Let's Play Pokemon Sword: Crown Tundra, Part 3: The Lonely King

Well, this got delayed juuuust a bit. Real life got in the way and I simply didn't have the time to play Pokemon, and I wanted to at least progress through a good chunk of Crown Tundra's story! So yeah, it took quite a while before I was able to get through the Crown Tundra's story mode, although I did do a fair bit of exploration through the Crown Tundra here and there, catching Pokemon and evolving them to build up my Pokedex... including Pokemon from the base Sword/Shield Galar area, because I've been really slacking in completing the original Galar dex and I kinda need it for the 1/100 shiny odds Shiny Charm. For the most part what I'm missing the most are trade evolutions (which I need to get a friend to do, since I never actually did it in when I had the online pass) and pseudo-legendary middle evolutions and whatnot. Oh well. 

Meanwhile, back to the story of the Crown Tundra! We need to get a bunch of plot devices, and the way we're going to do it is by talking to the unnamed mayor of Freezington. I do like this little scene, where the mayor gets super-duper invigorated at bringing back the traditions of his village... and promptly utterly fails to create the Reins of Unity. And, of course, it's Peony that randomly shows up, has no idea what's going on, but apparently he's great at making cords and sewing, combining the lock of hair and the flower petal. We get the revelation that apparently he sews his rebellious daughter's clothes and... yeah, again, he's kind of embarrassing as a dad but you can't help but really feel sorry for him. He just wants to be the bestest, most energetic dad ever to his kid! I also kinda feel bad for the mayor, where his attempt to revitalize the traditions of his failure ended in utter failure, but at least I don't actually know the mayor as a character. 

Calyrex (who, of course, immediately takes over Peony, the bastard) tells me to go up to the Crown Shrine, his former castle, and notes that his steed Spectrier has made its home there. And the game actually keeps it utterly ambiguous -- Calyrex assumes that Spectrier is disloyal and is doing so out of spite, but we don't actually really learn whether Spectrier is actually doing it out of disrespect to Calyrex, or if there's some sort of nostalgia or longing for Calyrex. After all, Calyrex himself admits that during his hundreds (?) of years of powerlessness, he's never returned there once. 

I haven't actually explored the entirety of the Snowslide Slope, or, more importantly, the network of caves known as the 'Tunnel to the Top'. A mouthful of a name, and it's filled with Carbinks, Snorunts, Bagons, and... ZUBAT ZUBAT ZUBAT ZUBAT.

Unfortunately, the Zubats are nowhere as populous or annoying as I really wished they'd be. Like, jeez. I am actually one of the few people in the world who really like Zubat, and I'm kind of sad that they didn't actually go all the way and cash in on Zubat's reputation as annoying and have them either be numerous, or just divebomb you aggressively like the Araquanids and Tyrogues. Instead, Zubat just... exists, and I did really wish that they went a bit more with it, you know? NOT ENOUGH ZOOBAT

Let's just say that the Tunnel to the Top is... it really disoriented me. There's a lot of levels, side tunnels, openings that lead to small dead-end clearings, and even a little snowy side-path whose only purpose seems to bring me face-to-face with a wild Salamence (yay). Deinos and Hydreigons are also a rare spawn here, too, which is neat. I spent quite a bit of time in the Tunnel to the Top, and I do like it. Again, it's just a bit repetitive, but on the other hand I did complain about how much the base Galar game's very straightforward areas were terrible game design, so having me really get to explore this tunnel is pretty fun. 

The actual pathway to the summit really does give me some nice Skyrim vibes, what with the ancient staircases and whatnot, and at one particular point is just this clearing with dead trees filled with nothing but Frosmoths, Snoms and the odd Altaria or two. Have I stumbled upon the elusive breeding grounds of the Frosmoths? This is such a freaking cool little area -- again, it really doesn't mean anything to me because I already have a fully-evolved Frosmoth in my party, but on the other hand these sort of little things are the parts of these open-world areas that I will really remember. 

The Crown Summit itself has a nice model, a huge abandoned castle, even if it's technically just two rooms with no wild encounters. There's also a giant dead tree at the center of the courtyard, and Calyrex is already there. Calyrex gives a bit of a monologue and motivation exposition about Spectrier and whatnot, and he basically wants to prove his strength. After putting the Shaderoot Carrot on a little basket on the stable, we get the majestic full-pan of Spectrier and what a cool looking horse, huh? The asymmetric head, the detached ghostly hooves, the hair... again, it's not like the most groundbreaking legendary Pokemon design ever, but so many recent legendaries (including Zacian and Zamazenta from this very game!) I felt went just a bit over-the-top at trying to fit in so many details. Spectrier and its opposite number Glastrier actually do a decent job at actually having a lot of details, but none of it clutter up the sleek design of either a nightmare ghost horse or a haunting icicle horse. 

And then we get a cutscene! Calyrex tames Spectrier by using the reins in some fun Breath of the Wild style horse-taming sequence, and even Peony is impressed as he goes :O after awakening for the first time since this whole Calyrex debacle began. And now we know why Calyrex's legs are so dang long, he needs it to ride his horse friend! Calyrex then gains his... 'true' form? He gets a cape and he rides Spectrier, and I'm going to assume that this is a White/Black Kyurem or Light/Dark Necrozma style of Pokemon fusion. This one is a nice little variant on the fusion concept, though, and I actually do like it. 

Obviously, at this point Calyrex believes in me and is thankful that I'm the only one that believes in him, so he will deign to follow me if I can catch him at his full power. Sure! I do like the little interaction with Peony, who's just confused about noggins and whatnot before Calyrex uses him to talk one last time and then psychic-puppeteers the poor dude back to the village. Honestly, the rather black comedy of Calyrex's constant possession of the clueless Peony is kind of one of the neater parts of this story. 

The battle of Calyrex takes place beneath the giant tree, and it's a pretty cool sequence. The music here, too, is an absolute banger. Calyrex fights me while mounted on Spectrier, and their ability is "As One", which means that... Calyrex, in this Shadow-Rider form, has two abilities! Unfortunately, one of them is the rather underwhelming Unnerve, but then we wouldn't want some silly Mega Rayquaza shenanigans, do we? Calyrex is at level 80, whereas my team are all around 60-70's. Calyrex one-shot kills my Altaria with a Psychic, and turns out that his second (third?) ability is Grim Neigh. Which is like Moxie, but for Special Attack; something that I see get brought up a lot in fan games or fan concepts. We finally have it! 

...and my Cursola one-shots the big bad scary king of horses and harvests with a single Shadow Ball. That's a strong ghost coral. 

Calyrex doesn't disappear like old-school legendary Pokemon, though, but is merely 'testing' me. Okay, sure. My second try involves me actually doing the smart thing and stocking up on Ultra Balls and Timer Balls (I had like, maybe 10 because of my attempt to catch that crab bastard Metagross) because nothing in the original Sword/Shield or Isle of Armor had been really all that hard to catch. And Calyrex? He's... I wouldn't say he's super-duper frustrating, but it's been a while since I felt like I've gotten a challenge like this! 

The fact that I am kind of crippling my team by having half of my team weak to Ghost-type attacks (Runerigus, Cursola and G-Slowbro) is probably also not the smartest thing for me to do, but at this point I'm kind of committed to making this team work. It took a while, and I actually do really like the animation for Shadow Rider Calyrex's signature Astral Barrage attack. Ultimately I manage to catch this dude after two retries with a Timer Ball. A fun, fun little challenge; it's been a long while since I've actually felt the pressure in catching a legendary Pokemon. I feel like since XY so many Legendaries have been remarkably easy and anticlimactic to catch, either by having them just follow you immediately, or having such a high catch rate that it was near-guaranteed. 

So yeah, I've captured Calyrex in what the Pokedex calls the Shadow Rider form, and he's Psychic/Ghost. I'm sure there's like, an item or a shrine somewhere to split him into his two component parts, but for now I'm happy having Calyrex just gallop behind me in the overworld. 

But that's the first part of Peony's Adven-Tour done! Peony calls me up after my Calyrex encounter, and then I report back to him and show him Calyrex and he's all surprised that the Legendary Pokemon actually exists, in a setting where Legendary Pokemon always exist. Sure! Peony doesn't remember jack-all about Calyrex, although he thinks that it looks familiar. 

And... and that's it for the 'main' Calyrex story, because I'm pretty sure that part two and part three of the Adven-Tour will just mainly involve me hunting legendaries and solving puzzles. 

First up... the giant of metal, Registeel, with his temple in the Giant's Foot. Apparently I was an absolute moron who didn't get what everyone has been calling the easiest clue of the three Regis. I jingled my bicycle bell, I even brought out a freaking Bronzong, but turns out that the way to unlock him is to whistle. WHOOPS. The ancients didn't have bicycles when they sealed the golems, after all! There's a very, very simple light-up-the-dots puzzle on the ground before the little Wakanda-forever golem activates and allows you to summon Registeel. Not much to say here, it sure is a legendary battle. I've caught Registeel a fair amount of times in the past, mostly because I've played through multiple copies of Hoenn, and he's always the one that gives me the most trouble. Generation VIII proves to be no exception because Registeel is, how shall we say, a bit of a shit to catch. Note to self, I need to bring someone with Sleep Powder or Thunder Wave for the next half-dozen legendaries I will find in the wild. 

I used to say that he's my least favourite of the three Regis, but now... I dunno, I have developed a neat amount of love for the utterly neat looking shape of the dome-head, and those little sausage fingers. Plus, as this game shows, seeing Registeel's little stumpy legs try to run is... it's funny. 

Next up is Regice, whose temple I passed before while on the way climbing up the mountain to reach Calyrex's castle. Nice touch of them leaving thematic TR's at the front of each temple! I got lost again in the Zubat cave, that was not very fun. I also already read the puzzle to Regice's temple, too, but I didn't bother to do it before since I was focusing on finishing the Calyrex story. It's basically to bring a Pokemon that is a 'living crystal made out of snow'. That was what I thought I needed to do with Bronzong and Registeel, and Nintendo thought the same! I guess I still have that old-school WTF-ery involving Wailord/Relicanth back from the Hoenn games. Obviously this temple needs me to capture a Cryogonal and have it walk with me. And if you've been following these text let's plays, I went through hell trying to catch one of these dumb floating snowflakes, so at least the Cryogonal in my box is going to be useful for something. 

I'm also slowly swapping out my Crown Tundra team with the legendaries I capture, with Registeel and Calyrex doing most of the brunt in fighting Regice. Regice has always been nice to me over the years, and I caught him rather painlessly with a premier ball. 

Anyway, next up I'll try to get the other four Regi golems (or three, I'm going to assume I can only choose one between the split-down temple) and the birds. I hope it'll be quick!

Random Notes:

• Trying something different with the pictures on this page; I'm using TCG cards instead of just using the same-old-same-old Sugimori artwork. 
• It's a small thing, but SUICUNE RUNS ON WATER when it follows you. Such a small thing, but I love it so. 
• 
  I don't want to be the dick that goes 'hurr durr the old games are better', but comparing the Regi puzzle to the ones in the Hoenn games... I wished we had at least one or two extra steps in getting to the golems, you know? An extra temple to first 'activate' the individual temples, or something? Or simply having a bit of a weirder puzzle inside the temple itself? It's no "First comes Wailord last comes Relicanth" levels of weirdness, that's for sure. 
• I really, really love the Avaluggs just chilling in the ocean. That might actually turn Avalugg up a couple of notches in just how cool they are compared to how I basically went "yep, forgettable" back in Generation VI. Seeing them just actually be flat icebergs in the frigid ocean actually just made them look extra cool.
  
• I'm actually almost done with collecting the footprints for the Iron Will Pokemon, which I think is Cobalion. The musketeers are probably one of the legendary Pokemon I'm the most indifferent towards (they're marginally better than the Sinnoh pixies and the storm kami trio) so it's not like I'm like super-duper excited to get them... but I do appreciate just how they are integrated here. 
• In addition to the nice mechanic that a lot of the footprints are (logically) clustered together, the footprints are also apparently random. It's a smart move by the developers because this is going to get rid of one of the biggest problems that the Alolan Diglett thing ended up causing, which is "which one did I miss and why can't I find it?"
• I could bring out Lulu the Butterfree (imported from Let's Go Pikachu!) for my Sleep Powder user, but I am going to try and use all Crown Tundra Pokemon, so I'm going to take my old-school Zapdos from the Max Raid and teach him Thunder Wave for my paralyzer. 
• Other random returning Pokemon that I'm not sure I've mentioned before include Spheal and Tirtouga, both of whom can show up on the shores or in the ocean, which is pretty cool! Magmar and Electabuzz also show up in raid battles, although I haven't been in the mood to do either one of them. In addition to the psuedo-legendaries, Lucario also shows up in one of the seaside caves. I am mostly neutral about ol' aura-boy, but I know a lot of people's going to be excited about him.
• Looking at Mimikyu, Copperajah, Snom, Dragapult, Morpeko and Stonjurner, there's actually a neat and concerted effort of making those 1% spawns from the original Sword and Shield more accessible for anyone who bought the DLC. Neat!