Let's Play Pokemon Violet, Part 16: Titan Catching & Mass Murderer Mabosstiff

So I did a lot of exploring over the past couple of days, and I did find a bunch of things. Ran around in the marsh areas on the north-west side as I go around unlocking all ten sights of Paldea, as well as went over the mountains to reach all the marshy area around Team Star Eri's location. Haven't done her or Ortega just yet, though. 

My Tinkatuff evolved into Tinkaton, who is a big fairy doll thing with a giant-ass metal hammer that it created from the fallen bodies of the Corviknights it kills. This thing is Corviknight's natural predator, the reason why Corviknight taxis are nonexistent here and... they attack Corviknight by launching rocks with their big-ass hammer. Their signature move is Gigaton Hammer, basically something similar to Hyper Beam -- you can't use the move twice in a row, though unlike Hyper Beam, Tinkaton can still use other moves.

Also, hanging out in the same cave that I found Arctibax last episode, I found its pre-evolved stage, Frigibax... so this is the first stage of the evolution line! And... yea, it looks very unimpressive. Thankfully I got introduced to its middle evolutionary line first, which looks a lot more neater. 

Thanks to one of the commentators telling me to watch out for five-bull herds of Tauros, I'm paying a bit more attention to the Tauros herds and found that some of them, particularly the ones near the desert, are led by this variant, the 'Aqua Breed', which has... uh... bulbous horns, a spinny-shaped tail and a different fur. This Aqua Breed Tauros can swim by jetting water from its horns, can float with its high body fat, and is Water/Fighting? Okay. Apparently the Scarlet-exclusive variant is Fire/Fighting!

Also, hold up, FLITTLE evolves into ESPATHRA. The- what? How? The little frilly blob evolves into a Cleopatra ostrich? HOW? I wouldn't have guessed it if not for the drops from Espathra being Flittle-related. What? HOW? Okay, this is more confusing than Remoraid and Octillery, although at least these two share colours...

I also evolved Varoom into Revavroom, which is a bit less exciting since it's just the hot rod engine of the gigantic Starmobiles we've seen before. I evolved Pawmo into Pawmot -- and it uses the same bullshit walking technique that Bramblin and Rellor used. Pawmo and Pawmot doesn't even look that different!

I also got spoiled on the fact that Primeape of all things has a brand-new evolution, only achievable if I use the move Rage Fist 20 times in one go. Rage Fist is a Ghost-type move, and Primeape, upon leveling up, evolves into the Fighting/Ghost Annihilape. Amazing name, and the design is a psycho Sadako version of Primeape, with hair fluttering everywhere and trailing into ectoplasm. The chains on its hands are either broken or gone, and... I like the fantasy here, where Primeape still remains so angry even in death that it lingers on as a ghost monkey!

I also did a bunch of Gimmighoul farming after I got spoiled on how Gimmighoul evolves. I don't quite have 999 coins yet, but I am visiting the towers every day to beat up the wild Gimmighouls and gather 50 coins every time I kill them. 

I tried to do a couple of teacher interactions. Mr. Jacq basically just kind of stays there and gives me rewards for milestones in the Pokedex entry... which I get all the rewards for except, obviously, for the full Pokedex. Man, Jacq is so boring compared to the other teachers. Saguaro is a bit more fun, where he's trying to exude this image of a cool, collected and badass teacher, but he actually doesn't like spicy food and almost got peer-pressured by his students in the cafeteria to order a spicy Subway until I interrupt him. I also like how he views his Home Economics class as a bit of a respite for most of the students in the school.

Hassel, the Elite Four member, asks me about his class, but then he gets interrupted by a Dragon Tamer lady who has some business with him... but I can't see anything more beyond that since I haven't unlocked the classes beyond the midterms. 

Also something that I didn't realize was an option was to go back to all the Titan battles and challenge all the Titans in their true forms... which are just... slightly larger-than-average versions of themselves. I don't really think the size difference is all that noticeable in the way that the old-school Totem Pokemon or the recent Alpha Pokemon are. But hey, I sure went and caught myself a Klawf, an Orthworm, a Tatsugiri, a Bombirdier and an... Iron Treads? Okay, so Iron Treads isn't considered a Donphan regional variant or a Donphan evolution? It's just... Iron Treads? Hmm. Not sure how I feel about that. That doesn't sound like a Pokemon name, but then I get the idea that these 'Paradox' Pokemon (yeah, I know the term now) are supposed to be weird. 

So after clearing all the Titan storylines in my previous episode, I decided to go to the Poco Path lighthouse. Turns out one of the doors I cannot interact with before is a doorway to Professor Turo's secret lab... and he's not even there! There's a cutscene to show off how dusty everything is, and later on when I interact with items in the lab it really does feel kind of abandoned. No picture frames, and there's only a dusty dog bed with Maschiff scribbled on it. Man, Turo is a shit parent!

And Arven reminds me of that multiple times. That Professor Turo never really shows up for... for anything in his life. He doesn't even have a single happy memory of playing with his dad! And Turo doesn't even show up now, not really. He speaks to us through a video call on his monitors, which... is a bit bizarre. Why not tell us this over the phone call when I beat up the Titan Tatsugiri, then? I get that Turo's probably unable to leave Area Zero or something, but really, some better communication -- like telling us that the whole point of going to the Poco Path Lighthouse is just to get the Violet Book that Arven flips through every mission -- would've saved us a lot of legwork. 

Oh well! Turo tells us to meet him in Area Zero... but only when I'm prepared. Which is narrative shorthand for telling me to complete the Victory Road and Operation Starfall main storylines, something that the player character none-too-subtly notes when I later have to think of powerful allies (which are Penny and Nemona). 

Arven is game, of course, but he's doing it for me moreso than for his dad. But Arven wants to challenge me first to see how ready we are for Area Zero. And Mabosstiff is ready to fight! I love that the game actually throws in a bit of a line with us being concerned if Mabosstiff should be fighting after recovering, but of course this is the Pokemon world so that is absolutely okay. 

And Arven's team... is suitably matched with mine! They're all in the 58-63 level range, and actually since I wasn't bringing a proper team to fight (I left my Garganacl and was raising my Houndstone) it was very fair level-wise. He has a full team of six, too -- all the Pokemon he used when we fought the Titans, raised up, and I guess the real treasure he made along the way, other than curing his sick old dog, is the friends he made along the way. That's cute! That's adorable! That's awesome, because Arven actually gave me a run for my money!

His team consists of a Greedent, a Scovillain, a Cloyster, a Toedscruel, a Garganacl and the big bad boy himself, Mabosstiff. 

My team consisted of Skeledirge, Brambleghast, Clodsire, Lokix, Rabsca and the level 30-something Houndstone which is a freebie for Arven to take out. And... I think you guys could actually see that there is a very glaring weakness that four-fifths of my fight have, which is the Dark type. Guess what Arven's main Pokemon is? (I also elected to not use terastralization or healing items, as usual).

Anyway, the Greedent, the Garganacl and the Cloyster didn't really do a whole ton, but the Scovillain managed to take out my Lokix because I completely forgot that it's part Fire-type. A Fire Blast from that thing hurt! It then proceeded to critical hit Crunch and almost kill my Clodsire. Damn, that bell pepper monster is a menace! Oh boy, a trainer whose team is actually a challenge! After the last gym leaders have all been literal pushovers, this is fun.

The Toedscruel, too, is also bamboozling for me because I forgot that it's Grass/Ground... which means that I saw the thing, went 'oh, it's a fungus, let me burn it with my fire starter'... and then it EARTH POWERS my Skeledirge all the way to the red. Skeledirge one-shots the Toedscruel with a Flamethrower, but my starter is still in the red! But then in comes big bad Mabosstiff, who Terastralizes, outspeeds my Skeledirge and then Crunches it to death. 

At this point, yeah, the rest of my team is kinda fucked. I tried throwing in Rabsca to Bug Buzz him, but he outspeeds and Crunches Rabsca to death. My already-red Clodsire pops up, manages to get out a Megahorn (despite its shit accuracy) and outspeed Mabosstiff with a Quick Claw... and Mabosstiff lives. And then murders my Clodsire with PSYCHIC FANGS. Brambleghast pops up, trying to Bullet Seed him, but dies quickly to Crunch too because big bad doggo outspeeds. 

Which means... which means I'm left with my level 39 Houndstone, which wouldn't stand up to Mabosstiff even if I raised it up to 60. 

So yeah. I basically lost.

I didn't actually lose, of course, since I used Revive on Lokix -- who has Sucker Punch, a priority move -- but Mabosstiff essentially took out my entire team. Yes, Skeledirge and Clodsire were both red, but I highly doubt they'd survive the Crucnh or Psychic Fangs respectively anyway even at full health. Lokix uses Sucker Punch to take out Mabosstiff and... and Arven says 'it was so close!' You know what? It really is. As far as I'm concerned, Arven and Mabosstiff beat me fair and square, and all the work that this boy put into curing his dog and training it clearly paid the fuck off. 

Good job, Arven! You're probably my favourite of the three main student rivals, honestly, everything about your story and all. Pretty great stuff, and I'm pleasantly surprised to see Arven actually put up a bit of a fight! And especially since the Pokemon that bullied my team is Mabosstiff, who he spent so much time working to cure. There's some huge anime redemption arc going on here!

So yeah. I'm pretty sure there's going to be some huge plot twist with the relationship between Arven and Turo, since I don't think the whole story is just going to be 'oh lol Turo is an absentee parent'. Looking forward to see what that will be!

I also do a bit more of the school stuff, though I didn't progress too much of my classes (and ergo, the requisite teachers' overworld interactions) post the mid-terms. Nurse Miriam finally got certified as a health education teacher, though there isn't space to slot her in this year's classes. She'll be teaching next year, though! Okay, that's cute. Clavell also asks me about what hairstyles are popular among the youth, and I can answer 'pompadours', and he's excited at getting that part 'right'... before wondering why he had never seen the students of Uva Academy actually wear this supposedly popular hairstyle. Oh, Clavell-Clive, you're funny. 

More interestingly, I go in and take history lessons with Raifort, basically going all the way to the sixth and final class with her. She's the one that seemed would give actual important information to the main storyline, after all, though her fifth and sixth class kind of just recaps things that I think we can already surmise from other parts of the game. She tells us that the leader of the expedition is called Heath (something we find from the Violet Book), the ancient exploration efforts into Area Zero, the origin of Terastralized Pokemon that walked out of the Area Zero and that the Tera Orb is created based on the events of the Area Zero expedition. Likewise, the final examination isn't really anything to talk about.

But her fourth class is a bit interesting, because she talks about a fairy tale passed down in Paldea, about four gifts given by a merchant from a foreign land to an ancient Paldean King -- a sword, a vessel, two tablets and a set of beads. There was a discussion on whether the tablets might have had a certain knowledge that made the king so jubilant upon receiving them... but by the next night, a terrible disaster befell his castle, reducing it to rubble by dawn. 

Ominous. 

And then Raifort basically is available for talking to outside class, upon which she talks a bit more about these 'Treasures of Ruin' and the sealed locations (which are unlocked as shrines that I can't fly to) all across Paldea and these actually do sound like locations that would be more at home in a World of Warcraft map than a Pokemon map! Grasswither Shrine, Icerend Shrine, Firescourge Shrine, Groundblight Shrine? I met one of these seals before, and I suppose this is the backstory, then. 

The ancient king's treasures were transformed by his vile greed, into monsters that brought ruin to the ancient kingdom. Which of coutse are actually four legendary Pokemon that eventually got sealed by the local trainers of the time. Very interesting! And here I am, going around pulling stakes out of the ground wily-nily! Again, it really is always very neat to showcase the sheer scale of destruction that some of these legendaries can do. Won't be seeing them for a while, though, because...

Next up, the Pokemon League!

Random Notes:

• This is a great game to just passively beat up Pokemon while you watch a TV show or an anime or something. I got a bunch of evolutions done. Breloom, Coalossal, Corviknight, Gardevoir, Staraptor, Gyarados, Luxray, Raichu, Florges, Forretress, Frosmoth, Houndoom, Gastrodon, Azumarill, Florges...
  
• I also captured Indeedee, Mimikyu, Falinks, Fomantis, Sudowoodo, Gothorita, Hariyama, Toxtricity, Heracross, Pincurchin (a pain to find, that one!), Sawsbuck, Bronzong, Sudowoodo and a bunch of others. Spiritomb, too, who's just casually hanging out on top of the ice mountains.
• Cleared out that mountain cave that leads up to Alfornada. Both the Bagon and Gible lines can be found there, and there are a bunch of Sinistea just hanging out outside the city... it's just that they're tiny in the overworld so it's a bit hard to spot them!
• (So that my team isn't overleveled, when I did a lot of this grinding, I basically relied on a second team consisting of Spidops, Arboliva, Kilowattrel and a couple others).
• From the dex entry, Tsareena apparently views Quaquaval as its mortal enemy. Okay? What did the duck dancer do to you, Tsareena?
• I actually caught the Titan Bombirdier since forever ago, which got me really confused when it didn't spawn. 
• It really is kind of sad to see just how that picture frame in Turo's lab doesn't even have a photo there. 
• Some other neat things there include a book about making huge sandwiches, as well as two more Occulture magazines that describe a future version of Gardevoir and Gallade. 
• I find it funny that Raifort has a little hissy fit about being forced by curriculum to cover recent history, which she defines as being under a century old.
• Raifort also notes that she got the location of the four shrines from a carpenter? I wonder if this will be relevant, or if it's just a hammer-and-nail joke.