Route 2 - Owten Nook and Passage Cave:the mountainous passage (or canyon?, cant really tell) that connects Kevlar Town with Nowtoch City is called "Owten Nook" due to being one of the nesting grounds of this particular pokemon. due to being close to the mountain the region is home to some unique species accompanied from the local common pokemon like Chyinmunk or Birbie.
i was lucky to find Owten on the first try, cant remember if its because of the day/night cycle which is present in the game. Owten is the second Normal/Flying species of this game, it was originally considered some sort of mix to cover the roles of the usual regular Normal type and Flying type thus we get this Owl + Cat combination, its cute and it gets cool moves later on as its not limited solely to Flying type moves, it can also learn some key Normal type moves too like Hyper Voice.
Mankey is the first example of Official Pokemon in the game. Tandor as a region not only contains a large list of endemic species but also houses several known species from different corners of the Pokemon World right from Gen1 to Gen6. the only sad part is that we cannot get a National Dex as it would mean a lot of extra development work.
in general Route 2 is low on trainer activity and its very straight forward, however, a landslide has disrupted the direct path to Nowtoch so we have to take the old part of the route which means crossing the Passage Cave. this provides an opportunity to meet and catch some of the peculiar denizens of the Tandorian underground.
Tonemy is one of the first to appear when traversing the cave and its the equivalent of Zubat in this region. this annoying ball of fur and poison doesnt do much against Orchynx due to being inmune to its type attacks so its an easy catch and escape. one thing to note though is that Tonemy gets a substantial change when evolves and becomes one of the most bizarre and top heavy Poison Types in the game.
Grozard is another typical case of convergent evolution in Tandor. this small land snake pokemon covers the niche of Diglett, its size may not be menacing but it learns powerfull Ground Type moves as it grows.
Dunsparce is the second Official Pokemon to be found and quite rare compared to the other species in the cave. not much to say about it outside of being pretty tanky, however, this game converts this otherwise unremarkable pokemon into a monster if trained to the fullest.
finally, we have Barewl. like the rest of the mentioned native species, this pokemon converges with an species of distant regions, Geodude in this case. Barewl differs from it due to its typing, being Rock/Steel, making it impervious to damage from most of the enemies found at this point in the adventure save for Ground, Fighting or Water types and earning it its title of the "Iron Ball Pokemon". as with the rest too, this little and heavy piece of rough metal that looks straight outta Adventure Time will grow and polish into one of the most popular picks in the Uranium community, not so much for trainer battles but because of its Type advantage in the adventure.
the passage isnt as long as one thinks but its still a 2 zones locations full with encounters and scattered items. i like to catch all pokemon avaliable and then advance with repels to ease travel. after fighting with all the trainers inside the cave our Orchynx has arrived to lvl 11 and its more or less ready for the 1st gym, having just learned Vine Whip to booth.
but for now we have just arrived to Nowtoch City, and will take a rest before delving into challenging an old champion of the region.