Let's Play New Pokemon Snap, Part 1: Say Cheese

You know, sometimes you get really tired and exhausted and then you realized you bought a game released three years ago and never even touched it... and that's basically my experience with New Pokemon Snap.

It's really nice to actually just sit and go to a game with no real expectations and no real pressure. The past couple of months have been quite intense for me, and I haven't really had much time to do... a lot of anything that's just me sitting down and relaxing with no expectations.

I was rather burned out with Final Fantasy XII -- not because of anything of the game's fault, but I was just not really enjoying it. The story was okay, the gameplay design was okay... but it wasn't super intuitive to me. I felt like I wasn't enjoying the gameplay or the monster review experience thanks to both factors, and I didn't want to force myself into doing it. 

So I thought I would do some Metroid Prime and Elden Ring, which I did enjoy; or a series of TV show reviews... and then I got sick and hospitalized. And there was just zero energy to post anything. Which, by the way, explains the week-plus drought of posts. Not sharing too much details other than the fact that I'm okay now.

A some point I think I just needed to really relax, and Snap provides that very, very nice outlet. It's just a nice, chill game that I don't really have to think too much about, the gameplay is repetitive enough that I don't have to devote a huge chunk of my brainpower, but there's enough little changes and little things to do for me to keep coming back to it. This makes me a lot more eager to pick it up than engaging in a far more intensive experience like the Dishonoured and Persona 3 and Elden Ring games that just beg for much longer sessions to play. 

And I was wondering whether I should even do a writeup on this, because this is a three-year-old game at this point, but I also figured what the heck, why not? It makes me happy, it's what's occupying me spare time, why not? I do enough talking about Pokemon on this blog as it is, another short playthrough won't hurt. 

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Anyway! New Pokemon Snap is a 2021 remake of the original Pokemon Snap on... the Nintendo 64, I think? I'm not too arsed to look up the specifics. But I am aware of the original Pokemon Snap, and while I've never played through it myself, I remembered it being advertised quite a bit on TV and on those old guidebooks and fan-magazines that people used to have before everything got turned into digital. 

And... well, the game doesn't really waste too much time in tossing you into things. After the requisite language, gender and appearance choices, I'm introduced immediately to the Laboratory of Ecology and Natural Sciences, or L.E.N.S. for short, ran by Professor Mirror and his very energetic sidekick Rita. There is actually some plot in this game, and while it's not quite as intensive as some of the other Pokemon spinoffs like Ranger or Mystery Dungeon, it's still at least some narrative. 

After the quick introduction to the Professor and Rita, we're thrown straight into a quick tutorial on how to use the camera, before most of the concept about the setting is given to us. We're in Florio Island, which is part of the Lental region, and we're going to go around with a camera to photograph Pokemon and put them into a 'Photodex'. 

The Professor has his own unique way of rating and giving grades to my photographs, which includes the pose of the Pokemon, the position of the Pokemon in the shot, other Pokemon in the shot, the behaviour, etc, etc. Oh, and I'm going to have to take the photos while sitting on a mechanical expedition pod called NEO-ONE that goes on a predefined route through these natural environments. And the original Snap predated Jurassic World by literal decades, but the comparison to the similar globes in that movie isn't unfair, I think.

Oh, there's also voice-acting in this game, in either English or Japanese. It's very simple dialogue, and for most of the game it's just Persona 5 non-main-story-quest "I see!" or "Hmm!" type of vocalizations, but we celebrate the little wins whenever we can get them. 

Anyway, with all the tutorial out of the way, I take my first route through the Florio Natural Park and... wow, the game gave Sword and Shield, and even Scarlet and Violet, a gigantic run for its money in terms of how good the surroundings look, huh? I know it's an unfair comparison considering how much you can do in the mainline games, but still, I was just blown away by how good the environment and the Pokemon character models look. 

And... I'm not going to describe the whole trail for you, but it's a short trek that is supposed to overwhelm you with how many Pokemon there are running around and doing their stuff. Vivillons are flying around and Dodrios are jumping around. In the background a herd of Bouffalant is grazing while a Pichu and a Grookey run around and chase each other and my character's pod throughout the track. Emolgas fly down the branches, Wurmples hang out in the tree trunks while Taillows hop in and out of the forest floor. 

Swannas are swimming in the lake, there is a bunch of Bidoof walking around trying to build a dam, a Magikarp is hop-hop-splish-splashing up and down the river, there's a random sleeping Hoothoot's ass hanging out from a hole in the tree... and ultimately the track ends in a majestic flower field with Comfeys, Vivillons and a Florges hanging around. 

It's so much fun, so much to see, there's a bit of a sensory overload but in a good way. And these tracks are part of the game's replayability, where I need to go back and try and get the best pose for each individual Pokemon species as you go through the tracks. And, of course, you'll get different items as you progress through the game, and the items interact with the Pokemon and cause them to behave differently. 

And in a nice little twist to the original formula where you just repeat the same tracks over and over again, in New Pokemon Snap you gain experience points for each type of track and as you level up, there are changes that happen in the actual environment. That's such a nice, interesting concept to emphasize the fact that the game's technically saving resources by having you repeat the course over and over again, but there's also an aspect of replayability due to the fact that there are small, minute changes over the time. 

Anyway, after my first trek, Professor Mirror goes through a rather exhaustingly long sequence of critiquing one photo per Pokemon, one at a time, and... obviously because I'm starting out, I didn't really get any really good points?

The Professor and Rita then teach me about the X-button, or 'Scan', which is like a Detective Mode way to see the Pokemon around me, as well as items of interest nearby. Pressing X will also attract the attention of some Pokemon, causing them to turn my way. That's the first of the various buttons that will change Pokemon behaviour, I'm still waiting for the apples that I can chuck at Pokemon. 

It is worth noting that the entirety of the tutorials are voice-acted, which I found to be weird. You'd think the story (as thin as it is) would be the priority of having voice-acting? I don't particularly care all that much, though. Neither do I care about the Professor going into a full-on talk about the Photodex, how I can keep certain photos, and how I can post them on the internet for other Snap players to look at. Cute features, I like that they exist, but I don't care about them. 

With my newfound 'Scan' and the Natural Park itself being upgraded to level two, the Professor tosses me back into Florio Park, and things actually have changed! Where the Bouffalant herd was far in the distance of the starting point in the first iteration of the Natural Park, I now spawn right in the middle of the herd. The Grookey and Pichu duo are also a lot easier to look at as they run around more vividly in the beginning of the trek.

There's notably a bunch of Ducklett hanging out with their Swanna parents; did their eggs hatch in-between the level-up? That's adorable. I'm not sure if I missed it in the first level, but there's also a Tangrowth just lurking next to a fruit tree, this giant mass of vines just sitting there, menacingly. Oh, and the Florges at the end of the trek also changes colours from red to orange. 

After I return from this one, the Professor gives me some backstory about the Illumina Phenomenon happening in this region, which was documented by the ancient photographer Captain Vince. Okay, ancient photographers have cameras too, I guess? Though in real life cameras were invented in the early 1800's, so I suppose it does count as 'ancient' technology by today's standards. 

Anyway, the Professor tells me that it's time for a night exploration... which is another ingenious usage of the exact same map for a completely different setting... nighttime! Which, by the way, looks gorgeous with the glowing plants and stuff, but it's also very reminiscent of actual night safaris and the population of the Pokemon, of course, changes at night.

And it's pretty fun to see how the Bouffalant herd is sleeping.  The role of the little starter in the beginning of the route is replaced by a Scorbunny that's leaving little flames all over the place. Stop that, you pyromaniac bunny, you're gonna burn down the whole forest and turn the Bouffalant herd into the world's biggest beef bourguignon dish!

We've got some nighttime creatures like Pidgeots flying around. There's a lot of Murkrow, a herd of Torterra that's wandered in from somewhere and filled up most of the road. There's a random lone Caterpie hanging out next to a tree. The Pichu and the Grookey is snuggling next to each other and taking a good nap on one of the Torterras, that's pretty dang adorable. The Comfey and Vivillon in the flower field have been replaced with a swarm of Combees, and it does make sense that they would collect nectar from the flowers at different times.

And there's a mound of dirt that I can scan, and it turns out to be an underground PINSIR! It never occurred to me that being a very grubby beetle monster that Pinsir would also exhibit some of the subterranean behaviours that beetle grubs do; I've always imagined them latching on to the sides of the trees like how Heracross is often depicted doing in the anime. 

Anyway, I've kind of resigned to not really caring about saving any of the photographs (I use the Switch's actual screenshot button to save any I deem cool enough to save), and just yolo-pick for completion's sake. 

It is interesting that each Pokemon has four different 'star' photos that's independent on the quality of the photograph as per the Professor's criterion; it's apparently based on the specific pose that the Pokemon itself is doing. But you can only submit a single photograph per Pokemon per treck, so I found out that I had multiple 1-star and 3-star photographs for the Pinsir but only a single one gets registered. Since I registered the 3-star pose Pinsir, I have to at some point repeat this track to get a 1-star, 2-star and 4-star photograph for Pinsir if I'm so inclined. I guess this is a way to make me feel like I'm doing something even when I'm re-encountering a Pokemon I've met before, but I'm not really playing for completion in this game.

Right after I return from this night trek, Professor Mirror tells me that some kind of Illumina energy spike has been detected, and apparently one of these elusive Illumina Pokemon has just appeared... and it seems that my main character syndrome is overpowering because it coincides with the moment that I entered the Florio Natural Park. Okay, sure. 

The Professor sends me to a unique map where I meet the titular Illumina Pokemon, and... it's a big and shiny Meganium, that glows with some kind of sparkly energy and I just kind of follow the Meganium around on a track that ran for just a bit too long while the Meganium stops to eat some of the Crystalbloom flower and glows even brighter. 

So this is the unique sub-species of Pokemon in this game, the game's version of things like, oh, Alpha Pokemon or Shadow Pokemon or Delta Pokemon or Terastral Pokemon or whatever fancy new variation of "it's basically the same thing, but different" that we've been getting a lot in the post-3DS era games... which... yeah, y'know what? Being glowing after eating some kind of magical flower isn't anywhere ridiculous as the Terastral nonsense from Paldea. It fits the photography theme, and I do admit that the first appearance of the giant Meganium was actually quite surprising. 

And... yeah, the Professor then gives me a bunch of stuff. I get a badge because I'm finally out of tutorial island, and the all-important APPLE! Or, well, "Fluff-Fruit", which look exactly like apples and is noted by Rita that they look like apples, but they are much lighter and much softer. The original Snap had a variation of the Kanto games' "throw rock" and "throw bait" to interact with Pokemon, but I guess they realized that an apple thrown to your face hurts like hell. I'm still going to call them apples, though. 

I also unlock a ton of random sidequests on the 'LensTalk' menu, and I think each Pokemon species is going to have its own sidequest. Some look straightforward, like trying to figure out certain area secrets or interactables. Some look positively irritating, which... is to be expected, honestly. I'm not going to 100% this game, so I'm not going to beat myself up over it. 

Then the batch of cutscenes ends with the appearance of Todd Snap, the protagonist of the first Pokemon Snap game (he also had a cameo in the anime, and a major supporting role in the Adventures manga), all grown up. He... he doesn't really have much of a personality beyond 'cool guy', but that's what you do when you bring in a previously entirely-silent protagonist for a photography game. But coming in with Todd is a little brat with bad Dragon Ball hair called Phil, who's your requisite little bratty kid friend. I dislike him already. 

But... this has been a very fun ride. I didn't expect this game to be anywhere as therapeutic and calming as it is. I don't really think that there's anything super special beyond the very pretty graphics and the Pokemon's interactions with each other, since even the Snap gameplay is recycled/remade, but... it's pretty fun. It really is. I'm not sure how often I'll be updating this, since I basically scribble down some notes and unlike the mainline Pokemon games I'll be doing a lot of quiet 'grinding', but do expect me to talk about at least the next two or three areas in the near future!

Random Notes:

• It took me a bit longer than I should to realize that Grookey, Scorbunny, Pichu and Meganium are all featured very prominently on the game cover. 
  
• One thing that I didn't mention is that the game really likes giving me random rewards for doing stuff, things like titles and frame borders and photo effects that's only ever going to be used to edit photos. I'm honestly not interested in ever engaging in any of these features, and I feel the 'titles' are kinda dumb, but they do act as a nice bit of mini-dopamine hits like Steam achievements or something. 
  
• Rita at least has a memorable colour scheme and has a personality of being an energetic young child... but boy, Professor Mirror has the personality of dried paint. 
• Another thing I also didn't like is the design of the actual Poke-Camera or whatever it's called. I know it's a small thing and we don't even see the camera, but it looks so over-the-top sci-fi. I would've much rather had a traditional camera like what Todd Snap has, or even a straight-up Nintendo Switch like Breath of the Wild's Sheikah Slate. 
• One thing that kind of bamboozles me is that the NEO-ONE teleports in and out of these locations, creating giant glowing sci-fi rings that creates a pillar that sucks it into sci-fi-transwarp-lightspeed-hyperspace and sends the NEO-ONE to and from the Professor's base. I really am not sure why I'm so bothered by this since Pokemon has been utilizing teleportation pads since Pokemon Red & Blue, but I did find the teleportation just a bit jarring. 
• I will neither confirm nor deny that one of the biggest motivators for me doing this playthrough is for the joy of inserting colourful Pokemon TCG artwork into articles again. 
• Way to make Meganium relevant again after kind of being forgotten by Nintendo for a while!

One Piece 1121 Review: Ora Ora Ora

One Piece, Chapter 1121: The Upheaval of the Era

Apologies for the slightly late review --  I was hospitalized and pretty sick, and so I didn't really have much of a chance to do blog posts. I'll probably be taking things easy for the next couple of weeks/months. 

We are wrapping up Egghead, though. I reread this chapter and I don't think there's a whole ton in Vegapunk's speech that's particularly significant? To us, at least. It reveals a bunch of stuff to the main populace, and there's a nice shot with the whole 'decks of the world' when Vegapunk talks about prosecuted, rare races like the buccaneers, three-eyed tribe or the lunarians; and another segment where he talks about Ancient Weapons and it flashes to Shirahoshi and Vivi. It's then a bunch of more or less generic stuff until he talks about how the person who claims the One Piece might not be the person Joy Boy envisions, leading to the epic final two-page spread of presumably the major final players in One Piece.

Saturn is just continuing to barrage the lesser Giant Pirates with his noodle-poison spider legs. Saturn keeps trying to get Bonney, who goes Nika-mode and jumps into the air. She's still struggling a lot more than Luffy did, and I guess this is going to be common for both of them (presuming the two of them are the only Gear Fifth users, and please god let just the two of them be it) where they can keep going in and out of Gear Fifth. 

Vegapunk's message plays out at this point, which I covered above, but then we get back to the action scene. Saturn notes that Bonney's form is a 'pale mimicry', which, again, is fair -- I'm not in the camp of having Bonney anywhere as powerful as Luffy's final form -- and we get to see Luffy kicking away Saturn's giant spider legs while Bonney flashes back to Kuma's memories. "Your only options are slavery and death". This feels like a nod to how Luffy wants a lot of his friends to try and fight for themselves -- which is a running theme in post-timeskip Luffy, where he prominently tries to get Shirahoshi and Momonosuke to stand up and stop being crybabies and fight. They can't beat the enemy, but I do appreciate this idea a lot more. 

Bonney gives a speech about gods and heroes; and about her dad, yells that she's going to live because she's alive. We get to see brief bits of Kizaru and Sentomaru, and a shot of a 'what if' scenario that will never happen with Kuma and Ginny being parents to baby Bonney... and she unleashes a single giant Gear-Third-esque punch to Saturn.... while Luffy unleashes a barrage of punches all around him. "Liberating Nika Punch", Bonney calls it.

And Saturn gets fucked. He gets riddled with holes, he gets tossed overboard (and into the ocean, which will, I guess, finally confirm the true nature of Gorosei and their Devil Fruit user status). This is the big 'takedown of the arc villain' moment, and I appreciate that Bonney gets to join in this moment. Power-scaling wise I genuinely don't think Bonney did much damage to Saturn, but it's the principle of the matter -- that this child of two decent human beings that just wanted to survive in this world and got royally, Berserk-level fucked-up by Saturn and his cronies, ends up not just being a scared person to rescue, but gains a power-up that defies everything Saturn stands for and even participates in the ora-ora-ora barrage that beats Saturn down. 

And we see a panel of Kuma maybe-kinda-sorta smiling. That's nice. 

And let me use this time to talk about Saturn... I really do think that, rather disappointingly, we don't get much out of him. He's a rather generic 'mwahaha I'm evil, humans are worms, I am a noble so I'm better than you' villain. I kept looking for anything beyond that. Not necessarily redeeming qualities, but honestly, anything (like Hody Jones' blind racism or Caesar Clown's inferiority complex) to give his brand of evil more depth. Anything at all, or at least some kind of personality trait. The Gorosei might just be mindless 'heavies' for the rest of our crew to fight in whatever final battle is going to happen and that's fine, I suppose, but I really wished they had something more, y'know? 

All of this takes place in the time that the Thousand Sunny is falling down, but we don't quite get much of an update on that. Vegapunk's message continues, and he brings up Gol D. Roger's speech that set off this series in the first place. We cut to the other Yonko and the Marines... Blackbeard is still not back at Hachinosu; Shanks is piss-off drunk; Crocodile and Mihawk can only watch as Buggy's legend continues to grow; and the Marines are actually discussing about finding the One Piece first.

And then we get this epic two-page spread of portraits of all the major players for the One Piece. Which, ah, hell, let's go through it one by one: 

• The YONKO! Starting with Red-Haired Shanks, one of the strongest beings in the world, finally doing something other than stand and look cool after 27 years, the golden boy successor to Roger's ambitions and knows way too much. Whatever his ambitions are with the One Piece, context clues tell us that it's likely different enough from what Luffy wants. 
• "Straw-Hat" Monkey D. Luffy, our main character, owner of a Grand Fleet he doesn't want, the bearer of a destiny he doesn't give a shit about, and just hunting for the One Piece because he's the man who's going to be the King of Pirates.
• "Blackbeard" Marshall D. Teach. The man with two Devil Fruits, the anti-Luffy, the Whitebeard-killer, Commodore of Pirate Island, probably one of the worst people who can get the One Piece because he's going to plunge the world into anarchy and violence. 
• Buggy the Clown, the man who keeps falling upwards, former contemporary to Shanks to became a washed-out bum clown in the boondocks of the One Piece world, who somehow rose up to become a saviour, a warlord, and an Emperor.
• Admiral "Akainu" Sakazuki, current leader of the Marines and master at making deep-fried donuts. A hardcase and a fanatic for justice even among Marines, likely to want the One Piece to deliver his idea of justice to the world. Has the potential to fight against the World Government. 
• Monkey D. Dragon, the leader of the Revolutionaries, father of our main character, master of ellipses, and... conceptually very significant, but honestly he could die next chapter and Sabo or Ivankov could take his role and I wouldn't care less. I really do want the story to make me care for him, though. 
• SOME SHADOWY GUY WITH A SWORD!!!! Put your bets on who this is, ladies and gentlemen. That sword maybe looks like Roger's sword? Is this a God's Knight? Shanks' twin brother/sister? Scopper Gaban? Man Marked By Flames? Someone from Elbaf? Rocks? Joy Boy? Shiki after a shave? Canon Uta? Who the fuck knows? 
• Imu, Shadow Ruler of the Entire World, still in silhouette, still shaped like a blob, still full of mystery, and the world is waiting with bated breath to hear his voice in the anime so we can assign a gender, at least, to him or her. Built up to be the final villain of the story, the biggest big bad, and the person or entity that is the cause of so much of the world's bullshit right now. 
• Koby, future of the Marines, rising star of SWORD, formerly with a head shaped like a literal potato. Very significant that he has honestly grown to have such an ambition that contrasts heavily with the likes of Akainu, and it's a shoo-in that a clash of ideals between Koby and Akainu is in the works. 
• "Aokiji" Kuzan. Former Admiral, defector from the Marines, moral-conflicted ice man now currently serving Blackbeard. Rather interesting that he actually makes his appearance here, but considering that Aokiji is clearly having his own agenda even among the Blackbeard Pirates, it's not hard to tell that he's going to do something against Blackbeard in the future. Whether that 'something' is going to benefit the Marines or the rest of the world, or where Aokiji's lazy justice will lead him, who knows? 
• Sir Figarland Garling, likely father of Shanks, presumed leader of the God's Knights, and responsible for 90% of Mariegeoise's hair gel consumption. Probably will be relevant in the future when Shanks and/or Imu becomes relevant. 
• Sabo... second-in-command of the Revolutionaries, Brother of Luffy, Hero of the Revolutionaries, and frankly the Revolutionary that I, as a reader, am more invested about. Interestingly, Sabo and Dragon aren't... opposed to each other? The other organizations with two members shown here (Blackbeard/Kuzan and Akainu/Koby) have clear ideological differences or independent agendas going on that make the second-in-commands showing up a bit more understandable. But I am interested just how much more relevant Sabo is going to be and whether there will be any conflict between the Flame Emperor and Dragon.

Pretty neat chapter. All in all I really would've liked something more significant with Saturn, character wise... but with how hectic Egghead has been I do think that it's not strictly a bad decision for us to cut away at this point. 

Random Notes:

• There's a nice reminder that Luffy's just an airhead, not a complete idiot, when he was the first to remind the other giants that, hey, Saturn's got poison tipped spider legs.
• No robot this week? Huh. Apparently this chapter came out at some anniversary or other, so having Bonney and Luffy beat up the main arc villain; as well as ending on a mugshot of all the major players for the final arc, is much more appropriate than Emet. Sorry, Emet. 
• According to official translations, it's "Emet" and "Clou D. Clover". Okay, like Cloud, I get the joke. 
• Interestingly, when Vegapunk brings up ancient weapons, we cut to Shirahoshi (who is an ancient weapon) and... Vivi. And ever since we discovered that people can be ancient weapons, there has been a theory that Vivi might be Pluton. Which... I would find to be an insane retcon considering how much the Alabasta and Water Seven/Enies Lobby arcs have hammered home so much about Pluton being a battleship. Her or her bloodline being somehow relevant to the activation or usage of Pluton, though? That, I can believe. 
• Less seriously, there are some conspiracy theories on whether Marco is a member of a rare tribe since he shows up right before King and Pudding when Vegapunk is giving his speech, but unless Pineapple-Head Tribe is going to be something relevant in the future, I highly doubt that it's anything more than a flashback to how Marco was the only other person in Wano who knows what a 'Lunarian' is. 
• We also finally see Skypiea, with Wyper and his generals, Aisha, Conis and the big snake hanging out. I know I say it each chapter, but I think that's the one big missing thing gone? Of course we haven't seen certain major characters... most notable and understandable MIA characters include Gekko Moriah and Perona. 
• Shanks drunk is... interesting, since that's what Rayleigh is also doing. Just what happened in Laughtale that just kinda induces alcoholism among all of the Pirate King's crew whenever it's mentioned? 
• It goes without saying... Big Mom, Kaido, Law and especially Kid are just out of the running now. I see Law and the remnants of his crew eventually joining the Straw Hat Grand Fleet or something, allowing him to be relevant and to have a tie-off to his story, but honestly, the more I think about it, I don't mind Kid's story ending like this. I just wished that Oda spend a bit more highlighting why Kid's way is the wrong way for a 'real' Pirate. 

One Piece 1120 Review: Those Who Live In Death

One Piece, Chapter 1120: Atlas

So this one has a couple of interesting revelations and some action scenes. And... depending on how the arc will end, this chapter will I think come off as slightly better or worse. 

We start off with Punk Hazard 26 years ago, where Clover is asking Vegapunk to join in his research. This is way pre-Ohara, and when Vegapunk was still a massive asshole. Vegapunk rightly calls Clover out for basically falling into the government's plans of letting Clover go multiple times to basically lead him to his co-conspirators of Void Century research. Vegapunk has a bit of an arrogant moment, basically being a strawman in a past-vs-future argument with Clover and basically buying a lot into being a government lapdog. 

Clover reveals to Vegapunk something about the name of "D", revealing that someone close to him was killed for having the initial... and that man was Clover's own brother! Clover reveals his full name as Claiomh D. Clover, and lives in shame for denying that he was related to his brother -- drawing a nice contrast with how Bellemere acted in Nami's backstory. 

Again, it's a nice showcase of Vegapunk and how he's grown over the years. It is interesting that we flash a bit to the time of Ohara's destruction, where he and his then-assistant Caesar Clown heard news of Ohara's destruction with the Buster Call. Vegapunk was very brusque when we saw him in the flashback as he meets Dragon in that island... but it's clear that the wheels and the seeds of doubt are starting to be planted in his mind as he looks at Nico Robin's bounty poster, and later on to the books saved by the researchers of Ohara in his lake. 

Caesar's very heartless comments, as well as Vegapunk's own biases, notes about how 'people won't follow in (Clover)'s footsteps' after this. Except while Vegapunk is a pessimist, people did do so after Clover's death. Hell, Clover himself probably was willing to stay behind and brave the literal and proverbial bullet of death after refusing to stand up for what he believes in when his brother was killed all the way back. I've never really thought too much about Clover as a character, but this chapter really did do a great way really highlighting the impact that Clover had not just on Robin, but also on even an initially skeptical character like Vegapunk...

...who, now in the present day, has also essentially willingly died in order to get his message out. We cut out to Vegapunk's recording giving an extended version of Donquixote Doflamingo's epic quote from the Marineford arc. "History is written by the victors, and the words of the vanquished are usually cast into the deep, dark ocean. That being said, the truth can still come to light if the oppressed carry it on their backs and endure!"

We get a couple of brief shots of some of the last locations we haven't checked in with -- we really are just missing Skypiea now, right? -- which are Zeff and the chefs at Baratie, and Tequila Wolf. We also get Robin crying as she's apparently listening to this part of Vegapunk's message. It's a nice character moment for Robin, but also a very nice confirmation that at the end of the day, the Straw Hats are going to get the gist of Vegapunk's message. 

We are still kinda stuck with the Sunny being unable to blast off, with there not being enough distance or thrust power or whatever. It is kinda silly that Ethan is just lurking there while Zoro and Lilith have a full-on conversation, but then Atlas swoops in and full-on decks Lilith onto the ground. She then seems to 'snap' something from Lilith's head, before she tells the other Straw Hats to take care of Lilith, and that she's going to lend a hand. 

This signal-severing is basically Atlas's way to fool York into thinking that Lilith is also killed, or at least disconnected from Punk Records, while Atlas himself zips out and charges in to intercept Ethanbaron. Intrestingly, it's Jinbe who's pretty gung-ho about going, though it's clear that he doesn't like it. Having been in a position where he had to make a difficult decision on whether to join or leave a retreating party, I do like that Jinbe has this moment of resolution, or at least understanding Atlas's resolution. 

Ethanbaron slices off Atlas's arm, but she just grabs on to Ethan's body and activates her rocket boosts, keeping Ethan away long enough before she blows herself up, giving the Thousand Sunny enough of an extra boost to get through whatever calculations Lilith was talking about. Atlas basically dies with a smile, denying that she's making a 'grand sacrifice of herself', but that she's just helping out. This, nicely, is shown in the context that it's helping the Straw Hats escape but not really damaging Ethanbaron, since he's reforming the chunk of his face that's been blown off. 

Luffy's reaction to the Iron Giant is... just what is expected. Despite what the world might insist, Monkey D. Luffy is Monkey D. Luffy, the Man Who Will Become the Pirate King. He does not consider himself to be Nika or Joy Boy, and when the Iron Giant addresses him as Joy Boy, he's just confused and looking behind himself for whoever this 'Joy Boy' is. but the Iron Giant just wades into war to fight against the two giant forms of Ju Peter and Topman Warcury, talking about how he's going to fight "Joy Boy's enemies" like before. 

Rather interestingly, Luffy doesn't consider the Iron Giant a friend just yet, mostly being confused about the whole Joy Boy thing. We also get a confirmation of the Voice of All Things communication, where none of the giants are able to hear the conversation. 

The Iron Giant is about to fight Ju Peter and his disturbingly toothy sandworm mouth, and his pose is even similar to Franky's Weapons Left pose. The Straw Hats are shocked when they see that the weapons of the Iron Giant misfire, though, and Ju Peter just slams his maw shut on the left side of the Iron Giant, seemingly devouring or at least crushing the entire left arm and chunks of his left shoulder.

We get Saturn scuttling through the beach, yelling at Ju Peter to crush the Iron Giant, before he jumps and lands on the  Giants' ship, looming over Luffy and the Giants and growling about how they will not escape. (It's at this point that Atlas's sacrifice and the Thousand Sunny falling from the sky happens). I definitely wouldn't mind a proper knockdown between Luffy and Saturn, because if any Gorosei is going to get a sound defeat in this arc, it has to be Saturn. I don't mind if the other four actually get a good showing. 

York cackles about being the final Vegapunk, while the four Gorosei prepare to fight. Ethanbaron reforms, Saturn prepares to fight the people on the Giant Pirates' ship, Peter and Topmana are about to destroy the giant robot... and Emet's last thoughts at the chapter is thinking about whether this is "this time" and whether he can use it, which probably means some kind of self-destruct weapon. 

Oh, and one last thing -- while all of this is going on, Vegapunk goes on about his message still. He doesn't say anything particularly important, but he does reveal to the world about "Gol D. Roger". It's... it's neat, I guess,  and it's going not make the people of the world in general as aware about the existence of the Will of D... but probably as confused as the fandom is right now. 

And... we'll see. I do think that the Vegapunk message has ran its course. I really would be lying if I said Atlas's death affected me at all. It's shocking because Oda actually killed someone, but I don't think we've spent any time with Atlas at all to make me really care about her supposed death. Now I am just waiting to see how the arc will be wrapped up, in terms of the Iron Giant, of the Vegapunks' situation, and how our heroes actually escape from Egghead. 

Random Notes:

• Yamato Cover Story: Yamato meets Denjiro, who's the Daimyo of Kibi and has rounded up the bullying kids. Sure. At least we're starting to meet other characters. 
• During the 26-year-ago part of the Punk Hazard flashback, Vegapunk is sitting with a baby dragon, probably the young version of the dragon that Zoro slices to death. In the background, a horned head is peeking over the walls, though we don't exactly see the features. This is, I guess, either a captured giant (ancient giant?) or maybe a previous dragon cloning attempt. 
• Claiomh Solais is the name of a legendary sword of light in Irish mythology. I became aware of this thanks to a weapon name in Final Fantasy XIII. 
• Dragon and his Revolutionaries seemed to have liberated Tequila Wolf in the timeskip when they rescued Robin, but I guess they simply didn't have the ability to hold that location because the slavery has started back up again, probably with a fresh batch of slaves. 
• Presumably, Atlas ripped off whatever is the equivalent of Stella Vegapunk's apple-antenna that's in Lilith's head. Is this permanent? Or is this just the equivalent of being disconnected from Wi-Fi? This does bring up the idea that Edison might be doing something similar, though I really don't think he's really going to be relevant enough to make survive. 
• It's a short scene, but we also get another scene of the Marines being confused about the giant demons rampaging in the island and getting both horrified and confused. 
• Luffy normally has a very good grasp of who is a good guy or not, so the fact that he doesn't readily call the Iron Giant his friend does raise some alarm bells on whether Joy Boy is a good guy or not. 
• Speaking of Luffy's refusal to be associated with Joy Boy, I do like that Dorry and Brogy, the two giants that are actually friends with him, aren't referring to Luffy as "Nika". 
• Chopper's helm design really confused me as to what's going on in that panel, until I realized it goes over his mouth like a rugby headgear. 

Movie Review - Jujutsu Kaisen Zero

Jujutsu Kaisen Zero

Okay, this is an interesting solution to the whole 'up-and-coming anime needs a feature film' dilemma that has gripped so many other series before. The thing with non-serialized anime movies is that... at some point, no one really cares if it doesn't matter to the main series. With Dragon Ball Z and Naruto releasing canonical sequels to the original series (which got adapted into the anime sequels), and series like One Piece opting for pseudo-canonical ones involving the main author introducing variants of concepts that will be adapted into the manga later on, we've also got the interesting method where Demon Slayer adapted a short, self-contained arc from the manga into a movie... and then re-packages it into the anime when the season started up again. After all, while movies are a big thing, they do get off the theaters and it's a bit confusing for someone who's just watching through DVD boxsets or streaming services and just wants to get the full experience of the series.

With the relatively large gap between the two seasons of Jujutsu Kaisen, however, I thought that it was a rather clever way for them to adapt the 'prequel' series. Well, it was a pilot miniseries that was concluded at four chapters, but when the rebooted Jujutsu Kaisen was serialized with a different protagonist, the events of "Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical School" were marketed as Jujutsu Kaisen 0, a prequel series. And this canonical movie being the focus of the theatrical release is honestly a rather smart business decision that means that the movie team is just still focusing its huge budget on canonical stuff!

The first season (and its manga equivalent) has already given some hints about the hyakki-yako, the Parade of a Hundred Demons, as well as mentions of Okkutsu Yuta and some adventures that the second-years are implied to already have... and I really do think that the core Jujutsu Kaisen series still stands pretty well on its own without having to read/watch 0, even when Yuta reappears into the series. But seeing the context of Yuta's adventures, as well as seeing what Gojo, Maki, Inumaki and Panda get up to during this prequel event is pretty fun. 

The story itself is honestly rather simple, since it was initially intended to be just a pilot for the world. There's also a rather evident set of 'chapters' abruptly cutting off here and there before the climax of the movie, though I do feel like it's honestly not that noticeable. Okkotsu Yuta is our primary antagonist, and he's contrasted rather heavily against Itadori Yuji for being... well, a bit more passive, at least initially. Yuta is haunted by a hideous spirit that kills some of the other students bullying him. The constantly-faceless higher-ups in Jujutsu High want to execute him, but, of course, Gojo Satoru ends up adopting Yuta in a way not too dissimilar to Yuji later on. 

We quickly learn that the Cursed Spirit allegedly haunting Yuta is called Rika, Yuta's childhood friend and crush who was tragically killed in a car crash. Due to the kids promising to marry each other when they grow up, Rika is seemingly reincarnated into a vengeful, overprotective ghoulish curse that lashes out at anyone that tries to harm Yuta. 

We also see that Yuta's brought into a class containing some familiar faces from the first season of the anime -- Zen'in Maki, Inumaki Toge and Panda. And at this point, it is made rather clear why the anime/manga seems to focus more on Panda and Maki, while Inumaki and his cursed voice is treated more of an afterthought and a fancy set of powers to be used in battle -- Inumaki's big focus was already done in this prequel series!

We get two 'episodes' that flow pretty quickly. Maki acts as a prickly rival (and we learn later on that she doesn't have cursed energy and uses a pair of special glasses to see curses) and she is assigned to Yuta on the first mission into a school, where Yuta ultimately summons Rika for the first time successfully in order to rescue Maki and the two civilians from a giant Curse. I do find it interesting that unlike Sukuna, Rika is played rather straight as an unpredictable, destructive but ultimately beneficial-to-the-main-character hidden spirit. And honestly, other than a brief bit where Rika lashes out at Maki when she thinks Maki is getting too close to Yuta, Rika herself seems to be under Yuta's control... albeit with a slightly childish twist to her characterization. 

We then get a mission with Inumaki Toge where they fight a demon that's a bit more powerful than usual. This one feels more like a power showcase for Inumaki, as well as Yuta being a bit more confident with fighting and channeling his cursed energy through a sword... and while it's a bit simpler and something that viewers that have watched/read the ongoing Jujutsu Kaisen won't be particularly surprised about, it was kind of built up a bit that Inumaki seemed a bit more... creepy compared to Maki and Panda, thanks to how he keeps speaking in 'kelp' and 'konbu'. Of course, turns out that he's perfectly willing to lie down his life to rescue Yuta, and Yuta does the same for him. It's a theme re-explored with Yuji a bit, and indeed a lot of other shonen battle mangas, but you really do get the feeling that Yuji and Yuta are both gigantic outsiders that are accepted by this gaggle of wacky students. This leads to a fair amount of investment to what's going to come next, even if the conclusion is admittedly a foregone one no matter how well they animated the blood splatters. 

And, of course, we get the first chronological appearance of main villain Geto Suguru, though for people who started with the 'main' series first this acts more of a contextualization of the mysterious dude with a scar that has been showing up throughout the entire series. Geto is revealed/confirmed to be a former student and a close friend of Gojo Satoru. We get to see how he's built a cult, and it's very clearly demonstrated just how much he is a great actor in this regard, pretending to be a nice healer that helps people to get rid of creepy curses only to wipe his hands in disgust at being touched by a human. Geto is actually stockpiling curses within himself, which is a neat, simple enough big bad master plot of this movie. 

Geto also brings in an entire squadron of uniquely-designed members, all of whom feel like they should be members of this series' equivalent of Akatsuki or the Espada... but really, other than Miguel, the African man who fights Gojo, none of these guys are remotely memorable. The movie does help out a bit by having the twins have some dialogue with Ijichi, but that really is more of a characterization on Ijichi's part instead of the Geto cult. Geto himself, however, does get a brief but nice little motive rant about how curse-users are all prejudiced against, and the twin girls that Ijichi fights do info-dump their backstory about how they had such a terrible life before Geto came in and rescued them. 

The main conflict here is that Geto's plan also hinges on getting Yuta and the utterly powerful Curse Rika on his side, but we get an honestly rather typical 'how dare you insult my friends/bonds!' argument from Yuta. The movie and the miniseries it's adapted from does a great job at showing just how... hard Yuta latches on to his new friends, and they do sell this moment and interaction well. 

And then we have the big, climactic fight scene... and it's pretty great! This is where the movie shines, and the format of releasing Zero after the first season is very interesting because we get to see a lot of the 'senior' characters that have already debuted in the anime actually do stuff in Zero. We actually get to see the Kyoto students fight a bit, and a brief glimpse at Todo's one-man rampage (though it's actually a bit less impressive than the flashback we saw of him in the anime). In particular, Nanami and Mei Mei get a fair bit of showing. We actually get to see Nanami's four-consecutive-Black-Flashes event that was only alluded to in the manga, which is cool!

And I really could just go on and on about this fight. Lots of great action scenes. Always welcome to see Gojo unleash another 'Red' attack, I actually really like how even the less-flashy Ijichi's biggest concern is how a bunch of youth are radicalized, I love the giant monsters that Nanami and Todo bring down... but I would be remiss not to mention that badass fight between Gojo and Miguel on the rooftop, which was animated amazingly well. 

Of course, the main reason for the impressive war spanning Kyoto is that Geto's using all of it as a decoy. Gojo ends up realizing what's going on, but is held back (mostly offscreen other than that Miguel fight) by the powerful curse-users. Yuta has been forced to stay behind in the school due to the higher-ups (rather understandably) not wanting him in the frontlines, but Geto of course zips in to claim Rika for his curse army. We get some nice, fun action sequences (particularly Panda going gorilla mode and I think using Black Flash!) but ultimately Geto brutalizes Panda, Inumaki and Maki, causing Yuta to go all crazy. 

The fight between Geto and Yuta is pretty fun stuff, and we get the climax of Yuta's story where he ends up giving this whole speech about offering himself up for Rika. Receiving a massive boost of power, Yuta manages to break Geto's strongest technique and drive him off, where he's seemingly finished off by Gojo in an alley. We don't get the full context just yet, but the brief flashbacks to Gojo and Geto hanging out together, and ultimately splitting apart due to ideological differences. 

The other big dramatic moment of this climax, of course, is the revelation that it's Yuta that cursed Rika instead of Rika being a curse that haunts Yuta, with a panicked, shell-shocked child Yuta basically cursing Rika to constantly stay with him because he didn't want to be alone. Ultimately, Yuta breaks the curse with Rika and allows her to pass on, eventually continuing on to study at Jujutsu High. Oh, in a bit of a little sequel hook, we get the revelation that Yuta and Gojo are related distantly, explaining both of their tremendous cursed energy. 

And... again, it's a very enjoyable movie. Admittedly part of what makes it so well-done is that it just simply works for a special movie or miniseries, thanks to both being very self-contained, very simple plot-wise and the movie budget does make the action scenes in the Parade of a Hundred Demons feel extremely epic. This is how you make a movie 'essential watching' for the anime watchers without taking them out of the continuity of the show, I feel. 

Reviewing Fan-Pokemon: Pokemon Flux

I wasn't really planning to do too many 'fan-made Pokemon' game reviews, particularly since 2024 has been pretty good to me on actual real Pokemon games. I did Palworld a bit earlier this year, and I've been using Infinite Fusion as basically a nice buffer for posts while my schedule is shot all to hell in this year...

But I can't not talk about Pokemon Flux. Link here, if you decide to be interested in picking it up. 

And one thing that made me jump into attention with Pokemon Flux? It was created by the makers behind the epic fan-project Pokemon Uranium. I did a review of Uranium's pokedex, and a full-on screenshot-based playthrough, all of which you can find on the Pokemon page on the right side of the blog. 

But Uranium was shut down with a C&D from Nintendo, which left a lot of its endgame content uncompleted. The creators end up ultimately creating a brand-new fan game this year, however, called Pokemon Flux -- which takes place in the region of Altera, and features a combination of a new region, a much improved gameplay experience, new mechanics ('Flux Energy', which grants certain Pokemon access to Flux moves), a new subtype of Pokemon ('Alter Pokemon', not too dissimilar to Uranium's Nuclear Pokemon) and, of course, new fan-made Pokemon. 

And in the way, we also get to see a bunch of familiar faces both from official material (Trubbish made it into this game!) as well as a smattering of old fan-made Pokemon from Uranium! The Minyan, Lunapup, Selkid, Comite, Flager, Jerbolta and Tanscoon lines make the jump from the Tandor region to Altera, and I find it so nice that these creators found a new way to tie in their old fan-project with this one.

Interestingly, Pokemon Flux is released in a staggered fashion, with the current (as of the time of writing) plan being 1/3rd of the game released with each "episode". Which is actually kind of good for me since that helps to keep the monsters for me to review in a fun, smaller format. There's also an interesting 'live-service' vibe to this as well, since there are clear spots in the Pokedex of evolutions for certain lines that aren't available just yet.

Anyway, I unfortunately don't have a lot of free time this year to play games (let alone do another screenshot playthrough) but I do definitely have the time to talk about monster designs. I always have time to talk about monster designs. 

https://pkmnflux.miraheze.org/wiki/Altera_Dex

Mozz, Mosseer, Daemoth

• Types: Grass/Bug (Mozz); Grass/Psychic (Mosseer, Daemoth)
• Categories: Leaf Moth (Mozz), Seer (Mosseer), Omen (Daemoth)

This takes me back to a different fan-made Pokemon game, Quarantine Crystal, which also had a caterpillar as its starter! Mozz here is a leaf moth, and there are way too many different real-world moth species that this species could draw inspiration from. I like Mozz's design as being primarily a caterpillar, but with some grass-type fuzz and moth wings sprouting out of his back. Interestingly, the dex entry notes a peculiar origin to the grass typing -- Mozz munches on so much leaves that it gains the ability to photosynthesize, which is similar to some species of sea slugs and their ability to steal and utilize poisonous cnidocytes from the jellyfishes they prey on. 

Interestingly, the Grass-typing is clearly here to stay, since Mozz actually loses its Bug-typing as it evolves into the Grass-Psychic Mosseer. Pretty standard middle-stage evolution, I feel, just a lot of Mozz's features but a bit less cute and more exaggerated. As its name implies, Mosseer is able to see a bit into the future. There are eye-shaped markings on Mosseer, which is a nice indicator of its Psychic-typing and probably based on many moths and butterflies with eyeball mimicry that they use to surprise predators. It's not the most special feature...

At least, until Mosseer then evolves into Daemoth, which goes all spooky with a bipedal body layout, with a spread-open 'cape' of wings filled with creepy red eyes. I really like this design in that it really does feel at home with the Pokemon aesthetic, looking pretty creepy with the mass of red eyeballs... but not too creepy. It's particularly telling with the official artwork (I'm using the artwork in the Wiki instead of the in-game sprites) where Daemoth's main head actually has a relatively cute set of peepers. I'm also a fan that this isn't just another Mothman. I like Mothman, but not every game needs a Mothman, y'know? Just like the ever-popular Absol, Daemoth is actually more or less a benign creature who just happens to be creepy, and actively hides away from people to protect them from the visions it sees. 

Chiklit, Burnychus, Pyropteryx

• Types: Fire (Chiklit, Burnychus); Fire/Flying (Pyropterys)
• Categories: Chick (Chiklit), Raptor (Burnychus, Pyropteryx)

We've got dinosaurs! Not the first time around, since Uranium also had a dinosaur for its Fire-starter (and I used good ol' Raptorch for quite a bit) but the inspiration for Chicklit is pretty obvious. The concept of the entire line is simple -- feathered flying dinosaurs like the Archaeopteryx, except that it's on fire. I don't find it quite as creatively-done as the Mozz or the Findolf lines, but I also find it the unambiguously the coolest out of the three. 

Chiklit is just a cute little birb baby, and it's got a couple of cute tiny claws that most modern reconstructions of the Archaeopteryx have. It can't fly yet, and it just bounces around and fends off predators with its flames. Its middle stage evolution, Burnychus (from Deinonychus!) is very awkward-looking, and... yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of it. It is a middle stage, though, trapped between the cute Chiklit and the cool Pyropteryx.

And Pyropteryx is pretty damn cool. It's basically a feathered dinosaur-bird on fire, and I really do like the colours they used for him here. This really feels like it's like if Archaeops actually properly evolved into a body shape that allows it to properly fly, with powerful-looking wings and a much more aerodynamic set of legs. Pretty neat. 

I think since I have the least to talk about Chiklit, it's worth noting that you get two starters in this game -- in addition to the typical Grass/Fire/Water starter, depending on your protagonist model, you get one of three Uranium alumni -- Minyan, Lunapup or Selkid!

Findolf, Delfender, Hydrocean

• Types: Water (Findolf, Delfender); Water/Ice (Hydrocean)
• Categories: Dolphin (Findolf), Rescuer (Delfender), Firefighter (Hydrocean)

I don't know if work on Pokemon Flux was done before or after the release of Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, which graced the world with the ever-anticipated dolphin Pokemon... but Findolf's line is a bit more in tune with what the fandom wanted, I think. Findolf himself is just a cute little land dolphin... which isn't too weird of a concept, actually, since prehistoric dolphin ancestors are actually four-legged terrestrial mammals! They probably don't look like the 'weird puppy' that is Findolf here, but eh!

Flux also goes for a slightly goofy interpretation of dolphins as Pokemon, just like Nintendo did with Palafin. Delfender ends up looking like a character from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or something, gaining a darker skin and having anthropomorphized arms and legs. It's also got a Buizel-style floatation device around its torso, which can be filled with either water or air. I guess they're going full-in with the reputation of dolphins rescuing people, except Delfender also does it on land instead of just the water. 

It then evolves into Hydrocean, which gains Water/Ice typing... which isn't the most apparent from the design. The idea is that those chunky arms with little cannon-holes now shoot ice, which I suppose allows it to instantly douse flames from a burning building -- something that its category, the 'Firefighter Pokemon', alludes to. It's an interesting concept for sure, but just like Electruxo before it it's just not really my style. 

Cavamie, Capymigo

• Types: Normal (both)
• Categories: Heart Nose (Cavamie), Friendly (Capymigo)

The capybara craze has hit Pokemon! Or, well, fan-made pokemon. Honestly, with how popular the fuzzy big aquatic rats have been in recent years, I wouldn't put it past Pokemon to introduce a capybara Pokemon in the next one or two generations! And Cavamie is a very adorable little capybara, though it really looks more like a big guinea pig than a proper capybara. It's got a bunch of pink hearts replacing its ears, its feet and its nose, and... it's just there being adorable and stuff. 

Its evolution, Capymigo, is a bit less adorable but a fair bit more regal-looking. It still keeps the heart-shaped nose (do real capybaras even have those?) and goes for a calmer look than its pre-evolved brethren. It has an aura of calm and can't-be-bothered-by-your-shit that real capybaras seem to have. I don't have much to say here, they're pretty nice 'cute' adaptations of an animal into a fan-Pokemon, and honestly I'm a bit surprised they didn't add a secondary typing like Fairy or Water into the mix. 

Humborb, Navibri

• Types: Normal/Flying (both)
• Categories: Nectar (Humborb), Navigator (Navibri)

Where we have the regional rodent in the capybara, now we have the regional bird... and it's a hummingbird! Hell, it's frankly rather surprising that Pokemon hasn't used the hummingbird as an inspiration for any of its designs -- I even used a hummingbird as the basis of my own fan-made region I did a couple of years back. Humborb follows its Uranium predecessor Birby in looking super adorable as a big round bird with big eyes, tiny wings and just looking all-around adorable. Humborbs fly around and gather nectar all day in its big round bodies, and will even share their nectar reserves with the rest of their flock. It's a behaviour weirdly similar to some insects like bees and honeypot ants. 

Interestingly, we seem to be heading for a 'jet pilot' theme here with the descriptions of Humborb utilizing the nectar as fuel. Its first evolution Navibri turns into a much simpler-looking bird doing a salute, and it's got a pair of orange goggles now. I... I like this a lot less than Humborb, but Humborb is like super-duper adorable, so that's not really a slight against Navibri. 

And Navibri isn't the end of this evolutionary line yet, because there is an empty spot in the Pokedex and corresponds to 'Turbolibri', which will be released in a future update of Pokemon Flux. This makes the line incomplete for the moment, and it's something that definitely is an interesting usage of the fan-game's staggered release schedule. I'm nto the most impressed with Navibri, but we'll see if my opinion changes whenever Flux episode 2 gets released!

Ledian (Alteran Form)

• Types: Bug/Fighting
• Category: Sentai

And here we go with regional forms! Pokemon Uranium added a bunch of evolutions and mega-evolutions to existing Pokemon, but it was a game released before regional forms were a thing. Now that they do, though, it's a fun little exercise for a lot of fan-creators to create these fan regional forms that tries to 'fix' the problems with the original Pokemon design. And Ledian is notorious for being one of the worst Pokemon from a generation that itself is notorious for having statistically terrible Pokemon. 

Alteran Ledian, like most regional forms, actually doesn't try to fix it by changing the stats. In fact, Alteran Ledian still has the same stat total as regular Johto Ledian -- 390! The stats are distributed a lot better, however, and Alteran Ledian has a much better typing in Bug/Fighting, with a much more flattering ability and moveset to match. But I'm not here to talk about the viability of Ledian, but rather the themes! Alteran Ledian is identified as the sentai Pokemon. We love our super sentai here, and Alteran Ledian really plays in on the Power Rangers theme that the original Ledian only very subtly hints at. The bright yellow and blue highlights are perfectly nice, and it's honestly a very nice little update towards Ledian in general. I like this one a lot!

Squrmy, Durtwurm

• Types: Bug/Ground (both)
• Category: Worm (Squrmy), Dirt Clod (Durtwurm)

We've got a subterranean-worm fan-mon in Uranium in Grozard and Terlard, but they were more subterranean wyrms than worms, you know what I mean? Squrmy here is just a cartoon earthworm who just happens to have a ring of dirt and rock around its neck, probably stuck onto it as it burrows through the ground. Perfectly cute, and if we're being honest I actually do like Squrmy more than the actual canonical earthworm Pokemon we got recently in Scarlet/Violet, Orthworm. Or rather, I think I would've liked Orthworm a lot more if it evolved from a more mundane little earthworm bugger like this guy. 

Squrmy's dex entry notes how he dreams big, so big, but it's constantly underestimated. Squrmy evolves into the slightly more impressive Durtwurm, which is a bit bigger and a bit angrier. Durtwurm's dirt mass (or 'dirt clod', as the game insists on calling it) has moved down to the midsection of its body, and Durtwurm now specifically makes it grow and grow larger and larger. In a hilarious description, it's noted that Durtwurm uses the dirt clod to roll around like a goddamn wheel. Okay, that's not what I expected from a burrowing worm, but it sure is a fun one! Both Squrmy and Durtwurm have the 'Magikarp syndrome' where their movepool is extremely limited, making them basically impractical to use. However...

Like Humborb above, Squrmy's final form isn't revealed just yet, but we do know that it exists and it's called Wurmiterra... which sounds impressive, doesn't it? Will the earthworm finally get the sheer power it needs to fight back against everyone that bullied it? Tune in next time in Pokemon Flux!

Owten, Eshouten (Alteran Forms)

• Types: Fairy/Flying (both)
• Categories: Sweet Song (both)

God bless these guys. See, we've got a lot of returning fan-mon from Uranium. Right around this space in the Pokedex we've also got Tancoon (renamed Tanupy in this game) and Tanscure... and two of the best designs from Uranium has always been Owten and Eshouten, the cat-owl fusion Pokemon. They've always been simple but effective in their design, and it's no surprise that the design team decided to import them into Flux...

Except instead of just importing Owten and Eshouten as they are, they decided to have fun and turn them into a regional form. So we have the glorious white/pink/blue Fairy-type Owten and Eshouten, and... it feels honestly pretty appropriate that the cute cat-bird gets such a bubblegum and colourful-looking regional variant. There's not a whole ton of new lore or abilities they gave these guys, other than the titular 'sweet song' that they can make. Hilariously, apparently Eshouten is pissed off at the sheer amount of groupies that its songs are gathering!

Sluchuu

• Types: Electric/Water
• Category: Sea Slug

AAAAAAAA! Okay, yeah, this one is adorable. The requisite Pika-clone from Uranium, Jerbolta, actually also makes an appearance in this game, but Sluchuu here is so, so much more novel and adorable! It's a very colourful sea-slug, in bright yellow with Pikachu's black-ears acting as the spines on a sea slug's back, and a bunch of neon bright blue highlights all over its body. The Pokedex makes it clear that Sluchuu is a mollusc, it doesn't appreciate being bothered, and it will shock you if you bother it. 

And Sluchuu isn't even just something that the designers made up on the spot -- it's based on the Thecacera pacifica, a yellow sea slug with black and bright blue highlights on its spines... which has earned T. pacifica the nickname of the "Pikachu Nudibranch". Flux's Sluchuu obviously takes a bit more liberties in making it feel more like a Pokemon, giving it a cute rodent face and two tiny white nub-hands, and making the Pikachu-ears a bit more prominent... but ultimately it's such an adorable design. I love this, guys. 

Gullitt, Garbagull

• Types: Poison/Flying (Gullitt), Poison/Steel (Garbagull)
• Categories: Trash Gull (Gullitt), Garburator (Garbagull)

Oh, I like these two, too. On paper, they're just seagulls made up of trash and toxic sludge, which already makes me really like them from a design concept aspect alone. but Gullitt here is made up of some very interesting design choices. Its 'beak' is actually a plastic bottle split lengthways, and its necklace is one of those twisty-ties that pollute our ocean so. I am actually a bit surprised that Pokemon hasn't really done too much pollution-themed Pokemon. Was the Weezing regional variant our last one? Don't throw your plastic trash in the sea, guys. 

Gullitt's purple colouration is very pleasant for a toxic bird, though, and that smile is pretty dang cheerful. Again, this reminds me a lot of designs for Pokemon like Koffing, where they might be manifestations of pollution but they're still happy to exist and be pals with you! Apparently Gullitts prey on garbage, and gets more and more toxic that it ends up not having any natural predators. 

Gullitt's evolution, Garbagull, gets even cooler with its poison trash bird design. Its wings are glorious goopy toxic sludge with random pieces of fish bone and fish nets stuck in them. Its head now contains a whole-ass... what is that? An iron? It's some sort of machine piece, anyway, probably a carburator based on Garbagull's species name. And they also gave him a discarded umbrella as a bird's tail. I like how threatening Garbagull's new metal beak is, and apparently that's enough metal in Garbagull's body that it's turned into a Poison/Steel Pokemon that specifically goes around preying on Trubbish and Garbodor! 

Very cool design. I really like these two!

Nidoran, Nidorime, Nidoregina, Nidoregus

• Types: Ice (Winter Coat); Ground (Summer Coat), Ground/Ice (Nidoregina/Nidoregus)
• Categories: Tailored Coat (Nidoran, Nidorime), Regalia (Nidoreina, Nidoregus)

I think Flux's designers might also have the same pet peeve I have towards the first generation's classification of Nidoran into "Nidoran Male" and "Nidoran Female" when subsequent generations would roll gender differences into the same species. So instead, they designed two different variations of the Nidoran line... but separates them into different alternate forms and gives them two different end-forms. I do like the creativity here!

The two 'coats' are actually non-changeable, and the Nidorans are just stuck in their respective coats all the way to their final form. It's somewhat similar to variants like Shellos, or Spinda, or regional variants in general. The two are split into the 'Winter Coat', which I find to be the cooler looking (the pun wasn't intentional but there you go) and is loosely based on the female Nidoran from the canon games, or the 'Summer Coat', which is muddy and brown. In both coats, though, you could see the alternate coat peeking out from the beneath the fur! I like that Summer Nidoran has a horn of ice, and Winter Nidoran has a horn of stone. 

The dex notes that Alteran Nidorans are an old offshoot of Nidorans where there isn't much in terms of gender dimorphism, but are instead separated depending on their coats. The general design of the Nidorans are a nice mix of the canon male and female Nidorans.

I'm not the biggest fan of either version of the Nidorimes, but I think that's because I don't really like the splotchy coats on either one of them, which just looks kinda dirty and mud-splattered. Which I suppose isn't wrong to expect from a wild animal. I do like that they chose Nidorina's beak to highlight with the two, and Summer Nidorime is even standing up like old sprite art of Nidorina. Interestingly, both dex entries note how both versions of Nidorime would actually travel out of the habitats they're adapted to in search of resources. Perhaps in a nod to their ultimately convergent evolution in terms of type, Winter Nidorime learns Bulldoze and Summer Nidorime learns Icy Wind upon evolution. 

Evolving with the ice stone, Winter Nidorime turns into Nidoregina, which is a big, furry Nidoqueen! The two final forms are not gender-locked, though, despite their Kantonian inspiration. Nidoreginas live in giant palaces of snow and will fight against their rivals, Nidoregus... which is the form inspired by Nidoking, and just looks pretty badass with the sharp angles on its forehead spike and its lower arms. Apparently the two leaders of the summer and winter coat Nidos would fight over territory. I like Nidoregina's colours better, but Nidoregus's design better. 

Ultimately it's a very interesting take on a classic Pokemon species that Nintendo has frankly kind of ignored for a bit too long. I'm not sure if I like the mud/ice idea the best, but it's definitely a creative one!

Roadillo, Armarauder

• Types: Normal (Roadillo), Normal/Steel (Armarauder)
• Categories: Blacktop (Roadillo); Road Hog (Armarauder)

These next two evolutionary lines are the two 'unrelated evolutionary lines that evolve with each other', similar to what Karrablast and Shelmet are supposed to be. Being in the realm of fan-games, however, we're allowed to be a bit more graphic... but Flux does do so with some restraint. I'm not the biggest fan of the concept they've picked here, which is roadkill... but I do respect the creativity that goes into the design of these fan-mons. 

Roadillo is the first stage of the evolution, a simple armadillo that rolls up into a wheel. I like the patterns on its back having road markings. Its evolution, the Normal/Steel Armarauder, rolls up into a much more 'heavy-duty' wheel, and has gained a bunch of extra steel armour platings. The end result does resemble some kind of a Mega Man boss, I feel. Not much else that I want to say about these two, they're kind of the less-interesting half of the duo. 

Pouchelet, Grimmposs

• Types: Normal (Pouchelet), Normal/Ghost (Grimmposs)
• Categories: Possum (Pouchelet), Postmortem (Grimmposs)

Appearing at night in the same locations that Roadillo shows up in is Pouchelet, which is based on a possum. Pouchelet itself is a relatively simple purple rodent with some extra markings, not the most interesting. The dex entry notes that Pouchelet has the unfortunate habit of 'playing dead, even in the middle of the road'. It's a rather morbid take on real-life possums and their tendency to play dead, and turns it into a dark joke. 

See, because Pouchelet evolves into the part-Ghost Grimmposs after it 'faints to fatal damage' dealt by Roadillo or Armarauder. The possum dies and becomes a ghost possum after a wheel runs it over. There is a bit of a nice refuge in audacity with how ridiculous it is, and... hey, at least they actually do acknowledge the 'rivalry' aspect. I've always thought that it was weird that you trade Karrablast and Shelmet instead of having them fight each other. 

Grimmposs himself isn't the most exciting design, other than the novelty at how it evolves. It's a mangier possum with some exposed ribcage and a ghostly tail. I like the pairing of purple and green, which looks very nice. Grimmposs no longer fears collisions, apparently, since it can pass through solid surfaces. Interestingly the game gives it Cursola's hidden ability 'Perish Body', which I felt is pretty appropriate for it. These two lines aren't my favourite fan-mon from Flux, but I respect them trying to take the concept and trying to adapt it in 'as Pokemon' a way as humanly possible. 

Wishiwashi (Deep Form)

• Types: Water/Dark
• Category: Deep Fry

The next Alderan form belongs to Wishiwashi, who has a 'deep form'. The core form of Alteran Wishiwashi looks more or less the same as regular Wishiwashi, just with black and purple body and bright yellow lights... but the schooling form turns into a monstrous kraken! I love this. This is extremely creative, and I'm frankly surprised we haven't seen more of these alternate Wishiwashi forms. A lot of my comments on regular Wishiwashi would fit here -- the great usage of the artist in using fishy shapes in constructing the big kraken silhouette is amazing, and a giant squid is a great, distinct design that the Wishiwashi could take if they ever decide to mimic another larger creature! I actually do think that it's extra-appropriate that they pick a cephalopod, which in real life actually do have bioluminescent parts, so having the tiny Wishiwashi's glowing yellow eyes be arrayed across the 'squid's' body even makes sense!

I love this. I think out of all the designs on this page, Alteran Wishiwashi might be my favourite. I wonder if they plan on making more alternate forms that Wishiwashi could take? A giant anglerfish? A giant clam? A giant eel? 

Salmini, Salmosault

• Types: Water (both)
• Categories: River Fish (Salmini), Migratory (Salmosault)

We go from a very impressive-looking fish to a slightly less impressive fish. The Salmini line is based on the salmon fish's reproductive habits, where they would migrate from freshwater rivers to the sea and back to freshwater rivers to brood. It's very cool that they decide to capitalize on this weird biological behaviour, and this really does feel like something that Nintendo or Gamefreak themselves would do. The method of Salmini evolving into one of the two Salmosault forms is pretty awesome -- it depends on which body of water you're nearest to, and whether it's salt or fresh water. That's so awesomely creative, and it even makes sense! The colours are even somewhat accurate to how real-life salmon change colours as they move from the ocean to the sea, though they change a grayish-white to red. Flux interprets the gray colours as pink, which is a bit more colourful, which is nicely acceptable. 

That said... the design of the Salmini and two Salmosault forms does feel a bit underwhelming. Salmini is a simple fish and I can expect that from being the unevolved form, but the two forms are just fish with some extra instruments. I like the colour difference in the freshwater form, and the distinctive hooked mouth of spawning  adult salmons, but it's just a fish that holds stones. It does get a couple of Rock-type moves that seawater Salmosault doesn't get, but otherwise the only real differences are physical-oriented stats. Meanwhile, seawater Salmosault is just a fish with a shell trumpet. I like the idea that they pick up things from fresh or seawater which helps them to evolve, but I really kinda wish that they had gotten something more, y'know? 

If it looks like I'm unimpressed with this line... I'm not! I actually find this really really clever, even more clever than the roadkill evolution above. Maybe it's because I find the freshwater/saltwater thing really clever that I'm a bit more disappointed in how otherwise rather mundane these fishies look!

Taroot, Daikongus

• Types: Grass (Taroot), Grass/Fighting (Daikongus)
• Categories: Root (Taroot), Thick Root (Daikongus)

We get a simple two-stage evolution based on the daikon. The Taroot is an adorable baby root that is hunted down for its nutrition, and it evolves into the super-big Daikongus that gains the Fighting-type, and it does sumo stomps to create tremors and scare off the predators hunting for its Taroot children. 

I don't really have much to say here, it's a neat enough concept and a plant that hasn't been represented in canon Pokemon. The design is neat enough, but I don't find it anywhere as memorable as any of the other fan designs in this game. 

Shroomish, Breloom (Alteran Form)

• Types: Grass/Poison (both)
• Categories: Mushroom (both)

Another Alteran duo! We get a variation of Shroomish and Breloom which goes for a lumpier, fuzzier orange mushroom as a basis for the two of them. I'm not sure if these are based on a specific mushroom, but it does resemble a slightly more orange version of the infamous spotted red caps of fungi from the genus Amanita. Alteran Shroomish looks like a particularly happy Goomba in this image, apparently finding life a fair bit more pleasant than regular Hoennian Shroomish. 

Both lines are Grass/Poison, which dips and focuses into the stereotype of fungi being poisonous, something that the original Shroomish line actually was novel for avoiding. It is, I suppose, interesting to do as a regional variant to see what would happen if Shroomish had been designed with the more obvious design idea in mind. Alteran Breloom is the far stronger design of the two, and I think partof it is the very stylish cap that hides Breloom's eyes. The dinosaur body layout of Breloom is also a bit more pronounced in this design, and I'm particularly a fan of just how fuzzy Breloom's torso is, and I wonder if this was specifically meant to be a reference to a redcap mushroom's annulus. The dex notes that Alteran Breloom has less force between its punches (having lost the Fighting type) but makes up with it by hitting you with deadly spores within each punch. 

There is apparently data in the game that hints at 'Brontoloom', a third-stage evolution, but since we don't know anything else about it, we'll have to wait for one of the future episodes to see the final form of this line. 

Magief, Corsuave

• Types: Dark/Flying (both)
• Categories: Cunning (both)

These two are magpie Pokemon and... I really don't have much to say about them. Magief isn't quite as cute as Humborb, and so the two just have the impression of being smug-looking birds with fancy suave hair. At least they're not just a bird, but I felt like they maybe could've done a bit more? Magief's dex entry notes that they hoard treasures for the leaders of their flock, while Corsuaves use cunning tactics and are difficult to work with. 

The dex also has an empty slot after Corsuave and apparently they'll have a final evolution called 'Raverogue'. But I dunno. I just feel like these two less-evolved members of the evolutionary line is lacking that je ne sais quoi to feel like 'proper' Pokemon, you know? 

Zorua (Alteran Form), Zorotsune

• Types: Ghost (both)
• Categories: Tricky Fox (Zorua), Pipe Fox (Zorotsune)

I'm not sure whether development of this fan-game was made before or after the release of Legends Arceus, but we get another take on a ghostly Zorua as a regional variant! Alteran Zorua feels like a mix of its two canon designs, only with wispy blue flames instead of the reds of its Unovan and Hisuian counterparts. There is actually a backstory, too, where these Alteran Zoruas are allegedly born from an ancestor that was cloaked in so many illusions that it turned into an illusion itself. Spooky!

Instead of a regional Zoroark, however, Alteran Zorua evolves into a Zorotsune, which is based on the kuda-gitsune, a fox spirit yokai that is able to magically fit inside a pipe or a bamboo tube. Zorotsune here clearly uses the pipe inspiration, and the Digimon called Kudamon is also a similar idea, a long fox spirit that fits in a bamboo tube. 

I do really like this design, where the wispy trails of Zorotsune's fur also fits with how ephemeral it is and how it's able to burst in and out of its 'lair', the pipe. It's a nice little alternate evolution that looks very distinctively different from either Zoroarks. Most myths about the kuda-gitsune specify powers more in the realm of clairvoyance or great luck, but Zorotsune borrows more from Zoroark in the regard that it uses the smoke of the pipe to waft around and create illusion, itself a pretty fun take on the whole pipe vessel concept. 

Nursa

• Types: Normal/Electric
• Category: Caring Bear

I guess this guy is the game's answer to the Chansey or Audino of the region? Nursa is a nice pun between 'nurse' and 'ursa', and it's patterened after a defibrillator in a way that's a lot more prominent than the canonical Pawmot. I'm not sure whether I like the cross or ECG symbols on Nursa's square-shaped lower arms, but I do find the rest of the design pretty goofily charming. Nursa is noted to straight-up heal with the shocks from its paws, not just use them to revive the fallen. Not my favourite design in this page, but I do appreciate it. 

Cuspide, Tarandible

• Types: Bug/Dark (both)
• Categories: Tooth (Cuspide), Skull (Tarandible)

Oh! OH! This is a Bug/Dark duo, and you know I'm going to like this. It's a literal Skulltula! And trying to adapt a skull-abdomen'd spider as a Pokemon isn't super novel, but the evolutionary line really makes me like them even more. Cuspide is a cute baby spider whose abdomen is an upside-down tooth. There's still some skull eye-holes at the back, so you can imagine the upside-down tooth as also being an upside-down skull (without a lower jaw and with the tooth-roots as fangs) but it's just such a fun, creative idea! The fact that a 'tooth' evolves into a 'skull' is both cute, morbid and creative all in the same breath. I really like this design!

Love the little detail in the dex where apparently Cuspide actually does have a composition similar to tooth enamel, and trainers need to brush it twice a day.

And Tarandible could've gone the easy, simple way and just be a spider with a skull on its back. And what a cool-looking skull it is, being a goat skull! Love the fuzzy legs and the spider head with glowing orange eyes... and then I start looking for other legs, and then I realize that the two split-apart lower mandibles of the goat skull are actually Tarandible's rear set of legs! Its rear legs are actually the jaws of the goat skull! That's super cool. 

The dex talks about how the Tarandible will fold up and lie still in the day, disguising itself as a skull, and it rattles around at night hunting for prey. You can just imagine the front end of the body just folding under that giant goat skull, right? Nature is weird and there are a lot of spiders that have adapted to really bizarre camouflage forms. Not just the typical leaves or flowers, but there are also spiders that have adapted to look like bird droppings, ants, broken twigs or even wrap around branches. 

Gunafix, Fixinit

• Types: Fighting (both)
• Categories: Tinkerer (Gunafix), Fixer (Fixinit)

We've got... a gremlin-guy? I suppose this is a humanoid Fighting-type not too dissimilar from the Machop line, only it's themed after construction workers. I do like the description about how Gunafix used to reside in deep mines underground to feed on ores until it got 'urbanized' by human factories. 

Gunafix evolves into Fixnit, with its wrench-tail having transformed into a pipe-wrench-tail. It's an all right design, I suppose, though It's not really my thing per se.  Not the biggest fan of the orange 'growths', which admittedly does exist in a lot of Generation V Pokemon like Conkeldurr. It doesn't make me like it any more than I like them on Conekldurr, though. Fixinit can fix stuff, but it prefers taking them apart. Okay then. Apparently there's an alternate evolution that's still not released, Artifixt. 

Spelotl, Salamancer

• Types: Psychic/Water (both)
• Categories: Axolotl (Spelotl), Sightless (Salamancer)

OH! This guy is cute! It's not hard making a cute axolotl Pokemon -- or rather, another cute axolotl Pokemon, since we have Wooper, and arguably Mudkip. Making Spelotl pink and giving it a more quadrupedal body layout does work in making it very cute. And the main gimmick here is that Spelotl is a Water/Psychic Pokemon that uses a bubble as a crystal lens! That's quite cute and interesting, but the dex also gives us a proper reason for Spelotl to do this -- it uses the psychic powers to navigate the dark caves!

Which, of course... leads to the very fun evolution into Salamancer. Which, in addition to the very awesome and punny name, is a nice take on the troglodytic blind cave salamanders, whose eyes have regressed away after evolution. Salamancer, being a psychic Pokemon, doesn't only lose its eyes, but also its lower limbs since it's got Psychic powers to help it cover. It uses its tail to hold up the bubble it has on Spelotl and a stalactite rod, creating a fancy wizard or witch's wand, and Salamancer uses it to manipulate watery barriers to keep its lair secluded from the outside world. 

Very, very clever. I find this to be one of my favourite designs in Pokemon Flux, integrating both the themes of the typing, the animal inspiration, the 'human job' inspiration... very, very cool. I'm not sure if I like the Wishiwashi more or this one more, actually. 

Ledlite, Insulatex, Negawatt

• Types: Electric (Ledlite, Insulatex), Electric/Dark (Negawatt)
• Categories: Lightbulb (Ledlite, Insulatex), Electrovore (Negawatt)

Oooh, fun. We get another artificial Pokemon line, and we start off with the pure-Electric Ledlite, who's a cute little lightbulb sprite with a smily face and a cord for a tail. I could almost see this guy as a mascot in a Pixar movie or something! Ledlite feeds and draws electric current through its tail-cord, causing its head to start glowing, and what a cute head it is! It's also apparently very efficient, being able to stay lit for a whole month just after charging for an hour. 

Ledlite turns into a humanoid robot as Insulatex. The main head is still a lightbulb, but it's got all sorts of different international plugs as its horns, its fingers, and it's got two tails now. It kinda resembles like a old-school cartoon alien or something. I like it! Insulatex's body acts like a very efficient battery, but it's also able to overcharge and can go into a wild frenzy. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), unlike Pouchelet up above, this dex entry is just flavour and you don't have to torture your Insulatex for it to evolve even further...

....into Negawatt, who's Electric/Dark and swapped out the gray-black appliance colour scheme for purples and grays. The flavour does note that Negawatt's head is ruptured, which is why it's constantly berserking and rages around attacking power plants to consume energy because it's constantly leaking it and can't hold in what it consumes. If we're applying proper sci-fi logic to Negawatt, it'd be a destructive part of a species' life-cycle that probably won't last long in real life... but of course, this is a Pokemon-based game so Negawatt can just hang around in your party with no problem. 

Pretty neat design, it's a monstrous 'demon wolf' take on the anatomy parts that Insulatex has. I like that the now three-cord tail seems to be bunched up and tied. I like the head and the horns, and I like that the exploding lightning bolts around its body is actually portrayed as a bad thing since it shows how much power poor Negawatt is leaking instead of 'look at how much power I have'. 

Sputya

• Types: Flying/Psychic
• Category: Spaceship

Okay, so we've got Sputya, who is based on the iconic Sputnik satellite... which itself already looks like a funky alien space-probe, come to think of it, being a simple sphere with four 'tails'. Flux's Sputya does a bit of a Digimon-style look to this guy, giving it an eye and two adorable tiny hands that from a distance looks like a pair of ant's mandibles. 

Apparently, Sputya was created to assist in space exploration, being able to convert sunlight into psychic energy. How one goes around creating a Pokemon is not exactly answered in the dex, and maybe there is something about this in the story? Sputya's Flying/Psychic, so it's not even an artificial metal Pokemon or anything. Sputya's going to have two evolutions in future episodes, so hopefully those evolutions will help give this guy a bit more context!

Karmilarie

• Types: Bug/Electric
• Category: Vampiric

Oooh, I really like this. Love the loud colours of green and yellow on this one, love the lanky limbs, the chunky tail, the noen-green mohawk, the red 'eyelashes', and the two random yellow bug-wings on this lizard rockstar. Karmilarie here really has that punk look from all aspects of his design that arguably Toxtricity doesn't quite hit all the boxes of. Interestingly, Karmilarie is a Bug/Electric Pokemon, so it's not exactly a lizard like I originally thought, but some kind of insect? Okay! Karmalarie apparently 'feeds on life energy', but can eat electricity as a substitute?

I'm honestly not sure about what inspiration this guy takes, but I do know that I like it! 

_______________________________________________________________________

Anyway, that's all I have for you today! There are actually a couple of extra Pokemon that has been released or revealed either on the game creators' Twitter, or released 'early' as part of a distribution, but I'm not quite planning for being super-exhaustive especially since we're going to have multiple future parts to this game. But I do really like some of the artwork that I've seen, particularly for the Alteran regional variants for Ekans/Arbok, as well as Alteran versions of Uranium's Hagoop and Chimical. 

We'll be back whenever Flux releases its second episode, and who knows? Maybe I'll have the time to do another screenshot playthrough at some point in the future!