Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, Part 12: Ever Grande City is Fancy

I finish the regular story more of Alpha Sapphire!
So, Victory Road... wasn't as long-winded as I knew it was back in generation 3. It's a lot more straightforward. Yes, there are forks on the road, but they stop quickly at secret items, and while the road does wind around several times upon several levels, it's nowhere as convoluted as Victory Roads of past. Which is equal amounts relieving and disappointing. Also, the trainers in Victory Road has been changed so that they all carry pokemon from after generation 3, which is a bit of a strange decision to choose, but it's not really a deal breaker.

Finally I reach the end of Victory Road, and there's this nice set of Japanese bridges and a red flower field where I meet Wally, and he challenges me to a pokemon battle. I really do like what they did with Wally here, how he's just striving to prove that he can be a trainer despite his illness, and all these additional lines and his character model's movements really add up. He's a lot less annoying than he was in generation 3, and put up a fairly good fight as well! I mean, Magneton, Delcatty and Roselia aren't exactly threats per se, but he puts up a fair amount of battle with his Altaria and his brand-new spoiled-by-all-trailers Mega Gallade. Also he's gotten his own battle theme, which is surprising yet makes the battle-with-a-unique-background pretty epic.

I like Wally now.

And shortly after Wally, I head off to Ever Grande City... and oh have they revamped the Elite Four beyond 'five rooms arranged in a row'. On paper it's still like that, but after I go through the initial room with the pokemon center and the mart and whatever (which is shaped like a Japanese castle thing) the road before each Elite Four member is this long bridge surrounded by beautiful surroundings -- Phoebe's got ghostly lanterns and will-o-wisps, Glacia's bridge turns into ice, Drake's got lava dragon things, and Sidney's is kind of just generic yellow leaves and whatnot -- and each Elite Four member hangs out in a Japanese-style house thing, whereas Steven is behind a gigantic set of double doors. Does it really make sense? Nope. Do I care? Nope!

My team for the Elite Four comprises of Armstrong the Swampert, Maxwell the Gallade, Grayson the Crobat, Mimi the Milotic, Vollstandig the Shedinja, and Kyogre. I debated on whether I should bring Metagross or Kyogre, but I decided I'll go in with a team made up of all pokemon that I caught instead of something Steven Stone gave me, but I'm sure Metagross will make its mark in the Hall of Fame.

I really do like the redesigns on all the Elite Four members. They don't really get that drastic of a makeover, but the combination of their character models moving in the overworld (particularly Phoebe, who's just like 'yaaaay') and the beautiful, crisp Sugimori-style art, and they look so much... better? Stylized? Whatever the case, I like them. Also it's amazing how a few additional movements to match their dialogue makes them feel so much more like actual people.

Sidney is... still kind of a pushover, though. They changed the Elite Four teams up somewhat, but I was able to power through them back before I had Mega Evolutions or Primal Reversions, so it's really something of an assured victory. Savoured every bit of it, though. An attempt to use Shedinja against Sidney's team ended up horribly, so Gallade and Swampert took care of his entire team with Close Combat and Hammer Arm respectively, both skills learned simultaneously after beating Wally.

Next up is Phoebe, who's traded one of her Dusclops for a Dusknoir. Gallade managed to wreck house with Thief, but I let Shedinja take one of the Banettes out with Shadow Sneak and Crobat took out a Sableye and a Banette simply by overpowering it.

Glacia switches out one of her Sealeos for a Froslass (who once more took out Shedinja), but her Glalies are no match for Swampert and Gallade's fighting moves, her Sealeo and Walrein get the full brunt of a Thunder coming off of a Primal Kyogre, and her Froslass get taken out by Milotic. I like giving each member of my team some screen time against the Elite Four.

Drake, meanwhile, traded out his stupid Shelgon for the Kingdra he had in his Emerald team, and he makes for a really fun enemy. Milotic's Blizzard and Kyogre's Ice Beam wiped out his entire team, and it would've been an easy wipe... though Crobat took on one of the Flygons and came out triumphantly. Shedinja, after a string of embarrassing defeats, took out Drake's Kingdra by simply being unaffected by Ice Beams, and 2HKO'd the damn thing with Phantom Force. I used to have big problems with Kingdras back in generation 3, and it is a bit of a poetic justice that this stupid little bug I raised is able to take a Kingdra out.

Steven Stone, though... Steven Stone is a whole other bag of cake entirely. Despite knowing what his team will be, he demolished two-thirds of my team. That stupid Skarmory of his is actually fighting smart, managing to get out a layer of Spikes before getting taken out by my Mega Swampert, and his second pokemon, a Cradily, tanks a Mega Swampert's Earthquake and takes him out with a critical Giga Drain. Well, all respect to the dickflower, Cradily. I'm definitely going to raise one up after this.

Gallade takes out the Cradily no problem, but that freaking Aggron and its Sturdy! Gallade's 4x-effective Close Combat was tanked, and the damn thing kills my Gallade with a critical Stone Edge, and proceeds to eat my Crobat as well. And then I forget that Shedinja is affected by Spikes, leading to the shittiest Shedinja death in this playthrough. My Milotic comes in and murders both the Aggron and the Claydol, and then I bring out Primal Kyogre just to have fun with the Armaldo. Somewhere amongst these three, I revived my Swampert. He's no longer a Mega, but I want to win with my starter.

Facing off against Mega Metagross is my regular Swampert, and he tanks that Zen Headbutt and deals an Earthquake straight to the yellow. I was honestly worried, but the Metagross' Giga Impact misses, allowing Swampert to finish him off with a second Earthquake.

I am the champion! Steven talks a bit, there's a bit of a recreation of the scene when May and Birch shows up, and after the whole Hall of Fame thing, there is a bit of a 'awww' moment between me and May. Man, they're really cranking up the shipping-ness of these two, aren't they? And then the credits roll. The credits are beautiful, as we go through images showing each of the gym battles and the battles against Archie, Kyogre, Wally and May, and they even remembered the pokemon I used! My Mudkip/Marshtomp/Swampert gets the most screentime, of course, but the Ralts/Kirlia/Gallade, the Milotic, the Kyogre and the shiny Beldum also show up here and there. And I do vividly remember using them for those battles, so yay for that! I'm a big fan of the credits. They are so personalized and made me really smile.

And there is a shit-ton of post credit scenes! There is May and me going back to that pretty pond in the opening cinematic that's around in Route... wherever it is that I fought May before. And just like how Pokemon XY gave a bonus battle against AZ in the end, this time May challenges me again with some cute dialogue. And her Sceptile mega-evolves! Her team is still pretty weak and it's a clean Mega Swampert sweep, but it's nice to see how May, who has been suffering as the only rival who never evolved her starter to the final stage, becomes the first rival to raise her starter all the way until it mega-evolves. There's poetic justice in that.

I really like how much they did with Wally and May here as rivals go, making them interesting as characters without really shoving too much into them like how XY shoved flat, relatively obnoxious quirks at least Tierno and Trevor. Wally and May have more in common with, well, maybe Cheren and Bianca, I suppose? They feel like actual characters, and not just a one-line personality like Barry or Hugh or a flat rival like Serena. And really, other than all the pretty Hoenn graphics, I really do love just how much a few additional character movements and altered dialogue can make all these old Hoenn characters feel so much lively. And indeed, other than Korinna and Lysandre, none of the XY gym leaders or Team Flare members really feel like they have as much personality as how ORAS has changed theirs... and it actually makes the pretty basic storyline of Ruby and Sapphire feel a lot more whole than XY's rather bare-bones story. And I am always into stronger storylines.

And then, at the end, we get a lot of post-credit scenes! There's a bit of Norman and my mom talking about having to cancel their plans for going to the Mossdeep Space Station, which sounds like some additional me/May shipping fuel, but suddenly the music turns ominous and this weird symbol appears, and it proclaims 'Pokemon Alpha Sapphire: Delta Episode'. Well! That sounds pretty ominous.

The scene cuts away to a female Aqua grunt shedding her costume (and somehow remarking that her more conservative garb is 'more free' than the Aqua costume? Eh.) and revealing herself to be... a new character whose name I don't know! She is, I'm going to assume, the Aqua grunt that the camera lingers on inexplicably during the montage shown after I beat Kyogre. I didn't keep up with the Delta Episode news, and other than it featuring Deoxys and Rayquaza I have no idea what it's all about. She talks about how her plans to infiltrate Team Aqua has failed now that I, the player, have stopped Kyogre, but after talking a bit to her Whismur (Whismur is cute) she resolves to protect it no matter what. All right, that got me pumped up for the post-game! I guess this is not going to be the end after all!

And then we cut away to Mossdeep Space Center itself as Professor Cozmo and the scientists there are looking at a meteorite coming down and apparently changing course (hint: it's not a normal meteorite. In fact, it's an alien pokemon) and them worrying that it'll cause an impact somewhere.

Pokemon games should do a lot more of these postgames and sidequests and whatnot. And one reason why Hoenn is my one of my favourite regions (other than, y'know, nostalgia) is because of the sheer amount of side quests that's around that you could do really before or after beating the Elite Four. There's the Trick House, there are the Contests, there's the whole Regi puzzle thing, there's Shoal Cave, there's New Mauville, there's the Abandoned Ship, the Safari Zone... the Desert and Granite Cave are optional now... and really, all the waterways from Petalburg to Dewford to Slateport to Pacifidlog to Sootopolis are really just optional routes you can explore and beat up swimmers. And that's not mentioning the new content like the Delta Episode and Mirage Spots. There's a fair amount of stuff to do in Hoenn, and while I'm probably not going to Catch 'Em All like I do in Pokemon Y, I'm sure as hell going to do all these sidequests. In good time, though.