Also, Hoenn starters show up! And they can have special abilities! I ended up foregoing the Tapu Koko (who I had to do a second run to get) just to get a Speed Boost Blaziken. I'm not sure how often the hidden abilities show up in these max adventure lair max dungeons, but I'm not going to risk that this is actually a 5% encounter or some shit.
As usual, the terrible AI does make it hard for me to progress a lot, and I got wiped out by a Tapu Koko a couple of times. I did basically sweep through an entire raid with a Relicanth, though, managing to get a regular Articuno. Generally I feel like the AI is just programmed to use whatever support moves they have first, even though it doesn't really matter (i.e. using Reflect against a special-attacking Pokemon) and they tend to always want to keep a support Pokemon in the quartet. So... yeah, sometimes it's a bit of an interesting effort trying to make sure they don't go for terrible Pokemon by taking them on my own and leaving the sort of "I have all offensive moves" pokemon for the AI mooks to take.
I also find out that I can only keep up to three legendary locations written down by the doorkeeper scientist. There's also a doctor that lets me go off on an endless max adventure to spam for Dynite Ore. No thank you to that, though I suppose anyone who wants to spam for Ability Capsules and the like would see this as a godsend.
I also did a bit more of exploring to level up everything that I can evolve in my box, and in the process I ended up with all the clues for the Cavern Pokemon, Terrakion. He's hanging out in the Lakeside Cave, and he sure is a cow. He's my favourite out of the Swords of Justice, but he's also a Pokemon I'm mostly indifferent to. That's two out of three, I suppose.
Oh, and I got a random 'Futuristic Monocle' from Nia, a.k.a. that bizarre thing that Ghetsis has, so I guess she just she just gives me random items the more max adventures I go through? Sure.
Peony's rare league card has him carrying a young, like, three-year-old Nia on his shoulders! He's basically confirmed to be the younger brother of Chairman Rose, but was a bit of a delinquent that was always compared to his shining star of his older brother, and actually became a Steel-type gym leader and a champion, but was swiftly beaten up by his brother. What an asshole, that Rose. Actually it kind of sort of explains why he dotes on his own daughter so much; he's had a rough childhood of being the unfavourite child! I like Peony more and more, actually.
The Galar Star Tournament is basically a huge tournament where you enter with an ally and fight three matches, which is pretty cool! I can pick from a selection of allies, but in my first run it's only Hop or Marnie. There's a bit of a tease when Ball Guy seems to be available to be your buddy in this run, but apparently he's not someone who battles. Boo, I say. BOO! Piers has a very delightful line of dialogue here where he refuses to be my partner because I keep dragging him into disasters. Considering the post-game of Sword/Shield... I can't blame him, actually.
The first battle is against Milo and Nessa, and... yeah, I guess I can talk a bit about the battles here, since I actually mostly did max lair battles so there's not a whole ton to write here. It's my first battle impression anyways, so. The first battle begins with Morpeko and (Galarian) Slowbro versus Golisopod and Shiftry! I don't actually think Milo and Nessa have those two specifically in their usual championship battles? Milo and Nessa also have a fair bit of banter in this fight, which I do definitely appreciate.
Poor, poor Morpeko gets absolutely wasted by First Impression, and Marnie has to send in a Scrafty. Meanwhile, my Slowbro also gets bamboozled by Fake Out. These first-turn moves, okay. The Shiftry and Golisopod then gang up and murder my poor Slowbro in the second turn with a Throat Chop and a Shadow Claw. I toss out my poor, underused Inteleon, who begins spamming Icy Wind to take out the Shiftry. The Golisopod Swords Dances (scary!), Scrafty does a Drain Punch on Golisopod, and Milo swaps in a Cherrim.
Inteleon continues to spam Icy Wind, while Marnie's Scrafty thunder-punches the Golisopod and brings him low enough to activate Emergency Exit. Meanwhile, the Cherrim charges up a Solarbeam, doubtless aimed at my Inteleon. I swap it out immediately for an Appletun, who double-resists the Solarbeam, while Nessa gets a Toxapex on the field. The Solarbeam does like, ten damage total. The Toxapex does a Baneful Bunker, Scrafty Thunder-punches the bunker, but proceeds to shed the poison off immediately. That was actually very cool.
It's a 2v1 with Nessa now, and Marnie's third Pokemon is a big scary Grimmsnarl. I take down the Toxapex (who spams Baneful Bunker) with G-Max Sweetness, which, I think, cures Grimmsnarl's poisoning? I never remember any of the effects of these special G-Max moves. The final Pokemon Nessa has is a Drednaw, who gets beaten half to death by Grimmsnarl's play rough, and my Appletun bullet seeds the Drednaw for extra disrespect.
Second round! Versus Gordie and Bea, the Sword-exclusive gym leaders. I absolutely love that Marnie gets a little line of dialogue that has her go "oh, Fighting-types, I'm screwed" and tells me to take on the Fighting-types while she deals with Bea's Pokemon. That's kinda cool, actually. First round! Slowbro and Morpeko versus... Hawlucha and Shuckle! Poor Morpeko gets one-shot-murdered by the Hawlucha's High Jump Kick. Meanwhile, my Slowbro one-shots the Hawlucha immediately after with Psychic. Lost of one-shots going on here.
Then there is a double dynamax between my Slowbro and Bea's Machamp... or, at least, I thought that was going to happen. Bea doesn't G-Max her Machamp, and the poor wrestler man gets absolutely massacred by my gigamega psymindstorm attack thing. Scrafty, meanwhile, somehow still survives on 4 HP, spamming Drain Punch to trickle-heal itself. Slowbro max geysers the Shuckle, and Gordie sends out a Tyranitar, who proceeds to body press the Scrafty to death, tanks a max geyser, nearly kill Slowbro with a Crunch, but gets killed off by Marnie's Grimmsnarl. Marnie's Pokemon are actually putting a lot more weight than I thought they would. Guess I was just used to the terrible AI of the Max Lair.
Gordie's final Pokemon is the Gigantamax Coalossal, who my no-longer-Gigantamaxed Slowbro nearly one-shots by triggering Quick Draw and using Muddy Water. I completely forgot about Coalossal's steam engine, though, but while Slowbro falls, Grimmsnarl takes out the Coalossal. Five out of six Pokemon? Not bad, Slowbro.
I have a Hatterene that immediately goes Gigantamax, though, and I completely forgot that Fringe the Hatterene actually does have her G-Max form unlocked! I always find Giga Hatterene to be surprisingly eerie-looking with the glowing eyes and the suspended body inside the huge bubblegum shroud and the huge tentacle. It's actually one of my low-key favourite Gigantamax forms, due to how much it actually resembles the original Hatterene, but at the same time looks so different when you put them side by side.
I also completely never realized that Giga Hatterene's special move is called "G-Max Smite". SMITE! With the power of the forest, I shall smite thee! Hatterene SMITES the Flygon, and I think it causes confusion to the enemy's side of the field? Flygon does manage to get off a Sandstorm before I kill him, though, because Hatterene is a slow giant towering fairy bubblegum alien witch.
Piers' next Pokemon is a Toxtricity, which finally kills my Hatterene with Sludge Bomb. She tanked like three super-effective moves in addition to Sandstorm and a couple of Sucker Punches from Skuntank, I am impressed with her. Shiny Drifblim goes into the battle and one-shots the Toxtricity with Psychic. Piers' final Pokemon is an Obstagoon, which I completely forgot about. Obstagoon's typing nullifies Drifblim's Psychic and Shadow Ball, so I just Will-o-Wisp him... and Marnie just spams Aura Wheel and somehow manages to kill the Obstagoon. My Drifblim helps out with just one Thunderbolt. Good show, Morpeko, for someone who spends the first two fights getting absolutely one-shot-murdered, it actually held out and outlasted all six of the enemy's Pokemon.
The reward is a sport uniform (it's... it's just my regular one in the stadiums, right? That I can bring outside?) and... one million Poke-Euros! What the hell, and I had to spend so long a while back grinding the championship! Okay, fine. From what I can tell, the All-Stars Tournament basically is very much repeatable, I'm going to assume the tournament is randomized, and you unlock different allies as you progress through the game.
And... and that's about it for this segment of the let's play! And it'll probably be the final segment for a while because all that's left to do is catch the legendaries. I still have Virizion (and Keldeo, I was spoiled on that) to go through on the Crown Tundra, as well as the Ultra Beasts storyline, but that sort of stuff is nowhere as interesting to talk about as, well, the first impression of a battle or whatever. So until I've done enough in the Crown Tundra to really fit another Let's Play segment, this is it for now... I certainly had so much of a blast playing this, and I really did feel that from every single standpoint, Crown Tundra felt so much more content-packed than Isle of Armor was.
Random Notes:
- Actually, since there's a 'minor division', does that mean that in Sword, Melanie and Alister are in the minor division, which is why our character never meets them? And vice-versa for Gordie and Bea in Shield?
- The first tournament I go through has the rest of the fighters be Klara/Bede (the asshole rivals), Peony/Kabu (...older guys?), Hop/Opal (I guess this is just random) and two mystery competitors that is just ???/???. Wonder if we'll actually ever get to fight the ??? competitors, if it's actually secretly... I dunno who'd make for a good secret enemy, actually. Rose? Honey? Sonia?
- In my first tournament, Peony and Kabu beat up the toxic rivals team, before being beaten by Piers and Raihan. meanwhile, the Sword-exclusives beat up Hop and Opal. The mystery competitors got beaten in the first round.
- One thing I really do appreciate about the All-Star Tournament? I get to wear my regular clothes instead of the butt-ugly jersey. I never liked the sports jerseys that you're basically forced to wear for the gym and championship battles.
- Krookodile can do Darkest Lariat. I'm not sure how, with those teeny tiny branch arms.
- Some dude on Stow-on-Side gives me a bunch of shit relating to the legendaries, like the Adamant Orb and the Reveal Glass.
- Piers and Marnie has a pretty fun little shit-talking fight between brother and sister, that's pretty fun.
- Since I've seen most of what Crown Tundra has to offer, I'll be working, finally, on the 'Gotta Review 'Em All' segment for Crown Tundra. Now that I've seen all the NPC humans, too, expect a human characters: Galar segment sooner rather than later! (I tried doing a Gotta Review 'Em All segment for moves, but I just find that I don't have much to talk about)
- I guess I'll talk a bit about what I did in the following days after this part of the playthrough? I mostly just captured legendary Pokemon; again, Max Lair Max Raid Max Adventure is a lot less painful when you don't have animations on. I got an Entei, a Mewtwo, a regular Moltres and a Heatran (I keep forgetting that Heatran has genders). Nia also gives me some futuristic Cyclops shades.
- Nia then gives me rumours about some long-haired woman in the tundra graveyard, which is supposed to trigger a cutscene Oleanna showing up to look for President Rose, but it didn't trigger on my game. I did watch it on the Youtubes, though. It's neat, I like Oleanna.
- I did go through the championship a couple of times to farm for Poke-Euros, and I do like that there are some unique dialogue between characters. Basically you get to unlock more and more NPC's as your partners, from Hop and Marnie to Milo and Nessa to Klara. Klara has a Galarian Slowbro and Slowking; I kinda wonder why they didn't give either one of them a Gigantamax form.
- Leon and Mustard as a team end up being a duo of "we dramatically toss away our outer layer of clothing before an anime fight".
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