Last where we left off, the Loyal Three have escaped and are wreaking havoc, Ogerpon is our friend, we beat up a psychic monkey and Kieran flipped out. Two more members of the Loyal Three to go, and... I really wish I could say something interesting, but I really don't have much to say?
Fezandipiti is probably the most interesting one, but that's only by virtue that there's a brief chase involved in hunting him down. He's on a little ridge off the side of Oni Mountain that I can only get to by jumping down some dangerous-looking stairs, and then Fezandipiti flies into a large cave mouth and I'm actually rather impressed to see the pretty well-done network of caves within Oni Mountain. It's filled with a mixture of Ice-type Pokemon, but there are a lot of cave waterfalls that become home to Pokemon like Barboach, Quagsire, Tynamo and the like.
Fezandipiti himself isn't in the cave network, though, flying out of the terminus exit and waiting for me at the end.
And... there is admittedly some rather funny trolling because while I thought that I was smart in figuring out that the type shared between the three legendaries is Poison (it is), I guessed immediately that Fezandipiti is Poison/Flying, because... bird, right? Turns out that, no, it isn't. Thunderbolts do neutral damage to it, and rather surprisingly nothing I had on the team I brought ended up informing me of Fezandipiti's second typing since all I can find out is that Psychic and Ground are super-effective... but that's to Fezandipiti's Poison half.
Turns out that this is a Poison/Fairy bird, and... I guess Fairy works for any of the three Momotaro companions, but it's still kind of surprising that the bird isn't a Flying-type. It makes sense, it really does -- pheasants, despite being impressively large birds, are actually poor fliers. It's still rather confusing, is all.
And then the final guy is Okidogi, who's standing in the Paradise Barrens. I really wish that I had anything insightful to say about this one, but he's just standing there. I quickly figure out that the big muscular dog-man is a simple Poison/Fighting type, and so a couple of Psychic attacks tear him down pretty easily. Again, I'm racking my brains to think of something interesting to say, but for all the buildup about their lore, the Loyal Three are ultimately just... they just show up, steal the masks, and stand around to be defeated in perfectly ordinary battles?
Honestly, my big disappointment is that for all the talk about them stealing the masks, they are never shown with the masks, or even utilizing them to Terastralize or anything. I actually don't remember which one held the fire or the rock masks, but those sure are the masks we recover for them and give to Ogerpon.
And... and I wasn't super-keen on continuing the main story at this point, since I had to go around a lot and I prefer to do my main-story cutscenes with the Switch plugged into the television, so I did a bunch of the side-quests and Pokemon-hunting.
The primary sidequest is of course Perrin, who finally deigns to become my partner after I catch 150 Pokemon and prove myself to her. She waxes a bit of lyrical about photography, and then challenges me into a battle for me to prove my strength. She has a Noctowl and a Leafeon... and that Leafeon, her companion Pokemon being a Hisuian variant, her saying that her ancient hometown is called Hisui, and most importantly that hairstyle... she's Adaman's descendant, huh? Adaman was always an oddball in that he never had anyone that fit him visually (Irida at least could be handwaved as May). Admittedly the answer being that it's a brand-new character all along is kind of annoying, but I still like that we finally get to answer that question.
After having me prove my strength to her, Perrin finally explains that she's hunting for the elusive Bloodmoon Beast, which... sounds so much like a quest that belongs in like a Witcher or Elder Scrolls game! But having Pokemon be considered as creepy cryptids like this is most certainly appreciated.
Of course, Perrin immediately gives the context for the Bloodmoon Beast, and it's... it's an Ursaluna, so it's not the scariest thing in the world since we already know it's a big peat-caked bear. But it's apparently an Ursaluna variant where the full moon on its forehead has mutated into a blood-red moon, making it much more powerful. Perrin also notes how uncommon Ursaluna actually are in modern times, because they kind of went extinct or near-extinct after the time period that Hisui took place in.
Anyway, Perrin makes her way to the Timeless Woods, which I guess is named that because its ecology or whatever resembles prehistoric Hisui so it's 'timeless'? The setup for this is kind of interesting, and feels like a completely refreshing little sidequest that makes full use of the fact that it makes perfect sense that the Pokemon world would have creepy rumours and cryptid-like sightings like this. And from a gameplay perspective, I also like that it's not just "Ursaluna, the long-lost ancient species" because I played Legends: Arceus and Ursaluna was one of my mains in that game so it's not super-special... but making it a special variant of a Pokemon from that game? Pretty great.
I am also completely unspoiled about the existence of this quest, or the fact that we're getting a new Ursaluna form or variant, though I think I'll wrap up the Ogerpon storyline before continuing too much on this.
There's another sidequest that I stumbled upon, which is a very gaudily-dressed couple whose clothing seem to be made of gold and is like a parody on real-life branded goods. They're loitering around the apple fields, and immediately chew the scenery by talking down to me and calling me a commoner and everything. They sound like flanderized D&D characters that are all hmmm yesss we are the nobility and while they're not outright hostile, they're so gloriously backhandedly-insufferable, thinking that they're giving out nuggets of wisdom to us plebeian commoners. The lady seems to be the one wearing the pants of the relationship, fighting me with a Persian while her boyfriend/husband continues to be a sycophantic cheerleader.
Interestingly, instead of being a sidequest that takes place entirely in Kitakami, the jackass couple (Billy and O'Nare... oh, billionaire, I get it) decide to head off to the big waterfall in Paldea, which... I think is that waterfall in the bamboo grove where there's a lot of Bisharps? I remember that area painfully, that was where I grinded to get a Kingambit.
Anyway, these two are stupid and hilarious and utter nincompoops, and I look forward to seeing their (probably short) sidequest continue. O'Nare is of the trainer class "Glitterati", which... I guess it's a bit less pompous-sounding than 'rich twit'?
I then go around catching a bit more Pokemon here and there. Exploring the caves that Fezandipiti went into got me a bunch of cave-dwelling Pokemon, including the Swinub line... and running around the Crystal Pool, I find the entrance to a completely different set of cave network that eventually leads to a big underground lake with Barboaches on it... and a single, lone splish-splashing Feebas! Okay, so instead of a jackass fishing minigame where there's a single tile that Feebas spawns in, it now is just in a secret lake that's really hard to find! I still wish that there was a bit more frustration involved in getting to Feebas, but oh well.
There's a bunch of Pokemon that I only meet at night as well, mostly because I completely forgot this game had a day-and-night cycle that's tied to an in-game rotation. Is there a way to move the time like Legends Arceus? If there was, I haven't found it. Anyway, Hoothoots, Duskulls, Volbeats and Illumises show up at night, among othes.
I did a bunch of evolutions, too, mostly because I remembered that I have access to EXP candies and started shoving them down the throats of anything that evolves via level-up. It's nice that all the Pokemon in Kitakami are like in the late-60's, so almost anything just evolves with a single level-up.
Out of novelty's sake, I also tried to build up Dipplin and Sinistcha... and neither really do impress me all that much. Dipplin has a couple of fun gimmicks but ultimately design-wise and usage-wise I don't really find it all that much more memorable, while Sinistcha being the now somewhat-more-common Grass/Ghost combination just isn't that exciting. Matcha Gotcha is really fun, though.
Out of all the Hisuian evolutions, it's interesting that not all of them are in the game! Obviously Ursaluna's going to be there since he's the subject of a quest. I also manage to evolve the white-striped Hisuian Basculin into a Basculegion, using the same, brutal method of stacking recoil damage on a single fish over multiple battles. But looking at the Pokedex, there isn't space for Wyrdeer in particular, despite Stantler appearing in the Kitakami Pokedex.
Anyway, next up I think we'll wrap up the Kieran/Carmine/Ogerpon storyline!
Random Notes:
- I think I'll buy New Pokemon Snap at some point. I just have so many games to play! I have to finish Persona 5, I have yet to play the Metroid 3 Remastered and Final Fantasy XII games that I spent money on, I also want to play Spider-Man on Steam and the Resident Evil 4 remake...
- I also found a big fat Snorlax just sleeping in front of a cave, snoring away... and fighting it leads to me 'surprising' the Snorlax. That's kind of adorable, even if thanks to the way the cave is modelled, ole Snorlax doesn't actually block the pathway into the item cave.
- I mean, I have a copy of Pokemon Scarlet to do trading with and I can just borrow someone else's Nintendo Switch, but it's really, really annoying that they change the way you evolve Pokemon that needs a specific terrain (like Leafeon, Glaceon, Magnezone, Probopass and Vikavolt) but the stupid and unintuitive trading or 'trading-with-an-item' evolutions are still there. And since they're clearly already willing to change so much in evolution methods and whatnot, it boggles my mind that we haven't done the 'Linking Cable' item from Legends: Arceus...
- Speaking of trade-only Pokemon, there are Trevenants in the Timeless Woods. This would be an alternate to the problem of trading, have the final forms of any non-item trade pokemon be encounterable in the wild! Platinum did it with Gengar and Steelix, I'm sure, even if it's like a 1% chance or something.
- Not going to lie, I expected more Hisuian variants to show up in the Timeless Woods, but apparently it just has a bunch of Ghost-types and Spinarak.
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