It started with someone asking this, and the natural reaction to it being "There's no way anyone would want to put in the massive amount of busy work required to get you an answer to your question." Meanwhile, what I heard was "That's a cool idea for a challenge!"
You may have heard of the Professor Oak Challenge, where the objective is to maximize the Pokedex's "Owned" counter at every step of the journey. Such runs are invariably filled with a ton of grinding as you have to level up your starter and all the early-route derps high enough to evolve to their final stages before the first gym, when only low level Pokemon with poor experience yields are available to grind off of. Attempting to flip that objective into minimizing "Owned" just turns the run into one of those clickbaity "Can you beat <game> using only <unevolved starter>?" retreads, which have become rather trite, and are still mostly about doing a bunch of grinding so you can overcome whatever type disadvantages may exist in the course of the game. This run will be about minimizing the "Seen" count instead, and all the quirks that come from playing to that goal. What better way to honor the new "Dexit" paradigm for TPC's game vision, than by culling as much of the dex as possible from an ordinary playthrough, and leaving Rotom starved for tasty information?
It's worth noting that the game does track seen/owned data for not just the 400-403 members of the Alola dex, but for the entire span of the National Dex that existed at the time, and there are separate seen flags for male/female, both in shiny/not-shiny variants, and also for all 300-odd variant forms that are programmed into the game data. The game doesn't give you any meaningful interface to these out-of-dex seen flags, but they are tracked with meaningful purpose. For example, if you Island Scan for a Charmander, the type effectiveness overlay will appear on your moves if and only if you already had Charmander tagged as "seen" in those invisible Pokedex flags, and the Poke Ball icon by its name will appear if you have it as "owned". Additionally, the game uses the total "owned" count, including out-of-dex species, to determine the odds of getting a critical capture. I will attempt to avoid even having the outsiders get tagged as "seen" if I can help it here, as I can examine the save file and double-check those figures, even if the Rotom Dex refuses to do so.
Welcome to Alola
After crossing the sea to a new house in a brand new region, of course the most important thing to do is get out of the house to start a new adventure. This prompts a heartfelt outburst from mom: "So, Minidex! Are you excited to meet some Alolan Pokemon?" to which the only permitted answers are "Yeah, I am!" or "I don't know..." After spending a couple minutes sneering at her mom for want of a suitably contemptible response, our character takes a jog up Route 1.
Starter choice is pretty much irrelevant here: no relevant trainers use the starters or Leafeon/Flareon/Vaporeon besides the obvious ones whose teams change in reaction to yours, so there's no opportunity to gain by creating overlap between a starter-dependent trainer and a mandatory one. Instead, since I picked Rowlet on the Moon playthrough and Popplio on the original US profile, I'll just go ahead and take Litten. Of course it's unable to get the HA, and on top of that it's never going to be able to evolve here. Guess it'll have to remain a four-legged kitty cat forever, unable to take inspiration from that other cat at home.
On your first venture into the grass patch on Route 1, there's an invisible line close to the end of its depth, and when you cross that line you'll be forced into a scripted encounter with a Yungoos. No way around it. If nothing else, it's free XP. Continuing up the route, you can hug the back of the Trainer Tips sign and continue along the periphery of the walkable area to avoid the grass while also staying out of line of sight of the trainer here, to get to Iki Town. Given the starter choice, Hau predictably picks Rowlet, which is more easy experience, followed by the run-in with a wild Spearow (which is battled, so it counts), Nebby and Tapu Koko (which don't), and Lillie who would rather send you out onto that creaky bridge than go herself to protect something she's trying to claim responsibility for. After that rude awakening, we finally reach the best part of the game: the brief segment where we have a Pokedex, and it will gladly show us all four species that have been encountered thus far in ways that count, without saying "Bzzt!" all the time.
Kukui then barges into the house and essentially kidnaps the player--nothing suspicious there--refusing to allow me to go anywhere other than up the other branch of Route 1 this time, for the obligatory catch tutorial. Kukui's Rockruff and the wild Grubbin don't get credited as "seen" from the tutorial, even though we're presumably right there watching, though the latter's reprieve is short-lived as there's another invisible trigger line here for a scripted encounter with a Grubbin of our own. This time, since I have Poke Balls and I've already been forced to see the Grubbin, I might as well catch it and take some of the load off the starter. Or at least, piggyback for a while to help it catch up, as there's another trip to Iki Town to fight Hau again. This time there's an unavoidable trainer along the way with Buneary, which is a chance to siphon some experience off to catch. At the festival, Hau now leads with Pichu in addition to the Rowlet and forces a seventh Seen entry into the dex.
After quite enough of that nonsense, Lillie's use of the door is less aggressive, and she escorts us down the newly-opened path to Kukui's Lab, bringing that most serene chapter of the game to a screeching, buzzing halt as one Rotom is rendered permanently unfit for battle. And as if that wasn't bad enough, this is immediately followed by...The Grass Patch from Hell.
As Lillie helpfully explains, you can take the ledge going down to Kukui's lab to skip the grass patch along the way. But these youthful, presumably athletic characters are somehow incapable of climbing back up the ledge, so there's no choice but to take the grass. By Alolan standards, the grass patch in question is a huge one. The only things that can possibly show up in this grass are Inkay, Slowpoke, and Wingull, none of which have been encountered yet, so any encounter has a 100% chance of spoiling the objective and forcing a reset back to the last save. And while this would be what Repels were designed for, it's not possible to get any repels until I get to a Pokemon Center for the first time...something that can only happen once I reach the other side of this very grass patch! The way I have to take it is to save, walk a couple steps at a time, if I don't get an encounter then save again, and keep using the saves as stepping stones until I finally reach the other side, still with only 7 seen. Fortunately we don't have to deal with that again.
Cutscene Simulator, 2017 Edition
The very next thing I do is pop into the center and pick up 30 Repels, because Alola is flush with money, and because in what other run is anyone going to want to buy 30 Repels (unless they're hunting for a roamer or something)? At least we're well prepared for any future mandatory grass patches.
This stretch is, fairly or not, where much of the game's popular reception is concentrated, as Hau and Lillie give you a guided tour of every building on the Hau'oli Strip and force you to sit through all their dialogue. The Trainers' School is of course the most debilitating of those to the goal of keeping the Pokedex pristine, as it's the one place where fighting a route boss is mandatory to progress. The students use Metapod, Grimer, Bonsly, and Ekans; all of them are mandatory in order to earn a 1-on-1 lesson with the teacher who ensures there's somebody in the game who has a Popplio after this starter choice. Revolting as it may be to add that many "seen" entries in one place, it can't be helped and the experience is pretty good; without having to do any grinding in grass and risk finding an unseen species to force a reset, Litten and Grubbin are at 11 and 9 by the end, and Litten can make enough of a Scratch in Popplio to let Grubbin finish off. While we're here, I can also pick up the Quick Claw, and give it to Grubbin because why not?
The next stop on the tour is the appropriately named Tourist Bureau, which offers an unsuccessful shot at the Loto-ID, as well as a forced gift of the Poke-Finder. Sure enough, right outside the door on the way out, there's a suspicious man who really wants you to try out the new feature on the Pikachu through that crack in the wall. This is a trap--DO NOT take that picture or else it will count as seeing Pikachu for Pokedex purposes, and nobody wants to have Pikachu staining their record, do they? Fortunately you can pull out the camera then back out without snapping any photos, and that's good enough for the insistent guy to allow you to pass without having to register a spot for Pikachu.
(It's worth noting that talking to Pokemon in the overworld, like the Meowth at home or the playful Rockruff on Route 1, doesn't count as "seeing" them for Pokedex purposes. Poke-Finder was probably made an exception to that because it's the Rotom Dex itself which serves as the camera. Likewise, scanning QR codes will also register them Seen, but there's no reason to go anywhere near the QR Scanner in this run so that's not an issue.)
Continuing on, the rest of the buildings down this road are uneventful other than kicking off the quest for totem stickers, which may come in handy later for some guaranteed gifts if they turn out to be helpful, but there's no need to be immediately concerned. The pair of guides then do a U-turn and start back down the other way, forcing the first run-in with Team Skull (in which they bring a Zubat, and even show considerate forethought by wearing masks over their face years before that became the new fashion). After that comes the first captain's battle, but before we take that on, a little interlude is in order.
Festival Plaza
This feature became unlocked back at the first Pokemon Center, but I haven't had any particular use for it until now. With this save staying free of any online communication, the plaza is populated only by generic "Festival Fans", but they still turn up with red text boxes enough to start a nest egg of FC and get a few level-ups. Eventually I unlock the ability to do missions, and with that the first three Festival Tickets for the day. Only a few mission options are available at first, but among those is the most lucrative option, Type Matchup Tests. It takes 16 points on this mission to light up all five stars for personal score, but it's a fairly routine matter to stretch out to 20 points and light up the first star for combined score even when playing solo. This way, Festival Tickets can be converted to FC at a 1:36 ratio, which can help contribute to more rank-ups, each of which comes with an offer of a new facility. Further, if one of those is an undesirable 1-star facility, you can even reject it and Sophocles gives you another Festival Ticket instead, good for even more FC as a head start on the next rank. This is one of the benefits to 1-stars being the most likely outcome while the rank is still low (around 10.)
The big payoff here is to get a Rare Kitchen as one of the offered facilities, which is exactly what happens on the rank up to 9. Even the 1-star kitchen has 3 "Rare Breakfasts" in its inventory per day, each of which is similar to a Rare Candy for the bargain-basement price of 4 FC each, except they stop working beyond level 29 (we'll deal with that when we get there), and the level-ups don't allow triggering evolution (not a problem) or learning new moves (slightly more of a problem, if used on the wrong level). For now, I just take one level-up on Litten, and back out. It's also possible to go to places like Soft Drink Parlor to buy cheap drinks, and get vendorcruft by rejecting a 2-star or higher facility. Suffice it to say that money isn't going to be an issue this run, even with as many battles as I plan on skipping.
Back in Hau'oli, Ilima has evidently done full EV training in both attacking stats on his level 11 Smeargle. (For Popplio players, this has the result that half of those EVs are completely wasted, since Smeargle's moveset in that case will be nothing but two physical moves.) Still, it's a Smeargle and thoroughly unimpressive; Grubbin spams Mud-Slap as long as it can and Litten can do the rest. Guess that was what Ilima was looking for to give his endorsement to tackle the trial.
Let's Catch Something! No, Not a Wave Just Yet
More so than for the trial, we needed that endorsement to go north out of town at all, into Route 2, and save in front of the grass. Entering the grass without Repel up is risky business, as the encounters have a chance of being a species I haven't been forced to see yet (like Makuhita here) and forcing a return to the last save. But it's time to get some more team members, and out of the limited options available thus far, I decide to pick up an Ekans (useful for Intimidate-shuffling to weaken some foes, and Glare coming up soon is also nice), as well as a Smeargle, letting it sketch Vice Grip off Grubbin to be its first move.
Smeargle has the potential to be interesting in a run like this. The limited selection of foes I can encounter at any point means it's not a simple matter of "let's go track down Paras as soon as possible so I can sketch Spore" or anything like that. Most of the moves Smeargle would be able to sketch, I would be able to simply catch the Pokemon using them, who's probably even better at using that move--the exception is if there's a trainer battle with a key move and the Pokemon isn't available in the wild until later. The 1-new-move-per-10-levels limitation is even more glaring, with no move reminder until extremely late. This particular Smeargle came with Technician, where Vice Grip sits near the peak of what that ability is looking for, plus gets STAB. Of course, it's still a Smeargle, so I don't expect that move to do very much; it's just the best option that came to mind to commit to now, before the next Sketch comes along in two more levels.
All right, let's get out of the grass and head up the hill, where there's a mandatory trainer with a Cutiefly right at the start of the slope, where again a sufficiently agile ledge-grabber should have been easily able to climb up to a point and avoid her line of sight. Keeping on going, progress is halted by a Crabrawler (doesn't count as seen) who can't stand the thought of us passing through without checking out its associate's motel as well as the nearby Big Wave Beach. This flagrant callout to "Look at the new area we coded into the game compared to last year's offering!" brings another unpleasant encounter, as you battle the same Skull grunt as before but he uses a Drowzee this time. This means I could go right back to the same grass patch to hunt for Drowzee now, but ultimately decide against it.
Trial at the Executive Suite
Instead, it's onward past the Crabrawler roadblock toward Verdant Cavern, home of the first trial. Right across the way, though, is another Pokemon Center which is relevant in that arriving there unlocks the use of Roto Loto. The first play is always a guaranteed Roto Boost, but ultimately other options will be more valuable in the recurring drawings. Specifically, if there's any run that's more thankful for the existence of Roto Stealth, I have yet to hear about it. This power is a foolproof Repel that works even in areas where the wild Pokemon outlevel your lead, and it lasts for 4 minutes instead of being tied to any particular step count. Trial sites have no wild encounters other than the scripted ones, at least until you've cleared the trial, so Roto Stealth isn't immediately helpful but it's still much appreciated to stock up on those for later.
The trial itself is pretty formulaic: track down a couple Yungoos, attempt futilely to find the third one only to find it's always somewhere different from where you look, have the Skull grunts "barge in without permission" (yeah, right) and have to battle their Drowzee again, and this time with them covering some of the holes you can check the remaining one and get a hit after all--this time an underleveled Gumshoos. Then you're free to go to the totem's den. Or you're free to have second thoughts.
The situation here is actually pretty fortunate for grinding prospects in a run like this. As I mentioned, something like the grass at the start of route 2 is pretty awkward, as you can grind on a few of the Pokemon there but you pretty much have to save after every single Pokemon worth of XP to avoid the risk of running into something too early and spoiling your progress. But here, you have the option of leaving the cavern whenever you want--then next time you come back, you'll have to start the trial anew. That means another two Yungoos, Drowzee, and underleveled Gumshoos, which is pretty significant value at this point, and all of it guaranteed safe, with no risk of running into some other Pokemon that I wasn't forced to see yet. I think ahead to Hala and what I'll want on the team by then. If I can legally add someone else now, this is the best opportunity to grind them up to a more competitive level before that battle comes up.
I could go back and give Drowzee another chance, but in the end I decide to duck into Sandy Cave (the tunnel just off Big Wave Beach) and grab a Zubat for those juicy type matchups. Three double-resists (including one against the kahuna's specialty type), plus an immunity, stacks up pretty favorably in general against most things that aren't named Heatran, Mimikyu, or Shedinja. And while its stats aren't great yet, it does have Wing Attack coming up at level 13, which should be enough to hit for a decent chunk against its fellow LC cohabitants. Just one more round of the trial from there is enough to get Zubat to 12, already pretty good. Unfortunately it can't gain any experience off the totem itself, as I switch into it for a sac to pull off another round of the Intimidate Shuffle with Ekans, after doing the same thing with Smeargle. No one on the team was capable of learning the Brick Break TM found here (Drowzee could have done so if I had opted to use it), but with Gumshoos at -5 attack I didn't exactly need that much firepower at once, as Grubbin Bites the helper down and slings a bit of mud to sour Gumshoos's image even further before I switch to Litten and win the exchange of potshots.
Give Me Nebby, and Give Me Death
Beating Gumshoos means I can take the Normalium Z, and sure enough Kukui is waiting outside with another tutorial, this time on the controls for using Z-moves. He uses his Rockruff again, now against a wild Growlithe, but the player is not a participant in this battle so once again neither of those Pokemon count as seen.
While I still have two Rare Breakfasts in reserve, using one of those on Zubat now would be completely counterproductive, as that would skip the new move which was the entire point of pushing to level 13. Instead, I could...go back to the Pokemon Center, this time to the cafe area for a refreshing P198 mug of Tapu Cocoa, along with (since this part was being played on Monday) a Lumiose Galette and some Poke Beans (because Poke Pelago hasn't been unlocked yet). There are 5 team members, and by giving one bean to each of them, I can go back to the cafe and the receptionist there will reward me with an actual Rare Candy. This does allow learning moves, so there you go...Wing Attack.
Going up Route 3, there's a convenient Sharp Beak on the path to boost the new move a bit more, interspersed with a nice game of "be the trainer's shadow so she never sees you". But the storyline-enforced reason to come here is Melemele Meadow, where Nebby gets lost again at the entrance to Seaward Cave. This being the Ultra games, it also brings the first battle against Dulse and Zossie, this time uniquely using Furfrou instead of their native Poipole. The team is equipped with plenty of crippling power by now, including Intimidate, Glare, and Mud-Slap, that a lone Furfrou isn't a problem. No, where the problem occurs is afterward, where you get healed by Lillie and then immediately get an ambush challenge from Hau.
Hau's team this time consists of the starter, Pichu, and also Noibat. Now, Noibat hasn't been registered as seen yet, so normally that would cause it to become registered perforce in the course of the battle. But in this case there's a bit of a "get out of Pokedex free" card for the taking: Unlike most trainers, you can safely lose to Hau and still make storyline progress, without having to come back and beat him. And if, per chance, that loss happens before he ever sends out Noibat, then Noibat doesn't get registered! Cool! The problem is that the team has been immediately healed right beforehand. Out of my five team members, four of them resist Grass, so Rowlet's flailing around to wear them out will be extremely time-consuming. The issue of "I only have attacking moves and can't help but defeat it" isn't really an issue, even on the last mon where switching is no longer possible, because if nothing else I can waste turns by throwing the same Poke Ball over and over (it doesn't get consumed if you throw one in a trainer battle for some reason). But in order to get to this point, it must have been intimidated at least once, making its damage output even slower. Probably not slow enough to run out of PP before finishing off the whole team, but still plenty slow.
Instead, the better idea is to beat Furfrou and then not talk to Nebby yet. Backtrack out of Melemele Meadow with the Repel still up, all the way down route 3, and to the route 2 Pokemon Center. Then I can deposit all the team members but one in the PC, come back to the meadow while still having to dodge the route 3 trainers again, and repel through the flowers to get back to Nebby and trigger the next cutscene. Now my (one-Pokemon) team gets healed, and Hau's Rowlet has a much easier time winning without getting Noibat involved. Hau's trainer AI at this point still doesn't pay attention to type matchups, as it gladly goes for a few Leafages against Grubbin (who isn't being any better of a role model in return, happily spamming Mud-Slap for 0 damage) before making like Peter Piper and picking the fatal Peck. Even with another trip down to route 2 to pull out the rest of the team, this whole diversion was still likely faster than getting Rowlet to go 1v5 against the full healthy team.
Fight or Flight
Unlike Hau, you're not allowed to lose to his grandpa, at least not if you want to continue on your island challenge. You'll have to bring down all three members of his team--Machop, Makuhita, and Crabrawler--all of which are new entries in the dex. (At least after this, since Crabrawler will no longer be a spoiler, it becomes safe to loot berry trees.) Smeargle still hasn't done anything of note in the whole run, and I haven't committed to a move for the 11-20 stretch. Sketching Power-Up Punch off Crabrawler is an interesting possibility that could let it set up a modicum of offensive presence, but with Crabrawler also being the Z-crystal holder, that move is difficult to tempt out in isolation, and I decide it's too risky to be worth any possible payoff. X Attacks and Roto Boosts would probably do better at anything I might want PUP for anyway.
For the feature presentation, I decide to lead with Ekans just to get the Intimidate off, as using Glare against a known Guts Machop would be a terrible play. Zubat then takes a small amount of damage from Revenge on the switch-in, and Machop predictably finds itself with nothing better to do the following turn than Focus Energy. This unfortunately renders the Intimidate of limited use, as Machop now has a 50% critical rate (or 100% if it ever wises up and picks Karate Chop), but it's content to spam Revenge and force a Fresh Water along the way. Zubat levels up to 14 off that KO, shrugs off Makuhita's obvious Fake Out turn with Inner Focus, and wins that battle too. Crabrawler comes last and comfortably tanks the Wing Attack before KOing Zubat with Leer + Pursuit and the prior Fake Out damage.
Now with the luxury of the free switch (who plays on Shift anyway?), I get to bring Ekans back out. This time Glare will be helpful, to which I can add Wrap for some chip damage. I end up needing a second Glare after Hala reveals the Full Heal in his bag for just this eventuality. The Wrap damage adds up enough to prompt his other healing item, a Super Potion, shortly afterward, to which I fire off a cheeky Z-Wrap for 100 power to claw back some of the progress. Crabrawler wins that head-to-head matchup as well, but enough has been done that Litten can now come in and finish the deal with Fire Fang. Level up to 17, which triggers the first of what will undoubtedly be many "press B to cancel evolution" experiences.
Just like that, a passport stamp, a bump in the obedience threshold (irrelevant in a run like this, unless I come across any in-game trades that are legal on both sides), and Fightinium Z. Which...at least there's a move compatible with it right now (Litten's Double Kick). The money and False Swipe TM too...pffft.
Loose Ends and Tauros Tails
Oh yeah, there's one other reward for getting this far: the Ride Pager, with Tauros as the first number on speed dial. Luckily you can call on this without it checking the Seen flag for Tauros (likewise for the other Poke Rides, as well as Mantine Surf), and there's a couple things it unlocks now that we can break rocks. One is a totem sticker right here in town, might as well get that. I can also go back to the totem's den, though I need to have Repel up through Verdant Cavern this time since wild Pokemon are now enabled there and it would be a shame to go through so much trouble to dodge Noibat only to get stuck with one after all. Anyway, the rocks in the den reveal the way to...TM46, for Thief. Wonder how that got here, of all places. Some special kind of "business arrangement," perhaps? Thief makes a useful sidegrade to Bite on things I don't expect to be fast enough to fish for much flinching, sure.
Back in the city, the mall has finally opened up, and I can get another TM there, this one for Round after being the janitor's servant. Not that anyone on the team really wants to have Round. The whole mall is pretty blasé regardless; Battle Buffet is suicidal to the run's objective, Mr. Hyper is nowhere close to being hyped up enough yet, and Antiquities of the Ages sells only useless items to me. While the money situation is pretty good, it's not as though I already have enough to buy out the entire stockroom of Gracidea, so I leave them alone save for being greeted with their namesake flower (also useless, but at least it doesn't check the invisible Seen box by Shaymin). The one thing I could conceivably do here is use the move tutor to update Litten's lone move on the special side from Ember to Fire Pledge, but the happiness isn't maxed out for that yet.
One other note: as the saying goes, "you can't fight city hall". In this case, once you get this far you can't even enter City Hall without getting dragged into a fight against Dunsparce, and the last thing any of us want is to have the Pokedex register that it's seen a Dunsparce.
And with that, it's time to become a sightseer and head out toward the other islands! Starting with a trip to Big Wave Beach to get our first surfing lesson, mercifully free of the need for one HM 3.
After 1 Grand Trial:
Pokedex Seen: 21 (Owned: 5, but the owned count is unimportant)
Current Team -
Litten L17 (Fire Fang/Ember/Growl/Double Kick)
Ekans L16 (Glare/Wrap/Poison Sting/Thief)
Smeargle L16 (Vice Grip/Sketch/---/---)
Grubbin L15 (Bug Bite/Mud-Slap/Bite/String Shot)
Zubat L14 (Wing Attack/Thief/Absorb/Supersonic)
You may have heard of the Professor Oak Challenge, where the objective is to maximize the Pokedex's "Owned" counter at every step of the journey. Such runs are invariably filled with a ton of grinding as you have to level up your starter and all the early-route derps high enough to evolve to their final stages before the first gym, when only low level Pokemon with poor experience yields are available to grind off of. Attempting to flip that objective into minimizing "Owned" just turns the run into one of those clickbaity "Can you beat <game> using only <unevolved starter>?" retreads, which have become rather trite, and are still mostly about doing a bunch of grinding so you can overcome whatever type disadvantages may exist in the course of the game. This run will be about minimizing the "Seen" count instead, and all the quirks that come from playing to that goal. What better way to honor the new "Dexit" paradigm for TPC's game vision, than by culling as much of the dex as possible from an ordinary playthrough, and leaving Rotom starved for tasty information?
It's worth noting that the game does track seen/owned data for not just the 400-403 members of the Alola dex, but for the entire span of the National Dex that existed at the time, and there are separate seen flags for male/female, both in shiny/not-shiny variants, and also for all 300-odd variant forms that are programmed into the game data. The game doesn't give you any meaningful interface to these out-of-dex seen flags, but they are tracked with meaningful purpose. For example, if you Island Scan for a Charmander, the type effectiveness overlay will appear on your moves if and only if you already had Charmander tagged as "seen" in those invisible Pokedex flags, and the Poke Ball icon by its name will appear if you have it as "owned". Additionally, the game uses the total "owned" count, including out-of-dex species, to determine the odds of getting a critical capture. I will attempt to avoid even having the outsiders get tagged as "seen" if I can help it here, as I can examine the save file and double-check those figures, even if the Rotom Dex refuses to do so.
Welcome to Alola
After crossing the sea to a new house in a brand new region, of course the most important thing to do is get out of the house to start a new adventure. This prompts a heartfelt outburst from mom: "So, Minidex! Are you excited to meet some Alolan Pokemon?" to which the only permitted answers are "Yeah, I am!" or "I don't know..." After spending a couple minutes sneering at her mom for want of a suitably contemptible response, our character takes a jog up Route 1.
Starter choice is pretty much irrelevant here: no relevant trainers use the starters or Leafeon/Flareon/Vaporeon besides the obvious ones whose teams change in reaction to yours, so there's no opportunity to gain by creating overlap between a starter-dependent trainer and a mandatory one. Instead, since I picked Rowlet on the Moon playthrough and Popplio on the original US profile, I'll just go ahead and take Litten. Of course it's unable to get the HA, and on top of that it's never going to be able to evolve here. Guess it'll have to remain a four-legged kitty cat forever, unable to take inspiration from that other cat at home.
On your first venture into the grass patch on Route 1, there's an invisible line close to the end of its depth, and when you cross that line you'll be forced into a scripted encounter with a Yungoos. No way around it. If nothing else, it's free XP. Continuing up the route, you can hug the back of the Trainer Tips sign and continue along the periphery of the walkable area to avoid the grass while also staying out of line of sight of the trainer here, to get to Iki Town. Given the starter choice, Hau predictably picks Rowlet, which is more easy experience, followed by the run-in with a wild Spearow (which is battled, so it counts), Nebby and Tapu Koko (which don't), and Lillie who would rather send you out onto that creaky bridge than go herself to protect something she's trying to claim responsibility for. After that rude awakening, we finally reach the best part of the game: the brief segment where we have a Pokedex, and it will gladly show us all four species that have been encountered thus far in ways that count, without saying "Bzzt!" all the time.
Kukui then barges into the house and essentially kidnaps the player--nothing suspicious there--refusing to allow me to go anywhere other than up the other branch of Route 1 this time, for the obligatory catch tutorial. Kukui's Rockruff and the wild Grubbin don't get credited as "seen" from the tutorial, even though we're presumably right there watching, though the latter's reprieve is short-lived as there's another invisible trigger line here for a scripted encounter with a Grubbin of our own. This time, since I have Poke Balls and I've already been forced to see the Grubbin, I might as well catch it and take some of the load off the starter. Or at least, piggyback for a while to help it catch up, as there's another trip to Iki Town to fight Hau again. This time there's an unavoidable trainer along the way with Buneary, which is a chance to siphon some experience off to catch. At the festival, Hau now leads with Pichu in addition to the Rowlet and forces a seventh Seen entry into the dex.
After quite enough of that nonsense, Lillie's use of the door is less aggressive, and she escorts us down the newly-opened path to Kukui's Lab, bringing that most serene chapter of the game to a screeching, buzzing halt as one Rotom is rendered permanently unfit for battle. And as if that wasn't bad enough, this is immediately followed by...The Grass Patch from Hell.
As Lillie helpfully explains, you can take the ledge going down to Kukui's lab to skip the grass patch along the way. But these youthful, presumably athletic characters are somehow incapable of climbing back up the ledge, so there's no choice but to take the grass. By Alolan standards, the grass patch in question is a huge one. The only things that can possibly show up in this grass are Inkay, Slowpoke, and Wingull, none of which have been encountered yet, so any encounter has a 100% chance of spoiling the objective and forcing a reset back to the last save. And while this would be what Repels were designed for, it's not possible to get any repels until I get to a Pokemon Center for the first time...something that can only happen once I reach the other side of this very grass patch! The way I have to take it is to save, walk a couple steps at a time, if I don't get an encounter then save again, and keep using the saves as stepping stones until I finally reach the other side, still with only 7 seen. Fortunately we don't have to deal with that again.
Cutscene Simulator, 2017 Edition
The very next thing I do is pop into the center and pick up 30 Repels, because Alola is flush with money, and because in what other run is anyone going to want to buy 30 Repels (unless they're hunting for a roamer or something)? At least we're well prepared for any future mandatory grass patches.
This stretch is, fairly or not, where much of the game's popular reception is concentrated, as Hau and Lillie give you a guided tour of every building on the Hau'oli Strip and force you to sit through all their dialogue. The Trainers' School is of course the most debilitating of those to the goal of keeping the Pokedex pristine, as it's the one place where fighting a route boss is mandatory to progress. The students use Metapod, Grimer, Bonsly, and Ekans; all of them are mandatory in order to earn a 1-on-1 lesson with the teacher who ensures there's somebody in the game who has a Popplio after this starter choice. Revolting as it may be to add that many "seen" entries in one place, it can't be helped and the experience is pretty good; without having to do any grinding in grass and risk finding an unseen species to force a reset, Litten and Grubbin are at 11 and 9 by the end, and Litten can make enough of a Scratch in Popplio to let Grubbin finish off. While we're here, I can also pick up the Quick Claw, and give it to Grubbin because why not?
The next stop on the tour is the appropriately named Tourist Bureau, which offers an unsuccessful shot at the Loto-ID, as well as a forced gift of the Poke-Finder. Sure enough, right outside the door on the way out, there's a suspicious man who really wants you to try out the new feature on the Pikachu through that crack in the wall. This is a trap--DO NOT take that picture or else it will count as seeing Pikachu for Pokedex purposes, and nobody wants to have Pikachu staining their record, do they? Fortunately you can pull out the camera then back out without snapping any photos, and that's good enough for the insistent guy to allow you to pass without having to register a spot for Pikachu.
(It's worth noting that talking to Pokemon in the overworld, like the Meowth at home or the playful Rockruff on Route 1, doesn't count as "seeing" them for Pokedex purposes. Poke-Finder was probably made an exception to that because it's the Rotom Dex itself which serves as the camera. Likewise, scanning QR codes will also register them Seen, but there's no reason to go anywhere near the QR Scanner in this run so that's not an issue.)
Continuing on, the rest of the buildings down this road are uneventful other than kicking off the quest for totem stickers, which may come in handy later for some guaranteed gifts if they turn out to be helpful, but there's no need to be immediately concerned. The pair of guides then do a U-turn and start back down the other way, forcing the first run-in with Team Skull (in which they bring a Zubat, and even show considerate forethought by wearing masks over their face years before that became the new fashion). After that comes the first captain's battle, but before we take that on, a little interlude is in order.
Festival Plaza
This feature became unlocked back at the first Pokemon Center, but I haven't had any particular use for it until now. With this save staying free of any online communication, the plaza is populated only by generic "Festival Fans", but they still turn up with red text boxes enough to start a nest egg of FC and get a few level-ups. Eventually I unlock the ability to do missions, and with that the first three Festival Tickets for the day. Only a few mission options are available at first, but among those is the most lucrative option, Type Matchup Tests. It takes 16 points on this mission to light up all five stars for personal score, but it's a fairly routine matter to stretch out to 20 points and light up the first star for combined score even when playing solo. This way, Festival Tickets can be converted to FC at a 1:36 ratio, which can help contribute to more rank-ups, each of which comes with an offer of a new facility. Further, if one of those is an undesirable 1-star facility, you can even reject it and Sophocles gives you another Festival Ticket instead, good for even more FC as a head start on the next rank. This is one of the benefits to 1-stars being the most likely outcome while the rank is still low (around 10.)
The big payoff here is to get a Rare Kitchen as one of the offered facilities, which is exactly what happens on the rank up to 9. Even the 1-star kitchen has 3 "Rare Breakfasts" in its inventory per day, each of which is similar to a Rare Candy for the bargain-basement price of 4 FC each, except they stop working beyond level 29 (we'll deal with that when we get there), and the level-ups don't allow triggering evolution (not a problem) or learning new moves (slightly more of a problem, if used on the wrong level). For now, I just take one level-up on Litten, and back out. It's also possible to go to places like Soft Drink Parlor to buy cheap drinks, and get vendorcruft by rejecting a 2-star or higher facility. Suffice it to say that money isn't going to be an issue this run, even with as many battles as I plan on skipping.
Back in Hau'oli, Ilima has evidently done full EV training in both attacking stats on his level 11 Smeargle. (For Popplio players, this has the result that half of those EVs are completely wasted, since Smeargle's moveset in that case will be nothing but two physical moves.) Still, it's a Smeargle and thoroughly unimpressive; Grubbin spams Mud-Slap as long as it can and Litten can do the rest. Guess that was what Ilima was looking for to give his endorsement to tackle the trial.
Let's Catch Something! No, Not a Wave Just Yet
More so than for the trial, we needed that endorsement to go north out of town at all, into Route 2, and save in front of the grass. Entering the grass without Repel up is risky business, as the encounters have a chance of being a species I haven't been forced to see yet (like Makuhita here) and forcing a return to the last save. But it's time to get some more team members, and out of the limited options available thus far, I decide to pick up an Ekans (useful for Intimidate-shuffling to weaken some foes, and Glare coming up soon is also nice), as well as a Smeargle, letting it sketch Vice Grip off Grubbin to be its first move.
Smeargle has the potential to be interesting in a run like this. The limited selection of foes I can encounter at any point means it's not a simple matter of "let's go track down Paras as soon as possible so I can sketch Spore" or anything like that. Most of the moves Smeargle would be able to sketch, I would be able to simply catch the Pokemon using them, who's probably even better at using that move--the exception is if there's a trainer battle with a key move and the Pokemon isn't available in the wild until later. The 1-new-move-per-10-levels limitation is even more glaring, with no move reminder until extremely late. This particular Smeargle came with Technician, where Vice Grip sits near the peak of what that ability is looking for, plus gets STAB. Of course, it's still a Smeargle, so I don't expect that move to do very much; it's just the best option that came to mind to commit to now, before the next Sketch comes along in two more levels.
All right, let's get out of the grass and head up the hill, where there's a mandatory trainer with a Cutiefly right at the start of the slope, where again a sufficiently agile ledge-grabber should have been easily able to climb up to a point and avoid her line of sight. Keeping on going, progress is halted by a Crabrawler (doesn't count as seen) who can't stand the thought of us passing through without checking out its associate's motel as well as the nearby Big Wave Beach. This flagrant callout to "Look at the new area we coded into the game compared to last year's offering!" brings another unpleasant encounter, as you battle the same Skull grunt as before but he uses a Drowzee this time. This means I could go right back to the same grass patch to hunt for Drowzee now, but ultimately decide against it.
Trial at the Executive Suite
Instead, it's onward past the Crabrawler roadblock toward Verdant Cavern, home of the first trial. Right across the way, though, is another Pokemon Center which is relevant in that arriving there unlocks the use of Roto Loto. The first play is always a guaranteed Roto Boost, but ultimately other options will be more valuable in the recurring drawings. Specifically, if there's any run that's more thankful for the existence of Roto Stealth, I have yet to hear about it. This power is a foolproof Repel that works even in areas where the wild Pokemon outlevel your lead, and it lasts for 4 minutes instead of being tied to any particular step count. Trial sites have no wild encounters other than the scripted ones, at least until you've cleared the trial, so Roto Stealth isn't immediately helpful but it's still much appreciated to stock up on those for later.
The trial itself is pretty formulaic: track down a couple Yungoos, attempt futilely to find the third one only to find it's always somewhere different from where you look, have the Skull grunts "barge in without permission" (yeah, right) and have to battle their Drowzee again, and this time with them covering some of the holes you can check the remaining one and get a hit after all--this time an underleveled Gumshoos. Then you're free to go to the totem's den. Or you're free to have second thoughts.
The situation here is actually pretty fortunate for grinding prospects in a run like this. As I mentioned, something like the grass at the start of route 2 is pretty awkward, as you can grind on a few of the Pokemon there but you pretty much have to save after every single Pokemon worth of XP to avoid the risk of running into something too early and spoiling your progress. But here, you have the option of leaving the cavern whenever you want--then next time you come back, you'll have to start the trial anew. That means another two Yungoos, Drowzee, and underleveled Gumshoos, which is pretty significant value at this point, and all of it guaranteed safe, with no risk of running into some other Pokemon that I wasn't forced to see yet. I think ahead to Hala and what I'll want on the team by then. If I can legally add someone else now, this is the best opportunity to grind them up to a more competitive level before that battle comes up.
I could go back and give Drowzee another chance, but in the end I decide to duck into Sandy Cave (the tunnel just off Big Wave Beach) and grab a Zubat for those juicy type matchups. Three double-resists (including one against the kahuna's specialty type), plus an immunity, stacks up pretty favorably in general against most things that aren't named Heatran, Mimikyu, or Shedinja. And while its stats aren't great yet, it does have Wing Attack coming up at level 13, which should be enough to hit for a decent chunk against its fellow LC cohabitants. Just one more round of the trial from there is enough to get Zubat to 12, already pretty good. Unfortunately it can't gain any experience off the totem itself, as I switch into it for a sac to pull off another round of the Intimidate Shuffle with Ekans, after doing the same thing with Smeargle. No one on the team was capable of learning the Brick Break TM found here (Drowzee could have done so if I had opted to use it), but with Gumshoos at -5 attack I didn't exactly need that much firepower at once, as Grubbin Bites the helper down and slings a bit of mud to sour Gumshoos's image even further before I switch to Litten and win the exchange of potshots.
Give Me Nebby, and Give Me Death
Beating Gumshoos means I can take the Normalium Z, and sure enough Kukui is waiting outside with another tutorial, this time on the controls for using Z-moves. He uses his Rockruff again, now against a wild Growlithe, but the player is not a participant in this battle so once again neither of those Pokemon count as seen.
While I still have two Rare Breakfasts in reserve, using one of those on Zubat now would be completely counterproductive, as that would skip the new move which was the entire point of pushing to level 13. Instead, I could...go back to the Pokemon Center, this time to the cafe area for a refreshing P198 mug of Tapu Cocoa, along with (since this part was being played on Monday) a Lumiose Galette and some Poke Beans (because Poke Pelago hasn't been unlocked yet). There are 5 team members, and by giving one bean to each of them, I can go back to the cafe and the receptionist there will reward me with an actual Rare Candy. This does allow learning moves, so there you go...Wing Attack.
Going up Route 3, there's a convenient Sharp Beak on the path to boost the new move a bit more, interspersed with a nice game of "be the trainer's shadow so she never sees you". But the storyline-enforced reason to come here is Melemele Meadow, where Nebby gets lost again at the entrance to Seaward Cave. This being the Ultra games, it also brings the first battle against Dulse and Zossie, this time uniquely using Furfrou instead of their native Poipole. The team is equipped with plenty of crippling power by now, including Intimidate, Glare, and Mud-Slap, that a lone Furfrou isn't a problem. No, where the problem occurs is afterward, where you get healed by Lillie and then immediately get an ambush challenge from Hau.
Hau's team this time consists of the starter, Pichu, and also Noibat. Now, Noibat hasn't been registered as seen yet, so normally that would cause it to become registered perforce in the course of the battle. But in this case there's a bit of a "get out of Pokedex free" card for the taking: Unlike most trainers, you can safely lose to Hau and still make storyline progress, without having to come back and beat him. And if, per chance, that loss happens before he ever sends out Noibat, then Noibat doesn't get registered! Cool! The problem is that the team has been immediately healed right beforehand. Out of my five team members, four of them resist Grass, so Rowlet's flailing around to wear them out will be extremely time-consuming. The issue of "I only have attacking moves and can't help but defeat it" isn't really an issue, even on the last mon where switching is no longer possible, because if nothing else I can waste turns by throwing the same Poke Ball over and over (it doesn't get consumed if you throw one in a trainer battle for some reason). But in order to get to this point, it must have been intimidated at least once, making its damage output even slower. Probably not slow enough to run out of PP before finishing off the whole team, but still plenty slow.
Instead, the better idea is to beat Furfrou and then not talk to Nebby yet. Backtrack out of Melemele Meadow with the Repel still up, all the way down route 3, and to the route 2 Pokemon Center. Then I can deposit all the team members but one in the PC, come back to the meadow while still having to dodge the route 3 trainers again, and repel through the flowers to get back to Nebby and trigger the next cutscene. Now my (one-Pokemon) team gets healed, and Hau's Rowlet has a much easier time winning without getting Noibat involved. Hau's trainer AI at this point still doesn't pay attention to type matchups, as it gladly goes for a few Leafages against Grubbin (who isn't being any better of a role model in return, happily spamming Mud-Slap for 0 damage) before making like Peter Piper and picking the fatal Peck. Even with another trip down to route 2 to pull out the rest of the team, this whole diversion was still likely faster than getting Rowlet to go 1v5 against the full healthy team.
Fight or Flight
Unlike Hau, you're not allowed to lose to his grandpa, at least not if you want to continue on your island challenge. You'll have to bring down all three members of his team--Machop, Makuhita, and Crabrawler--all of which are new entries in the dex. (At least after this, since Crabrawler will no longer be a spoiler, it becomes safe to loot berry trees.) Smeargle still hasn't done anything of note in the whole run, and I haven't committed to a move for the 11-20 stretch. Sketching Power-Up Punch off Crabrawler is an interesting possibility that could let it set up a modicum of offensive presence, but with Crabrawler also being the Z-crystal holder, that move is difficult to tempt out in isolation, and I decide it's too risky to be worth any possible payoff. X Attacks and Roto Boosts would probably do better at anything I might want PUP for anyway.
For the feature presentation, I decide to lead with Ekans just to get the Intimidate off, as using Glare against a known Guts Machop would be a terrible play. Zubat then takes a small amount of damage from Revenge on the switch-in, and Machop predictably finds itself with nothing better to do the following turn than Focus Energy. This unfortunately renders the Intimidate of limited use, as Machop now has a 50% critical rate (or 100% if it ever wises up and picks Karate Chop), but it's content to spam Revenge and force a Fresh Water along the way. Zubat levels up to 14 off that KO, shrugs off Makuhita's obvious Fake Out turn with Inner Focus, and wins that battle too. Crabrawler comes last and comfortably tanks the Wing Attack before KOing Zubat with Leer + Pursuit and the prior Fake Out damage.
Now with the luxury of the free switch (who plays on Shift anyway?), I get to bring Ekans back out. This time Glare will be helpful, to which I can add Wrap for some chip damage. I end up needing a second Glare after Hala reveals the Full Heal in his bag for just this eventuality. The Wrap damage adds up enough to prompt his other healing item, a Super Potion, shortly afterward, to which I fire off a cheeky Z-Wrap for 100 power to claw back some of the progress. Crabrawler wins that head-to-head matchup as well, but enough has been done that Litten can now come in and finish the deal with Fire Fang. Level up to 17, which triggers the first of what will undoubtedly be many "press B to cancel evolution" experiences.
Just like that, a passport stamp, a bump in the obedience threshold (irrelevant in a run like this, unless I come across any in-game trades that are legal on both sides), and Fightinium Z. Which...at least there's a move compatible with it right now (Litten's Double Kick). The money and False Swipe TM too...pffft.
Loose Ends and Tauros Tails
Oh yeah, there's one other reward for getting this far: the Ride Pager, with Tauros as the first number on speed dial. Luckily you can call on this without it checking the Seen flag for Tauros (likewise for the other Poke Rides, as well as Mantine Surf), and there's a couple things it unlocks now that we can break rocks. One is a totem sticker right here in town, might as well get that. I can also go back to the totem's den, though I need to have Repel up through Verdant Cavern this time since wild Pokemon are now enabled there and it would be a shame to go through so much trouble to dodge Noibat only to get stuck with one after all. Anyway, the rocks in the den reveal the way to...TM46, for Thief. Wonder how that got here, of all places. Some special kind of "business arrangement," perhaps? Thief makes a useful sidegrade to Bite on things I don't expect to be fast enough to fish for much flinching, sure.
Back in the city, the mall has finally opened up, and I can get another TM there, this one for Round after being the janitor's servant. Not that anyone on the team really wants to have Round. The whole mall is pretty blasé regardless; Battle Buffet is suicidal to the run's objective, Mr. Hyper is nowhere close to being hyped up enough yet, and Antiquities of the Ages sells only useless items to me. While the money situation is pretty good, it's not as though I already have enough to buy out the entire stockroom of Gracidea, so I leave them alone save for being greeted with their namesake flower (also useless, but at least it doesn't check the invisible Seen box by Shaymin). The one thing I could conceivably do here is use the move tutor to update Litten's lone move on the special side from Ember to Fire Pledge, but the happiness isn't maxed out for that yet.
One other note: as the saying goes, "you can't fight city hall". In this case, once you get this far you can't even enter City Hall without getting dragged into a fight against Dunsparce, and the last thing any of us want is to have the Pokedex register that it's seen a Dunsparce.
And with that, it's time to become a sightseer and head out toward the other islands! Starting with a trip to Big Wave Beach to get our first surfing lesson, mercifully free of the need for one HM 3.
After 1 Grand Trial:
Pokedex Seen: 21 (Owned: 5, but the owned count is unimportant)
Current Team -
Litten L17 (Fire Fang/Ember/Growl/Double Kick)
Ekans L16 (Glare/Wrap/Poison Sting/Thief)
Smeargle L16 (Vice Grip/Sketch/---/---)
Grubbin L15 (Bug Bite/Mud-Slap/Bite/String Shot)
Zubat L14 (Wing Attack/Thief/Absorb/Supersonic)
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