Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 34: Redemption and Balance

With the Lumiose crisis averted, and with Xerneas and Yveltal -- The Being That Gives and The Being That Takes -- both secured in Poke balls in my belt, I return to Hotel Z. 

Lysandre, or rather, fully "L" at this point, walks up and talks about how giving and taking are both actions that are important to maintaining the balance of the world... but in excess, either one could destroy it. L notes that his memories still remain indistinct, but he knew enough about his past. Long ago, he tried to 'give' too much when he was a philanthropist, pre-Team-Flare. And when his good deeds saw no real reward, the Lysandre of the past got really angry and wallowed in despair and resentment and instead tried to 'take' from everyone instead, hence the Ultimate Weapon plan. Hey, 10 real-world years after the fact, and they managed to make something genuinely poignant and poetic out of XY!Lysandre's most basic of plans!

And it was at the point of Pokemon XY that Zygarde appears. A being that seeks to correct excess in either end, to find moderation and balance. And that was what L suspected was the reason he was spared and rescued by Zygarde, despite being the evildoer that fired the Ultimate Weapon. 

After that reflection L then asks to battle me, wanting to see who I truly am as a trainer. Once, he believed that victory was the only meaning to be derived from battle... but he'll enjoy this battle personally at the very least. Lysandre, at least, opens his left eye, revealing that it's whited out.
 

Pause. Eye theories time. Indulge me, at least, since battle writeups aren't always the most interesting. Both of AZ's character models always has his long hair covering his right eye. It's a different eye from L's whited-out eye, but still, I guess blinding one eye and bleaching their hair white is a mark of the immortality curse from the Ultimate Weapon. Let's go a bit off and talk about the other new character in this game with a white eye... Mega Chandelure. Copying his dex entry: "One of its eyes is a window linking our world with the afterlife. This Pokémon draws in hatred and converts it into power." There's something there, I think. XY always had a bit of a vague Norse mythology tie-in to it, particularly with the design of its legendaries and of Zygarde's three forms, that I wouldn't be surprised that someone had Odin in mind when they designed L's blind eye. 

Anyway, to the fight! L has a nice theme that is not a straight-up remix of Lysandre's banger theme, but I really respect it. Unlike Grisham and Griselle, who are still trapped by their past and hence why their themes are a rousing remix of Team Flare's old theme, Lysandre has a new, epic, more quiet one that has references and refrains to the old theme, yes, but is otherwise completely new.

At this point in time, I had a team of legendaries -- Xerneas, Yveltal, Mewtwo and Dianice. Plus the shiny Budew I've been training, and a random Sliggoo I've been trying to get to level 50. The latter two are washes, but I was confident I could do this L fight with four super-powerful legendaries. As me writing this preface probably can get you guessing... L actually gave me a run for my money. His Pokemon hits hard. His Pokemon are all in the 75-80 level range, whereas all my legendaries are freshly caught at the 70's.

L starts off with a Pyroar, who is still a joke, but is fast enough to get off a Hyper Voice before it gets taken down. Then comes out a Florges, a specially defensive tank that I just plain don't have anything to quickly and efficiently take down. She buffs herself up with Calm Mind, blunting my specially-offensive team, and then just spams Dazzling Gleam and Psychic, whittling away at my Mewtwo's HP.  Next up is a little shitbag Sableye, spamming Confuse Ray and actually taking out my Mewtwo with Night Slash. It was so surprising and honestly a bit surreal for a Pokemon I dismissed as being not a threat. 

Sableye then proceeded to burn my Xerneas, crippling my deer before it gets Moonblasted to oblivion, but the damage is done. L tosses out Garbodor -- Garbodor! -- and Gunk Shots my Xerneas out. I wasn't sure why I didn't switch out. Yveltal comes out... and gets Rock Blasted several times for his trouble. At red health, Yveltal takes out the Garbodor, but falls to the instant Boomburst that the next Pokemon, Noivern, unleashes. Diancie mega evolves, Diamond Storms the Noivern, but not before taking a hit from Dragon Pulse. 

L claps, talking about how the cooperation of human and Pokemon is beauty. He then pulls out his Mega Ring from his pocket, looks at it briefly... and wears it, and points it at his original ace. No new Mega Evolution for L. No. It's character development time, and he doesn't even need the stupid Doctor Octopus suit to force the bond. He and his Gyarados are friends now, and they have a traditional bond, and L unleashes Mega Gyarados on me... and that mega-evolved sea serpent just rampages and wipes my weakened Mega Diancie and my two scrubs with Waterfall. 

Good show, Lysandre. Round two, now, and I'm bringing my proper party. My original party. Meganium, Malamar, Hawlucha, Slowbro, Chandelure and Scolipede. 

First up! Pyroar. I bring out Slowbro, and surf the lion down. Florges again? I have a physical attacker with type advantage in Scolipede. Scolipede's Gunk Shots bring Florges down, but not before being crippled by Florges's own Psychic. Next up is the Noivern, who I bring out Slowbro to Ice Beam down to death, although likewise Slowbro was left in the red by Noivern's sheer speed getting off some attacks before it gives up the ghost. 

The Sableye technically should've been dealt with a Fairy-type move, but I was saving Meganium for L's Mega. So I just let Malamar out and just outmuscled the Sableye with my own Dark-type moves. Next up is Garbodor, which I tried to Psycho Cut down with Malamar... but Malamar gets actually taken down by a Gunk Shot. Slowbro finishes off the Garbodor...

At which point L unleashes his Mega Gyarados again. I send out Hawlucha to try and use Fighting-type moves against Mega Gyarados's Dark type. It blitzes out an Ice Fang and takes Hawlucha down. With Chandelure being at a complete type disadvantage and the rest of my team already weakened, I send out Meganium, mega evolve into Mega Meganium... hit Solar Beam, and pray. Mega Gyarados unleashes its own super effective and boosted Ice Fang, which thankfully Mega Meganium is tanky enough to swallow... and unleash a Solar Beam. it does not kill. Mega Gyarados Ice Fangs again, and Meganium stands tall at 15 HP before I slam Dazzling Gleam, which procs almost instantly, and takes down Mega Gyarados. 

Hell yeah. That was a thrilling fight. 

L tells me that he could feel the convictions in my heart, and that this is why we battle. To reach understanding between both sets of Pokemon and trainer. He reflects that five years ago, a group of children (it me! In XY!) stood against him. But Lysandre didn't try to understand them at all. Perhaps he would've never fired the Ultimate Weapon if he made an attempt. At this reflection, Zygarde in dog form appears, and then zips away again. Zygarde is beckoning me to the tower, and this is, of course, the build-up to fighting and catching Big Z.  

And the fight happens, with Zygarde in dog form waiting in the base of the destroyed Prism Tower. The fight is, as you would think, a three-phase fight between Zygarde's 10%, 50% and 100% form, each phase being framed like a Rogue Mega Evolution fight. So it really is a bit more of a sustained battle of endurance, not too dissimilar to the twin flowers... but a lot more substantial since we're fighting a legendary Pokemon instead of a pair of flowers. Dog-mode Zygarde isn't that hard, but it gets increasingly more tanky and faster as it goes into its serpent and later ultraman mode. 

For the most part, it tanks any attack that isn't at least super-effective or a Mega Evolved move, and I'm just committed into mega evolving Meganium as often as possible and spamming Solar Beam and Dazzling Gleam; getting cheap shots with the instant-speed Earth Power, while also healing up with Giga Drain. I brought a team of anti-Ground, anti-Dragon Pokemon that is a mixture of my regular party and my legendaries: Diancie, Xerneas, Mewtwo, Yveltal and Meganium. Slowbro and Xerneas are the two that probably carry the most weight; with Slowbro's tankiness allowing it to survive reasonably well, and Xerneas boosting itself with Geomancy and then repeated Moonblasts and Psychics. 

(Yvetal theoretically counters Zygarde's Ground typing, but Zygarde gains Rock Slide in serpent mode, nullifying Yveltal entirely.)

For the most part, Zygarde's various signature moves end up being the huge 'Dark Souls hazard attacks', with Thousand Arrows being a relatively slow and predictable attack, Land's Wrath being a rather extensive -- eruption all over the arena (although Zygarde does return back to the center of the battlefield when he does it) and finally, in Complete Form, it uses Core Enforcer... flying into the sky like Mega Dragonite and carving a gigantic "Z" on the battlefield that utterly erupts and fucks everyone up all the way to hell, unless you stand in the acute angles of the Z. 

It's a fun fight that feels both epically long but not frustrating. You can lose this fight, but more on the part of the trainer failing to dodge rather than the Pokemon themselves being knocked out. I do spam Giga Drain on Meganium (and Horn Leech was still on Xerneas) so it isn't exactly fair, but even then this fight is pretty forgivable for you to use some potions and revives if you need to. 

Unlike the other legendaries, after going through the three-phase fight, Zygarde just stands there in the center of the battlefield, stunned, until I throw a ball onto him with a 100% catch rate. I throw a Poke Ball. Dog!Zygarde snout-to-fist-bumps me, which is adorable. L congratulates the union of a legendary Pokemon and the strongest trainer in Lumiose City, which he sees as a nice portent for Lumiose City's future. 

L also gives me the Zygarde Cube from Generation VII, which would allow me to swap Zygarde from its dog and serpent forms. Zygarde still transforms into Zygarde Complete at 50% health, and at this mode I can Mega Evolve it into its brand-new big-cannon Mega Zygarde mode. 

L gives me some backstory of what Zygarde did in Generations VI-VII. It used up its power protecting Kalos from the Ultimate Weapon's firing in Pokemon XY, and its parts scattered to far-off places, absorbing the power of those lands and partnering with other trainers. Which is its role in Pokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, where we had Zygarde Complete debuting in Alola with minimal preamble. L even compares the moves that Mega Zygarde uses specifically as being similar to Alola's Z-Moves. 

Which... actually isn't that far off, isn't it? An over-the-top attack animation, and a specific attack (Core Enforcer) getting a new name (Nihil Light) and effects, and there were theories all the way since the 3DS days that compared Zygarde Complete into having the secondary colours of Solgaleo and Lunala; or comparing Zygarde to Guzzlord, or to Necrozma... man, I did really like Alola. Again, as I mentioned with the Alpha Pokemon being tied to Xerneas, I like this little canon welding between Zygarde, Mega Evolution and Z-Moves. 

L then goes into a bit of a epilogue of his own, wondering what he should do with the 3000 years he has left to live. I tell him I have no idea, and L goes into a bit of a monologue about how he still desires the world of beauty, and he suspects he will still desire it forever. But mere physical beauty or material needs are not what he needs now, as he has matured, suffered and understood more. He will now teach the world to feed themselves, to quote the proverb, and a truly beautiful world would have everyone be able to sustain themselves instead of just 'getting'. And it's outlandish, perhaps, since even after the events of this game Lumiose City is still not the most ideal balance... but perhaps in 3000 years he could do something. 

And this is what L, the new immortal wanderer, will devote the rest of his life to doing. He does a brief speech about the beauty of meeting and the difficulty of the chance of specific people meeting each other, before he bids farewell to me and walks off. That... that really does sum up a lot of the themes that XY and the character of Lysandre all tried to tell a decade ago but failed due to a lot of oversimplification of stories and presumably saving up content for a 'Pokemon Z' that didn't come out.

Or at least, not for another 10 years in real life, and as a sequel instead of as a third version.

And with that, I close the book on the story of Kalos, of Lysandre and Zygarde, of AZ and Floette. It is not the perfect conclusion, no. There are aspects of Legends ZA's storytelling that irked me. But for a game that everyone bitched and moaned upon release? Yeah, while I don't think it's the best Pokemon out there, it was such a welcome experience especially for someone who was brought back to the franchise with Kalos. 

Next up will be the realm of the Mega Dimensions DLC! 

Random Notes:

• I have been calling him 'Lysandre' mostly throughout the game due to a combination of knowing him with that name for the better part of a decade; as well as me really disliking 'alphabet names' in general... but honestly, these last couple of quests starring L really does highlight that the game wants to make a distinction with both the amnesia and immortality. 
  
• It is admittedly the same trick they pulled with Oleana in Sword and Shield, but I love that 'accepting Garbodor' is basically Nintendo's new 'characterization via pokemon party', with both Garbodor being in both of L and Oleana's party being a sign that they actually have a really soft heart, and they have learned to accept beauty in all forms. I love this. I love that Garbodor, previously the world's favourite punching bag, has actually reached a nice place in at least the designers' hearts that they are using this trash monster as a way to show how some of their vilest villains have some goodness in them. 
  
• See, Lysandre? You look much more badass without the stupid Doctor Octopus getup. 
• While Pyroar and Gyarados return from Lysandre's old team, notably missing are his Honchkrow and Mienshao, and for someone who's quite intent at repenting for his sins, it is rather odd. I suppose it's just because neither Pokemon were programmed into this game, I guess.
• I completely forgot that Zygarde Complete's cape-tentacles morph into cute little snake mouths when it uses 'beam' attacks. 
• I am genuinely surprised that they did away entirely with 'collecting the Zygarde Cells' subplot, since that would've been perfect for a more open-world-game like this. I am surprised that even after catching Zygarde that we weren't given the 10% or 50%; and had to catch the difference in the overworld... which, in retrospect with how much I hate the Canari screws, is absolutely a good move. Thanks, L, for doing the fetch quest for us!