Let's Play Pokemon Sword: Crown Tundra, Part 4: Sealed Giants and Balloon Boy

We finished the Calyrex storyline and caught Registeel and Regice last episode, and this one is going to be a bit of a shorter segment, mostly because it basically involves me going and looking for the other plot-relevant legendaries (I say 'plot' loosely) while also trying to complete my Pokedex. 

And at around this point I decided to look for Regirock's temple... and got absolutely waylaid and wandered all over the place like a lunatic. It took me around two hours of just wandering around after Regice to look for the Regirock temple, and for some reason I never found the rather large slope leading down towards the large red tree where the Galarian birds roam. I guess I just wasn't paying that close of an attention! 

I did go off to the Isle of Armor for a bit, gather a bunch of Galarican Twigs, and return to the random grandma in the secluded cave near the Frigid Sea, who weaves a Galarican Wreath. I slap it on a Slowpoke, and it evolves into the also Poison/Psychic Galarian Slowking. I... I expected it to be Poison/Ghost or Psychic/Ghost, but I suppose there's nothing particularly ghostly about this design. As you can probably expect from how this thing looks, the pokedex notes that the Shellder crown has completely taken over this gestalt entity in the same way that Parasect's fungus did, but man the idle animation for Galarian Slowking is so creepy! he's actually just sort of slightly teetering on his own, like the Shellder is having just a bit of trouble keeping the Slowking body standing straight and he's on the verge of falling down. Spooky! Galarian Slowbro just gets a Megaman arm cannon, but Galarian Slowking straight-up becomes a puppet! Galarian Slowking's special move (becasue of course everyone's got to have a special move) is Eerie Spell, whose animation is kinda neat. It burns the enemy's PP!

I actually like Galarian Slowking a lot. The colours work well, turning original Slowking's collar into a witch (or a 'hexpert') cape works well... I'm still not sure why the Sw/Sh team has a bit of an obsession with the Slowpoke line, but hey, at least they got neat forms! I am spoiled by my friends that Slowking and the Kanto legendary birds are the only ones to have Galarian forms, and we don't get any new Gigantamax forms. Kind of a shame, but the moment with Spectrier and the combined Calyrex/Spectrier bit did more than make up for it. 

I also got 100% on Cobalion at around the time I wandered back and forth to get Slowpoke to turn into Slowking, and Sonia tells me that Cobalion is in... the Frigid Sea? Okay, that's not where I expected him to spawn. Maybe that's why I needed her to calculate Cobalion's location with the footprints!

I also found the split-down Regieleki and Regidrago cave, but the riddle here is extremely simple. I just need to catch all the other three original Regis.

And it's at this point that I finally make my way to the southern part of the Crown Tundra, the Ballimere Lake and the big-ass giant Pokedrassil tree at the center (it's called the "Dyna Tree" and it's not very impressive). I did accidentally stumble to a random cave first, the Lakeside Cave, which has a lot of weirdos inside like Noiverns, Carkols, Aron and... Ferroseed. Hoo boy, the way they move around, half-popping out of the ground before rolling around on their sides? I always knew Ferroseed was weird, and I've seen gifs of the dummied out moving animations from Generation VII before, but what a freaking weirdo, Ferroseed. I know I like you a lot. 

In addition to a bunch of neat guys like Galvantulas, Corvisquires, Whimsicott and Tyrunt (more fossils!) there are also a lot of Boltunds in the Ballimere lake, who are super-duper aggressive and fast at running at you. But, of course, the main attraction here is the big-ass tree on the island on the center of the lake, which... kinda looks like shaved ice with syrup all over it. There are a lot of Greedents in this area, and I think they're the only creatures that spawn? Huh.

The main thing about the Dyna Tree, of course, are the three Galarian birds. We get an awesome cutscene of Galarian Moltres showing up, eating from a fruit, before roaring at our character... and it turns out that it's roaring at Road Runner Galarian Zapdos, who charges up and straight up does a jumping Kamen Rider kick at Moltres, before the battle between the two is interrupted by a Cyclops eye-beam from Galarian Articuno. An amazing little sequence setting them up! And, of course, my character gets a very loud call on his Rotom phone, which spooks the birds into all flying off into the distance. Articuno notably flies off to Calyrex's old castle in the cutscene.

Turns out that this is Peony calling us, and this is them bringing back roaming legendaries, but in a way that makes more sense and a lot less frustrating! I've always liked the roaming legendaries to some degree, although not the specific mechanics, so I had the most stupid grin on my face when Peony told me how strange birds have been spotted in three areas -- the Wild Area, the Isle of Armor and the Crown Tundra. The usage of the two previous wild areas, by the way, is a wholly unexpected addition that I applaud the game-makers for. That's so awesome!

I have a bunch of other things to do first, though. First up, Regirock! After finally locating his temple after way too much wandering around, I found Regirock's temple on slightly off the beaten path on the slope that connected Giant's Bed and Ballimere Lake. The riddle for this one is a bit more funky, I have to put an Everstone on the Pokemon leading my party. That's kinda cute! I am an utter geek about this franchise, so I know exactly what a 'stone that keeps the form intact' or whatever is all about, but I can imagine this might confuse a lot of first-timers or people who never paid that much attention to held items. Regirock is another one that had given me a lot of trouble in the past, but maybe because big rocky here feels bad for me running around like a goomba in looking for his lair, he decides to join me with the first Quick Ball I throw. I will take that.

I also decided to get Cobalion over with, and it's cool! He's actually wandering the overworld, in the huge island in the middle of the Frigid Sea. I have nothing much to say here, Cobalion's my least favourite member of the Swords of Justice. I think 90% of the reason why is because I find his weird boot-feet so awkward looking. I dunno. I apologize for Cobalion fans out there, because I'm sure there is someone out there who likes Cobalion a lot -- it's just not my thing, I'm sorry. 

And at this point, I attempted to do Max Raid Battles again. Maybe with some strategizing and luck and a lot less saltiness, I might have a better time, right? Well, I did go through the first raid very smoothly, catching a fuckmothering Dialga of all things -- I actually didn't think my team would be able to take Dialga down, but the AI for Dialga did some supremely idiotic things like using Power Gem on Pokemon that resisted it. That was fun. 

The rest of my runs, though... I had two runs trying (and failing) to catch a regular Moltres, and two more runs trying (and failing) to catch Ho-Oh. The A.I. in this game is... not very, very smart. Among others, I lost one of my Ho-Oh battles because one of my allies, who had a Dedenne, spam Entrainment on every single member of the party instead of Thunder, which it had. Entrainment, which, by the way, just turns everyone's abilities into Plus. It did it like three or four times in the battle, before trying and failing to Substitude. Another one had a Pokemon that used Swagger on myPokemon, which... I kinda get that maybe the A.I. wants to buff me, but that just made a hard battle into straight-up impossible. In one of the Moltres runs, I had one of my allies swap out a full-health Porygon (which had Thunderbolt, something that's great against Moltres) for a Jigglypuff, and proceeded to spam Fake Tears with it. Yet another one had a Magneton that spammed Magnet Rise against a series of opponents like Bellossom and Skarmory, because those Pokemon totally have Ground-type moves for you to watch out against. Another one had a Vaporeon who spammed Charm for no real reason, despite having access to Weather Pulse. Maybe it's just bad luck, but man, I would've totally been fine if there was an option to just do this thing on my own with a single Pokemon. 

Anyway, I flew off to the Isle of Armor to get Galarian Moltres. Who shows up in front of the dojo, flying in the distance, and there was a brief one-minute hectic chase scene as I rode on my water-bike, pursued by angry Sharpedos, as the Moltres flew over the ocean... and then took a hard turn to the left and flew over the cliffs into the island. Well, there's no way for me to directly chase him, and my attempt to fly to the various spots on the Isle of Armor ended up with nothing. I am likewise luckless with my random running around to look for Galarian Articuno on the Crown Tundra, although the bitch keeps mocking me with its cry. 

Zapdos, though! It shows up right in front of me when I flow into the Wild Area, and it ran like the wind, like a... well, like a road runner or a rhea or a cassowary or something. It's actually a very fun minigame trying to chase down Zapdos on my bike while juking and dodging all the other wild Pokemon that spawn. I ran down like four Tyrogues in my attempt to chase Zapdos. I'm not sure if he slows down after a while, but it really does feel like I have to watch from a distance and try to take the shortcut to try and close the distance. A very, very fun chase. 

Galarian Zapdos, as many of you might've known (but I didn't) is Fighting/Flying! He's got an exclusive move called Thunderous Kick, which has him jump into the air and do a little lightning-blitz (and briefly shines yellow!) before kicking its enemy. I genuinely thought this was a dual-type like Hawlucha's Flying Press, but turns out it's a regular Fighting type move? That's a missed opportunity there. The Zapdos was completely helpless because I kept chucking Ghost-types in front of it (I had Calyrex, Runerigus and Cursola) and after it ran out of Drill Peck all it did was kick impotently at my ghosts. The Pokedex entry for Galarian Zapdos notes that it's named 'Zapdos' becuase "when its feathers rub together, they produce a crackling sound like the zapping of electricity". Okay, sure? I do actually really like this Galarian form, even though I'm not sure if this is actually meant to represent a regular (or Kantonian, I suppose) Zapdos that has adapted to living in the grasslands, or if it's just a different legendary bird who just looks like Zapdos with all the spiky feathers. I actually really like Galarian Zapdos a lot, it might be my favourite of the Galarian legendary birds... although Moltres and Articuno are no slouches either. Compared to the base Sword/Shield and Isle of Armor, Crown Tundra is surprisingly on-point with most of its legendaries. 

Cobalion, Zapdos and Registeel really fucked me over as far as Pokeballs go, so I did a couple of runs of the Wyndon tournament (with the Gigantamax Meowth strategy!) to restock on Ultra and Quick balls. Because I refuse to be poor in this game, I also ended up going to the league and farming a bunch of poke-euros in addition to leveling up some of the legendaries. After this bit of grinding, my team ended up basically comprising of two Zapdoses (Zapdosi?), Calyrex and the three Regis. 

The next one I went to is the split-decision temple cavern thing or whatever it's called, and I ended up choosing Regieleki (which, uh, Thunder Wave does nothing against). I actually quite like both Regieleki and Regidrago -- perhaps not to the degree of the original golem trio, but they are both pretty neat. But I definitely prefer Regieleki's more... conventional look. Relatively speaking. Drago's cool too, though, and I feel like the two 'choice' Pokemon in this expansion pass is actually pretty damn well done. I actually had to make a choice, I actually had to scratch my head and consider which one of the two I prefer more, which is certainly not something I could say for the Urshifu choice one DLC ago. 

Regieleki is super-duper fast, by the way. I think it's the fastest Pokemon ever? It's got a base speed of 200! I'm to lazy to look it up, but I'm pretty sure like Speed Deoxys and Pheromosa were, like, pushing 180 or 170 or something. It's special move, Thunder Cage, is like a weird mix of Mean Look and Fire Spin, and it also does a decent chunk of damage. 

I absolutely love Regieleki's cute little bouncing animation, too. The static artwork of him is another one that doesn't do the design justice. Look at those two tiny legs, Regieleki actually just boing-boings in place throughout both the fight and as it follows you around, and those arms? Those arms are actually long whip-like fingers made out of lightning bolts, all holding together electricity that's unleashed in its attacks. It's actually a Pokemon that I like more and more as I see its animations for sure!

My lovely balloon

I tried to do a couple of Max Raid Lair Adventure Battles, catching a Raikou and Uxie but whiting out a couple of times before I even reach the final enemy... but at one point, in a particularly grueling run where my allies really wanted to keep a Chansey/Pyukumuku duo that tries to just stall out while the rest of the team try to do chip damage, I face off and beat a Rayquaza... only to find out that... well, if you haven't realized from the big picture of a wonderful bright yellow and neon blue balloon boy staring right back at you... I met a shiny Drifblim! I very nearly fell out of my chair. If you guys didn't know, Drifblim was actually the very first Pokemon I've ever really done an article on this website for (and inspired the 'Gotta Review 'Em All', and, eventually, the 'Reviewing Monsters' series of articles) and it's one of my straight-up favourite-looking neon shinies! Look at those colours. I am so happy to be having one. It actually has a terrible, Special Attack reducing nature but I don't care. Lemon the Drifblim is now part of my party forever and ever. It's amazing how I actually never quite cared all that much about Drifblim, went 'oh, this is actually kind of a cool concept' once I've seen more of Drifblim in the games and the manga... and now this is going to mark Driblim as easily going to be one of my all-time favourites because of this little moment. I was actually getting so frustrated and depressed with the Max Adventure mode, too. Amazing how just a slightly differently-coloured balloon boy can change it all, huh?

Random Notes:

• I completely forgot about bringing Thunder Wave Zapdos until halfway through this page and I've caught the new Galarian Zapdos and went 'oh shit, right'. 
• It's always still kinda surprising to me when I walk around and see something like an Electivire or a Hydreigon just casually moving around the overworld.
• There's a random cooking pot that I can't interact with on an island near the Dynatree Hill. What's that all about?
• Continuing the 'rare pokemon are common now' bit, Indeedee also shows up in the Ballimere lake as an overworld spawn. I remembered having a hard time finding it in the fairy forest for sure!
• Kind of a shame that they didn't make the following Pokemon thing from the two DLC areas apply to the Wild Area. I don't know how complicated that would be, and that doesn't like, ruin the gameplay experience for me, but it's kind of a shame. 
• I really do like that while the Galarian forms of Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres are clearly based on their original forms, other than Moltres they all look very, very distinct. Like, okay, the shape of the wings and tail are kind of the same, but Articuno's pose and Zapdos's distinct proportions really do make them look very, very similar. Even G-Moltres looks pretty unique, too, with its wilder expression. 
• Going to the move relearners, they removed Explosion from the Regis' movepool! I've always loved putting Explosion on them because of how stupid it is for a legendary golem unsealed from its eternal slumber to show up in battle... and just blow itself up.
• I certainly prefer Regieleki to Regidrago (I chose Eleki, after all) but Regidrago's special attack has him straight-up just spin and become a giant dragon skull that shoots out a beam. That's cool. 
• Peony compares Regirock to Milo. I, uh... Milo's more of a Melmetal to me, but okay, sure, Regirock's another huge-armed Pokemon with teeny-tiny legs.