Let's Play New Pokemon Snap, Part 4: Subnautica & The Lost World

And now... under the sea! And I can tell you straight-up... my favourite area of the game. I think it's going to be hard for any other area to top this. 

With the reef areas already looking majestic as heck, going underwater is everything I wanted it to be and more. We start off with a nice shot of a bunch of underwater Pokemon, the likes of Finneon and Luvdisc and Corsola and Magikarp just swimming around the reefy areas of the ocean.

Honestly? And I know it's something that's probably not going to be super interesting from a straight-on meta perspective? I really wished they had added more tropical fishies. Like, Luvdisc and Finneon are really neat, and we do have the likes of Bruxish, Remoraid and Arrokuda... but I want more reef fishes! Where's my clownfish? Where's my butterflyfishes, my angelfishes, my gobies, my boxfishes, my parrotfishes, my anemones, my moray eels, my tangs, my scorpionfishes, and all that? Huh, Nintendo? 

Ahem. 

One paricularly cool behaviour is the Lumineon, who we see hanging out near a bunch of seaweed... and are using their large butterfly fins to actually 'walk' on the seafloor like a frogfish or a tripodfish! Lumineon might be one of the most boring 'just a fish' Pokemon we've had since Goldeen, but I really do think that New Pokemon Snap has given me a nice extra appreciation for them just because of this little bit of behaviour. 

A Lumineon that's just laying there dead sleeping is blocking the shining Crystalbloom, and I need a photograph of that to unlock the Illumina Orb item for this island. I can throw apples underwater, but the physics is a bit different and I wasn't able to conk this particular Lumineon. 

Afterwards I go to a beautiful sea trench, which begins with... a Wailmer confronting an Octillery, before unleashing a loud whale cry that scares the poor octopus so much that he jumps into the trench! No! Poor octopus friend! Wailmer's a dick! We dive deeper and deeper, passing a school of Sharpedo that's just milling around in the trench. 

And then I get to see a cave-like area with a couple of Qwilfish... and they make angry clicking noises and actually puff up visibly when you chuck apples towards them! That is really cool. We end up in a part where we ascend through this network of sea caves, but it's filled with a horde of Tentacruels just eerily and majestically just hovering there -- giant octopus-jellyfish monsters that just feel so serene as they spin around slowly while the NEO-ONE rises up through their territory and breach the surface. I really do like all the other areas we've been through (except for maybe the desert, at least in the day)

I very quickly level up the underwater segment to level 2, and now it starts off with Pelippers divebombing into the ocean to hunt for prey, and... that's actually something that real-life pelicans do! Obviously it's very comical for Pelippers, since their mouths are permanently in the inflated state, but it's still very cool to see these guys swoop in and unleash a burst of foam as they dive in. 

And then in level 2, the seaweed area where the Lumineons were hanging out now are filled with... CRADILY! Yes! YES! Someone remembered Cradily is based on prehistoric sea lilies! They're just hanging out happily among the plants, wiggling their necks and tentacles in the air. 

And I think I noticed this more than the other levels, but the Pokemon locations are rearranged a bit more. The Qwilfishes have moved out of their little spot in the cavern because two Clawitzers have taken up residence... and actually do a little cowboy shootout with blasts of water being launched at each other. It's super-duper cool! The Tentacruels have ascended a bit closer to the sea surface, and there's a little flock of Mantines swimming around. Man, the Mantines are also a species that I appreciate a fair bit more after this game. 

I could go on and on and talk about the undersea area and continue gushing about it, but... let me gush about something else! The desert, which... turns out that the rather bland daytime desert gives way to a much more vibrant night desert. Some of the rocks glow, and there are animals that are a bit more active. We've got Sandshrews rolling around as balls through the desert, we've got some Kangaskhan slowly lumbering around, and the oasis is deserted by the Hippowdon colony and is now populated by... emo night-Lycanroc! Two of which glare at each other with some glinting eyes and growl and make noises at each other. 

But the coolest part is the stretch of desert at the end, which is filled with a horde of sleeping Onixes that wake up as I play the terrible Poke Flute... and it just looks so majestic to see these dinosaur-sized rock snakes just slowly lumber awake and roar. Some of them pull a Dune and dive deep into the sand and burst out elsewhere, which is such a cool thing to see Onix do. 

But the absolute coolest thing? Minior. Another Pokemon that I honestly found forgettable (being released in Generation VII, which had a lot of cooler Pokemon, doesn't help) but then the night sky of the desert lights up with bright lights and shooting stars. Which I thought was just environmental until they actually impact and slam down on the ground like the Autobots from the first (and only good) Transformers movie, and each of the craters have a differently-coloured Minior rise up from it. Man, that's so damn cool. 

And, of course, doing enough of the desert unlocks the volcano a bit deeper in the island, though I spent way too much time exploring the depths of the ocean to really play around in the volcano. 

And the Volcano! I find the volcano area a bit less cool than the underwater area, but I think that's also because it's a lot easier to do a good volcano area in video games compared to good underwater areas, so the novelty isn't quite there. We start off in a hot springs with a flock of Altaria just hanging around, while Luxray prowl around the location. Not quite the most interesting thing, until I realize that the volcano is themed somewhat with a 'Lost World' kind of vibe.

A lot of Archeops flock around some hardened magma while Aerodactyls fly above it. And then the most spectacular sequence is Tyrantum bursting out of a cave -- a big Tyrantum, too -- chasing after a Monferno that clambers up some cliffs as the Tyrantum roars in frustration. I like that the Tyrantrum takes out its frustration by yelling and driving off the Archeopses nearby as well. 

And then I go through a bit of a cave with Gravelers hanging onto walls like fucking geckos, and I can toss apples to make them fall to the ground. Which is cute, until... until one of them clearly falls into a magma pool. We don't see the splash, but the game is kinda clear that it drops straight into a pretty deep magma crevice-thing? At least Rock-types resist Fire, right? 

The area ends in a very Zelda-esque rock bridge moving through a lava pool. Slugmas just hang out and one of them even falls down from a lava waterfall before it swims happily through the lava pool. There are Charmanders hanging around some of the rocky mini-islands in the pool, and the Monferno earlier that was being chased by Tyrantrum bursts out and screeches and makes monkey noises before it climbs up a stalagmite and ook-ooks in triumph. 

...wait, was that a Godzilla vs. Kong thing? A monkey against a dinosaur? Huh. 

There's a collapsed ruin right next to the exit, but no real way to access it before I get teleported back. 

And... well, I talked about two new areas in this post, but there's actually another new one that was unlocked rather randomly... Todd Snap gives me the option to take a route around the base camp, which is cool! Throughout all the talking-heads cutscenes in the game, we've been seeing Pokemon wandering around both the interior and exterior of the LENS base, and it's actually quite nice!

I can take a photo of Stoutland and Pikachu, and the sleeping Meowth that's dozing off near the NEO-ONES. An Eevee and a Trubbish hang out on a picnic table, and... unfortunately, chucking an apple at the Trubbish causes it to sneeze a whole cloud of poison gas at Eevee, and the poor thing just runs off. No! Trubbish didn't mean it!

There's a bunch of tiny Cutiflies hanging out in the flowers, a Sudowoodo standing very still next to the wooden signboard of the LENS base, and a little hidden Pokemon as a Bunnelby's ears peek in and out of three holes and I need to chuck apples to get it to come out and be photograph-able. 

That's a pretty fun little area, and after I level it up a bit, I unlock a hidden path leading inside the LENS base itself where I can look around the 3D model of the base which forms the background of where I access the map and photodex. Audino and Dedenne are there, but not much else... but, again, it's still cool nonetheless. I do wonder if these bases are based on the backgrounds of the base in the original Pokemon Snap?

Anyway, it's not quite as epic as the boom-boom-boom trifecta of the undersea, volcano and night desert areas, but this has been a very eventful set of New Pokemon Snap areas! I enjoyed myself. 

Random Notes:

• 
  Apropos of nothing, I've also been watching Pokemon Twilight Wings, which is the series of shorts they released in 2020 to tie in with Pokemon Sword & Shield. Very charming, relatively high-quality shorts, but ultimately it's just kinda pretty short stuff. I don't think there's really enough for me to make a review here other than "it's cute, there are some nice cameos, nice animation". It's like how I felt about Pokemon Concierge as well, which I watched when it came out.
• I really like the Wooloo inferiority complex episode the best out of the seven episodes, I think. That was very charming, especially as a proponent of 'lol I'm bringing a Butterfree to the league and you can't stop me'. I'm not the kindest to Sword/Shield, but some of the trainers -- Hop in particular -- had some really nice stories told by the Pokemon in their parties.
• I also really like the Oleana episode, though mostly for the confirmation that her Garbodor, as a Trubbish, has been around even before her rise to glory.  
• In the jungle areas, I finally -- and with some hints from my friends -- managed to get to the mysterious pathway behind the waterfall. I needed to scare away the Pikipek with the flute, and then chuck apples to drive away the Liepards, which will open the way... in the next trek I do. It's so weird. 
• The thing behind the waterfall is extremely wholesome, though, with a group of Swamperts, a Leafeon and a random Wooper all sleeping together calmly. 
• I have been trying to get some of the quests done, and... it's honestly a bit of a crapshoot on what's considered as an eligible photo for the quest. Some of them are simple enough, like taking a photograph of Archeops eating an apple, or Qwilfish puffing up, or Aipom cutting some grass, or Clawitzer shooting at each other, and I've taken photos of those specific scenes multiple times... but the game doesn't want to recognize them as a quest-eligible photograph until randomly they do. It's a bit weird. 
• One thing about fishies is that the 'fish quota' is kind of split between freshwater and saltwater fishes, and it's actually kind of a bit weird for me whenever I see Pokemon explicitly modelled from freshwater animals like Barboach, Goldeen or Basculin in seas. I know these are Pokemon and not actually catfishes and goldfishes, but still. 
• I didn't realize that you can chuck another apple at an inflated Qwilfish, which will make it deflate and splutter around like a balloon! Oh, that's hilarious. 
• Between Lumineon, Minior, Qwilfish and Liepard, this game is really doing a great job at making me care for a lot of the more bland Pokemon just by presenting them doing stuff in nature that doesn't quite come off that well in the mainline games. Good job, Snap. 
• Gravelers that can be knocked down by apples is apparently a reference to something in the original Pokemon Snap!
• No, seriously, fuck the Poke Flute music in this game.