Let's Play Legends Arceus, Part 13: Snowpoint

Still just trying to get my feet wet into playing Legends Arceus and... by rights, I should be exploring the Alabaster Icelands and doing the Avalugg questline immediately, but I spent a couple of days just... just hanging out, y'know? Running around and completing dex entries. It's kind of relaxing, going around and looking at the pokedex requirements and trying to fulfill them. Like... oh, a swarm of Golducks? Well, I need to murder a bunch of them with grass-type moves. Oh, that horde of Toxicroaks? Laventon wants to see how they die to psychic moves, let's go. 

I'm also going around trying to do the dex requirements for Pokemon that are a bit harder to catch. The starters like Chimchar and Piplup, or just rarer species like Togepi, Ralts and the Eeveelutions. It's frighteningly easy to actually evolve them, but I need to rack up the amount of times that Togepi does Draining Kiss or Ralts does Hypnosis and the like in order to get my dex entry up. That was definitely a pretty interesting grind for sure. I got a Togetic and a Crobat among some of my friendship evolutions... and I used both Togekiss and Crobat in my very cherished Platinum playthrough. I'll be keeping these two in my 'VIP' box, I think. 

And since I was trying to raise specifically a batch of Chimchar, Ralts, Piplup and Togepi, I ended up discovering a bunch of 'hidden' Pokemon in older areas since I'm running around doing them. Rare spawns, if you will... like the Mime Jr.'s, or the Eevees, or the Magbys. Also, apparently despite playing for this long, I have never actually encountered a single Staraptor? I guess I have been running away from them all the time. It's also fascinating that up until this particular set of playthroughs, I realized that I've never completed the dex entries for Bibarel of all things. I also found some species like Chimecho and Chansey for the first time in this playthrough. 

One of the Pokemon that I haven't really realized existed even in the Fieldlands area? White-striped Basculin. Which are very skittish and runs away almost immediately, in stark contrast to the Tentacools, Qwilfishes and Remoraids. I do plan to utilize a Basculegion at some point in my playthrough!

I also ended up having to go around trying to complete the dex entries for some Pokemon that I need for some of the sidequests. Like Octillery! Octillery is probably one of those Pokemon I've never really paid too much attention to, and I find it rather charming that this game's pokedex actually does note that, hey, even in-universe people are bamboozled that Octillery and Remoraid are related and it took a while for the scientific community to accept that. 

I also went around doing a couple of other side-quests. One particularly interesting one is a paranoid Jubilife villager finding a shifty Mr. Mime hiding in the back-alleys of the city, and the quest led me on a bit of a wild goose chase (a wild mime chase?) throughout the city while Mr. Mime erects (heh) invisible barriers. Unlike Pokemon Red/Blue, the barriers are actually invisible, making it an actual effort for me to go around and approach Mr. Mime from its sides or back. It's not like, rocket science or anything, but it's fun. 

Obviously, the Mr. Mime is actually docile and not actually a creeper, but I do like that the game does lampshade and play up the real-life reputation of Mr. Mime for being a weirdo. This particular Mr. Mime turns out to be the partner of the guard that sits in front of the gate every time I want to go out for an expedition, which is nice. Mr. Mime has apparently been putting up barriers to block out wild Pokemon from attacking Jubilife City... neat flavour. I like it!

A vast majority of the quests are given in Jubilife, so it was a bit weird that I actually did get a quest from a lady in the Coastlands, who wants me to feed a sick Piplup with some plump bean cake or whatever. It's cute! I really do wish more of these actually show up in the other overworld areas, though. So far I think I can count the amount of quests given to me in the overworld on one hand. 

I also captured a bunch of alpha Pokemon. By and by, I really don't feel like I care at all about any of these slight 'template' differences like alpha Pokemon or totem Pokemon or dynagigantamax-able Pokemon or the upcoming crystal whatsits that people have been showing me in the new Scarlet/Violet game. But the dex demands I capture a bunch of alphas, and what the pokedex wants, the Pokedex will get.

Speaking of sidequests, I believe I am knocking them off at a decent enough rate, but I still can't find a damn Cherrim for the life of me. Or even a Cherubi! I don't think I've even seen one in the dex. I'm guessing it has something to do with sunlight, or with trees? Cherubis are one of the drops from the honey trees, right? That's going to be something I'm interested to try and figure out on my own. 

After a couple more other not particularly notable sidequests -- I show a Kirlia to Arezu for haircuts, I finally catch the Turtwig in the Mirelands and show it to the photography old dude, and I show the Octillery to the pickling girl whose Geodude evolves into Graveler -- I decide to head off to the Alabaster Icelands. It sure is a huge massive expanse of tundra!

The Icelands is even more emptiness than Mt. Coronet, with so much snow and climbing that's only really possible with Sneasler. More than once, I am so happy that we're going by 'no stamina' rules instead of Breath of the Wild rules. Lots of fun little ice Pokemon! Snorunts hang around and skitter about, Bergmite and hide within the little ice tunnels that crisscross the mountains, and there are giant fields filled with Swinubs and Piloswines. Snorunts scuffle about, n while Glalies float ominously on cliffsides. Ambipoms and Aipoms run around and lob mud at people, the rude monkeys. 

Very fun! There are also several rather unexpected Pokemon like the non-ice Hisuian Sneasel, Electabuzz or Buneary... I wouldn't think those specifically are ice-dwelling Pokemon, but okay. The Machokes, I understand, they're probably training in the mountains or some shit. The Lickitung, though... those long-ass tongues probably aren't too comfortable in the cold.

Adaman and Irida also show up to give potshots at each other, and in-between talking shit about each other's Almighty Sinnoh and having their respective time/space schtick, I really do think that their assessment that it's a 'you-and-me' thing causing their conflict is right. They sure get on each other's throats, which, in anime terms, means they like each other very much. 

And... and I spent an entire day just exploring the Alabaster Icelands. It's... it's pretty calming? It's rather annoying that I have to keep climbing up and down the sheer cliffs on Sneasler, but it's pretty fun to explore this area in general. There's a gigantic chunk of ice called Avalugg's Legacy... which is just ominous even though I don't know the context behind it! There are some familiar sights like Lake Acuity and Snowpoint Temple on the very peak of the icy mountains, although Snowpoint Temple is still out of bounds. Lots of Chimecho, Chingling and Bronzong around the Snowpoint Temple, that's fun. 

A bit more interestingly, Rufflet flock around this area! I deadass forgot Hisuian Braviary is a thing, but I guess that is how I'm going to fly around the mountains more easily. As expected from the scrappy eaglet Pokemon, Rufflet are very territorial and violent. Also violent is an Alpha Froslass I just find hanging out in one of the underground ice tunnels. Oh, and there's also the ice stone that allows me to evolve Eevee into Glaceon... which means that I must've missed the moss stone in the Obsidian Fieldlands. Huh! I thought we were just using the Leaf and Ice Stones to evolve them. Okay. 

Lots of nice little areas, too, like a hot springs segment where a Lickitung, a Machop and a Lucario are just hanging out. Lucarios are in this mountain, which... okay, I guess the Iron Island isn't accessible in Hisui, so they had to put ol' Hadoken-wolf somewhere. 

I also find the Pearl Village, and... and they sure worship Space? The images within the Pearl Settlement tents are that of Alder and... Archie, I think? Archie's got a red nose, that's kinda funny. A lot of the dialogue from the Pearl Villagers are kinda boring, just telling us about how Irida has basically been groomed for leadership almost immediately. There are also no quests here, which is, again, kind of lame. It is interesting that they note that they set up their village in the dead center of an icy wasteland because they apparently met their version of Almighty Sinnoh there. Okay, so I guess Palkia is just a dick, hanging out in the icy wastes and causing his cult to have to brave the cold. Meanwhile, Dialga's followers are just hanging out in a comfortable temperature. 

Still, exploration is what I'm happy to do here. I'm just going around catching and defeating every single Pokemon I meet, and they're in the 50-70 range, which actually means that, for once, I had to bring in a full team of fully-evolved Pokemon! I feel like much more than any other game since maybe the GBA ones, I actually feel like I have to try and keep my Pokemon alive as much as I can. The traveling and survival aspect really does finally come back after a long while of Pokemon overworld exploration being way too sedentary. 

Anyway, I had a lot of fun exploring this location. Can you believe I've just spent so much time just... just exploring? I don't think I've had this much fun exploring when I played the last three generations of Pokemon games, honestly, other than maybe the Sword/Shield DLC's -- the jump to 3D have resulted in much more truncated and minimalist maps and that's a huge loss, I've always felt. I'm rank eight or nine with the Pokedex completion, and next up we'll be tackling Lord Avalugg and whatever crisis he's caused here!