Let's Play New Pokemon Snap, Part 8: League of Explorers

And now... Outaway Cave! It's not quite as impressive, admittedly, compared to the Area Zero Descent from Pokemon Scarlet/Violet; not in the way that I genuinely feel like the snow or beach or volcano areas blow the mainline games out of the water. But I guess I might just be spoiled by how the 'underwater depths' level is basically this, but the ocean is inherently a lot more exciting than a cave.

And the cave has a bunch of interesting Pokemon, too. The Carbinks and the tiny Joltiks scuttling around are pretty expected, and so do the massive Crobats that move around patrolling their territory. But having some Braviaries hanging out in the cave is a bit unexpected. 

And most interesting are these random black portals of shadow that surprised me. My first thought is like 'oh cool, we'll have a ghost-type side-path', perhaps similar to the Elsewhere Woods. But chucking apples at it just makes everyone's best buddy Gengar peek out his head in confusion. Bless you, Gengar. 

As I go deeper and deeper there are some disturbing noises that I hear, and turns out that it's Croagunk ribbiting. Okay! There's a cool area where a bunch of Sableyes are scuttling around digging for stuff. More Crobats hovering around two Rampardos who are just roaring on top of a little island... I guess Lental just has all the fossil Pokemon alive and well, huh? This truly is some kind of a 'lost world' where these prehistoric Pokemon have survived to the present day. 

Level two of Outaway Cave adds some extra Pokemon, like Noibat fluttering around in many parts of the cave. In contrast, a bunch of the Crobats are sleeping upside-down, which I find is adorable. Do they have, like, specific niches of time that they fly around hunting for prey? Like, when the Crobats are sleeping, the Noibats are out, and vice-versa?

In another display of predator-prey relationship, a group of Sableyes are chasing around a Carbink, which makes total sense. I didn't really think it would be the case, but Carbinks would absolutely be food for the Sableye, huh? There are also Clefairy hanging out near the crystalbloom flowers, but also, interestingly, Drifloon -- being balloons, I don't think that they would find a cave disconnected from all the empty air, particularly one filled with spiky rock points, to be a particularly good habitat. But hey. 

 

I then pass through a bunch of giant steel formations that the game tells me are made up of solidified magma. A Mawile hangs out there. Now that's more like it, that's a more interesting-looking cave structure. The cave then splits off rather unexpectedly to like a hidden grove deep in the depths of the cave, with a bunch of plant-covered ruins deep in the depths. It's pretty nice-looking, and, of course, this unlocks our fifth and next Illumina Pokemon...

Who is located deep, deep in the depths of the subterranean network. It turns out to be a massive Steelix, and just like Wishiwashi beforehand the game really does make Steelix feel super-duper impressive as it flits and swoops and drills through giant holes in the tunnel walls, moving in and out far more swiftly than its bulk would make you believe. I really do like this -- again, it's such a great usage of a Pokemon that honestly is a bit underappreciated. 

And Steelix actually moves so fast between holes and the murky depths of the subterranean caves that I actually failed to get him to light up properly. Steelix needs two or three Illumina orbs to be chucked at him for him to properly glow and be registered as an Illumina Pokemon and to complete the boss fight, and I had to repeat the mission twice to properly do it. It's switching between the apple to trigger Steelix into bursting out, the rapid-fire Illumina Orb chucking, and subsequently the photography that gets me. 

After finishing the Steelix mission, Professor Mirror tells me to take a quick detour past a 'broken wall'. There is a large open area that is human-made and not at all natural, and there is a giant painting of the Illumina symbol on the ground and a giant mural of the five Illumina Pokemon we've met previously -- Meganium, Milotic, Volcarona, Wishiwashi and Steelix -- with a sixth Pokemon scratched out in the center of the mural. How (in)convenient! But the mural also shows what the NPC quickly conclude is the Illumina Pokemon defending Lental from the meteors falling, and the professor is a bit flustered to realize that his theory is actually wrong -- Illumina Pokemon appear to have existed before the meteorite, instead of deriving the power from them. Okay, sure. 

And apparently meeting all five Illumina Pokemon triggers some kind of weirdness on the professor's holographic map, where a bunch of laser light energy, for some reason, began to pool and converge upon a single area. I'm not entirely sure why this is going on other than some handwave of the Illumina energy, but I suppose the power of being photographed caused some of the Illumina energy to... surge... or... something? Whatever. I'm not supposed to really think about this too much, I suppose. 

We unlock the central island on the map, Aurus Island... which I thought was just going to be the boss fight arena for whatever legendary is going to be the final boss of this game... but nope, we actually do get another whole-ass map, which I absolutely love!

Aurus Island gives us some ruins with a bunch of new Pokemon! There are a lot of Houndoom lurking around and acting as the Liepard/Mightyena equivalent of this level, being numerous and growling and moving a lot. A bunch of Eldegoss (a rather underappreciated bugger!) hover around happily above the Houndooms, as the NEO-ONE approaches the giant temple. I then dive down through a hole in the ruins, brushing path some Houndooms and seeing a massive Noivern flapping around. A bunch of Salandit scuttle past and these are really hard to catch on camera!

These ruins are connected to a subterranean cave, with a surprisingly elaborate setup that would've really screamed "this is an ancient altar to summon a dread evil god". No, seriously, if this was Zelda or Elder Scrolls or Witcher or something, you can bet that this is going to be a boss fight room. A massive... pillar? Tree trunk? A massive thing with glowing multicoloured circuitry-like veins run up it, and the veins are connected to like, these rivers that are themselves connected to a bunch of totem-like statues which are guarded by really spooky Unovan Pokemon. There are also a bunch more ruins and relics and enigmatic creepy background murals that I can't read, but I am sure contains a whole lot of information about the ancient culture that worshipped whatever legendary Pokemon that they constructed this whole temple around. 

It is a legendary Pokemon, I hope. As much as I appreciated the Illumina boss fights, it would be bizarre if all this buildup was them worshipping like a Magnezone or Aggron or something. 

And the Pokemon here are really appropriate. Two Unovan Pokemon introduced guarding 'ruins' show up here, with Golurk and Sigilyph apparently hanging around and presumably the ancient Lentals had some kind of contact with the ancient Unovans (and whatever other games afterwards that had these Pokemon guard their ruins). The Sigilyph in particular are insane. Throw a single apple at them, and they go absolutely haywire like an ancient alarm system, literally shooting lasers in a dozen different directions. It's harmless, but it does a great job at showcasing how cool that this otherwise kinda forgettable Pokemon can be. 

Golurks, meanwhile, are interesting in that a lot of them just stand stoic and still (and block some stuff) until I activate and power them up with Illumina Orbs. They're not exactly artificial and more alien, but Beheeyem hover around being creepy with their glowing fingertips. Pretty cool stuff, all around. 

And, of course, ever bizarrely associated with creepy ruins ever since they showed up in the Ruins of Alph several consoles ago, Natu are just hanging around with these unnatural Pokemon. Bless you, Natu. Pretty cool statues all around, with the five statues around the pools clearly being based around the five Illumina bosses, but done in a very neat Aztec-Mayan statue style. 

Now equipped with the region's Illumina Orbs (is the underwater one the only hard one to find? The rest of them didn't really have a puzzle to do), I go back for the level 2. A lot more of the Golurks are moving, and a couple of Chandelures now hover around the central totem. And... it's kind of obvious that I need to light up all the crystalblooms next to each Illumina Pokemon's totem, and thankfully the Aurus Island Illumina Orb functions for every single one. 

The first couple are easy enough, but the third one has its flower hidden in a crevice located right after the pond. Then the fourth one has a trio of Eldegoss just clustering around it, and the fifth one has a Golurk that I need to activate to hit the Crystalbloom. I missed that fourth one in my first run and had to repeat it, but it's not too hard. With that, the quintet of flowers at the end of the level lights up, and it creates a massive pillar of light that looks pretty ominous. 

The Professor tells me that this will lead to the final final area, with the ultimate Illumina Pokemon and everything, and that this is the location where all the power in Lental converge together. Time for a climactic showdown... except not, because he needs to teleport me back to base and evaluate my photos, before apparently sending me back into the teleportation stream. 

I mean... okay, sure.

Anyway, both the ruins and the subterranean cave have been very delightful to go through. I am saving the final boss for the next part, and I understand there's a fair bit of post-game areas that were originally released as DLC, so we have quite a ways to play!

Random Notes:

• I'm going to assume that the final Pokemon at the end of the Aurus Island is going to be a legendary Pokemon. I actually am kind of impressed with the restraint of the game designers in not making the five Illumina Pokemon all more minor legendaries, since I really do appreciate that it gave Pokemon like Steelix and Milotic a fair amount of prominence in this game. Honestly, this game has been really good at making a lot of the normally more forgettable Pokemon feel so much more in-tune with the world around them. 
  
• If the legendary Pokemon's going to be connected to the meteor in some way, I guess Deoxys, Jirachi, Kyurem or one of the Alolan cover legendaries might take the spot? 
• Were the Illumina Pokemon protecting Lental from a meteor the whole reason why there are so many prehistoric Pokemon in Lental? Did the barrier protect the Lental region from the dinosaur extinction?
• I love that at the end of the Outaway Cave level, there's a Gengar who actually looks at the giant glowing video game marker that marks the end of the road and just grins at it while inspecting it. At least someone is aware enough about the weird teleporting stuff humans have been putting in their habitats.
• Sleeping Croagunks blow huge snot bubbles, as it turns out. 
• Wait, Rampardos only had five cards ever printed for it? Like, jeez, I don't really care about Rampardos, but for a Generation IV Pokemon that's honestly quite bad, isn't it? Like, I looked up some ranadom fourth-gen Pokemon and the likes of Roserade's got 14, Abomasnow's got 11, Bibarel's got 10, and even Rampardos's fellow fossil had seven! 
• There is a random wall in the Aurus Island temple with a bunch of hearts. I don't know if it's actually going to lead to something or if it's a clue about the identity of the guardian of Lental (it can't be Manaphy, right? And Enamorus wouldn't exist yet at the time of this game's release) or if it's maybe just an eye-rolling nod to the fake-Instagram social media aspect of this game that I haven't interacted with even once. 
• The original vehicle in the original Pokemon Snap is called 'Zero-One'. A jump to the sky turns into a rider kick.
• I leveled up some of the other areas, but I don't think there's anything that really deserves a full paragraph. There's a Blastoise sleeping at the night beach, and a Heracross that now drops from one of the trees in the Nature Park. It always is nice to find new Pokemon in these older areas, that's for sure. 
• I did a couple of the sidequests in some of the areas like the nature park, the jungle, the beach and the research station. There's not a whole ton that's particularly noteworthy for me to go 'oh, that's a really cute/cool behaviour', though.