Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 33: Life and Death

So after meeting up with Lysandre, he sends me off to investigate The One That Takes and The One That Gives. And for me, it is honestly a very easy choice to do the Yveltal quest first... no shade to Xerneas, but I picked Pokemon Y. It was my big return to the Pokemon franchise after my hiatus, the game that transformed me from a casual fan to the Super Nerd I am now, and I've never really left since then.

So yeah, The One That Takes has to be first. I go to talk to Grisham and Griselle, who goes through their whole 'our coffee is shit, what do you want' routine before explaining to me a bit about the background of Yveltal. Griselle gets briefly riled up over the 'memories of failure' of their Team flare days, but the two are pumped to help out because it'll get rid of the aftertaste of failure. We are directed to Quasartico Inc, where they've coordinated a meeting with Vinnie. 

Coincidentally, Vinnie has detected a flying object charging towards Lumiose City. It's very kaiju-movie esque, very giant alien/monster movie esque. I was pumped! This object, of course, is the Legendary Pokemon of Death Destruction, Yveltal. Griselle even gives a bit more context, telling me that Yveltal 'took out' a whole Team Flare unit on its own even when it's still in its cocoon, and it needed their mighty admin Malva to subdue Yveltal. Right! Malva is a Team Flare agent! I keep forgetting that. Grisham also mutters that the fight to get Yveltal (and probably Xerneas and Mewtwo) is what depleted Team Flare's forces and caused 'those children', the protagonists of X and Y, to reach the Ultimate Weapon. I mean, maybe if you give your grunts better Pokemon than Gulpin and Scraggy...

But anyway, I am genuinely pumped. The build-up of Team Flare's past failures, Lysandre's cryptic speech, and Vinnie promising the backup of Quasartico Inc to help us... because they've co-opted Team Flare's battle simulator? Okay? It's called the Rogue Mega Evolution Simulator 3000... and Vinnie tells me to re-do the Victreebel, Hawlucha and Tyranitar rogue mega evolution fights to prepare against the fight against Yveltal.

This, by the way, is absolutely lame. It's repeated content, but it's repeated content that doesn't even have anything to do with Yveltal. None of these three have anything to do with Yveltal except maybe typing if you squint; and Yveltal, unlike Xernas later on, doesn't even have anything to do with the rogue mega evolutions. It's not even a holo-battle against data that Team Flare has against Yveltal or something. I don't know. It's just utter padding and one that feels tacked on for no reason.

Anyway, after doing the three repeat battles, Yveltal finally makes landfall on Lumiose City. Citizens are evacuated by Quasartico as Yveltal lands on top of Galerie de la Lune -- the big mall with a domed roof. And that, by the way, is pretty cool. It's pretty badass, and there is a bit of a sense of urgency with Yveltal arriving in a highly populated area. It's just that the flippancy of the silly simulated battles feels even worse here. They also emphasize that Yveltal being defeated will only cause its death/destruction powers to go haywire out of control as it flies into a rage, so I need to capture it. I guess they're looking for justifications to let our trainers always catch the legendaries, which is what I saw with Mewtwo earlier, but... eh, sure, there's a nice little justification here. 

Yveltal lands and begins walking on top of the dome like a gorgeous wyvern or bat or something, and the battle begins. Always love Yveltal's design, the massive claw-like arms and the black-and-red colours... Oblivion Wing also looks great in this engine. It is admittedly slightly anti-climactic that Yveltal is highly easy to capture since all box legendaries post-Gen-V have insanely low catch rates, but I still did get a battle out of it. Yay, Yveltal! 

Grisham and Griselle show up to congratulate me, and we get a bit of a coda on Grisham's little character development as he realizes that 'wanting something too much' clouds the vision, and that this was the trap that yoked him in the past. Griselle approves of his character development, agreeing that Grisham has a much better look whenever he's focused on battling instead of the vague Noveau Team Flare goals. 

That's the god of death in a ball! Next up is life. I go to a different ex-Team-Flare member, Mable. Mable is still yelling at the still-unseen mayor, who's throwing even more budget at the wild zones because they are a hit with tourists. A real piece of work, that mayor, and Mable mutters about 'other threats to Lumiose' still being extant. Mable mutters something similar about also having to confront her past, and gives a similar explanation that Grisham did about Xerneas and Yveltal.

Mable then reveals that one of the threats she has been dealing with has been the strange energy readings from wild zones all around town, which seems to be similar to Xerneas's life energy. And these kinds of 'wild life energy' has been transforming some of the Pokemon and driving them berserk... turning them into Alpha Pokemon. 

I love this. It's thematic with Xerneas's whole deal as the Pokemon of Life, The One That Gives, the one that gives out energy and radiates so much strength and life that it sometimes leads to too much life and vitality. It's similar to the Totem Pokemon of Alola, who were mutated to prodigious size by energy from the Ultra Dimension portals; or the Alpha Pokemon of Hisui who similarly received energy straight from Arceus himself. Having these guys be connected to Xerneas is a nice way to tie together these things, and makes these weird, previously 'one-off' Pokemon variations also thematically tie to the greater lore with the various different legendary Pokemon. 

Mable sends me off to subdue the wild Alpha Pokemon in wild zones 3, 5 and 9. Other than a Steelix that I can capture for the Pokedex without trading, there's not much to note here... it's a Pangoro and a Gallade, I believe, that are the other two anomalous alphas. It is a lot cooler, though, since I do run around Lumiose trying to solve problems brought around by the sheer aura of Xerneas, the Pokemon of Life. I guess they can't show Pokemon dropping dead or something for Yveltal, but anything would've been better than just that weird holo-battler, right?

Anyway, Xerneas would manifest in Wild Zone 11, which is the one with Clawitzers. Xerneas appears in its blue form before lighting up all rainbow-like, and it's a battle! Xerneas puts up a bit more of a resistance than Yveltal, or maybe I was just lucky with the deathbird. Geomancy seems to be quite interesting with this engine, still requiring a charge but the speed boost feels a lot more substantial when Xerneas attacks. 

I also really have to note that the remix for the Xerneas/Yveltal theme was very much appreciated. I am not the biggest Poke-music nerd out there, but I do really appreciate the Generation VI music, and hearing themes like Team Flare or the Xerneas/Yveltal ones remixed does bring a smile to my heart. 

Mable shows up after I catch Xerneas, congratulating me for catching a legendary Pokemon. In contrast to Grisham/Griselle's story about the Yveltal incident, Mable actually remembers gathering Xerneas in its tree mode is a lot easier back in the past when they had to deal with the dormant, tree-mode Xerneas. Mable did remember being overwhelmed by the sheer life-force from Xerneas, and reflects on the sheer amount of chaos caused by legendary Pokemon and life forces in the city. Mable notes that her work with Team Flare wasn't a total waste, and then leaves me to it. 

With Xerneas and Yveltal under my belt, I go off now to Hotel Z... for another coda to the game!

Random Notes:

• This was a slightly shorter bit, but I really did want to keep Xerneas and Yveltal in one page, and the two upcoming battles in another page. I was considering slightly bulking the articles up with side-quests, but I thought otherwise. 
  
• Wait, is the battle simulator holo-tech thing the super training we had from XY? There's only really a flimsy tie-in to that, though, if we're being honest.
• I really did wish that we get more side-quests that dealt with the alpha Pokemon rampaging or something. We did kind of get it in the Josee quest, with the antagonists there being two alpha Pangoro, but having a more direct tie-in to the Xerneas/Yveltal quests would've been better.
• I get that they wanted to tie in 'Pokemon getting so full of life and energy that they become wild and berserk' to Xerneas, so they can't really have rogue mega evolutions popping out around the city to be Yveltal's 'aura' -- and that dilutes the Ange/Zygarde thing. But on the other hand... honestly, just while writing this article alone, other options I thought of would be to deal with weakened people and evacuating them, or investigating the location as Yveltal passes through Lumiose slowly where his presence maybe causes some destruction and I have to calm pokemon that got angry? Anything like that, even if they are very married to the idea of needing some battles for this quest. 
• The two Pangoro are shown in different 'defeated' animation, with one Pangoro sitting with his hands in his lap, and the other flat face-down. I don't know if these were coded in just for this quest, but I am happy that they did.