Let's Play Legends Arceus, Part 25: God Descends

 

I apparently had way more to talk about the Spiritomb and the Daybreak quests than I anticipated, and also completing the Pokedex (mostly because I was going for 100% completion) took a bit longer than I expected. Thanks, Pichu and Cleffa and Chingling.

But I have every single Pokemon captured.

Every single research at level 10.

(Except for Darkrai, who I can't unlock without spending US$60 for a chibified remake that doesn't add anything new)

Every Unown, Spiritomb Wisp and Old Verse obtained. 

...not all sidequests done, but basically all except for the stupid balloon game and the solo battle nonsense. So everything of significance.

Time to meet god. 

Professor Laventon is the first to congratulate me for completing the Pokedex, though he mentions that the whole 'seek out all Pokemon' thing is meant to lead to one specific goal... a goal that he doesn't want to interfere, because it's something that I have to do alone. And, indeed, it is in fact something that I get to do alone. No last-minute tagalongs in the form of Laventon or Akari or Cogita, and no surprise villainous return by Volo -- probably one of the bigger plot twists in this game!

So once more, I ascend the Spear Pillar. My party is made up of three gods and three mortals. On one side are Dialga, Palkia and Giratina, all in their Origin Formes. The three angelic dragons created by Arceus himself, the building blocks of the universe itself. And on the other side of my party are three mortals. My starter, Decidueye. One of my earliest party members and the first noble we fought, Kleavor. And the ever-stalwart Goodra.

I play the Azure Flute, and... and there's a wonderful cutscene as a glowing staircase that leads up into nowhere manifests before me. And I ascend it. Walking up it, I somehow end up in space -- a platform with the Sinjoh Ruins runes carved on the bottom, surrounded by auroras that form force-field walls. The background beyond this platform is just... glowing green sky, and atop is space. I don't think this is just a platform above Sinnoh, no. This is the fabled Hall of Origin. Arceus's realm itself. there is a cool bit where my character looks around, before  Arceus appears out of nowhere behind me in the camera-panning trick that Legends: Arceus loves so much. 

Finally. 

After 70 hours of playtime... behold! Arceus! He who was ancient when the universe was young! The thousand-armed god who shaped the universe! Born of the egg that existed before reality itself existed! The heavenly fount from which all light pours across the lands of Hisui!

ARCEUS!

There is just a moment. I face Arceus, and Arceus faces me. 

This creator god that was the subject of all the legends, all the motivations, the man behind the man, the creator of the dragons and lake guardians and the other legendaries, the subject of all the Old Verses. I fought the guardians of space and time. I fought the renegade demon-dragon of antimatter. I proved myself before the guardians of willpower, emotion and knowledge. I faced the prince of the oceans, the hedgehog of gratitude, the lord of the volcanoes, the continent-pulling titan and the crescent-moon steward of dreams. I quelled the forces of nature that ruled over storm and thunder, over abundance and fertility.

All to meet Arceus, good ol' Llama-face himself. 

And he roars. 

And my god-phone transforms into a glowing ball of light. 

And the drums begins to play against a dark screen.

And it's Dark Souls boss time. 

And... And to say that this battle was hard is kind of a understatement. The last one of these battles that I did was, what? Thundurus in the ocean? That was insanely easy. Origin Dialga was slightly more frustrating, but that took maybe three, four tries. Arceus took nearly twenty. There's no mercy here, and the hardest part of the fight is actually the first part. 

Without going in-depth to every single battle mechanism that Arceus has, in the first phase, Arceus only has two moves -- Judgement, where he just shoots laser-clusters that I have to alternately dodge left and right, but it's so fast paced. And then there's also Draco Meteor, where I have to dodge both a fast-moving concentric wave that emanates out of Arceus, but also a ring of Draco Meteor about to rain down from the heavens to smite me, a mere mortal. A combination of these two.. . dodging them alone isn't too hard if that was the only thing I had to do, but it isn't. I also have to throw balms at him. Which is where I often falter. 

Oh, and I'm technically throwing 'Mysterious Balms', but it really is... glowing balls of light that my phone has transformed into? Okay?

And as the phases go on, Arceus does have a couple of extra moves based on his different plates. There's one very easy one where he uses the Fire Plate to cause almost the entire field to explode other than a ring around him. There's the Electric Plate, where he has four lightning orbs, and I have to hit him four times otherwise he will thunderbolt the entire battlefield. There is the Ghost Plate, where he basically... does Shadow Force! Disappearing, then cracking the screen, then charging at me!

(Yes, I know, it's called Zap Plate and Spooky Plate and whatever, I don't really remember.)

But the most thrilling part is the battle segments, and there's just something so cool at fighting Arceus and being able to send out good ol' Giratina to roar in defiance in Arceus's face, before spamming Dragon Claw. One thing that this Arceus has, though? When casting Judgment, it automatically transforms to whatever type the Pokemon it's facing is weakest to. So when faed against the terrifying prospect of the samurai-archer-plant-owl that is Decidueye, Arceus summons the Flying-type Plate and transforms into Flying Type, before unleashing Judgement upon poor Decidueye. 

I love that the Judgement attacks Arceus uses -- which, as always, takes the form of a clusterfuck of laser beams -- has special effects now. The Dragon-type one looks like a cluster of Draco Meteors, the Flying-type one has feathers exploding out of it... I also saw the Fighting-type one at one point, and it is disappointingly not a bunch of laser-beams ending in fists. Boo! 

Every single member of my party got a chance to shine thanks to how many times I kept dying and resetting the fight, but the most thrilling exchange has to be my Goodra shooting a Hydro Pump, and then Arceus replies with a fucking Hyper Beam. With how impressive the animation of both of these attack, manifesting in gigantic fuck-off Dragon Ball Z beams of utter destruction, it's pretty awesome to behold.

I also love that the music actually gets a bit more and more hectic as the phases count down, getting straight-up disturbingly distorted in the final phase. I really can't appreciate just how alert the music ended up making me in the final run. 

Ultimately, after way too much frustration and repeats... Kleavor beats Arceus. Humble old Kleavor. 

And then Arceus just stands there like it ain't nothing. It's just a test. Barely a game to him, barely a tickle. It's not like when we brought Giratina or Palkia down low and humbled them to the level of mortals. No, Arceus is the fucking god of this universe, and you better respect him and his giant ring. 

But Arceus commends me for seeking out all Pokemon, and my devotion to a goal. I have proven my actions, just like the ancient hero (will we ever know who this is?) and Arceus is joyful to see the same truths proven anew in a different time and space. He's happy to have brought me into this world, and Arceus bestows his blessing. And then, I quote, "and I bestow upon thee a part of myself".

So yes. We are going through the cosmic horror story trope, the Dungeons & Dragons trope that... that the Arceus that we see and use and are familiar with in the game. The llama-looking guy with a flowing hair and a giant golden ring, the creature with a base total stat of 720... that is merely a part of Arceus. An Aspect of Arceus, if you will. The true Arceus is much more vast, much more incomprehensibly powerful, and it also solves one of the weirder plot points where Arceus is described in Generation IV dex entries as a 'being with thousand hands'. 

It's always been my personal headcanon, of course, because it really didn't make sense for Arceus to basically be the god of the setting, but can be captured in a Pokeball and is only slightly stronger than the other legendaries and even some non-legendaries. 

So yeah. The Arceus we're familiar with is just a part of Arceus that goes around to witness the world through mortal eyes. And I receive Arceus... and a brand-new item called the Legend Plate, which unlocks the titular "Legend Form" of Arceus. Which... looks like the default form of Arceus, but now Arceus's Judgement transforms to fit whatever the enemy is the weakest towards. Very cool. 

And thus... Arceus is captured. There isn't any tasks to complete, unlike the other legendaries. My character just instantly alreadyb undertstands Arceus from the battles against him. Laventon meets me, and gets emotional as he realizes that the Pokedex is complete, and says that his dream is a reality. 

And as I return to Jubilife City, with everything to do in the game (other than the Solo stuff) completed... there's a brief bit when my Arc-Phone makes some noise, and directs me to my house and ultimately my bed. Turns out that this is yet another endless mode, the "Eternal Battle Reverie", as Arceus brings me in my dream, Sandman-style, all the way to the Hall of Origins where he has what's basically a Battle Frontier with legendary Pokemon as the opponents. Very neat, and the idea that Arceus spent time to organize this with the rest of the legendaries (or even creating brand-new Dialgas and Tornaduses for the challenge) is kinda funny. 

There's a short scene where Cyllene and Kamado bring me up to the rooftop of the Galactic Building. I refuse to give Kamado the satisfaction of telling me information and being self-satisfied, though they still go along with telling us what the origin of the Galaxy Expedition Team's name is all about. Kamado used to give his teammates the names of celestial bodies (are Cyllene and Beni actually planetary bodies?) as part of his aspirations, and one of his sponsors (which he shamelessly tries to deny) mentions that Kamado has a whole damn galaxy under his control. The conversation ends with Kamado telling us that eventually the Galaxy Team would have to be disbanded once cooperation with Pokemon and the two other clans can be maintained... but Cyllene tells Kamado that she will make sure she and her descendants carry the legacy of the Galaxy team all the way to the future. 

...which, of course, ends up with Diamond and Pearl giving us good ol' Cyrus, who has twisted great-great-great-grandma Cyllene's wishes and noble ideals into... well, into a mixture of Volo and Kamado's brands of insane logic, anyway. It is nice to acknowledge this, though. 

And finally, Laventon gathers all the Galaxy Team members in his laboratory, being so jubilant that the Pokedex is finally complete. Can I say how cool it is that this game doesn't need me to fucking trade and do trade evolutions to get every single Pokemon? I love that so much. Cyllene commends my work and gives me a Shiny Charm, Beni is happy to treat the whole Galaxy team to lunch... and through it all, Kamado still wonders whether my exploits are driven by a selfish curiosity or a genuine desire, while also still calling me an 'asset' and a 'mysterious stranger who fell from the sky'. Yeah, yeah, Kamado, you mustachioed dipshit. Everything must be about you and your paranoia and how I relate to you, huh? No, you can't be happy that the pokedex is completed, that I just met god himself and proved myself worthy. Man, Kamado, piss off.

After the celebrations, Akari has one final line left... and then...

I think that's it, guys. That's... that's Pokemon Legends Arceus.  

Such a great game. I really do feel like while it's far from perfect -- and I have stated many times my frustrations about some of the sidequests in the postgame -- this game delivered the quasi open-world experience that Sword and Shield promised and didn't really manage to deliver the flavour of. And this game still manages to deliver a very rich story, tying it into the lore of Sinnoh, with very powerful supporting cast members. It incorporated the Pokemon into both the overworld and into many parts of the story, for once making the limited cast actually almost justifiable. A very rich post-game. A great way to fill your Pokedex without reducing it to a simple 'catch the creature and forget about it'. Not to mention new forms, new exploration gameplay, actuall boss fights that don't involve battling... yep. I do still think that they really could've given us a bit more Arceus at the end of the day, but... but this is probably the most fun I had with a Pokemon game since the sheer novelty of buying a Pokemon game at its debut date with XY and its 3-D graphics. 

And I have to admit that I've been kinda feeling somewhat burnt out on the franchise (everything IRL about Sword/Shield's development and packaging with the DLC's and incomplete Pokedex and truncated story was frustrating; Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee was a cute but hollow remake; I didn't even feel compelled to touch the Diamond/Pearl remakes since they added nothing), but this game single-handedly revitalized my love for the Pokemon gaming franchise in general. Anyway... I don't want to raise my hopes up, but hopefully Scarlet and Violet manage to also be as satisfying as this. Great playthrough! I loved this. 

Let's Play Legends Arceus, Part 24: 108 Shackled Souls

So after a whole lot of grinding and running around, I finally finished a lot of the more lengthy side-quests in the previous 'part'. And... completing the Pokedex is pretty cool, even if I do think that there could be a couple of UI improvements to make looking up tasks mid-battle or something a lot easier. This segment is just me doing a whole bunch of shit before I finally confront Arceus, which includes the Daybreak mini-DLC, the Spiritomb hunting, and some unexpected shinies. 

And... well, I didn't have a good time doing the whole Tornadus/Thundurus hunt. Landorus was nice. But it is kind of neat to properly tie the three weather kami to a Japanese-based region, and particularly one that's so traditional like Hisui is.

I do have a bit of an annoyance with the Spiritomb quest, which is so time-consuming to do without a guide. At least the Unown sidequest had clues that tell me where to look for them! Other than the counter telling me how many wisps are in each area, even if there isn't a "mark the answers on the minimap", I kinda wished that once I got like, 70 or 80 wisps, the little Spiritomb girl would give me a clue and start to give like, rough estimates of where each wisp is. I don't know.

Anyway, in the midst of running around doing the Spiritomb quest, I also kind of breezed through Mai's whole quest about the massive mass outbreaks, which, I feel, is a neat way to bring in a bunch of the NPC's back. The Munchlax is cute and I suppose Mai is the warden that we kind of glazed over very quickly in the beginning of the game before we go off to the secondary areas, so it's nice for her to do something. I do like the confusion and speculation about the massive mass outbreaks done by the NPC's, though it really could've been something that they tied in to one of the legendaries. Maybe the Forces of Nature? Anyway, this is part of the post-release "Daybreak" update, which is why it feels kinda different. All of these more lighthearted quest all were given to us pre-final-mission!

There's a neat check-in with basically all the noble Pokemon guardians and watchers and whatnot, and they all have their own opinions on the mass outbreaks. Some of them like Gaeric really don't have too much to say and basically feel like they're tossed in just for me and Mai to have something to say... but I guess it is a showcase of how the three clans of Diamond, Pearl and Galactic are basically working together and we get to see the trade of information and technology, foreshadowing how modern-day Sinnoh would have all three cultures melt into one. 

Oh, and Akari offers to battle me again... with me having a full legendary team at the time, because I was testing out the kami's Therian Forms. Boy, that girl can never catch a break huh? It is nice that she gets a bit of a closure as she's trying to basically reaffirm that she also has a role among the Survey Corps. Her team's a bit higher-leveled now, all level 60... but she's also still rocking with unevolved guys like Clefairy and Pikachu. Heck, even the starters she have are still unevolved! Prinplup at level 62? I think the only evolved Pokemon in her party are Mr. Mime and Staraptor. Dude. I mean, I guess it does fit the theme that the actual battlers in Jubilife City are all relatively losers (with Volo, Kamado and Beni being the exception, I suppose)

Oh, and Akari's finally made friends with her unruly Pikachu! Good for her, she's tamed her rat!

Anyway, after a brief sequence with Mai putting mushroom cakes, and some generic sitcom rivalry between Melli and Lian... and an actually neat segment that ties together the Diamond/Pearl clan rivalry a bit better with Adaman and Irida acknowledging that space and time is the source of how beautiful the current daybreak is. And then I shock them by talking about how in the future, people will fight in gyms, and they get bamboozled at how the hell one is supposed to fight in a gym. Ha!

We don't actually get any real explanation about the massive mass outbreak beyond mumble-mumble-something-Almighty-Sinnoh-mumble-mumble-test, but okay, whatever. I felt like there was a way to tie it in to the dozen different legendaries in this game.  The punchline of this whole quest chain is that... a Zorua ends up mimicking Mai just to get a bunch of mushroom cakes from me, tossed in-between the otherwise pretty bland massive mass outbreak quests. That's actually kinda cute. 

We also unlock some battle challenge whatever with Ingo, and I guess that's to showcase how the future will have more battles in the future or something. But this random guy Gared gives me like ten different 'Path of Solitudes' with random fuckers like Bidoof or Wormadam or whatever, and... I'm probably never going to complete these, just like the solo species master trainers in Let's Go Pikachu or whatever. 

Irida and Adaman also both have brief segments where they want to finally face off against the Origin Forms of Palkia and Dialga, with us carrying the respective legendary in our party against all of their Eeveelutions. It's kinda overpowered on our part, and we do get some pretty neat dialogue from them about how they've accepted Almighty Sinnoh isn't what they once thought it was... and they gain respect from the members of the opposite clan. Neat! It's kind of obvious that this is basically showing how the Pokemon battles and the Jubilife City culture would eventually cause the Diamond and Pearl clans to be subsumed and eventually create the modern Sinnoh culture. Again, it's all stuff that I felt could've been slotted to the epilogue story (i.e. when we were hunting Heatran and the others) a bit better instead of added to the Daybreak DLC as it seemed to be. 

Also, since I finished the Unown bit last part... we didn't get a cutscene for finishing the Unown dex, huh? I don't even expect them to open the Sinjoh Ruins or whatever, but at least Professor Laventon should have a line of dialogue or two!

I also collected all the Old Verses, which took me around 10 minutes or so after finally giving up and getting a guide. All of those were pretty cool, it's just such a shame that looking for items with Ursaluna isn't particularly fun. Lots of neat lore about the Legendary Pokemon of Hisui, as well as randomly a Potato Mochi recipe snuck in-between. It's also heavily implied that it's Cogita that wrote the Old Verses, with how #12 has Cogita compare Hisui to Sinjoh, and that she'll spend eternity here until I, the Chosen One, arrives. 

I also did a whole ton of Pokedex task grinding. And... while I blaze through Andor and House of the Dragon, I'm just mindlessly grinding against the lower-leveled Pokemon in the Fieldlands and Mirelands. Ultimately, though, while all those Pokedex entries get filled up relatively quickly if you know what you're doing, some dex entries are particularly difficult to do. My last four (not counting Spiritomb, which I saved for last) were Cherubi, Chingling, Cleffa and Pichu.

Eventually I realized that the blue trees at the bottom-center of the Fieldlands map, near the Alpha Lopunny, always spawns Cherubi. Something I would definitely very much would've liked to know before I hunted all around Hisui for a Cherrim! So yeah, I just kept resetting the map for that. Chingling, too, always hangs out near the Alpha Chimecho on Lake Acuity, and that eventually became a bit easy for me to spam -- although it is annoying that Chingling eats mushrooms instead of berries. I've been so used to oran berries being beloved by practically everyone!

And then... I just kept resetting the maps over and over and over again until I get Cleffa and Pichu. Cleffa, at least, I can predict where they spawn -- at night in the Fabled Springs, usually around where the Alpha Clefable and the Roselias gather. It's just that they are so skittish in running away while the Alpha Clefable and the aggressive Roselias try to murder me!

I can't complain, though, because in the midst of my runs to try and get a Cleffa... I got my first shiny in Legends: Arceus! Well, my first one that's not the plot-mandated Ponyta. It's a Clefairy! With its green ears and shit. I remember you from the Pokemon Platinum Veilstone gambling minigame! Fuck yeah. Admittedly, Shiny Clefairy isn't particularly super-cool, but the fact that this was a regular spawn instead of a outbreak or whatever, which I felt made it feel a more special. 

Speaking of outbreak shinies, my first one was Chingling (ironically captured after I completed the dex entry for the little bastard), which gave me so much anxiety because Chinglings really like to run away. I did get the Chingling and I do plan to evolve it to a Chimecho...  which is a much more striking Shiny than the Shiny 'just more anemic than normal' Chingling that I didn't really notice. I also got a shiny Barboach at one point! Shiny Barboach, on the other hand, looks so much better unevolevd with the golden-orange mustache whereas shiny Whiscash just looks off-putting. 

Shinies! They are special. 

Pichu, meanwhile, is just a big asshole. They run away so fast, they spawn in places where Paras and Staravia gather, and there are a bunch of spots that I have to check -- and they share the same rare spawn as Pikachu, making it a bit more soul-crushing to run there and find Pikachu instead of Pichu. With the Clefairy line, at least they bring their whole damn clan when they spawn. There's this one spot near the Floaroma Meadow where two Pichus might spawn at once, but, well, it's such an annoying shot in the dark for the little bastard gremlins to appear. But eventually? With the aid of smoke bombs and delicious honey, Pichu ends up being the penultimate Pokemon that I complete the dex entries of.

Also, slightly before getting Cleffa and Pichu, I ended up getting enough experience points or whatever to rank up to the full ten (?) ranks on Cyllene. I thought that it'd only be full if my dex is full, but I guess I got some extra tasks done? My reward is more cash per capture, which I absolutely love. More money for clothes! And inventory space! And Rotom appliances!

Which means... Spiritomb hunting time. 

And it's a lot harder to gather the last couple of wisps. It's easy when you just run around gathering and picking up anything glowing. It's a bit harder when you realize you have to open up a guide and re-check every single spot to see if you've gotten this wisp or that wisp or whatnot. It's so easy when there are still 15 wisps remaining, but when there's just ONE wisp in the whole of the goddamn Coastlands with its stupid itty-bitty little islands and shit... oh boy, that's when things get hard. That's when I finally gave up and used a guide. 

Finally, after all 107 wisps are gathered, I return to Vessa, the creepy little child, who asks me to meet him in that huge rock formation shaped like the Odd Keystone in the Mirelands. Of course the event only happens at night. Vessa tells me how he's not been completely honest, and that there was one last wisp left... which, of course, is Vessa himself. Get it? Vessa, vessel? I tell Vessa that he's kind of a strange one, and he agrees wholeheartedly, before giving us the final wisp. Vessa did have a strange line, talking about a 'traveler who used that strange magic' and wondering if that traveler will 'forgive him'. 

...wait, hold up. What traveler? Since when does the Pokemon setting have wizards and shit? Or is this some kind of traveling, wandering legendary Pokemon? Or is it Cogita, perhaps? 

The screen goes dark, the wisp sound effect happens, and then... we see one last wisp appear in the core of the Odd Keystone, and Vessa is gone. Touching that last wisp completes the final 108... and Spiritomb, the Pokemon formed out of 108 spirits, bound and shackled to the stone. The narration also briefly has Vessa muse that this is his 'final mischief', presumably before he gets sucked into the legionic hive-mind that is Spiritomb. I mean, man. I know the Pokedex entries for Yamask and Phantump and Spiritomb all talk about dead ghosts turning into Pokemon and shit, but there was always the idea that... that they might be mistakenly recorded. Nope, Spiritomb is literally a fucking legion of souls, of which at least one is very much sentient, compressed into a flat face of whirling purple-green eldritch flames forever shackled to a stone. 

And... and that was fucking great. It's not a particularly long cutscene, not for the amount of time and frustration I poured into this collection quest. But Legends: Arceus has really been great at taking certain Pokemon who already has a story baked into their concept and actually portraying it as part of the game in a way that makes them a lot more memorable! Remember how utterly stupid and off-brand talking to 32 people in the Underground is, and how it really doesn't feel sensible for Spiritomb? Or how weird that the region based on USA has wandering legendaries based on ancient Japanese weather deities? Legends: Arceus doesn't get every single Pokemon the attention it deserves (Heatran, Cresselia and Regigigas felt obligatory and tacked-on) but honestly? They did such a wonderful job making these Pokemon stories -- these stories tied to these fantastical monsters -- into part of the role-playing experience. That really is something that I felt has been lacking in Pokemon for quite a while, and what elevates this game above... honestly, practically almost every other Pokemon game at this point. 

Let's Play Legends Arceus, Part 23: Weatherman

Yep yep, it's not been too long since I've been doing Legends: Arceus stuff, but despite my long hiatus around the time that I'm supposed to go to either the Coronet or Alabaster lands, I haven't been able to put this game down. It's just so... relaxing to just go around and battle and catch stuff and trying to tick off all the boxes in the Pokedex while I watch a TV show, y'know? 

And one by one, the boxes get ticked off. Flareon, Vaporeon, Rhyperior, Blissey, Scizor, Sylveon, Manaphy, Clefable, Regigigas, Chimecho, the Porygon line, Yanmega, Cranidos, Shieldon... one by one, I hunt down the elusive baby Pokemon (I can't breed in this game!) and look out for more elusive Pokemon like Pikachu or that goddamned Cherubi. 

I've only ever found Cherubi and Cherrim both exactly once in this game!

Also, completely by accident, as I was investigating the Ramanas Island under the behest of Mai (there's a swarm of Zorua!) I get assaulted by Landorus, who shoots these cool gray-and-orange tornadoes at me! And... and like an incidental boss fight, Landorus attacks me with two of the Zoruas that appeared thanks to the Mai quest. I didn't even have anything beyond level 60, and it was by sheer luck that I captured the Landorus in under six tries, since he'd easily one-shot everything in my party. 

The game also gives Landorus a brand-new signature move, Sandsear Storm, which is the gray-and-orange tornadoes he's been shooting at me in the overworld! It burns the target, which... okay, not an effect I'd associate with a god of fertility, but sure! 

Mai's quest leads into a bit of a comedy moment as one of the Zoruas impersonates her Munchlax, and her assuredness in picking out which one is her Pokemon ends up in complete failure (much to the displeasure of her Munchlax). But she tells me to report this to Cyllene, and the three of us basically decided to name this as "massive mass outbreaks", which are different than the regular mass outbreaks. These outbreaks only happen in certain weather. Which I guess is meant to be a tie-in with the three weather kami. 

A bunch of question marks appear all over the Fieldlands, and I have the chance to investigate them as part of a sidequest. After taking out a bunch of Stantlers, Wurmples and Zubats, I finish that quest, but I guess I've unlocked these massive mass outbreaks or whatever. Mai, Calaba and Arezu have a bit of a chitchat on what exactly causes the outbreaks, but it just leads to a chain of quests where I investigate massive mass outbreaks in other locations. Melli shows up to make a fool of himself in the Mirelands. The Arc Phone gets upgraded to telling me what species shows up in the mass mass massive outbreaks, which means... yay, I don't have to figure out where Bonsly spawns! And somehow this is all tied in to Mai's Munchlax and Aguav berries. Okay?

We'll save that until later, though, because I proceeded to go on a bit of a Unown and Spiritomb wisp hunt. The Unowns are a bit easier since they have clues on them, some of which are a bit more obvious. The dead tree next to the hot springs! Climb the Grand Tree! The top of a waterfall in the Fieldlands! Some are a bit harder to find. Also, while doing this, I also finished some of the final side-quests that I've neglected, including finding the five Alolan Vulpixes in the snowlands,, and doing the pretty short Swinub quest. Again, I do plan to finish all the sidequests except for that accursed balloon one. 

A surprisingly chilling one is a quest in the Icelands where I find a torn journal of some poor traveler who got basically lured to his death at the hands of a woman in a kimono... or, well, a Froslass. Brr! It's one thing to read about Froslass preying on humans by pretending to be a lady with a kimono in the dex, it's another to find the remnants of one of their victims...

...and then after looking for the Froslass, instead I find a journal and I think the Froslass enchanted the human into thinking that he lived in an illusory village? There's the whole journal disappearing when I was about to give it to the descendant in Jubilife, too. Spooky!

One particularly annoying sidequest was the Clefairy one on Mt. Coronet, where I have to keep resetting the day to get to a full moon. Man, and I thought that I had enough of this when I had to evolve Ursaluna! It's really annoying to try and keep resetting the moon cycle when sometimes the moon just gets covered by clouds and shit, y'know? The Clefairy dance is at least cute, with one of them kind of being a bit too small and off-sync with its buddies. 

Going around catching Unown and Spiritomb wisps while trying to rack up Pokedex entries is probably also my impetus to properly hunt down Thundurus and Tornadus, as well as camp out and wait for certain space-time rifts to cause Magnemites to show up (I caught Porygon, Shieldon and Cranidos a while back, which I think are the only other rift-exclusive Pokemon). 

I didn't realize that there are Unown in Jubilife City either, which... made some of the Unown hunting kind of stupid until I realized that one of the clues is literally 'village gateway'. Doy. Some great hiding spots for the Unown, too. That village gateway Unown that's hiding among the glyphs on top of the gateway, or Unown V that's hanging off a dead tree branch like a coat-hanger, Unown ? literally hanging off my coat hanger...

The hardest Unown that I had to catch has to be Unown W, the left eye that overlooks the village. I can figure out it's on the back side of one of the Magikarp statues. What I didn't realize that there was a doorway to reach that Unown from Kamado's office! I wasted so many feather balls!

...and it's at this point that I realize I didn't have to complete all research tasks for Arceus, just capture everything. 

Okay. Shit.

Okay, that makes my job a lot easier because a lot of the babies and lesser-evolved Pokemon don't have a lot of tasks to choose from! Like Cherubi (Absorb's pretty much the only thing I can do with it), Shieldon and Cranidos (Ancient Power for both and not much else)... and, as I later find out, Pichu, where every single task relating to Pichu involves capturing it. And the little rat is a bastard to even encounter, let alone capture!

Anyway, I go on and buy a bunch of items with the accumulated merit points, to get the things to evolve some of the Pokemon who I simply couldn't find the items for. Onix to Steelix and Magmar to Magmortar, basically. Also, some Pokemon that I simply had access to but never evolved are Rampardos, Honchkrow and Mamoswine. 

Basically, the only Pokemon at this point that I haven't captured are Munchlax, Pichu and the entire Magnemite line. Jeez! 

I had to reset and go back and forth from Jubilife to the locations to reset the weather. I need the heavy rain for the mass massive outbreaks to occur in the Fieldlands, as well as specific weather patterns to summon Thundurus and Tornadus. Eventually I had to just stay in the Coastlands for a while to properly get a couple of Magnemites to fill in that particular evolution line. I caught two Magnemites and a Magneton, and quickly proceeded to evolve the Magneton on the Coronet Highlands. 

I did have the fortune to get Porygon, regular Sneasel and the two fossils on some of my previous space-time distortions, but considering that completing the Pokedex is basically needed to meet Arceus, it kind of is a shame that we don't, like, have a sidequest where we get one of those as a reward, a la the Alolan Vulpix sidequest.  

So I just kind of go back and forth, playing a lot through mass outbreaks and doing a bunch of dex entry quests, while I keep resetting the weather to get a blizzard in the icelands or a thunderstorm in the coastlands; while also trying to reset the damn Fieldlands and find a Pichu or a Munchlax. Eventually, I did get a Pichu near the rivers in the Fieldlands, although not before shaking off a whole army of Paras. It's the damn Munchlax that proved the most troublesome. 

The first of the two lesser genies I manage to trigger is the one in the Alabaster Icelands, which is Tornadus during a snowstorm. I fly around on Braviary and find him just spinning around near the Bonechill Wastes like the Tasmanian Devil, and... it's a fair bit harder than Landorus for the simple fact that Tornadus spawns where there's a whole bunch of Glalie, including an infuriating alpha one.. I had to go back and revamp my party a bit to help me clear the Glalies instead of bringing a bunch of pokedex-entry members of the party.

Anyway, after a bit of a tag-and-chase with Tornadus... he actually managed to kill me once, which reset the weather! Thank goodness for save scumming. The idea of the battle is that basically I just have to keep lobbing Jet Balls or balls of mud at him, and then challenge him to battle in the split second that he's stunned. That's annoying, though I eventually used a combo of the smoke bombs and jet balls to get near enough.

Tornadus, like Landorus, has his own signature move this time around, Bleakwind Storm, which has a chance of freezing the target. Or, well, 'frostbiting' the target, as it were. 

Hunting Thundurus is a bit easier, mostly because I was on a wisp run throughout the Coastlands when the weather changed into a thunderstorm, and at this point I realized that the genies spawn in places where it's a wide area. Which means, for the Coastlands, it's the damn water. Which means a Basculegion open-world boss fight or whatever. 

...which, surprisingly, wasn't that bad? Mostly because I was already dreading fighting Thundurus on fish-back, and prepared a bunch of smoke bombs, which allowed me to approach Thundurus without him realizing. I laid like a layer of 8 smoke bombs from the beach all the way to where he was spinning around like a jackass. Then a sticky glob to his face (probably the first time I realized that this is an upgraded ball of mud), and then I fight him with his brothers before catching him easy-peasy with less than five ultra balls. 

Thundurus's new move is Wildbolt Storm, and... again, I don't really care about the genies, not really, but it's nice that they get something new.

Anyway, I bring the three genies as requested to Cogita. It is interesting that Cogita kind of acknowledges how these legendaries probably go from one 'chosen one' protagonist trainer to the next, noting that if not for the extraordinary times, she would've asked us to let these three fly free, as is their nature... except that Hisui is being assaulted by the aftereffects of the space-time rift, and it's best to keep these three Forces of Nature contained. If you say so, lady. 

Cogita reveals that there is one more of their 'cohort', and brings in their sister, Enamorus... who's just... obedient to Cogita? The game did actually foreshadow Enamorus's existence, with Cogita mentioning that she was carried to the Celestica Ruins by a Pokemon she's coy about, plus the whole Pixie Plate thing. It's still kind of random and I kinda wished that we got a bit more story with these legendaries. That's been my running theme throughout this playthrough, I feel. Enamorus is the herald of spring, who isn't normally bad behaved... but instead of giving us Enamorus from the get-go, Cogita tells me to hunt down Enamorus in the Mirelands. 

Dang it. Okay, at least the Mirelands wouldn't have the water that I have to chase around Thundurus in. It's kind of neat that all three of the major maps have a genie associated to them, and as I covered in my "Review 'Em All" segment, the now-four Forces of Nature are based on the four guardian beasts of cardinal directions in Chinese and Japanese myths, so it's neat that the four of them are guarding the four directions with Mt. Coronet in the middle. Enamorus's tornadoes give the same effect as Cresselia's stunning thing, but... eventually I catch her? 

Yeah, Enamorus is kinda ugly. I've spoken about her at length in those Review 'Em All articles, and I'm not likely to change my opinion after seeing her here. Her signature move is Springtime Storm, which buffs her like Ancient Power. Neato. 

After catching her and completing her dex entry, I return to Cogita to show all four of the Forces of Nature, and she gives me the Reveal Glass after some brief talk about the Forces of Nature's true, well, nature. There's another bit from Cogita where she re-emphasizes that... yeah, my character is mortal but these legendary Pokemon aren't. They'll live for a much, much longer time than my character will be, isekai or not. She talks a bit about how she's interested to see how the future will go with people who 'stir the pot' like me and Enamorus. Okay, sure, Cynthia's grandma. 

And finally, finally I manage to catch the final Pokemon in the Hisui dex (not counting event Pokemon), Munchlax. To keep things in perspective, I basically did everything from the top of this page to the bottom while trying to do Munchlax... which included capturing all four Forces of Nature, trying to reset for the Magnemite space-time rift, hunting for Pichu and Bonsly, doing the entire Unown quest... and... yeah. Okay. Fuck you, Munchlax, is all I can say.

And, because Munchlax is a spiteful little shit, like... three or four trips to Jubilife City while I was going around looking for wisps, and a Munchlax outbreak happens in the Icelands. Of-fuckin'-course. 

Anyway, after all that, I decide to tackle the Spiritomb side-quest. 108 spirits, and all I have at the beginning of this is... 67? That's not actually bad, considering I'm just opportunistically trying to get whatever I can. Neat! 

Let's Play Legends Arceus, Part 22: The Eldritch Presence Icing Your Heart...

You know, when I sat down to write these let's play segments, I tend to have a picture to stand-in for the next article. I've used an Arceus TCG card like three times now, expecting to meet him in the part, and he never comes. It's kind of hilarious that the game titles Pokemon: Legends Arceus barely has any Arceus in it. Unless you count the prologue and all the Arc Phone moments. 

Oh well. Giratina is always the cooler legendary anyway. 

Anyway, after finishing the Lake Guardians, Heatran, Cresselia and Regigigas, Volo and I head off to meet Cogita. Volo gets super excited about it, with all of his dialogue done with him yelling about how they're 'so close now'. 

Cogita... tells me to go bring three logs of wood. That's kind of anticlimactic, and honestly pretty hilarious. Mostly because of Volo's dialogue. "What, pray tell, is the secret behind this wood?" Bless you, Volo. Cogita only needs the wood to create a new cutting board, and Volo gets angry about Arceus plates versus dinner plates. 

Of course, the joke is that Cogita has the Pixie Plate all along, and Volo in all caps lock gets an over-the-top surprised reaction of THAT'S ONE OF THE PLATES WE WERE LOOKING FOR! Silly Volo. Apparently Cogita has been using it as a cutting board, but all the engravings upon it made it unsuitable for one. But the Pixie Plate's powers make her food all taste nice. Okay, Cogita. I guess you're kind of a kooky witch-like lady living in a hut in the middle of deadass nowhere. If you were a Pokemon, you'd totally be a Fairy-type. 

Cogita also makes a point about how Volo isn't even making it a secret that he's shirking his duties as a member of the Gingko Guild, going around to look at old ruins as he pleases. 

Anyway, in the Celestica Ruins, Volo brings my attention to something that I did realize when I first wandered around here. There's a third statue -- of Giratina's regular form -- just laying there completely shattered and ruined other than its six feet. Volo points out how it's kept separate from Dialga and Palkia, broken and shattered but still remaining there. He gives me a backstory about Giratina, who was banished for his violence to a world on the reverse side of our own. A being that laid in wait for the chance to once more bare its fangs in defiance against Arceus! Volo hypothesizes that if Giratina wishes to challenge Arceus, he would do so on the place closest to the heavens, the Temple of Sinnoh where the Space-Time rift first opened. 

Cool, so for once, Giratina isn't misunderstood or raging because of an external party, but actually villainous?

Speaking of villainous, yeah. If all of Volo's monologue about how cool the devil-dragon is, he goes on a maniacal laugh at this point. Yes, he handwaves it as us being close to uncovering the secrets of the world... but we all know he's cuckoo. Volo talks about how since he was young, every time he meets something painful or heartbreaking, he wonders why life is unfair, and why he's 'cursed' to live with such things... and then he would redirect all his energy to curiosity and ambition, and he wants to unravel those mysteries to see how the world ticks. And how he wants to forge a new, better world.

What an anime psychopath!

And yet... still a better villain than Cyrus? Honestly, these 'the world is unfair and I want to remake it in my image' villains are a dime a dozen in anything anime-esque, but Volo's pretty well written, for just a mostly text-based villain. 

Anyway, Volo wants to find the realm that exists on the reverse side of the world, and 'meet the creator's unwanted child banished therein' to understand the nature of Almighty Sinnoh. Man, that's some RPG dialogue. No kiddifying of the dialogue in this game, no sir!

Anyway... we go to the Temple of Sinnoh. Or, as Volo renames it, the Spear Pillar. Yep, the Origin Dialga/Palkia fight was the reason that the Spear Pillar was created, which is pretty cool. The columns are meant to be cracked spears stabbing the heavens... man, I really do like how the dialogue for this game is a bit more... not exactly mature, but, well, a lot less PG-13 without losing the non-edgy feel of Pokemon.

Anyway, Volo points out that there is no Giratina to be found there, but then talks about another huge revelation... which, yeah, we kind of figured out he's a madman. Ever since Volo realized that there was a creator Pokemon called Arceus, he wants to meet said deity. 

What did catch my by surprise was that Volo had already met with Giratina previously, and had Giratina tear open the space-time rift! That was a bit surprising! But that didn't summon Arceus at all (and I assume it just caused Dialga and Palkia to fight) and instead caused me to get isekai'd into Hisui. And so Volo had me gather all the Arceus plates. Of course, he's got the Ghost-type plate in his possession, the last of the eighteen fragments of the all-encompassing deity. 

Then Volo transforms, revealing himself to be someone from Saint Seiya. Or at least a pretty fabulous Arceus cosplayer with a bit of a Greek hint to his fashion sense. 

He demands the other plates, because he wants to meet Arceus and know what it is. No, he must know what Arceus is. Which is fair enough, that's just a slightly more loony version of his descendant Cynthia. But then he starts talking about subjugating Arceus, wanting to use Arceus's power to create the world in his own image and wipe out the Hisui region. 

And so we have a battle, with a glorious piano cover of Cynthia's theme. 

And his party? All level 70's. Pretty much Cynthia's super-duper cracked party from Platinum, with a couple of changes. You know what? You know what? After having a cakewalk through every single main series Pokemon game since Generation V, and even throughout this game, this is a breath of fresh air. He sends out Spiritomb! I send out Origin Form Dialga and one-shot the Spiritomb with a strong style move!

...not counting on the cooldown, and Volo's Lucaria proceeds to attack three times in a turn by abusing agile style moves, finishing Dialga off with a strong style Close Combat! Damn, okay. Okay! I don't have (and don't plan to use) revives or potions at this point, because I really didn't think to stock up. Never needed to, unless I'm exploring for a long time. 

My Decidueye swoops in with a Brave Bird to take down the Lucario. But the recoil damage and the subsequent 4x effective Air Slash from Volo's Togekiss wipes out my Decidueye. Goodra manages to take out Togekiss with a Hydro Pump (not my best Pokemon choice there). But then Volo sends out Garchomp. It's pseudo-legendary against pseudo-legendary. Cynthia's signature Pokemon, the bane of everyone who played through the Generation IV games. 

Garchomp outspeeds my Goodra and managed to take out nearly all of Goodra's health with an Earth Power. Goodra gets off a Dragon Pulse, but didn't manage to take Garchomp all the way down. He does soften Garchomp out for my Kleavor to waste him with a strong style Stone Axe. 

I have to say, not being able to get those free switches in really does make this battle more challenging, yeah? Kleavor stands against Arcanine, and there's literally nothing in my Kleavor's moveset that can damage the Fire/Rock, and the poor mantis just dies. Origin Forme Palkia just comes in and sweeps Arcanine with a Water Pulse, and takes out the final Roserade with a Spacial Rend.

Volo gets all pissy about how why he's not the special one, and how he's devoted himself to Arceus beyond any other (you just said you wanted to subjugate him, you madman!) and he has been worshipping him and studied him and bent all his passion to him... and starts getting pissed off at me, the outsider, spat out of the space-time rift to get in his way. 

And then in one of the cooler lines, he says... "can't you feel it? The chill creeping through your veins? The eldritch presence icing your heart?"

Fuck. 

Yes. 

Pokemon Platinum is probably one of the first games that I put the most time into. And... and every time that game sets up, I have to look into Giratina's eyes and hear that glorious demon-dragon cry, which they managed to do amazingly well in 32-bit sound effects. Which this game translates to 'bishaaan!'

And... we get a gorgeous cutscene. Shadows enveloping Volo from behind, giant long demonic wings sprouting up from inky shadows, just like the cutscene in the DS games... the music building up. Then Giratina himself, looming, before he yells that all-too-familiar cry as the dusk sky is eclipsed by the shadows of the banished dragon-god of antimatter and shadows. My boy, GIRATINA!

Volo yells out at Giratina to strike me down, and... oh god. I haven't been healed up. This... they didn't even give me a chance to heal up! This is basically a seventh Pokemon! At least I don't have to capture Giratina this time around, but... but even defeating him is a tall order. Giratina one-shots my Palkia with a Dragon Claw, and... there's scant little that my poor little Rapidash do against him. 

And I wipe out. 

I finally, legitimately, wiped out, all set to the glorious, ominous music. 

You know what? Fuck. Fuck, that was an awesome boss fight. With the exception of the Totem Pokemon in Sun/Moon, maybe Ultra Necrozma in US/UM, Pokemon has been so goddamned easy. Particularly recent editions. Actually removing the free switching in battles, plus adding another Pokemon at the end of it? Fuck, I know this game. I know Giratina has two forms. He's going to have another form, right? 

So yeah. I swapped out my party, switched Rapidash out for Ursaluna, and challenged Volo again. I got as far as the Giratina fight before he wiped me out... at which point, yeah. I could grind, maybe. I could properly use the grit items, or the nature-changing mints. I could bring in a bunch more heavy-hitters, like Regigigas and Cresselia and whatever, but... I kind of like the party I have currently. I like only bringing in Dialga and Palkia as the legendaries in my party. 

I swapped in some moves for Dialga and Palkia at Zisu... probably the first time I used her services since early in the game. I used Exp candies to get my party all up to 70... but that's it. I do want this to be a bit of a challenge, after all.

And then I fought Volo again. He took down four of my six Pokemon this time around, and I had to make use of Decidueye to heroically tank Giratina's Shadow Forces while I max revived Palkia and Goodra. Damn, Shadow Force is cool in this game, with Giratina disappearing backwards, then reappearing and using his six claw-tentacles to rip apart a hole in space-time. 

But ultimately, Decidueye's sacrifice allowed Origin Palkia to come in and do a Strong Style Spacial Rend to wipe out Giratina... but this is altered form Giratina. The less-cool Giratina. 

Giratina convulses, A bunch of inky shadows gets spewed out of his six-legged body, and we get some cool effect with his eyes trailing the red glowing effect behind him. 

And with the exact cry from Platinum's home screen, Origin Form Giratina, in all his floating, worm-ribcage-centipede-shadow-dragon glory, floats before me. 

And the music. Giratina's theme is still one of the best music themes to come out of Nintendo. This battle just keeps giving!

Goodra Dragon Pulses it, but Giratina takes it out in one Dragon Claw. I send in Kleavor, but he doesn't even get a shot off before Giratina Shadow Forces him. Then Origin Form Dialga takes the stage... and Giratina... uses Shadow Force instead of Dragon Claw? Oh you done fucked up, Poke-Satan. 

Dialga's strong-style Roar of Time takes Giratina from around 75% health down to zero in one go, and I do think it's poetic that it's one of Arceus's "good" children that takes out Giratina. 

Giratina is defeated, reverts back to his altered form, and runs away. Volo yells in anger about how Giratina is pussying out from a puny human (forgetting that I have a time god-horse-dragon next to me) and started to rant about how he had wanted to feed Giratina all the power he needed to fight Arceus, and how he had wanted Giratina to drag the creator out from hiding. Volo then reveals about how the blood of the ancient Sinnoh people flows in his veins, and gets pissed off that Arceus refuses to notice him but instead notices the isekai protagonist. He asks me about dreams that propel me (I answer no, which I think pisses him off a bit more than the alternative), and he hopes I suffer and agonize as he did. 

Volo finally gives me the final Ghost-type plate... and it transforms my Celestica Flute into the Azure Flute.

Oh my! In addition to looking like a mutated Ocarina of Time, the Azure Flute is the plot device in the Generation IV games to trigger the Arceus event. Something that was never distributed out of Japan. So that's why the flute has been so important all game long! It's been staring us right in our faces.

Volo throws a hissy fit at me receiving the Azure Flute instead of him and leaves, getting pissed off that Arceus chose me instead of him. He doesn't want to watch from the sidelines this time around! Volo gives one last rant about how this isn't over and how he'll conquer the world, even if  it takes centuries, and leaves. (I guess he might show up in a future installment?

...do I meet Arceus himself? Perhaps, a glimpse of him, in this game titled Legends: Arceus?

Not yet. "Seek out all Pokemon", which, I think, means that I have to complete the goddamn Pokedex. 

Yep. 

Yep, that tracks. Fortunately, they made completing the Pokedex a bit more interesting this time around. 

I have been going around doing a lot of Pokedex completion stuff in-between writing these let's play episodes. Mostly just catching stuff and racking up my kill-counts and trying to fill in the gaps for rarer Pokemon like the Eeveelutions, the two sets of starters and some final evolutions. But there are a lot that I really do still have to go out and look for. Laventon tells me that Giratina's been sighted in the Coastlands, so I guess it's going to be in good ol' Turnback Cave. There are still the Spiritomb and Unown collection quests to do.

You know what? We've been all about Giratina throughout this whole sequence, so I made a brief trip to Turnback Cave to capture Giratina, who's just chilling in his origin form, ready to fight and get captured with an ultra ball. Not too much to say here, this game features a lot of legendary capturing. Laventon did give one last little talk about how Volo, before leaving, told him about how Giratina has chosen to protect Hisui/Sinnoh after his defeat at my hands. So I guess I turned Giratina from the Poke-Satan that he was in the dex entries and this game into the cool antihero-Hellboy that he is in the Generation IV games? Neat!

There's a brief epilogue of Cogita meeting me in the Team Galactic building, telling me that Volo is a classic tale of passion burning too bright and consuming its bearer... before giving me another set of legendaries to capture. Thundurus, Tornadus and Landorus, sighted alongside terrifying weather patterns in the icelands, coastlands and fieldlands! Right! And I guess Cogita's going to lead me to Enamorus when I capture all three of them! More legendary hunting, and more Pokedex entry-filling! 

Let's Play Legends Arceus, Part 21: The Croissant, the Dodongo, the Titan and the Sea Slug

It actually is kind of annoying, by the way, that I take a bunch of random fully-evolved Pokemon... like, say, an Umbreon, a Garchomp, a Crobat, a Torterra, Uxie and Dialga... and then I have to keep scrolling up and down the Pokedex to figure out which move and which agile/strong style I need to do to complete the Pokedex. The game itself is actually very convenient at showing me the tasks I need to do for the enemy Pokemon, but for those in my party? I felt like it shouldn't be that hard to chuck one of my Pokemon out of their balls and then see their Pokedex entry with the same targeting feature the game already employs for wild Pokemon.

Anyway, can you tell that I've been trying to rack up as many Pokedex entries as possible? I've just been wandering around the three lower-leveled areas (the Fieldlands, Mirelands and Coastlands) to just try and get as many Pokedex entries as possible. One thing of note that I felt is a bit irritating are, admittedly, the Eeveelutions. There are so many of them!

Anyway, last we left off, we captured all the Lake Guardians, and got the Origin Form items for Dialga and Palkia. 

I also figured out that, hey, there are a bunch of new outfits in the store, like the ninja gear and the bandit outfits, plus the Diamond and Pearl clan uniforms. Now I've been running around with the regular default costume plus a giant kasa hat, but I ended up spending some money to rock out with a blue full ninja outfit. That's neat!

So the first up on my legendary agenda this time around is Cresselia, mostly because I just picked it out by the order that the game gave me the quests in. Cresselia has landed in the Moonview Arena -- in retrospect a bit obvious based on its name -- which is the seat of the Noble Lord Electrode. I guess they just didn't want to adapt Full-moon island or whatever into this game? Melli and Calaba of all people are waiting for me there, and Calaba gives some exposition about how Cresselia is the embodiment of the crescent moon and can cure dreams. Basically the most basic background of Cresselia... a bit of a shame, truly, that we don't actually get a repeat of the same 'child trapped in nightmare' sidequest we had in Diamond/Pearl/Platinum. I felt like it would've been so easy to integrate that classic Cresselia story into a side-quest in Legends: Arceus!

Melli is a bit pissed off that Cresselia -- or the 'pesky flying croissant', as he calls it -- is bothering Electrode, and makes him so worried that he can't sleep, let alone dream. Actually kinda funny, and I love that he called Cresselia a croissant!

There's at least some build-up to fighting Cresselia, although... again, I really did wish that there was some extra narrative or dialogue. We were able to fit in a bunch for random quests about Spheal or Burmy or Mr. Mime. Surely a bit of extra steps to build up to these legendaries is par the course?

The fight against Cresselia is fun, because Cresselia shoots a bunch of glowing psychic orb things that reverses my controls! It's actually kind of neat to see something that's a bit more creative in these human-vs-Pokemon conflicts, even if running in the reverse control isn't the most creative thing out there. Cresselia herself is pretty easy for me to catch, I just had Origin Palkia tank her attacks while I chucked Ultra Balls at full health. I'm not sure, I think they severely nerfed the catch rates for these legendaries?

From Cresselia, I got the Dread Plate... at least that's vaguely thematic. Maybe Cresselia beat up Darkrai, shoved him in a closet and stole his plate. I did find Calaba's disappointment that she didn't get a Lunar Feather to be kinda funny, for sure. 

Cresselia also has a brand-new signature move to replace her original self-destructive Lunar Dance called Lunar Blessing. It's actually just Recover and Double Team mixed together, which is infinitely more useful than 'die and heal the next Pokemon out'. 

Next stop, Firespit Island. And I guess this kinda-sorta confirms that Firespit Island would become the post-game Sinnoh Island, whatever it was called? Apparently Braviary can't fly over the invisible walls of the lava pits in the center of the volcano? Uhh... I guess the heat from the volcano would make flying over them difficult, but that's a strange thing of all things to be realistic about considering my character can walk right next to these lava pools. (Also, an Alpha Ninetales! I wasn't even aware Vulpix and Ninetales are in this game!)

There's a bit of a comedy between Iscan and Irida, where Paulina apparently managed to trick Irida into unnecessarily coming to witness the subduing of Heatran despite there not really being any need for her to come along. It's... it's fun Irida/Palina stuff, for sure, but I'd rather had some background and backstory for Heatran, y'know? Even a simple "Heatran is threatening to cause the volcano to explode" line from Irida would've been enough. 

Heatran himself is surrounded by a fiery dome, and the arena is littered with mud balls if you don't already have like 250 of them in your bag like I do. Kind of interesting that you just have to keep chucking at it to bring down the lava shield before you can catch it. But... but yeah. At least the Lake Guardians had a big role in the main story, while Cresselia had a basic background from Calaba. Now I get that Heatran's probably one of the lamer Sinnoh legendaries, but man, the absolute disrespect on the poor fire dino-lizard creature! 

Heatran drops the Iron Plate, which I think might be the first time in the post-game that an Arceus plate is actually thematic to the legendary I defeated. 

I did a couple of dex-entry filling at this point, including going back to Professor Laventon and... he just casually gives me both of the original starters that I didn't pick up, Cyndaquil and Oshawott! Okay. Okay, that was surprisingly simple! Normally the starters get such an exclusive deal for them and I've had so many older games where I had to run around and do the whole damn Sevii Islands before I get a starter from another generation or something. Neat! I'll get to see the Hisuian forms of them soon, though I'll probably take time to gain the full dex entries for Cyndaquil, Quilava, Oshawott and Dewott. 

Oh, I also finally got a Sun Stone and got myself a Hisuian Liligant. With her and the Hisuian versions of the final starter evolutions, I think I finally got all the brand-new forms introduced in this game.

Next up is the Snowpoint Temple. After running around like a dumbass chicken around the temple trying to figure out where the quest marker is, I realized it pointed down. And that just like the DS-era Snowpoint Temple, Regigigas is in the basement. 

Instead of bringing Regirock, Regice and Registeel, though, all I apparently needed to do is to bring their respective Arceus plates. Which is... an interesting way to get around the fact that this game doesn't have those Pokemon built in. Adaman and Sabi show up and, like it was with Cresselia, gives a very brief talk about how this Pokemon is rumoured to be a titan that towed continents. 

...so I guess we now know where the Vespiquen stole the Rock Plate from. It beat up a Regirock!

Anyway, I don't really have a whole ton to say about Regigigas. There's no puzzle or gimmick with the overworld segment of the encounter -- I guess the puzzle of collecting the respective plates is enough? I also capture Regigigas in the first Ultra Ball I toss at him. So... that's all of Cogita's legendaries captured!

I go off to the Prelude Beach and talk to Kamado, too. He just wants to fight me again, and he has added a Heracross to his party. He talks some shit about how he found the Normal-type plate when he and Beni first arrived in Hisui, but I really don't have too much time for how he still carries himself like he's some hot shit. It is nice to have some tie-in to how Jubilife/Galactic was founded, and there's a brief thought of Kamado thinking that it might be nice to rename the region as 'Sinnoh' after Almighty Sinnoh. That's the tie-in to Diamond/Pearl, I guess, but he just straight-up erased the name of Hisui? I don't know. I will give credit to the Pokemon writing team, it's not often I have such a strong reaction to a character in a Pokemon game. 

Anyway, in my quest to do most of the side-quests in the game (I'm going to finish the Spiritomb, Unown and Old Verse collections for sure, but that last balloon-popping game is too miserable for me to do) I tried to figure out what the fuck is going on with the Manaphy quest. I thought all I had to do was check out the Seaside Hollow, but it remains empty. And... this was one that I had to look up the guide online, and apparently I had to play Brillian Diamond/Shining Pearl to figure out that they added an extra book to the Canalave Library that tells me that I need to bring a Buizel, a Mantyke and an extra-spiky Qwilfish (so Overqwil, foreshadowing this form) to the 'ocean gate' in the evening. What... what nonsense, honestly! There's no way for anyone to figure this out... at least tell me the clue is in another game! I know how many people just breeze through the Canalave Library too. 

Anyway, after some eye-rolling at the nonsensical riddle, I arrive in the Seaside Hollow. A Manaphy shows up, accompanied by four iPhones, and they're all surrounded by a veil of water. It's... actually surprisingly hectic, unlike Regigigas, because I'm facing like four different characters that shoot water pulses or whatever at me. Being a dumbass who forgot to deposit the low-leveled Mantyke and Buizel, I'm also effectively down two members of my team, and didn't bring any healing items while I face off against a gauntlet of four legendaries. I even had to 2-v-1 the Manaphy and one of its iPhone babies! 

Which is to say... I didn't expect that good ol' Prince of the Sea ended up being the most fun legendary boss battle out of the four I faced in this part. 

Anyway, with most of the side-quests done, it's time to face Cogita and hopefully face off against Arceus himself!