Eventually I end up meeting Ingo in front of a rock cliff, and I absolutely love the little reference to Hidden Moves. Rock Climb would have debuted in Generation IV, which is one generation before Ingo's home Black and White. I don't actually remember if Rock Climb is used in Unova, but I do really like how Ingo mutters and mumbles about hidden moves before shaking it off. He uses Pokeballs and is one of the handful of characters who doesn't try to gang up on my Pokemon like a chump. The others that fight properly are Akari (who does so in a proper battlefield) and I believe the leader of the Missfortune Sisters who's from Kanto. That's neat! Ingo's party is... is interesting. Machoke, Tangela and Gliscor? I guess he's just using whatever he encounters near the mountains? Not a single one of them hail remotely from Unova, so I guess someone should help Ingo catch like a Klinklang or an Eelektrik or something for him to get his memory back.
...I still really don't like Sneasler, though. He looks like someone's furry cosplay. I absolutely love the animation of how I 'ride' Sneasler, though. She has a little cylindrical backpack... and I get stuffed in the backpack. My eyeballs are the only things that's blinking in the shadowy darkness of Sneasler's backpack. I spent a solid minute just giggling at the visual image of Sneasler using those big-ass claws to hoist herself up the side of vertical walls while I just chill inside the box. Eat your heart out, Nezuko Kamado, my backpack taxi is much, much cooler!
Unlike Basculegion, though, I can't throw Pokeballs out when riding Sneasler. I get it, kind of, but man, how hilarious would it be for just my hand to poke out of that hole?
There are a bunch of plants that grow on the side of rock walls, and as I scale up Mt. Coronet, I encounter a whole lot of weirdos. There are Gibles hiding inside rocks, and I end up catching an Alpha Gabite that I kind of want to use eventually. It is the pseudo-legendary of the region!
Interestingly, as I reach the Celestica Ruins, I get to find the statues of Dialga and Palkia, gods of time and space... and a destroyed statue of presumably Giratina. Hmm, so this is a hint of the ancient civilization that used to live here, then? Probably the precursors of the Diamond and Pearl clan, and probably the ones that propagated the conflicting Almighty Sinnoh myths? Is Giratina going to be relevant? Are Dialga and Palkia?
Other Pokemon that I find in the ruins include Nosepass (who doesn't always point north, but will stay in a single direction), more Sudowoodo (they try so hard to blend in with the surroundings), and at one point, a bunch of Rotom just... zipping around. I wondered how they would incorporate Rotom without television, but I guess they just existed as ghostly sparks in the past? Okay!
Melli awaits me at the end of the journey after I spend a couple of days just running around in the mountains and harvesting items and recovering lost satchels, and he talks a lot of shit about his badassery and his coolness and his contradictions. "I didn't lose, you may have won, there is a difference!" What a douche. He fights me 3-v-1 with a Skuntank, Zubat and Skorupi, but get this... ganging up only works if the others aren't easily ignored. The level 44 Skuntank is the only thing that remotely might've posed a threat to my big Ursaluna, and that is if I let my bear just stand still and do nothing.
Melli talks a big game about how he needed more time, just like what Adaman and the Diamond Clan credo has always said.... before, rather hilariously, still refusing to help. I guess defeating people in Pokemon battles doesn't always force them to help you in this continuity!
Adaman does show up, reveals that he's going to help us regardless, and tells us that Lord Electrode likes to eat salt. Melli is still angry at Adaman helping the 'Team Galaxy lout', thinking that the frenzied lord is a good thing. Adaman points out the same thing that Ingo did earlier, that the frenzied Pokemon is clearly being in pain. Melli, though, insists that it's some sort of joy at being selected by Almighty Sinnoh, and that we must take all 'trials' from him in stride. He does eventually do his duty as a warden and help to make the balms, but I guess there's only so much lip from him that Adaman will tolerate.
Hisuian Electrode does a lot of things at once and I love it. Voltorbs keep dropping from the tree, he bounces around and tries to whack me, and he shoots like, Electro Balls and Energy Balls that slowly track me and I can't really get them to dissipate. There's also a telegraphed but rather wide-range-area self-destruct attack, which just opens him up to battles from me. I completely forgot that Electrode is part-Grass, which costed me poor Ursaluna who took a super-effective Energy Ball to the face. But ultimately, Lord Electrode is quelled.
And Melli is absolutely distraught because of it. Adaman does give some words of wisdom and Melli, rather shockingly, takes it happily. Ingo also shows up and gives a speech about how he's remembered a bit about his home region... or specifically, of the sheer beauty of cooperation between Pokemons and Pokemon trainers in that region. Melli ends up being sweet-talked by Ingo and Adaman and vows to 'improve himself'. There's also a neat bit of tying it in to the Diamond Clan's time motif, noting how Sinnoh rules over time, both past and future.
That's four out of the five stickers I'm getting for the home screen page, so I think I'm honestly getting close to the end. The plot of Legends Arceus is actually a lot longer than I expected it to -- I'm going to assume that in addition to one more lord and the obvious Arceus-related climax, we're probably going to have something to do with the other Hisuian Pokemon we haven't encountered yet?
Also, in my attempt to catch a Hisuian Sneasel, it killed almost my entire party with Close Combat. I guess my party is just really weak to Fighting-types. That, or I have to try and get more levels since the Coronet Pokemon are kind of catching up in levels.
A bit of a shorter let's play this time around, but I did spend a lot of the time just... just walking around and exploring, and the Melli/Adaman/Ingo stuff is pretty dialogue intensive for what's ultimately a pretty simple story... but I did have a lot of fun. They do a pretty great job at making these NPC's feel a lot more fleshed out. I think I'll be going around doing some sidequests and getting more dex entries filled out!
Current Party: Hootle (Hisuian Decidueye), Qwilmonger (Overqwil), Bartholomew (Alpha Ursaluna), Cremation (Shiny Rapidash), Manterror (Kleavor), Uzumaki (Hisuian Goodra)
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