So yeah, thanks to the Miss Fortune Sisters kidnapping the big Growlithe belonging to Palina, we have to go ride a Basculegion to travel all the way to Firespit Island.
...and, of course, even after getting distracted by a space-time rift last episode and I think completing a bunch of minor side-quests, the path to Firespit Island is filled with a lot of aquatic Pokemon. And I do mean a lot, because I got so distracted in trying to hunt down the Mantines and Remoraids and Qwilfishes. And... you know what? Qwilfish has been such an ignored Generation II Pokemon for so long, and I do want to use as many new evolutions as possible, so I ended up putting one in my party. I called her Qwilmonger.
Firespit Island has a giant volcano in the middle! Iscan also shows up, although like any good NPC, he stops to catch his breath while I go and explore the island. Despite the RPG elements in this game, we don't quite go full-on Zelda with this because the lava doesn't actually kill or injure my character. There's just an invisible wall around every single lava pool. It does give some pretty neat mood lighting, though!
In a nice bit of lore consistency, we actually see a wooden boat tied to the coast of Firespit Island, explaining how the Miss Fortune Sisters got to the island when it's such a huge deal that we befriend Lord Basculegion.
There's a narrow path leading to the center of the volcano, populated pretty intensely by a bunch of Magmars and Gravelers. I really do find it rather interesting that while it's not a hard and fast rule, they are trying their best to give some representation to most of the Pokemon that appeared in the original Diamond/Pearl Sinnoh dex.
The Miss Fortune Sisters are basically trying to force the Growlithe to evolve in the center of the caldera (is that the proper term), because there's a legend that any Pokemon in the center of that volcano would be able to evolve. I don't know how to break it to you ladies, but, well, all that Growlithe needs is just a Fire Stone. Probably. Presuming Hisuian Growlithes evolve the same way like Kantonian Growlithes. For all I know they might need to use a certain move 20 times in agile style or whatever.
Coin fights me again with her Toxicroak, which I've seen before, although I had to swap out to my Stantler and its Psyshield Bash to try and rack up that quota to get it to evolve. It's rather aggravating that the Pokemon that need these special-move-in-a-certain-style consumes 2 PP with every usage of the agile or strong style, since I end up running out of PP so fast. Coin calls herself a 'blithering mooncalf' or something for losing and... what the fuck is that expression, haha.
Charm, the boss, fights me with two Pokemon! Two at once! She also mentions that she cmoes from Kanto, so she doesn't really 'cheat' the way Irida does by 2-v-1-ing me. She has a Rhydon and a Gengar, both Pokemon that come from Kanto. A helpful commenter in one of the earlier parts of the playthrough also pointed out that Charm shares hairstyle with Agatha and Bertha, two old women from the Kanto and Sinnoh Elite Fours respectively, and I do find it interesting that Charm has a Pokemon that's associated with both of her... descendants, I suppose.
We still don't really learn why the Miss Fortune Sisters hate the Galaxy Team so much, but there's another pretty fun moment when apparently Coin and Clover have been abusing potions and healing up both of their Pokemon off-screen while I was busy dealing with Charm's Pokemon. While we don't actually get to fight them, it's a hilarious bit of acknowledgement of game mechanics that normally only the player is seemingly able to do.
Little Lord Growlithe shows up at this point barking to try and save his buddy, and so does Palina. Palina tells me that the Growlithe swam all the way there... and this is despite its 4x-weakness to water! Little buddy's got guts! And guts it does, because just like an episode of the anime, we get the Growlithe actually evolving in this moment of heated emotion, evolving into a massive gigantic Hisuian Arcanine -- which, as I suspected when doing the reviews, is a much better-looking creature in motion. And then a space-time rift appears in the sky and a yellow lightning bolt zaps the Arcanine and drives it into a frenzy almost immediately.
As Iscan, Palina and me run away from the rampaging Arcanine, Irida (who also swam here, I guess? Or is Basculegion playing taxi for her too?) shows up with the knowledge of using balms to defeat frenzied Pokemon Lords. By sheer happenstance and because he hasn't done jack-diddly throughout all of this part of the story, Iscan had prepared Growlithe's favourite food. The balms are prepared, and it's Dark Souls boss time!
And... it's a genuinely menacing sequence as Arcanine walks on lava while the camera pans up on it and shows its title. Lord Arcanine genuinely feels threatening thanks to all this build-up, unlike Liligant before! And the fight is a bit more troublesome now thanks to the arena. It's not a free arena for me to run around like the previous Kleavor or Liligant fights, but rather a vaguely cross-shaped arena of rocky platforms... while Arcanine can just run or charge through the tops of lava. Its attack patterns are a bit more troublesome, too, with him leaving spinning wheels of flame that remain after it walks away... is this Fire Spin? Is this Fire Spin's revenge for mocking the uselessness of it?
I actually blacked out thanks to the 'Fire Spin' attack appearing right in the center of the 'cross' and it causes me to be unable to actually reach Arcanine on the other end of the arena with my noodle arms throwing the balms, and Arcanine ended up blitzing the hell out of me with its telegraphed explosions.
Interestingly, unlike Kleavor and Liligant, which were pretty powerful relative to their areas, Arcanine here is a piddly level 30 that my newly-caught Qwilfish could defeat. I suppose it makes sense, since it just newly evolved!
Anyway, Arcanine is ultimately quelled, and we get a nice scene shot rather well as Palina looks up at the peak of the volcano where we see another Arcanine... and then as the camera pans behind Palina's head, the ghost of Papa Arcanine disappears. This is later acknowledged by Palina and Iscan, noting that there were two Arcanine cries (although not before a bit of a teasing on the scaredy-cat Iscan) and that the ghost of Papa Arcanine has been watching over our Arcanine. I suppose this also solves the mystery of the ghost of Firespit Island, then -- I was expecting it to be one of our new ghost Pokemon! That's overall pretty nice as a story.
Also, Palina and Lord Arcanine have to 'live apart' now as noble and warden, and... I'm actually not quite sure why? I mean, wouldn't they still be working closely, in that case? Not to mention that I'm not sure really what 'responsibilities' a Pokemon Noble really have. But okay, sure. I'm questioning this game a bit too much.
As Iscan and Palina leave, there's a nice bit where Irida is worried and slightly self-doubtful because she really didn't contribute too much other than bringing the information about the balms -- which, yeah, I was there and I could also tell the two wardens that. She's kind of impressed and intimidated at the same time by her 'rival' Palina being so assertive even at her age. Interesting how we're kind of getting a fair bit of characterization out of her. I suppose the next area will focus more on Adaman since we've had a fair bit of Irida?
And with that, we've completed the main story of the Coastlands! ...and as usual, I absolutely ignore the prompt to return back to Professor Kamado.
One of the side-quests that I was way overdue in completing is hunting for one of the Construction Corps guys, who is tormented by a Chatot. "Gyaaah, a talking Pokemon!” That's actually kind of hilarious, especially since Chatot was repeating everything he said back at him. Remember in Generation IV when Chatot's move actually recorded a soundbyte with the DS's microphone and people just used it as an excuse to hurl abuse at each other? Yeah, I remember it. Good times. Also, finally I get an additional base camp in the Coastlands that'll make fast travel a lot easier.
In my journey to fill up my quota for Qwilfish and Stantler to both use their signature move 20 times, I wander around the Coastlands a bit more and I start to find a fair bit of interesting encounters. The trees drop Wormadam now in addition to Burmy, which is nice. Also, near where we first met Palina is actually a cute little Hisuian Growlithe wandering around. I am kind of attached to my shiny Rapidash now, but it's nice.
Going back to the city, I show Anthe the two different Shellos colours, which unlocks even more fashion choices. None of the new ones really speak out to me, although some of the kimonos do have pretty patterns.
And then I go out back to the Mirelands to hunt down the Black Peat to evolve my Ursaring. It... it took me way longer than I care to admit, although I was also busying myself with trying to fill in research quests for more elusive time-gated Pokemon. Eventually I did dig up the Black Peat, and had to reset the time way too many times for the full moon to appear. And then I give the Black Peat to my Alpha Ursaring, who evolves into a mighty Ursaluna! I have a big mud bear now. I'm not the biggest fan of Ursaluna's design, but he's pretty neat, and being so gosh-darned big (even compared to the ride Pokemon!) does make me like him a bit. Ursaluna's signature move that he learns upon evolution is Headlong Rush, which is a physical Ground-type move that lowers defense.
Exploring the Fieldlands even more, I find Mime Jr's and Mr. Mimes and... and it's kind of interesting that the Mr. Mimes actually bring up their shields to block my Pokeballs.
And finally, my Qwilfish evolves into a giant OVERQWIL, and man, Overqwil looks as ridiculous as I'd hoped, especially when hovering in place next to me. Look at those giant, fuck-off horns! I didn't even realize that Overqwil even has two tiny horns as angry eyebrows. I like this guy.
Anyway, yeah, looking for that Black Peat and racking up the 'use a move 20 times' quotas drained a fair bit out of me, so this one is a bit shorter. It was a fun story to play through, though!
Current Party: Hootle (Hisuian Decidueye), Manterror (Kleavor), Bartholomew (Ursaluna), Qwilmonger (Overqwil), Cremation (Shiny Rapidash), Uzumaki (Hisuian Sliggoo)
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