After (re)meeting the Gym Leaders with a couple of new faces, I was ready to part ways with Motostoke for now until Hop decided to challenge me to a battle. Had each one of my Pokémon defeat one of his with Dottler vs Wooloo, Wooloo vs Rookidee, & Grookey vs Sobble.
After the win, I went west to route 3 to catch a Vulpix. Afterwards, I placed it in the front of my party to use its Flash Fire for my actual Fire Type: Sizzlipede, who is otherwise a 1% encounter.
After adding it to my team and depositing Vulpix, I went through the rest of the route. Met Sonia for some world building and the Escape Rope (thank god it’s a Key Item). Managed to get some decent experience to close the gap between Sizzlipede and the rest of my team.
Heading into Galar Mines, I expected I would be relying on Grookey for most of it. Was surprised to find a decent handful of Fighting types among the Workers. Once my team went through the cave and got all the items, I “officially” met one of the rivals from the opening ceremony as Bede. Having either Dark or Bug coverage on all of my Pokémon made his mono Psychic team an easy win. Afterwards, Grookey evolved into Thwackey. Not a fan of the color scheme but a good design otherwise
Once Gladion Bede got done his monologue, I went to Route 4. Yet again, I fell for the kids dressed as Pikachu and Eevee being actual Pokémon. This route is why I wasn’t too crazy on overworld encounters: Electrike & Meowth constantly chasing you gets annoying. In the middle of my item grabbing spree, I found a Milcery. I wasn’t expecting to catch anything here but after thinking about what I considered catching, I decided to catch it as most of them were physical attackers. I held off on evolving it as I’m not familiar with all of the different variations of Alcremie and, coincidentally, the two unreleased Sweets just got added to the game.
I headed into Turrfield after meeting Milo. Once Sonia showed me the landmark, I went around to get the Expert Belt from the riddle. Once I got that done, I saved for the night.
Team:
Thwackey: lvl 18 @ Miracle Seed
-Razor Leaf
-Double Hit
-Swift
-Growl
Wooloo lvl 18 @ Silk Scarf
-Tackle
-Payback
-Double Kick
-Copycat
Dottler lvl 18 @ Leftovers
-Struggle Bug
-Confusion
-Light Screen
-Reflect
Sizzlipede lvl 18 @ Black Glasses
-Flame Wheel
-Bite
-Wrap
-Smokescreen
Milcery lvl 18 @ Strawberry Sweet
-Draining Kiss
-Tackle
-Sweet Kiss
-Aromatic Mist