Now, after an additional eight hours of additional gameplay, carrying out rescue missions, delivery services, and lovebird escorts (ugh!), I’ve levelled up the yellow rat to level 34 and got my rescue team to Diamond level. I’m sick of seeing the inside of Lapis Cave!!! At least, unlike most roleplaying games, the fact that the dungeons randomly regenerate has kept my sanity. (When I got my copy of the GBA Phantasy Star 3-in-one cartridge, I made my way through most of the dungeons from memory, some thirteen years after I played the Genesis/Megadrive version.)

Anyway, with a level 34 RAT, a level 35 Charmander, and a level 29 Absol, I stocked up on Reviver Seeds in the Toolbox, then we went marching on into the Magma Cavern, and came across a lot fewer monsters, like ONE, instead of a long queue as happened before. However, I did find it a bit unsettling, finding the staircase out of floor B10 in a Monster House, to be dumped into another Monster House at the start of floor B11… one of the disadvantages of the randomisation. Then again, for about ten of the 23 levels of the main cavern, I landed either on top of or 1-2 squares away from the stairs to the next level.

Then, there was the first level of the Magma Pit. That was just a huge slaughterfest, with Onix and Steelix queuing up in the corridor to be put down, almost as if I’d wandered into a Monster House in a corridor. And here, Charmander proved his worth, dispatching the Onix with Metal Claw and the Steelix with Ember.

Floor B2F of the Magma Pit was just us encountering a defeated Charizard and Bangirasu. Floor B3F has us getting there just in time to see Alakazam being wiped out by Groudon. Actually, probably because I’d levelled up so much, I’d found Groudon to be easy. The rat did about 50-60 HP damage with Quick Attack and Slam, Charmander doing about 150 with Metal Claw (and 100 with Ember), and Absol about 80-100 with Bite. Not bad. Three rounds put him down. And not even a scratch in return from the big red continent monster. It’d do Archie (from Team Aqua) proud.

Now, onwards and upwards, to the Sky Tower, to meet Rayquaza. I think I’ll do some more levelling up first, as I want to take Scyther instead of Absol, and he’s only at level 23. But I’ve been stuffing him with all the Green Gummis and Sky Gummis I found (especially in the Uproar Forest), so his IQ is up to 11.