Let's Play Pokemon Violet - The Indigo Disk, Part 7: Omnitype

Finally, we're actually doing something related to the Area Zero and the Terapagos mystery and the titular Indigo Disk! So far what we've been doing in this DLC has been a gigantic side-quest. It was a fun side-quest, albeit mostly on the part of the Terarium as opposed to the actual story. As I mentioned in the previous let's play, I really did think the Elite Four characters are kind of underbaked and the conclusion to Kieran's story is a bit disappointing. But hey, we're moving forwards!

Briar is waiting for the four of us 'main characters', and congratulates me for making champion. Which... Carmine finds kind of insensitive and tries to change the subject, but Kieran's still kind of catatonic. Eh, whatever. She wants to bring the entire group to Area Zero, having finally gotten permission from the authorities between Teal Mask and Indigo Disk. She gives a brief rundown about Terapagos, before finally allowing the guests to enter. 

It's... Geeta and Rika! Rika is silent throughout almost all of this formal recap, and it is a recap about Area Zero and all this jazz. Again, it's been more than a year since the main story's out, so I do appreciate this even if I still remember most of the main story. The current events -- that is, me finding the time-traveling professor and the influx of time-traveling maybe-alternate-universe monsters -- is apparently super-important that Geeta's bringing in specialists like Briar.

...but apparently not to bother to go in herself? I mean, I know Geeta's team is kind of shit, but we've seen what La Primera does. She attends random schooolyard tournaments! She delegates most of her work to Larry and Rika! Honestly, with how other regions' champions like Lance, Cynthia, Wallace and even Leon doing stuff in their main stories, Geeta's reaction to the Paradox Pokemon being "oh well, let's let a random teacher and four students go on a field trip".  

Or, well, three students, I guess, because Drayton doesn't want to go. He gives some lip-service excuse of having to take care of the recent chaos of the League Club being in shambles, but Carmine doesn't buy the excuse and points out that Drayton's just a lazy ass. Kieran, meanwhile, is back in his super-obsessed creepazoid state again, wanting to go out and catch the next legendary Pokemon. Man, Kieran, never date. You'd be one hell of a yandere. 

After the official briefing is done, Rika finally decides to talk to me... and she is royally pissed and gives an angry face. I went into the Great Crater without permission during the main story, and there's a hilarious sequence where I can confidently say "that's what champions do!" followed by "that's what champions... do?" when Rika is super angry. 

But, of course, the actions of me and my three Uva Academy buddies kind of saved the entire region, so Rika can't exactly punish me. But big sister is angry! Very angry. Geeta apparently filled in Briar with most of the details... but not all, saying that some of it is obfuscated. It'd be... convenient to tell me which details, exactly? Her language is kind of ambiguous. 

Geeta then finally gives me the Indigo Disk with less subtlety than the GS Ball in the anime. Rika actually notes the similarity of the size and shape of the Indigo Disk like a TM. It's a mysterious disk that Geeta has which some mysterious researcher of Area Zero gave her some time ago, but Geeta has absolutely no idea what to do with it, doesn't really even seem to care, and just hopes it'll do something under my care. They probably want to make her sound like a cool, aloof yolo mentor, a Kisuke Urahara type of a character, but man, it kind of has the opposite effect on me where I kind of see Geeta as being more and more incompetent. 

Shit, even Rika isn't pleased. "Did you want him to pick up some potato salad on the way back, too?" She asks. Rika doesn't get to join either, though, instead having to go back to do 'work' with Geeta. What work do you have, Rika? Is your administration work, going through interview questions in that Pokemon League building more important than an investigation to a potentially nation-destroying phenomenon in Area Zero? 

Y'know, Leon was a thundering dumbass, but at least he tried to help. 

Anyway, we're going to Area Zero now, and it's a nice reminder of how ethereal the music in this place is. The rendering is still very fritzy as I just jump down through all the levels of Area Zero and I force the game to render a lot of new moving Pokemon, but what's new in Scarlet and Violet? Through all this, Kieran alternates between having crazy eyes as he gets motivated to capture the legendary Pokemon of Area Zero...  and going 'wowzers' every now and then like his old dorky self. 

I mention that I've been here with 'my buddies', and Miraidon pops up. Apparently Briar has been informed about almost all of the things that have happened in the main campaign, but what we're going is something even deeper than the Zero Lab. It's mentioned in Heath's diary, and Briar is a bit confused how he got even 'deeper than the depths'. 

...obviously there's another subterranean chamber below it. It's not exactly rocket science, is it? 

Anyway, I zip all the way down from the grassy parts of Area Zero all the way to the misty caves below, and Briar and the two siblings note how this reminds them of the crystal pool in Kitakami. Right! I forgot that was a thing! I explain about the mysterious hexagon room where the boss fight against the A.I. robot Turo happened, but Briar wants to go even deeper. 

The gate, however, is locked. Kieran gets a brief moment of going 'wowzers, this is like a spy movie', but when confronted he pretends not to say anything. It's typical tsundere-emo character stuff. I must confess I don't really care too much at this point, considering how one-dimensional Kieran's turn to jerkassery is. I attempt to open the gates, but like all computers, apparently I'm locked out because of prolonged inactivity. Ha! That's actually cute.

Before I can call some tech support, though, the machinery detects the plot device Indigo Disk. That's... that's pretty bad plot device usage, to be honest. I literally got the plot device Indigo Disk maybe three minutes ago! Even if it's a bullshit plot device just to get to this point, couldn't it be in Briar's possession in the beginning of the DLC? I just really dislike how this is handled. An old-school 90's CD-ROM drive slides out, and I put in the plot device Indigo Disk. 

Accepting the plot device, the machine unlocks the door, and announces that the lift has been redirected to the 'Area Zero Underdepths', which I thought was cool and ominous.

We get more lampshading that Kieran's breaking out of his funk with his jokes, while Briar doesn't really give a shit and continues to pour through documents. We get into the main elevator, which goes down, down down into the Underdepths. And despite the computer mentioning it when we put in the plot device, not a single person in that lift, not even the protagonist, realizes that we're going into another part of Area Zero and acts all excited and surprised when we actually do end up in an 'Underdepths'. 

The Underdepths, admittedly... isn't all that impressive. The music's nice, but it's basically just a bunch more crystals that look a bit more... flowery. There is a whole damn office desk next to the elevator, with a whole ton of books, and Briar finds a report written by Turo. And apparently, from these research, we find out that Terapagos is observed super underground... and is able to terastralize into something that holds the power of every known type... the Stellar type. 

...okay, so someone decided to go on and make their fan-made 'ALL THE TYPES' into official material, then. I can't say this is particularly surprising, that an 'Omni' or 'Universal' or 'Cosmic' or 'Stellar' type was going to be added. Keeping it as something presumably accessible only with Terastralization is... interesting? I'm not really sure how I feel about this. I'm not the most surprised, but on the other hand, the whole thing just feels so gimmicky and it doesn't feel permanent the way Fairy-types were, y'know? 

Anyway, other than mentions about Terapagos, apparently the Area Zero Depths was formed 2 million years ago. "Objects or creatures filled the space before the formation of the cavern", which is a hilariously very non-specific piece of information. 

Much, much more interestingly is a journal entry. Someone got transported to a great height, near a lake that smelled of sulfur. It's the "Eastern lands", and there, "a child gave me a white volume". Between Kubfu and the Treasures of Ruin, are we really going to get Poke-China in the next generation? I really hope so, unless I'm just jumping the gun and the "Eastern lands" is just Kanto or Sinnoh or something and I'm blanking on the white volume. 

Our way is blocked by a giant flower-shaped crystal, and just like any self-respecting platformer, I have to find the enemy that's tied to it. I do really like that Carmine's first instinct is to try and get Miraidon to go full-on HM slave and bash the shit out of it. Briar panics, noting that combining Tera energy and brute force is probably going to cause some kind of huge explosion. 

And then a glowing Glimmora shows up. Carmine says that Briar is shit at battling, and pushes me forward to battle. Kieran, despite being passed over, notably doesn't say anything. 

And the Glimmora terastralizes... into the Stellar Type! It's got all the 18 or whatever types orbiting a central 'tower', and... it's interesting that some types are more or less effective against it? I think we're just keeping Glimmora's type effectiveness chart? Which is kind of lame, but okay. The fight against the Stellar Glimmora is also... not very impressive, since it behaves just like a regular Glimmora, and doesn't even get to do anything interesting. 

Beating the Glimmora causes the giant blockage to disappear, unlocking what I guess is the true Underdepths. It's populated with Carbinks and Glimmoras, which I like that it's not just an empty location. A second blockage is guarded and tied to a Stellar Noivern, and I do like that I need to do a bit of platforming to get to the giant gargoyle bat. 

And... and this bit is getting a bit long, so I'll continue it in a second part. But if I did sound a bit unenthused and underwhelmed by the new Stellar type... well, I kind of am? There's nothing particularly special other than the big ugly Terastral totem on the Pokemon's head, since they don't even get any new moves or change their defensive typing. I really do hope Terapagos himself gets to be a bit more exciting, but I am not holding my breath. 

Random Notes:

• Due to the cutscene-heavy nature of the first part of this let's play, I'm just filling up the space with random TCG cards of Pokemon you can find in the Terarium, and later on the wild Pokemon in Area Zero. 
• Right before the machine detects the plot device Indigo Disk, our heroes are almost ready to go and do the four labs quest again. 
  
• I do like that because I was giving confused answers to Briar about the specific events that happened when I fought the AI professor, she asks if memory loss is part of the side-effects of being exposed to long to Area Zero. I mean, you know what? It's been more than a year since I saw that part of the story. Give me a break! 
• The conversation in the super-long elevator ride didn't really add much substance, and I kinda wished they had moved one of the 'Kieran's starting to be not-emo' conversations into the elevator ride. 
• Oh, we get a name-drop at some point in Turo's research notes that Terapagos is the "Treasure of Area Zero". Title drop, and one that makes far more sense than "Indigo Disk". 
• People are saying that since Stellar-type is represented with all the existing types swirling around a central totem that Pokemon will never-ever add a new permanent type. I can actually see that happening, though the Stellar type itself being likely to go away after the end of this generation does mean that I won't hold any consistency on Nintendo's part to much scrutiny. 
• I do really like that there was a brief moment in the discussion where Briar and Carmine thinks that the Stellar-Glimmora is Terapagos, which of course we know isn't really the thing, but was a real possibility for these guys who don't even have a guarantee that Terapagos is any more special than a Glimmora with the Stellar type. 
• You know what would've been cool? Actually meeting Stellar-type Glimmora or Noivern first before Briar goes on and reads the book filled with exposition about the Stellar type. Show, then explain. 
• Holy shit, that Evolving Skies Noivern full-card art print by Mitsuhiro Arita looks fucking badass.