Pokemon Sun LP, Part 5: Wimpy Isopod

So last I left off, I met Colress and fought a bunch of trainers. There are a fair bit more newer Generation VII Pokemon in these routes, like Salandit and Stufful... even if they are the rare encounters. The sheer amount of Yungoos in the grass is starting to irritate me, though. There's this Fossil Restoration Center nearby that's a nice shout-out to Jurassic Park, where this random man just wants to make a theme park out of fossil Pokemon. Power to you, my friend! I love fossil Pokemon. Gladion is hanging out in one of the rooms in the motel next to the Pokemon Center for some reason, and all he says is 'get out'.

He's just so scared!

Nearby the motel, though, is a series of these... gray terrain with rocks and a FUCKING WIMPOD! I love Wimpod, and I absolutely love Golisopod, and it's one of the few Pokemon that I am very sure I'm putting in my party. I'm not really sure how the mechanism to capture a Wimpod is as I just hopped onto a Tauros and charged straight at her. Apparently it's a game of cat-and-mouse between us and the Wimpod before it runs into its little crevice? Just like real-life silverfish, then.

One Pokeball later, and I send Shrapnel the Charjabug to chill in the PC. Charjabug apparently doesn't evolve by level up, but by some other thing that my friend assures me is unavailable to me on Akala, so until Charjabug is ready to evolve, his spot's going to be given to Xeno the Wimpod to level up. I then enter the location of the final trial in Akala Island... the Lush Jungle! And I just now just realized that the trials here are of the three starter types, Grass, Fire and Water. Huh.

Mallow is a Poke-connoisseur like Cilan from the Generation V anime, and she talks, well, just like Cilan, about the compatibility of ingredients and whatnot. She tells me to go off and find four ingredients in Lush Jungle, which uses the Stoutland Search as the gimmick. Oh, look, a mushroom! The one you didn't pick turns out to be a Parasect! (Why this couldn't be a Morelull or a Shiinotic, though... I mean, I love Parasect, but you'd think they would highlight the newer Pokemon) Revival Herbs! Oops, you pulled out a Fomantis accidentally! At every item I find, Mallow shows up to give some cooking advice, and we get this long-ass cutscene where Kiawe and Lana show up with a bunch of extra items and we cook by pressing A and hear squishy sounds, and it's actually quite funny.

Not actually from Japan

Of course, a gigantic Lurantis shows up, and the cutscene where it just looms behind me while Kiawe freaks the fuck out is awesome. Lurantis is... a bit tougher if you don't know what you're getting into. See, I led the fight with my newly-evolved Ribombee, launching a super-effective Pollen Puff at the Totem Lurantis. It's pretty super-effective, but doesn't quite manage to kill, and on the second turn the Lurantis calls in a buddy Castform. Castform's, like, unthreatening, right? Well, not so if it casts Sunny Day, boosts Lurantis' Synthesis-healing enough to make it heal back up all the way to near-full health, and then Castform proceeds to shoot super-effective Fire-type Weather Balls and Lurantis launches single-turn Solar Blades. I almost lost and had to resort to Reviving my dudes to finally take down Lurantis and that tit Castform. Easily the most challenging Totem battle, and honestly considering how challenging both Totem Lurantis and Totem Wishiwashi are, Kiawe's Totem Salazzle felt really disappointing. But oh well.

Kiawe and Lana have a taste of Mallow's special Lurantis-summoning thing and run the fuck away because of the spiciness. That's one more Trial down, though, and now Dartrix can unleash DOOM GLOOM. Professor Kukui show up and have some woo yeah dialogue, telling me to go to the Dimensional Research Lab, a building in Heahea City that was blocked off earlier. I head into Lush Jungle to fill up my Pokedex -- Fomantis, Comfey and Passimian are all new Pokemon I find in the jungle -- before heading off to the Dimensional Research Lab.

If iPods were people

Lillie, Nebby and Hau are there, too, and it's, well, a lab with big science screens not what I expected this was going to go. The island trial's fun and all, but I like that we're having a bit more of a 'bigger' plot, so to speak. We get references to Giratina, Palkia, Hoopa and Bronzong's dimensional abilities, which are nice call-backs to the previous games, and we get a brief lore about how Alola used to be besieged by these invaders, these Ultra Beasts, that the four guardians, the Tapus, had to fight back against. It's a nice bit of lore that feels very, well, island-y? The guardians of the land fight against invaders that come from hell the underworld rifts in the sky. Of course, as I exit the facility, a rift appears to open right before me before disappearing.
and whatnot, and apparently Kukui has a WIFE! Professor Burnet, who is apparently the person who found and rescued Lillie in the first place. We learn about interdimensional wormholes, and alternate dimensions, which is... well,

I head down to Diglett's Tunnel, where Olivia finally allows me passage. It's far longer than Diglett's Cave in Kanto, with trainers and ramps and whatnot, but there literally are only Digletts and Zubats here, and I'm not dealing with that shit right now so Repel all the way. I meet a couple of members of the Aether Foundation who talk about how they're helping restoration to the Diglett's environment which are fucked up by Team Skull thugs. What nice people, these Aether Foundation guys are!

Of course, I fight said Team Skull thugs. A lady among them, this time! And Hau shows up for a good old-fashioned double battle. They still don't present much of a threat.

After exiting Diglett's Tunnel and exploring the Southern town a bit, though, I decided to head back with Charizard to some older places to raid them of items, because I totally forgot I had Surf for, like, nearly the entire chunk of the game between Lana and this point which means a lot of items and trainers and Pokemon went unfought.

Diglett Tunnel leads to Konikoni City, which is like Alolan Chinatown! It's got a pretty cool design, set up like a street market with lots of shops and a very oriental aesthetic. Sadly the clothing store doesn't have much available beyond tank tops which I don't wanna wear, though. There's a couple of cool little stores like a fossil and incense store, and I meet my first Zygarde Core in here. Probopass -- who looks absolutely hilarious while moving -- gives me a letter from Olivia that tells me to go to Memorial Hill to challenge her.

Memorial Hill has a lot of items and trainers, and it's another cemetery. I think this makes Alola the only region with two graveyard areas? It's shaped kind of like a labyrinth and I love the way the plantlife is modeled in here. As I approach the Ruins of Life, I get confronted by a pair of Team Skull Thugs trying to bully a Slowpoke. Aether Foundation personnel are there too, including a weird green-haired fellow, but they're passive shitheads so I have to beat up the Team Skull grunts. Shortly after, Plumeria, the Team Skull Admin, who's angry that I'm picking on her little brothers and sisters, fight me but she's a pushover. Fighting her did allow my Dartrix to finally evolve into Decidueye. Man, what a cool ghost archer owl he is! Decidueye doesn't get STAB Pluck anymore, but he does get Spirit Shackle and that move has a very cool animation.

At this point, Gigaton the Magnemite likewise evolves into a Magneton. Which is fun! My team is now composed of Decidueye, Ribombee, Magneton, Lycanroc, Wishiwashi and Wimpod. Who's just hanging in there until he catches up with the others. (Wishiwashi'll eventually sit things out in the box when we reach the area where Charjabug can evolve, but hey.)

The Ruins of Life gives me another fun meeting with Lillie. I don't think I learn anything new, beyond her being nice and wanting to help Nebby go home, and that she's scared of Aether Foundation for, well, some reason that probably relates to the prologue, but enough of that shit, time to battle Olivia! She's... not very hard, mostly because my team is so much more effective than hers. Decidueye and Lycanroc just tears through her team, though it's cool that she's using the Moon version of Lycanroc. Mine has Brick Break, though, so... yeah. Not a good matchup. I get the Rockinium Z that goes straight to my Lycanroc.

The plot tells me to go find the Aether Foundation people in Hano Grand Resort, but I end up going on random sidequests, fighting trainers, lobbing Pyukumuku into the water, catching Pokemon, and returning to Melemele to discover this weird Seaward Cave and Kae'ele Bay or whatever that I completely missed the first time through. There's nothing too special in those areas, but it's a nice bit that was completely hidden from me the first time through.