Let's Play Pokemon Sword: Crown Tundra, Part 2: Gods Need Prayers

I'm a bit slow with this, huh? Oh well. I am playing the game at my own pace, and I'm certainly not in a hurry to rush and blitz through the whole story in under 4 hours or whatever. Sometimes I really just love to just wander around and relax, you know?

Anyway, after talking to Peony and going back to Freezington, I get directed to a bunch of heavy, unsubtle clues about Calyrex, the weirdo star legendary of the expansion. He's known as the King of Bountiful Harvests, and apparently his legends are a Mothman-style tourist attraction for the Crown Tundra. The mayor gives me a free shirt and shows me the statue of a very bizarre-looking horse... it's just literally a real-ass horse, not a Ponyta or a Rapidash or a Mudsdale or a Mudbray. Just a real-ass horse with real-ass eyes.

Speaking of which, I absolutely know nothing about the creature that the statue is based on, so I really thought nothing of it. 

We get a pretty little cinematic showcase of some of the nice views in the Crown Tundra... and maybe it's because I'm such a sucker for fantasy-themed dungeons or whatever, but the sights of the ruins for the Regis or the giant Yggdrassil tree is just so, so much cooler than 'look at this tropical island' vibe of the Isle of Armor. Not dunking on the Isle of Armor here, because I did enjoy that expansion, but I like this so much more. 

The next story beat has Peony basically shack up in the empty Inn I entered before, and he appoints me the expedition chief of his 'adven-tour', while he's the 'hold-down-the-fort chief'. He's pretty energetic about it, and acts so over-the-top, but at the same time it's pretty clear just how disappointed he is that his actual daughter isn't doing these things with him, yeah? I actually do feel bad about him. 

Just like the Isle of Armor, Peony also gives me the expedition uniform. Which is exactly like him, and is certainly some neat winter-themed clothes that makes my character look like he's not freezing his butt off in the cold like Platinum!Dawn. But I don't like the frumpy look of the expedition clothing, and it certainly doesn't look as cool as the dojo outfits from Mustard. If you can't look stylish while hunting down legendary Pokemon, what's the point? Also I can change the colour of the armband, which is like, such a miniscule and not entirely necessary little bit of customization. 

Peony gives me three items, which are three legendary clues, and I absolutely adore these things. There are three missions, relating to Calyrex, the Regis and the Galar Birds respectively... but particularly the latter two had these glorious crayon drawings that I could totally believe someone at Nintendo called in their five-year-old kid, handed them crayons and a picture of the concept art and went "could you draw this for daddy's game?" Those are glorious. Apparently Peony even got the information from 'dedicated telly watching', and man, how can you not hate this stupidly enthusiastic dad? I mean, I kinda do get that the daughter's just exhausted of his energy, but still. 

After a random hilarious giant anime episode title about the Calyrex stuff, Peony casually gave me a Master Ball. What! I apparently used up the Master Ball I got from the base Sword storyline and I'm not sure who I used it on. Probably Eternatus? Maybe? I'm not such a huge fan of the sequence that came next, though, where it's revealed that Peony found the head of the Calyrex statue outside and used it as a pillow and plonked it on the table. After being relatively good at not being hand-hold-y, this sequence of 'hey, put the statue head on the statue' ends up giving me very heavy Sun/Moon vibes. 

What is done well, of course, is Calyrex himself. I'm still not a huge fan of the design, but like Kubfu, this weird fucker works so much better in motion as a 3D model. And while the bizarre giant bulb-tumour crown head will forever creep me out, the combination of the deer face, the utterly creepy long legs and the necklace of orbs with Zelda Triforce symbols all contribute to selling that this is an utterly bizarre forest deity spirit. The cutscene introducing him is great, too, with our character's POV focused on the statue, to slowly pan around and revealing that Calyrex is just hovering in the distance behind the statue. 

Calyrex challenges me to a battle as a "??? Lv. ???", but I can't throw a Pokeball at it. I've always liked this system where you get to fight the legendary Pokemon in a plot-mandated battle but don't have to worry about capturing him. So I have my Antivenom the Galarian Slowbro against Calyrex, and I find out that he's got Giga Drain and Heal Pulse. Two Shell Side Arm attacks from Slowbro, though, and the Calyrex falls easily. Does... does the Calyrex not have psychic-type moves? I know from promotional material that he's a Grass/Psychic creature. Odd. 

Calyrex's entire dialogue is just variations of 'crown crown crooown carawn rown', and my character can't speak in poke-speech. It's not until Peony comes, makes a remark at Calyrex's "massive noggin", and we get an utterly creepy yet hilarious sequence where Calyrex takes over Peony's body and uses him as a mouthpiece, complete with Peony going into a rigid pose and his hat floating backwards. It's not something new -- even a Tentacruel did it at one point in the anime -- but it's certainly shocking to see a Pokemon actually have dialogue in the video games! I don't think... I may be mistaken, but I'm almost 99% sure no other legendary Pokemon have done this before, right? Like straight-up speak telepathically to the character? 

Calyrex just gives a long, long speech that feels like it's lifted straight from a D&D NPC, and that's certainly not a slight at the writing. Calyrex, as it turns out, is the ancient Pokemon king of the region, and the humans had given him loyalty and respect, but as humans started to forget about him and not give him offerings, Calyrex began to lose his powers more and more until my character's kindness in restoring his statue has restored enough of Calyrex's strength to telepathically speak to me. There are a lot of holes to poke in the story if you want to, but I actually really approve of any part of the games that really world-builds and tries to craft something truly 'legendary' revolving around a legendary Pokemon. I feel like that's one of the things I found to be the most bored about in the Generation Four to Five era, where so many of the supposed 'legendary' Pokemon don't even have a story attached to them. 

Also can we just talk about how Calyrex just basically holds Peony hostage suspended in the air? His dialogue isn't malicious, but god dang, man, consent. 

Calyrex sends me off to talk to all the villagers, and for the most part they all think he's a fun fairy tale or a cautionary tale. Again, very melancholic. There was one villager who had the hilarious line of "if he's real, why doesn't he made my crops grow?" And poor, poor Calyrex is just so tsundere about the whole thing, clearly hurt about being basically forgotten (although not really) and his dialogue is basically "well, I know better than to count on humans to remember me, hmph!" He thanks me, flies off to find his 'royal steed', and flies off. Peony, like any anime character in his position would, just brushes it off as sleepwalking. 

After going through the Giant's Bed area (the location in the minimap does look vaguely like a horizontal giant figure sleeping) I just sort of had fun wandering around. Araquanids are vicious, terrifying and very, very willing to hunt you down, as I found out. As with the Isle of Armor, I am happy that it's not all just 'new' Pokemon (or, well, old-and-reintroduced Pokemon) at this area and there's a nice mixture of Pokemon that had shown up in mainland Galar and new faces. There's an interesting focus of fossil Pokemon showing up a fair bit, huh? I've so far seen Amaura a lot, but also Aerodactyl, Omanyte and Lileep? 

Registeel's nice-looking temple is in the Giant's Foot area, and there's a fun clue about a noise or a ringing sound or something or other. Remembering the old Hoenn ways to break the Regis' seals, I know it's going to be something daft. My bicycle bell does nothing (although the ancients that sealed Registeel wouldn't have bicycles, okay, fair point) and there was a Bronzong hovering nearby that I thought was a clue. Dipping in and out of my box to bring out a Bronzong to walk with me, I tried talking to it, but turns out a Bronzong's bell isn't what I need. Oh well, Calyrex first, Registeel later. 

There's also a fun little area called the Old Cemetery with a plaque talking about how the King had tamed some hideous monster that ravaged the land, which is actually the first indication to me that there might be something new that I never saw in the trailers. And, again, despite everything, I actually remained blissfully unspoiled about anything new in the Crown Tundra beyond Calyrex and the two new Regis. 

The plot directs me to talk to the unnamed Mayor of Freezington, who's looking at a bunch of barren fields. After some dialogue I fly back to Freezington to talk to him, and apparently he never realized that the statue was supposed to have a crown, and the 'exaggerated' artwork they used to make the Freezington shirt is actually accurate. The mayor then leads me to his own small bookshelf with five books, and I love these sort of exposition sequences in old-school games via books. 

Basically, what I find from the five books is that the King of Bountiful Harvests has a proud steed, which he tamed with a plot device called the 'Reins of Unity', which is created by humans and Calyrex together. There's another book about crops and planting carrots (the highlighted words tell me this is important), and two hilarious books about the Snow Samba and tourism initiatives. 

The plot-relevant book, at least, marks the steed as an Ice and Ghost-type Pokemon that the King had fought and tamed in the past, which got me excited because none of the horse Pokemon I've known and seen are Ice/Ghost, and the only one of two types that I can think of is Froslass, who probably wouldn't make for a good steed. But at the same time, apparently records are so muddled between whether the King had an ice-type steed who liked to eat white Iceroot Carrots or a ghost-type who liked to eat black Shaderoot Carrots... and it took a while after this to realize that they're basically doing a Schrödinger's Choice thing here. The information is so muddled and it's basically giving the player a choice on which steed is 'canon' for their copy of Sword/Shield. That's cool. 

So basically I have to get carrot seeds, from that one strange vendor who offered to exchange carrots for dynite ore. And here I thought this was just some annoying berry mini-game or something! After a couple of very on-the-nose monologues by Calyrex (and the possessed peony), a psychic vision, and the cute grandma sitting on a box, the game drills into your head that you need to plant the carrot seeds in one of two different patches. 

What I really love, though? Calyrex's 'by the stars' utter fascination with 'the strange bag that contains the seeds of carrots'. I didn't think of it, but I guess the idea of putting seeds in a bag would look like something bizarre to a nature god, huh? 

Now I love ghost-types and I cannot lie, so I'm pretty much sure that it's going to be my choice. So I saved my game and headed off to the ice horse path just to see my two choices. I haven't been up to the Northeast part of the map to see the Snowslide Slope, and it's basically a slope filled with Wooloo, Snorunt, Beldum (!) and Druddigon. Oh, Absol's here, too. And Mimikyu, if you haven't gotten one from the base game. I know Mimikyu's one of the hardest ones to get in the original Wild Area, so...

And, man, I spent way longer than I would admit trying to catch a Beldum or a Metang. 1 remembered how utterly painful it was back in Black & White to catch one (in Beldum's original debut games, Steven just leaves one for you to take). 1.6% catch rate, baby! At least these guys don't have Take Down anymore, and have Tackle, so they don't kill themselves. 

After planting the seed in a little abandoned field, Calyrex... does a hilarious silly jig. The possessed Peony does it too, and we summon a beautiful white horse with a head, tail and legs made entirely out of ice spikes. It's pretty, if admittedly a bit simple for my tastes. I do like that the entire left side of its face is covered with ice spikes, though. That's cool! It's an ice Rapidash!. And this dude is called Glastrier, and it sure is a pretty white horse... but I love the more dark and creepy looking ghosts, so I reset the game to see the other option. 

The cutscene for the ghost option plays exactly the same, except of course I plant the seeds in the Old Graveyard. The first time I saw Spectrier I was like "oh, okay, basically what I expected". It's a jet-black horse with flowing purple mane, looking all emo and angsty. It's a D&D Nightmare, it's Skyrim's Shadowmere... basically the sort of emo-goth horse that my 90's teenager sensibilities would love. 

Also, note that I had absolutely no idea these things existed, so there was a great sense of anticipation as I went off to trigger both events. That feels very, very awesome. 

The more I see Spectrier in cutscenes, the cooler she becomes. It has got eyelashes, but only on one side of its head! The other side is just covered entirely with mane! And its hooves are disconnected from its legs, because it's a ghost horse!

This is such a cool choice. Sure, the fact that I had no idea this was in the game adds so much, but the fact that both Glastrier and Spectrier are actually pretty awesome designs (and they didn't go over the top either, which is definitely appreciated) actually makes this a hard choice, unlike the nigh-identical Urshifu forms that I honestly didn't give a rat's ass about. 

Spectrier can't sense that I'm holding the carrot, despite being summoned by the scent of it, which... yeah, plot convenience. But it's gone off to attack the village and Calyrex panics, buggering off to the village. It's pretty cool, to see this spectral, deadly-looking monster horse in the middle of the town, and all the villagers (except for Spheal Grandma, bless her soul) panicking. Even Calyrex has no idea what to do, so it's up to me, main character fellow, to fight Spectrier. It's another 'fight and knock it out' sequence, and my beautiful Cursola just two-shot-murders the ghost horse. Spectrier... doesn't have a ghost type move to use against Cursola, and just tries to use Thrash? Or maybe it just gets confused about Galarian typings? I know I do sometimes.

Also, I haven't mentioned it before, but Crown Tundra has some absolute bangers with the theme songs. Calyrex and Spectrier's battle themes are both amazing, and Peony's battle theme from his first encounter is pretty great to.

Spectrier gallops towards a grandma after her defeat, but Calyrex uses his powers to send Spectrier galloping off elsewhere. From where I battled Spectrier, I loot a lock of his black hair, which is pretty obvious what's going to come next. We're going to have to craft the Reins of Unity. A quick talk to Calyrex and he tries his best to make his special flower bloom, but all his power could manage is a radiant petal. It's at this point that Calyrex realizes that maybe the humans forgetting him isn't all the humans' fault, they had the traditions passed down but there's literally no way for them to realize that Calyrex is actually real. That's a nice story. 

Oh, and saving the grandma finally allows her to let me take Fwoofy the Cosmog with me! Clearly, Fwoofy is the wrong name. All Cosmogs must be named Nebby, and Nebby's habitat is in a bag. I mean, a box. 

This is where we will leave off today because the post has gotten a bit long, but I am enjoying myself a lot more. Granted, a good chunk of why I liked this so much is just how awesome the Glastrier/Spectrier reveal was, but I am having a good ol' time here. I did spend a good chunk of time re-exploring the areas around Giant's Foot and the Snowslide Slope, although I haven't ventured too far yet. See you guys in the next one!

Random Notes:

• Calyrex's pupils becoming smaller when he's surprised adds just so much character to the cutscenes that involve what's otherwise a pretty static 3D model. 
• Until the name of the item is identified as a 'wooden crown', the part of Calyrex's statue on Peony's table really looks like it's made out of rock, yeah? 
• You can answer 'Snow Samba' to Calyrex's request for clues and he just looks so perplexed at that. The fact that Calyrex actually does a little jig later in the story is just so perfect. 
  
• I did three more Max Raid battles since the first part of this let's play I wrote -- once for a Tapu Bulu, and twice to get a Zapdos. Playing alone it kinda really depends on RNG whether your teammates are smart enough to swap out their injured Pokemon when offered the chance to, huh?
• I actually really like the idea of rental Pokemon even more, which keeps me from just pulling my high-leveled original teams from the box and just using the same ten Pokemon over and over again in the lair. 
• I'm not sure if the catch-rate for the legendaries are 100%? Feels odd, because every single one I encountered had the legendary be captured instantly. I know it was frustrating that the G-Max battles had you randomly encounter one, but can fail after putting a lot of effort fighting them, so maybe they scaled down the difficulty in catching them? 
  
• A small nitpicking detail, but I kinda wish that the little grove where Calyrex and the possessed Peony is hanging out is a bit more secluded, Pokemon Colosseum style. 
• Magikarps now jump very high into the air in the overworld. I'm pretty sure they did not do that in the base game. Magikarp Jump reference, maybe? 
• Speaking of random new items, I found 'Room Service', which is... uh... a room service tray? And it's a gimmicky item for Trick Room? Iiiiinteresting. I never care for these sort of items, and I wager that Choice Bands and Life Orbs and Leftovers and the like are going to always be better in competitive, but I love that these dumb held items exist.
• I have no idea where all my money went, what the heck, at this point I really need to level up Gigantamax Meowth for money farming Oh, clothes shopping. One of the surprisingly most awesome parts of the Isle of Armor is the addition of so many random clothing pieces all over Galar. 
• I love the animation of Peony's hat floating behind his bag when Calyrex takes him over.