Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 11: The Hunt for Rogues

We continue with the next two Mega Evolutions to hunt down! First up is Taunie and Slowbro, who is just sitting next to some water side. There's really not much in terms of banter other than Taunie noting that Mega Slowbro is particularly defensive. 

Anyway, the rogue Slowbro Mega Evolevs! The way that Mega Slowbro evolves has it appear with the 'fanged' side of the giant shell down, and Mega Slowbro's body almost completely engulfed, which takes me back a bit because that's not a position I ever see Mega Slowbro in. The way it evolved in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire has it already in the top-like position with the tail holding up the body. 

Also, Taunie? Taunie why are you using Croconaw Taunie. Why? You have a MEGA MANECTRIC, which is super-effective against- Taunie, Taunie come on, Taunie. Type matchups, it's not that hard. 

The Mega Slowbro raid isn't particularly hard, of course, since I have a Mega Meganium. With a Dazzling Gleam TM to round out her four moves, Meganium just tanks Mega Slowbro's attacks, and continues healing herself with Giga Drains. Mega Slowbro does have some stage hazards, unleashing whirlpool-tornadoes around him. This, in addition to Mega Slowbro's own Water Pulses and what I think is Psybeam, actually does make him the hardest mega raid to dodge. With how he moves around and how generally dorky he is, it ends up being a bit of a strange contrast. 

With Mega Slowbro defeated, I claim the Slowbroite which is going to be pretty neat for my own shiny Slowpoke! Taunie congratulates me, before running off to Hotel Z. 

This leaves the final Rogue Mega Evolution... which is Camerupt. But as I arrive on the mass of scaffolding, instead of Lida, I end up facing Tarragon. Tarragon is oddly hostile, yelling that construction workers are always going to be facing danger, and that a random rogue bugger on top of the building isn't going to deter him. Tarragon then questions how strong I am, asking if I'm faking my way through the Z-A Royale... and then sics one of his builders on me. 

Turns out that Tarragon's builders are members of DYN4MO, the fan club for Canari. Which... I'm not sure why I was actually, genuinely surprised, since they have been walking around with shirts plastered with Canari's face and give out Canari dolls. But the dude fights me with a single cute Tynamo, which gets crushed immediately. He also has a Numel... do you guys have anything to do with the Mega Camerupt? Hmm? Satisfied that I'm no faker, Tarragon walks off. What a weirdo!

Lida chooses this time to finally show up, and lets me climb up the scaffolding puzzle myself before zipping up with offscreen cutscene magic. I believe her being a lot more nimble than Taunie and especially Naveen, though! Lida makes an interesting point that it would be particularly bad if we get knocked off the top of the building in the mega evolution raid... although we do have Rotom Phones. This lampshade hanging does raise a couple of questions that I have, though. Firstly, do our non-flying Pokemon just not take fall damage? I know it would be way too hard to program in, but you can't tell me that falling off of a dozen-story building won't hurt, like, my Scolipede or Absol. Secondly... what is the strange void-like arena we fight the mega raids in? Are they just domain expansion'd when a Rogue Mega Evolution happens? 

Anyway, there is no time to answer any of those questions, becuase a volcano camel somehow got its way up the roof. Lida also asks just how a Camerupt made it up the rooftop. Great question! No one's going to answer it!

Mega Camerupt is a bit of a slog to me because my only Water-type Pokemon are the very much still underpowered Frogadier and Slowpoke. I did bring Mega Absol as a precaution; the only Mega that isn't weak to Fire-type, but Mega Absol doesn't exactly have any super-effective moves against Camerupt. Thankfully, Mega Camerupt's moves are... quite non-threatening. Other than Earth Power, that is, since it appears anywhere you are and just explodes from the ground. Otherwise, Mega Camerupt's attacks are mostly easily telegraphed, and even its special arena attack just launches a bunch of rocks that explode... but they take so long to explode and the range is quite small. If anything, the annoying part is that my lock-on keeps going to the rocks instead of Camerupt. 

Anyway, with Mega Camerupt down, I claim the Cameruptite. Lida congratulates the group for finishing off all three Rogue Mega Evolutions, and we regroup back at Hotel Z. 

While all of this is going on... Zygarde's dog form watches me at each and every fight. 

As I return to Hotel Z, Zygarde steps up and finally confronts me, wanting to battle with me. Zygarde himself is a bit tougher, but I also have a Grass/Fairy mega evolution starter that... it really is a bit unfair to the poor dog, isn't it? I fully counter both his typings. After the battle, Zygarde walks up to me, and gives me something in its mouth... it's... it's a pebble. Okay! Good doggy! Who is a good dog, yes it is you, it is you!!! Can't ever be mad at a dog giving you a rock!!!

And then a man in a suit with patched-up pants walks up, saying that I am 'the one', the Pokemon Trainer that has earned the attention of Zygarde. As we pan up to his face... it's Lysandre! The ex-boss of Team Flare. He's wearing the exact same suit that he did in XY, just without the fancy red trims; and his anime old man hair is now white. His left eye is also always closed. It has been a while since I played through XY, but I'm going to assume that these are the injuries he suffered when he was presumed dead after the Ultimate Weapon collapsed. 

Oh, he's got an 'X' shaped patch on his pants, and a 'Y' shaped patch on his arm suit. Sure. 

Lysandre introduces himself as "L", of course, because Pokemon really likes to use alphabet names. He gives some backstory about Zygarde as a Pokemon that defends the order of things, and how things are kind of screwy in Lumiose City with Mega Crystals erupting everywhere, Rogue Mega Evolutions appearing from random wild Pokemon, and the unexplained pheomenon of Mega Energy... oh, Meganium's here too. Lots of Mega Mega Mega! Lysandre goes for a typical 'are you prepared to fight?' speech, before telling me that I need to become a Pokemon Trainer worthy of being on Zygarde's side. 

Zygarde kind of teleports away after all of this exposition. Lysandre then closes the talk by saying that he knows that the 3000-year-old man owns the hotel, but 'his sins will catch up to him another time'. Lysandre then buggers off. Interesting stuff! It's actually been a while since we saw any character from the Generation VI games. While I didn't expect the whole cast to reappear, it is admittedly a bit strange that only a couple of characters from XY has actually appeared.

As I return back to the hotel, I ask for where AZ is, but of course the big ancient man is gone to look at the Eiffel Tower or something. Naveen makes a little crack at how I had to do the lion's share of the Mega Evolution subduing thanks to Taunie's work distribution, while Taunie just brushes it off. Both Naveen and Lida need to get their anime power-ups quickly!

But our little discussion about Mega Evolutions are interrupted by a Z-A Royale announcement... and my next opponent is the popular Poke-Tuber, Canari of DYN4MO! Of course that's bound to happen sooner or later. Naveen is extremely shocked at this, and overreacts as much as he could, yelling that 'this is dire', and he wonders which side he should choose. Taunie, meanwhile, notes that this is good news since Naveen totally has good intel about 'Cannery'. Throughout the whole conversation, Taunie just constantly mispronounces Canari's name which I am 100% sure is on purpose just to be a dick to Naveen. Kind of deserved, with his intense simping!

Naveen goes into a spiel about Canari's location being a bit secretive and hard to find. As you do, for a public streamer... there are a lot of crazy fans out there. Naveen gets sidetracked at being angry at the insinuation that his idol lives in an alleyway, and rants about how Canari is busy getting high scores for the new game 'Beldum Buildup'. 

After some back-and-forth about his status as a 'true fan', Lida solves this the Pokemon way. Naveen needs to battle me, and if I win, he has to help me fight Canari. Naveen makes a whole deal about this being his honour-bound duty to win, to protect Canari and her streams. Unfortunately for Naveen, he really should be spending more time training instead of watching streams. Other than evolving his Spinarak into Ariados, his team is still more or less the same. His signature Scraggy hasn't even evolved, wtf!

Anyway, after beating Naveen, Taunie tells Naveen to help us find 'Ca-gnarly'. Despite his irritation, Naveen's good for his word. He notes that the most die-hard Canari fans, the 'Canatics', participate in something called the Quiz Whiz Contest. Apparently if you win the quiz, you get a typical idol prize, like an autograph, handhsake... or promotion match? Really, the Z-A Royale's system isn't the best if you need to jump through so much hoops to get the supposedly-arranged matches... but I also completely believe that a system put together by a city administration will actually have a lot of terrible red tape. 

Naveen notes that 'casuals' who start watching Canari now will have no hope in winning the quiz whiz, but he, of course, being a true connoisseur of the Canari streams, would deign to win this contest. He does make it clear that he's not the same as the rabble that usually goes to these things. Naveen tells me to win my Challenger's Ticket before we go to the Quiz Whiz... which will be not for a while!

Meanwhile, I'm grinding a bit harder in the Battle Royales because the Mega fights are a bit irritating -- my three strongest Pokemon Meganium, Scolipede and Absol are holding up okay, but the other half of the team are struggling quite a bit. Honedge finally evolves into Doublade, and I Dusk Stone it into Aegislash quickly. Time will tell if I like the adaptation of Stance Change in this game, though -- it feels like the extra animation for Stance Change is going to really impact Aegislash since it's no longer a free turn for Aegislash to draw his shield.

And over the course of the sidequests that I'll cover in the next episode (which IRL happened in-between main story segments) I evolved Frogadier and my shiny Slowpoke both into Greninja and Slowbro! Shiny Slowbro is cool. I love the purple skin, sure, but the golden Shellder tail is amazing. I just realized that Mega Greninja's stone is locked behind a multiplayer paywall -- two things that I refuse to engage with, so they might as well not exist. Which means that Greninja might get swapped out at some point... though I still enjoy the base look of ol' ninja frog anyway. Anyway, next up we'll go to the museum and do some side questing!

Random Notes:

• I also find all five Flabebe colours and unlock a whole bunch of hair customizations. I don't dwell on it too much since it's mostly spontaneous, but you better believe I've been swapping clothes in and out as I run around the city. 
• I finally figured out that the many cafes across the city doesn't just give you a cute photo-op, but is a way to raise happiness. Okay! Pokemon are happy when they sit and drink coffee with you! That actually tracks, I, too, am happy when I drink coffee!
• I find a random NPC who gives me a TM that will guarantee attraction... but it's not Attract, it's Electroweb! Oh... ohkay? Sure? That guy is also an Iono fan. Okay? Typical streamer fan behaviour? I am just supremely confused. 
• So the Slowbroite specifically mentions that it will not work on Galarian Slowbro. Does that mean that we're going to have a Galarian Mega Slowbro? Or is it just the designers shrugging and wanting people to not get excited over regional-mega evolutions? It could just as well be taken either way, as a foreshadowing or as an immediate hope-dashing. 
• I find the museum! I think there's a bit too much in that museum for me to talk here, and I do think that it deserves a chunk of a blog post in and of itself. The easter eggs to XY and Legends Arceus is cute enough in and of itself, but there's also a lot of... potential stuff for the future of this game's plots and potential DLCs. 
• Moves like Dazzling Gleam that is an 'AoE' effect ends up having an extra bit of utility in this game system when you are confused. Just like Mystery Dungeon, when your Pokemon is confused they just shoot their attacks in random directions... but with moves that explode outwards, it doesn't matter if you're confused! 
• It is kind of distracting that Zygarde's dog-butt has a hexagon that glows green and white even when it's idle. 
• Water Shuriken is pretty cool; just like Scolipede's Pin Missile it's just so satisfying to land a barrage of attacks at once. 
• Slowbro also learns Surf, which just looks awesome as he just conjures up a giant mobile tsunami that washes over the enemy. Yeah, I didn't expect to come into this game to be maining a Mega Slowbro, but here we are.