Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 23: Ghost Stories of Lumiose

This is another big sidequest mission before we jump into Vinnie's summons! And we'll start off with my favourite -- the Litwick quest. Remember how I complained how a lot of the side-quests don't actually 'properly' feature the Pokemon they are supposedly spotlighting? Well, there's still a lot of those here, but the Litwick one I've got no complaints about. 

A kid called Consei is panicking, because his little sister wandered off after Litwick. In case someone doing this quest isn't familiar with the creepy smiling ghost candle, Consei reiterates that Litwick is a Pokemon that sucks out your life... life force! Consei is worried "what if she never comes back?" Yep, implied child death! 

The Litwick appears nearby, and the game does its best with its limited graphics to show Litwick being creepy. This involves its model seemingly glitching in and out of existence, and teleporting to another part on the screen. It's perhaps not the most ideal effect to give to a candle-ghost, but they actually put some effort into it instead of just a simple, quick teleport. So kudos for that. 

(Also, I started this quest during the in-game day and had to quickly find a bench to make it night, otherwise the theme is kind of lost)

Litwick leads me through a bit of a run throughout the city, and there's a point where it stands on a railing overlooking a river, ghost-shuffles backwards... and seems to fall (or I guess, float) down. I thought that was unintentionally funny. Litwick's little cries, which is a bit more cute than creepy, keep playing through all  this. 

As we chase the Litwick into an area in the sewer, at the terminus is a little girl who asks "who are you... so you came to find me...?" and the camera rotates unsettlingly around her and me. "My brother worries too much..." and her hair covers her eyes... and... and it's not a jumpscare, not really. It's just a the little girl saying a creepy thing when she shouldn't. Turns out the little girl is okay. We've got five Litwick surrounding the little girl as the camera angles returned to normal.

The little girl says that she came upon the seemingly weak Litwick, and gave it her own life-force to sustain it. I... I don't think that Litwick was actually wounded, based on its Pokedex entry at trying to deceive travelers, but okay. Consei is rightfully angry at the little girl for feeding several candle-ghosts with her SOUL. And there are five of them! Did the other hungry Litwicks come after realizing there's someone willingly offering up their soul as food? 

The quest ends with the siblings exiting the sewer since Litwick is okay... but then we get a cutscene of the Litwick slowly inching towards the camera... and then BOO JUMPSCARE! It's cute.

And just to be clear, it's still very tame. It's very kiddy. No one above the age of like, eight or whatever will be actually spooked by the jumpscare or whatnot. They picked Litwick with its cute face and cute cry, and not something that would actually be properly unsettling. Even the anime's got a lot of scarier episodes than this. But within the constraints of the format of a game that needs to appeal to all ages, I felt this was really good! Compare this to the Phantump or the Dedenne quests, for example. 

And besides, I still think the Litwick was really just stringing that girl along. I don't trust that smile. 

Another really good one that follows the spooky theme is a mound near a tree... and a Froslass peeks out from behind the tree. The Froslass goads me to follow her, and I do. It's a simple run-around mission (also, again, best to do this in the night) and leads me all the way to a familiar top of a building... it's the same location where I fought the Rogue Mega Froslass with Naveen. The Froslass shines brightly... and disappears, leaving a Dawn Stone behind. 

Now while this is 100% an epilogue to one of the Rogue Pokemon similar to what we got for Mawile and Hawlucha, it is gloriously a lot more ambiguous whether this Froslass just wanted to say thank you and disappear... or if it actually died and it's its ghost saying thank you one last time. Yes, Ghost-types can have ghosts, too. It's... it's weird. 

New wild zones appear, 18 and 19. 18 is just another scaffolding-covered alleyways... although I do like that you needed to scramble up the side of a building to get to a good 80% of the zone. A giant Alpha Salamence is just menacing the actual streets, though. The rest of it is filled with fliers like Altaria and Noivern. So I guess the idea is that it's 'high rise' to reach Flying-types? Still kind of lame, but I suppose  there's only so much you could do with the urban setting. 

19 is a fun one, it's the gazebo where we fought Venusaur, I think? It's got rows and rows of... it's France, so I assume those are grape vineyards. A colony of Kangkaskhans have taken over this place, and at night a group of Clefairy and Cleffa show up in the gazebo. That is adorable. 

Here's an example of a quest that technically 'spotlights' a Pokemon but doesn't have anything to really do with it. A dude with a Heliolisk gives me a long riddle about where he wants his new house to be. It needs to have a view of the Prism Tower, of the river, must be near a Pokemon Center, must be near a river... and must be on a rooftop for his Heliolisk. It's such a small detail, a small insignificant detail, that doesn't really bring the Heliolisk truly to focus. It's a cute quest and I like the riddle, but I really want these sidequests to be about these strange, interesting creatures instead of just... just bland random setting-agnostic quests, you know?

Another sidequest has Andi, the lady with a Pancham from the first quest of the story, arguing with one of her clients. She's working as a tour guide or something, but her client is an asshole who demands Andi carry his entire Aggron. Excuse me, sir, that is a metallic Godzilla right there. Rude tourist, must be from Unova. The rude tourist is apparently here to join in the Z-A Royale and challenges me to a battle. He doesn't even use a Mega Aggron! These side-quests would have been perfect to show off some of the minor Mega Evolution! 

It actually is a 2-v-1 battle, even if the Pancham isn't much of a help compared to my Mega Slowbro making a joke of his team. We send the rude tourist packing, and Andi thanks us and has a little reminiscing moment about our first meeting and how she's still technically the first trainer I fought in Lumiose City. That's cute. 

Speaking of which... doing the battle zones at night now has random B- and A-ranked trainers actually mega evolve their final Pokemon, which I found out with a Mega Lopunny. That's so cool! Again, I feel like they could've shown it off a bit earlier in the tournament rounds, even if it's as a 'don't fight this uber-trainer' style like the early Pidgeotto dude, but I'm happy they're around now. 

A charming little quest is atop some rooftops, and I must admit that it took me longer than I should to get up there. A dude called Nett is trying to get me to show to his lazy Clauncher how to shoot a Water Gun at the piles of sludge. He really wants his Clauncher to help out,  but Clauncher is having a bit of an attitude problem and refuses to do so. After I demonstrate the Water Gun via Slowbro (instant move relearning is the best), Clauncher then shows off how powerful it is... by one-shotting a rock. The trainer then decides to... let's just go clean up rocks instead.

Funnily enough, I'm pretty sure the real-world pistol shrimp actually can probably destroy rocks their size.

An annoying side-quest I feel I have to highlight is a kid who's trying to get his Honedge to be a bit 'sharper', Becuase Honedge is looking down. His grandpa tells him that the only solution is a Pupitar, and for some reason I have to fight his stupid level 50+ Honedge with only a Pupitar in my team and win. Just... just sharpen your blade, man. Getting my Larvitar up to evolve is already annoying, but to keep it at the Pupitar level and not turn it into Tyranitar... thank goodness I have a lot of candies left over, let's just say. 

Another quest involves an Emolga that goes around stealing pecha berries. I have to chase it around as it flies around the rooftops. It's basically a showoff of the Roto-glide thing, isn't it? Again, not the best showcase for Emolga and it could've been replaced with any remotely flying Pokemon and it would've been the same quest. 

A Rust Syndicate Grunt tasks me to investigate some strange mounds of earth that have appeared in the boss's zen garden. Those things are expensive! Tracking it down, it leads me to a Drillbur. That alone is whatever, but the grunt's mannerisms as he finds the Drillbur, and gives it a dressing down and demands that it make penance to society by cleaning its mess is cute. The Grunt calls the Drillbur his new underling, and mutters about needing to give it a Poison or a Steel move... and after the quest, he is delighted to learn about the existence of the Rock/Steel Excadrill. That's nice. 

Finally, I did Restaurant Le Wow. 

And this time, it's TEN battles without healing. Ten! Each trainer only has three Pokemon each, but without healing, and the way these trainers are designed? I really like it. I really like this, and I find this way, way more entertaining and challenging gameplay-wise compared to Jacinthe's stupid tournament. The Pokemon aren't really individually strong, but they are designed to wear you down. Even if their little gimmicks don't hit you, getting hit by one or two moves really can be damaging even if it keeps your Pokemon at yellow. I have access to Mega Evolution, true, but Mega Evolutions get reset with every trainer. I like it. I lost the first time around at around battle 6 because it didn't register to me how long the fights were going to be; and for the second time I lost at the final Pokemon. But let's break down the Pokemon in Restaurant Le Wow's ten-course meal, because it's actually fun.

Of course, my little secret weapon is my Meganium, who is a tanky dinosaur with Giga Drain, and being able to heal is really good. But I still didn't want to rely on her as a crutch and it's challenging using her as little as possible. 

The first trainer starts off with a trio of Pokemon that all open up with Toxic. Garbodor, Victreebel, and Scolipede. Again, I should've started off with my own Scolipede out to prevent my party-members from being poisoned, but I love that the debilitating Toxic really does build up over time. The second trainer does the same with Fire-types (Camerupt, Pyroar, Talonflame) and tries to inflict Burn. The third trainer? She starts off with a dual-screening Carbink, which was where I realized the wearing-down tricks.

The fourth trainer abuses moves like Curse to raise defenses. Avalugg's defensive, Sableye's got weird typing and... Noivern's there I guess. Not the worst, but as I find out in my multiple runs, all his Pokemon run Rocky Helmet. More chip damage! The fifth one just hits hard and fast. Kangaskhan has all the elemental punches. That Gengar will get off a Shadow Ball, and as I find, even if I can OHKO the Gengar with my Chandelure or Malamar, that Shadow Ball will shave a chunk of my health. And that Steelix also quite quick to spam Earthquake as well. The sixth one uses Steel-types, but ones that hit hard: Scizor, Lucario and Aegislash. 

The seventh uses really speedy ones: Aerodactyl, Starmie and Froslass. Again, it really odes wear you down over time, especially when you're not expecting if this is going to be a type-themed trainer or not. Switching out not being a free move in this game really does force me to be a bit more on my toes! The eighth spams Giga Drain and Leech Seed and Synthesis, with Arbok, Roserade and Gogoat. She knows the trick! 

The ninth battle is where in my final run half my team gets wiped out. Gyarados, Dragalge... and Dragonite. Yeah, putting the fear of pseudo-evolutions back in me. It's vaguely Dragon-themed, but it's not really friendly to picking a specific type and spamming it, yeah? Dragalge can really screw up Fairy-types! As I found out, when it took out my Mega Meganium! I underestimated Poison. 

And the final battle? A Drampa, a Skarmory, and a Tyranitar. Another pseudo evolution, but... but a MEGA pseudo-evolution. I audibly cheered when Mega Tyranitar is formed, even if at that point I've only got the very unsuitable Chandelure left during the run that I lost. It is a bit less of an achievement that I felt when I beat Le Wow in the third run, because I was expecting certain troublesome Pokemon in the climb. But I really do like the idea of this endurance-type fight without healing... and things like how speedy moves are and how some moves can still hurt you even after the 'caster' is knocked out is a nice little gimmick unique to this gameplay.

That's all the sidequests available to me at the time. Next up, we begin the endgame!

Random Notes:

• Some more of the less-interesting side-quests:

• Furfrou barber is back at it again, this time wanting a Pokemon to show Scyther the move Psycho Cut. Can... can Scyther even learn Psycho Cut? You know, for a Furfrou-themed NPC, I really wished that at least we got to see the quest showing off the Furfrou hairdos. 
• One of the morons from the SBC tells me that the SBC is made up of all Dragon and Fairy-type users, and that's probably why Lebanne always has a disadvantage against Jacinthe. I mean, it's not like Jacinthe's playing fair either, having a random Aurorus that seems to be there just as a middle finger to Lebanne's team...  Anyway she fights me with a Dragon party. Sure. 
  
• There's a nervous taxi driver? That one was kind of... cute, if short? She only knows a single destination despite me being able to pick from a large menu. She gets so nervous over it that she promises to make up for it with an entertaining battle. A bit odd and doesn't actually have anything to do with Pokemon, but I didn't mind this as much as it feels a bit more Lumiose-coded and relatively short. 
• Four Beldum are attracted by magnets and block a holovator. At least they're doing something thematic with the holovators instead of 'random Pokemon in front of it!'
• At this point, I think I've evolved all the pokemon that could evolve by stones, and am just slowly evolving those that need levels. Man, this game has so many pseudo-legendaries it's not even funny. 
• Wild Zone 19 also has Eevees, in case you didn't manage to grab the ones that spawn in the overworld. 
• Do you know what random Pokemon I realize I haven't gotten, and spent way too long during this sidequest session trying to get? Motherfucking Dedenne of all things. Hawlucha was difficult, too, but with a new mega and whatnot I expected some difficulty in getting him. Dedenne just refuses to spawn in the rooftops for me, I don't know why!
• How fucking cool is that full-art Twilight Masquerade Froslass card?