After beating Wallace, I head on up to Sky Pillar, and boy, did it get a revamp! No longer is it a simple series of circular floors with broken tiles you have to Mach Bike across. In fact, that aspect of the game is gone entirely for which I can only sing praises because it was the hardest hindrance for me back when I was trying to get Rayquaza in Sapphire and Emerald. Instead it's just a beautifully crafted ruined tower. It's wonderful. It takes the broken castles from generation five and makes it like a dozen times even more atmospheric and awesome. There are broken pillars and broken floor tiles everywhere, there's this big mural with Groudon, Kyogre, Mega Rayquaza, Sootopolis City and whatnot... and, of course, there is Zinnia.
There are wild encounters here, of course. Some of the old classics from the original Sky Pillar return, and inexplicably Ariados is added into the population, but I didn't really see much because I repelled the shit out of it. Also, the ghosts are gone from generation six's Sky Pillar... though it's nowhere as dark as it was before so eh, whatever.
The main attraction of Sky Pillar is Zinnia talking on each floor and telling us the old history of Rayquaza and the Draconids. Apparently the clan of Draconids have been passing down history via these murals in the Sky Pillar. And thousands of yeas ago, Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre were, naturally, fighting each other. This is, I assume, in between their rampages where they killed a lot of people. No one could do anything as the two big dudes just rampaged around, and suddenly a lot of meteoroids came down from space (or, as Zinnia likes to say it, 'a place higher even than the heavens'). Some of the meteoroids fell into a waterfall that is home to a tribe of Dragon type users. It could be the Dragon's Den in Johto, but I'm sure they're talking about Meteor Falls, since at least one old Draconid lady lives there. It's nice how it's tying all these otherwise-forgettable areas together with this long story.
The meteors in Meteor Falls shone with a rainbow-like brilliance, as if life was held within. A different Deoxys? Or is it just flowery dialogue describing the key stone? Because the meteors acted as key stones, summoning Rayquaza from the heavens above. As we all know, Rayquaza managed to calm down Groudon and Kyogre and sent them off to sleep. The humans were all 'yay Rayquaza is our savior'.
A thousand years after that, even more meteoroids fell, and one particularly big one created such a massive crater that it became Sootopolis City. And the impact caused natural energy to come out, summoning Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre once more. And the people wished and prayed for Rayquaza to once more rescue them from all these disasters, and the meteorite in the middle of Sootopolis once again acted like a key stone and summoned Rayquaza, but this time Rayquaza Mega Evolved thanks to the wishes of the people begging for salvation. Mega Rayquaza challenged the two Primal legendaries, and there's a bit of a flowery description about their battle including a nice reference to the Delta Stream ability. Groudon and Kyogre's Primal powers were apparently sealed by Mega Rayquaza, and they go off to slumber in the 'depths of land and sea', so presumably in Alpha Sapphire Groudon is just napping off under Mt. Chimney or something.
Rayquaza reverted back into his original form before going up into the heavens once more. And I do like how Zinnia kept using the word 'heavens' to substitute for whichever layer of the stratosphere that Rayquaza hangs around at. AZ -- or at least a different tall visitor from a distant land -- is apparently around and already cursed during this particular conflict, and noted that Mega Rayquaza is the 'delta born of great disturbances in the world'. And the Draconids constructed the Sky Pillar to hold the key stones that allowed Rayquaza to mega evolve, to record their history as well as to try to get closer to Rayquaza. The Draconids foretold that the meteors would come a thousand years later, which is now, and it would be greater than before. They had hatched a plan (which now falls to Zinnia) to invoke Rayquaza and summon it to Hoenn before the meteor could strike.
That's a lot of backstory and I thought that it's pretty nicely told. I mean, it doesn't really excuse Zinnia going around crushing rocket control panels and stealing key stones, but at least she has some semblance of a plan. She does talk a bit about how she has to bear all the responsibility, and notes how she 'bears the heavy wishes of those who could not... live up to that fate.' And at this point, after we reach the summit of the Sky Pillar, the Dragonhark Altar, Zinnia begins talking to Aster about the meteor shower and how Aster is happy. After a bit about how she has always looked to the sky for consolation in times of grief and whatnot, she starts talking about how she used to watch the stars all the time with Aster, and that they were always together...
Before she lost Aster. Which is a bit of a 'wait what' moment, and she goes on about how she wants to see Aster again, how she wants to be with Aster again, and how she probably will see her again just a little longer. Even Aster the Whismur is freaking confused, but what I take from this is that in doing her big Draconid plan, she lost someone precious to her. A sister, a daughter (is she old enough to have a daughter?), a partner, a friend... and she's projecting those emotions to Aster the Whismur. And Aster-the-first most certainly died, and I'm going to assume that's responsible to why Zinnia's not quite all right in the head. She seems to be a bit of a death seeker judging from her dialogue... and from what eventually happens, if she had been the one to go into space with Rayquaza instead of me and my Aqua Suit, she probably would've indeed been ripped to shreds.
And then, uh, suddenly she knocks me out until it's morning, which I thought was a really bad transition because there's no real reason for her to do so other than to help the time transition. Which is odd. After a bit of a prayer chant thing, Zinnia summons Rayquaza. Who shows up and kind of looks pissed. Zinnia asks for Rayquaza to mega evolve, but with all the keystones that she has gathered, Rayquaza still doesn't want to mega evolve. Apparently, the meteorites that lie dormant within Rayquaza's body (I didn't even know Rayquaza had meteorites within his body!) has lost their potency, and thus Rayquaza doesn't have enough power to mega evolve. Which is a bit of an odd twist, but looking back, apparently way back from the Ruby pokedex it has already stated that Rayquaza fed on 'particles in the atmosphere'. So, yeah, why not?
Zinnia kind of breaks down and the animations, again, make it feel a lot more sympathetic. Man, girl's just misguided, even if she did go around beating people up. Of course, as the hero in a Nintendo game, I have the solution. The Meteorite from all the way back in Mount Chimney, the same Meteorite that was the subject of a pointless optional delivery quest in the original Ruby and Sapphire, starts to glow and Zinnia notes that it's exactly like a mega stone... and Rayquaza immediately swallows it, which is unexpected. Apparently by swallowing the meteor, Rayquaza now can store as much power as a mega stone, allowing it to mega evolve. Why can't all my other pokemon swallow their mega stones too? Swampert's mouth is certainly big enough for it to just nom a little sphere.
Anyway, Rayquaza, bursting with energy, challenges me to a battle, and it's at level 70! My team's highest-leveled member is around 68, and holy shit Rayquaza is scary. It's just Dragon Dancing and launching Flies and Extreme Speeds and taking out huge chunks out of my team. Mega Metagross and Primal Kyogre serve as enough of a tank for me to whittle down its health, however... Metagross' Bullet Punch in particular is absolutely useful for me to chip down his health. After getting his health to red and reviving a couple members of my team, I captured Rayquaza.
Zinnia notes that Rayquaza chose me and not her... but of course! You're a bit of a crazy fanatic. Though whatever the case, Zinnia names me the successor to the Draconids, and replaces Fly in Rayquaza's moveset with Dragon Ascent, the final key to Rayquaza's true power. Maybe you should, uh, try doing that before going all 'oh god have I doomed the world'. Zinnia then challenges me to battle to prove that I can master the power of Rayquaza, which is fair enough. Her team consists of Goodra, Tyrantrum, Noivern, Altaria and Mega Salamence, and my Rayquaza wiped them all out with Dragon Pulses... though it did, embarrassingly, get taken out itself by Mega Salamence after having its defense lowered by using Dragon's Ascent. Which has an awesome animation.
Hell, Mega Rayquaza himself is awesome. All that green, orange and black! That awesome crazy-long beard! That awesome profile! And the fact that it still retains its original set of jaws under those gigantic shovel-tusks is also awesome -- I was a bit iffy when I thought Rayquaza's entire lower jaw has transformed into those, but no. Mega Rayquaza is super awesome.
Whatever the case, though, I beat Zinnia. I then don the Aqua Suit which apparently doubles as a spacesuit, ride on Rayquaza and head off into space. Rayquaza Mega Evolves and apparently those super-long orange Tron beard things can connect to its tail and form some kind of, uh, kite? Hang glider thing? Whatever. Mega Rayquaza is cool. The music kind of drums up as Mega Rayquaza and the meteor approach each other, and like an absolute boss Rayquaza just flies through the giant meteor. Somehow I am not murdered by slamming into those gigantic chunks of rock, but whatever.
However, all of this isn't over. As everyone who knows anything about ORAS knows, I'm going to have to fight Deoxys. In space. And a little triangle is left from the remnants of the meteor... the same red triangle that Deoxys hides in back if you were fortunate enough to play the Deoxys event in FireRed, LeafGreen or Emerald. The little in-joke moves around a bit before tentacles seep out... and we engage in battle with Deoxys!
A level 80 Deoxys! In space! It's an awesome battlefield, seeing Rayquaza and Deoxys just face off against each other.
Mega evolving Rayquaza immediately, a single Dragon Pulse knocks a good chunk out of Deoxys, but Deoxys itself nearly one hit KO's my Mega Rayquaza with a single Psycho Boost, which itself is pretty freaking impressive. Psycho Boost thankfully reduces Deoxys's special attack, so he can't do that all the time. And, like the idiot I am, I underestimated the sheer power of Mega Rayquaza's Extreme Speed and killed Deoxys.
So I reset.... all the way back from before capturing Rayquaza. This time I cleanly swept Zinnia's team. And then during the fight with Deoxys... my Swampert killed him with another critical Rock Slide. So I reset again. Attempt number three succeeded in Mega Rayquaza getting hyper potions and tanking a bunch of Psycho Boosts, severely crippling Deoxys's special attack, and Deoxys itself raised its own defense and special defense enough by spamming Cosmic Power. There should be no danger of me accidentally killing him... but there is the danger of me running out of pokeballs. Which, in fact, is what exactly happened.
The fourth attempt was successful, though. I captured Rayquaza, I captured Deoxys, and I saved the world! There is a scene of the meteorite exploding and Cozmo's group in Mossdeep Space Station just celebrating. Apparently Aster the Whismur just hands me a letter, and Zinnia just went off to do some soul searching or something. Man, what a weird character. Weird and kind of a bitch in some ways, but I don't hate her. There's a bit of a scene of Cozmo and his people reacting to the meteorite's destruction. There's a scene of Wally just off doing his own thing and apparently I returned the stolen key stone to him. And presumably to May, Matt and Archie too? Wally is given a ticket to a resort, which I'm going to assume is the Battle Resort (I have been told that the Battle Frontier from Emerald is, in fact, not in ORAS). You go, Wally! Meanwhile, Matt shows up at the Team Aqua base and have a big BRO moment with Archie where they apologize to each other and be part of the new Team Aqua and shit who aren't going to be extremists anymore. I thought this wasn't handled as well as it could've been, though with half of Matt's dialogue being 'bro' it does come off as a bit hilarious.
And then there is Steven talking to Wallace, and Steven goes on about how he wants to go off and explore the world and stuff, and Wallace gets ready to accept the mantle of being a champion of something... what about me? Jeez, Steven, didn't your father and Zinnia make it clear that you're the ex-champion? I mean, it could've been sort of excusable if this is the other games where the fact that I beat the champion is often times not addressed, but they actually addressed this fact. Oh, well, whatever. And then Zinnia meets up with Granny Draconid in Meteor Falls, and ends up getting freed of her duties and whatnot. The parents (Birch, Norman and the two unnamed moms) are just talking around about how happy their kids are, and just joke around and stuff. Meanwhile, there are some wordless scenes of me and May visiting the Mossdeep space center, and I thought May playing around in the astronaut display thing was funny. After that bit of romantic moment and whatnot, we each go off into our own homes with the game going 'Pokemon Alpha Sapphire Delta Episode End'.
That was fun. A lot more story-heavy than I would've preferred, and Zinnia does come off as both likable and unlikable at the same time... I thought it could've been done better with the more villainous roles she had being passed on to Matt, and she does come off as a bit of a hypocrite considering she just go around bitching about Steven and Cozmo's plans and it turns out that her plan ended up failing if not for me. But she's interesting, at least, and delivers quite a large amount of backstory about Rayquaza and Deoxys. Is Deoxys behind all the meteors that come every thousand years? Are there connections with Jirachi, who also shows up every thousand years or so? I guess unless there's like a Theta Episode or something we'll never know. But still, Delta Episode's been fun and I get two brand-new legendaries for it.
I've gotten Rayquazas before, but this is my first legitimate Deoxys and I am absolutely happy to see these event legendaries having larger roles tied to the story. Granted Deoxys really just randomly cameos and shows up in the end and Delta Episode is more about Rayquaza, but at least he's in the game instead of being an exclusive very few people will ever get to see. And I feel that this is a good thing to do, since generation VI has its own event legendaries (Diancie, Hoopa and Volcanion) and all those older legendaries can afford to just become... regular legendaries tied into the story. Maybe if we get a generation 4 remake, we can get more stuff about just what the hell Arceus is and the backstory between Arceus and Giratina? Also some intrigue about the mega stones. Are they all from space? After all, my mother found the Latiosite after the meteor shower, and Rayquaza's past key stones are all from meteorites. So maybe there is more to mega evolving than meets the eye?
Whatever the case, though, Delta Episode's been a blast. After restarting and saving, I end up back at Littleroot Town, Norman gives me the S.S. Ticket and mom gives me the Latiosite (for all the good it will give me), and as I go out Birch immediately calls for help and he's being chased by a freaking Shroomish. A Shroomish! It's even tinier than a Poochyena and it's just got this wacky expression on its face. And I take one of the Johto starters (Cyndaquil, naturally)... but don't even use it to fight Shroomish! Eh, it's just an excuse to give me a Johto starter, and Birch and the Shroomish apparently ended up being cool with each other as they just walk off to Littleroot together.
Oh well! I guess there's still some other post-game stuff in ORAS. I'm going to explore
It's been an awesome remake, and an awesome Pokemon game and I really haven't had as much fun as I did with this one. It just fills me with so much nostalgia and it makes me really happy just how much everything has been expanded. They really went so far from the original Ruby and Sapphire games. In terms of graphics, plotline, characterization... and they even improved on the XY engine! Hoenn looks as gorgeous as Kalos does, if not better, and there really isn't anything on the overworld that's stolen from Kalos! And while there are some niggling annoyances they left out from XY like clothing customization, I realize it's all in the spirit of the remake. Do think that it really could've been implemented in a rudimentary way, though, allowing the ORAS characters to wear their 'classic' costumes from Generation Three. Also, the Super Training and Pokemon-Amie could've used some touch-ups to change the sprites to more Hoenn-native pokemon. Though it isn't all bad -- the addition of the new Mega Evolutions, even if everything has been leaked before, the post-game, the fact that we have all but replaced a HM move with an item, all the additional stuff to do and the fact that mega stones are no longer game-exclusive are all welcome additions.
And I thought the entire stretch from Sootopolis to Pacifidlog is once again wasted, as is Verdanturf City. I thought some of Delta Episode could've been expanded there. But overall? Overall it's been such an awesome game. Also thought Deoxys could've been handled better. Will probably do a couple more posts wrapping up Sea Mauville and other stuff, but other than that, I guess this wraps up the main story.
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