Nemona fight me again with her Sprigatito and her Pawmi, and she shows off this generation's equivalent to Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, Dynamax/Gigantamax... which is... Terastrallization! It's a combination of terra and crystallization, I think. Astral might be in it? Regardless, compared to the previous three, I've gone on record in saying that it looks the most phoned-in and probably the most stupid-looking generational gimmick. And, yes, I'm comparing it to the one where the trainer has to do a little dance before activating the super-move; or to the one where Pokemon just go big.
Anyway, from what I gather, each Pokemon has a 'Tera Type' that determines what type they will become when they Terastrallize, and that is going to be something that certain event or raid Pokemon have unique versions of. It's like how some Pokemon specimens can arbitrarily access the Gigantamax forms, while some can only go Dynamax. It's just a way to force even more sub-unique variants of the Pokemon. Like this Flying-Tera-Type balloon Pikachu that I get from the mystery gift for playing this game pretty early.
Anyway, the resulting Terastrallization just makes the Pokemon glow with a crystal-like texture, then a big-ass ugly-ass thing just sprouts out of their head. For Pawmi's case, it's a big-ass lightbulb. He doesn't get to do anything, though, because Pooper the Paldean Wooper Mud Shots it to death.
...if you can't tell, I really don't think much about Terastrallization. Sorry for the old man rant. I will say one thing, though. At least it doesn't look as obnoxious as Dynamax does, and in essence I do kinda feel like it's a bit of a cross between Z-Moves and Dynamax since it relies more on just making a move get some extra STAB.
Nemona motor-mouths about how she's going to help me get my hands on a Tera Orb or whatever the plot device is to allow me to Terastrallize. So at least we're not going to drag our feet getting this ability in-game, at least... something that, again, thanks to my indifference, I'm very happy to just get over and done with. I do find it rather... interesting that it's all but spelled out that Nemona's pulling some strings and using her clout to give us access to this super-rare ability.
Which, again, leaves me to access Mesagoza City. It's a big campus-town, and there's a whole lot of NPC's and shops. It's probably the biggest town in a 3D Pokemon game by volume, though content-wise... I'm not sure if it's just because I haven't reached the university at this point, or if it's just a big, spread-out sequence of generic NPC's and shops? There is also a disappointing lack of side-quests and random events like traders or whatever, which does make all the random NPC's feel especially hollow.
I do like the shops, though. It's all basically just variations of the ice cream shop I met in Los Platos; with food that give you temporary effects. But there are cafes, all-you-can-eat grills, seafood restaurants, fake Subway stores... a lot of great artwork for the food, too, which makes me hungry. In the main square before we walk up the big staircase that leads to the giant Hogwarts-esque campus are a bunch of clothing store, each specializing in a specific part of the player character's outfit. Hats, glasses, bags, socks, shoes... I do want some regular clothes to replace since all four of the uniform presets are kinda dorky-looking, but no such luck yet.
The music for Mesagoza is pretty nice. There's a point with a giant staircase that leads me to be able to walk around the rooftops, and I can jump off and break my fall with Rotom. That's cute!
At this point I'm also able to call a cab -- similar to the Corviknight taxis from Sword/Shield -- to fast travel to certain
And as I walk up the gigantic staircase that Nemona keeps pointing out to be 'legendary' and 'tiring' (and it looks tiring), I get to see a girl with a big-ass fluffy jacket and a cute Eevee bag get harassed by our villains. Team Star! Who are hooligans that are very persuasive at trying to fill their quota and harassing people to join them. Shy, quiet girl with Todoroki hair isn't taking any of their shit, and I'm also unaware of who these people are.
The first grunt tosses out a Shroodle at me, who gets dunked immediately. Nemona comes in and... gets pissed that I'm battling with people other than her, since she'll battle with me anytime, anywhere... yeah, you're very possessive about this specific thing, aren't you, Nemona? The Team Star grunts are a bit terrified of her, and would rather take their chances with me. Anyway, she gives me the Tera-Crystal-Orb-Item whatchamacallit, and I Terastrallize my Fuecoco, who gains a big-ass candle on his head. A glittery, glassy ember that blows up the Yungoos.
Team Star's even dorkier than previous evil teams, and to be honest I really do hope that they actually do act a bit more hooligan-ish. I do like them making a star symbol with their arms, and their catchphrase of 'hasta la vistar', but... otherwise, they just feel like brats instead of an actual evil team. Which I guess fits with the school setting!
What is a banger is the Team Star theme, which is awesome! Shame that they lasted so short since we fight them for, what, half a minute? Bah.
Anyway, I climb up the stairs. The music for the city gets a lot more enthusiastic as I do so, which is a nice touch!
There is a brief conversation with Director Clavell, where he tells me that I'm apparently not supposed to fight and deal with the Team Star hooligans myself. There's school staff to take care of them. It's a neat sense of realism that I've been seeing in a lot more media where... yeah, it's cool to have your protagonists be in school and whatnot. You still really don't want to encourage them to pick fights with hooligans, even if the characters in the work of fiction will still be confronting them. Or something like that.
Anyway, I get sorted to class 1-A. Some real strong My Hero Academia energy here, though Todoroki-haired girl (she's called Penny, according to Clavell) isn't in 1-A. Our homeroom teacher is Mr. Jacq, a guy with a whole lot of purple outfit to him. He's pretty chill-looking and I can see him hanging out with, like, Professor Kukui or something. There are a bunch of classes available to take, and he's apparently a biology teacher? We get a map shown to us afterwards, with options showing the locations I can visit. Class 1A, Staff Room, Cafeteria... very Persona 5, actually!
So I do what any student will do, and go off to the cafeteria. Pretty nice, small map that is a nice change considering how large the main Uva Academy or the Mesagoza city maps are. There's a lot of cute little conversations going on in the background, including a cute one where there's a Rotom hanging out next to a microwave and one of the cooks talks about Heat Rotom.
Hanging out in the cafeteria is Arven, the mysterious guy that gave me Miraidon's ball. He apparently normally wouldn't come to school, which... only in fantasy schools does that not get you expelled. He talks about how he's normally about the picnic life, but now he wants my help for his dream. He wants to look for something called a Herba Mystica, but to do so he has to go into areas where there are Titan Pokemon. (Not to be confused with Alpha Pokemon, or Totem Pokemon, or Gigantamax Pokemon) There are five titans for me to meet -- the False Dragon (Charizard???), Quaking Earth, Open Sky, Lurking Steel and Stony Cliff.
Arven even shows off like a book about one such Titan Pokemon, which is a gigantic Donphan of unusual size and... I love the sketch-like artwork of Donphan that makes him look so much more threatening. The 'wheel' part of Donphan ends up looking like it's a detached piece, the horns look bloodsoaked and its feet look more like Dialga's feet than Donphan's. There's a very strong 'notes of doomed explorers' vibe to this thing (apparently people got mortally wounded by this giant elephant!), and it's actually kind of a fun little mood-setter.
This sets up the Path of Legends... quest chain? Is this what it is? I was informed a bit that there's going to be multiple questlines to go through not too dissimilar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and it's up to me what to choose. I just thought it was all going to revolve around the gym challenge, but I guess there's others to do!
As I leave the cafeteria, some lady called Cassiopeia hacked my Rotom-phone. Rotom Phones can be hacked? She talks about Team Star, noting that they are a group of troublemakers formed by academy students a while back, and she wants to recruit me to go for Operation Starfall to disband them. I don't quite get a questline startup as I did with Arven and Nemona later on, but it's an interesting part as I think I'm just being given a whole bunch of quests at this point in time.
Interestingly, Director Clavell walks up to me and tells me to keep my voice down when I'm making phone calls in school, because he wouldn't want anyone to overhear any suspicious, sensitive personal information. He then mumbles a bit about Team Star. So is he actually somehow connected to Team Star or something? It's weird that the director would be saying it, but he did tell Nemona and myself to not bother with Team Star and leave it to the school staff.
Anyway, I go into the staff room where I get to see a lady in an impeccable suit and a gigantic hair talk to Nemona. Also spread across the staff room are a bunch of teachers with unique or quasi-unique models, so I'm going to assume that this is a bit of a cameo of the teachers I'll be meeting in the future. The lady leaves, and Nemona introduces this lady as La Primera. Apparently students can reach the 'Champion' rank, but La Primera is the champion-among-champions, I guess? I have to clear all eight Pokemon gyms in the region, before going through the Champion Assessment.
Very cool way to handle the gym challenge, actually, and just like Sword/Shield having the football league cup thing going on, it does make the gym challenge a bit more... interesting, so to say.
As the promotional materials have kind of promised, all eight gyms are available to challenge from the get-go, and Nemona just instantly gives me a list of the eight cities with the eight gyms. Medali with Normal, Cascarrafa with Water, Cortondo with Bug, Alfornada with Fairy, Montenevera with Ghost, Glaseado with Ice, Levincia with Electric and Artazon with Grass. One of the gym leaders have a strong Giovanni energy, with his head turned away from us.
Appropriately, this challenge/quest chain is called Victory Road. Cute.
I then get called to the Director's Office, and Clavell wants to have a serious discussion with one of his friends. Which, of course, is Professor Futurepants himself, Professor Turo, his impeccable facial hair and his bizarre Tron spacesuit. Yeah, he's future-themed all right, and he's hanging out in Area Zero, the great crater of Paldea. We previously heard about Area Zero from Arven when he was talking about the Titan Pokemon, and... I just love the visual imagery of an ominous crater with a tiny little scientific base to the side. It has very strong Burning Crusade vibes to it for all my World of Warcraft homies out there.
Also, I'm going to say it's rather obvious that Area Zero is going to be the Eternatus equivalent as the plot device that's causing everything weird in Paldea, except properly foreshadowed in the story itself. Miraidon, in his adorable four-legged-dragon mode, pops out of the Pokeball, and seems to recognize Professor Turo. And a bit bamboozled by the fact that he's a face on the screen. Turo tells us that he was the previous owner of Miraidon, tells me to take care of it while Miraidon fully regains his capabilities for mobility.
I mean, I guess that's another sidequest, too? Restore the cover legendary to full health? It is a very interesting way, again, to make the cover legendary have a major presence in the story and make him feel like a companion instead of this guy that shows up at the end. Sun/Moon did it best by having Nebby be an NPC that hangs around us, but it's not really the same when we see him as a Cosmog and later as a Solgaleo/Lunala, right? Sword/Shield tried another method where Zacian/Zamazenta shows up briefly in the prequel and later shows up in the third act to support us, but that's not really the same, is it?
Anyway, Miraidon obviously comes from Area Zero, and both Turo and Clavell have some ominous, suspicious connection with each other with Clavell ominously going 'did you really do it, Turo?'
Nemona brings me to my dorm room, and we talk a bit about living in school. It's a fancy-ass dorm room with a kitchen and everything! I do wonder if I'll be able to customize my dorm room like a Ruby/Sapphire secret base or something?
Rather bizarrely, then, we have a time-skip! I guess I was supposed to take those maths and biology classes before I talked to Arven and Nemona, then? I was a bit worried that I was going to miss some of these content, but I guess this isn't Persona 5, and I didn't just permanently miss some content.
Anyway, I go to the schoolyard where my whole batch is assembled before Clavell, who talks about the 'treasure hunt' independent learning. It's a very vague, almost One Piece-y spiel about how everyone can find their own treasure to deepen their understanding of the world. I do appreciate the showcase of different parts of the land of Paldea, though, and I guess it's another one of the main story quests -- our term project or whatever. It's neat, and there's a huge sequence of people heading out with their... Cyclizars? Apparently Cyclizar is literally a budget version of Miraidon and Koraidon! I wonder, then, if Miraidon and Koraidon are to Cyclizar what Diancie is to the Carbinks? Two species that are connected to each other, but they can't evolve into each other in-game?
Clavell, again, warns against any of the students travelling near the Great Crater of Paldea, which is illegal and super-dangerous. Hmm, is he hiding something? I've watched enough anime to kinda get that vibe off of Clavell.
Afterwards, a short scene later shows Nemona, Arven and even Cassiopeia (in her hacked Rotom Phone) fight over me and asking me to do this or that quest chain first. It's at this point that Cassiopiea gives me the five bases of Team Star, each of which represents a type (Fairy, Fire, Dark, Fighting, Poison) and I do realize that the 8 gyms, 5 titans and 5 stars end up representing the full type circle. I didn't even realize that! Good show, Nintendo.
Also, in response to the mention to a sandwich in the dialogue, Miraidon pops up and gets super excited and subsequently disappointed. Miraidon is now unlocked! Miraidon is basically a half-transformer in this mode, with his lizard legs unfurled and untucked when he's standing still, but then retracting it flush against its body as I drive around and the thigh-thrusters unleashes some exhaust to push me along. It's very nice to let me move around the large overworld. Miraidon is also able to jump by pressing B, unleashing the power of lizard legs. I still am not the biggest fan of Miraidon, but since clearly the game does want me to basically have my huge exploration tool (the Bicycle equivalent) be a Pokemon, I am a fan of how it's integrated into gameplay, if it makes sense. And for all my bitching of the design of Miraidon and Koraidon, they look a whole sight better than the Galar Bike.
And, well... I'm not going to any of these major quests yet, though I personally would probably go for either the gym challenge or the titan quest personally. No, the gigantic school hall is open to me -- I still haven't explored the entrance hall and its ginormous grand library, I haven't taken the biology/math/battle classes available to me, and apparently there are like around twelve new areas in the school that is open to me. Not sure what I'll do next, but I sure have a lot of options!
Random Notes
- I've finally taken a look at the map as a whole and it does have a very interesting layout! It's probably one of my favourite layouts in any RPG game where you get introduced to a big, central 'base' area early on and you slowly branch out all around you and explore the world.
- When I fight the second grunt in front of the school, the first grunt goes through a cheerleading animation. That's cute.
- More random older Pokemon I met outside the city! Sunkern! Surskit!
- I didn't have too much of a problem with frames dropping in this game, but boy those students in 1-A waving their legs when Jacq introduces me to the class really was noticeable.
- Not exactly connected to Pokemon, but I also bought Persona 5 Royal. I do plan to play it after Pokemon, but it's a long-ass game and it's going to be the subject of the next huge 'Reviewing Monsters' segment over the next year -- the way I did Final Fantasy 7 and 13 before.
- In Scarlet, instead of Professor Turo, I would've gotten Professor Sada, who's a cavewoman with a labcoat.
- Clavell's office has a neat showcase of the Scarlet/Violet aesthetic. He's got a bunch of displays of old fossils and rocks, but the other half of his office has some state-of-the-art fancy lab equipment.
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