So a good chunk of what I've been doing is just running around collecting BP to both upgrade the Terarium but also to upgrade the Clubhouse. It's not something I'm really stressing about, honestly, since I got through most of what I wanted to with the game and I'm okay with this just being a passive game I slowly play over the year as I clear out content and unlock gym leader 'coaches' and whatnot. Again, the main part of what I do want to clear out would be the 'Mochi Madness' post-game in Kitakami (which the game doesn't really do a good job at cluing me to -- I need to download a mystery gift key item for no real reason instead of just making it part of the DLC) and to meet as many Pokemon as I can so I can write the "Gotta Review 'Em All" article.
It's also really nice to have multiple starters running around, and I do find that it's a nice initiative to get the players to start trying to complete the pokedex. Each starter you unlock and evolve to their final stage unlocks three pages of the Pokedex, which is such a rapid-fire way to get to the quota that Perrin wants before she gives me the Paradox Terrakion and Paradox Cobalion quests.
I've unlocked the Coastal Biome expansion for the starters, and I do find it hilarious that while Popplio in the ocean does make sense, apparently Froakie also swims in the ocean. They're frogs! The sea will kill them! Grookey, Bulbasaur and Chikorita round out the rest of the Coastal Biome starters, and I'm quite happy to see my two old-school grass buddies just hanging out in the beachy area.
I also found out that Sobble also spawns in the Savanna Biome, and I'm just actually quite surprised by the number of starters that show up. I also find Mudkip, rather unexpectedly, in the Torchlit Labyrinth or whatnot. I do like that they do put some thought into where they put these starters.
I think I expected several tiers of upgrades per biome, but it's just 3000 BP per pop. Okay! So each upgrade will add like maybe a half-dozen starters.
I've also slowly evolving a lot of the Pokemon in the Terarium. I find it interesting that despite owning the Kantonian versions of Slowbro and Slowking; the Blueberry Academy Pokedex doesn't acknowledge them and basically forces me to evolve the Galarian Slowpoke into its two poisonous evolutions. There's a bit of an annoying sequence where I have to wait for Galarica Twigs to spawn so I can bring them to a random guy who's going to craft the wreaths and bangles for me to turn my Galarian Slowpokes into Galarian Slowbro and Slowking. I do appreciate that there's a cute little beach where it's filled entirely with Galarian Slowpokes hanging out, though.
In addition to the shiny Rellor (who I haven't evolved yet, he's got a cute golden ball and I want to keep him as a shiny golden-shitball Rellor for a while) I've also been slowly raising up a Slither Wing. No real reason, I just find a kaiju butterfly that fights by punching his enemies to be hilarious.
But well... apparently my shiny luck for this DLC continues to happen, because I met two in quick succession while running around mindlessly grinding out BP points! The first one is Camerupt, just hanging out on top of a mountain. I've always loved shiny Camerupt with all its black fur and whatnot, and it's a colour scheme that I thought was always superior to the default colouration, with the black fur and yellow rings being much better looking than default Camerupt's random blue rings.
And then I also get a bunch of shiny balls in shiny Exeggcute! Not the biggest fan of shiny Exeggutor, so 'Kintama' here will forever remain as golden eggs forevermore. I like this one! I forgot if it was the Generation IV or V games that had an NPC fight you with a shiny Exeggcute just to kind of taunt you, so it's neat that I have one now.
So I decide to do the Team Star content -- which, recapping what happened previously, has them change out of their epic Team Star outfits, dress up in the most generic-ass student uniforms ever, and have asked me to tutor the rest of the Team Star admins. And... it's nowhere quite as expansive as the original post-game Team Star interactions, but it's still nice. Ortega is a gigantic prissy prick and continues to be 'tsundere', but he's just nowhere cute or funny enough for his attitude to be charming. Atticus is hilarious by the sheer dint that he's kind of non-recognizable with those handsome eyes and hair, and I think he even flirts with Eri quite a bit.
I do really like the bit where my character and Giacomo gets a lot of grief from Ortega's nonsense tantrum, but Eri just walks up to him, and starts intimidating him with nothing but words. It I S U N A C C E P T A B L E R I G H T? I like Eri. I just wish she said this with her fancy KISS outfit.
There is a short bit where I have to run around and find Mela, who's hanging out in the courtyard, and... I thought this was going to be a bit of a longer Mela-focused sequence, but other than a bit of a "I came to raid your base" joke, Mela's just kind of solemn and mellow.
Also, Mela still uses her old walk cycle, back when she wears thigh-high flaming boots that forces her to walk like a robot. I guess old habits die hard.
The tutoring takes place in three short Q&A as we help each of the Team Star admins answer a question. Ortega isn't pleased about being forced to study literature, and gets angry that he has to figure out 'what made-up characters are feeling'. Hey now, literature review is serious business! And extremely therapeutic! The joke here, of course, is that I and Giacomo point out to Ortega that the story of the backwards-compliment of the 'Mama Maushold' is basically just like Ortega.
Atticus gets to chew the scenery. "What I know is that I know naught! I have fathomed the depths of mine own ignorance!" I point out that despite wanting to go into fashion, Atticus does still need to know about mathematics. I thought this was going to go into something about using mathematics to measure cloth and whatnot, but the game actually goes on a slightly more realistically mature direction by Atticus realizing stuff about supply chain, economics, sales and profit, and all the economics-business side of things that mathematics is actually used for. I... I'm impressed! Good on you, Atticus!
"Curse thee, fractional division! Why must I invert the numerator and denominator? Why???"
God bless you, Atticus.
Mela wants to ask me a personal question, and tells me to promise not to laugh. Her personal question is how important dreams are to me. The right answer is obviously "like, our future goals", but the other two are obvious joke answers -- "like, when we sleep" and "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA", which was way too hilarious for me not to try to pick. Mela gets absolutely pissed off, though, and gets angry at me and promises to never ever open up ever again.
There's no takebacksies on this one, surprisingly, and autosave means that Mela's probably pissed off at my character forevermore in this save file, but if you actually take the right answer here, Mela actually confides about how she's not sure about her future career, and we get to give her a whole motivational speech to get her to get interested in a career in the thing she is interested in -- art.
After finishing the three of them, I get Wise Glasses and Team Star outfits! Which... isn't anywhere as cool as I thought it'd be. I really just want the admins' outfits, but they just give me the funky glasses and the rolled-up-sleeves uniforms. Which is nice that they look kinda different from usual, I suppose, but it also feels rather disappointing.
This whole chapter closes out with Penny arriving, and being an awkward introvert she thought that all of her best friends are gathering together and explicitly excluding her, causing her to almost run out of the room and tell us to continue with what we're doing. The Team Star quintet shortens out the misunderstanding... and Penny gets ticked off and doesn't accept the apology, because as friends, well... sometimes you do want to help out your other friends, and that isn't a burden at all. It a nice, wholesome ending to this whole storyline.
And, of course, Penny makes a dismissive handwave about how if all things really did get that bad, she'll just hack into the school system and alter their grades. Ah, to have a master hacker for a friend! GIacomo and the others are absolutely shocked and tell Penny not to do this, though. Man, fuck the system.
I then unlock my third domain expansion or whatever it's called, picking the Polar Biome. Perhaps very appropriately, the first new starter I come across is Piplup. Penguins living in the icy region, who would've thought? Other starters I find in the Polar Biome include Oshawott (do otters survive well in colder waters?) and around the Chargestone Cavern are Chimchar and Scorbunny. I guess the Fire-types generate their own heat to survive in the mountains? Eh.
More importantly, with these starters and their evolutions getting me up to 200 Blueberry Pokedex entries, I can finally unlock the two new Paradox Swords of Justice. Or rather, as I will now forevermore call them, the Lightsabers of Justice. Get it? Because lightsabers are futuristic swords, and these are futuristic examples of -- oh, never mind.
Anyway, in yet another disappointing follow-up to the Teal Mask, Perrin doesn't actually have a side-quest like the Bloodmoon Ursaluna. No, after unlocking her miniquest, Perrin just congratulates me, and gives me a couple of pictures of the new Iron Boulder and Iron Crown Pokemon. And... that's it. The only 'mystery' is Perrin herself, in-universe, never having been to Area Zero, so she doesn't know what this place is. There's not even an utilization of the Area Zero Underdepths, which I really would've liked since it'd give that area some purpose instead of just being used once in a cutscene.
And honestly, there was no reason for the badass Stellar-type monster that guarded the crystal tree on the way to Terapagos not to be one of these new Paradoxes, y'know? I don't know. The presentation of these guys are just so all over the place.
The first one I found is Iron Crown, the futuristic Cobalion. He's literally just hanging out near the entrance of Area Zero, and I guess I just missed him in the seven dozen times I've romped around Area Zero. He just... sits there in his grove, just chilling until I talk to him. I like him. He yells out "kaw-braaaaah-onn", if you don't quite realize that he's a Cobalion variant. Like Iron Leaves, Iron Crown has his own little extending lightsaber, with his two deer horns expanding into massive curved sickles when he uses his multi-hit "Tachyon Cutter" attack.
Anyway, I catch Iron Crown and... I don't really have much interesting stuff to say about capturing another legendary. Does this guy count as a legendary? I guess he does. All the Lightsabers of Justice share the Psychic type as their secondary typing, replacing the Fighting of their original counterparts, but Iron Crown is particularly appropriate since this causes him to end up as Steel/Psychic, and being a robot, Steel makes sense!
Random Notes:
- I do know that the BP grind is much easier with a full party of multiplayers, which also unlocks some kind of a Ditto quest? Apparently you need Nintendo Online to access the group quests and can't do it with local friends. I wouldn't know, though, since my copy of Scarlet doesn't have the DLC installed and it might be the lack of DLC that's causing the missions to not trigger.
- There are a lot of Pokemon that evolve by trading in the Terarium, huh? Magmar, Graveler, Electabuzz, Porygon (twice!), Rhydon...
- I am reminded by this DLC how much I dislike Thwackey. He looks even worse the more I look at him. I don't mind Grookey and Rillaboom at all, they're pretty neat for what they are. But man, Thwackey is just uggo.
- "Verily, scholarship is a labyrinth." - Atticus, 2024.
- At this point in time, I've seen all of the new Paradox Pokemon designs. The dino-Johto-beasts are... interesting in the wacky, high-on-drugs design aesthetic that the past/ancient Paradox Pokemon are. But the Lightsabers of Justice... well, I've gone on record in thinking that all three of the Swords of Justice are probably some of the worst-looking legendaries to come out of the Generation III-V era, the one that looks the most toyetic and plastic with random greebles and accessories hot-glued to them. All three are vastly improved when they are robots, where there's an aesthetic reason to all of these clunkiness and inorganic proportions.
- Man, these full-art TCG cards are very, very pretty. If it's like, a guarantee of one of these in every pack or so, I'd definitely buy a lot more Pokemon TCG cards.
- While all of the tutoring is going on, Giacomo provides some lo-fi music. I love that little detail! (I honestly study better with something more bombastic).
- Ortega is apparently one class above my character, despite behaving and looking like a little brat.
- All these Sinnoh starters did get me thinking if I should go out and find a used BD/SP cartridge for cheap and just blaze through that game, just to see how (allegedly) bad of a remake it is.
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