Let's Play New Pokemon Snap, Part 9: Final Illumination

So last where we left off, we get teleported from a mysterious ruin with the five totems of the Illumina Pokemon we've been meeting throughout all this time.

And I emerge... in front of a dilapidated, desiccated tree in the middle of a grove. Which... I immediately recognize as Xerneas. Hey, Xerneas! Old buddy, old pal!

Now, out of the Kalos games, I played Pokemon Y... but Pokemon XY was when I really got back into Pokemon after a multi-generation hiatus. That year was extremely insane as I caught up on Generation IV and V (and those two had a lot of content), caught up on the Pokemon Adventures manga, and went full-on geek as I tried to figure out what was going on with these Mega Evolutions and a new type and the new drip-feeding of new Pokemon... man, I miss Xerneas and Yveltal. Their little Legends game is coming out soon and I'm super excited about that. 

And the Xerneas 'boss' fight, if you can even call it that, is actually a tad less stressful than the preceding Steelix boss fight. Xerneas transforms into a ball, and zips around and I just have to conk it with an Illumina orb to get it to turn into a deer, and then conk it again to get it illuminated. The thing is, Xerneas is kind enough to do a huge roar every time he's knocked out of his orb form, making it rather easy for me to do that. 

The encounter with Xerneas just takes me through the abandoned ruin, which is pretty chill and a fair bit brighter than the longer Houndoom-infested ruin elsewhere in Aurus Island. We eventually find the full version of the mural where it shows Xerneas in the middle of the other five Illumina Pokemon, being the source of the power... and the blast of energy that Xerneas is exuding is a big honking green "X". That was actually rather obvious in hindsight, and very visible in the ruined mural we saw earlier in the ruins area, and it's one of those things that gets super-duper obvious when you realize what it is!

And... and that's it for the "main story" of New Pokemon Snap. After the end of the route, Xerneas has the five glowing orbs representing the other five Illumina Pokemon spin around himself, then around me, then he reverts back into becoming a tree. I return to the LENS base, where the Professor gives his big explanation to the mystery he's been researching, which is the fact that... well, we kinda figured out in the previous level, where Xerneas and the Illumina Pokemon were the ones that created the barrier to protect Lental from the meteor. 

And... and I'm actually half-expecting a fight between the Illumina Pokemon and whatever threat comes from that meteor, like Deoxys or the Ultra Beasts or something. The meteor actually turned out to be completely irrelevant! Which... which is honestly fine, I suppose. This is a photography game, I suppose I can't really complain that it doesn't have an epic action-adventure ending. 

I really could've done without the final cheesy cutscene, though, where the Professor is actually confused why all this Illumina phenomenon is happening immediately at the same time and stuff, and Todd, Rita and the other kid all say in unison that it's essentially the power of friendship, and that my character is so beloved by Pokemon that it stimulates the Illumina Pokemon to come out. Hmm, okay? I kinda wished that there was something a bit more concrete I do in the boss fights, actually, like saving a Pokemon with my apples or whatnot. But... small complaint. 

The credits roll, rather cutely with some of the great (and not so great) photographs I've taken throughout my adventure, and closes with a picture of the group with the LENS base Pokemon. That's neat. 

The game then reboots and I get like three cutscenes that trigger at the same time. First up, I get 'burst mode', which is like a regular camera but I assume it'll make it a lot easier to capture fast-moving behaviours. That's going to be useful if I enter a stage with the singular focus to catch, like, a super-specific behaviour like that shot of Stunfisk zapping Octillery in the beach. I don't plan to go out of my way to do too much of the sidequests, otherwise we'll be in this game the whole year... but it's nice. 

The Professor also tells me that I'm getting scores at the end of each trek, which is not something I look forward to. The post-trek button-mashing exercise is long enough as it is, I don't need two or three more A-button presses. Honestly, I almost wished that they gave me a 'skip the evaluation' or 'evaluation summary' option. 

Then I unlock like three different new levels. I got a bit confused, and apparently this is a function of the DLC. The original 'post-game' level is the Evening Reef level, which was a conspicuously missing area considering the regular reef is listed as Reef (Day). The other two -- the a Badlands area in the volcano island and the River area in Belusylva Island. The little shrinking adventure we have was also originally released as a DLC, but it gets unlocked without having to beat the game's main story. I'll be saving these two areas for later on, because I actually did a couple of extra explorations in older areas instead. 

The evening reef is still pretty calming, and the sunset just looks fucking majestic. Honestly, I think we can safely say that New Pokemon Snap is the absolute prettiest Pokemon game in the franchise without exception, right? I don't think any of the mainline series games comes close to this. I'm still confused a bit with the massive whirlpool, and I might actually look up a guide on how to get it to cough up its secrets. 

But there are also a lot of very nice moments. There's an Alolan Raichu actually surfing on top of the ocean waves with his tail, which isn't something that I think you can do in the games. It's something I've seen Alolan Raichu do in the clips of the anime, but it looks so majestic with the better water particle effects of this game. I think this is also a cheeky nod do the original Surfing Pikachu, which was in the original Pokemon Snap. 

There are Squirtles happily blowing bubbles, and a majestic Primarina is perched on top of a rockside also blowing bubbles and singing. Backdropped by the sunset, she looks pretty majestic! Drifblims also float around the skies and it's honestly never going to be something that I would think about doing but it makes total sense. Oh, and at night the Clamperls rise up from the abyssal level of the ocean and have an adorable little assemble on the reef. At a second run, I also get a Vaporeon to rise up from the blue hole. That's neat.

The little side-branch that used to have the Pelippers now contain a family of Lapras, and with the power of the Illumina orbs I can get a baby Lapras and a mama Lapras to sing together. Is that a reference to Ash's Lapras from the anime? It feels like it is. 

I return to the night reef in the second level, and there's also the 'rising sun' pattern of Vivillon fluttering around, which I thought was neat... but the most surprising behaviour is... among the five or so Drifblims that hover around, one of them is holding a Clamperl! OH NO! Poor Clamperl! It's being kidnapped by a ghostly child-napping ghost balloon from the underworld! And this is a game where we've seen so many predator/prey pairs chasing each other on-screen! What is it going to do with the Clamperl! 

...nothing harmful, actually, and it's a bit of a surprise considering this game! Following the Drifblim to the end actually shows the Drifblim dropping the Clamperl back into a part of the ocean where other Clamperls are. That's... that's surprisingly wholesome. I love it. 

I also do the Lapras interaction again, but this time a nearly-missable little blue blob flits in and out and joins the singing... it's... the Prince of the Oceans, Manaphy! 

I shouldn't be so surprised, but I went "WTF!" and got quite surprised... and I don't know if this is just the post-game or whatever, but I looked it up and apparently legendary Pokemon will start appearing in other areas now. Hmm, interesting! 

I did a bunch more experience farming while watching some anime just to get my area levels up to 3, then I go to the six boss-fight levels to see what's new. I do know that new Pokemon pop up in the Meganium level, like Combee and Eevee... but repeating that level now has Meganium randomly have SHAYMIN ride on top of her head if you get Meganium to investigate a nearby cliff. Yeah, I did this level before at level 2, and Shaymin most definitely isn't there, so there's a nice little incentive to go back for sure. 

A lot of the other levels don't have too much in them. The Wishiwashi level is neat in that the two jerk Wailmers from the underwater level show up, and some Finneon and Luvdiscs hang out with the giant Wishiwashi horde. The Volcarona lair has some Monferno and Archeops. Milotic's level is a lot nicer to travel with more Pokemon on the lake, with Serperior, Trevenant, Lotad and Magikarp. Man, Milotic's really majestic, huh? 

The Steelix level takes me through a slightly different route, I think, and throughout it there is a little side-story of Crobats and Noibats like chasing each other, until the giant Steelix comes and drives off the Crobat and I guess it likes the Noibats a bit better. 

The Xerneas level has... a completely different bat! Woobat! Oh, so that's the source of the random heart markings on the totem temple level? That's so weird and random and I love it. I was wondering if it was connected to the legendary or something. Nope, it's just a bunch of bats. Some other Pokemon like Sigilyph, Houndoom and Absol also hang out here, and I do like that the Absol lurks near the giant meteor mural, as if going "see, I warned you guys about this". And at the end, we see Xerneas curled up next to an Umbreon and Natu. That's surprisingly wholesome and rather unexpected for the Dark-type Eevelution! I think I'm only one Jolteon left from completing the set. 

At the time of writing I've obviously also done the new River and Badlands areas, but I'll save it for next time! This has been a really fun ride as I complete the main story. I think there's enough secrets and new areas in this game to keep the Snap train going for a couple more posts, but it's definitely been one of the most unexpectedly charming and wholesome games I've played for a long while. 

Random Notes:

• I'll definitely be doing a lot of the post-game (and originally DLC) areas, but this has been extremely therapeutic to play. I've actually been trying to play a couple of other games and watching other series that... hasn't been working out that well? I guess I kinda missed the point where these games and shows are supposed to be entertainment first and foremost, and I just need to play what makes me comfortable, even if it does mean that it's another Pokemon game. 
• So, what next? I'll probably play Legends ZA if it comes at any point of time later this year, but I do have a copy of Detective Pikachu Returns. I might do a speedrun of the remakes of Diamond/Pearl or Mystery Dungeon, but that will probably be a two or three part blog post similar to how I handled Let's Go Pikachu. We'll see. 
  
• I also purchased The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, and will probably be playing it after this. I'm not sure if I want to do a proper Let's Play of it, though. 
• I am a bit disappointed that Xerneas doesn't go from flying orb to depowered Xerneas form to rainbow-horn Xerneas form. It was always a bit of a point of confusion for me when playing through the Kalos games that Xerneas had an additional 'off-power' form when he's sitting in our party that Yveltal never had. 
• Man, Todd and Phil really don't have a personality at the end of the day, huh? Rita at least has some bit of sassiness going on for her and Professor Mirror has this whole bit about him trying to confirm his hypotheses, but the other two might as well not be there. 
• I reached the level 3 versions of the daytime Belusylva Forest, and I get a bunch of new interactions. I can knock away an Arbok menacing a Wooper, and the Wooper's expressions after being rescued is adorable. Sobble and Venusaur also start spawning in the level 3 day jungle, which... yay! Venusaur is expected since Blastoise and Charizard were unlocked in level 3 locations, but Sobble has been very conspicuously absent whereas his two Galar starter buddies Scorbunny and Grookey were very prominent in the first couple of areas.
• I was trying to do some of the easy-looking requests just for the heck of it, but some of them are really kind of confusing on what, exactly, counts for these specific behaviours. And sometimes (like the Vespiquen one) I just complete it without even knowing what specific behaviour that the Pokemon is doing. 
• Rather interestingly, Professor Mirror has no comment about Manaphy and Shaymin. Does he not know these guys are legendaries?