Yeah, so this segment of the playthrough is just going to be the big cutscene that closes out this DLC story, and... I'm not the most keen about most of the events that lead up to the finale? The Teal Mask is pretty self-contained other than some foreshadowing for the next part of the DLC, so it really shouldn't be too hard to trim down or emphasize certain parts of the story as is needed. But I did complain that defeating the Loyal Three was a rather muted affair.
And after spending almost 75% of the DLC's story screentime talking about how the villagers hate the Ogre thanks to the legends, Kieran just shows up and brings us over to talk to the village with Ogerpon. Ogerpon is understandably confused and terrified, but turns out that...
That somehow, while we were running around, Kieran managed to off-screen conquer his fear of talking to people (which is at least acknowledged as character growth by Carmine) and also convince everybody that Ogerpon is actually nice and that the legend that they have passed down for so long is wrong. It just comes so out of nowhere, and with it being the crux of the reason why Grandpa didn't let us tell Kieran or the other villagers; and later on the Caretaker and the other adults basically all but reviving the Loyal Three...
I dunno. It really feel like we're missing a scene here that makes the villages actually like Ogerpon. Even something as simple as Kieran going "you can decide when the Ogre comes in with your own eyes!" would've worked. Or the more basic showcase of one of the Loyal Three rampaging and attacking the villagers, and Ogerpon saving them... as it is, there literally is no reason for the rest of the villagers to trust Kieran's story, and the fact that we as the audience don't even get to see his big speech that convinces everyone else is really kind of an asspull.
Anyway, after a whole load of dialogue showing how the Kitakami citizens are all somehow all right with Ogerpon, it's time to return Ogerpon to her den.
We do get what's easily the best part of this finale, though, which is Kieran slowly losing his mind. There's a nice little zoom-in to him every now and then.
And the big confrontation happens in the Dreadful Den. Carmine is ready to leave Ogerpon behind, but just like your typical Pokemon anime episode, Ogerpon runs to me and wants to go with us. Pon-pon-pon! And it would be a typical way of how they let one of these legendaries that have a bit of a story come along with us in these games.
Except this time around, Kieran is absolutely pissed. He's clenching his fist hard, rustling his hair and gets super-duper pissed off. If Ogerpon's not going to stay in her cave, if she's going to have a trainer, then Kieran wants Ogerpon to come with him. It's some gigantic entitlement bullshit out of Kieran, but the story really does build up Kieran's slip off of being a nice sweet guy work very well.
And on the upside, unlike Lillie and Nebby in the Sun/Moon games... where it really didn't make sense for Nebby to pick us over his 'mom' Lillie, the way that the story goes does mean that Ogerpon spends most of her time with our character, and barely any time with Kieran. The story also does a decent job of making Kieran at least show some effort (which is to turn over the villagers' POV) in helping Ogerpon, but he also runs off during the times that Ogerpon is travelling with us; and instead of trying to befriend the Ogre himself he goes off and steals the mask for no real discernible reason.
So yeah, I understand why he's kinda doing stupid stuff, but he's not getting any mercy from me, the entitled dipshit.
We even get a line from Carmine getting pissed off, and telling Kieran that he should consider Ogerpon's feelings and what the Pokemon herself would choose. But Kieran demands a battle regardless, and I do like that throughout the battle, he does kind of go back and forth between acknowledging how stupid/selfish he is, but still... but still...
There are some pretty great posing as Kieran pulls out his Pokeball, and the animation team gets a lot of mileage out of the shots of him clenching his knuckles around the balls. We get a psychotic face from Kieran as he sends out his first Pokemon, a Shiftry. And... at this point, I kind of have a party full of Paradoxes and both box legendaries, which really doesn't bode well for Kieran.
...or so I thought! He isn't especially hard, but he most certainly gave me more of a challenge than the La Primera of disappointment. My Iron Valiant takes out the Shiftry rather easily, and the Yanmega that follows up gets a flamethrower to the face from my Zoroark. Koraidon uses his signature move to take out the Probopass, and Iron Valiant takes out Dipplin as well. The Poliwrath was surprisingly a bit more difficult because it managed to take out my Miraidon with a critical ice punch.
But then in comes the Gliscor, and I am absolutely thrilled to see such an otherwise old Pokemon rampage so much and take down so many members of my party. I mean, it's not difficult; Gliscors are allergic to Ice... but I don't have an Ice-type! Its Dual Wingbeat takes out Iron Valiant and a 4x-effective X-Scissor murders Iron Leaves. I didn't remember what it took out my Zoroark with, but that's another casualty of the Gliscor before my Iron Moth finally uses an Overheat to take it out.
And, shit, Kieran, you tried your best! You're much more challenging than 90% of region champions out there. Hell, you're definitely much more badass as a final boss fight compared to the utter disappointment that is Geeta!
But Kieran falls to his feet, apologizes... and just watches as the game tells me to fight Ogerpon next. And the Ogerpon fight is much cooler than the lack of anything interesting we get for the Loyal Three. We get a showcase of Ogerpon's Terastralization gimmick, where she alternates between her water, fire, rock and ultimately grass-type masks. And she has a full Titan bar for each of the phases, and she just revives herself in-between phases with the power of anime protagonist BURNING JUSTICE, remembering her time with her deceased companion or with me.
And I do feel like this is probably the only time Terastralization and its goofiness ever looked cool to me? Probably because they actually went to the effort of designing Ogerpon essentially 'Dynamaxing/Gigantamaxing' her masks instead of just putting a shitty-ass crystal accessory on top of someone's head. Each mask expands into a gigantic form, and it grows a bunch of extra growths behind it -- waves for the water one, dreadlocks for the rock one, flame decorations for the fire one, and vines for the grass one.
The actual boss fight isn't the hardest, though, since Ogerpon's movepool is kind of limited. She does get a decent HP boost or whatever, but with me already kind of being tired, I just brought in a bunch of Fire, Bug and Flying-type attackers in my party and swept her pretty hard. The Skeledirge, Lokix and Rabsca I used in my main party basically carried this fight.
Ogerpon finally falls, Carmine is happy for me. Kieran manage to congratulate me, but breaks down crying and runs off like a little shit, going "why can't I be like you? Uwaaaaaah" and... I dunno, I really have lost all my sympathy for this little twerp! Though, again, what a deliciously built-up antagonist for the upcoming Indigo Disk DLC after how lukewarm little Mr. Wowzers has been.
Anyway, the rest of the story is just a bit of a wrap-up. Carmine lampshades how bullshit it is for Kieran to behave so poorly. The one random nameless student wakes me up the next day and tells me that Carmine wants to meet me, and there's a cute little detail that he's actually kinda pissed that he's became Carmine's messenger-boy bitch. Carmine talks to me in front of the broken Loyal Three shrine. Kieran's apparently shut himself off in a room, and Carmine actually ends up maturing a fair bit by acknowledging that part of why Kieran's taking this so hard was also because she was behind the idea of keeping Ogerpon a secret from him.
Carmine then asks for a battle with Ogerpon, and I have to have him in my party. It's, I think, a subtle way to force me to check out the different masks, which basically function similarly to Arceus's plates, where the masks change Ogerpon's typing, the colour of her accessory and the type of her signature move.
Carmine's honestly a bit of a much easier fight compared to both Kieran and Ogerpon. She has her standard party of Mightyena, Morpeko, Ninetales, Leavanny and Sinistcha. I really don't have much to say about this fight other than she killed my poor, poor Ogerpon before she even had a chance to unleash Ivy Cudgel once.
Anyway, Carmine is about to tell me something before Briar cuts me off with a call. It's framed like an anime love confession, but it's Pokemon so nothing really major will come out of this, and we do get a more generic nakama speech out of Carmine anyway. We return to the town and there's a pretty generic debriefing for the whole exchange program, which at this point is kind of something I honestly forgot all about. All the nameless, personality-less students passed, huzzah.
Ms. Briar and the Nameless Caretaker talk a bit and give me some rewards, like a mochi set. However, while I'll be allowed to run around in the Kitakami region as long as I want to (I better be, I paid $30 for this shit) there is some developments in the Blueberry Academy regarding the Great Crater, causing Briar to bring her students Kieran and Carmine back a bit earlier. Notable that Kieran is absent in this whole segment, meaning that he doesn't get any real closure with our characters and leading to whatever we'll have in the upcoming second part of the DLC. If nothing else, that's a neat sequel hook.
Carmine gives one last speech, basically a nice little acknowledgement of her initial hostility... which is borne out of her being pissed off that her hometown of Kitakami is being treated like a tourist spot and that we're a bunch of ignorant outsiders that'll ruin her hometown. Which... a lot of ignorant jackass tourists do fuck up perfectly nice and scenic towns, so I can see where Carmine is coming from. But, of course, we're all right.
And while Carmine went from an abrasive tit into a nice young woman, we get a brief post-credits scene of Kieran in his room, ruffling his hair and being kind of insane. "I need to become stronger and stronger and stronger!" he yells. It's some kind of mad Uchiha Sasuke nonsense, and I approve! We get him grinning like a lunatic as the last shot, which, again, is surprisingly nice and sinister for an antagonist buildup. Kieran does come off as a bit of a little shit, but after so many generations of not really having a strong antagonist (was Lusamine our last one? Everyone was either misunderstood or a for-the-greater-good kind of bad guy) I would really like to see how they handle this character, particularly with two DLC storylines to build him up.
Anyway, we get a 'to be continued'... and that wraps up our run through Kitakami!
I know that there's still the Ursaluna hunting quest with Perrin, and that will probably be its own let's play segment. I'm starting to get cracking on the other side-quests in Kitakami, though. There's the aforementioned Glitterati, Billy and O'Nare, who I have to hunt all over Paldea as they move around. Also, I'm going to assume the Loyal Three are now standing around in their old haunts, and I have to capture them.
I neglected to mention them before, but there's also some people from the 'Ogre Clan', one of whom I meet in the Feebas cave that I can drop down from the Crystal Lake. I meet a guy in front of the festival grounds who tell me that there are seven of these Ogre Clan members, and it's another sidequest to hunt down the 'elite' trainers of the region. These guys have pretty strong parties compared to other trainers, and are type-themed, so I'm also going to be hunting them down!
The guy in the Feebas Cave has a quartet of powerful Fighting-types, including the pseudo-legendary Kommo-o. I find another one while hunting Okidogi in the Paradise Barrens, who has a sunlight-themed party (a Drought Ninetales, and a combination of Grass and Fire Pokemon).
Random Notes:
- Some really nice expression work on Ogerpon's face on that scene, though. Between how afraid she looks as she realizes we're asking her to enter the town, and later on her joy when the townspeople accepts her, they really do make Ogerpon the star of the show.
- Ogerpon's nature in this DLC is always locked to 'Lonely', which isn't the best nature out there, but it is at least beneficial to Ogerpon while being extremely thematic.
- I can go back to the festival grounds to buy masks of Ogerpon, the Loyal Three, Pikachu and Eevee. The Loyal Three masks make them look like Super Sentai costumes, and I'm frankly a bit surprised that these masks don't actually come into play as a power-up item for the Loyal Three, or represent their own unique Terastralized forms.
- I really wished that Kieran's party for this final battle are all made up of 'oni' or 'yokai' Pokemon, and I thought that it was what we were going to get when he starts off with a Shiftry. You really could do it with the Kitakami Pokemon! Have him swap his signature new species with Carmine (Dipplin to Sinistcha, which is a more yokai-esque vibe), then give him any of these: Ludicolo (kappa), Weavile (kamaitachi), Froslass (yuki-onna), Dusknoir (paper lantern ghost), and either Ninetales or Zoroark (kitsune).
- Actually, it really made sense that Ogerpon is so insanely outmatched by the Loyal Three, and it is a bit more impressive that she managed to kill them in the past. Obviously her base typing (Grass) is already weak to the type shared by the Loyal Three (Poison) but even with the masks (Rock, Water, Fire), I don't think any of them afforded her any kind of type advantage against the types of her enemies (Psychic, Fighting, Fairy).
- On top of my head, the Rock mask would give her some resistance to Poison, but that's about it... but then that would give her a weakness to Okidogi's Fighting-type.
- I guess she literally just managed to beat up the Loyal Three in the past by being so grief-stricken and rampaging with all her might? Or it could just be her 'great emotions cause me to recover HP' mechanic that she displayed in the boss fight against me?
- All three of Ogerpon's masked-up type combinations were previously unique to the Lotad line, the Lileep line and Scovillain respectively!
- There is a side-quest in Mossui City where a couple wants to see a 'lovey-dovey Pokemon'. I thought this was in reference to the otherwise pointless Volbeat and Illumise, but turns out that I was wrong and it's just... it's just Maushold or Tandemaus. Okay. I only get a random photo sign for it.
- I'm not sure if Ogerpon will figure into the story of the Indigo Disk! Briar and the siblings definitely will, and double-checking the promotional art shows them pretty prominently in the posters. Kieran's face is even shadowed in a clever way where it's not clear if it's just a cool angle, but it takes a bit of a colder context once you play through the DLC of this part and realize he's being built up as an antagonist.
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