Let's Play Pokemon Sword, Part 6: Where the Fair Folk Dwell

Last we left off, it's sneaky fair folk time, as I enter the Glimwood Tangle, which is easily one of the most atmospheric and neat areas ever in Pokemon. It just feels so genuinely unique and whimsical, and honestly, exactly what I think of whenever you say "Fairy" to me in either Pokemon or D&D-style settings. Everything is pretty and bright and psychedelic, and yet there's sort of a layer of unease to it, some sense that not all the fairies are benign. All of the neat glowing giant mushrooms, the music, the dark, shadowy parts of the little woods...

And it's just such a shame that the Tangle is so short. That's probably one of the biggest complaint I have about a lot of the routes in this game in particular, a trend we've sort of had since Kalos -- the routes are so short, and just when you start getting to the groove of the area, it's done and you've went into all of the nooks and crannies possible. It's something that I felt was a thing in this game, but it wasn't so noticeable with all the story stuff and cutscenes happening in the early game. It feels that since, oh, Hammerlocke, I guess, we've suddenly hit the accelerator and it's a rapid "go go go GO to the next gym and move on!"

It's even got a pretty spectacular selection of Pokemon to choose from. Impidimps are obviously the star Pokemon of the Glimwood Tangle, scampering aroud mushrooms and hiding behind the pink ones, which is so neat! Again, they look so much better in motion, even if I'm still not the biggest fan of the noodle arms. Their evolved form, Morgrem, also shows up here, and it's an interesting direction to take the imp in. It's basically a goblin, but one with... prehensile hair? I caught one, and its signature move, False Surrender, is referred to in the dex entry as Morgrem feigning defeat only to stab someone with their hair-sword. That's so weird but cool but also weird. I like finding out about these new Pokemon!

Phantump and Shiinotic are absolutely great fits for the area, and we get Swirlix to round out some fairy presence. Interestingly, Hattrem is also around, and I keep forgetting that it's Psychic and not Fairy. Playing in to the spooky forest theme, one of the new encounters is... Sinistea! Which is Polteageist's pre-evolved form, I assume? It's a cup with a face on it, but as the Pokedex tells us, turns out that it's the purple goop-tea with the spiral marking that's the true form, something that is obvious from the creature's animations, but definitely something that people who only see the still images would miss.

Also, at this point, my Corvisquire evolves into Corviknight! Steel/Flying at last, and it's right at about the point that I am about to challenge a Fairy gym, too. I'm surprised at how much I've enjoyed the Rookidee line -- I've never been enamoured with regional birds, aand have never used one in my party this long outside of Nuzlockes.

Anyway, Glimwood Tangle is neat. I love everything about it, and I love everything about the next town, Ballonlea, which is like something straight out of World of Warcraft or something, with giant mushrooms of all colours surrounding the large houses, and I absolutely love the random Morelull, Inkay and Chinchou (what why ????) floating around. I get Morelull and things like Hatenna and even Inkay, they're whimsical Pokemon that would fit right at home in a fairytale city like this, but Chinchou? Chinchou's an anglerfish. And yet there's honestly such a logic to having Chinchou show up in this city that's full of glowing lights.

Honestly, it's criminal how tiny the city is. It's only got, what, three houses? The NPC's here are far more interesting than anyone in Stow-on-Side or Circhester, though. There's this one random girl staring at a wall who's angry at me for interrupting her conversation. There's an Eviolite-using trainer. There's this artist who is angry because he's basically a furry and he is so angry that something as mundane as 'different species entirely' is going to stop him from pursuing his dreams. He demands I change to a 'fiery outfit' to make him feel like a Pokemon, and that came out like all sorts of wrong.

Most interestingly, there's an old dude who was the intended recepient of the love letter from the little girl in Hammerlocke. Which I thought was going to veer into territory that I am uncomfortable with... but turns out that ol' Frank is thanking me for delivering a letter from his dearest friend, who he had a huge, huge fight with before moving to Ballonlea, and that she was super-duper sick at the time and...

...and, well, the girl's a g-g-g-ghost! I got a Choice Scarf from the old man, and a brief detour to Hammerlocke city to investigate the dead girl ghost turns out empty. The girl's gone, and in her place is a Reaper's Cloth (did a Dusknoir help her out?), and a voice whispers in my character's ear thanking me. That's a sweet if spooky little ghost story.

Anyway, gym battle time! It's Opal, a character that's made some sporadic appearances as she follows Hop's journey to despair, and... and in Generation I-IV standards she'd probably be one of the notable gym leaders, but it's surprising just how much I've gotten used to the more prominent roles that the Generation V-VII games have given the characters, because really Opal's not that well-developed. She just shows up a couple of times.

Her gym is pretty standard fair, another three-trainer battle, but with a fun, comedic mix. Apparently Opal's holding interviews to see who gets to succeed her as the gym leader of Ballonlea, and while fighting the trainers, I have to answer questions... and that's hilarious! The actual questions are perhaps a lot more memorable than the identikit trainers (who all fall to the might of my Corviknight's Steel Wing). The first one is a hilarious one, asking about Fairy type's weakness (both answers are right), and then we get one that seems to be a test on how well the player pays attention (what's the previous trainer's name?)... and then it starts going ridiculous. "What did I eat for breakfast?"

Obviously, it's omelettes, and I got that right, because what sociopath eats curry for breakfast in Poke-England? What, you think just because it's the only dish that your character can cook, everyone else eats curry?

It's the gym leader fight time, and... Opal's a pretty standard gym leader, honestly. It's the fifth gym leader, you're allowed to have like, five Pokemon or something, y'know? The only thing that makes things different is the ridiculous wacky quiz, which I did appreciate, culminating in the hilarious "how old am I?" trap question. Opal's starts off with a Galarian Weezing (who I completely forgot is part Fairy type) who quite literally can't do a thing to touch Corviknight. My Centiskorch one-shot murders her Mawile with a flame wheel, and then I go straight into dynamaxing my Corviknight to one-shot murder her Togekiss with giant steel spikes that sprout out of the ground. Opal has a gigantamax Alcremie, which is a hilarious giant cake, and that too got skewered by Corviknight's Giga Z-Move Steel Spike of Spiky Doom.

Man, all these Gigantamax forms and I still have no ide how to get my Centiskorch or Corviknight to turn into them. Is it the dynamax candies or something? Because my Centiskorch is maxxed out, but it still can't go gigantamax.

Anyway, with Opal taken out, we've got three more badges to go and Opal whisks me immediately to Hammerlocke... where Bede is just standing randomly in the streets, sort of alternating between being emo and being a stick in the mud. Y'know, he's sort of like Gladion, if we met Gladion like three times total and his character development all happened off-screen.

Anyway, Bede swears about how he's going to be useful to the Chairman and everything... only for Opal to have her eyes open and go "PINK! YOU ARE PINK! PINK PINK PINK!" Oh, yeah, because apparently my character fails her little gym leader test, but apparently Bede and his purple pink weird oversized sweater getup is exactly what Opal is looking for? The scene is over-the-top and kind of ridiculous, has absolutely jack shit in terms of build-up, but at the same time it's kinda entertaining.

I really kinda wished that Opal's got a scene or two with mentoring Hop, though, because that was a huge missed opportunity. We had her sort of see Hop in the couple of times that he's feeling down and clearly trying to do some soul searching. Wouldn't it be the perfect time for a kooky-but-well-meaning old mentor to show up and give Hop some advice? But nope, it's apparently exit stage left for both Opal and Bede for now as Bede gets shanghaied to become a gym leader. Okay then. That's... that's certainly a thing.

Speaking of abrupt plot developments, I meet up with Sonia and Leon, only to have some weird explosion or earthquake or something rock Hammerlocke. Main plot? In my Pokemon Sword & Shield game? Haha lol no just kidding, the adults will investigate it, just ignore the main plot that's happening off-screen and just go on and continue to collect badges. There are some mumbles in Sonia's dialogue about how a new Power Spot was just created or something, and it might actually lead to an itneresting story or information dump about Dynamax/Gigantamax or something but NOPE let's just continue with our stupid sports challenge or whatever.

Hey, remember how ridiculously unrealistic yet badass it is when your 10-year-old player character is able to disband a Pokemon trafficking organization or beat up eco-terrorists and stare down legendary beings on your own? Yeah, ignore all of that, and now a bunch of other characters are going to do all the interesting stuff in the background. Just shut up and do the gym challenge. I try to be positive about the seventh-gen games but man, this sequence of abrupt plot jumping around is obviously unfinished. I'm not a big fan.

Anyway, Hop tries to distract us with his new team, and he's changed his team again. Hey, wouldn't you think that it would be a decent time to have Opal show up like the two previous Hop encounters and actually have a satisfying (if obvious) end to their storyline? No? At least Hop has significantly more threatening Pokemon this time around. Trevenant and Snorlax are decent threats, Boltund is speedy, and Heatmor... he's there I guess. Oh and his starter's a Cinderace now. Like Inteleon, I'm not sure if I'm a fan of this one. His team is still criminally under-leveled, though, and it's just an exercise of one-shotting most of his party. Centiskorch murders his ghost tree, Inteleon snipe-shots both of his fire types, and my Farfetch'd continues to lob Revenge after Revenge at his big fat tubby Snorlax and also his dog.


Hop has some dialogue but at that point I didn't care because... FARFETCH'D IS EVOLVING. HOLY SHIT. It's Sirfetch'd time!

And... and it's not the leek held item, but that certainly helped! I did a bit of research after the fact because I was genuinely baffled what was the trigger for Farfetch'd's evolution... and apparently, it's... landing three critical hits in a single battle. Which I did while taking out two of Hop's Pokemon.

What. An. Insane. Evolution. Method.

I absolutely love it. It's so dumb, it's so random. And I don't care, my duck now has a giant onion lance.

Route 7 has a bunch more Pokemon. Galvantulas, Liepards, Thievuls, Toxels.... and Perrserkers. Which is the evolved form of Viking Meowth, which doesn't actually evolve into a Galarian Persian. Okay? At that point why not just make Galarian Meowth and Perrserker its own unique line? Perrserker is basically a Galarian Meowth with more accessories, which sure is interesting. It's not my thing. I do like that its claws can combine into a bigger claw. Marnie's mascot pokemon Morpeko's also on this route.

Route 8 at least requires some exploration to get through, with ladders and ruins and walls and whatnot. It's not much of an interesting route since it's so gosh-darned short, but I did get to see a bunch of interesting faces. Boldore! Bronzong! Hippowdon! Golett! Pawniard! Sorlock! Drapion! As much as I do kind of complain about the short length of these routes, I won't complain about the Pokemon selection, which are pretty varied in terms of types and appearances and it's not just "hey, let's shove a bunch of grass types into the grasslands area".

Best of all is a new Pokemon, Falinks! Which originally I thought was a segmented worm in the vein of Moldorms from 2D Zelda games... but turns out that Falinks is made up of five tiny Kirby friends, and the two giant bug-eyes are actually shields! Falinks is literally a phalanx made out of little black Kirby buddies wearing Spartan hats, and that's so ridiculous. I wouldn't think that Pokemon would make a creature like this, but it sure is a cute one.

I also meet Sandaconda here, the evolved form of Silicobra. It... it sure is a curled up snake. I guess it's supposed to be shaped like a trumpet that spits out sand or something? It's not a design I hate, but it's kind of underwhelming.

Route 8 goes straight into a short patch of snow-covered grass where gangs of Sneasel await to shiv me right in the gut. Considering how hard it was to find Sneasel in most previous generations, it's actually surprising to see them not only be numerous, but straight up charging right at your face.

I enter Manchester Circhester City, which is... it's a huge city, very pretty, but... ultimately there's not much to do here and more than any other city, I feel like the NPC's here are all very redundant. Very few of them have anything interesting to say. The exterior of this city is cute, though, with little snowmen and little snow Pokemon! Apparently there is an ice-themed Galarian version of Darumaka, which... which is a clever way to give us a snowman Pokemon without going the obvious way of just having an animated snowman. Galarian Darumaka's cute!

But even cuter is this bizarre little ice grub that just grubs along the sides of Circhester, minding their own business. They also have a butt for a face. I head back into the icy route to try and find one of my own, and sure enough, they're a pretty common encounter there! It's an Ice/Bug worm... which makes ice threads and stuff. It's adorable and I think I want to keep one on my team. Coalossal's taking a brief vacation to the box while I try to level up Snom. It's a snow worm that nom nom noms. Snom has my favourite name ever in Pokemon. Snom Snom Snom.

Out of all of the buildings in Circhester, a notable one is the Hero's Bath, which is just an open-air hot spring right smack dab in the middle of a snowy town. There's also Bob's Your Uncle, a restaurant with very interesting posters! And, no, I'm not talking about the tapestry, I'm talking about the fun Italian-restaurant style poster of Bob the mustachioed purveyor.

There's also a Detective Conan parody in one of the two giant hotel buildings, practically the only notable thing in the hotels. It's the sort of thing that would show up in every second building in the Kalos or Alola games, and I really do miss these little mini-encounters. It's basically a bumbling detective going j'accuse at three random hapless dudes when clearly it's a Skwovet that ate the berries, and we basically end up being the 'smart sidekick' that solves the case.

Oh, the Gamefreak offices is also in one of the hotels. Instead of programmers sitting in front of computers, they are just generic NPCs standing around. The game designer is represented by the tired-looking doctor model, which I think is a little "fuck you" to the executives who rushed this game out.

Anyway, it's gym time, and Hop walks out of the gym all sad because he lost to the rock gym leader Gordie. Okay. The puzzle here is... it's interesting! We're basically given one of those Itemfinders from the previous games, and I have to use it to detect pitfalls in the ground that'll send me back to the beginning of the floor. It genuinely feels like a puzzle at last, after the past couple of gyms having dud puzzles. I really wish they had gone a bit further with making the gym trainers challenging, though, because trainers with a single Sudowoodo or a single Carkol aren't even much of a roadblock at this point.

Gordie is... he's sure a big guy. I don't have much to say about him. He's got a cool outfit. His gym fight is at least kinda difficult, mostly because I ended up being kinda outmatched in types. His first Pokemon is a Barbaracle, a Pokemon I absolutely respect. It only does one thing, buff itself with Shell Smash and then spam Razor Shell, but it took out my Inteleon with a single blow before I sent in a Sirfetch'd to Brick Break the barnacle man. Shuckle is another one I respect, but Gordie's Shuckle isn't anywhere as spooky as Lucy's. Corviknight two-shots Shuckle with Steel Wings.

Gordie's third Pokemon is... uh... it's that thing from the photobooth in front of the Geoglyph, and it's... it sure has an interesting face. Stonjurner is a literally just a portion of Stonehenge with a face drawn on it. It's so dumb looking. I'm not a fan. Sirfetch'd goes full Dynamax (insert your own Bankai joke here) and wipes it out with a gigantic fucking fist that rains down from above.

Gordie's final Pokemon is a Gigantamaxed Coalossal, which looks pretty cool. It's a giant furnace! But it still dies to two of Sirfetch'd summoned giant fists. It's a cool looking boss, but ultimately Gordie's sort of just kinda there. I'm struggling to think of anything to say here, that damn Barbaracle sure took me by surprise.

Anyway, plot time, and Sonia brings me and Hop to Bob's Your Uncle, clearly the best dining place in town. Of course, while discussing the tapestry and whatnot, apparently Bob has randomly purchased a half-burnt fifth piece of the tapestry and has hung it on top of his hot food parlor. Because you need your deus ex expositions, y'know? Apparently it shows that the two kings like, sealed or buried their wolf pals or something.

Mostly, I'm tickled at the fact that I can actually completely miss the point and marvel at the drawing of Uncle Bob as opposed to going "oh my god plot", and even distract Sonia for a bit.

Anyway, Hop remembers the fight with naked-Zacian in the Weald, they speculate that it has something to do with the missing sword/shield from the tapestry and at this point the backstory of these ancient kings and their doggo-weapons is painfully obvious and maybe I would give a shit more if it actually relates to my character's adventure, y'know? Instead this is just some drawn-out backstory. You'd think that at some point between my return to Hammerlocke and meeting her at Circhester she'd at least speculate something about the Darkest Day or the heroes or something. But no, there's no sense of urgency or threat and it's just like she's doing archaeology for the sake of archaeology.

There's some inane justification to go to the Hero's Bath and have a battle with Hop. And... and, hey, Hop's gone back to the original members of his team, restoring his faith in his original buddies! I still used my Sirfetch'd to beat the fuck out of his Dubwool and Snorlax, and my Centiskorch burned down his Corviknight and my Inteleon shot his stupid bunny in the head. But it's the thought that counts! Hop also has a sea urchin Pokemon, Pincurchin, which looks like Pyukumuku and Snom had a baby. I'm not sure what typing Pincurchin is, becuase Sirfetch'd took it out with a Brick Break.

The battle with Hop is neat, but ultimately the detour to the Hero's Bath is just kinda... there? Okay, then. Onwards to Route 9, another snow-covered route and it's the one leading to the iceberg-covered seas that we see in the trailers. The grass here has Mareanie just sort of minding its own business and I caught one immediately. Considering the insanely long amount of time I spent to catch one in the Alola games... I actually have half a mind of raising Mareanie up and using it as a member of my party.

Anyway, a bunch of Team Yell dudes are 'encouraging' a Drednaw or some shit, blocking the route and harrassing that one doctor dude that gave me a bike. And, uh... okay? Team Yell is genuinely such a non-entity I can't be arsed to care. A Sirfetch'd-given punishment later and the doctor upgrades my bike, allowing me to surf! Huzzah!

And I feel that it's a nice place to stop. Next up is exploring this watery route and getting to the seventh gym.

Current party:

Snom is on the team. Permanently. I'm not sure if he's going to eventually replace Coalossal or Boltund, but right now Coalossal is a bit more useful against the ice-types.

Current B-team, including a couple dudes that I'm considering training up:


I love both Boltund and Orbeetle, but Boltund's basically a one-trick dog (I still swap him and Coalossal out now and then) while Orbeetle is just way too defensive and I suspect won't be actually good until much later. I'm still curious about Hattrem and Morgrel's final evolutions, and Morgrel's Dark/Fairy is certainly a fun typing! I also kind of want more type coverage. Mareanie's Water/Poison isn't the best, but it is a water type that I do want to use and the Poison half's going to be great against fairies. Consequently, Toxel's Poison/Electric typing is freaking cool and I want to use it, but I'm not sure if he's all that powerful. Also vaguely tempted to train up Binacle, Flapple or a Galarian Weezing, but I don't like them as much as the ones here.

Random Notes:

• Also, interestingly, the Chipped Cup that I got from Stow-on-Side didn't work to evolve my Sinistea, so, uh... I guess it evolves Sinistea's second form? Is Polteageist the second form or the third form?
• It's at this point that I realized that I have a fan that follows me from gym to gym, and she has a little Blipbug that at this point has evolved into a Dottler. Hooray!
• I think Marnie shows up in Ballonlea, but I don't remember if there was any noteworthy dialogue. 
• I forgot to mention it in my last LP segment, but one of the weirder ways to shoehorn a detail about a character is when Sonia tells my character that she "heard it announced in a stadium" about how Bede is an orphan that was given a second chance by the Chairman. What dick stadium announcer does that?
• Sonia claims a new Power Spot has appeared in Hammerlocke... except the reason the gyms are built where they are is because they already have power spots. Hammerlocke City has Raishan's gym. So... so... uh, yeah, I guess the writers just didn't proofread this part of the game. 
• Hop's dialogue after being beaten by Gordie is "it all went to pot". Uh... don't do drugs, kids? 
• The old man in the Detective Conan parody talks about how his doctor warned him to stay off of the berries. Is diabetes a thing in the Pokemon world? Do the berries cause diabetes?
• In Shield, instead of Gordie you fight Melony, who I know of thanks to all of the memes running aroud talking about how, um, 'thicc' she is. Okay.