Before we get to our regularly scheduled playthrough of me catching up with the DLC of this game...
POKEMONS LEGENDS Z
Pokemon Z is real! Zygarde! Lumiose City! Some actual potential lore about the region that didn't get much love from anywhere, which had an actual war in its backstory! Everyone was expecting Unova remakes, but no, we skipped straight to Kalos! That was actually amazing. XY was when my hype for Pokemon was reinvigorated ever since I was a kid, and while I wasn't the biggest fan of the XY game in general, having a second Legends game and one that's set in a region that I definitely would like to revisit?
And Pokemon Z! I've always thought that XY was leaving a fair bit too much for a third version that never materialized, and while I liked ORAS and Sun/Moon, it did come to light that there was a lot of concepts that got scrapped for XY that would've made it more exciting than feeling basically as the most generic Pokemon game out there with 3D and Mega Evolutions being the only thing that set it apart.
I definitely would love to have some new Mega Evolutions, if Legends: Arceus is anything to go by, and maybe even some Paradox tie-ins? Lots of things that can potentially come from this one! That mysterious locked tower in XY, the mysterious ghost girl, more backstory about AZ, Zygarde's connection with Kalos, more context about the ancient Kalos kingdoms, actually having the Eternal Floette in the game...
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So yeah, it's been a while since I've finished up playing through the final act of the Indigo Disk, and... turns out that there's a fair amount of epilogue. Which frustrates me a lot, since these are the pieces of story content that actually felt like they put a fair chunk of effort into, instead of giving a very underwhelming and extremely unsatisfying storyline with the Kieran stuff.
The epilogue is unlocked by bringing Terapagos to the Crystal Pool in Kitakami, which... is actually nicely hinted with the mention of the 'white book' and the 'Eastern lands', which isn't actually meant to be a foreshadowing for the next region but rather this very one!
Anyway, Terapagos pops out and creates some kind of timey-wimey mist... and Professor Turo shows up! "Have I somehow broken through the boundaries of space and time?" he asked. And then he looks at me, and is confused about who I am. My character is also confused on whether this is the A.I. Turo that got sucked into the time machine, but turns out that this is the real Turo, who is confused about the idea that he is a robot imbued with an A.I. personality... though he notes that it would be an interesting idea.
So yeah, I guess the clue has always been in the 'Paradox' part of the Paradox Pokemon's title.
This was the main story all along, where the original professor was apparently transported across space-time during the time that he was building the original time machine, and therein is the paradox -- he's inspired by the conversation with my character about the AI robot and the time machine, but my character only knew about the AI robot and time machine because Turo invented those things in the past. So where did the idea originally come from? Paradoxes!
Also, I guess this really puts to rest the idea that the Terastal crystals or the time machine 'brought to life' the 'dreams' of Turo/Sada, and that these are time-displaced Pokemon... just displaced, perhaps, from another alternate timeline in the multiverse.
Miraidon pops out, seemingly happy at recognizing his old master, and Turo is confused about the 'Iron Serpent'. We tell Turo the name, Miraidon, and that name is also likewise a paradox since in 'our' time progression, it was Turo who named Miraidon in 'our' past. Ah, time travel.
Turo quickly realizes that he got transported into the future, although he also muses that the complexities of space-time is beyond normal human understanding, and even notes that it's possible that our encounter might not even be occurring in the same timeline. We've been experimenting with multiverse stories in Pokemon ever since Sun/Moon, with the Ultra Dimensions -- one of which allow travel between the Solgaleo/Lunala dimensions; and the Guzzlord-destroyed alternate dimension. ORAS's Delta Episode also mention a bunch of alternate dimensions, too, and US/UM also mention alternate dimensions from the original non-remake games.
Which is to say that multiverse theory is the reason why all of these Paradox Pokemon exist, I guess.
Anyway, Turo talks a bit about how he was analyzing data in his secret lab -- the one we saw earlier in the Underdepths -- one moment, and then he's transported all the way to Kitakami in the future. He wonders if it's caused by the dormant crystal Pokemon, or some kind of link between me and him... which I really doubt. Turo also notes that this was a time when he was struggling with trying to catch Pokemon that live in different timelines, so it's before the invention of the time machine of doom.
And he's trying to get some insight from this conversation, since he's hit a bit of a roadblock. There are several questions I can ask him, and he mentions briefly having a son (but not a spouse, poor Sada) and wonders if he's lonely. He then asks about Kitakami a bit, then about the 'Iron Serpent'. One of the answers I can give him, hilariously enough, is 'you can ride it all over the place'. Of course, the proper answer is to tell Turo that Miraidon is a precious partner to me.
Turo's answer? Damn Reed Richards wannabe says that my personal attachment to the creature has no meaningful relevance... before he backtracks and notes how rude his answer is. At least he's self-aware?
Turo then sees the book I'm holding, which is Briar's book -- the Hidden Treasure of Area Zero. And this is where the rather obvious paradox storyline is going to go. Among Turo's notes is an enigmatic mention of receiving a 'white book' from a 'child' on the 'Eastern lands'. So that is us, and we're using Briar's white book to inspire Turo... when Briar herself is only able to do what she did thanks to Turo's own research onto Area Zero.
Turo gets entranced about the descriptions of the Underdepths, Terapagos's awakening, and Briar's pedigree as Heath's descendant. He calls the Hidden Treasure of Area Zero as a book that would ignite the imagination of any true scientist. The mists around him begin to hum, however, causing Miraidon to be sad and for Turo to very quickly realize what's going on. Turo wants the white book, but he doesn't feel right to take the book without giving me something back.
So he trades his Violet Book with my White Book... and the key items get swapped around. I guess the special thing is that this Violet Book has Turo's name on it, as noted by the description, as compared to the Violet Book you can find literally in every library in Paldea. But Turo goes home, noting wistfully that he'll go home and enjoy some time with a good book, before the mists of time swallow him up. Miraidon is sad and...
...we cut away to a new loadscreen with the new Violet Book. Okay, that's cool.
I wake back up in my dorm room in Uva Academy, and the game tells me that Giacomo and Eri are hanging out in the entrance hall. Which is surprising to me, because the DLC have been sidelining practically the entirety of the original Paldean cast other than Jacq.
And I must admit that I spent way too much time running around the multiple floors of the entrance hall looking for where my Team Star buddies are at... until I realize that they're wearing regular uniforms. They lost all the cool, unique punk-rock attire and swapped them out for normal uniforms! No! Look how they massacred my buds! Giacomo at least looks not that different since his outfit is the least flamboyant out of the Team Star admins, but the shorts really don't do him justice. And Eri is just straight-up unrecognizable if not for her eyes and her height.
Giacomo and Eri tell me that apparently the Team Star guys are all doing makeup exams so they don't have to repeat a year, which is another reminder that this is supposed to be a school. Turns out that Giacomo and Eri are both passing their exams, but not the other three. They rope me into being a tutor, and I do like the brief sequence from Giacomo where he acknowledges that he's so good at math, but he doesn't understand why other people can't get it. He 'can't wrap his head around what it is his buddies can't wrap their heads around', to quote the game. Which I can totally understand -- math isn't my strong suit, and seeing people who are undoubtedly smart and good with math try to teach me without knowing how to teach? Just because you're smart doesn't mean you can teach, after all.
So yeah, we're going to have a couple more content with Team Star. Which I appreciate. They tell me not to tell Penny, because they don't want to get her stressed. These guys are precious, you know that?
Also... I kind of wanted to say it first, but I got another Shiny. Scarlet/Violet is really kind with these, huh? Unlike Litwick or Duraludon, I didn't catch this one in an outbreak, no. I just randomly stumbled upon it while doing mindless quests.
It's also a shiny of one of my favourite Paldean Pokemon, and one of the prettiest shinies, too, with the golden ball. As you can probably tell... I caught a shiny Rellor with a golden ball! It's going to take a while for me to evolve it into Rabsca because of the evolution method, but I was so surprised and so stoked to get one of these.
This is my third Paldean-native shiny, I think, alongside the Garganacl and Espartha in Scarlet. And very clearly my faovurite!
In the meantime, I've also been going back to the Terarium, trying to get the 200 Pokemon that Perrin wants for her sidequest. In addition to Charmanders, the Savanna biome upgrade have also unlocked Rowlet... which is rather hilarious because the areas where Rowlets spawn now have random giant owl nests in them. There are also Fennekin and Snivy around, too, though it took me a fair bit of wandering to find them. I guess each of these fill up like 3 Pokedex pages, which will help me a lot for the Perrin sidequest.
As I go around catching some Pokemon that I've missed during my hiatus in December, turns out that there's a brand-new NPC in the entrance hall of the Terarium called Snacksworth. Terrible name, but turns out that he's the one that's going to give me certain snacks to summon legendary Pokemon after I complete some BBQ quests. Each legendary Pokemon comes with a funky story that Snackworth tells us was his previous encounter with them -- he met Terrakion after rock-climbing, hung out with Virizion in a forest with mysterious trees, got saved from a sandstorm by Moltres... all this stuff. And since his snacks are, presumably, the real deal, I'm going to assume that he's also seen all these legendary Pokemon for real.
So far, he's given me snacks for Lugia, Terrakion, Kyogre, Zekrom, Virizion, Zapdos, Lunala, Articuno, Moltres and Spectrier. Presumably there are a bunch of game-exclusives, with the likes of Groudon, Reshiram and Glastrier exclusive to Scarlet. Either way, I'm not too much in the mood for legendary hunting, though I really do like that Snacksworth actually gives me clues about all of these Pokemon. I haven't really paid too much attention, but I do know his description of Virizion is basically Tagtree Thicket -- a forest with strange-looking trees. It's so nice to make use of the Paldean overworld again, which is honestly kind of underused after the initial story.
Anyway, I'll try to post another Violet playthrough a bit sooner, though I do think a lot of the content right now has to do with grinding. Finding legendary Pokemon, grinding out BP quests, and eventually doing the Team Star dialogue. There's also the Pecharunt event, I think, which I'll try to do as soon as possible. My priority is admittedly to just meet all of the new Pokemon as soon as possible before I write the "Gotta Review Em All" segment for all the new Scarlet/Violet DLC Pokemon.
Random Notes:
- My next big goal is to finish up the "Gotta Review 'Em All" segment for all the Pokemon in the Teal Mask and Indigo Disk DLC's. I wanted to do everything in a single article initially, but I think it's best for me to split it into two due to the volume of what I have to write about Ogerpon and Terapagos.
- I still think it was a nice, smart move to wait until both DLC's are out before I do the review, though, because of the lack of information on Iron Leaves and Walking Wake; as well as Dipplin still being a pre-evolution.
- I have also done some slight edits and revisions to the previous batch of 'Gotta Review 'Em All' writeups, specifically in the bits about the Paradox Pokemon -- I won't get too much into the specifics as I did in the let's play, but I basically talk a bit about the true origins of it and to downplay the 'dream machine' angle.
- Still, man, I really had hoped that we would get some more Paradox Pokemon content in the DLC.
- I forgot entirely about Perrin and her quest! Apparently she's the one that will unlock the new Paradox legendaries for me. I do think I'll need to boot up Pokemon Scarlet to do some of the evolutions, like Magmortar or Golem or the Porygons -- I don't have the DLC in Scarlet and honestly am not planning to buy it there, but I do hope I can get enough Terarium Pokemon to unlock the questline.
- While running around the Terarium, out of all the Pokemon that I haven't caught... somehow I missed Blitzle and Zebstrika? Huh.
- Amarys has a new flying trial, but all I get from it is just extra BP. I'm good, thanks.
- Flying up to the big not-Terapagos giant Tera Orb does nothing, unfortunately.
- Looking up a non-spoilery guide for the post-game stuff, in addition to the epilogue questlines, Team Star hijinks, gym leader challenges and hunting down legendaries... apparently Meloetta of all Pokemon gets a new sidequest that I haven't found out about yet. Huh! I guess every generation they're slowly making formerly-mythical Pokemon into being available. We've got Deoxys in ORAS, Keldeo in Sword/Shield, Manaphy and Darkrai in Legends Arceus... keep it coming, guys!
- Also, insert your favourite 'Unova confirmed' joke here, I guess.
- Throughout the whole sequence, Turo refers to Miraidon as the Iron Serpent. In Scarlet, Sada would probably refer to Koraidon as the Wicked King.
- Eri almost mocks her model change by saying that "I'm sure that's obvious". I mean, yeah, I guess her height is obvious, but I really did run around trying to look for the two of them.
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