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Battling the King of the Mines! (722)

gliscor&yanmega

Well-Known Member
I enjoyed the dub version, although I didn't really get a good hear of Boldore's voice, hopefully the other episode has a better portrayal of it so I can actually hear what it sounds like.
 
The only good parts were Oshawott versus Krokorok and Snivy versus Excadrill.
 

Aurath8

Well-Known Member
Wow. That was an amazing episode and the first really memorable gym battle of Unova.

Oshawott did really well and has really become a more durable pokemon. Still surviving 3 attacks until it went down to Palpitoad. And dear god the animation was blissful here.
Snivy's battle with Palpitoed was short, understandably. What was good about this is battle was Clay. It's refreshing to see a gym leader that focuses more on brute force than strategy, berates Ash and best of all, pays the price for his cockiness. I also always love whenever we have a flashback to a characters youth so i can laugh at how they didn't change at all in the past few years.
In terms of animation this was the worst part of the episode, but Clay's character made up for that. Excadrill curbstomped Snivy and tanked Grass it's moves all day. Hopefull she learns Aqua Tail or something so this doesn't happen again. She can't rely on Attract forever.

Roggenrola's battle looked amazing, it felt a bit one-sided until the evolution. I think the only move that Roggenrola got in during the first part of that match was Sandstorm and even that was just to heighten it's defences for the onslaught. The evolution was done very well. The silence before the glow was tense and it was just epic. I really like BW's evolution style compared to previous seasons. And thankfully the animation picked up for this final battle. I do hope Boldore knocking over Ash becomes a running gag. The only bad thing about this is we might not see Ash with his Gigalith unless the anime ignores the trade evo thing. Anyway, Ash wins the badge and we know have Boldore, woop.

This episode really shows that Ash actually has a brain stem in battle and that Gym leaders can be memorable characters. Hopefully the 3 remaining gyms will be as good as this.
 

ForgottenPearl

Well-Known Member
Also, did anyone else feel creeped out a when one of Clay's miners chuckled after saying "My boss's pokémon are all extremely powerful" to Ash?

Sure did. 0_o Honestly, for a moment, I was worried that something bad was gonna happen.

Anyway, I enjoyed this episode more than I thought I would. I like the gym leader episodes a lot more in BW than I did in past seasons.

Things started out nice and ominous with that psycho guy leading them to the gym, and the battle got started quickly. I like how they’ve retained the gym gimmicks from the games. I instantly sympathized with Ash after the wisecrack about him using cute Pokémon—I love cute Pokémon, and I tore through Clay with unevolved ones! (Hooray for Snivy!)

Ash’s come-from-behind victories often seem contrived, but I thought the writers did a good job with Oshawott versus Krokorok... if I spelled that right. Ash’s strategy was interesting, and it was particularly smart to squirt into the hole Krok dug. That part of the battle was this episode’s highlight for me.

But Ash was stupid to keep on battling with Oshawott. It was nice to see Snivy rip through Palpitoad: my Snivy did the exact same in Clay’s gym a lot. Clay sure was mean when he lost fair and square to Ash’s strategy.

The Excadrill battle... wasn’t very impressive to me. First off, the fact that Clay mentioned how much he’s done with Excadrill only highlighted how odd it is that gym leaders lose if they’re going full-force. Second off, I thought Ash just got lucky with the evolution: he basically had Roggenrola be nothing more than target practice. Oh well. At least Boldore “hugging” Ash at the end was funny and cute. :)

Though it had a few downsides, it was a very good episode overall.
 

Aegon

Well-Known Member
This was a great Gym battle. Ash was actually very competent, which is a stark contrast to his behaviour during Elesa's Gym battle. It's a shame this series is often inconsistent. The evolution animation was impressive.
 

Swagsire

Well-Known Member
Somehow the beginning of this episode felt creepily drawn out with the mine workers. Like, suuuuper long unecessary mine shaft ride..Or maybe I was just sick of being teased of the Driftveil City Gym Battle...Qwaa ;195;
 

wobbanut

Team Awesome
My favorite part of this episode was definitely where Clay got mad at Ash and accused him of sneaky tactics. I'd argue that Ash was battling fair and square, but Clay's reaction was still funny. :) It's also interesting that all of Clay's pokemon were ones either owned by a twerp (palpitoad and excadril) or about to be owned (krokorok).

7/10
 

PokeMaster366

Well-Known Member
The Excadrill battle... wasn’t very impressive to me. First off, the fact that Clay mentioned how much he’s done with Excadrill only highlighted how odd it is that gym leaders lose if they’re going full-force. Second off, I thought Ash just got lucky with the evolution: he basically had Roggenrola be nothing more than target practice. Oh well. At least Boldore “hugging” Ash at the end was funny and cute. :)

I was thinking the same thing as well when I saw the Excadrill battle vs. Roggenrola, but then I realized something when I saw what happened after Horn Drill. Even when it made direct contact, Roggenrola didn't go down at all, and normally, Horn Drill only works if the user is at a higher or equal level, so this meant one of two things. Either the old mechanics of Sturdy kicked in (which I doubt), or Roggenrola was already at a higher level than Excadrill to begin with.
 

Zoruagible

Lover of underrated characters
It was a great gym battle. I loved seeing Roggenrola evolve and I liked that Clay made the gym all by himself
 
I was thinking during the battle that maybe Sandstorm could cut the accuracy of the Pokemon being attacked.
I forgot all about Sand Attack when I thought this. No, seriously.
 
Oshawott vs. Krokorok was a good battle. Ash was very competent and intelligent here. Snivy vs. Palpitoad wasn't bad since it finally showed Attract working in a battle again. It was a good battle... until Ash sent out Roggenrola against Excadrill.

That ruined it for me, since Roggenrola had not battled or trained a single time prior to this episode and he expected it to win against a fully evolved ground/steel type Pokemon. Roggenrola was hit with multiple Drill Runs and then Horn Drill and instead of fainting to the Drill Runs like it should have it just evolves (when it didn't have enough experience to), learns a super effective move(wow so convenient) and wins.

The writers were doing well until then. Boldore should not have taken so many hits and survived. >_>
 
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Mega Altaria

☆~Shiny hunter▢~
I liked how smart Ash was in this battle. The most surprising bit was Roggenrola vs Excadrill. Despite having a type disadvantage, it had Sturdy, allowing it to survive Horn Drills but should've fainted to the Drill Runs. It seems amazing that it evolved into Boldore and defeated Excadrill using a recently learned SE Rock Smash.
 

Mrs. Oreo

Banned
Wow Oshawott actually did decent here against Clay's Krokorok which was a surprise to me cuz of how often he used to lose ha ha. I liked seeing Roggenrola evolve as well as Clay's reactions. :)
 

Pikachu52

Well-Known Member
Oshawott vs. Krokorok was a good battle. Ash was very competent and intelligent here. Snivy vs. Palpitoad wasn't bad since it finally showed Attract working in a battle again. It was a good battle... until Ash sent out Roggenrola against Excadrill.

That ruined it for me, since Roggenrola had not battled or trained a single time prior to this episode and he expected it to win against a fully evolved ground/steel type Pokemon. Roggenrola was hit with multiple Drill Runs and then Horn Drill and instead of fainting to the Drill Runs like it should have it just evolves (when it didn't have enough experience to), learns a super effective move(wow so convenient) and wins.

The writers were doing well until then. Boldore should not have taken so many hits and survived. >_>

Which is odd when you consider his best trained Pokémon lost to a weaker version of the same Pokémon in the previous series. The BW battles have been very inconsistent.
 

JudySpell

Banned
Roggenrola versus Excadrill was great and so was Roggenrola's evolution scene. This was a good Gym match all things considered. 8/10
 

Leonhart

Imagineer
Now that Satoshi had finished Yacon's errand, it was nice to see the Hodomoe Gym match get taken care of. I liked watching Satoshi use type advantages by selecting Mijumaru and Tsutarja to face Waruvile and Gamagaru, and when Dangoro evolved and beat Doryuzu, I couldn't help but smile.
 

Wednesdayz

Meowth fanatic
It was great to see Ash's hideous Roggenrola evolve into an average Boldore. Rock Blast looked really awesome too btw. Ash was very strategic in this Gym battle, which was a nice change.
 

Alloutℯ

Banned
Y'know, with the way Clay was designed, I think I would have been disappointed if he DIDN'T have that over-the-top Yosemite Sam voice. If he had a normal voice it would have been much more... weird, I think.
 
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