So I decided to kind of go through a chunk of the story again this time around... mostly because I stumbled upon Arezu wounded on the ground without even bothering to use the intended Ursaluna mechanic. Arezu is bemoaning how she's kind of screwed up... and then Warden Calaba shows up and thanks Arezu. There's a whole bit of back-and-forth, but the gist of it is that Arezu wasn't actually evil and it's all a red herring -- it was the berserking Noble Lilligant's spores that drove Ursaluna angry, and it isn't anything particularly nefarious on Arezu's end. Hell, Arezu was actually trying to gather balms to deal with the frenzied Lilligant and Ursaluna situation herself before she fell and wounded her ankle!
(Arezu is also the warden of the Noble Lilligant, which... I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned in this playthrough. The game kind of glosses over it before this point, to be fair.)
The leader of the Diamond Clan, Adaman, shows up and even admits that it's partially his fault, since he has caused a situation where one of his clan members views him as kind of unreliable. Calaba also apologizes, because I think she kind of recognizes that her bullish pigheadedness is why Diamond/Pearl relations in this area has been pretty strained.
The Lilligant fight takes place on the northernmost part of the Crimson Mirelands, and it really does strike me just how much of the Mirelands I haven't even explored. It's a huge area! And we're not even talking about the Lake Valor/Verity/Acuity areas that are obviously locked behind this game's equivalent of Surf either. There's a whole segment filled with Rhyhorns (who are appropriately super aggressive), a place where it alternates between Roselias and Murkrows as the time changes, another Combee hive-tree-thing, Lickitungs just hanging around, an area with Teddiursa called 'Ursa's ring' (ha!), Skuntanks shooting flamethrowers out of their tail...
Oh, and Sudowoodo. Who walks around waving their stupid-ass fake hands, but then when they see me they just... freeze in place. Nevermind that the trees in this game are relatively realistic and Sudowoodo looks so out of place here. Man, that's kinda hilarious.
At this point, my Drifloon evolves into Drifblim, and I also go around evolving a lot of the Pokemon in my box as well. I got a bunch all evolved up -- Kadabra, Kirlia, Monferno, Beautifly, Bibarel -- just to get the resarch tasks done. I also faced off against the Alpha Tangrowth during my many, many exploration runs, and I caught it -- the alpha Pokemon are a bit bigger than normal and I think have access to at least one unique move that it can't learn normally, but I'm not too interested in using them, to be honest, not unless there is one of the newer species original to this game. I also got an Alpha Ursaring... can that evolve into an Alpha Ursaluna?
The Lilligant boss fight proceeds relatively similarly to the Kleavor one, although the Lady of the Ridge doesn't have quite as epic of an entrance. She does come in with a massive bank of fog, before twirling in her ballerina dance, and... and it's actually quite a bit harder to dodge than Kleavor since Lilligant dances around and hops around and creates gigantic shockwave pulses that I have to time to dodge. I also only battle Lilligant like, once as opposed to the four times that I got to 'stun' Kleavor through battling, which means that this really does feel like a much more elaborate Zelda-style boss fight.
Of course, unlike Kleavor, Lilligant fares much worse against my team, which is a bit closer to her in level and her Energy Balls really aren't super-effective against much of my team. Last time I fought Kleavor, his Rock-type attacks counter nearly half of my team. I think I just hung on Drifblim for both times I fought Lilligant, and while Mystic Fire isn't strong enough to OHKO Lilligant, Drifblim never really came close to dying.
The expected things that happen after a Noble/Alpha boss fight happens. Lilligant gets purified with a golden light, she hands me over the Meadow Plate, and we get an acknowledgement from Arezu, Adaman and Calaba. Pretty neat stuff.
Right after the Lilligant battle, my starter Hootle finally gets the chance to evolve, and... and you know what? Hisuian Decidueye looks pretty cool. I didn't even think about it when I got the kasa-style straw hat, but I match with my owl! Decidueye immediately gains access to his signature Triple Arrow move, as well as two of the better moves in his movepool -- Leaf Blade and Aura Sphere. It's completely coincidental that my starter leveled up after the Lilligant fight, but huzzah for that!
I passed through Diamond Village but didn't actually enter it before the Lilligant battle. It's a bunch of more traditional-looking tents around a huge obelisk-like stone on the ground, and it's of course coloured blue. A bunch of the Diamond Village people give some lines about how they're not happy about the idea of Jubilife people using Pokeballs and stuff, and... and these are generic NPC's who aren't going to matter much to the story, but it's always great to add to the world-building, y'know?
In a fun Easter Egg, the houses of the Diamond Clan have ancient-Japanese-drawing-style portraits of Magma Team Leader Maxie and Unova's champion Alder of all people. Okay, WTF?
Also, while wandering around the Mirelands, I come across the campsite of the Miss Fortune Sisters, and there's a 'D' Unown just hanging around there doing nothing. Not attacking, not moving, not fleeing, just... there. That's one out of 25 'Golden Skulltula' style collectibles down! I haven't really gotten into deciphering the riddles since I haven't even gotten all of the overworld areas unlocked yet, but I'm assuming the 'A' Unown is going to be in that hut that the Psyducks block. I found the 'M' Unown inside of a log next to Ursaluna's arena.
Also, I completed Parasect's pokedex entry at this point, and apparently, specimens of Parasects without the mushroom lie motionless. So there are versions of these creatures without the mushrooms... which would make them... corpses, then? Spooky! Could this be a Bug/Ghost regional variant in the future? Parasect just fascinates me.
Returning to the village, we get a cute scene where Beni is a bit smug over the fact that his potato mochi has helped to save the day. Okay, Beni, you get to be smug this one time. Cyllene ranks me up to rank 5 after the huge amount of new species that I've captured in the Mirelands, and Kamado congratulates me... although the conversation with him does take an interesting turn because he starts talking about how the golden lightning corrupting these Noble Pokemon come from the same space-time rift as I do... and then he talks about how he will do anything to preserve the peace of Jubilife City. We do see that he's the kind of guy that views Jubilife's neutrality to be one of the most important values he holds, and he's still kind of scared of Pokemon as 'terrifying creatures', so that tracks.
Kamado then continues to talk about options like questioning 'whether we wish to live alongside them or not', and noting that as leader of the Galaxy Team, he is 'prepared to make harsh decisions in the future'. The conversation does end in a relatively positive fashion, but it's honestly a rather realistic situation to take -- not everyone can get instantly turned around from the running line of "Pokemon are terrifying creatures" to "we love Pokemon!" For Kamado, it seems like he has gone from seeing them as a nuisance to something that Jubilife City can use. I honestly really do like this gradual change, and whether Kamado ends up developing into an ally or something a bit more sinister... he could be the main villain for all I know. I'm completely unspoiled about this!
Anyway, a lot of side-quests trigger at this point, and Kamado unlocks the third overworld area, so that's where we'll go next.
Current Party: Hootle (Decidueye), Sparky (Luxray), Chopin (Kricketune), Cremation (Ponyta), Loonatic (Drifblim), Jet (Floatzel)
No comments:
Post a Comment