Let's Play Legends Arceus, Part 22: The Eldritch Presence Icing Your Heart...

You know, when I sat down to write these let's play segments, I tend to have a picture to stand-in for the next article. I've used an Arceus TCG card like three times now, expecting to meet him in the part, and he never comes. It's kind of hilarious that the game titles Pokemon: Legends Arceus barely has any Arceus in it. Unless you count the prologue and all the Arc Phone moments. 

Oh well. Giratina is always the cooler legendary anyway. 

Anyway, after finishing the Lake Guardians, Heatran, Cresselia and Regigigas, Volo and I head off to meet Cogita. Volo gets super excited about it, with all of his dialogue done with him yelling about how they're 'so close now'. 

Cogita... tells me to go bring three logs of wood. That's kind of anticlimactic, and honestly pretty hilarious. Mostly because of Volo's dialogue. "What, pray tell, is the secret behind this wood?" Bless you, Volo. Cogita only needs the wood to create a new cutting board, and Volo gets angry about Arceus plates versus dinner plates. 

Of course, the joke is that Cogita has the Pixie Plate all along, and Volo in all caps lock gets an over-the-top surprised reaction of THAT'S ONE OF THE PLATES WE WERE LOOKING FOR! Silly Volo. Apparently Cogita has been using it as a cutting board, but all the engravings upon it made it unsuitable for one. But the Pixie Plate's powers make her food all taste nice. Okay, Cogita. I guess you're kind of a kooky witch-like lady living in a hut in the middle of deadass nowhere. If you were a Pokemon, you'd totally be a Fairy-type. 

Cogita also makes a point about how Volo isn't even making it a secret that he's shirking his duties as a member of the Gingko Guild, going around to look at old ruins as he pleases. 

Anyway, in the Celestica Ruins, Volo brings my attention to something that I did realize when I first wandered around here. There's a third statue -- of Giratina's regular form -- just laying there completely shattered and ruined other than its six feet. Volo points out how it's kept separate from Dialga and Palkia, broken and shattered but still remaining there. He gives me a backstory about Giratina, who was banished for his violence to a world on the reverse side of our own. A being that laid in wait for the chance to once more bare its fangs in defiance against Arceus! Volo hypothesizes that if Giratina wishes to challenge Arceus, he would do so on the place closest to the heavens, the Temple of Sinnoh where the Space-Time rift first opened. 

Cool, so for once, Giratina isn't misunderstood or raging because of an external party, but actually villainous?

Speaking of villainous, yeah. If all of Volo's monologue about how cool the devil-dragon is, he goes on a maniacal laugh at this point. Yes, he handwaves it as us being close to uncovering the secrets of the world... but we all know he's cuckoo. Volo talks about how since he was young, every time he meets something painful or heartbreaking, he wonders why life is unfair, and why he's 'cursed' to live with such things... and then he would redirect all his energy to curiosity and ambition, and he wants to unravel those mysteries to see how the world ticks. And how he wants to forge a new, better world.

What an anime psychopath!

And yet... still a better villain than Cyrus? Honestly, these 'the world is unfair and I want to remake it in my image' villains are a dime a dozen in anything anime-esque, but Volo's pretty well written, for just a mostly text-based villain. 

Anyway, Volo wants to find the realm that exists on the reverse side of the world, and 'meet the creator's unwanted child banished therein' to understand the nature of Almighty Sinnoh. Man, that's some RPG dialogue. No kiddifying of the dialogue in this game, no sir!

Anyway... we go to the Temple of Sinnoh. Or, as Volo renames it, the Spear Pillar. Yep, the Origin Dialga/Palkia fight was the reason that the Spear Pillar was created, which is pretty cool. The columns are meant to be cracked spears stabbing the heavens... man, I really do like how the dialogue for this game is a bit more... not exactly mature, but, well, a lot less PG-13 without losing the non-edgy feel of Pokemon.

Anyway, Volo points out that there is no Giratina to be found there, but then talks about another huge revelation... which, yeah, we kind of figured out he's a madman. Ever since Volo realized that there was a creator Pokemon called Arceus, he wants to meet said deity. 

What did catch my by surprise was that Volo had already met with Giratina previously, and had Giratina tear open the space-time rift! That was a bit surprising! But that didn't summon Arceus at all (and I assume it just caused Dialga and Palkia to fight) and instead caused me to get isekai'd into Hisui. And so Volo had me gather all the Arceus plates. Of course, he's got the Ghost-type plate in his possession, the last of the eighteen fragments of the all-encompassing deity. 

Then Volo transforms, revealing himself to be someone from Saint Seiya. Or at least a pretty fabulous Arceus cosplayer with a bit of a Greek hint to his fashion sense. 

He demands the other plates, because he wants to meet Arceus and know what it is. No, he must know what Arceus is. Which is fair enough, that's just a slightly more loony version of his descendant Cynthia. But then he starts talking about subjugating Arceus, wanting to use Arceus's power to create the world in his own image and wipe out the Hisui region. 

And so we have a battle, with a glorious piano cover of Cynthia's theme. 

And his party? All level 70's. Pretty much Cynthia's super-duper cracked party from Platinum, with a couple of changes. You know what? You know what? After having a cakewalk through every single main series Pokemon game since Generation V, and even throughout this game, this is a breath of fresh air. He sends out Spiritomb! I send out Origin Form Dialga and one-shot the Spiritomb with a strong style move!

...not counting on the cooldown, and Volo's Lucaria proceeds to attack three times in a turn by abusing agile style moves, finishing Dialga off with a strong style Close Combat! Damn, okay. Okay! I don't have (and don't plan to use) revives or potions at this point, because I really didn't think to stock up. Never needed to, unless I'm exploring for a long time. 

My Decidueye swoops in with a Brave Bird to take down the Lucario. But the recoil damage and the subsequent 4x effective Air Slash from Volo's Togekiss wipes out my Decidueye. Goodra manages to take out Togekiss with a Hydro Pump (not my best Pokemon choice there). But then Volo sends out Garchomp. It's pseudo-legendary against pseudo-legendary. Cynthia's signature Pokemon, the bane of everyone who played through the Generation IV games. 

Garchomp outspeeds my Goodra and managed to take out nearly all of Goodra's health with an Earth Power. Goodra gets off a Dragon Pulse, but didn't manage to take Garchomp all the way down. He does soften Garchomp out for my Kleavor to waste him with a strong style Stone Axe. 

I have to say, not being able to get those free switches in really does make this battle more challenging, yeah? Kleavor stands against Arcanine, and there's literally nothing in my Kleavor's moveset that can damage the Fire/Rock, and the poor mantis just dies. Origin Forme Palkia just comes in and sweeps Arcanine with a Water Pulse, and takes out the final Roserade with a Spacial Rend.

Volo gets all pissy about how why he's not the special one, and how he's devoted himself to Arceus beyond any other (you just said you wanted to subjugate him, you madman!) and he has been worshipping him and studied him and bent all his passion to him... and starts getting pissed off at me, the outsider, spat out of the space-time rift to get in his way. 

And then in one of the cooler lines, he says... "can't you feel it? The chill creeping through your veins? The eldritch presence icing your heart?"

Fuck. 

Yes. 

Pokemon Platinum is probably one of the first games that I put the most time into. And... and every time that game sets up, I have to look into Giratina's eyes and hear that glorious demon-dragon cry, which they managed to do amazingly well in 32-bit sound effects. Which this game translates to 'bishaaan!'

And... we get a gorgeous cutscene. Shadows enveloping Volo from behind, giant long demonic wings sprouting up from inky shadows, just like the cutscene in the DS games... the music building up. Then Giratina himself, looming, before he yells that all-too-familiar cry as the dusk sky is eclipsed by the shadows of the banished dragon-god of antimatter and shadows. My boy, GIRATINA!

Volo yells out at Giratina to strike me down, and... oh god. I haven't been healed up. This... they didn't even give me a chance to heal up! This is basically a seventh Pokemon! At least I don't have to capture Giratina this time around, but... but even defeating him is a tall order. Giratina one-shots my Palkia with a Dragon Claw, and... there's scant little that my poor little Rapidash do against him. 

And I wipe out. 

I finally, legitimately, wiped out, all set to the glorious, ominous music. 

You know what? Fuck. Fuck, that was an awesome boss fight. With the exception of the Totem Pokemon in Sun/Moon, maybe Ultra Necrozma in US/UM, Pokemon has been so goddamned easy. Particularly recent editions. Actually removing the free switching in battles, plus adding another Pokemon at the end of it? Fuck, I know this game. I know Giratina has two forms. He's going to have another form, right? 

So yeah. I swapped out my party, switched Rapidash out for Ursaluna, and challenged Volo again. I got as far as the Giratina fight before he wiped me out... at which point, yeah. I could grind, maybe. I could properly use the grit items, or the nature-changing mints. I could bring in a bunch more heavy-hitters, like Regigigas and Cresselia and whatever, but... I kind of like the party I have currently. I like only bringing in Dialga and Palkia as the legendaries in my party. 

I swapped in some moves for Dialga and Palkia at Zisu... probably the first time I used her services since early in the game. I used Exp candies to get my party all up to 70... but that's it. I do want this to be a bit of a challenge, after all.

And then I fought Volo again. He took down four of my six Pokemon this time around, and I had to make use of Decidueye to heroically tank Giratina's Shadow Forces while I max revived Palkia and Goodra. Damn, Shadow Force is cool in this game, with Giratina disappearing backwards, then reappearing and using his six claw-tentacles to rip apart a hole in space-time. 

But ultimately, Decidueye's sacrifice allowed Origin Palkia to come in and do a Strong Style Spacial Rend to wipe out Giratina... but this is altered form Giratina. The less-cool Giratina. 

Giratina convulses, A bunch of inky shadows gets spewed out of his six-legged body, and we get some cool effect with his eyes trailing the red glowing effect behind him. 

And with the exact cry from Platinum's home screen, Origin Form Giratina, in all his floating, worm-ribcage-centipede-shadow-dragon glory, floats before me. 

And the music. Giratina's theme is still one of the best music themes to come out of Nintendo. This battle just keeps giving!

Goodra Dragon Pulses it, but Giratina takes it out in one Dragon Claw. I send in Kleavor, but he doesn't even get a shot off before Giratina Shadow Forces him. Then Origin Form Dialga takes the stage... and Giratina... uses Shadow Force instead of Dragon Claw? Oh you done fucked up, Poke-Satan. 

Dialga's strong-style Roar of Time takes Giratina from around 75% health down to zero in one go, and I do think it's poetic that it's one of Arceus's "good" children that takes out Giratina. 

Giratina is defeated, reverts back to his altered form, and runs away. Volo yells in anger about how Giratina is pussying out from a puny human (forgetting that I have a time god-horse-dragon next to me) and started to rant about how he had wanted to feed Giratina all the power he needed to fight Arceus, and how he had wanted Giratina to drag the creator out from hiding. Volo then reveals about how the blood of the ancient Sinnoh people flows in his veins, and gets pissed off that Arceus refuses to notice him but instead notices the isekai protagonist. He asks me about dreams that propel me (I answer no, which I think pisses him off a bit more than the alternative), and he hopes I suffer and agonize as he did. 

Volo finally gives me the final Ghost-type plate... and it transforms my Celestica Flute into the Azure Flute.

Oh my! In addition to looking like a mutated Ocarina of Time, the Azure Flute is the plot device in the Generation IV games to trigger the Arceus event. Something that was never distributed out of Japan. So that's why the flute has been so important all game long! It's been staring us right in our faces.

Volo throws a hissy fit at me receiving the Azure Flute instead of him and leaves, getting pissed off that Arceus chose me instead of him. He doesn't want to watch from the sidelines this time around! Volo gives one last rant about how this isn't over and how he'll conquer the world, even if  it takes centuries, and leaves. (I guess he might show up in a future installment?

...do I meet Arceus himself? Perhaps, a glimpse of him, in this game titled Legends: Arceus?

Not yet. "Seek out all Pokemon", which, I think, means that I have to complete the goddamn Pokedex. 

Yep. 

Yep, that tracks. Fortunately, they made completing the Pokedex a bit more interesting this time around. 

I have been going around doing a lot of Pokedex completion stuff in-between writing these let's play episodes. Mostly just catching stuff and racking up my kill-counts and trying to fill in the gaps for rarer Pokemon like the Eeveelutions, the two sets of starters and some final evolutions. But there are a lot that I really do still have to go out and look for. Laventon tells me that Giratina's been sighted in the Coastlands, so I guess it's going to be in good ol' Turnback Cave. There are still the Spiritomb and Unown collection quests to do.

You know what? We've been all about Giratina throughout this whole sequence, so I made a brief trip to Turnback Cave to capture Giratina, who's just chilling in his origin form, ready to fight and get captured with an ultra ball. Not too much to say here, this game features a lot of legendary capturing. Laventon did give one last little talk about how Volo, before leaving, told him about how Giratina has chosen to protect Hisui/Sinnoh after his defeat at my hands. So I guess I turned Giratina from the Poke-Satan that he was in the dex entries and this game into the cool antihero-Hellboy that he is in the Generation IV games? Neat!

There's a brief epilogue of Cogita meeting me in the Team Galactic building, telling me that Volo is a classic tale of passion burning too bright and consuming its bearer... before giving me another set of legendaries to capture. Thundurus, Tornadus and Landorus, sighted alongside terrifying weather patterns in the icelands, coastlands and fieldlands! Right! And I guess Cogita's going to lead me to Enamorus when I capture all three of them! More legendary hunting, and more Pokedex entry-filling!