is a retro style game so the story at times can feel a bit irrelevant.. but it is there and entertaining for those who choose to partake…but it is equally fun to go about and explore things on your own volition. Very little parts of the game are sealed behind linear progression, though you might wonder why you are hunting for a certain artifact in a new area if you do it all yourself.

The game counts 14 areas of which one works like a hub and safe house where you can shop, craft, get exposition and donate monsters to the army. Another one works as your post/game “bonus” content hub. Here you do things like challenging bosses you have defeated before to get greater rankings or fight against a series of challenging monster teams to see if you have truly mastered the game.. this area even has a room in which you can take your monster team online and battle other players. The other 12 areas are your basic Metroid like areas, in which you can find more monsters and sometimes items to explore terrain and overall find treasures and the likes. I only focussed on the story content part of the game and getting most of the monsters and I ended up putting about 30 hours in the game before reaching the end. I DID go out of my way to explore.. but I haven’t even scratched the surface off all the battle challenges, I have not done much of the postgame yet. This means the game for me is well worth it’s price of admission!

What is there to like about the game?

My response to the game is overwhelmingly positive. Let’s begin with the monster themselves. The games 101 monster count seems a bit lackluster at first, but when you realise that this game doesn’t really feature evolution that suddenly becomes a whole lot more impressive. Each monster is their unique thing.. except for the slimes there aren’t really any sprite swaps either. Only about 10 monsters evolve.. and in their cases it’s more like special ways to get a new monster, that require a specific monster and an item to create a new monster. Their designs can radically change so it really feels like there are 101 truly unique monsters. Later in the game you unlock the ability to swap monsters towards either the light or the dark. While it doesn’t change their ability a Dark Shifted Monk has significantly different stats than a Light Shifted Monk. So every monster has 3 slight variations. Unlike Pokémon their levelup path isn’t set either.. in this game you can choose skill trees.

Every monster in the game has four Skill trees, some with more abilities than others, but basically you choose how your Catzerker will develop. Do you let him focus on Neutral damage with a lot of points invested in getting more and more powerful critical hits? Or do you want him to use his Fire and Wind abilities to take advantage of enemies that are weak to that. Perhaps you want your Spirit Toad to be focussed on AoE Attacks with the chance to poison your enemies as you go.. or perhaps like me you want to build him like a completely support focussed tank, that can buff as he heals and heals as he buffs. Are these choices not working out for you? Resetting their skills costs next to nothing! Once a monster reaches the max level of 40, they get an ultimate and you can choose from three of them. This leads to one of this game’s greatests boons! All the monsters feel like YOUR unique monsters. Yes there are Meta’s you can look up, yes some builds will work better than others.. but you can build your own challenge level here and my Toad isn’t exactly like any other Toad.

This of course also leads to a lot of depth in combat,which is reflected by the many areas of the game. Each of the twelve zones tend to have about two subzones. For example in the great forest you first encounter a lot of woodland critters like monsters, bugs, bears and plant like creatures. More often than not they have a fire weakness, though there is some diversity, a bias can definitely be sensed. The second part of the woods is overrun by Goblins who all are strong against magic but weak against physical attacks. Since each combat sequence sends out three monsters, you find you’ll have to swap out members semi regularly if you want to make it far. Luckily the game offers an easy level up token, that allows you to add levels to weaker monsters, for almost no money.. the downside to this token, you can’t use it to level higher than one level below your highest rank monster. If your highest monster is max level.. and it gains enough experience.. that is not wasted.. instead that monster now produces level-up tokens to save you from grinding. The diversity in the world, the leveling and the biodiversity in this game all come together. Which makes everything feel unique.

The game is also very generous with rewards, there are lots of secrets for you to explore! Remember that one room you could not enter before because you had no monster that could activate a pressure Switch?! Now you can.. and the reward in the chest is better if you get it at this level then later on. However if you choose to press on that item you find can later be upgraded to still be a viable find! Everything in this game oozes freedom. There are completely optional areas, but going there offers you some of the best gear. There are even secrets upon secrets which for example lead you to unique monsters such as the Team 17 iconic Worms to be added to your team who have skill trees that mimic the feeling of the little crawlers. There are plenty of cool references to the material the game maker “borrowed” from as well to show that this is a game made out of love! And you can play it your way!

What is there to dislike?

Like any game this one doesn’t escape having a few downsides though. The most prominent one is the “loot chance” aspect of finding an egg. Say you discover a monster that can cut through vines.. by performing well you get a higher star rating.. the higher the star rating the higher the chance is to get a rare item. Eggs always fall in this slot.. but many monsters also drop something else. So unless you get a five star rating (which guarantees a rare drop) you getting a monster is already locked behind TWO RNG checks. To alleviate this a lot of monsters have overlapping abilities. Catzerker can cut the vines and destroy hidden walls, but Magmapillar can Burn the vines and light torches. So overall progress is never locked away to harshly behind RNG but later on you will encounter elemental switches at hard to reach places. While my Frost-Slime can activate Ice switches it might not be able to hit a remote one.. because you need a monster whose “activate ice switches” requires that trigger to be projectile based. There is no way to find out what variant a monster has until you catch it and if they don’t drop their egg due to RNG things can feel a bit frustrating.

A major grip I had with this game was not being able to put waymarkers on my map! It feels like the SNES metroid map, where you just have to remember that one room had no light and that the other room has a strange keyhole. On the one hand this really sells the classic vibe and in a way I like it but on the other hand.. since the map is so big that there is not a single screenshot of the entire explored map out there you can understand it might be kind of frustrating if you remember you encountered a room somewhere you can solve now.. but for the live of you , you can’t remember where. I have a good memory when it comes to those things, and since the areas look diverse enough it never feels atrocious but a quick reminder at times would have been nice. The game at times lacks those quality of life improvements modern games have.. I think just to be retro. For example the final boss is a two tiered fight.. if you lose the second you’ll have to repeat the first and since I work with a stall team that for me was a 20 minute fight I had to do over, I had no trouble beating it. It just took time.

Which brings me to the final gripe I have with this game and that is the level of Tedium at later levels. This game HAS to be played relying on buffs and debuffs, if you focus on assault alone the enemy will debuff the heck out of you and it will feel like you are taking down a dragon with a potato peeler. While I had debuffers in the Underworld my debuff removers were weak to the enemies typing so I could not use them all that much.. which means in some fights my damage was reduced by 25% six times over or so.. When I got that specific monster (a spider that ensnares you with web) he became a staple in my team as well and I debuffed the heck out of enemies.. but combat can feel really slow. The game has a combo system.. the third attacker deals the most damage, and the first two build up your multiplier.. however if you have to switch because you are debuffed into infinity you also nerf your non impaired team members. While the game doesn’t punish you with DEATH too often, it does with a lot of delays.

So is it good?!

Overall it didn’t really kill my joy for playing this game, I loved it in the end and already want a sequel! This game is very dear to me! I really enjoyed the time I spent with my monsters and have formed a bond with them. The combination of Pokémon and Meteoroid works super well and I would love to see more things in this universe. There is a lot of lore about every monster, like every “pokédex” entry is four or so pages long filled with much more text than in Pokémon, you can learn about their history and their current day use.. these monsters are very concrete and well balanced out.. every monster feels different and you can make it stand out from its peers! Adding platformer gameplay to that just made it more fun to me.

It does make the mistake of going retro, just a bit to much in parts but for me as a retro gamer that is more of a minor annoyance something I have to do to get to the good stuff.. but the good stuff is worth it several times over, even if a sequel would not improve anything I would still buy it without a second thought.. and retro games all had that tedium or that sense of annoyance about them as well. It is just a shame that I do see this game take a lot quality of life improvements then skimping out on others. Perhaps if they had more static save points and leaned more into the retro I would be less upset.. which is kind of weird.. I would be less vexxed if the game was less good. Maybe I am just kind of sad I nearly got my perfect game.. and it JUST missed out on that. Kind of like getting that perfect gift for christmas.. the watch you want but there is this one tiny scratch you barely notice yet it gets under your skin! Regardless of that scratch though you should most certainly pick this game up!

Thank you for taking your time to read about me playing with monsters again! I do that a lot huh! If you want to help me get more monster games, consider supporting me on Kofi or Patreon! Of course you can also just tell how much you like Monster Games and I will probably be coaxed into it anyway.

It’s over meanie Villian! Top 5 Epic Hero themes

So weird as I am , I have wondered about some big questions about anime. Like “what if characters realise they are 2d?” Would they fold themselves underneath girl locker room doors like Paper Mario could do? Another question I asked, would you be the most powerful character in anime if you just named your attack *0.5 second click noise* or klk for those who want that written out? I mean you’d be A LOT faster than just about anyone out there. A third question leads me to today’s topic. “What if anime characters could hear the music playing’. I pity the villains who’d have to hear these five themes. Even with those first notes they can almost taste the fist they are about to receive in their face.

Theme Number 5: Tsuna Awakens
(Katekyo Hitman Reborn)

I considered Giorno’s theme for this spot but lately that has become a bit of a meme! It still does the job of convincing the hero will now proceed to be the bad guy but when a villian hears this they might just think… man that is that overplayed thing. Tsuna the protagonist of Katekyo Hitman Reborn does not have that problems as this is one of the most slept on series I have ever watched. Most likely this has to do with the fact that the series is just 24 episodes or random slice of life stuff.. with a naked angry boy before it actually starts to go anywhere and even then it’s a bunch of extremely wacky things going on. From Mafia’s that host some weird kind of tournament against each other, to time traveling babies. A young man takes over a little girl’s body and there are boxes with small animals inside that can fuse with main casts weapons. Well I say small animals, I am pretty sure there was a kangaroo as well. Weirdly enough it also all blends together! I really loved this show..after that false start in the beginning at least.

Tsuna Awakens is one of the more unique anime themes to me. It feels more akin to something you find in a Rocky movie than in anime. It has this beautiful eighties movie feeling to it as well and the classical, more western instruments make it a much more tranquil experience than most reversal themes. This gets you hyped without getting you hyper and I like it. When those first synthesiser notes hit, the villains could hear that something is wrong. They have their Nanda phrase to usher. As soon as the trumpets hit they know they know they are trouble. The violins spell the victory flag for the hero definitely has been given. “BAKANA” is all they have left to shout before they are subsequently dealt with. There is no way this theme could ever fit a villain or more angry hero. There is a calm determination trough this song that just knows this hero will not make mistakes! Bye Bye Mister Villain.

Hitman reborn had such an interesting soundtrack and had some great heroic themes throughout its run. Flames of Resolution and Stand with Friends are great songs as well but not feel as unique to this show as Tsuna awakens. If I had to give the song a colour it would be orange which both the tint of Tsuna and in some ways reborn. I love this song dearly and like the entire show to me is a different take on the genre’s tropes.I even want to watch the show again! *Fangirls on as we go to the next songs*

Theme 4: Passionate Duelist (Yu-Gi-Oh)

After my recent OWLS post my passion for Yu-Gi-Oh has been reawakened. During almost the entire post I listened to this song on loop, alternating with it GX counterpart Yudai’s theme. While even has more victory for the hero written over it this theme has that all important quality that Yu-Gi-Oh needs written over it. Passionate Duelist is much more easy to talk over. “This is exactly the moment I have been waiting for, I activate my trap card PINK DEUS EX MACHINA” Now your turn becomes mine! Draaaaaw!

There is a flow in this song that is absolutely briljant.. that tranquility but swelling intensity will make your rival duelist thing “Shit .. epic card reveal… and oooh nooo there is a pause for explanation big plays will follow” and right he is… after activating your trap you pull out an epic draw that allows you to summon Mary Sue MCGUFFIN : THE ULTIMATE HERO! Which has exactly the effect you need even if you never had such a card before in your deck or if your opponent is using an extremely niche tactic! This music tells your opponent that you will most certainly NOT be send to the shadow realm.. even if that is a dubismn and not real in the japanese version anyway. Even if you do not have the right cards in your hands.. when Passionate Duelist starts playing for you don’t even have to follow the rules.

When I play the Pokémon Trading Card Game with my friends or Cardfight Vanguard (Both a lot cheaper to get decent decks than Yu-gi-oh) I play this theme and sometimes they even give up when it starts! I even managed to bluff my way to victory once! Such a great theme!
So let’s get your game on and be a passionate duelist as well because these card games are great!

Theme 3: You Say Run (My Hero Academia)

I rewrote this bit after first putting Ultimate Battle from Dragon Ball Super on this spot before. I love that show a fair bit more than I love MHA. The latter is a great show and Ultimate Battle might even be the better song…but only if you watch the sub. The Dub version of Ultimate Battle is absolutely trash, but hey at least we got plenty of very cool fan versions.
While I do not care about MHA all that much it did gift us with one hell of a hero theme in the form of You Say Run. The fact that I want to place this lower on my list but I actually can’t says enough on how good it is. It’s overplayed and a bit to casual for my taste but that is about all I can fault it for.

(**PINKIE BAKA YOU CAN”T NOT LIKE MHA!!!**)

For all intents and purposes of this list when you say run starts playing it’s one of the biggest victory flags for heroes I have ever seen in an anime. Mostly because this show is literally about heroes versus villains in the purest form of the world but also the way the song is constructed. Starting slow for any dramatic reflection shot.. before going into some generic combat for the first few punches just to appreciate the hero’s getting more ground little by little. Most songs and reversals are instant. Once the music starts playing villains are done for. You say run leaves some room .. as if it’s toying a bit with you showing some epic action still to also highlight the villains before slowly seeing the ground crumble beneath the enemy. When the song hits it’s full potential you know there is no escape for the villians and that our heroes WILL GO BEYOND!

This is one of those “goes with everything” songs like Guile’s theme and it is very much true. This song goes with everything, it is cleverly written to convey the victory emotion without needing any specific form of context. Which makes it one of the all time greats. Yet it is also why it will never go beyond a third spot for me. This might be the theme of My Hero Academia but it doesn’t feel tied to it. It would work just as well in Bleach or Shokugeki no Soma.. or that Handball anime thing people are currently very into.

Theme 2: Before My Body is Dry (Kill la Kill)

Kill la Kill is amongst my favorite anime ever. I mean look at how insane the story is. A girl’s father is killed with the other half of her scissors so she feeds blood to her school girl outfit to get more powerful. She fights the head of the school and her mother who is the head of an evil clothing corporation. And when I say an evil clothing corporation I am applying the adjective to the word clothing and not to the corporation. Though I guess that is pretty evil as well.. so I guess it’s an evil evil clothing company. Among the angry girls greatest rivals are great enemies like a Kendo Teacher, A Band Geek, A masochist and a one eyed insane ballerina, and a rainbow haired hag. Her greatest ally a secret spy organisation called Nudist Beach, who live up to their name mostly. Now that is great anim

***(Hmm I wonder who my favorite character is…..)***

Now we have established that trumpets are a weakness of the villains, electric guitars also oftenly get the job done.. and this song has the latter covered in spades. But there is one thing that will ALWAYS make an anime villain lose the fight. It’s the power of Engrish. If you hear a song with Lyrics and it has Engrish in it then you know you are in the end face. This song is basically the anthem of Engrish. “In the dusty basement where we met , Me you surprise me much because you’re talking now’ While I get what they are saying it is hilarious! The song is clearly about Ryuko finding Senketsu so when she calls it sweetheart later on I am cracking up on the floor. Yet for some reason this theme is still so epic that each time it plays you shiver a little.

The insanity of the show is perfectly reflected in this song and maybe the Engrish is intentional. It makes no sense.. just like this show! I mean they fight a ball of yarn, by having the deturgonist run in a huge hamster wheel while she wears a bancho suit! There are so many jokes about croquettes that I feel like them each time I see this. There are Mecha’s you entere in your swimsuit.. nothing makes sense and I adore it! We even see letters of attack names or organisation names crush buildings! Just for being spoken! A show as insane as this needs a show as bonkers as this.. oh andof course there is that one form Ryoko gets!

***I feel something something….Initial D***

Theme 1: Brave Heart (Digimon)

Those who only have watched the dub version of digimon might not have any idea what I am talking about when referring to Brave Heart. This track was the track that played at the digivolution of the digital monsters like Agumon, Patamon Biyomon and all the others. It comes into play at most transformations and in the vast majority of the Digimon adventures series.. if it plays for longer than the actual transformation you just know the fight is over. Those bell like sounds the background give this song some magical qualities that made me fall absolutely in love with it. When I rewatched digimon in sub as research for digimon roleplay I hosted my heart pounded in my chest. I did not remember how good this show actually was!

Would a villian digimon hear this song not only would the situation be resolved he would see a weird flying bunny pig transform into an angel, a little plant grow into a cactus and later even a pixie ..or if we count Digimon Tri..i that same little plant thing could digivolve into a rosey dominatrix even. Nothing sells the fact that you are going to beat the frick out of your opponent than your formerly evil cat suddenly transforms into an angel. To bad that they used Butterfly when that angel than turned into a pink fairy dog dragon surrounded by rainbows or I could have used that one! I do like Holydramon (or Magnadramon in dub) a lot! Brave Heart to me is that one song that symbolises that moment the hero comes back in so many ways. It comes together so nicely in such a jamming and iconic tune that to me it’s the greatest.

It is weird how this feels nostalgic even if I watched this in dutch originally, that’s just a testament to how right this feels. It feels Digimon, it feels unique and it feels powerful. That’s what makes this such a great theme and I will treasure this one as it holds both sentiment and some personal memories. What is your favorite “heroic turnabout” song?
Let me know which ones you love and let’s love our favorite heroes!

How to: Beat A Team of Legendaries with a Magikarp

Hey big people reader folks. Chibi Pinki here! This week is all about having fun. Our regular schedule is thrown out the window and now the Pinkie that has something fun to tell for the day will write their thing. I encountered a super cute song yesterday while i was playing with my Mime Jr. It talks a little about magikarp.. and since mondays are supposed to highlight a single pokémon we still kinda meet the brief… but differently.

The Subject

Name: Magikarp
Original Name (Japan) : Koiking
National Dex Number: 129
Base Stat Total: 200
Battle Tier: Never Used
Combat Role: Physical Sweeper
Best know for: Splashing…but nothing happens

Magikarp is a cute little koi fish that was known as the useless pokémon in generation I. You could fish it up with the first rod you got and only knew one move! However you would soon find out that while using Splash nothing happened. With the old rod you would catch it at level 5 and for 10 levels it would not have any offensive moves. After that it would only get tackle, a very weak physical move with one of the lowest base powers. It’s base attack stat , which powers up the tackle is only at 10 to this day putting it in the absolute bottom in terms of strength. To this day he still holds that honour along with a few other pokémon.But off all the pokémon with a physical attack of 10.. magikarp has the lowest base stat total (power level). Nearly every stat for magikarp is bad.. it’s defence is close to okay and it’s speed is fair. On paper it is useless in every sense of the word until it evolves in the mighty gyarados.

It’s still cute though right?! I mean.. I still like it.. and so did the world. Poor Magikarp has been memed a lot , but it’s also gotten a lot of love. It’s gotten it’s own game , has been featured in some pokémon stadium minigames and to this day there is always a trainer somewhere in the pokémon games that uses a full team of magikarp. Game Freak must have loved Magikarp as well because nowadays the red koi can ‘oneshot’ every legendary in the game…in fact he can even take down a whole team of them if you set it up right.

The Inspiration

I don’t think the lady in the video has sung this song all that pretty but she has a pretty good point. Magikarp is a lovely pokémon because of how iconic it is to the franchise. Yet so much is unknown about this Pokémon. Did you for example know there is a gender difference visible between male and female magikarp? The males have gold tendrils and the females have white ones. See now I made it even MORE special. Because of how great and useless it is Game Freak even decided to make it’s shiny gold. Quite like caterpie the weakest bug pokémon in generation I. For the longest while that golden bug was also able to oneshot everything, but these days it needs a bit more luck to take down Ultra Necrozma and the likes… Magikarp however can still take that beasty down. One can wonder, is the game balanced in such a way that magikarp could? Is it something they take into account?… Well no.. unfortunately it has trouble taking down steel types so Palkia , Registeel and perhaps Solgaleo are safe from it’s wrath. Magikarp can easily beat Mewtwo though.. So is the song wrong? Does magikarp have some hidden super saiyan like ability or something? …. Not really.. to sweep Magikarp needs the powers of love and friendship!

The Shopping List

What do you need to make this possible in online battles? A stupid amount of luck and a enemy team that has no hazard removal. Tricky..but in fairness those who use all legendary teams are usually twelve year old boys/your average fortnite player trying to show of the size of their trouser ekans. Magikarp can’t take down these enemies all by himself though..but in the set up he is the only one that has to actually attack. The rest is just there to help magikarp shine. To pull this off though there is a lot of things you need, and not all of these are easy to comeby.

By far the easiest is thing you need is a Skarmory. It needs to know the moves stealth rock and spikes and has to have the ability sturdy. You’d be smart to teach it some speed IV’s and EV”s as well. The way to train these up vary to much in each game for me to discuss how to do that. It will require some time though.

Then you need a speedy bug that knows sticky web, either equip it with a choice scarf (an item that boosts speed but locks you into a single move) or a focus sash (easier to get) to ensure it can use the move. Araquanid is a good choice in recent games , but any bug will do. Shiny Ariados is my favorite because it’s pink! Just find a spider you like.

You could add a pokémon that sets up toxic spikes as well..but this is unreliable, yet since you are allowed to use a team of six why would you not? In our set up would would have a spot left. Anything that can learn toxic spikes will do. I recommend a Fortress for survivability but you could also show off and run a mega beedrill for example. This one really doesn’t matter that much it’s just a cherry on top.

The most important pokémon you need besides Magikarp is a Smeargle. The painter pokémon this one you need to give some speed ev’s and equip with with a focus sash. It needs the moves spore, belly drum baton pass and substitute. It would be best off with a timid or jolly nature. Since this one is so crucial to our team, you’ll want to run it twice. Give them an Iapapa berry to hold.. but make sure the nature is either Timid or Jolly. A Hasty nature will ruin your run.. because the berry would confuse it in the match!

Now finally our magikarp! Since it’s a legendary killer would would like it to be shiny which of course is not required..but hey.. the set up isn’t easy anyway and you’ll need to hatch quite a few smeargle so why not shiny hunt a bit while doing it. I prefer to use lonely natured one but a naughty one can also work. Using a Hasty or Naive one allows it to easier outspeed things at the cost of damage which could also be helpful. It needs full EV’s in both Attack and Speed as well as IV’s of course so be prepared to suffer while making this team.

I recommend trying this team on Pokémon Showdown rather than the actual game for convenience and speed. Magikarp needs to know the move Flail, which now it can learn, but he only gets splash tackle bounce and flail nowadays anyway. Flail however is going to be your bread and butter. Equip it with a Focus Sash and we are good to go.

The Spiel

Lead of with your webbing Bug and use sticky webs. Stickywebs reduce the speed of your opponents incoming pokémon to 65% of the original value, which is crucial to Magikarp being faster than them. If they are removed for any reason.. you lose the game. However legendaries tend not to get access to hazard removal so for the sake of this mock game.. we are good. Watch as your bug gets crushed by the legendary might. Should it survive a turn.. just make sure it has a non damaging move.. let it know string shot thats a good addition.

Next skarmory comes in…Stealth rocks are must! They break sturdy (some pokémon can not be oneshot) unlike spikes for example who don’t hit flying types. It also invalidates the enemies use of items like focus sashes. You need that for Magikarp to sweep. If an enemy holds on with 1 hp.. you will lose the run. So stealth rocks go first. Should skarmory live just set up more entry hazards with spikes to make magikarp job a bit easier. I know it would detract from the oneshot feeling a bit.. but in some cases these sweeps are damage rolls (damage is partially determined by rng) and spikes can help you reduce the odds at a bad luck fail.

Your toxic spiker goes in next if you decide to use one, again this one is just here for RNG manipulation. You stack the deck in your favor with these, which is kinda cool right?! You could also run a third Smeargle to ensure you get the actual trick off, just know that if one Smeargle pulls it off the other two become useless. So just do what you think is best. With the forretress you could still win the game if magikarp would get killed with toxic stalling or exploding on a last enemy or such.. so he’s my choice. You can choose to let them go down or swap in a sacrificial smeargle depending on the odds.. the magikarp spiel has better odds of success if you let the spiker go down first.

Next comes in the Smeargle… this is the one who will ascend magikarp to levels of godliness. Use spore to send the enemy to sleep… if the enemy is a grass type..you are in a pretty bad position.. but use substitute instead and hope the enemy doesn’t break your little fake buddy right away. When the enemy is (hopefully) asleep use the move Belly Drum. This move quadruples damage output. If the enemy is still asleep set up a substitute otherwise use Baton Pass to swap into Magikarp. Should you manage to set up a substitute use Baton Pass to go into magikarp anyway. Hard Swapping into Magikarp will not work as the stat boost will not carry over. Baton Pass allows stat buffs to be passed on to the pokémon coming in so it’s crucial.

Now it’s time for Magikarp to obliterate. In this stage a few scenarios can happen. What is important is to find out of Magikarp is faster than your opponent. This is most likely the case if your enemy has made a switch while fighting or if the enemy uses a really slow base speed pokémon.. you probably outspeed it. If this is the case you just keep splashing around unti your enemy manages to hit you once and your focus sash keeps Magikarp at 1hp. After that you just keep happily flailing about and watch as one after another legendary will fall. If your enemy is still the one that opened the game just start flailing from the get go. This should ensure a victory over nearly every legendary with just one attack.

The Message

So the pokémon that has the weakest stats in offence of all pokémon, the one that could not do ANYTHING for quite a while has just taken down an entire team of legendaries. Gods or pinnacles of science alike. With a lot of hard work, some help of your friends and just the right amount of luck even you can take down mountains. In real life you also might not have the right stats for the job but never give up hope. Your friends can raise you to new levels and at times you can get a lucky break. When life knocks you down just crawl back up and show it the skin of your teeth. The impossible is often way more possible than we initially would have thought. Just add love and never fight your battles alone.

Now you know how to take on legends with a low tier Pokémon. Shout out to Pimpnite’s youtube channel , I used his video’s to provide some screengrabs of the battling as I don’t have proper means to capture my own screens myself. Check out his youtube channel for some great how to’s on pokémon battles. Our sets are a bit different in some choices but they function the same. In fact I adapted my core to mimic his latest.. my smeargle did not have substitute first.. but his set was better. You teach me and I teach you Pokémon.. yet again. Did you know Magikarp could take down legendaries? Let me know in the comments.

This Pinkest Poké Blogger is blasting off again!
XO Pinkie