Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 35: Mega Dimension, Mega Donuts [DLC]

So, it's time for the DLC! 'Mega Dimensions' is the DLC for Pokemon Legends ZA, and it takes place right after the main story has ended. I return back to the Hotel MZ, where the quest marker sends me to the rooftop. A little girl with a brain that impossibly circles around like a donut is sitting on top of the roof, and I have the option to ask the little child why she's sitting on the roof. 

This child is Ansha, who declines to explain where she comes from under the justification of 'an air of mystery', but then the mythical/legendary Pokemon Hoopa appears floating next to her. So yeah, just like some other mythical Pokemon in previous remakes (most notably Deoxys in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, Keldeo in Sword/Shield and every Sinnoh mythical in Legends Arceus) we're getting another mythical Pokemon being spotlighted in a main game. That's nice! 

Ansha has arrived on my rooftop with a particular request... and her request is the rather ridiculous 'help me make a delicious donut that will fill Hoopa with power'. It's a neat nod to the Hoopa anime movie, where Hoopa has a bit of a sweet tooth for donuts in that movie due to donuts also being shaped like rings. 

We get a bit of a scene with Taunie, Lida and Naveen gathering together and lampshading what a weird request this is, and how strange that she needed to come all the way to a hotel with strong battlers to request for a donut mission, and Lida briefly questions why she doesn't just ask her parents. But Taunie, in her mentality of always helping people, will always honour any request.

Ansha apparently lives in a different hotel before, noting that Hotel Z is a bit different from the hotel she's used to living in, and it feels a bit calmer. Taunie offers the kitchen and the front desk for her to use. However, as we set up the ingredients for Ansha to bake her donuts, we realize that we're out of butter! Crucial, crucial butter! 

Taunie leads me to a shop that sells Lumiosian Butter, and... there's only one pack of butter left. Really? The only pack of butter in all of Paris -- okay? I guess I shouldn't complain, we've had cups of tea shared between four guards of Saffron City as a plot device before. Taunie shares that this baker is someone she had helped out in a jam before, and now they're nice to her.

However, our butter quest is interrupted by an unlikely pair... Grisham... and Tarragon! So after the events of the climax, the multiple pairings throughout the game's story have seemingly been mixing together and making friends. Tarragon explains why this unlikely duo is working together. He wants to make a brand-new merchandise called Canari Bread for Canari and her fans, and Grisham has agreed to teach him bread-making and take him as an apprentice. Despite Tarragon's joy, Grisham deadpans that he "never agreed to an apprenticeship, but [he] mustn't extinguish the passion of a budding baker." That line got me giggling a bit. 

And so, we're fighting for butter. Because that's how this DLC storyline goes. With absolutely no seriousness. I appreciate it. 

We get a proper 'double battle' between two sets of trainers, and in the DLC, the opponents' Pokemon have a ring under them. I guess people were complaining that the multi-battles in the climax were a bit too confusing with four to six Pokemon, only half of which are your allies, running around and doing animations? Grisham and Tarragon have basically the same Pokemon they use, and they mega evolve both their Excadrill and Charizard at the earliest opportunity. 

After taking them down, Tarragon bemoans "so long, Canari bread..." and Grisham notes that their teamwork is lacking because they don't fully understand each other... particularly highlighting the fact that Tarragon doesn't drink coffee. I... sure, Grisham. If you say so. I didn't expect you going from a cold emo guy into the funniest deadpan straight-man, but here we are. 

Anyway, we get the butter, but of course Taunie shares just a bit of the butter to Tarragon so he and Grisham can make the Canari bread. Because, yes, apparently this is the only block of butter in all of Lumiose City, and Tarragon is going to need this super-duper avant-garde butter for his amateur attempts at breadmaking, and this butter is going to last Ansha for all of her butter requirements. Okay. Maybe the specialness of Lumiosian Butter is how long it can apparently last, because I go through butter faster than that. Tarragon is ecstatic, while Grisham initially grumbles that he hasn't agreed to take an apprentice... but if he's going to teach, he's going to expect only the finest of breads. Okay!

As I return to the hotel, Ansha has changed into the most adorable little chef-baker's outfit, and Naveen has made a couple of custom shop stands for her. One with an adorable donut logo shop-stand, and another being a menu. They've also strung up some of those party chains around AZ's old desk. It's actually a bit adorable, and the game devoting several unique models to these props really does mean that Ansha's little donut store is going to be a permanent addition to the hotel. Naveen makes a bit of a gag about this, noting that it's a bit much if Ansha's just going to bake a single donut once... but then gets shot down by Lida, who lampshades that Naveen was the one who made the artful decoration for the child. Aww, Naveen! 

Anyway, Ansha has claimed the counter, I give her the butter, and Ansha asks me to choose a donut for her to make, since her donuts are made-to-order. Again, I just kind of play along. She asks me to pick three berries, and she'll make the donuts from that choice. It's a nice little way to utilize all the berries I have been gathering throughout the game (which hasn't really been useful other than the occasional Sitrus Berry usage). Every game since Generation III always has a little minigame involving berries, either for contests or to create food for Pokemon-Amie friendship or whatever, and it appears donuts are going to be the little berry gimmick for this game. 

I toss in some of the more common status berries (and Lida gives me a bunch of Pecha and Oran Berries in case I somehow don't have any) and we get a brief little cutscene of Hoopa and Ansha doing some Cooking Mama animations to make a donut. There is a 'level boost', a flavour profile and some points, and Ansha says that Hoopa now has a donut to eat. Ansha then heads off, and we follow her strange request that Hoopa's going to eat the donut somewhere else. That donut's going to give Hoopa a huge surge of power, apparently, and we're going to consume that donut near the Saison Canal, near the Justice Dojo. 

Lida continues to note that at no point throughout all of this process has Ansha explained anything. And Ansha continues to insist that she just wants to feed Hoopa the donut. Finally, in the canal, Ansha reveals her goal... 'to catch a fine legendary Pokemon for her dear mama'. Okay? A good child? But that Hoopa is legendary? Naveen's answer is a hilarious "I have some concerns." and this leads to Ansha deciding to demonstrate. She points out the brick wall... and then suddenly a weird warpy distortion (it's 'squirmy', according to Lida) appears on the wall. 

Hoopa then eats her donut, and then pulls out the rings on her ears and tosses one towards the squirmy distortion, which expands into the same Hoopa portal-hole we see in Hoopa's appearances in the anime, manga and the Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire games. Ansha explains that the donuts give Hoopa a great surge in power, and this allows us to travel through the 'Distortion'. Team MZ is just shocked... and even more shocked when Ansha and Hoopa just jump into the strange warpy unexplained portal. 

Taunie and Lida start yelling at the terrifying and dangerous sight of a little child jumping into a portal. Naveen yells: "I have MANY concerns!"

And so, to rescue the child, Team MZ jumps into the portal... and we get a nice cutscene of me falling through the portal, and we get a Digimon Adventure style showcase of the 'regular' Lumiose City appearing in the sky above as I fall down the dark abyss. It's quite neat-looking, actually. 

And I end up in... a strange, bleached, off-colour version of Lumiose City in the void of darkness. The world around the strange fake Lumiose is just the darkness of the abyss, while the regular Lumiose City hangs upside-down in the sky surrounded by Hoopa's portal. Oh, and parts of this strange false city just cuts off and trails into the darkness, like a video game environment that wasn't fully rendered. Team MZ is horrified, confused, but quickly decide to pair up. Despite the game seemingly giving me a choice on who to pair up with, the game pairs me up with Lida and Taunie goes off with Naveen. The two teams go in different directions, and apparently Rotom-Phone signal still work because we could still keep in contact with each other. 

As I wander around the strange, empty reflection of Lumiose City with a distorted music... Lida yells at the appearance of a strange Pokemon... MANKEY! ...okay, that's not very weird, we've seen Mankey since 1996. Except Mankey isn't supposed to appear in Lumiose City! The National Pokedex is still banned! Lida is concerned that despite the place's resemblance to Lumiose City, the Pokemon population is different enough. 

Mankey being Mankey, it looks at us and immediately screeches in hostility, summoning four more friends from on top of the building. They jump down (crotch-first, as the camera shows) and it appears to be a simple horde battle... until the game pans away from the cutscene and shows that these Mankey are LEVEL 115.

Excuse me??? I wasn't spoiled on this, and in fact I'm spoiled on nothing for the DLC other than the existence of an alternate dimension, so I was not prepared at all at the game so casually and randomly debuting Pokemon above the level of 100. My party is around the level of mid-70's, with a mixture of legendaries and my main party, and it's quite bizarre to see these Mankey use Leer and Low Kick while outleveling my Diancie. And actually managing to gang up enough to knock my poor rock princess out. They're still just Mankey so it's not a threat, but the fact that they're beyond level 100 is a bit of a surprise.

Team MZ reconvenes, being even more worried about Ansha's safety. We chase down Ansha, but she's just extremely calm. I suppose she does have a mythical Pokemon of her own. Ansha notes in disappointment that the 'fine legendary Pokemon' she's looking isn't here. Creepy child Ansha isn't worried about the strange dimension we're in, nor the potential danger, but acknowledges that there's no point for her to be sticking around if her 'fine legendary Pokemon' isn't there. We get a cutscene of us ascending through the while Hoopa hole, and we return to regular Lumiose City.

Team MZ discusses what to do next, planning to tell Vinnie... but then Ansha gasps... and we see an expanding large distortion above the remnants of Prism Tower. And as it does so, (rather goofily) the title of the DLC appears from inside the portal. 

And... and I think this is where we'll leave off for now. It's a bit of a strange beginning to the DLC, and the pacing is really a bit slow and weird with the whole butter quest. But here we are with the Mega Dimensions DLC, and while I do know that it's nowhere as good as the main game, I am still excited to play through it! 

Random Notes:

• Peeling back the curtain a bit, I got the DLC when it released, but obviously wasn't able to play it until I finished the main story. I did part of the opening quests for the DLC shortly after beating the game, but then got distracted by Xerneas/Yveltal/Lysandre shenanigans after doing the initial part of teh DLC. Part of this article (and some of the side-quests) were originally written alongside the Yveltal sidequest until I realized I really should separate the DLC and the base game. And... there is actually a bit of a real-time break I took in-between doing the original post-game versus finally going to the full story of the DLC. And here we are!
  
• I would like to take the opportunity to say that... I still don't like the idea of Pokemon games having DLCs, but it feels almost honest compared to the nonsense they're pulling with the Mega Stones tied behind some bullshit time-gated multiplayer. It's not even 'tied behind multiplayer' the way Palafin or Spiritomb used to be, but the time-gating of the stones is just moronic and utterly nonsensical. I loathe that with every fiber of my being, and I really didn't bother to chase that bit of completionism even if it's permanently missable or whatever. Paying for the DLC is one thing, being forced to encourage both paying for the 'right' to play online and to chase the mega stones for some of the more popular Pokemon... yeah, no.
• Naveen: "Donuts have to be fried in oil that's at least 350 degrees Fahrenheit. She'll need supervision." and also, "Donuts are dangerous business. The oil gets scalding hot." Didn't expect Naveen to join in the silliness and leave Lida as the straight-man comedian, but here we go. 
• 'Pii hya hya' isn't exactly how I would think Hoopa would sound like, but okay. 
• The Lumiosian Butter has the rather fun description of "if you know, you know." What do I know, man? What do I know???

Movie Review - Joker: Folie a Deux

Joker: Folie a Deux (2024)

In the midst of the change in public attitude towards superhero movies -- and the extremely valid point of a 'superhero movie fatigue', various TV shows and movies that attempt to swap the formulaic action movies of the media juggernauts that are DC and Marvel have shown up a lot. And a lot of them were received well for bending the genre in new and surprising ways. We've got actual deconstructions like Invincible or The Boys, we've got attempts at genre fiction like Werewolf By Night or Runaways... and most famously, Joker. The original Joker, while deviating significantly from its source material, was still at heart a Batman/Joker story. It was focused more on the character's transformation and the mindscape of a mentally-unwell man oppressed by the system and society around it, a character-performance-driven show that still, at its core, worked as a superhero movie. 

Joker: Folie a Deux is not. It's an insane mess of a movie, where it can't really decide what it wants to be. It's most famously derided for being a musical, yes. But as a fan of the musical genre, I'd argue that it doesn't even work as a musical, since the songs in a musical would actually progress the plot and show something. In Folie a Deux, none of the musical numbers really add much that they don't immediately repeat in spoken form, or even matter to the progression of the story. 

A good chunk of the movie is divided into Joker being stuck in Arkham Asylum in the first half, and a courtroom drama trying to string Joker up for the events of Joker, but neither of them work particularly well. The courtroom drama was overtly long and was too referential to events from the first movie that the movie makes no real effort to remind us about. While the prison part is just... depressing, and went on for too long without anything to really move any plot or characterization forwards. There is some surface-level attempt to try to follow up on the fact that the Joker is now an idea, a figurehead for a movement, but it's really not followed up particularly well and feels more like an eye-rolling 'meta-commentary' on how well-received the first movie is, and how the fans want the next Joker movie to be like this or like that... which would be fine if there was any more substance to Folie a Deux, but there isn't. Not really. 

The side-cast, by the way, is extremely bland. Joker/Arthur's lawyer Maryanne Stewart is flat and I don't really know why she's even motivated to defend the Joker other than the script demands for a character to show up. Harvey Dent (hey, Two-Face!) barely exists, and so are the rest of the cast in the courtroom. The prison guards are nasty and assholish. And the second name on the poster, Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn... is Harley Quinn in name only. And, right, because this is one of those movies, she's called "Lee" almost exclusively. She's a rich girl who buys into the 'Joker movement', and gets Arthur to fall in love with her and the idea of becoming the Joker as the public envisions it. Which as I type it out, by the way, sounds like an amazing story hook! The execution... isn't. Lee's character is flat and confusing, and literally reduced to a cipher to just kick Arthur down even more. 

With the drabness of this movie, we also get a heavily-implied prison gang-rape done on Arthur which 'broke' him so much that he essentially breaks character in the courtroom, which loses him the support of Lee and his other 'groupies'. It really is eye-rollingly shoehorned in, and there's only really the shock value of 'wow, that was the source of the big emotional change'? to carry it forwards. The movie essentially ends with a very confusing message that "being the Joker sucks", and leads to Arthur being shanked by one of his disappointed groupies in prison.

Again, there is perhaps something cool and interesting that might've been done if the movie wasn't trying too hard to be pulled in all directions and ending up with a whole load of nothing over an almost three-hour runtime. I tend to try and see some merit in even the worst superhero movies, but all this movie does is to ruin the legacy of the otherwise excellent first one. 

Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 34: Redemption and Balance

With the Lumiose crisis averted, and with Xerneas and Yveltal -- The Being That Gives and The Being That Takes -- both secured in Poke balls in my belt, I return to Hotel Z. 

Lysandre, or rather, fully "L" at this point, walks up and talks about how giving and taking are both actions that are important to maintaining the balance of the world... but in excess, either one could destroy it. L notes that his memories still remain indistinct, but he knew enough about his past. Long ago, he tried to 'give' too much when he was a philanthropist, pre-Team-Flare. And when his good deeds saw no real reward, the Lysandre of the past got really angry and wallowed in despair and resentment and instead tried to 'take' from everyone instead, hence the Ultimate Weapon plan. Hey, 10 real-world years after the fact, and they managed to make something genuinely poignant and poetic out of XY!Lysandre's most basic of plans!

And it was at the point of Pokemon XY that Zygarde appears. A being that seeks to correct excess in either end, to find moderation and balance. And that was what L suspected was the reason he was spared and rescued by Zygarde, despite being the evildoer that fired the Ultimate Weapon. 

After that reflection L then asks to battle me, wanting to see who I truly am as a trainer. Once, he believed that victory was the only meaning to be derived from battle... but he'll enjoy this battle personally at the very least. Lysandre, at least, opens his left eye, revealing that it's whited out.
 

Pause. Eye theories time. Indulge me, at least, since battle writeups aren't always the most interesting. Both of AZ's character models always has his long hair covering his right eye. It's a different eye from L's whited-out eye, but still, I guess blinding one eye and bleaching their hair white is a mark of the immortality curse from the Ultimate Weapon. Let's go a bit off and talk about the other new character in this game with a white eye... Mega Chandelure. Copying his dex entry: "One of its eyes is a window linking our world with the afterlife. This Pokémon draws in hatred and converts it into power." There's something there, I think. XY always had a bit of a vague Norse mythology tie-in to it, particularly with the design of its legendaries and of Zygarde's three forms, that I wouldn't be surprised that someone had Odin in mind when they designed L's blind eye. 

Anyway, to the fight! L has a nice theme that is not a straight-up remix of Lysandre's banger theme, but I really respect it. Unlike Grisham and Griselle, who are still trapped by their past and hence why their themes are a rousing remix of Team Flare's old theme, Lysandre has a new, epic, more quiet one that has references and refrains to the old theme, yes, but is otherwise completely new.

At this point in time, I had a team of legendaries -- Xerneas, Yveltal, Mewtwo and Dianice. Plus the shiny Budew I've been training, and a random Sliggoo I've been trying to get to level 50. The latter two are washes, but I was confident I could do this L fight with four super-powerful legendaries. As me writing this preface probably can get you guessing... L actually gave me a run for my money. His Pokemon hits hard. His Pokemon are all in the 75-80 level range, whereas all my legendaries are freshly caught at the 70's.

L starts off with a Pyroar, who is still a joke, but is fast enough to get off a Hyper Voice before it gets taken down. Then comes out a Florges, a specially defensive tank that I just plain don't have anything to quickly and efficiently take down. She buffs herself up with Calm Mind, blunting my specially-offensive team, and then just spams Dazzling Gleam and Psychic, whittling away at my Mewtwo's HP.  Next up is a little shitbag Sableye, spamming Confuse Ray and actually taking out my Mewtwo with Night Slash. It was so surprising and honestly a bit surreal for a Pokemon I dismissed as being not a threat. 

Sableye then proceeded to burn my Xerneas, crippling my deer before it gets Moonblasted to oblivion, but the damage is done. L tosses out Garbodor -- Garbodor! -- and Gunk Shots my Xerneas out. I wasn't sure why I didn't switch out. Yveltal comes out... and gets Rock Blasted several times for his trouble. At red health, Yveltal takes out the Garbodor, but falls to the instant Boomburst that the next Pokemon, Noivern, unleashes. Diancie mega evolves, Diamond Storms the Noivern, but not before taking a hit from Dragon Pulse. 

L claps, talking about how the cooperation of human and Pokemon is beauty. He then pulls out his Mega Ring from his pocket, looks at it briefly... and wears it, and points it at his original ace. No new Mega Evolution for L. No. It's character development time, and he doesn't even need the stupid Doctor Octopus suit to force the bond. He and his Gyarados are friends now, and they have a traditional bond, and L unleashes Mega Gyarados on me... and that mega-evolved sea serpent just rampages and wipes my weakened Mega Diancie and my two scrubs with Waterfall. 

Good show, Lysandre. Round two, now, and I'm bringing my proper party. My original party. Meganium, Malamar, Hawlucha, Slowbro, Chandelure and Scolipede. 

First up! Pyroar. I bring out Slowbro, and surf the lion down. Florges again? I have a physical attacker with type advantage in Scolipede. Scolipede's Gunk Shots bring Florges down, but not before being crippled by Florges's own Psychic. Next up is the Noivern, who I bring out Slowbro to Ice Beam down to death, although likewise Slowbro was left in the red by Noivern's sheer speed getting off some attacks before it gives up the ghost. 

The Sableye technically should've been dealt with a Fairy-type move, but I was saving Meganium for L's Mega. So I just let Malamar out and just outmuscled the Sableye with my own Dark-type moves. Next up is Garbodor, which I tried to Psycho Cut down with Malamar... but Malamar gets actually taken down by a Gunk Shot. Slowbro finishes off the Garbodor...

At which point L unleashes his Mega Gyarados again. I send out Hawlucha to try and use Fighting-type moves against Mega Gyarados's Dark type. It blitzes out an Ice Fang and takes Hawlucha down. With Chandelure being at a complete type disadvantage and the rest of my team already weakened, I send out Meganium, mega evolve into Mega Meganium... hit Solar Beam, and pray. Mega Gyarados unleashes its own super effective and boosted Ice Fang, which thankfully Mega Meganium is tanky enough to swallow... and unleash a Solar Beam. it does not kill. Mega Gyarados Ice Fangs again, and Meganium stands tall at 15 HP before I slam Dazzling Gleam, which procs almost instantly, and takes down Mega Gyarados. 

Hell yeah. That was a thrilling fight. 

L tells me that he could feel the convictions in my heart, and that this is why we battle. To reach understanding between both sets of Pokemon and trainer. He reflects that five years ago, a group of children (it me! In XY!) stood against him. But Lysandre didn't try to understand them at all. Perhaps he would've never fired the Ultimate Weapon if he made an attempt. At this reflection, Zygarde in dog form appears, and then zips away again. Zygarde is beckoning me to the tower, and this is, of course, the build-up to fighting and catching Big Z.  

And the fight happens, with Zygarde in dog form waiting in the base of the destroyed Prism Tower. The fight is, as you would think, a three-phase fight between Zygarde's 10%, 50% and 100% form, each phase being framed like a Rogue Mega Evolution fight. So it really is a bit more of a sustained battle of endurance, not too dissimilar to the twin flowers... but a lot more substantial since we're fighting a legendary Pokemon instead of a pair of flowers. Dog-mode Zygarde isn't that hard, but it gets increasingly more tanky and faster as it goes into its serpent and later ultraman mode. 

For the most part, it tanks any attack that isn't at least super-effective or a Mega Evolved move, and I'm just committed into mega evolving Meganium as often as possible and spamming Solar Beam and Dazzling Gleam; getting cheap shots with the instant-speed Earth Power, while also healing up with Giga Drain. I brought a team of anti-Ground, anti-Dragon Pokemon that is a mixture of my regular party and my legendaries: Diancie, Xerneas, Mewtwo, Yveltal and Meganium. Slowbro and Xerneas are the two that probably carry the most weight; with Slowbro's tankiness allowing it to survive reasonably well, and Xerneas boosting itself with Geomancy and then repeated Moonblasts and Psychics. 

(Yvetal theoretically counters Zygarde's Ground typing, but Zygarde gains Rock Slide in serpent mode, nullifying Yveltal entirely.)

For the most part, Zygarde's various signature moves end up being the huge 'Dark Souls hazard attacks', with Thousand Arrows being a relatively slow and predictable attack, Land's Wrath being a rather extensive -- eruption all over the arena (although Zygarde does return back to the center of the battlefield when he does it) and finally, in Complete Form, it uses Core Enforcer... flying into the sky like Mega Dragonite and carving a gigantic "Z" on the battlefield that utterly erupts and fucks everyone up all the way to hell, unless you stand in the acute angles of the Z. 

It's a fun fight that feels both epically long but not frustrating. You can lose this fight, but more on the part of the trainer failing to dodge rather than the Pokemon themselves being knocked out. I do spam Giga Drain on Meganium (and Horn Leech was still on Xerneas) so it isn't exactly fair, but even then this fight is pretty forgivable for you to use some potions and revives if you need to. 

Unlike the other legendaries, after going through the three-phase fight, Zygarde just stands there in the center of the battlefield, stunned, until I throw a ball onto him with a 100% catch rate. I throw a Poke Ball. Dog!Zygarde snout-to-fist-bumps me, which is adorable. L congratulates the union of a legendary Pokemon and the strongest trainer in Lumiose City, which he sees as a nice portent for Lumiose City's future. 

L also gives me the Zygarde Cube from Generation VII, which would allow me to swap Zygarde from its dog and serpent forms. Zygarde still transforms into Zygarde Complete at 50% health, and at this mode I can Mega Evolve it into its brand-new big-cannon Mega Zygarde mode. 

L gives me some backstory of what Zygarde did in Generations VI-VII. It used up its power protecting Kalos from the Ultimate Weapon's firing in Pokemon XY, and its parts scattered to far-off places, absorbing the power of those lands and partnering with other trainers. Which is its role in Pokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, where we had Zygarde Complete debuting in Alola with minimal preamble. L even compares the moves that Mega Zygarde uses specifically as being similar to Alola's Z-Moves. 

Which... actually isn't that far off, isn't it? An over-the-top attack animation, and a specific attack (Core Enforcer) getting a new name (Nihil Light) and effects, and there were theories all the way since the 3DS days that compared Zygarde Complete into having the secondary colours of Solgaleo and Lunala; or comparing Zygarde to Guzzlord, or to Necrozma... man, I did really like Alola. Again, as I mentioned with the Alpha Pokemon being tied to Xerneas, I like this little canon welding between Zygarde, Mega Evolution and Z-Moves. 

L then goes into a bit of a epilogue of his own, wondering what he should do with the 3000 years he has left to live. I tell him I have no idea, and L goes into a bit of a monologue about how he still desires the world of beauty, and he suspects he will still desire it forever. But mere physical beauty or material needs are not what he needs now, as he has matured, suffered and understood more. He will now teach the world to feed themselves, to quote the proverb, and a truly beautiful world would have everyone be able to sustain themselves instead of just 'getting'. And it's outlandish, perhaps, since even after the events of this game Lumiose City is still not the most ideal balance... but perhaps in 3000 years he could do something. 

And this is what L, the new immortal wanderer, will devote the rest of his life to doing. He does a brief speech about the beauty of meeting and the difficulty of the chance of specific people meeting each other, before he bids farewell to me and walks off. That... that really does sum up a lot of the themes that XY and the character of Lysandre all tried to tell a decade ago but failed due to a lot of oversimplification of stories and presumably saving up content for a 'Pokemon Z' that didn't come out.

Or at least, not for another 10 years in real life, and as a sequel instead of as a third version.

And with that, I close the book on the story of Kalos, of Lysandre and Zygarde, of AZ and Floette. It is not the perfect conclusion, no. There are aspects of Legends ZA's storytelling that irked me. But for a game that everyone bitched and moaned upon release? Yeah, while I don't think it's the best Pokemon out there, it was such a welcome experience especially for someone who was brought back to the franchise with Kalos. 

Next up will be the realm of the Mega Dimensions DLC! 

Random Notes:

• I have been calling him 'Lysandre' mostly throughout the game due to a combination of knowing him with that name for the better part of a decade; as well as me really disliking 'alphabet names' in general... but honestly, these last couple of quests starring L really does highlight that the game wants to make a distinction with both the amnesia and immortality. 
  
• It is admittedly the same trick they pulled with Oleana in Sword and Shield, but I love that 'accepting Garbodor' is basically Nintendo's new 'characterization via pokemon party', with both Garbodor being in both of L and Oleana's party being a sign that they actually have a really soft heart, and they have learned to accept beauty in all forms. I love this. I love that Garbodor, previously the world's favourite punching bag, has actually reached a nice place in at least the designers' hearts that they are using this trash monster as a way to show how some of their vilest villains have some goodness in them. 
  
• See, Lysandre? You look much more badass without the stupid Doctor Octopus getup. 
• While Pyroar and Gyarados return from Lysandre's old team, notably missing are his Honchkrow and Mienshao, and for someone who's quite intent at repenting for his sins, it is rather odd. I suppose it's just because neither Pokemon were programmed into this game, I guess.
• I completely forgot that Zygarde Complete's cape-tentacles morph into cute little snake mouths when it uses 'beam' attacks. 
• I am genuinely surprised that they did away entirely with 'collecting the Zygarde Cells' subplot, since that would've been perfect for a more open-world-game like this. I am surprised that even after catching Zygarde that we weren't given the 10% or 50%; and had to catch the difference in the overworld... which, in retrospect with how much I hate the Canari screws, is absolutely a good move. Thanks, L, for doing the fetch quest for us!

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. 

One Piece 1171 Review: Back to the Present

One Piece, Chapter 1171: Ragnir

A bit of a delay on my part due to some IRL issues, but we got a break week anyway so that turned out all well and good. We finally return to the present day storyline, with the flashback story being wrapped up in this chapter.

With Harald dead from the events of last chapter, we get a denouement as the chapter pans across the destruction and death throughout the castle, and Gaban notes just how hopeless the fight would've been if Loki and the 'treasure of Elbaph' wasn't there. Shanks gets to thinking about Harald's optimism, and gets a bit frustrated. Gaban stops Shanks from... hurting himself or whatever he was going to do, and tells him to quit his bad habit: 'don't you dare regret your birth'. Gaban tells Shanks to keep a level head, while Shanks is quite rightfully outraged about Harald's death and what he could have done to prevent it. 

We get a great half-page spread of Loki crouching over Harald's body, with the flames obscuring Harald's upper half, which I thought was a really strong panel. Loki is quite upset at his father's death, muttering about how it's "a joke" that this is what he gets for loving his country. Loki then tells Jarul,  Gaban and Shanks that he's going to take all of the surviving soldiers (so there are survivors) and that he is going out to sea. As everyone reading the Harald/Loki fight surmised, despite Harald's wishes, practicality reigns here and no one would believe that Loki would be the one to succeed Harald's wishes. Loki swears the room to silence as he goes off to sea, intending to avenge his dad. 

While this is going on, we get a last cutaway to Imu's mansion in Marie Geoise. Imu is shocked that an ancient giant of Harald's strength, empowered by the Abyss, was killed in Elbaph. Imu then prevents the Gorosei from sending more God's Knights to Elbaph to investigate, which explains why they've only investigated in the present day due to... whatever is going on in Mary Geoise thanks to the Revolutionaries. Interestingly, Imu notes that performing the covenants exerts a toll upon Imu, an interesting caveat to the otherwise game-breaking powers. 

Imu then gives a recap of basically what Loki has described, noting that Harald's views, as an eccentric and heretic, would lead to destabilization if he actually joined the World Government. And it was such a shame that Harald was lost, since he was such a unique pawn... but Imu doesn't seem to be too surprised by it, finishing his little speech that "Elbaph is of the D." and that they are incompatible in the first place anyway. 

And this is where we cut back to the present day. 

Loki was yelling at Hajrudin, asking what he should've done, whether he should've undid everything that Harald has done just to 'tell the truth'. It is a typical bit of getting everyone on the same page, and it was something that was going to be done either way, but I really love Hajrudin and Luffy's expressions as Loki and Gaban are talking about them. 

Hajrudin unlocks Loki's chains, and the two brothers have a little warrior's reconciliation, even if Loki isn't exactly smiling at it. It's a nice little moment in the midst of conflict. The rest of the chapter has one of the Mumas, the Draugr, fall down from the upper realm and start rampaging. Loki yells at everyone to go up -- and everyone does, basically, including the wounded Gaban. Luffy stays behind to see how Loki fights, and he lifts out the squeaking Ragnir... and bashes the Draugr with an attack called 'Nifflheim', freezing the giant solid. Okay! So presumably Loki/Ragnir is going to have an attack for each of the seven realms of Norse mythology!

Random Notes:

• This whole discussion about Shanks regretting his birth and that being his bad habit is quite interesting because that line of character thinking is something I associate with a different mentor figure to Luffy, which is Ace. Now Ace and Shanks's parentage, as far as the audience is concerned, is wildly different. Ace was born from Roger, while Shanks was born of the Celestial Dragons. It is quite different, and it is something that I do hope the story will draw parallels between. 
• I absolutely agree with Loki and co's decision, because no one is going to trust Loki and he's not the right temperament to be a king anyway. I don't agree with their decision not to inform Hajrudin at all. 
• Loki notes that he can 'fly up', which... may be a hint about his devil fruit powers? 
• The pre-flashback stuff has Gaban note that he's going to stay down in the lower realms with Chopper looking after him, but I guess the choreography got changed around a bit with how we had a oddly extended sequence of Gaban requesting Chopper and Sanji bringing him up with the rest of the fighters. 
• It would appear that the thunderbolt was probably one of Ragnir's powers, presumably 'Asgard' or 'Vanaheim' or one of the upper realms. 

Reviewing Monsters: Elden Ring, Part 24

And so, like all great journeys, my run through the base game of Elden Ring ends. 

What a game, huh? This is my first 'Soulsborne' game from FromSoftware, with all its infamous 'get good' mentality and unforgiving ways to go through a game. No quicksaves, no easy mode, not even a pause button. Experience is lost. Going back to a boss fight involves walking back. And you know what? That does give a great sense of accomplishment. 

The world-building is amazing, even if I will agree that the way quests and storylines are given out in this immense open-world game is... not the best. Perhaps it's a bit of a holdover from when the game was developed as a more linear Dark Souls like experience... but I enjoyed myself, even if I did admittedly need to open up a guide particularly in the middle portions of the game. 

There were parts of this that I didn't enjoy so much... Farum Azula felt like it was there for coolness' sake; there was a lack of buildup on some of the major characters; and I also felt like the 'PvP invasion' stuff raises questions more than making it feel like something 'in-universe'. But despite that... I really enjoyed my time through it. It took me almost two years to complete the game -- admittedly with several hiatuses -- but I did it. And I'll jump straight into Shadows of the Erdtree after this. 

So this page covers the two final 'dungeon' parts of the game. The main 'dungeon' is what people have noted to be a bit of a 'bonus dungeon', Miquella's Haligtree, with one of the two infamous hardest bosses in the game -- Melania, Blade of Miquella. And the other is just the endgame... Leyndell, Ashen Capital, is what the Leyndell dungeon was transformed into after the events of the Farum Azula stuff, and I'm waltzing in to claim my title as Elden Lord and beat up anyone who's in my way. 

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Giant Oracle Envoy

As I first explore the Haligtree, the branches are filled with Oracle Envoys. We've seen the regular and slightly-larger ones in Leyndell, but they are a lot deadlier in a location where you have to jump from branch to branch, and they shoot homing bubbles that do way more damage than you'd expect a bubble to do. In addition to the regular Oracle Envoys and the Large Oracle Envoys, the Haligtree features the giant Oracle Envoys. 

I like that whatever the Oracle Envoys are, their faces are always the same size, so despite this particular Envoy's body, arms and wrapped-up head expanding to dwarf its smaller counterparts, the head stays the same. Oh, and whereas the other envoys have smaller trumpets, the Giant Oracle Envoy holds a five-pronged one that launches a whole swarm of exploding music bubbles at you. 

We still don't really know what they are beyond the fact that they 'appear' to 'herald the coming of a new god, or age. Finding one of their headwears as equipment gives us the cryptic description of 'no one knows what the cloth hides, but some claim to have heard a faint whimpering from inside. It must have been their imagination.' They also drop the item 'strip of white flesh', an item normally dropped by aquatic beasts like octopi, crabs, crayfish and slugs... which raises even more questions! 

Haligtree Knights

Our final Soldier/Knight combo are the Haligtree Knights, who are knights sword to the Empyrean twins Miquella and Malenia. They're really just kind of there to exhaust you at this point. It is cool that the knight variants can enchant their weapon with holy damage, but that's not really something that's particularly useful against you, the player. Some of the weaker soldiers will rush you and explode, which... sure, not very 'Golden Order' of them, I'm sure. 

Rather, far more impressive are the knights of Malenia -- the Cleanrot Knights, previously met as minibosses, who wander around the Brace of the Haligtree area.

Fungal Corpse

Tragically, while the Haligtree was initially a haven for worshippers of Miquella and Malenia -- and beings like the Misbegotten who found a haven there -- Malenia's status as the goddess of rot hasn't been kind to those around her. Malenia, lest we forget, was the demigod who caused Caelid to happen when she lost control of the Scarlet Rot within her. One of the main motivations for Miquella to set up his own Haligtree is to find a way to cure his sister, but with Miquella being abducted and killed by Mohg, nothing is stopping Malenia's rot powers from spreading wide. Giant fungi and lichen have been growing all around the Haligtree, and some of the people there have been overgrown with mushrooms in a way that looks a lot more uncomfortable than the Servants of Rot we've seen. Honestly, I'm not even sure if they are still alive or not, or if the mushrooms are just animating the corpses. Of course, contact with them causes the Scarlet Rot condition. 

Loretta, Knight of the Haligtree

The miniboss here is a lady knight on a horse shooting spells at you. We've met a specter/echo of Loretta before in the Carian Manor, and apparently Loretta left the Carians to serve Miquella, with the item descriptions noting that she's a champion for Albinauric rights and she wanted to help them find a haven. Such a noble cause ends up causing all the courtly nobles to gossip that maybe Loretta herself is an Albinauric herself, otherwise why would she help the non-humans? Except...  it doesn't seem to be too far-fetched a leap, since we've only seen Loretta on her horse, and all of her signature spells involves creating giant bows and arrows out of magic, essentially a stronger version of the Albinauric Wolf-Riders' archery. That's a neat little story detail that elevates Loretta from being essentially a reskinned Tree Sentinel with some extra moves. 

I spent way too much time fighting Loretta because I was insistent on killing her with the spell Loretta's Bow. 

Putrid Avatar / Putrid Tree Spirit

At this point in the game, these guys have graduated (or degraded, I suppose) from being 'oh shit oh shit oh shit' to just an enemy with a huge health bar that you just have to be careful at dodging. The Erdtree Avatars show up at basically all Minor Erdtreees, and also in places like Leyndell, Royal Capital. Ulcerated Tree Spirits tend to show up in catacombs that thematically have roots of the Erdtree... and also Leyndell. Makes sense that the two tree-themed enemies show up where the big holy divine tree are at, yes?

Except in several locations, they are infested with Scarlet Rot. Which are also true for the specimens we met in Caelid, but I don't think I've reviewed them before. And with the Haligtree dungeon taking place in an attempt to copy the Erdtree, having these tree-themed enemies show up makes sense... except the presence of Malenia has inadvertently befouled the roots of the Erdtree, causing pools of rot to appear everywhere and for the manifestations of these beings that appear in both the Haligtree and the Mountaintops to also be rotting.

Again, they're functionally the same boss with their regular versions, just with a noxious rot breath attack instead of the holy beams associated with the Golden Order plants. But it's a neat bit of visual storytelling -- if you're going to reuse enemy models, reusing them in ways that fit to the lore is very much acceptable to me. 

Lesser Kindred of Rot

We've seen the 'centipede-prawn-men' Kindred of Rot in any place where the Scarlet Rot has infested, namely Caelid and the giant underground temple in the Lake of Rot. Malenia's unchecked disease in the Haligtree, however, has created rivers of rot, corrupted the local plants, and also either spawned or drawn in a bunch of Kindred of Rot. Nothing new there... except that there's a smaller, weaker version of the Kindred of Rot that appear here, scaled to be around half as strong as the regular Kindred. 

The model is actually more or less the same, with several clear differences -- the long human legs that the regular Kindred of Rot has are absent, forcing them to swim or crawl around. This does make them look a lot like 'prawns', which is a comparison that I didn't really see in the main or 'adult' Kindred of Rot. I also like that they have a lot of creepy little limbs running down their abdomen that are still made up of human hands. 

It is interesting, too, to bring up the lore behind these guys. We now know that the Kindred of Rot worship the Scarlet Rot -- this entity of pure rot, disease and unchecked growth that seems to be the manifestation of some 'Outer God', an incomprehensible force who manifests in the form of the Scarlet Rot. Whatever the nature of this being is, it's currently 'incarnated' or 'sealed' within Malenia as a curse. Malenia herself doesn't want anything to do with the Scarlet Rot and, in fact, has been trying to purge it from her body. The Kindred, however, go around trying to worship her because she's the goddess of rot! One Kindred called Sage Gowry even impersonates a human and adopts an 'offshoot' of Malenia (implied but not confirmed to be a daughter/sister/clone created when Malenia unleashed the giant spell that created Caelid) called Millicent and is trying to groom her to become their new Scarlet Rot goddess. It is an interesting little story, I feel, that makes these 'Pests' a lot cooler than just being weird bug people. 

Millicent's Sisters

In our journey through Caelid, we find a mysterious girl that resembles the Goddess of Rot, Malenia, called Millicent. Talking to the aforementioned Sage Gowry, who adopted Millicent, we can get the idea that the Kindred of Rot are trying to get Millicent to 'bloom' into a new flower, a new avatar of the Scarlet Rot for them to worship. Millicent, interestingly, is the only one out of five sisters -- 'offshoots' of Malenia born during the creation of Caelid -- either clones or fragments that split off the main Malenia. It is a bit ambiguous other than her birth and creation has something to do with Malenia. We befriend Millicent in our journey, even stymying the Scarlet Rot ravaging her body by Gowry's instructions. Helping a sick lady stop her disease, it's something good, right? 

Except Millicent realizes that Gowry and her own sisters are trying to make her into the new 'Malenia'. And she removes the magical gold needle preventing the disease from ravaging her body so she can choose her own death instead of being forced to transform into something else. During this, we fight 4-on-2 against Millicent's sisters: Mary, Maureen, Amy and Pollyanna. It's interesting why these four are allied to the Kindred of Rot (even using the Pest Threads spells only available to Kindred of Rot) while Millicent is more independent. 

Malenia, Blade of Miquella

"I am Malenia. Blade of Miquella. And I have never known defeat."

And here she is. The woman, the myth, the legend. Malenia, Blade of Miquella. Empyrean, bearer of the Scarlet Rot, the woman who has never known defeat. In video game terms, she is one of the two 'superbosses' -- bosses you can fight before the final end of the story, but is so much more difficult and powerful than them. The entire Haligtree area is completely optional, even moreso than anything else in the game, and in fact does require a fair bit of work to even access. Nothing in the game (other than Millicent, who's a bit more obscure anyway) narratively points you towards the Haligtree and the slumbering goddess beneath it, since even if you're interested in the Miquella stuff, he's not even there in the Haligtree -- and primarily saved for the DLC anyway. 

And then she wakes up... and fights you. I think the previous couple of entries did talk quite a bit about her. She's a badass who fought the other strongest demigod, Radahn, to a draw. She's the undefeated woman, and she looks like a tall valkyrie with that winged helmet. Her right arm, since rotted away, is a prosthetic golden arm and she fights with a gigantic katana (which actually locks onto the golden arm) that she swings around like a toothpick. 

And she is deadly fast. She doesn't do anything special in this phase, but she is fast, she can dodge everything you throw at her, her range is insane and once she starts doing her 'Waterfowl Dance' combos, she's unleashing an insane anime blender-slash of doom with that katana. In a game that actually does a pretty great job at making all the demigods have impressive monster forms, Malenia is the epitome of a speedy, deadly warrior in the way that the other two 'just a tall person' demigods that embody a certain aspect of what a warrior should be -- Radahn and Rennala representing a strong warrior and a mage respectively.  

"The scarlet bloom flowers once more. You will witness true horror. Now, rot!"

Once you reduce Malenia down to zero health, she flops face-first onto the water in an almost undignified way... before she asks you to 'wait'. And then she blooms, a fiery flower called the Scarlet Aeonia, the signature spell that Malenia does in the trailers leading up to the Elden Ring story (a cutscene I wished was in the game itself) and we see the calcified remnants of in the center of Caelid. 

And we get to see Malenia's second form. Her clothes have rotted away to reveal what lies beneath... a beautiful female body, but ravaged by rot. We see some of her limbs have rotted away to be replaced by golden prosthetics. And probably the coolest feature in her Goddess of Rot form is her massive almost-angelic wings. Unlike the wings of someone like, say, Mohg, Malenia's wings are made up of a literal horde of butterflies. Butterflies have shown up a lot in the game in areas associated with the Scarlet Rot, and these butterflies are particularly prominent as they flutter off of Malenia's body during her transformation. Her long red locks also meld into the butterfly-clumps as well.

The result is an interesting look, for sure. It's not my 'kind' of an enemy, but it does fit what we know of Malenia and how much she herself despises the Scarlet Rot incubating within her and how she rejects it so much. Our fight against her pushes her to the brink that she finally ceases holding back and embraces the power within her. Or alternatively, no longer has the willpower to control it. She still has everything that she can do in her first phase, except she's faster, and she unleashes these massive scarlet blooms that afflicts you with the Scarlet Rot condition. 

Very cool boss fight, very cool character, and probably my favourite boss on this page. I feel like she's a lot cooler to fight and a lot more... fair, I guess? Her attacks are deadly but there's a nice split-second for you to roll away or react to it, which isn't something I felt from a boss like Rykard (who's still the one that gives me perhaps the most trouble in this game) or Placidusax. 

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Sir Gideon Ofnir, the All-Knowing

As we continue our journey, more and more of our fellow Tarnished allies in the Roundtable Hold either die, or leave... and up until this part of the endgame, Sir Gideon Ofnir the All-Knowing (or more accurately, "Sir Gideon Ofnir... the ALLLL KNOOOOWING!") is the de facto leader of the Roundtable Hold, sitting in his library and researching and looking for information about the demigods and informing us about who they are and giving us hints about them. 

Gideon, however, has been shown to be very much not a nice person, the type who would achieve victory by any means necessary. One of the most horrific things we see on-screen is sending out Omenkillers to annihilate the entire Village of the Albinaurics, and it's also implied that he's the one that sent the silent Ensha to try and get a plot device from us. So to have him barring our way to the Elden Throne? It's really not a surprise that he betrays us, it's honestly a matter of when and how. He does seem to have somehow fallen into despair just prior to the fight, though, with his dialogue being more despondent than gloating... apparently having found out some truth that broke him. 

Gideon is delightfully easy to beat up, even compared to other 'minibosses' I would've faced recently like the Godskin Duo or Loretta. Which makes sense in-universe... there is a reason he needed people to do all his dirty work. There is a cute little gimmick where he uses spells of some of the demigods -- namely Mohg, Melania and Rykard, all optional bosses -- against me. But only if I've beaten them! The implication is that he's been studying and collecting data while stalking us. That's cute, even if Gideon himself isn't too impressive of a boss fight. 

Godfrey, First Elden Lord / Hoarah Loux, Warrior

"Tarnished Warrior. Spurned by the grace of gold. Be assured, the Elden Ring resteth close at hand... alas, I am returned."

Yeah, a lot of the endgame bosses are admittedly just dudes. Godfrey's cool, though. I find him a bit less cool than Malenia up above, but that's more of a praise to Malenia than any real dislike of Godfrey. The first Elden Lord Godfrey is this big burly viking dude wielding a shattered axe. That alone would have been boring, especially since I don't actually find Godfrey particularly interesting as a character, but he's also got the ghost of a lion attached to him like a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Stand. This is Serosh the Beast Lord, and apparently this is how the 'grafting' that Godrick tried to mimic is supposed to look like. 

Anyway, just like Malenia, Rennala and Radahn; Godfrey exemplifies the 'barbarian' archetype, going for heavy attacks and just looking cool while doing it. I did enjoy it, and I like Godfrey's more boisterous voice-acting, but I don't have much to say here. 

"I have shown thee courtesy enough!"

Godfrey's second phase is Hoarah Loux, Warrior, revealing that he is one of the major Tarnished mentioned a hundred hours ago in the prologue. Which... honestly, doesn't really do anything to me lore-wise. But I do like that Godfrey kills Serosh the lion attached on his back. In a nice little subversion, turns out that the lion has been acting as a power limiter for Hoarah Loux, who is normally so savage and unrestrained, and the addition of the lion somehow prevents him from going too wild? You'd think that this is a trope in media where someone "shunts his emotions aside", and Hoarah Loux is just absorbing it back... but no, Serosh is very much sentient and acting as an actual confidant and advisor. And this leads to Hoarah Loux fighting barehanded. No lions, no battleaxes... just a whole lot of wrestling moves from a big muscular blood-soaked grandpa. Okay then. 

Godfrey's lore has always been a bit more straightforward -- he rose to the status of being the first Elden Lord... or at least, the first Elden Lord associated with Marika's Golden Order. The Golden Order by Marika requires a 'god' and a 'lord/consort', and Godfrey was Marika's consort during the early days of the order, leading a lot of wars against the dragons and giants before he 'lost grace' and reverted back to Hoarah Loux for a while. The Tarnished that the game has been revolving around are all noted to trace their origins to him. It's neat, but again, I didn't really find too much attachment to him considering he doesn't get too much focus even compared to the other mostly-unseen characters. 

Radagon of the Golden Order

"..."

Okay, the design of Radagon is quite cool. Second husband to Queen Marika (the ascended 'god' of the setting, who tried to break the Elden Ring which is essentially the core of the rules of the world), this meant that we're fighting the two previous Elden Lords back to back. It's left quite a bit ambiguous what they are, but a boss fight that seems to be leading up to the imprisoned Queen Marika leads to a fight with Radagon instead. 

Except this is a shell of what Radagon used to be. It's a bit harder to tell in static images, but half of Radagon's body is gone, and made up of shadowy clumps that is replacing his entire upper left torso, arm and head. The idea does sell a crumbling, statuesque god. Within the void of his chest, the light of the Elden Ring shines. And... he fights with his hammer and a lot of holy-themed spells. Only... Radagon is completely silent throughout the entire fight, leaving a lot of theories and arguments as to whether Radagon is even sentient or if some otherworldly force is just using him as a rock-meat puppet. 

Regardless of whether Marika and Radagon are reduced to nothingness or if they just don't deign to interact with us, it is a bit disappointing that two enigmatic characters whose whole deal is that 'are their reputations and stories right about them' get zero lines of dialogue at all. But at least the music is nice. As the cutscene plays, turns out that it's set in tune to the opening main theme, which builds up to a truly epic crescendo as Radagon prepares to battle us. Which made the repeated fights against him to at least be an audial delight, even if I find him far less satisfying as a character, a boss or a design compared to Godfrey or Malenia. I am also disappointed that Marika wasn't a phase in this fight either. 

The Elden Beast

Thankfully, the second phase of the boss fight changes to something far more esoteric. As Radagon's body collapses to the ground, the entire scene changes to a strange goopy fluid, as a gigantic hand lifts up, pushes Radagon into the ground and turns him into a sword, because why not? And this thing, the Elden Beast, shows up. Final boss time!

And the Elden Beast is huge. It's also hard to describe, although I think most people agree that it's meant to resemble some sort of aquatic sea slug, magnified several times to the size of a dragon. Considering how much of the game has nautical themes (sea squirts, octopi, crabs, crayfish, the prawn-like Kindred of Rot, Godwyn's fish parts...) it kind of fits. 

It's got two very well-developed hands with five fingers each, very important in this game. It's got several pairs of feather-like wings, a long neck that terminates in a glowing orb, two stubby legs... and when it flies up, its tail kind of spreads out like a strange feathery tree. More distinctive than the strange anatomical silhouette, however, is the fact that running through its body are designs that resemble the nebulae of space, and yellow light -- both resembling the veins on a leaf and the rough structure of a nervous system -- run through the Elden Beast's body. 

The explanation given to us from items gives us hints that "it was the vassal beast of the Greater Will and living incarnation of the concept of Order." and "it is said that long ago, the Greater Will sent a golden star bearing a beast into the Lands Between, which would later become the Elden Ring." So the game itself is kind of ambiguous on what the 'Greater Will' is, and whether it truly is part of the Lands Between. Or even if such distinctions matter at all? The Elden Beast is at the same time a cosmic alien, the most powerful archangel of 'god', and the manifestation of the Elden Ring itself. 

So this thing is the Elden Ring's universe's incarnation of a Lovecraftian Elder God, something that represents the whole order of the world. A running theme of the game's story is how the Golden Order is set up and seemingly treated as absolute, while most of the endings wish to tweak or break this unfair and biased Order in some way. And after defeating everything in your way, you fight with the cosmic embodiment of the world, in a strange realm of water that your character can walk on. Oh, and strange trunks of Erdtree-like trunks run the background. 

The Elden Ring primarily fights by swinging the giant Radagon-sword around, but also casts all of the most powerful Holy spells -- since in this setting, 'holy' magic comes straight from the Erdtree that's being worshipped as the fundamentalists' primary faith. It also casts the same 'Nebula' explosion spells that the other giant alien, the Astel, casts. And it also can swim up and down through the strange watery realm that is most likely metaphysical. And in a hilarious visual pun, its most powerful attack involves it creating gigantic concentric rings of light that center upon you. It fights you with literal Elden Rings! All the holy and space-y spells are fine and good, but I find that the most simultaneously goofy and unsettling thing about it is that such an eldritch being still finds the need to swing that big sword around. 

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I could go on and on about the world-building of Elden Ring, which I also frustratedly admit hinges on a lot of assumptions and theories. What does the Elden Beast represent, and how does it relate to Marika, Radagon, Godfrey, the Golden Order, the Greater Will, the other Outer Gods, et cetera, et cetera? The game gives us a world that's clearly constructed extremely well, but with a lot of questions still left lingering, never to be answered. The fallen leaves tell a story, but not the entirety of it. Normally, that would be terrible. Normally, that would be frustrating. But the execution and the journey through the Lands Between works in spite of all of that, due to how well-executed everything is. And at the end of the day, as I ascend to the title of Elden Lord despite not comprehending huge chunks of the world... I am happy to have gone through this journey and talked about almost every monster and enemy in this game. 

Next up... the Land of Shadow.