Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 6: Kalos Starters of Yesteryear

I start off with a fair bit more running around and exploring, and going through another Battle Zone just to collect money. Again, I do love these Legends games for letting me run around and do short missions and catch one or two Pokemon and run around the city and gather items. The little scaffolding things for platforming... I'm not the biggest fan of, but I am also never a big fan of these in any other game... other than maybe the Assassin's Creed games. 

The Rank X fight is against a kid called Xavi, who faces me in what looks like some kind of a school building. There is a cool Shellder statue and lots of trainers running around. Xavi just makes a couple of jokes about which letter he finds the coolest, and whether X is cooler than Y and so on and so forth. His party is made up of a Venipede, Kadabra, Roselia and Furfrou. By themselves, they're not too much of a problem... but Kadabra sets up Light Screen, and in this game Light Screen actually manifests as a trio of psychic barriers circling the Pokemon! That's so cool. I don't know if they actually tank attacks individually, or if they just reduce incoming damage, but either way I really love the visual upgrades we got to a lot of these more utilitarian moves thanks to the change of the battle system. 

After beating Xavi, I go up to Rank W, and the team celebrates with another croissant curry dinner. Naveen (who always is portrayed eating a submarine sandwich instead) continues to rightfully declare that the croissant curry is an abomination to his culinary sensibilities.

We start off with a bit of a cutscene in the next morning, and it's Lida's turn to presumably get some focus, but... I'll put her off for now and run around to do more sidequests. Lida does ask AZ why there are so few people in the hotel. AZ notes that he doesn't mind the quiet, and in a somewhat darker tone, he notes that he intends for this hotel to be his final residence. Hence, 'Z'. Which... yeah, a bit less dark knowing that he's secretly an immortal blessed with the power of a legendary Pokemon. AZ notes that if the hotel gets too busy, it would interfere with us kids and our desire to participate in the battle royale. Lida runs off, but she leaves behind a package (that just says 'Lida's Things') that I must return to her. 

But exploration first!

Some of the buildings are visitable, including some neat returning faces from the XY games. Sushi High Roller looks wonderfully rendered, as is Restaurant Le Wow. Currently I don't think I can do anything yet there but run around and listen to the NPCs and enjoy the scenery, but I do see a massive battle arena in the middle of the restaurants.

I love that one of the NPCs in Restaurant Le Wow kind of poke a jab at how the original waiters in the Kalos restaurants would go over-the-top in describing the three-course dishes that they give you, always made up of some esoteric ingredients extracted from a Pokemon non-lethally. Love these little nods to older games. 

I have also been appreciating the Pokemon that appear outside of the Wild Zones a bit more. Sure, the ones on the rooftops are a nice little layer of removal from human society, but I like the ones that hide among them. The Pidgeys and Fletchlings perching on street lamps, the Trubbishes hiding in the back-alleys... and in one of the main streets are at least two of the Unovan elemental monkeys. I've gone on record, and I stand by it, that I really don't like these monkeys. But apparently they've been MIA in the mainline games ever since the stupid abolition of the National Dex. Honestly, with them moving hardware to Switch 2, there really isn't any excuse for the next game to not have all the Pokemon programmed in, even if they're not capturable. I think more than the bitching about graphics and whether the trees and buildings look good or not, that is what I care about more and where I will join the 'fuck you Nintendo, you have more resources than this' camp. 

Anyway! As I explore around the world a bit, I find a random level 38 Goomy that I capture with after spamming balls... and of course, Goomy refuses to obey me. I do like that it's just hiding in some corner behind buildings, in a vaguely swampy corner? Silly slug friend. Do I want to use a Goomy in this playthrough? I don't like Goodra that much, though. There is the potential that they might give Kalos's pseudo a Mega, but I'm not 100% sure about it. 

I also unlock Wild Area 6, which... just feels like a random street that got fenced off. It's still even got a bunch of abandoned food carts everywhere! It's populated mostly by Buneary and a pack of Houndour... led by a hideously aggressive Alpha Houndoom. Run from the Alpha Pokemon, they truly are aggressive. I briefly thought that this is the 'four legged black Pokemon' that Emma wants... but no, there's a far more plot-relevant candidate than a Houndoom, isn't there? This wild area also has a bit of a rooftop climbing sequence that leads to a Swablu roosting grounds; and some Meditite hanging around in what used to be a tennis zone. 

Again, it's neat to see the Pokemon being placed in thematic areas, but it also does bring to mind what Mable complained about how the city council or authorities or whatever just set up these forcefields wily-nily. Some of the NPCs outside the Wild Areas are actually nicely critical of the concept, too, with one grumbling that any complaints to the redevelopment is just brushed aside by the authorities. This might be presented as a nice gimmick for the players, but I like that in-universe there is some discourse to this environmentally irresponsible course of action. 

At this point, in-between just exploring, I come across some shorter side-quests that just involves a quick battle to unlock holovators... but I also find a Chespin that is facing a taxi. Axi the taxi driver complains about this, noting that the Chespin keeps trying to fight her taxi. She asks me to fight the Chespin since it clearly wants a challenge, but 'a Pokemon-versus-taxi battle seems like it would end badly for both sides'. Chespin refuses to admit defeat, though, and somehow heals back to full health and I have to fight it a full three times. 

After that, Axi asks Chespin if he would rather come with me, since fighting alongside trainers will guarantee it be exposed to much more stronger opponents and get even stronger. And... I just get a Chespin, just like that! Okay! I remembered the Sinnoh starters in Legends: Arceus taking a fair bit more to obtain... but that's just one of the three Kalos starters. 

I also end up running into the Froakie side mission mostly by accident, coming across a particularly large scaffolding course. Turns out that this is built by a dude called Surv, and the champion of that scaffolding course is a very smug-looking Froakie. This one isn't complex on paper, just do three of the parkour levels to get Froakie. It took me probably the longest out of the three Kalos starter side-quests, though, mostly because I genuinely did not know you could use the roll feature to launch yourself off the ledge a bit further. I thought I needed some feature on the Rotom phone or a Fly HM or something. But... yeah. It's different, but can't say I enjoy this one. Froakie get, though, and I do think Froakie's my favourite Kalos starter so I am debating using him. 

I looked up where the Fennekin quest is just to get it done with, and a lady called Branche is nursing a sick Fennekin in just some closed-off park. The Pokemon Center apparently isn't sure what's wrong with it, and Branche sends me to go find a brilliant herbalist. I don't know if this is a reference to a herb store in XY? I'm sent off to find him in a cafe, and the unnamed herbalist tells me that Fennekin really likes one such branches called Revitalizing Twig. 

Said Revitalizing Twig? It's smack dab in the Venipede hell in Wild Zone 5 where a giant Whirlipede is tearing up the secluded park like a madman. There are like around six twigs, but only the last one is the Revitalizing Twig I needed. I don't think I could take down the Whirlipede at this point, at least not without spamming a lot of healing items, but I don't think I'm supposed to. I find it more fun just Dark Souls dodging the giant wheel while I check all the twigs. 

Returning the twig to Fennekin, of course, revitalizes it and he decides to join my party. Nice, Fennekin! Fennekin was my starter when I played Pokemon Y! Always have a soft spot for him. 

Anyway, after doing that and hightailing it out from the big mad Whirlipede, I decide... to raise a Venipede of my own. I've always liked the Venipede line, but for one reason or another I never used it in any of my Unova runs. So that's three members of my team locked, I guess: Bayleef, Honedge and Venipede. I'm still debating if I'm going to use one of the Kalos starters. 

Oh well! Another adorable side quest I did was a little girl called Ismene, who has some philosophical questions about Ekans. "Where does its tail start? Does it have a really long body, or a really long tail, Or is it ALL body?" She just wants me to show her an Ekans, and my Ekans is happy at the attention, but I love that this adorable little side-quest just ends with a little girl being delighted at seeing a snake instead of the traditional 'eek, so gross'. Honestly, between her and the Kakuna girl, I really am reminded that this is why Pokemon has such a wide range of tastes that I would be thinking hard of whether to put Venipede into my party while someone else would go 'ick, gross bug' and move along... and by the same virtue, maybe something I don't find appealing like, oh, Ceruledge or something might be the coolest thing ever for someone else. That's neat! You're a Pokemon fan, whether you like the Pikachus and the Charizards; or the Ekans-es and Kakunas!

Anyway, yeah, at this point I would note that currently my own team also consists of a weird creepy dude, Venipede. I had always had a huge soft spot for Scolipede and it's one of my favourites from Black/White, but I've never had the chance to really use it in any of my Unova runs. Galvantula ended up being my Bug-type for my main Gen V run, and seeing the Venipedes represented semi-prominently in the wild zones does make me like it. I haven't seen a full list of all the new megas yet, but I have been informed of Mega Scolipede's existence -- even if I don't actually know what it looks like. That's good enough for him to 'qualify' of me trying to play with either Kalosian or new Pokemon!

Random Notes:

• Random funny lines of dialogue from the NPCs:
  
• "If you're drained from work, microwave meals save time."
• "You must love being a trainer, right? After all, you've stuck with it for 20 years already!" ...more than twenty years, game. More than twenty years. I started with Blue...
• "I'm real strong in Pokemon battles! I'm just real weak in business!"
• "Could we get away with charging $100,000 for a cup of coffee?" -- the real villain is capitalism. 
• "If Pokemon keep multiplying, maybe in the future it'll be the humans who are made to battle..."
• Other random nods to the franchise in general are comparisons to Alolan restaurants, two kids arguing about 'strong' and 'fast' moves as a reference to Legends Arceus, a mention of Ingo and Emmett's Battle Train from Black/White, a mention of Brassius of Paldea's sculptures, and a couple who wants to go on a treasure hunt vacation in Paldea. Considering that Legends Z-A was supposed to be released last year, more or less concurrent with the Paldea DLC,  it kind of makes a bit more sense. 
• Another NPC notes that Team Flare's plot was 'five years ago', which gives us a nice timeframe relative to Pokemon XY. 
• You can sit on the benches to immediately change time from day to night if you want to trigger certain things. I guess it's a lot more effective than finding a bed to sleep in. 
• 'Robustaryu Coffee' is probably my favourite coffee Pokemon pun in the game so far. 
• The Venipede/Whirlipede hell-corner is connected to some underground canals, with Ariados hanging from the top. An NPC notes that he's going to do 'something' here? Hmm?
• Out of the new mega trailers, I have finally seen the trailers for Mega Victreebel, Mega Hawlucha and Mega Malamar. Love the horror-game-themed Mega Victreebel trailer; I think everyone universally agrees that Mega Hawlucha is awesome, and Mega Malamar Is My Friend Mega Malamar Is My Friend Mega Malamar Is My Friend Mega Malamar Is My Friend-
• All jokes aside, I did use a Malamar in one of my Alola playthroughs, and I do rank Malamar quite highly among the Kalosian Pokemon I would be willing to use. So him having a Mega honestly is just making it a bit more likely to use him! We'll see, we'll see.
• Victreebel getting some love -- and I love Victreebel -- in this game in the form of a new Mega does also make him a high potential for me using him, but... we'll have to see how I feel when I actually see Mega Victreebel in-game.