Let's Play Legends Arceus, Part 21: The Croissant, the Dodongo, the Titan and the Sea Slug

It actually is kind of annoying, by the way, that I take a bunch of random fully-evolved Pokemon... like, say, an Umbreon, a Garchomp, a Crobat, a Torterra, Uxie and Dialga... and then I have to keep scrolling up and down the Pokedex to figure out which move and which agile/strong style I need to do to complete the Pokedex. The game itself is actually very convenient at showing me the tasks I need to do for the enemy Pokemon, but for those in my party? I felt like it shouldn't be that hard to chuck one of my Pokemon out of their balls and then see their Pokedex entry with the same targeting feature the game already employs for wild Pokemon.

Anyway, can you tell that I've been trying to rack up as many Pokedex entries as possible? I've just been wandering around the three lower-leveled areas (the Fieldlands, Mirelands and Coastlands) to just try and get as many Pokedex entries as possible. One thing of note that I felt is a bit irritating are, admittedly, the Eeveelutions. There are so many of them!

Anyway, last we left off, we captured all the Lake Guardians, and got the Origin Form items for Dialga and Palkia. 

I also figured out that, hey, there are a bunch of new outfits in the store, like the ninja gear and the bandit outfits, plus the Diamond and Pearl clan uniforms. Now I've been running around with the regular default costume plus a giant kasa hat, but I ended up spending some money to rock out with a blue full ninja outfit. That's neat!

So the first up on my legendary agenda this time around is Cresselia, mostly because I just picked it out by the order that the game gave me the quests in. Cresselia has landed in the Moonview Arena -- in retrospect a bit obvious based on its name -- which is the seat of the Noble Lord Electrode. I guess they just didn't want to adapt Full-moon island or whatever into this game? Melli and Calaba of all people are waiting for me there, and Calaba gives some exposition about how Cresselia is the embodiment of the crescent moon and can cure dreams. Basically the most basic background of Cresselia... a bit of a shame, truly, that we don't actually get a repeat of the same 'child trapped in nightmare' sidequest we had in Diamond/Pearl/Platinum. I felt like it would've been so easy to integrate that classic Cresselia story into a side-quest in Legends: Arceus!

Melli is a bit pissed off that Cresselia -- or the 'pesky flying croissant', as he calls it -- is bothering Electrode, and makes him so worried that he can't sleep, let alone dream. Actually kinda funny, and I love that he called Cresselia a croissant!

There's at least some build-up to fighting Cresselia, although... again, I really did wish that there was some extra narrative or dialogue. We were able to fit in a bunch for random quests about Spheal or Burmy or Mr. Mime. Surely a bit of extra steps to build up to these legendaries is par the course?

The fight against Cresselia is fun, because Cresselia shoots a bunch of glowing psychic orb things that reverses my controls! It's actually kind of neat to see something that's a bit more creative in these human-vs-Pokemon conflicts, even if running in the reverse control isn't the most creative thing out there. Cresselia herself is pretty easy for me to catch, I just had Origin Palkia tank her attacks while I chucked Ultra Balls at full health. I'm not sure, I think they severely nerfed the catch rates for these legendaries?

From Cresselia, I got the Dread Plate... at least that's vaguely thematic. Maybe Cresselia beat up Darkrai, shoved him in a closet and stole his plate. I did find Calaba's disappointment that she didn't get a Lunar Feather to be kinda funny, for sure. 

Cresselia also has a brand-new signature move to replace her original self-destructive Lunar Dance called Lunar Blessing. It's actually just Recover and Double Team mixed together, which is infinitely more useful than 'die and heal the next Pokemon out'. 

Next stop, Firespit Island. And I guess this kinda-sorta confirms that Firespit Island would become the post-game Sinnoh Island, whatever it was called? Apparently Braviary can't fly over the invisible walls of the lava pits in the center of the volcano? Uhh... I guess the heat from the volcano would make flying over them difficult, but that's a strange thing of all things to be realistic about considering my character can walk right next to these lava pools. (Also, an Alpha Ninetales! I wasn't even aware Vulpix and Ninetales are in this game!)

There's a bit of a comedy between Iscan and Irida, where Paulina apparently managed to trick Irida into unnecessarily coming to witness the subduing of Heatran despite there not really being any need for her to come along. It's... it's fun Irida/Palina stuff, for sure, but I'd rather had some background and backstory for Heatran, y'know? Even a simple "Heatran is threatening to cause the volcano to explode" line from Irida would've been enough. 

Heatran himself is surrounded by a fiery dome, and the arena is littered with mud balls if you don't already have like 250 of them in your bag like I do. Kind of interesting that you just have to keep chucking at it to bring down the lava shield before you can catch it. But... but yeah. At least the Lake Guardians had a big role in the main story, while Cresselia had a basic background from Calaba. Now I get that Heatran's probably one of the lamer Sinnoh legendaries, but man, the absolute disrespect on the poor fire dino-lizard creature! 

Heatran drops the Iron Plate, which I think might be the first time in the post-game that an Arceus plate is actually thematic to the legendary I defeated. 

I did a couple of dex-entry filling at this point, including going back to Professor Laventon and... he just casually gives me both of the original starters that I didn't pick up, Cyndaquil and Oshawott! Okay. Okay, that was surprisingly simple! Normally the starters get such an exclusive deal for them and I've had so many older games where I had to run around and do the whole damn Sevii Islands before I get a starter from another generation or something. Neat! I'll get to see the Hisuian forms of them soon, though I'll probably take time to gain the full dex entries for Cyndaquil, Quilava, Oshawott and Dewott. 

Oh, I also finally got a Sun Stone and got myself a Hisuian Liligant. With her and the Hisuian versions of the final starter evolutions, I think I finally got all the brand-new forms introduced in this game.

Next up is the Snowpoint Temple. After running around like a dumbass chicken around the temple trying to figure out where the quest marker is, I realized it pointed down. And that just like the DS-era Snowpoint Temple, Regigigas is in the basement. 

Instead of bringing Regirock, Regice and Registeel, though, all I apparently needed to do is to bring their respective Arceus plates. Which is... an interesting way to get around the fact that this game doesn't have those Pokemon built in. Adaman and Sabi show up and, like it was with Cresselia, gives a very brief talk about how this Pokemon is rumoured to be a titan that towed continents. 

...so I guess we now know where the Vespiquen stole the Rock Plate from. It beat up a Regirock!

Anyway, I don't really have a whole ton to say about Regigigas. There's no puzzle or gimmick with the overworld segment of the encounter -- I guess the puzzle of collecting the respective plates is enough? I also capture Regigigas in the first Ultra Ball I toss at him. So... that's all of Cogita's legendaries captured!

I go off to the Prelude Beach and talk to Kamado, too. He just wants to fight me again, and he has added a Heracross to his party. He talks some shit about how he found the Normal-type plate when he and Beni first arrived in Hisui, but I really don't have too much time for how he still carries himself like he's some hot shit. It is nice to have some tie-in to how Jubilife/Galactic was founded, and there's a brief thought of Kamado thinking that it might be nice to rename the region as 'Sinnoh' after Almighty Sinnoh. That's the tie-in to Diamond/Pearl, I guess, but he just straight-up erased the name of Hisui? I don't know. I will give credit to the Pokemon writing team, it's not often I have such a strong reaction to a character in a Pokemon game. 

Anyway, in my quest to do most of the side-quests in the game (I'm going to finish the Spiritomb, Unown and Old Verse collections for sure, but that last balloon-popping game is too miserable for me to do) I tried to figure out what the fuck is going on with the Manaphy quest. I thought all I had to do was check out the Seaside Hollow, but it remains empty. And... this was one that I had to look up the guide online, and apparently I had to play Brillian Diamond/Shining Pearl to figure out that they added an extra book to the Canalave Library that tells me that I need to bring a Buizel, a Mantyke and an extra-spiky Qwilfish (so Overqwil, foreshadowing this form) to the 'ocean gate' in the evening. What... what nonsense, honestly! There's no way for anyone to figure this out... at least tell me the clue is in another game! I know how many people just breeze through the Canalave Library too. 

Anyway, after some eye-rolling at the nonsensical riddle, I arrive in the Seaside Hollow. A Manaphy shows up, accompanied by four iPhones, and they're all surrounded by a veil of water. It's... actually surprisingly hectic, unlike Regigigas, because I'm facing like four different characters that shoot water pulses or whatever at me. Being a dumbass who forgot to deposit the low-leveled Mantyke and Buizel, I'm also effectively down two members of my team, and didn't bring any healing items while I face off against a gauntlet of four legendaries. I even had to 2-v-1 the Manaphy and one of its iPhone babies! 

Which is to say... I didn't expect that good ol' Prince of the Sea ended up being the most fun legendary boss battle out of the four I faced in this part. 

Anyway, with most of the side-quests done, it's time to face Cogita and hopefully face off against Arceus himself!