And unless we randomly get a third DLC or new forms in the inevitable Unova remakes, this is going to be the last batch of Pokemon reviews for Generation IX -- most of which are introduced in the Indigo Disk, the second part of the DLC. After spending some time in the region of Kitakami in Teal Mask, the Indigo Disk takes us to a location set in Unova, an underwater Terrarium, before a brief detour back to Area Zero to wrap up some unfinished business in the under-depths of the enigmatic area. Again... most of my opinions about the two-part 'Hidden Treasure of Area Zero' DLC is available for you guys to peruse on my relatively exhaustive let's play, so I won't take too long recapping the concepts and storylines of the DLC.
This review mostly recaps the additional members of the Paradox-Legendaries, as well as the two spotlight Legendaries that show up in the Indigo Disk DLC.
Again, for clarity's sake, these are the specific debuts of these Pokemon:
- DLC Reveal: Walking Wake, Iron Leaves
- The Teal Mask: Dipplin, Poltchageist, Sinistcha, Okidogi, Munkidori, Fezandipiti, Ogerpon, Bloodmoon Ursaluna
- Indigo Disk: Archaludon, Hydrapple, Gouging Fire, Raging Bolt, Iron Boulder, Iron Crown, Terapagos, Pecharunt
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Click here for the index.
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#1018: Archaludon
One of the few Pokemon to be an evolution of a previously-existing creature is Archaludon, who evolves from Duraludon... and I think it's rather surprising because Duraludon was an already beefy Pokemon already, stats-wise! But I do really like the direction where they are going, where it's not just the first two or three generations that continually receive attention. I do have a soft spot for Archaludon, having caught a shiny one and used it throughout my playthrough of the Indigo Disk.
That said... design-wise Archaludon is pretty messy. Where Duraludon is often joked as looking like an asthma inhaler, it at least still looked like a functional, if awkward-looking, metallic fat tokusatsu dinosaur. Archaludon here is... uh... it's a thing all right. A bunch of metalling things and parts that don't make sense until you see this:
Yeah, Archaludon's whole deal is that when it straightens out, it plants all four limbs down to be come the pillars of a bridge, its entire spine straightens out, and random electric wires connect everything together to form a bridge. Oh, and this is Archaludon when it's charging up its signature move, Electro Shot -- a two-turn electric railgun.
And... I think I honestly would've preferred Archaludon much more if they just doubled down on the bridge form instead of trying to make it fold back up into a very weird and awkward lookng creature. It doesn't help that Archaludon also kind of looks like a staples remover, something very evident when he's running around in motion. I honestly think I wouldn't have minded Archaludon being a 'Transformer' if the regular dinosaur/dragon posture actually looked natural, but it's so forced. Those arms look the worst, but the way that his 'spine' is bent awkwardly because it's a folded-up bridge... yeah, this thing is honestly just kind of so uncomfortable looking.
There is a whole ton of possible references that Archaludon might be referencing -- a bunch of bridges based on the region that Paldea is based on, or even the massive bridges that dot Unova (or, well, America). But even this in-joke isn't really enough to explain why he looks so... so off-putting.
1/6. Would've given him an extra ball for showing up shiny in my game, but nah.#1020: Gouging Fire
With the first members of both of these trios having been released much earlier, we now go to the other two members of the Paradox Johto Beasts. First up is 'Gouging Fire', which is basically dinosaur Entei. And... I think out of the three ancient paradoxes, the Fire/Dragon Gouging Fire is perhaps the one that keeps Entei's original design the most intact. Sure, its pose is a bit more feral looking. The foreclaws are fully deployed, and the 'star' part of Gouging Fire's face has expanded into something much larger. But I actually like the layout of Gouging Fire here a fair bit more. I wasn't fully sure what I was looking at, though, until I realized that Gouging Fire is an Entei fused with a Ceratopsian dinosaur. Specifically a Styracosaurus, based on the frill. That's unexpected!
I wasn't very sure about making Gouging Fire's giant face-shield be coloured in bright gold, green and red. I'm not sure if the design would've worked better if the giant face-shield is coloured the same reds and silvers that Entei already has on his face? Or would that just not draw attention to the giant Styracosaurus shield? It's an interesting attempt, at least. I really do think they could've gone a bit further and eliminated some of the extraneous details like those gray plastic spikes or some of Entei's tufts of fur -- the way they did for Walking Wake -- which would've made the whole "Styracosaurus Entei" theme come off a bit better.
Gouging Fire's shield can glow red-hot, and its signature move, 'Burning Bulwark', is similar to Toxapex's Baneful Bunker, except it burns instead of poisons. Kind of makes sense. The Violet dex entry gives the theory that Gouging Fire is an "Entei regenerated from a fossil", which... I guess it could be one of those imperfect resurrections? Or are Walking Wake, Gouging Fire and Raging Bolt the ancestors of the three Pokemon that got burned in the Burned Tower that got reincarnated into Suicune, Entei and Raikou? Or is it just another alternate-timeline shenanigans thing? Or am I just thinking too much for something that Nintendo probably intended to just be 'lol dinosaur lion go brr'.
4/6. Not my thing, but I appreciate the effort. #1021: Raging Bolt
Okay, I like the joke here, on principle. One thing about the 'Brontosaurus' is that the name actually means 'Thunder Lizard'. And Raikou here is fused with a Brontosaurus, so it's got a long neck. And because its neck is so long, the 'clouds' that normally end up on his back ends up being a swirl of cloud that acts like an umbrella or the leaves of a canopy tree. Raging Bolt's neck is so tall that its neck and head can be the clouds themselves. I think it's even a nice nod to Pokemon Adventures, where in one of the coolest and most creative interpretations of Pokemon, the artist made Raikou's back-fur extend out into a giant raincloud that enveloped the battlefield.
There's also the gag, of course, that Raikou's colouration makes this whole thing look like a damn giraffe.
I also really like the addition of red onto Raikou's body. Those red lines bordering the white underbelly and the legs really does bring Raging Bolt's colour scheme together.
And... that's honestly the nicest thing I could say about it. While there's some measure of 'cool' and 'interesting' with Gouging Fire and Walking Wake, and indeed most of the past Paradox Pokemon, Raging Bolt is just... I don't know. Too weird, I guess? And it's not the ha-ha weird that makes me like Sandy Shocks, either. It's just... I think it would've been better if they had just given Raging Bolt the long neck and that's it? Or make the cloud look a bit less silly instead of being wrapped out around Raging Bolt's face like an awkward scarf?
Without much to go on other than the artwork, I really can't say a whole ton about this guy. It really is slightly ironic since regular Raikou is already based on an extinct animal (the saber-toothed tiger). I honestly don't even mind Raikou being fused with a Brontosaurus, it's just that the execution, I think, takes the absurdity a bit too far for me to really do anything whenever I see this design and go 'why'.
2/6. Could go one point above or below, depending on my mood. #1022: Iron Boulder
In contrast to the Johto Beasts, the Swords (or Lightsabers, I guess) of Justice are a lot more 'safe'. And... again, just like Iron Leaves did to Virizion, Iron Boulder here just goes for a very safe roboticization of Terrakion. I reiterate how the designs of the Swords of Justice are already very plastic-looking and robotic, so Iron Boulder here giving hinges and ball-joints to explain away Terrakion's rather odd anatomy is definitely much appreciated. Not sure I'm the biggest fan of the neon-orange rings around Iron Boulder's legs, though I do like how the random orange accessories on Terrakion look so much more natural (ironically) as greebles on a robot.
I do like the admittedly-still-minimalistic pokedex entries, too, that speculate Iron Boulder as a "Terrakion modified by an evil organization". I mean, Terrakion's almost carved-out-of-metal face does look kind of evil. I do like that mouth, which looks like it slides open and closed. Just like Iron Leaves, Iron Boulder replaces the Fighting-type common to the Swords of Justice with... Psychic? Yeah, Rock/Psychic makes even less sense for Iron Boulder than Iron Leaves, which at least had the excuse of hovering and levitating in some of its animations. Even the Dragon-typing for the past paradox beasts also make sense, somewhat.
One of my biggest complaint about the Swords of Justice is that most of their fictional appearances just have them create random glowing swords of light out of their horns, when only Keldeo and maybe Cobalion have horns that make this look practical. Well, being robots, Iron Boulder can go straight-up Transformers or Zoids or Gundam, merging his two bull-horns together into some kind of a spade-shaped glowing weapon of doom. This is translated into his signature move 'Mighty Cleave', allowing it to break through all protective barriers.
4/6. I am still rating these Paradoxes as an extension of their originals, which is why the derivative Iron Boulder didn't rate super high. #1023: Iron Crown
Rounding out our Lightsabers of Justice is Iron Crown, which... again, Cobalion was always the most awkward-looking of the original Swords of Justice, and clearly the way to fix it is to turn Cobalion into a robot that is supposed to look awkward and unnatural. I'm sorry, Unova design team, but I really, really do think that these future Paradox versions improved on the original Unova designs way more. Hell, even the random nonsense details that felt pasted on the original Cobalion ends up looking a lot more cohesive in this design.
Iron Crown is Steel/Psychic, and... well, the Steel-type makes even more sense in this design, I guess. It's got a twice-hitting move called 'Tachyon Cutter'. Okay! There really isn't much to say here that I haven't already said with Iron Leaves and Iron Boulder. Unlike the Dinosaur Beasts, there's not much differentiation that goes into these guys other than 'make them a cool robot'.
Just like its two robo-siblings, Iron Crown is also able to create lightsaber weapons, although his is a bit more subdued compared to the very surprising all-direction blades of Iron Leaves or the dynamic transformation of Iron Boulder. It's just two crescent-shaped horns that honestly wouldn't look out of place in like an impala or something.
3/6.#1024: Terapagos
And here we go with the star legendary of the Indigo Disk, Terapagos! And... I think it's a bit impossible for me to go into the discussion of the actual Pokemon without stating the epic amounts of buildup that Terapagos got in the original game. Basically, a huge chunk of the mystery around Area Zero revolves around an enigmatic, ancient tome called either the Scarlet or Violet Book, depending on your version in the game. The ancient explorers talk first about the discovery of Area Zero, the weird not-quite-Pokemon found within...
...and finally, after a page where more than half of the words are blocked out and censored, is a drawing about a mysterious 'Disk Pokemon' that looked so surreal, so strange, accompanied with this utterly bizarre drawing of what's clearly a legendary Pokemon. It really isn't quite clear what we're looking at, and it led a lot to assume that the giant globe/disk is the main body, while the other things on the top are some kind of horns and hair underneath the crown... until people realized that it's actually some kind of lizard or tortoise or dragon perching horizontally, facing the side, on top of a disk.
It didn't help that nothing in the main story alluded to anything about this Disk Pokemon, other than the fact that there seems to be something wrong in Area Zero that corrupted the machinery and the A.I. professor, and that the final boss fight is a spherical room with hexagons that looked suspiciously like the Disk Pokemon.
And when high time for the Disk Pokemon to be revealed...
...it's a widdle baby tortoise. Look at him! Look at the legendary little baby tortoise. This is Terapagos's "Normal Form", and it's a Normal-type Tortoise whose dormant form is a whole gem that forms its shell.
I... I don't actually like this design all that much, actually. Sure, having a whole gemstone as the tortoise shell is a cute, novel idea, and the tortoise head is cute enough... but I felt like there is a bit too many detailings going on here. Terapagos has got star-shaped crystals on its neck and legs, necklaces and anklets, another crystal marking on its forehead, two crystal necklaces and a ponytail made out of crystals. It kind of makes it a lot less cute for me personally, and if they had wanted to emphasize the ''crystal" part I really thick making Terapagos's 'fleshy' parts be crystal would've communicated the idea much better. Or at least get rid of around half of the random details.
We don't get a whole ton of backstory about Terapagos, other than its heavy connection to the enigmatic plot-device crystals of Area Zero. Combining the two Scarlet and Violet dex entries, though, we could hazard a guess. Apparently, Terapagos is plentiful in ancient Paldea until a seismic shift caused them to almost go extinct. They can use their power to transform energy into hard crystals, which is what created all the Area Zero crystals and presumably why Terapagos is able to turn into this dormant form.
This 'Normal Form', by the way, is never going to be something that Terapagos enters battle with, because its ability, Tera Shift, causes it to transform into this:
...Terastal Form Terapagos, which Terapagos shifts into in the beginning of every battle automatically. It an okay little design for an ancient sea tortoise, I suppose, with the feathery turtle tails resembling the same kind of ancient artwork of tortoises that good ol' Wartortle borrows from. I like that the bushiness has covered the entirety of his anterior part, covering up Terapagos's mouth and most of his forelegs. On Terapagos's back are a bunch of pentagons, each emblazoned with a symbol representing all of the existing types, while the central core is the brand-new Stelar type.
Also, despite the rather impressive-looking artwork here that makes you think that Terapagos is the size of a small dinosaur -- like, a Venusaur or Torterra-sized creature, maybe even Kyogre-sized -- it's actually very small. It's not even larger than the baby tortoise form, making it the size of a small dog. It's unexpected and honestly rather adorable!
The pokedex explains that Terastal Form Terapagos instinctively prepares for battle by creating a sturdy shell of Terastal energy, which is what is seen here. It's allegedly able to 'absorb Terastal energy and feed it to Terapagos', though Terapagos seems to be only able to do it as a wild Pokemon and not under our command. As a Pokemon we control, its signature ability Tera Shell basically puts up automatic resistances while Terapagos's HP is full. Neat, but not quite what I expected when I think of an 'omni-type'.
I think it's also worth mentioning that in addition to living in the innermost depths of Area Zero and being implied to be the source of all the weirdness that summoned the Paradox Pokemon, Terapagos also somehow has the ability to... draw people through time and/or parallel universes when in certain areas? It's not really made quite clear how we go from 'omni-type' and 'tied to power-granting rocks' to time travel beyond some vague 'it's a legendary so it can do anything'.
During the story of Indigo Disk, we discover that some Pokemon are able to access a brand-new Terastralization type called the STELLAR TYPE. Finally, a brand-new type! Is it unique to just the legendary? Is it tied to Arceus's constant type transformation in Legends: Arceus? Is this going to function like Protean?
As it turns out, Stellar Type ends up being super disappointing despite its very impressive visual presentation of all 18 types orbiting Terapagos's Stellar Form. You basically get STAB on each of your moves, while keeping the regular type resistances... it just looks kind of impressive with so many glowing, sparkling type crystals surrounding you. Basically, like the entire Terastalization gimmick in my opinion -- a lot of sparkle, no substance.
Stellar-form Terapagos is basically the design we saw on the Scarlet/Violet Book, and it's... kind of disappointing? It's just regular Terapagos, standing on top of a big crystaline sphere it summons, with the plates rotating around it. It's got a typical Terastalization 'crown' on top which is shaped like the baby normal Terapagos, so you've got a tortoise with a baby tortoise standing on top of a disk. Okay.
The idea, of course, is that Terapagos is based on the many, many different myths of the World Turtle. The Pokedex note that "Terapagos resembles the world as the ancients saw it" and it "resembles a planet floating in space". There's even a joke about how the World Turtle stands on top of an even bigger turtle, and so on, and so forth.
It's... it's okay, I guess. Most of the points given below are for the Terastalized Form Terapagos. I think I've let the hype of the Indigo Disk die down long enough to safely say that my opinion about Terapagos as a whole is extremely underwhelmed. I do think that Terastal Terapagos is quite a neat enough Area Zero themed legendary, but I found the Normal Form Terapagos to look tacky, and the Stellar Form to look messy. Great effort, still.
3/6.#1025: Pecharunt
And we cap off the Paldean Pokedex -- and wrap up the plotline from Teal Mask -- with the Poison/Ghost mythical legendary Pecharunt! We've got the oni in Ogerpon, we've got the three companions in Okidogi, Munkidori and Fezandipiti... now we've got the peach and the peach-boy within! Whereas the Disk Pokemon has been foreshadowed very heavily as this unexplained thing smack dab in the middle of an important lore document, Pecharunt's existence was hinted in the background of the artwork of Ogerpon's stories without any context. Pecharunt himself is actually hiding in plain sight, with the two halves of its peach body closed up as he sleeps dormant throughout the entirety of the Teal Mask DLC.
Once it breaks free, we get to see that the two peach-halves are glowing ominously with cracks throughout it, while Pecharunt's true body is a little sprite-demon thing. It's a reference to Momotaro himself, whose name literally means 'peach boy', because he was found inside a peach. Pecharunt is shown with some nice, subtle nods to traditional depictions of Momotaro (the topknot and the headband) without them detracting from the fact that he's a ghoulish little seed-ghost. THat's a cute face, too, with a mouth that looks like a bowtie, heart-shaped hands and a face that looks scared.And... and that's what he wants you to think!
Pecharunt is actually very vile, and it tries to get you to let your guard down before it offers you toxic mochi (or kibi-dango in the original Japanese legends) that will chain you to Pecharunt's will. This is a dark twist on how the legendary Momotaro befriended his three animal companions -- by feeding them kibi-dango, a sign of friendship. Pecharunt instead uses the kibi-dango to brainwash humans and force them to do a chicken dance (no, really).
Actually, I do wonder if the designers specifically decided to depict Pecharunt as the seed of a peach, which is actually concentrated poison. Regardless, it s a very neat and simple design. I originally wasn't sure if we needed the weird two glowing peach-halves, or if they could've made it a lot clearer that they were meant to be peaches (or, well, pecha berry, forgive me not using the proper Pokemonized localization) until I saw Pecharunt in action. The peach fruit halves actually contain portals to wherever Pecharunt stores the toxic chains, which look pretty cool as they pour out of those seemingly magical sub-space dimensions. These chains look more natural next to Pecharunt than they did on its three thralls -- Okidogi, Munkidori and Fezandipiti.
In combat, this is represented by Pecharunt's signature move Malignant Chain (damage and badly poisons), as well as his signature ability Poison Puppeteer (Poison status caused by Pecharunt also confuess the enemy).
From the dex entries of the Loyal Three, they used to be weaklings until they were exposed to the toxins of the purple chains, and instead of just stumbling upon some mystical artifact, we now learn that it's Pecharunt all along, using his toxic chains to uplift these guys in a twisted parallel to what someone like Ho-Oh did to the Legendary Beasts. Pecharunt's whole deal is the amplification of desire, making the Loyal Three and even the nice humans that adopted him greedier and greedier, and it is implied that Pecharunt's passive influence is what caused one of our human allies Kieran to go full-on emo mode throughout the story.
I'm not the biggest fan of the design, if we're being honest, but the presentation and especially the concept of a ghost that uses poison and corruption to mind-control and influence people is a pretty cool one for a Pokemon -- particularly a mythical one that carries both a backstory and a present-day story on his back. Good on you, peach demon ghost boy!
5/6. 4 by design and concept, an extra ball for presentation. _____________________________________________
I would like to say that, overall... for Generation IX, I don't really think Paldea is my favourite generation in terms of Pokemon design. It's certainly a huge step up from the previous one, Galar, but I really did like that Paldea wasn't afraid to be a bit more experimental with a lot of its designs. One big problem that I did have was that Paldea simply... didn't go far enough with any of its concepts.
It's got Paradox Pokemon, and we got a nice smattering of Paradoxes in the base game... but despite it being allegedly the whole point of the DLC, the ones we get are rather disconnected from the plot. We're introduced to convergent evolutions (or 'regional fakes'), but there are only a handful and are barely given any spotlight. We've got the Terastralization mechanic, but only two DLC legendaries even make use of it to access new forms. We've got a brand-new type, the Stellar type... and it's entirely underwhelming.
I try not to complain too much, though. While there are obviously some problems that does show the limitation of the Nintendo Switch as a console (whatever console Nintendo releases next better be able to contain all the 1025 existing Pokemon) I felt that as a whole, Scarlet and Violet was a pretty magical ride. And I don't think I would've enjoyed it quite as much if not for the quality and variety of new Pokemon.
It was fun journey! Though I am hopeful that the new Legends game will introduce us to a better plot and some new megas
ReplyDeleteI still think Legends Arceus is the best Pokemon content to be produced since... since maybe Generation VII. The growing pains of the Nintendo Switch format and the development cycles haven't been particularly kind to Pokemon.
DeleteBut with the actual innovations being done in Legends Arceus, I really do hope Legends ZA gets much more to it. I actually am a lot more invested in ZA because Kalos was my first 'new' region that I experienced during launch day with the rest of the world. XY wasn't the best, and I remembered being very 50/50 about Mega Evolutions, but out of the gimmicks they've churned out over the years I really thought Megas were the ones that were done the best -- both in terms of design, uniqueness and gameplay.