Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 20: Lion King

So yeah, in-between running errands for gangsters, I have been doing a bunch of side-quests. To keep the formatting nice, I've placed all the side-quests and exploration that I did around the gangster arc here. 

After dealing with Corbeau's stuff, I pick up, of course, the Mega Scolipede stone. That's a badass mega all right! That puts five out of my six party members as being able to mega evolve. I'm quite happy!

Wild Zone 16 and 17 has sprang up. 16 is a little park surrounding an obelisk. Rather hilariously, perched on top of the obelisk is a single Froakie who gets panicky and jumps away to a ninja escape if I try to catch it. The rest of the zone is filled with Falinks, some Medicham, and a bunch of Flaaffy, Barbaracle and Florges hiding here and there. 

I do appreciate the bonus amount of attention given to Falinks. Falinks has been such a... one-off weirdo in their debut generation. I like it, but they don't really do much in that very gimmick-heavy generation. 

Wild Zone 17 is insane, though. The lower half is nothing to write home about, just some mounds with Diggersby. But the top half? It's a Pyroar statue and a gigantic pack of Pyroar, led by an alpha, is there just patrolling around. Pyroar isn't the most dangerous Pokemon normally, but there is a pack of like six or seven, and they all know Earth Power. Which happens very quickly, without warning, and just erupts from the bottom of my feet. I have a Slowbro with Surf, and I can one-hit-KO the weaker Pyroars, but I can't bloody well get all of them, and they just let the earth rip apart with Earth Powers. It's very cool, but it's also very deadly and I died a couple of times trying to catch the Skarmory that's in this area.

Also, the pack also has a giant alpha male, and a group of females. Which is a nice nod to real-world lion prides, as well as Pyroar's own gender distribution in-game. 

Side-questing time! A lady called Ante is worried about loud noises happening in her apartment and is worried that it's haunted or something. Not an impossibility considering the amount of Ghost-type Pokemon like Gastly and Phantump just casually floating in this city... but as I climb up to the rooftop of her building, it's actually a Dedenne! Dedenne leads me to a bit of a chase around the top of the building complex, and then into a wild battle. 

The lady walks up and is happy that it's a mere Dedenne, and offers to adopt the Dedenne until she can find a new home for it. It's a nice, short quest and also one that's actually something that ties to the Wild Zones in the middle of a capital city plotline. 

Two quests deal with regional variants. The first is a little girl fresh off of a holiday from Galar, who shows off her Galarian Slowbro and Slowking; and gives me the evolutionary items from the Isle of Armour to evolve them. A different person is hanging out with a Galarian Stunfisk outside of Wild Zone 11, noting that a second Stunfisk is hiding inside Wild Zone 11, having broken free and that we need to find her while she's hiding in her Pokeball-mimic form. This Stunfisk is actually looking for a powerful trainer, and somehow, I qualify for... finding her hidden form in the park. Okay, Stunfisk, why not? I like these two quests. Not as elaborate as the Sylveon or Shuppet ones, but it's actually a ncie spotlight for these Pokemon. 

I also go around to unlock a bunch of holovators. A Rust Syndicate grunt is guarding a holovator, which is his favourite holovator, and he won't let me use it until I beat him in battle. Rather hilariously, once I do so he gets super-duper over-the-top polite at letting me use it. Another kid notes that an Alpha Watchog is just standing in front of the holovator... which is also a battle. I feel like the Watchog one could've had some more dialogue talking about Watchog's penchant to watch or something... it's these little bits of flavour that make them feel a lot less like just stumbling blocks and an actual part of the game world. A third holovator has me beat up a Manectric and an Ampharos to settle a territorial dispute. Surprised that this one didn't actually turn into another 'forcing animals into a city is bad' point, though.

A very cool quest has a dude called Reu tell me that there's a Mawile that 'can't be caught'. As I investigate this rumour, turns out that the Mawile is the very same Mawile that went feral and underwent Rogue Mega Evolution. Of course, fighting against me, the Mawile is treated as just a regular Pokemon and I could catch it. Reu notes that he's heard of some Pokemon that will only allow themselves to be caught by trainers they found worthy, which, as this Mawile's benefactor, is most certainly the case. This has been something that's more of an anime/manga thing, but I am happy to see this represented in the game in some way, particularly through a Pokemon that went through a bit of a character arc himself. Okay, Mawile, you get a Mega Stone and can hang out with Absol and Heracross as my backup Megas. 

A dude called Volli meets me on top of a building, and tells me about a 'fad' in Kalos from a while back called... sky battles! Oh god, I completely forgot about this. Generation V and VI experimented with a bunch of alternate battles, and Sky Battles was just there to show off the flying animations of some Pokemon -- and particularly relevant for some guys like Heracross who had both standing and 'hovering' animations. It has since been completely forgotten... until now!

Volli refuses to battle unless I have a full team of Flying-type Pokemon, which isn't quite the same ('floating' Pokemon like Chandelure or Haunter would've been eligible in XY), but I bring out my strongest Flying-types and fight him. He's got a Noibat, a Talonflame and an Altaria. I have a Mega Hawlucha, an alpha Talonflame, and a freshly-evolved Pidgeot and Gyarados... not the most threatening batch of fighters, but at least Hawlucha manages to win because he was running Thunder Punch. There's a nice sense of melancholy as Volli wonders if Sky Battles will ever catch on again. I loved this! This was a nice little blast to the past! 

The trainer school has a bunch of kids that stand around and get excited that I can mega-evolve my Pokemon. They start bombarding me with questions like 'what Pokemon changes type when they Mega Evolve', 'what are the items called that you give to Pokemon', and the final question is asking which of the three starter Pokemon in this game is the coolest. Even without taking into account design, how can Mega Meganium not be the answer? She's got two Megas in her name!

A random quest has me drop down into a courtyard where a Delibird is just running around, screaming in Pokemon-speech. And suddenly, a Garbodor attacks! I beat the Garbodor! And then the Delibird gives me a berry, and the trainer thanks me for helping it. It's a bit of a weird quest, and I don't know if there's some Japanese pun that was lost in translation?

A police officer called Rancun asks me to find Shuppet for him, and he sees Shuppet as an ideal Pokemon. Shuppet is a Pokemon that likes negative emotions that people feel, like jealousy and vindictiveness, so it would be ideal for him to flush out criminals. I've seen Minority Report, this feels like that but with a grudge-filled ghost thrown in for good measure. Well,  I've got a spare Shuppet in my box, so I give one to him. Officer Rancun asks Shuppet to hone in on negative emotions...

...And the Shuppet goes straight to Rancun's home, and identifies his wife. Uh-oh! It's a bit of an unexpected twist for a Pokemon game, although the sidequest does end in a wholesome note as Rancun apologizes to his wife for being too obsessed with his work, and just took his wife for granted and didn't realize that her emotions are a step away from going into a full-blown grudge. Pay attention to your partners, dear readers! You don't need a friendly ghost to help you out on that end!

Sushi High Roller starts opening up a five-course battle meal. Normally I would've stuffed this to the segment below, but there are actually fun little easter eggs to the rest of Kalos! The first fight is just a Beedrill, Vivillon and Ariados. Three Bug-types... but I face all three at once! The second fight is from Miroir Way, which is the route heading up the mountains... and consists of Raichu, Dedenne and Emolga. That's a big fat lie! Out of those three, only Dedenne can be found in Miroir Way!

Next up is a trio from Lost Hotel. The Lost Hotel! That would have been so, so cool to explore in HD. I love abandoned locations. It's a Klefki, Scizor and Lucario. Winding Woods gets a representation, of course, with the excellent selection of spooky boys Trevenant, Gourgeist and Chandelure. And the last one... okay, kind of boring, with Vaporeon, Flareon and Jolteon as three evolutionary stone Pokemon. But the area-based Pokemon aren't bad! I just kind of wished they committed to the gimmick. 

The last side-quest I'll describe is a bit of a longer one, where an older lady called Calma is quite excited at her Sylveon's ability to detect strong emotions, and calm them down with her aura. This, just like the Shuppet mission, is the exact kind of 'spotlight a Pokemon's behaviour in a cool way' that I really wished Legends Z-A did a lot more of. 

This quest is a bit long, as I go around looking for five arguing people around the river. It always ends similarly, but I did find it kind of charming enough. First we've got two kids fighting... oh, turns out they're fighting that the other kid's Pokemon is cooler. Then a father and his daughter are fighting about career... oh, the daughter doesn't want to leave his father behind in their Pokedex career and want to make it a family activity. Two Rust Syndicate grunts appear to be yelling and intimidating each other... but it turns out to be practice for the company. Two Canari fans appear to be yelling, but it also turns out to be practice for a comedy gag or something. The closest thing to a conflict is a couple that argues 'who to take care of it', but it's just them trying to figure out how to deal with Noibat while at work, which boils down to 'oh wait, work from home is a thing'. Can't say Pokemon isn't up with the times, I guess. 

Ultimately it's Calma that ends up losing a bit of her patience and yells at Sylveon a bit, and vice versa, until we calm the two down. It's very basic, but I did like that it actually picks up a specific aspect of Sylveon's different behaviours and dex entries, and makes something out of it instead of something like... say, the Delibird/Garbodor quest, where you could replace the Pokemon with literally any pair and the quest would still feel more or less the same. Get more creative, Pokemon designers! Side-quests would be amazing, but I'm really not feeling it for most of what you're doing... which is surprising since they did such a good job with Legends Arceus!

Anyway, next up, we're going up against the nobility of France!

Random Notes:

• I ran out of eyecatcher characters, so I'll just use random Kalos characters from XY until we meet new NPCs. Since they haven't released Sugimori art for many of the other humans or new megas, what else to do? Have Valerie, who shows up in some posters showing off some her fashion brand 'Valerie Kawaguchi'. I guess that's her full name -- a genuine rarity in Pokemon!
• More side-quest content:

• Two Rust Syndicate guards argue about who is stronger, Arbok or Glalie, and have me fight both of their teams. Not much to say about this quest, again, we don't even get any fun facts about either Arbok or Glalie. 
• A lady wants to battle me in the rain to teach me about weather effects. Thankfully, she lets me 'wait until rain comes' so I don't have to keep resetting the clock to get the desired weather. 
• The Furfrou artist unlocks even more hairstyles, this time by asking to demonstrate Razor Leaf. Honestly, I kind of wished that this was more of a spotlight for Furfrou itself instead of Scyther, but it's not much of a particular spotlight on Scyther, is it? 
• Another gimmick introduction is a waitress that uses a party with Leftovers as a held item, and gives me Leftovers as a result. 
• Yet another gimmick introduction is someone who teaches me about flinching, which... is kind of bad in this game, honestly, since you just get stunned briefly; hardly equal to losing an entire turn. 
• A rather fun one has a lady that fights with a party full of Clefairy that only know Metronome. One of them, genuinely, no-bullshit, randoms into Explosion. That's hilarious! 
• A 'fetch quest' lady wants me to bring her Pokemon to inspire her perfume. The first is a Vanillite, and the second is an Inkay... it's a bit stretching the definition of what a perfume is, yeah? 
• I still haven't managed to get an Alpha Gogoat to spawn for the one random guy that wants it. 
• I do like that the Leftovers quest has a line of dialogue that lampshades that the Leftovers held item never actually gets consumed into nothing, and always just kind of stays there. Always. 
• The Spewpa gotten from the museum mission actually evolves into a differently-patterned Vivillon, specifically the 'snow' pattern. Interestingly, all Vivillon in the game, regardless of your region, is the default pink colour. Yeah, a lot of these random alternate forms really end up becoming a bit of a pain to support down the road, aren't they? Even if it's not a technical standpoint, trying to find a location in the game to 'fit' them is a bit annoying. 
• The Delibird is nicknamed Delilah, and he apparently likes to give out Bug-type Pokemon. I can just imagine that bag filled with Scatterbugs and Spinaraks.