Let's Play Pokemon Sword, Part 4: Scolopendra gigantes

Last we left off... we beat Nessa! And after that, I end up sort of meeting with Chairman Rose, Oleanna and Sonia on some fancy restaurant, where we get a pretty fast little conversation that was cut short by Oleanna reminding Rose about some meeting or other. Basically, though, we learn that Professor Magnolia was the lady responsible for channeling the wishing stars into Dynamax bands and whatnot, and that she's worried about not understanding everything about Dynamax and is sending Sonia to investigate with 'power spot detectors', which... presumably is there to detect the glowing rock circles in the Wild Area. A bit of an odd narrative choice, introducing a cutscene talking about them after basically allowing us free rein over the Wild Area and its many, many power spots. Okay. Sonia also goes off to "The Vault" in a town called Hammerlocke, which sounds ominous, maybe? I dunno. I don't feel a whole sense of urgency or intrigue to any of these, but okay. It doesn't help that the conversation ends up basically being cut short with the dialogue basiaclly ending abruptly.

Anyway, this restaurant... its sole purpose in the game is to serve as a backdrop for this conversation -- it's genuinely perplexing, in one of the older Pokemon games, once the cutscene conversation is over random NPC's would probably populate the restaurant, and it might even serve some simple function like a shop or a battle place, but again, it's small moments like this where the restaurant's just kind of empty even after our conversation with Rose that I felt were some of the parts of the game that really would've been caught if the game developers were given more time to polish this game. Again, I'm not the sort of nitpicker who will get all pissed off because the frame-rate drops or whatever or the textures on the ground isn't Breath of the Wild level or some inane bullshit, but there are certainly moments in the actual gameplay and story progression where it's kind of obvious that they spent more time doing some parts of the game and rushed through others.

With that cutscene out of the way, though, I walk out of the restaurant to meet... Hop, who basically tells us to go to the East side and that we have to go to Galar Mine #2 (not to be confused with Galar Mine) and meet Kabu, the next gym leader, who's off training in the mine or something. Basically, your typical "gym leader is off doing something" plot progression thing.

Before that, though, I did make a brief detour to Route 5 to hunt down the elusive Applin, which the Pokedex assures me hangs out there. I murdered a whole lot of Swirlixes, Stuffuls and Minccinos, and eventually captured an Applin! It's... it's adorable. It's an apple with two slug-eyes and a worm tail sticking out of it. It's Grass/Dragon. It's also kinda weak, but I do like it enough to maybe consider swapping out the sixth slot in my party for it to raise it up.


I was genuinely worried that Galar Mine #2 was going to just be a rehash of Galar Mine, which... granted, Galar Mine is a pretty little tunnel, but it's going to be pretty lazy to reuse an area so fast after just getting out of it. Thankfully, though, Galar Mine #2 is a pretty awesome seaside cave, with a whole load of random water-themed creatures in it! Shellos, Drednaw, Shuckle, Wimpod (who scuttles away very quickly), Binacle... I am sorely tempted to actually put a Binacle on my team. Barbaracle's such a weird motherfucker and if I'm not dead-set on using all new creatures, I would probably do so.

The clear star encounter in this mine, though, is the motherfucking Galarian Stunfisk, which... which is such an unexpected and delightful addition into the game. See, there's these little smaller-than-the-actual-item-Pokeballs on the ground, and instead of Foongus or Voltorb... it's Stunfisk! Specifically, Stunfisk's stupid beak, coloured like a Pokeball. And more importantly, the rest of Stunfisk's flounder body is now basically a bear trap with spikes, and his flat body's got footprints like someone walked over him without triggering him. It's such a bizarre, wacky redesign for Stunfisk. I'm not sure how I feel about him just yet, but man it's just such an unexpected creature and such an unexpected theme to play with him that it definitely deserves props. It's at least trying to do something with the theme, y'know? I kinda am curious to see if it has a new evolution or not. I know the regional variants of Linoone and Farfetch'd get evolutions, so I'm curious if Galarian Stunfisk transforms into something more extreme.

Bede is also here, apparently collecting Wishing Stars or some shit, which I think is what he's doing in the first Galar Mine? He's (She? I legit don't know Bede's gender) still his normal condescending prick self, and he keeps yapping about oh how great Chairman Rose is and yadda yadda yadda. He challenges me to a battle, and my baby Sizzlipede bug-bites through his psychic amoeba, his psychic baby goth, his psychic hat creature... and his psychic cotton candy unicorn baby.

And I completely forgot that Galarian Ponyta is even a thing, and thanks to, oh, a couple of decades basically associating "Ponyta" with "fire horse", I did actually like the brief bit of instinct as I just went "oh, it's a Ponyta, better swap out my bug and send out the water creature". And it's not like Galarian Ponyta's a threat to Drizzile, but it's pretty cool that the Galarian form did pull the wool over my eye, as it were.

After the Bede fight, there is a brief double battle against a bunch of Team Yell goons with Hop, and then a brief cutscene with Kabu, the Motostoke gym leader, chasing off a bunch of Team Yell goons that were either harassing or encouraging a Carkol, depending on who you believe. And... and Kabu's all right. He's a pretty cool dude, even if his personality basically boils down to just a generic experienced worthy opponent.

Apparently, I have to go and take a sleep in the Budew Drop Inn again, at which point I finally get formally introduced to Marnie! Who wants a happy practice battle in the hotel lobby. She's very pleasant, and not at all rowdy like her Team Yell goons. Who, by the way, show up in the upper level just to provide the chanting in her battle theme. Marnie's focusing seemingly on 'thug' like Pokemon like Croagunk and Scraggy... and Morpeko. Okay. Morpeko's... neat? I'm not sure what switching back and forth between 'cute mascot' and 'grr grr me angery' mode really does, because as my Sizzlipede launching bug bites at it proves, it's still Electric/Dark in both forms. So I dunno.

Anyway, after the Marnie fight, it's dawn and I head off to challenge the Motostoke Gym... and the puzzle is... it's interesting? It doesn't quite has the same giant visual spectacle as the previous two gyms, and honestly felt kind of a letdown. The concept's neat, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. I just sort of have to go into a double-battle with other competitors to either KO or catch random Pokemon to reach 5 points, which means that I just basically ignore everything and chuck great balls at the Pokemon that show up. I get another Sizzlipede, so if I wasn't so hell-bent on getting my little Magtail back in Route 3, this would be the perfect spot to get one.

Kabu himself is a pretty simple boss fight, really. He's got three fire Pokemon, and I started off the game with the water starter. I Dynamax my Drizzile immediately, and unleash the Dynamax water move to OHKO all of his pokemon, and the fact that it looks like some Kamehameha move out of Dragon Ball thanks to Drizzile's attack pose is an added bonus. Ninetales? Washed away. Arcanine? Drowned.

His final Pokemon's definitely a Carkol, right? Like the one we saw in his cutscene in Galar Mine #2? Or Carkol's evolution? That's obvious, right?


Oh. OH!

That's what Sizzlipede turns into? That's bad ass, with the huge tapering centipede body and those flames exploding into an X-shaped beard and those giant centipede fangs and I'm going to see him Dynamax and-


Oh.

OOOOOOHHHH

Okay shit, god damn, Kabu.

I was lukewarm about this whole "Gigantamax" and "Dynamax" and new-fangled knockoff Mega Evolution stuff, but you got me. Like, this came out of absolutely nowhere but holy shit this was certainly an unexpected moment that made me go squee a bit.

Sure, Gigantamax'd Centiskorch got one-hit KO'd by my Drizzile's dynamax water move without getting the chance to do anything, but it's still cool. That's gym number three down, with my giant kaiju emo sad reptile unleashing a water kamehameha on a giant kaiju flaming centipede the size of a small skyscraper. That's awesome.


Oh and by the way the experience point of Drizzile slaying the giant building-sized Giganto-Centiskorch caused my own Sizzlipede to evolve into a regular Centiskorch! And now to figure out how the hell I'm supposed to do this "Gigantomax" thing instead of this "Dynomax" thing. Regardless, Centiskorch is pretty damn cool and has such a huge boost in stats that he's actually contributing to fights later on!

Kabu, Milo and Nessa send me and Hop off with the most bizarre encouragement chant (Kabu should take cheerleading lessons from Team Yell), I have to go off through the Wild Area, and go all the way around the segment that was blocked off previously to reach the northern Wild Area. I can catch Pokemon up to level 35 or something now, and that means... I get to explore the Wild Area a bit more!

Oh, and Bede shows up, mocks us again, and goes off to fight Hop. Okay? I kinda am rooting for Bede, honestly. Hop's such a non-entity that I really find it hard to care for him. I did kind of like Bede's brief analysis of Hop, though, how he constantly defines himself as "Leon's brother!" and "[insert character name here]'s rival!" and... I dunno, it's honestly still basically the same thing that Hau went through with Hala, the same sort of living-beneath-someone's-shadow story, and I sincerely hope that this might lead to some character development for Hop.

Which I did. I spent a long time just running around the Wild Area. Which... doesn't really make for much of an interesting text-based Let's Play talk, but it is pretty fun. Despite my reservations about the Wild Area, I am happy to say that for what it is, it's great. I'm barely half through this game so I'll reserve judgment on how I kinda think that it could've been integrated into the actual progression of the story and region a bit better, but I'll save that until I've cleared the game. The Dynamax Raids are... the wi-fi matchmaking is absolute ass and I'm not a fan of it, so I just basically do solo raids with the AI trainers. I still find the raid battles pretty samey, although the animation of the dynamax moves are pretty neat.

Mostly, I'm just genuinely happy to play around in the Wild Area and genuinely look at wonder at some of the Pokemon that appear here and there as I just run around the large area and move from one patch of grass to the next. My inner child is still happy any time I witness like an Onix or a Galvantula or a Pangoro or a Vileplume or whatever just sort of strolling down the wild area like they are the alpha dog of the area. It's not particularly intricate, admittedly, but I definitely appreciate that the game designers at least tried to program each Pokemon's AI to fit with their personalities, y'know? Tyrogues and Machops will chase you down like the little punks that they are, Golurks and Goletts patrol around an abandoned castle, Duskulls and Gastlies are aggressive fuckers that want to eat your soul, Noibats are skittish and run away from you... and I'm a huge fan of camping, too. The curry minigame gets boring after the first time you play it, and I'm sad that you can't pet your Pokemon anymore, but I do like throwing balls at them and getting them to fetch and whatnot, and seeing members of my party actually interact is neat!

Anyway, this was a bit of a shorter one, mostly because I spent most of my time in the Wild Area, eventually, after wandering around, getting all the way to Hammerlocke. Which is where we'll pick up next time, I suppose.

Current party:


Carkol and Farfetch'd are actually being sort of swapped in and out with Dottler (because I'm very curious what this thing will evolve into and it's taking quite a while) and Applin (because I'm also curious if it will evolve by level-up).

Random Notes:

• I wasn't quite sure if we are working off of a reversed clock a la Pokemon Moon or if they did away with real-time-of-the-day altogether, but I guess now day and night will change basically depending on the needs of the story? Or if it cycles through day and night in the Wild Area? 
• Hulbury's greatest export is explicitly noted to be seafood. So, uh... those poor Corpishes and Arrokudas!
• Carkol's head does look like Golem's, huh? It's like someone stuck a Golem head to a mine cart with rock spider-legs. It somehow works. 
• Kabu's eye actually gets set on fire when he yeets Centiskorch to dynamax him. That's pretty cool. 
• I caught the elephant whose name have been eluding me for multiple cities, just sort of hanging out underneath the massive bridges that separated the northern and southern Wild Areas! It's called a Cufant and it's a Steel-type. It's kinda cute I guess but it's not my thing. 
• Corviknight is HUGE. Like, holy shit, the random Wild Area Corviknight that wanders around the Wild Area is just pretty dang huge, particularly compared to everything around him. 
• Steelix apparently can alternate between floating and undulating above the ground, or just crawling on it like a snake, which... which is something that I'm pretty sure Steelix can canonically do in the anime and manga, but it's just so weird seeing it in a 3D game.