So after completing most of the side-quests in the previous part, I decided to finally proceed with the story. I have a new batch of like, three or four side-quests from Laventon's blackboard, but I don't think I'm going to complete them until after all this madness happens. And, well, madness it is! Again, it's typical story-writing, but I feel like Legends Arceus did a great enough job building up these characters that it does feel like, hey, characters like Laventon, Akari, Adaman and Irida all accepting me as their comrade and companion, that I have a place in the Jubilife City of Hisui even if we never figure out how to undo the space-time rift... it's all fuzzy feelings and all that, you know?
After the requisite potato mochi party and sleeping in my house, I wake up and walk out to a massive sound of explosion, and... the whole damn skies are red and purple and splotchy! Oh no, did the Anti-Monitor cause some more Crisis of the Infinite variation? No, it's just the Space-Time Rift above Mt. Coronet going haywire. The game directs me to Kamado almost immediately, who's also talking to Adaman and Irida.
And Kamado... isn't the most flattering at basically pointing fingers and accusing me of causing the space-time rift from causing all the scary red skies. And Kamado's very flimsy argument basically boils down to "you fell out of the sky, you damn isekai brat" and "the same day you appeared, the lightning bolt from the rift struck Lord Kleavor". Okay, that last part does probably have some sort of connection, but as Irida points out, Kamado's being utterly unreasonable by asking me to prove a negative, to prove that I'm not connected to the nobles going wild and the skies going red. I actually do appreciate both Adaman and Irida backing me up and pointing out how Kamado's being a paranoid dipshit here.
Kamado orders Cyllene to walk me out of the village because I am banished now. Apparently I should take solace that I'm not "in chains"... yeah, no, I have a giant mud-bear, a vengeful ghost fox and a metal snail-dragon in my party. I highly doubt that anything your jerk village has a prison is going to be able to hold me. Who's gonna stop me, that punk with a Dustox?
Professor Laventon and Akari also join me and Cyllene in going to the Fieldlands, and Laventon is about to roll up and challenge Kamado's ruling, but Cyllene stops him from doing anything too harsh, because Laventon shouldn't cause any problems for me by being banished as well. That's nice. I also love that a very irritated Akari points out that the only reason I went out to quell the nobles was because Kamado's orders were to do so in the first place so that I can earn Team Galaxy's trust.
After some discussion about what I should do (Irida and Adaman went back to their respective settlements) my allies tell me to go see Lian, Lord Kleavor's warden. So at this point I'm just locked into the Obsidian Fieldlands, which is bathed in creepy extradimensional red light. Cyllene has a very heartwarming "Don't die out there. That's an order." line, and also a cool line about "in this life, you will meet with both admiration and abuse from others. How others choose to view you is a choice only they can make. You cannot make it for them. All that truly matters is that you hold firm to your own values." And... okay, yeah, I get that, Kamado is making his choice, but I'm going to solve this space-time rift problem, then come back with my shiny fire horse and burn that stupid mustache off his untrusting face.
...and after all that dramatic stuff and plot-relevant stuff, I find Wanda being besieged by three Paras screaming her head off because she didn't want to sprout mushrooms. Well, nothing like a wacky side-quest to lighten the mood, I suppose. She went to hunt some mushrooms, but the mushrooms ended up hunting her!
In a pretty cool little bit of detail, Laventon, Akari and Cyllene actually disappear from the camp after you go around. Couple that with the eerie distorted music, and the game does try its best to make us feel alone and abandoned!
I do also really appreciate the zoom-in to my character's desperate face for allies as he talks to Mai and Lian. It's expected that the game's emphasizing the 'you're all alone' part of this, though. I also really like the short scene of my character looking at a Shinx that cheers me up, before it runs off to play with its Luxio parents.
And the next ally to talk to me is... Volo! He knows the importance of staying abreast of all the latest news, apparently, and notes how I have been abandoned by Diamond, Pearl and Galaxy. Volo then leads me to a place where he can stash me off in secret, and... it's not actually the Gingko Guild Headquarters, but a brand-new area called the Ancient Retreat. By the location of it in the map (it's slightly Northeast of Mt. Coronet) I think it's meant to be the Hisuian version of Celestic Town? The little town where Cynthia's grandmother resides?
Either case, Cogita tells me a bunch of information that I already could deduce. But then I'm a huge Pokemon lore-geek so it's nice for any first-comers to get someone to lay it all out -- Almighty Sinnoh lives within another realm away from ours, and that Sinnoh (or, well, Arceus) is beyond mere 'time' and 'space', but rather both together. I do really like how Cogita just mocks the Diamond and Pearl Clans trying to insist that their worldview is greater, when both are expanses that are equally as important in the creation of the universe.
Then Cogita goes straight into telling me of the three great lakes of Hisui -- Lake Verity, Valor and Acuity, and tells me to seek the three Pokemon that embodies the aspects of the human mind... and tells me to create the Red Chain. Hey, gotta work in the legendaries in some way, yeah? It is actually really nice that the script of this game really does tie in together the themes of time, space and human emotion/will/spirit a lot better than the Generation IV games did.
Also, interestingly, there are some arguments as to what the Red Chain will do. Cogita says that the Red Chain is meant to bind the world together, and Volo seems to be confused since he thinks it's supposed to close the rift. Cogita keeps shutting down Volo's 'doubts', which does kinda make me feel like one of them is going to oppose me? Cogita also notes that she's just passing down the 'old words', and how true they are, she really doesn't know. She just straight-up mocks her ancestors! That's hilarious.
And then suddenly Cyllene's Abra shows up!
She shows up with a letter addressed to me, and Abra's basically going to take the place of the Pokemon pasture service, allowing me to swap out my team as needed. A great way to actually tie up a little possible gameplay/story conflict, while also giving Cyllene an adorable "helping but not really" plausible deniability!
Adaman takes this in stride, telling us that he's going to take the 'tough job' of keeping an eye on Kamado, and that this is totally a sign that I trust him. Right! Sure, Adaman, whatever keeps you and your multi-coloured hair asleep at night.
So yeah. That's basically a pretty long cutscene, and I guess next up I'll be looking around the three Hisui Lakes and their pixie guardians. Glad to see that they're integrating the guardians of the lakes into the main story, and not just leave all the legendaries to the post-game! Anyway, Volo's relevance and a brand-new character appearing is frankly a bit unexpected, but it's a lot of fun!
It's so fun to see all these NPC remain relevant throughout the game
ReplyDeleteIt's so, so great, isn't it? I feel like the only Pokemon games who did a great job at balancing their NPC's are the Sun/Moon games (and even then only specific ones, there are a lot that are clearly there to pad out the type leaders) and maybe the two sets of Black/White games.
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