And here we are with more Pokemon Violet: The Secret of Area Zero, Part 1: The Teal Mask! Or otherwise known as Momotaro, the twisted fairy tales version. Last time where we left off, I went all the way from Paldea to Kitakami, got saddled with a pair of rude-and-shy siblings, and now have to go around taking photographs of signboards that detail a local legend.
I do walk around the town a bit, and... I really do have to say that the modelling department really did a great job making the town stand out, because like most towns in Scarlet/Violet there's hardly anything to really interact with here. There is a unique NPC, a lady with a camera and a Hisuian Growlithe for some reason. She's called Perrin and she asks me to go and register 150 Pokemon into my Kitakami Pokedex before I return to her... which isn't a daunting task because thanks to overlap with Pokemon from mainland Paldea, I already have more than 100.
The area I visit first is a grove of young apple trees, and, again, love the detailing here as far as the environment goes. Interestingly, considering what a bitching nightmare it was to capture Applin in the original base game, this location makes catching Applin a far simpler matter. Some local NPC tell me about a 'candy apple' Pokemon, so... an Applin convergent evolution? Or an evolution outright? We will see.
Lots of older Pokemon show up here, too. Sentret, Bellsprout, Ekans... at this rate I've captured many of them over various different games, but it's always nice to see Ekans animated with the 3D capabilities as he slithers and coils up; and I'm always happy to put Victreebel in my party.
Kieran and I reach the Loyalty Plaza, where there is a shrine with little statues of the Loyal Three, the three animals based on Momotaro's animal companions. On the signboard is also the backstory of their fight with the ogre. A long time ago, the ogre appaerntly bullied and attacked the people of Kitakami, before the Loyal Three arrive and chased away the Ogre. The three Pokemon laid down their lives (!) and were buried under the shrine. Now I know we're going to meet all four members of this story through the DLC, but it's surprising that the backstory actually explicitly notes that the Pokemon 'laid down their lives' instead of a vague 'lost to us' or whatever.
Anyway, Ogerpon is a savage monster that appaerntly killed the original Okidogi, Munkidori and Fezandipiti. Holy shit what terrible names those three had. I thought that it'll just take time for me to warm up to the names after the original press release for the DLC, but... nope, still hate those names.
Anyway, Kieran is being a regular Garou from One-Punch Man here, noting how the Ogre is kinda cool, and that he's facing unfair three-on-one odds. It's nice that the Ogre has fans. In typical Pokemon fashion there probably is something more to Ogrepon's story, but I'm content to shut my brain off and not speculate too much.
After a photography session with the signboard, Kieran mentions the word 'sandwich' and this causes Miraidon to pop out of his Pokeball, causing Kieran to react in shock at 'some kind of kaiju'. My character apparently is uncultured and doesn't understand that word? I guess this is just to remind us if we forgot that we could ride Miraidon in this game? Either way, I do appreciaet them keeping the sandwich meme for Miraidon.
And I just kind of spend time running around the areas available to me, catching more and more Pokemon. Seedot, Vulpix, Poliwag... all the Pokemon are in the late 50's to early 60's, meaning that for the most part, all I need is to level up them once for them to reach their final forms. The EXP yield from these first-stage Pokemon aren't much, and it's still annoying that i can't evolve Pokemon with auto-battles... but overall it's a nice, pleasant time in Kitakami.
The walkway up the festival place, Kitakami Hill, is pretty gorgeous, and I absolutely adore the little detail of the shishi guardian dogs being based on Hisuian Growlithe! The festival grounds are being set up, and there's a nice little detail of a bunch of Gurrdurr walking around helping the storerunners set up stores. Not sure if any of those stands need metal girders, but there you go. Again, lots of nice little sculpting done for the overworld items and stalls.
The signboard on Kitakami Hill gives us the second part of the story, specifically about the Ogre's masks. The powers of the Ogre's cudgel changes depending on the mask he wears -- teal brings life to grenery, crimson can turn a candle's flame into an inferno, blue can stop the flow of a river and ashen-grey can break stone into two. Obviously, this is some kind of a form-change gimmick, all Majora's Mask style, with Ogerpon gaining a different typing (or at least a different signature move) going from Grass, Fire, Water and either Fighting or Rock from that description. Again, I'm playing these games unspoiled about any of the new forms, so I am speculating a bit.
Apparently, during their fight, the Loyal Three managed to wrestle the masks away from Ogerpon, and I'm going to assume that their typings maybe match the masks as well? I'm not sure what type the 'ashen-grey' mask corresponds to, though by colour alone Munkidori is blue (Water), Fezandipiti is brownish-red (either Fire or Rock?) but both Ogerpon and Okidogi are green (Grass). Eh, whatever. We'll figure out as we go on.
Kieran, meanwhile, is impressed with the kind of strength and is just continually enamoured by the tale of the Ogre that managed to hold off three powerful Pokemon at once. He wants to be as cool as the Ogre, to get stronger... and to be able to do things by himself instead of relying on his more assertive sister all the time. Now the writing for Kieran and Carmine aren't the best, but I do like that the story so far does emphasize just how much under all of Carmine's bluster and abrasiveness to my character she's also looking out for Kieran. Kieran himself meanwhile has a crippling lack of confidence.
While all of this oni-fanboying is going on, Kieran talks about how this location leads up to the gigantic Oni Mountain that takes up the center of the map, and he gives me directions to the Dreaded Den, where the Ogre supposedly lives. There's also the Infernal Pass nearby, and... obviously I ended up wandering around the locale. Lots of Pokemon wander around the mountain, which seems like it's got a bunch of levels that don't show up clearly on the map. Poliwag, Morpeko, Noibat, Timburr, Koffing, Slugma, Bonsly, Chingling... lots of critters!
I eventually kinda cheated and used Miraidon to just climb all the way to the top of the mountain instead of navigating the roads inside it, and Kieran and I find a small little cave. There are signs that someone seems to have slept here, and, of course, we know that the legend of the Ogre is 100% true. It is kinda surprising that Kieran isn't a bit more excited about seeing these signs, though he might've made his way up the mountain on his own. Kieran talks about how the Ogre seems to be lonely and he wants to adopt the Ogre, and there's a rather obvious shipping-bait line about our character wanting to be 'adopted' as well. Of course, while all of this is going on, we get our first real view of Ogerpon, and he's a cute little fella! I still stand by my original impression of him looking like a walking poncho with stubby legs. He looks like some kind of creature from Zelda or Ghibli or something.
Kieran then talks and acts all shy and tsundere about the festival, which will have games and more information about the ogre but it's not something that he wants to force me to attend. Yeah, very shy indeed. Kieran also doesn't own a phone, apparently, and he's utterly surprised by the convenience of the Google Maps within my Rotom-Phone. I wonder if this will be relevant, or just a little detail about them coming from a small town?
Anyway, I wander around to catch Pokemon, going onto some of the areas nearby the Kitakami Hill area and I finally captured the first brand-new Pokemon in this game... Poltchageist! It's the Grass/Ghost Matcha Pokemon, though the Pokedex entry only really talks about how it's the convergent evolution of Sinistea. (Despite the name sounding like Polteageist, the evolved form!) The animations for this one is cute, and I'll be bringing this thing along in my party for the novelty.
Also, near the exit of the village, Jacq apparently followed me to Kitakami! It isn't because of a crush on Briar as I thought it would be, but he goes through a whole funky sequence where he treats me to a picnic and acts all surprised at an egg in his basket. Honestly, it's kinda cringey if not for the perfect comedic timing of his Gulpin opening its mouth in surprise at the egg. This egg contains a Piplup... which doesn't get registered into the Kitakami dex. Apparently any one of the three Sinnoh starter Pokemon can hatch out of this egg.
I walk up to Kieran's house on the edge of the town, and his grandparents greet me and are super-duper flabbergasted that Kieran would bring home a friend. Obviously I act like any nice, decent person and go straight 'yep, he's my friend'. They basically force me into a type of traditional Japanese clothing called a jinbei. No, no, not the One Piece fishman warlord. They also scrunch up my hair into an upwards-facing thing which I'm not the biggest fan of. Grandma gives me a 'Teal Style Card' that allows me to get access to a bunch of new hairstyles. Again, it's a nice little bit of QOL stuff here and there.
Carmine also pops out of the house in her jinbei, and they're apparently supposed to bring masks to wear to the festival. Carmine and Kieran go off to the storehouse, and they are only able to find two of them. Carmine initially acts super-hostile towards me with a 'first-come first-served' mentality, but also tells Kieran off and tells him to not give up that Ogre mask he likes so much. Kieran later tells us that Carmine has been tearing the storehouse up and down looking for a third mask, so she's not all that bad.
And... honestly, those are the siblings' masks. I know about the sacred hospitality rules and whatnot, but it's not like Carmine is obligated to give me a mask to enter a festival that I only know about when I just arrived and I can buy masks there anyway. I've seen the stands.
Carmine challenges me to battle, and talks big about me being 'stunned' in seeing her with her jinbei on. Okay? She got rid of her Vulpix and swapped it with a Swadloon and a Morpeko. Plus, her Poochyena evolved into a Mightyena and her Poltchageist has evolved into... Sinistcha!
And what a design. I was expecting a traditional clay teapot, but I believe Sinistcha is based on the teacup itself, but the green tea-blob monster is wearing one of those tea whisks as a makeshift hat-and-raggedy-hair. It's... it's really not what I expected. I need to read up a bit on Japanese tea utensils, though I do recognize the item that they're using for Sinistcha's hat.
Anyway, Carmine was a little bit difficult because I was bringing along a bunch of untrained bozos that I captured in Kitakami. After that little bit of battle, it's time for the festival, which we'll talk about... next time!
Random Notes:
- There are a fair bit more trainer classes, which was a complaint I had with the base game! Sure, it's mostly festival guys/girls, delinquents and couriers (the latter already existing in the base game) but it's neat!
- The dorky generic Paldean student that's partnered up with Carmine totally has a massive crush on her, huh?
- Between Mt. Coronet, Area Zero, the Wild Area and now Oni Mountain, Pokemon's map designers really like their 'big scary central area landmark', huh?
- The dialogue that Kieran has about Blueberry Academy notes that it's a fighting-oriented school. So is it basically a Battle Frontier? Is the Blueberry Academy facility we'll be visiting in Indigo Disk going to be a proper Battle Frontier?
- I guess Jacq giving us a Sinnoh starter is kind of a tie-in to the Legends: Arceus game? Like, a year and a half too late, kind of? I know this game features a lot of elements from that game like the Hisuian forms... but I am honestly surprised that we didn't get Unovan starters instead if those games are next up on the line for being remade.
- Poltchageist didn't level up by levelling it up, and the specimen I had is already level 71. So I assume if it's anything like Sinistea, it'll evolve by a certain item.
- But seriously, shit, how the hell did they have 'Poltchageist' be the counterpart to 'Sinistea'; and 'Sinistcha' be the counterpart to 'Polteageist'? That is so confusing and I mixed up the two cha names so much when writing this review!
- Kitakami's Nurse Joy has a fun idle animation of texting on her phone when I'm not interacting with her.
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