Let's Play Pokemon Sword: Crown Tundra, Part 5: Bird Hunt

Okay, this one is going to be a bit shorter mostly beccause I took a pretty long time doing the bird hunt. It was pretty fun, though! Zapdos, turns out, was very much the easiest out of the three to catch. I sort of did a back and forth between the two of them. 

Thanks to the way that the camera functions in some of the Crown Tundra areas it's definitely more than a bit hard to hunt down Articuno. And unlike Zapdos, who just runs around a flat field, Articuno flies around a much larger area and it clearly doesn't care that I can't catch up to it when it flies over ravines and mountains and whatnot. 

And thank goodness for the save button, because after running across the Crown Tundra and slamming my bike to who knows how many Abomasnows, I finally meet Articuno. And then... he does an absolutely unexpected kage bunshin little minigame! Articuno splits up into three and spins around really fast, and I have to guess which one of the three moving birds is actually the real one. Or, y'know, just guess. Again... thank goodness for the saving! If I pick the wrong one, the real Articuno just flies off. If I pick the right one... Articuno also flies off! Only to teleport right behind me. That is so cool. 

The battle against Articuno is also extra hard because it's in the hail, which means that I only have a finite number of turns to try and capture Articuno. Truly, in addition to having the minigame and the hail, Galarian Articuno's sobriquet of the 'cruel Pokemon' makes a whole lot more sense. There's even a bit where Galarian Articuno has the move Psycho Cut, which transfers the paralysis from my Zapdos's thunder wave to whoever my next Pokemon is! That truly caught me off-guard. 

Also, because I was a moron, I went into the Articuno chase and saved right before the shadow clone minigame, and didn't realize that I only had like six Ultra Balls, so I handicapped myself even more. 

Still, Galarian Articuno is pretty damn cool. Its special move is the Freezing Glare, where its eyes and the tips of its wings glow light blue like Kanto Articuno, and we get this gloriously over-the-top anime Cyclops eye beam sequence with glowing twinkling eyes and one of the best-looking beam animations in this game. This glare is Psychic-type, but it might cause the target to be frozen, which is neat. 

Returning to Peony and reporting in my findings, I do like how Peony notes that these aren't exactly the 'Zapdos' or 'Articuno' he had in mind, since they're the wrong typings (ha!) but there are qualities in them that make them 'well, it's Articuno enough, I suppose, even though it has a dodgy mask'. Okay!

I had horrible luck with Moltres, so I decided to do a little exploration around the Crown Tundra for a bit. I finally realized that the Reins of Unity is a key item in my inventory, and that's what I used to separate Calyrex from Spectrier. Mostly because... I really do like Spectrier as a standalone Pokemon. Again, at this point I'm basically just rotating an entire box's worth of Pokemon I like in and out while also getting the fossils and pseudo-legendaries to evolve and fill up Pokedex entries. 

It's the Ballimere lake that I haven't explored the most. They've got Dratini in the moat!

...and probably one of my favourite jokes ever, I attempted to shake the giant Dyna Hill Tree. I thought I was going to get a message like 'bring all three legendary birds here' or something, but it's just that the tree refuses to budge until I do it like seven or eight times... and then surprise Gigantamax battle! ...against a big tough Greedent! That was actually kinda funny, good job, Nintendo! This is a fun Easter Egg. I don't like Greedent, but the fact that they really committed to making this fat squirrel into a joke is commendable. 

And then there is the Moltres hunt in the Isle of Armor. And let's just say... Moltres is a shit to hunt down. He just flies so fast, jukes over rivers and cliffsides so quickly, and I keep running into Drednaws and Bouffalants. It took me quite a while to chase him down. Like, two or three hours of me just trying to trail behind him before realizing that he has a set pattern, so I just parked my ass in the bridge where the Diglett guy hangs out, and waited with bated breath. 

Galarian Moltres is Dark/Flying and is perhaps the most outwardly least different from its original counterpart compared to Articuno and Zapdos. It's like, just a change in colours and a slightly tweaked art style, right? But man, Galarian Moltres's best feature is by far its face! The beak and the eyes are just contorted into this delightful asshole expression, and combine that with the black-and-red flames, as well as the split tail... I've always of the opinion that the video games' 3D model for Moltres is probably one of the few that could've used a revision between generations, too, but man, Galarian Moltres just looks so damn good. He trule looks like a Dark-type without trying too hard (not like my boy Yveltal) and I appreciate that. Peony still thinks he 'looks more like those punks from Spikemuth'. 

Apparently all the flames on Galarian Moltres is like an anime-esque representation of a 'flame-like aura'. It's some JoJo's Bizarre Adventure nonsense, and... I think it's probably the one that makes the least sense compared to Zapdos (whose muscles are so strong it creates the impression of lightning) or Articuno (psychic type attack that 'freeze' the enemy in place) but at the same time Galarian Moltres looks so damn good. I feel like its signature move, Fiery Wrath (a Dark-type move with a chance to flinch) has a pretty great animation but... is kinda disappointing in damage and effect? Especially compared to Zapdos, Articuno and Regieleki?

And with that, I've completed the Calyrex adventure, the Birds adventure and the Golems adventure. Peony's Adven-tour is over, and he gives this long speech about the tour and the feeling that he's forgotten something. Apparently he forgot Nia! Nia shows up and we get this scene where Nia finally wants and deigns to follow Peony's tour, Peony lets it slip that he 'made up' things, and proceeds to be kind of clingy and pushy to Nia with a bright gold version of the expedition outfit. Nia runs back to the Max Lair, with Peony right after her. We then get a The End scene. Ooookay, that wasn't the conclusion I expected, but on the other hand it's hard to really say that I care about Nia at all? She comes off as being a bit too rude to me, but on the other hand it's mostly just played for laughs 

There's a little twinkle on the floor, though, and it's the "Legendary Clue?" which leads to... an Ultra Wormhole? Above the Max Lair? Hell yes!

Okay, this I did not expect, because I thought that all we're getting is the Calyrex stuff and maybe some padding with the Regis and the bird trio until the tournament stuff, but turns out we still have a bit more story to go through!

There's a bit of a commotion in the Max Lair when I go to confront Peony about the clue (he's clueless about it). A bunch of the generic NPCs run out of the max lair, including that asshole gentleman in a suit who I associate the most with terrible A.I. decisions, and apparently there are creatures that don't look like Pokemon, but they are attacking! Ultra Beasts, here we go! Peony announces the name of the next adventure as "they came from ultra beyond", and... y'know what? I'm unreasonably excited for this. I know we just had Ultra Beasts one generation ago, but I really, really like them. So we're going to go beast-hunting next episode!

Peony also offers a rematch, and he has bonus dialogue talking about the three original Kanto birds -- I've only caught Zapdos, though. He sort of refers to the Galarian birds as the 'impostor' birds, which really gets me even more curious on just how the Galarian versions relate to the original. Peony's team is fully Steel-types, although at this point in time my Galarian Zapdos can sweep nearly his entire team with Thunderous Kicks. He's got Aggron, Scizor, Perrserker and Copperajah, plus a Bronzong I had to pull out my SHINY Drifblim to beat up. Did I mention to you guys that I got a SHINY Drifblim? Because I do and I'm still over the moon about that. Anyway, between the shiny and the Ultra Beasts, I guess they found a way to make me voluntarily do Max Lair Adventures after all. 

Nia, by the way, basically shows up with a tip going "hey, I know where to find Tornadus" or whatever, 

A bit of a shorter segment, because after this I sort of flew off to Wyndon to farm for gold. Tips for any one of you who need a lot of money to buy the most important thing in this game -- clothes -- get a Gigantamax Meowth and feed it candies and just spam G-Max Gold Rush. The Meowth will die to anything, because it's a Meowth, but then sweep the rest of the stadium challengers' team with something stronger. I made so much money in probably a third of the time that I would've otherwise done so with a regular team. 

Random Notes:

• I sort of tried to bring a lot of the Pokemon in my box out just to see them walk and see if there's any fun easter eggs like Suicune's whole 'walk on water' thing. Turns out Uxie is tiny. I've never realized how tiny he is, he's like a little fetus. 
  
• The animations for a lot of the moves in this expansion are pretty top-notch. Considering how utterly unimpressed I was with every single new move in Isle of Armor (except Giga-Cinderace and maybe water form Urshifu), it's great to see they put so much effort here. The Galarian birds, Calyrex, Spectrier, Regidrago... I googled Glastrier's signature move and what a badass ice horse he was, too!
  
• I really still think that if they weren't going to do dual-type moves, they could've had all three Galarian legendaries have signature moves that are more aligned to Galarian Articuno, which had the 'Frozen' effect attached to its signature move. Moltres could've burnt, and Zapdos could've paralyzed. Small complaint, though.  
• The Golden Expedition outfit actually has some pretty cool reflective effects on the overworld. I like how my character looks with clothing cobbled mostly from the new DLC offerings in the boutiques, but that's a nice bit of touch.
• In the Max Lair, I've finally realized that there is a dynite ore shop. That guy sells ability capsules!