I came across this pokemon a lot...
"Deino" lol sounds like such a rock star name...
I'm adding Deino to my team, he can replace my level 36 Stoutland who I haven't used in a while cuz I got bored of him, and dragon types are more interesting anyway.
Victory Road is pretty short, but has some tough trainers... part of the way you gotta jump off some high, steep cliffs while you're already high up the mountain. Uh... wouldn't that be kind of... scary... not to mention stupid? Hell, why not just use you're pokemon to fly safely up/down the cliffs... or... oh well, logic was never the strong point of pokemon games.
Near the end of Victory Road there's this doorway blocked by a tiny boulder, and you can't use strength or rock smash on it... not knowing what this think is kind of annoys me so I looked it up... ah... Looks like I'll be coming back here later, when those rocks mysteriously vanish after I catch a legendary or something... that's pretty random.
Onto the pokemon league!
...
Actually, I'm nowhere near leveled up enough yet. My team is now:
Serperior 49
Gothitelle 46
Excadrill 47
Deino 38
Carracosta 45
Unfezant 46
Good thing I have the Lucky Egg item to boost Exp, so training shouldn't take that long at all. Meanwhile I'll check out some of the sidequests that are available...
On route 7 there was a big windy storm going on, and then some old lady took me inside and gave me some soup (oookay?)... then when I went back outside this badass looking pokemon riding a cloud flew by. I was told this was Tornadus, and that he was causing random storms on certain times of the day.
DO WANT! Unfortunately after he shows himself to me he runs off, the storm subsided after that and I wasn't able to find him... Most of the routes that he roams on aren't even available until after you beat the game.
Decided to go searching around for new areas... route 1 has a pond of water you can surf over, and it leads to an unexplored section with some trainers and wild pokemon around level 35. Then there's a house with its bulletin board turned off, and the receptionist says there's "nothing of interest beyond here"... or so she says...
Suspicious... well actually going beyond leads to route 17! You can actually surf out into the ocean, across a bunch of water rapids, and end up on route 18, on some big mountainous island that doesn't show up on the map. It seems like the island should be big enough to show up on the map, but whatever... there's more trainers, wild pokemon and a bunch of useful items to find here.
Okay this is one of the most blatantly obvious looking pokemon I've seen so far, what the hell.
Oddly enough, it's a bug/rock type... OMG like who would've guessed?!
There's a house here where someone says he found a pokemon egg in Relic Castle, and wants to give it to me!
I appreciate your thought, but you cannot take the egg right now because your party is full.
Oh... wow, that was a dick move. Seriously there's no PC within a mile of this place. Sigh... making me fly back to Accumula Town and then surf all the way back here, this egg better be worth it! What, you mean I can't cook it? ... oh well, I guess I'll wait and see what hatches out of it.
There's a bunch of other stuff to find on this island too, including HM05 Waterfall. There seems to be even more to this island that I still can't get to from where I am...
Taking one of the rapids back the other way, I end up at another unexplored place. The map calls it "P2 Laboratory", says:
Team Plasma's secret lab is located on a quiet little island.
Inside the house I find the "Dubious Disc", an item with unknown purpose... and not much else besides a bunch of computer equipment... there's also a trainer on this island and... TM24 Thunderbolt.
"nothing of interest beyond here"... yeah, you mean except for all these interesting things to find! There could be more to this area than just item pickups... I don't know. For now I guess I'll just explore more.