Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 47: Post-Post-Post Game

After the Rayquaza stuff, Corbeau calls me in again, and he brings me to his office to tell me that there are even more distortions, special hyperspace distortions, that I need to gather data so that they can scan for it. How do I do that? Points. Motherfucking points. More points in these repetitive nonsense gameplay that I really, really don't care about doing. The Special Scan system will let me uncover special, randomized 5* distortions with the potential of containing legendary Pokemon inside, but... yeah, at this point I don't really care.

Really would've engaged more with the hyperspace stuff if they had put more effort into it, but there really isn't motivation for grinding when all the fucking portals are the same thing repeated ad nauseum, is it? 

Anyway, I'm ignoring all of that. I am, however, doing a bunch of the side-quests that gets unlocked after the Rayquaza mission, which involves either my teammates or new legendaries. 

Taunie has been cleaning up AZ's room and found something interesting: the Prison Bottle, the item that in previous games would allow Hoopa to access its Hoopa Unbound form. Corbeau then calls in about the appearance of a strange new distortion, apparently in response to Hoopa itself panicking over seeing the Prison Bottle. Actually, this would've been something a bit more interesting to play with Hyperspace Dimension, instead of just 'let's wish really really hard for Rayquaza, donuts are green lol' bullshit we had. 

Ansha and Taunie give me the Prison Bottle and send me off to investigate the Hoopa distortion. Within the distortion is Hoopa Unbound, which I just have to fight, defeat and capture. And... there really isn't that much of a real narrative conclusion to this, where Ansha and Taunie just acknowledge Hoopa Unbound's dex entries, then note that Ansha's Hoopa isn't willing to transform to its unbound state. There... really isn't any story to this, and while I'm happy that we don't steal Hoopa from Ansha, it's also a bit odd that this sidequest kind of hints at Hoopa's backstory and nature as a transforming mythical pokemon and did absolutely nothing with it. 

Mable found a 'hacked poke ball' randomly. Mable tells me that Poke Ball hacking was one of the schemes that Team Flare did back in the day, which... I don't actually remember if this is something in Pokemon XY? I know Team Flare did attack the Poke Ball factory. Mable then gives me a hacked poke ball containing Volcanion inside, which is... quite random. She enlists my help to fight Volcanion, since the mythical Pokemon would be rather understandably upset once released from its hacked prison. 

There is a very badly-written attempt to bring in the jogger NPC, Yvon, and involve her to 'run around' and find a place to catch Volcanion, but it just turns out to be the basement of the Pokemon Lab. The actual arena is literally a black void, not even a reuse of the Mewtwo arena, which really tells me that they really tacked on the Volcanion mission with no real effort, huh? Hoopa became a mascot for the main DLC, and Dianice got a nice little sidequest with Carbinks and whatnot, but Volcanion doesn't even get good dialogue -- most of the dialogue either focuses on Team Flare hacking pokeballs, or Yvon going on a whole tangent about how Volcanion's destructive powers could create a jogging arena. Poor, poor, ignored Volcanion.

The shady salesman who has been selling me TM's for Mega Shards (a.k.a. the resource dump guy) starts telling me Genesect drives for Mega Shards. After buying all four, the shady salesman gives me shady intel on a location where the Genesect distortion is found. After catching Genesect, the shady alley salesman appears and congratulates me. I... okay, sure. I really would've liked more context on what organization you are with, nameless shady salesman. 

But hey, Volcanion and Genesect are properly out of mythical jail with this game! I appreciate that.

A random NPC tells me that a Pokemon that hasn't been seen before randomly appearing. It's Meltan. I capture the Meltan. Then, a distortion opens, and I enter the distortion. A little girl surrounded by some Meltans talk to me, asks me if I like Meltan, asks me if I like Melmetal, and gives me the Melmetal. I think this quest is supposed to be a bit creepy, but Meltan and Melmetal aren't creepy Pokemon, and the context behind this whole sequence just feels random and half-assed more than anything. 

Another rift opens and has a pair of mysterious ace trainers, 'brother' and 'sister', fight me with a Latios and Latias. They don't give me the legendary dragons, though, just the Latiosite and Latiasite. I need to engage with the stupid secret scanning to get Latios or Latias randomly. I do like the creepy nameless NPCs here, though. It does take a bit of a wider franchise knowledge, but it does seem to imply with the stunted dialogue that 'Brother' and 'Sister' are like psychic projections of Latios and Latias themselves. Or maybe I'm trying to look too deep into a sidequest that the game designers didn't actually care too much about. 

Jett tells me that Quasartico Inc. found the mythical Pokemon Magearna, a Pokemon that I've always felt worked a lot better with Generation VI lore than VII. Magearna is in her Poke-ball form, but Quasartico has been hard at work developing a mega stone for her. You... you can just do that? Just make a new mega stone for a Pokemon? None of this is really detailed, but after giving 999 mega shards or whatever (which I have just burning a hole in my inventory) I present the stone to Magearna, which wakes up and shows off an adorable animation of having a bouquet of flowers pop up from her robot hand. 

Yet another Pokemon released from mythical jail is Marshadow. I actually like this quest quite a bit! The NPC that was part of the Quasartico protest group comes up to me and notes a rumour about a spooky ghost girl and other paranormal tomfoolery in Lumiose City. Unfortunately, still no follow up on 'you are not the one', the most famous unexplained ghost girl in Lumiose, but this leads to a nice puzzle with Marshadow, where I need to find a specific battle court and wait until the 'shadow falls over it'. Which is the shadow of Prism Tower! That is an actually clever little puzzle. 

What's not clever is that weather matters so little in this game other than rain and Sliggoo's evolution, so I waited like a dumbass for a whole day with cloudy weather. Which is different from sunny weather, because the shadow doesn't appear! And the shadow moves so slowly, too. I'm all for clever puzzles, and this is so much cooler than identifying random combinations of buildings or whatever. But the waiting was quite a bit agonizing. 

Anyway, Marshadow gets to emerge up from the shadow of Prism Tower and I get to catch him. That's nice. 

Vinnie gives me a quest, to get a Mimikyu for his daughter. In my hunt for Mimikyu, I ended up catching a shiny one in all its monochromatic glory! Huzzah! I really, really love Mimikyu, so getting a shiny one is a great moment for me. I didn't even realize until I looked in my box to see the horde of Mimikyu I quick balled, though, which was an even bigger surprise. I like Vinnie, and his characterization as a big professional mafia-thug-looking guy that has a sweet spot for his kid. He notes that he worries about Mimikyu being an unsuitable Pokemon for his child, but his daughter threatened to take back the Buneary-Pancham hairband. That's adorable. 

Lida and Naveen both get a nice little quest to wrap up their characterizations, which after they're sidelined and reduced to jokes in the DLC, is a bit unexpected but very heartwarming. Lida is in a funk and decides to battle me, before confiding that she's got a bit of an impostor syndrome going on especially compared to myself, Korrina or Taunie. She also drops the rather random lore drop that she's Tierno's half-sister with different mothers, and that the two of them never actually met each other. That raises some questions, but, um... okay? That's a bit random for something that's not going to be followed up this game. Korrina also shows up in this sequence to cheer Lida up. 

Naveen tries to get Ansha's Hoopa to help him sneak to his house or something, but Ansha gives him a bit of a stern talking-to. After the fight to essentially grow a backbone. Naveen confesses that he doesn't really think much of his grandmother's style of parenting, but he can't bear to hate her. And he apologizes to Ansha for bitching about not seeing family when Ansha can't see her mother all the time, but Ansha surprisingly goes on a little speech to Naveen to get him to embrace 'no contact', or as close as you can get to mentioning that in a children's video game. Naveen is still optimistic that by doing great things for his sister and his career that his grandmother might reconcile with him, but the conclusion to this story is to ignore toxic relatives. Not bad, Nintendo! That's a good little conclusion to Naveen's story arc. 

After beating enough opponents in the Infinite ZA Royale, a secret sidequest from the original game pops up, and it's Jacinthe summoning me to her hotel, and she has Le Super-Tournoi de Jacinthe O, which... replaces all the competitors in the Jacinthe tournament with Jacinthe. That's actually a funny joke. I have to fight Jacinthe like 5 times to complete this quest and complete her little sidequest. Neat. 

There is also a sidequest with a random lady called Marcia, who's looking for Jacinthe. She's her previous fighting partner (sure, 'partner'...) and basically wants to be partners with Jacinthe again. However, after the double battle, Jacinthe reaffirms the depths of her Stockholm's Syndrome loyalty to Jacinthe and the status quo is preserved. Sure. Whatever.

A very cool one is the sidequest that unlocks Frenzy Plant, Blast Burn and Hydro Cannon, the three ultimate attacks for the starter Pokemon. Just like Pokemon Adventures and Ultima ('Kimberly' in the translation I read), there's an elderly lady that acts as the wielder and master of these ultimate moves... but I need to do the trials! With the starter Pokemon of Legends ZA, I need to fight with them alone against the three other starters in this game (the Kalos, Hoenn and Kanto starters). I do have mega evolution, so it's not that bad, and it was particularly easy with Feraligatr having Ice Fang; and Emboar knowing Thunder Punch makes two of the three water-types easy to handle. But it was a bit more challenging with Meganium, and required some brute-forcing. That felt like a really cool accomplishment, though. 

And for the last mission I did in Legends ZA, I end up going up to the rooftop to fight Korrina, 1v1, with Lucario against Lucario to get the horrid Mega Lucarionite Z. It's... it's honestly a silly game of chicken, similar to the Farfetch'd mission or the Raichu mission except at level 100 with a 'Z' mega evolution, it's always a one-shot from Korrina... and starting up the battle requires like so much button mashing as I have to go through the dialogue, and then the two mega evolution animations... it's a bit silly. I spammed Dig and Protect, which isn't exactly what Lucario really should be known for. Not much in lieu of interesting dialogue, and Mega Lucario Z might be one of the few Pokemon designs that I genuinely dislike. 

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Oh! One last last mission is a super-hidden mission with not much logic behind it, which unlocks Mega Zeraora. The triggers for this mission is having done the Diancie and Mewtwo 'EX' missions which are, to my knowledge, wi-fi exclusive during the releases of the game and the DLC respectively. But the way to get it feels nonsensical! In games like old Final Fantasy or Legend of Zelda whatever, the worlds and NPCs are small enough and there usually is some foreshadowing to such super-hidden missions. But I have to go through a bunch of trading missions to give a Canari Bread to a random kid that's on a very random building near wild area two with no rhyme or reason, who accepts trading of any items. He gives me a popping candy, and for absolutely no rhyme or reason, I have to bring it to Ansha, who gets inspired to make a brand-new donut. 

Thankfully, I have a stockpile of mega berries otherwise I wouldn't have cared to do this mission. 

Anyway, the Zeraora boss fight is a bit obnoxious, but at least it's a bit more skill-intensive in dodging the zipping lightning bolts than the Lucario 1v1. The problem is that once Zeraora gets reduced down to around 1/3rd of its health, it starts zipping around as a lightning bolt across the battlefield, the little shit, which makes it so hard for my Pokemon to lock on. But anyway, I caught Zeraora and got the Zeraoranite or whatever. In this mission, Taunie was late and Emma substitutes in as the third member of the battle team, but... but the writing for the DLC is really so basic that I can't muster much of a reaction. 

Honestly, this DLC has... really soured me a fair bit on the game, which isn't fair. The base game was really enjoyable, and if we remove the silly bullshit 1v1 battles, the real-time battle system is really fun! But yeah. This is my last entry for Legends ZA. Not quite a nice round number like 45 or 50, but it was a fun, if frustrating with the grinding, ride. 

Random Notes:

• So for context, you guys would be seeing these articles in like, March or April. I did a lot of the DLC stuff in late December to early January, but the insane amount of grinding leading up to Rayquaza led up all the way to February, and a lot of these took even more time. 
  
• Yvon and Mable did go on a whole tangent about a different part of Kalos that seemed to have been destroyed by Volcanion, and this would've probably been an interesting buildup to an area we're going to explore later on... but let's be honest, legends ZA isn't going to let us explore anything. 
• Both Lida and Naveen have added a Pokemon from the DLC lineup to their parties. Naveen added the stylish Toxtricity, and Lida adds a Tatsugiri. 
• I also finished up a couple of the more annoying sidequests:
• One of them needs me to walk down an alley with a Farfetch'd holding a leek and fight three Farfetch'd users in a row, with only my Farfetch'd. I had to rely on exp candies to make the random Dux I captured and steroid it up to level 100, then keep using Protect followed by Brave Birds followed by potions. 
• Another overly long one needs me to choose between the Sawk Squad and the Throh Throng. 'Throng' just sounds dirty, so I also force-feed a hideous Sawk with exp candies, and bulldoze a Throh user in a little competition. I like the spirit of this quest, I just don't particularly care for Sawk and Throh. 
• It is pretty great that the games are slowly 'de-mythicing' a lot of Pokemon, isn't it? Legends Arceus made every Pokemon from Generation IV catchable, Sword/Shield made Keldeo available, and Legends ZA turned a whole bunch of Generation V-VII ones available. That's really nice, especially since the distribution for the pre-3DS mythics are quite shoddy for most international audiences. 

Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 46: Alpha and Omega

After grinding, after miserable, miserable grinding, Corbeau finally calls me to Centrico Plaza, where we meet Grisham and Griselle at the cafe truck. Griselle makes a bit of a crack that Corbeau only orders drip coffee, as if they've suddenly gone to penny-pinching for some reason. Corbeau ignores this barb, but thanks me for helping to protect Lumiose City -- his city -- as he gestures at Prism Tower. I actually do like this scene a bit; it helps to show why Corbeau is taking the role of the point-man for this endeavour. "The things that need doing are sometimes the hardest to do."

Corbeau tells me that I need to get to the Ruby and Sapphire Distortion. A bit on the nose there, but okay. The Rust Syndicate has been researching recipes... and they find out that the ingredient they need is Hoennian Salt. Which turns out Grisham has. Grisham is a bit confused how they know about his secret ingredient, but it's a bit of a silly question. They're the mafia! Of course they know everything about everyone. It is a bit silly as well that apparently the usage of Hoennian Salt (which doesn't even sound that impressive) is 'leverage'. 

With a goofy grin as he does a pose, the Rust Syndicate claims that they didn't even do any digging or snooping around for this information; they figured out the secret ingredient due to Phillippe's palate. That's... that's cute, actually. 

Ansha then gives me a list of flavours, similar to the Darkrai donut, that I need to create the 'Alpha Old-Fashioned Donut' and 'Omega Old-Fashioned Donut'. Which, of course leads me to go and do a bunch more grinding in hyperspace because I just don't have enough high-level berries, because the game wants me to spend the high-value berrieds to create high-value donuts to go and do the mega evolution rifts so I can grind points and arrrrrghhghghghghg. 

Anyway, I got the Groudon donut done first. It looks like an omega sign. Wonderful. 

Entering the Ruby Distortion, we enter a subterranean cave with massive ruby-coloured crystals. The set design for this is phenomenal, with a gigantic lava pool set up like an omega symbol, a massive stalagtite of rubies pointing down, lava waterfalls, and Groudon sealed in a statue-like form at the end. It looks amazing. But even more amazing is if I look up, and instead of a ceiling, it's an impossible reversal, where water is flowing upwards to a different chamber... the Sapphire Distortion. Kyogre's lair! See, this is the kind of psychedelic, weird hyperspace locations I'd rather explore, not just muted glitchy Lumiose. 

Groudon then awakens, cracking open from its statue-like prison, and we get a two-parter fight. First, against regular Groudon, and again against Primal Groudon. After all the grinding, though, I just don't have the energy to really pay attention to thsi fight. Groudon sure uses some of his iconic moves, like his signature Precipice Blades, and some Earth Powers and Solar Beams. Abilities don't exist in Legends ZA, but the raid Primal Groudon still has an aura that prevents Water-types, something that Taunie panics about. 

I primarily rely on Mega Zygarde, because ironically Primal Groudon is weak to its own Ground-typing. 

Groudon falls and I also get the Red Orb, which allows Groudon to Primal-revert any time it's in battle. Which is similar to Complete Form Zygarde in this game, where they can actually just stay in these super forms without a timer essentially for the duration of a whole battle royale or a distortion. The game gives a cutsccene where Corbeau asks Korrina about the difference about Primal Reversion and Mega Stone, but we already know that from ORAS. 

Next up is Kyogre, whose rift is in Wild Zone 5. Again, the location is wonderfully rendered. Perhaps a bit less impressive than the glowing effects of Groudon's magma, but the water pools being arranged like an alpha sign, the waterfalls, and the massive crystal... and just like Groudon, Kyogre is in a statue-like form at the end of the dungeon. And Groudon's lava location is, of course, on top of this. 

Again, the raid is in two parts. Kyogre, and then Primal Kyogre. Kyogre uses a combination of Water and Electric-type moves, and I absolutely love how Origin Pulse is portrayed in this game. Primal Kyogre actually has the little orbs that shoots the pulses appear and start pointing in different directions as it spins around, like a proper dang video game boss fight. I appreciate that. 

We beat Groudon and Kyogre, and captured them, the two legendary Pokemon of Hoenn... but our primary target, or rather, Ansha's primary target, is Rayquaza. After some offscreen study of the Red Orb and Blue Orb, we bring in Holo-Mable, who insists that she is an 'acting director', not a 'professor'. Corbeau, catty little asshole that he is, actually keeps calling Mable as 'Professor' throughout the whole conversation. What a jackass! 

Mable's conclusion is quite nonsensical, even by the standards of this franchise. Turns out that all the mega dimension energy that seeped into Darkrai isn't just subconscious thoughts, but also dreams. And this means that to get Rayquaza, we need to "actualize a related aspect of the subconscious as a basis". Or, as Mable dumbs it down for us: You. Have. To. Wish. Really. Hard. 

It is kind of dumb, isn't it? Pokemon has never been 'hard' sci-fi, never by a long shot. But it always has some sort of quasi-logical explanation to its plotlines, usually related to legendary Pokemon powers. This really felt like a bullshit handwave, even moreso than the Mega Donut. Why we can bring the Pokemon, even legendary Pokemon, out of this dream space is also never explained properly. 

Corbeau and Mable trade more barbs, before we return to Hotel Z. We recap the reest of the team about what we've learned, and we gather on the rooftop of the hotel. Ansha then gives some backstory that ties together the plotlines of Pokemon XY and Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, which I appreciate. We also have some strange traditional drawings of Groudon, Kyogre and Rayquaza, which I really love:

It's very storybook-y, and such a simultaneously goofy but historic depiction of the Hoenn legend.

In this 'Primal Age', the world overflowed with natural energy. Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre clashed, empowered by their respective orbs, and they fought over the world's natural energy, with every roar and attack causing the world to shake and change. They fought for 20 days, warping the world around them until the ancient Draconid People wished for Rayquaza to descend and save them from destruction. 

And Rayquaza descended from the heavens in its powerful form, a mega evolved form, scaring the two into submission. Interestingly, the artwork also depicts a Little Prince looking trainer with green hair standing on top of Rayqauaza's head. The rest of the story is what we know, Mega Rayquaza uses its power to subdue the weather-manipulation powers of the other two, driving them away to the depths where they slumber. Ansha has read this story with her mother a lot, and was inspired by the stories of Rayquaza and the Draconids. 

After this story (which is a nice recap of the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald lore), Korrina then explains that Rayquaza has a 'mikado organ' that has the same power as a Mega Stone. You... you can say that Rayquaza swallowed the Mega Stone, Korrina. We all know what happened.

All this conversation, and all this wishing... leads to another massive rift opening above Prism Tower. Phillippe shows up and gives us another 50K point grind to get enough data to understand the sigh donut recipe required or whatever... 

Some grinding later, and we get another meeting with Corbeau and Phillippe, and I'm not saying that Legends ZA is some kind of Shakespearian masterpiece, but it really does show that the writers really didn't put any thought at all to any of these dialogues. The characterization of characters like Corbeau really get reduced to 'lol serious character saying silly things', which is only funny in small increments and just feels out-of-character when repeated so many times. The base story gives the side characters dialogue that at least tied to their personalities, but I took screenshots of their dialogue to see what I can say about them and find that none of them mattered at all. Corbeau gives us some Arboliva Oil, which is the secret ingredient to the donut with nonsense requirements, so I had to grind even more bullshit for the specific berries. 

Anyway, we open up a rift and end up in Hyperspace Sky Pillar, an excellent recreation of the Sky Pillar from the 3DS games. They even have the cute, boxy, square-shaped staircase that would've led down to the rest of the dungeon in the older games! Ah, if only this location was actually explorable, and that some of the hyperspace grinding would be actually tied to a proper, engaging location...

And then like a god, Rayquaza flies down from the sky in a straight line down, glowing green and slamming down and roaring before us. The cutscenes and the music and the environment, at least, are awesome. Rayquaza unleashes hyper beams, draco meteors, hurricanes, and rapid-fire outrage slashes, and my first team to face him had pokemon like Mega Slowbro, Kyogre and an ice-beaming Mewtwo among them.

Turns out that this was a mistake. Rayquaza mega evolves, and wraps itself in a barrier of wind that neutralizes all Flying-type weaknesses. Including Ice. I... this was part of Delta Stream's effects, and with Primal Groudon also importing its regular-game immunity, I didn't know why I didn't prepare for it. So I bow out gracefully from the mega fight, and bring in a small army of fairies. Xerneas, Diancie and Meganium take central stage now, and I just bombard Mega Rayquaza with Moonblasts and Dazzling Gleams while avoiding the attacks.  

And you know what? Credit where credit is due. Fighting Mega Rayquaza as it shoots around hyper beams and draco meteors, with the awesome music in the background, on top of Sky Pillar with the night sky around? That's awesome. I'm not going to let my utter disregard about the rest of the DLC sully that. 

We return to Hotel Z, where I let Rayquaza out on the rooftop and Ansha is quite delighted (if shy) to meet such a fine Pokemon. I'm supposed to give it to her, but the conversation goes into Ansha realizing that the adventure is over and she would have to hang up her apron as a donut chef. The older members of Team MZ basically then hype her up, telling her that she could continue making donuts while the rest of Team MZ deal with Hyperspace Distortions. In perhaps the one good line of conversation in this whole cutscene, Korrina asks Ansha why she's so obsessed with giving Rayquaza to her mother, leading Ansha into a bit of an introspection of 'what I would do after this', and Korrina tells Ansha that she has a better gift to give to Diantha... stories, memories, and a sign that as a child, she has matured. 

Korrina also casually tells Ansha that Jacinthe and Diantha already know that she's been hanging out in Hotel MZ all this while, and Ansha thanks Rayquaza and asks me to take care of Rayquaza until she becomes a Pokemon trainer. Korrina promises to take Ansha under her wing, and we get a short epilogue of Ansha drawing her and Diantha meeting and how she gave Diantha the gift of donuts and stories. 

Neat storyline. I would've cared a lot more if it wasn't stretched out like a rubber band across so much grinding and pointless dialogue. Was there a reason that this had to be a whole post-game to the DLC, instead of incorporated as the 'storyline' boss fights leading up to the Darkrai mission? It's a bit silly, really. It's not even the low stakes and the general wifty-wafty vibe of Ansha as a character, it's just how it was presented as a story in general. 

Anyway, there are still some more post-post-game to the DLC, which is ridiculous that this is the state of video games nowadays. I admit I wouldn't be so frustrated without the grinding and I would just be happy that I got content, but there's a reason why these reviews are a bit more spread out. 

Random Notes:

• The music, by the way, is amazing. We get a great remix of the themes from Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire for the Kyogre, Groudon and Rayquaza fights, and the Mega Rayquaza battle even gets a nice remix with the Team MZ battle theme. No complaints at all about the battle themes, and the boss fight environments. 
• There was a bit of a funny scene where Corbeau shuts Phillippe's boasting down and tells him to be humble because they don't want to sound like they want a 'pat in the back', but Phillippe turns it around to a compliment about Corbeau's sleepless nights researching the distortions. Aw, these two. 
  
• Corbeau: "What kind of an organization are we these days... a civic think tank?" and when we call Corbeau out that he's nice, "Once folks are in our debt, we can put them to work for free... helping to shape Lumiose just the way we want it." I like them. 
• "Wait, so we're using [Arboliva Oil] because it's green?" "Sure, no sense making it complicated." Really, the writers could at least try and make these plot coupons and devices actually matter, you know? 
• Seriously, Korrina mentions one sentence about being a Mega Evolution successor witnessing the 'original' Mega Evolution. And that's it. That's the sum of her characterization. What's the point of bringing back older characters if you're not going to do anything with them? 
• And unlike the mega evolution raids earlier in the DLC, Rayquaza does not allow you to jump in partway through the battle if you fail, which I appreciate. The Rayquaza/Mega Rayquaza fight is well-designed enough that I don't mind doing it properly without mistakes, unlike some of the more bullshit raids that they had earlier in the game. 
• I catch Rayquaza in a Friend Ball, which is a ball that really fits his colouration, doesn't it? I think we need a lot of newer balls in general... was the last ball to enter the mainline games really the Beast Ball from ORAS? 

Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 45: Hyper Mega Berry Grinding Guhhhhhhh

Grinding is bullshit in this game. The 'post-game' for the Mega Dimensions DLC requires you to grind a whole ton of points to get to Groudon and Kyogre, and then even more points after that to get to Rayquaza, and god it is so frustrating when I don't even feel like I'm playing Pokemon as I grind, do you know what I mean? Like, at least interacting with the world via side-quests keeps me a bit more engaged, but this isn't even running around catching Pokemon or battling, which are the two parts that made me roll my eyes in the original non-DLC parts of the game, but at least it's something. 

I really, really like Legends ZA, despite its flaws. 

I do not like Mega Dimensions. 

Why am I still playing? Honestly, completionism, and to finish writing it for this blog. Normally, I don't even mind 'grindy' games. They let me do something quasi-mindless while I listen to a podcast or hop on a call or something, like a more elaborate fidget spinner toy. But the Mega Dimensions grind for berries and all that bullshit is just so bad. Sure, go for the mega raids, but I don't want to repeat the same old raids I've done before, and the scaling tends to be quite bullshit too. 

Anyway, this section is basically a nice little archive for all of the side-quests I did throughout the Groudon/Kyogre/Rayquaza grind. 

I eventually grinded enough Infinite Z-A fights to get to the fabled 15th reward match. And it is against Taunie! She fights me, but something is a bit off when she doesn't immediately evolve her Emboar, and it was actually taken down without evolving. She then tosses out AZ's Floette! And Floette evolves into Mega Floette! That was acutally unexpected and I cackled a bit when that twist happened. 

After beating her, Taunie talks a bit about how glad the is to meet me, and the rest of Team MZ... but then Emma shows up and begins to talk to Taunie, triggering a bit of a surprise. We then go to Quasartico Inc, where it is revealed that... Emma has finally found the person that Taunie came to Lumiose City to find. And that person is... President Jett! Turns out that President Jett is Taunie's grandmother, dun dun dunnnn! Vinnie and I have a huge expression of shock. 

Jett had given the jacket to her daughter, but the two of them became estranged over time. We get the revelation that Taunie's mother developed holographic technology, and disagreed with Jett over how Quasartico Inc should be ran. Eventually Taunie's mother left, never spoke to Jett again, and fell into Team Flare. Did... did we know that? I don't think we know that. But Taunie's mom is the scientist behind the creation of the hologram technology that Team Flare (and now Quasartico/Lumiose) uses.

Taunie doesn't understand fully the circumstances of her mother's work, but they take some solace in that this is another path of interesction, a theme that has been mentioned several times throughout the base game, and Taunie's mom's research eventually led to the creation of something nicer like the Wild Zone. The dialogue is ambiguous on where they come from, with Taunie noting that she had to 'go to some faraway region to try and rest', and that's where she passed away. Taunie and Jett's family are also not natively Kalosian (or Lumiosian, at least) which ended up complicating Taunie's search. 

Taunie tells Jett something that her mother left with her, that even though Jett and her walked different paths, they had so much in common, and knowing that made her life feel fuller. Jett regrets not reaching out to her daughter before her passing. 

Jett then moves the conversation to her stepping down as Quasartico Inc's president, because of her part in concealing the truth about Ange from the public. She decides to keep it 'in family' (nepotism, yay!) and give it to... Taunie? Who has experience 'being a leader'...? I'm sorry, I like Taunie but she is having problems leading four people, and has had a history of entering ambiguous debts with the mafia. I hardly think she is qualified to run an urban redevelopment company. But oh well. 

(This bit, by the way, is spoiled a bit by some lines in the DLC where Naveen and Lida discuss that Taunie is 'busy with Quasartico'. It doesn't say that she's the CEO or anything, I don't think, but it was still a spoiler nonetheless.)

Taunie muses about how many people she ccan help with this new position and decides to accept. And in honour of that, and to help me keep Lumiose City safe, Taunie decides to leave AZ's Floette with me, and give me the Floettite. Okay! Yay! Umbilial cord flower get! 

That's a nice bit of epilogue for the main story, which I did appreciate for sure.

Next, let's go through the second round of 'hyperspace battles'. It's a bit weird because the game's not really clear when some of the people we meet here are the 'real' people, when some of them are and some of them aren't, or whatever... the quests themselves are just double battles with the same old parties, but I need to eat like a minimum of a 4* donut to steamroll them. In quick discussion:

• Vinnnie brings me to a meeting with Phillippe and Corbeau. This is actually a rather cool sequene where it starts off as a tense business negotiation, because Corbeau and Phillippe claim that Quasartico isn't paying them enough and that the risks aren't quite what they estimated when the contracts were drawn. Vinnie needs buy-in from all the stakeholders to give out a cash bonus... but the conversation actually seemed to go well until we get some handwave to get a pokemon battle. 
  
• 
  Ivor and Lebanne are fighting in Hyperspace, which is actually a nice follow-up to the hints of them having a history. Lebanne claims that she pursues strength only for herself... but Ivor gets her to think otherwise because he fights to protect the people, while Lebanne's way hasn't gotten her out of her indentured servitude to Jacinthe. Gwynn shows up, drags me into the fight and uses me to just settle the fight because she's had enough. I fight alongside Lebanne against the siblings, and both Ivor and Lebanne agree that the other party has some legitimate points. 
• Gwynn and I see a holographic Canari, and Gwynn gets angry at the 'fake' Canari, which is Tarragon. Gwynn and Tarragon get into a bit of an argument about whether the 'bandwagoners' are true fans or not. Tarragon says the best thing one could say about a fandom: "what about the poeple who just think she's neat? That sounds like a fan in my book!" The ending has a cute moment when Canari tells Gwynn that she's important to her as well. Aww! 
• Grisham and Griselle discuss food with Phillippe, who was inspired by his poor upbringing to respect chefs that give their heart and soul into cooking. This one doesn't really have much of a hook, but it's nice to see them talk about their passions, I suppose. 
• Lebanne is lurking in hyperspce thinking about how to beat Jacinthe, and shit-talks her... when Jacinthe and HOLO Jacinthe show up and start getting into a weird conversation. By the way, I completely and 100% agree with Lebanne's shit-talking of Jacinthe, but the game has everything be restored to status quo after the fight with Lebanne still kinda-sorta taking Stockholm's Syndrome pride with Jacinthe. Boo!

All these fights give me alternate colour costumes for the NPC outfits, and also unlocks their hairstyles in the salons. I think nothing beats the fact that we get Ivor's amazing little Falinks pouch, which is the most adorable thing out there. 

A side-quest I particularly like is a kooky old man who insists that his Arbok is actually a Seviper. I show an actual Seviper, and he's just adamant that the other serpent Pokemon looks the same, and is only different if you 'squint'. Rather hilariously, he comes to the conclusion that his Arbok 'Sevy' is a regional variant of Seviper, before we finally get him to see reason. 

In the sewers, one of the workers ask me to investigate a strange blockage. I run in to find a poor Dodonzo stuck inside one of the overworld sewer holes, and I'm surprised that with how lazy the animation team has been that they actually had the Dodonzo tail sticking out of the sewer hole. It leads to a simple Alpha Dodonzo battle, and the construction worker adopts the Dodonzo. I thought this one was quite a charming one. 

The police officer who arrested me for the Goomy incident in the base game recruits me to test a the museum's security. All the guards have dog Pokemon (Houndoom, Dachsbun, Houndstone, Mabosstiff) and make jokes about 'the script'. A nice reuse of the museum assets, and it actually reminds me of a chapter of Pokemon Adventures where the Johto gym leader Janine was actually recruited by the police to do exactly the same thing. 

A guy called Trian, the Porygon guy, is an indie game developer who gives a long discussion about how he works a lot with polygons, and he also has a Pokemon called Porygon, and that the development of technology has allowed them to render these polygons with more rounded edegs. The siequest has me trade a Porygon with his, and his Porygon is holding an Upgrade that evolves it to Porygon2. It's the 'perfect illustration of how much games change when procerssing power improves'. Apparently Porygon2's upgrades even includes AI! Egad, ChatGPT has made it into the Pokemon universe!

Rather interestingly, there is a bit of a follow up for Porygon-Z. Unfortunately, while Trian gives me the Dubious Disk, he doesn't give me a trade as well. And rather interestingly, the quest to meet him has Trian show up in a hyperspace distortion; specifically the abandoned house. He says some existential-crisis thing about how if polygonal models keep evolving, it will be indistinguishable from the worlds around us, with the implication that the Trian we're talking to in the distortion isn't real. All this 'hyperspace people' thing is really confusing, isn't it? It's not even creepy. It's just wishy-washy.

Anyway, that's it for sidequests for now, next up will be the Groudon/Kyogre/Rayquaza finale!

Random Notes:

• Some more side-quests I didn't have much to say about: 

• A Canatic wants me to find a very specific bench so she can recreate a Canari papparazzi photo with her partner Manectric. That's kinda creepy, but at least she's not stalking Canari. 
  
• A courier tells me of a creepy 'bloody Mary' urban myth thing to enter the graveyard. It's just a silly memory game for the gimmick, but the spotlighted Pokemon is a Houndstone that is terrifying people by being a gravestone that moves around. The simplest story you could tell with this Pokemon, but it's all right.
• Bene, nurse joy of the Hibernal pokemon center, wants to increase awareness by having a Foongus on her desk to make her stand out. Because hers has the worst performance in sales. So they do keep track of that. I give her a fun guy, and a couple of fungal puns ensue.  
• Another Nurse Joy asks me to go into a Wild Zone to find her Pokemon, 'Rosebud'. It's not a Roselia or a Glimmora, but actually a massive, enraged Annihilape that I need to fight and calm down on the rooftop. I actually reasonably like this one. 
• Corbeau: "Kind words are nice and all, but they're not what really motivates people in the end!"
• Ivor tries to offer Lebanne the uniform of his dojo as well, but Lebanne deflects it masterfully by saying that she is sworn to wear the maid outfit for Jacinthe's sake. 
• I can react "okay, bye" to the Gwynn-vs-DYN4M0 fight, but Gwynn just replies with a flat 'no, help me.'
• While evolving other Pokemon, I had to look up Galarian Yamask's evolution. It still needs to take 49 damage, but then I have to walk under a specific Coulant Waterway bridge, then go into the menu and tap it to evolve it. God, this is still probably the weirdest evolution method ever. 
• Am I disappointed that these 'hyperspace dimension' stuff, with glitching and Porygon being part of the game, that we don't get a proper Porygon dimension? It could've been a properly long side-quest and everything, but nope. 

Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 44: The Dark Nightmare of Lumiose City

After the Heatran mission, we get a short discussion with the rest of Team MZ. Ansha and Lida suffered from the same nightmare dreams of a voice telling them to go away, and Korrina speculates that this is because Hyperspace is merging with Lumiose, affecting everyone's dreams. Korrina briefly has the mad idea of just letting Hyperspace Lumiose swallow up regular Lumiose just to find Ansha's legendary Pokemon, but the rest of the team shut her 'joke' down. 

Corbeau summons us to the Rust Syndicate office, but going into the office instead teleports the entire Team MZ into Hypesrpace Lumiose. Hoopa didn't even open the portal or anything. Rather randomly (and in a far better comedic timing than the mainline story) Jacinthe has infiltrated the group and asks what's going on. Apparently, everyone important was teleported to Hyperspace Lumiose. The game lets me run around a bit to look for where Corbeau has landed, with the clue of 'a place surrounded by walls', but every named NPC is scattered around this large map. I didn't bother to go around to talk to absolutely everybody, but we've got the usual suspects and even the more passive NPCs like Mable and Emma, and even the named Infinite Z-A contestants like Zach, Yvon and Xavi. 

We find Corbeau, Vinnie and Phillippe in the arena where the Mega Starmie fight happened, and we get a lot of discussion about how this is basically the result of the hyperspace distortion getting worse. Not only are Pokemon coming from Hyperspace to the real world, but people are being dragged from the real Lumiose into Hyperspace. Potential world-ending threat, oh no!

And just like that, very abruptly, we're teleported back to Corbeau's office. Rather hilariously, Corbeau ends up standing on his own desk, something that the game doesn't acknowledge but I do find funny. After a lot of recap about what's going on and the potential threat (this bit, by the way, was very repetitive) Corbeau shares that they discovered that Hyperspace Lumiose is being maintained by just a single Pokemon... but one that was exposed from sheer undiluted mega power when Ange went on its rampage. This is going to lead to a massive Rogue Mega Evolution. 

Ansha briefly gets a moment where she laments potentially losing the chance to catch the 'fine legendary Pokemon' that she has been after, but brushes it off very quickly, since her dream isn't worth the sufefring of everyone else in Lumiose. Corbeau praises her maturity, but also notes that even if we solve the Rogue Mega Evolution, pockets of Hyperspace will still remain for quite a while (i.e. as long as we play the game). 

The solution to reach the massive portal is to make an even better donut to power up Hoopa, and apparently this leads my character to suggest that we nede to feed Mega Evolution power to the donut. This will unlock Mega Evolution -- or power equivalent to Mega Evolution -- on Hoopa. I... yeah. Okay. Everyone likes it, and Corbeau, with a super-serious zoom-in to his face, declares that this is Operation Mega Donut. Okay. Fine. 

Unfortunately, this leads to like a massive 40K or something grind for points. It took me a while to get it, because I keep running out of berries and having to dive to low-level rifts to get more berries. Sigh. 

Anyway, skipping through all the grinding, Corbeau arrives in Hotel Z, takes a look at the adorable donut stand, and asks Ansha if she is interested in a little financial backing "to turn your solo stand into a global donut empire". Lida is a bit angry, but Corbeau defensively says that he has a nose for business opportunities. Phillippe notes that it's a bit hard for others to know when Corbeau is joking, to which Corbeau replies... "who says I am?"

Apparently, the research they did is that I need to make a donut with 310 points in sweet and sour, 100 spicy, and 40 bitter and fresh. Oh, and I have to put in some plot device Rust Syndicate spice called Epice Noire. It's all just so random and shoehorned in just so that we have another long collection quest to do. I was fortunate enough to have the berries at this point to make the epic donut called Bad Dreams Cruller, or whatever, but it is just a bit silly that neither works with the dreams theme of Darkrai, nor the more sci-fi bent of Hyperspace distortions. This is compounded with the fact that... well, these nonsense requirements is just a way to force people to grind even more after a bout of grinding, yeah? Wow, this DLC is horrible with the grinding. 

Anyway, we gather in front of Prism Tower and we get a rather generic (even by Pokemon standards) roll call about being ready to save people and stuff. Corbeau and Phillippe take over the duty of gathering everyone around Prism Tower, and there's a bit where holo-Jacinthe starts appearing and nosing her business into everyone and being her whiny self about not being allowed to lead the mission, but Corbeau quickly gives her an answer she's satisfied with by saying something about letting a trainer of her caliber being freed from managing logistics. 

There are some short bits of dialogue as the characters gather -- Gwynn hanging out with Canari and Tarragon, causing Ivor to run around yelling for her; Jacinthe bothering Grisham and Griselle; a short bit of Jacinthe praising Lebanne; Naveen and Taunie arguing about curry. Oh, and Emma actually shows up for this finale, having missed the main story one. 

Korrina, Taunie, Ansha and myself stand on the top of Prism Tower, perched on the edge... it's quite dangerous, particularly with the kid, no? And Operation Mega Donut begins, and... man, it's a bit silly to have everyone just tap their Key Stones and have the light of the power of friendship fly up to the donut, yeah? At least have them mega evolve their partner Pokemon? It's not going to be something new, but at least it would make more sense with the 'power of mega evolution' and everything. Sigh. Anyway, the power flows to the donut, which Hoopa eats. She flies up and briefly the image of Hoopa Unbound appears behind her, and she stabilizies the gigantic rift, allowing us to go through...

The location that we end up in is an island. Specifically, New Moon Island from Generation IV, where the Darkrai event would take place in the few regions that had the Wi-Fi event happen. The environment is honestly nothing special, even if it is a novelty in this game. 

Korrina stops us halfway through and finally deduces that the Pokemon we're facing is Darkrai. Which is, again, very anticlimactic considering that most experienced audiences would already know; while newer ones wouldn't have any idea what Darkrai is. No foreshadowing whatsoever, and if you're going to not really explain and name-drop it, might as well as just have Darkrai's actual physical appearance be the introduction. 

After explainins Darkrai's powers, Korrina gets a bit angry at this perversion of Mega Evolution, which is supposed to be a wondrous thing that's the ultimate bond between a partnership... but it's tormenting poor Darkrai now. 

However, halfway towards the boss arena is a familliar figure... it's AZ and Floette. Or rather, an echo of AZ and Floette, which Taunie quickly points out. It's 'just a dream, but then life is a dream'. This echo of AZ ends up basically allowing Taunie and Korrina to say goodbye to AZ in a way, which is a bit of a cheap way to do it... but this sequence with AZ and the music behind it was way more emotional than anything in the entirety of this DLC, so I'm going to let the contrived coincidence slide. Taunie is quite upset that AZ has passed away without giving her the chance to say goodbye while thyey were dealing with the tower. 

AZ thanks Taunie and Korrina, and praises them both for their growths. Taunie is a lot more emotional, but Korrina's a lot more... well, she takes it a lot better. AZ notes that he had wished to welcome Korrina properly to Lumiose, but life has a way of laughing at all the best-laid plans in the world. This ghostly AZ finally ends his little meeting by thanking me. Our time together, short as it is, was precious. "After wandering in the dark for as long as I have, your words are almost blindingly bright". AZ then gives us some words of encouragement, before he disappears. Taunie urges us to go. 

And we enter a grotto, with the circular image of the real Lumiose City hanging overhead like a full moon. 

As Darkrai's voices continue to speak, we get a cutsecne! We see the 'moon' in the background, we get some blurring and Darkrai is standing there. Yes, standing. Darkrai's got feet, most famously shown in his feature movie, but it really does look quite creeepy being long, extended and looking like someone stretched a shadow from the ground. Darkrai retracts his legs and flies in front of the camera, eyes glowing, and we get the Darkrai boss fight!

Darkrai is at level 200, but the Epice Noire donut actually sets my party to almost be around that level so this is a point where the game is actually properly optimized for a fair fight and I don't have to wonder if I fed Hoopa the right size donut or not. I brought in a team somewhat equipped to fight Darkrai... okay, it's mostly just Hawlucha, Meganium, Diancie and maybe Mewtwo that I'm relying on. But I find it hilarious that for the most part of this initial battle, I relied on a mega-evolved luchador bird to suplex this nightmare ghost.

Darkrai's special attacks are his signature Dark Void, which puts me to sleep and I don't know if this is unique to the raid battle, but it also damages my boys continually while they are drowsy. 

The fight against regular Darkrai is, to be frank, not the hardest. But then he flies up and mega evolves, and... what is this? Mega Darkrai is just a big blob. It first appears as a big oval with tentacle hands, a tentacle 'tail', and a mass of trailing tentacles on its rear side. Its front side has bright pink markings resembling an eyeball. What the hell? ... and then the eyeball markings blorp together like a creepy flower and Darkrai's regular head, albeit with stringier hair, pops out like a flower or something. Okay? 

Not much I can say about this raid battle. Dark Void is still threatening, but the most annoying attack is Future Fight, which rains down psychic meteors around a location. Oh, and it summons clones a couple of times. At this point it's just doging, spamming plus moves, and just whittling Mega Darkrai's health down until it gives up the ghost (heh) and I catch him in a Dusk Ball. Success! 

Taunie, Korrina and Corbeau all congratulate me on a job well done, and with that we return to the real Lumiose, having dispersed the massive hyperspace hole. Korrina speculates that Darkrai was hiding on top of Prism Tower to avoid everyone else in the city, since the tower was closed off for redevelopment. But this also made Darkrai right there to be exposed to Ange's mega energy when it went supernova, causing Darkrai's powers to go wild. They then conclude that Darkrai was just out of control and not actively malicious, something that I think all previous dialogue have already made quite clear... but okay. 

There's then discussion about Ansha's goal, which we'll follow up with next. Ansha then reiterates how happy she is to be part of Team MZ, we do a group fist bump, and credits roll. The credits features a lot more secnes that are just reused from the gameplay, but it ends with a childish drwaing of Team MZ (with me being drawn with the default starter green jacket), Ansha and Hoopa in front of Prism Tower. 

After credits roll, there's a bit where Team MZ gathers in the sofas, discussing Ansha's request again and formalizing Ansha's requests. They then lampshade the fact that Corbeau will call, and we walk up to his office before he has the opportunity to call us. Corbeau tells us that they detected strong radiation in two locations, a distinctive pair of brightly hued hyperspace distortions... called the Ruby Distortion and Sapphire Distortion. Of... of course.

Learning of Ansha's quest for Rayquaza, Corbeau then recalls his mentor, a gentleman from Kanto that is a boss of an organization. Giovanni? Corbeau is a student of Giovanni? No wonder he's got style. Corbeau learned about Johto and Hoenn legendaries from Giovanni, and Lida helps to collaborate some of the Hoenn backstories. It's a nice (if random) revelation that Lida is from Hoenn, and we get a retelling of the Groudon/Kyogre fight, and how they were calmed down by Rayquaza... I think anyone reading these Pokemon let's play blogs would be familiar with the plot of the Generation III games, right? 

Anyway, I would be excited if Corbeau didn't jump straight into telling me that I need to get ready for another grind. Why. Why can't this just be a regular side-quest, why??? 

As you probably can tell, I do enjoy, for the most part, the story of Mega Dimensions as much as I do think Ansha is a bit of a flat character. But damn, the padding via grinding is driving me insane. 

Random Notes:

• The game is really ambiguous and flip-floppy whether the NPCs we meet in Hyperspace are really people from the real world dragged into Lumiose, or if they are copies created in Hyperspace. Some quests (like the Naveen-vs-Canari one) implies the latter; this main quests implies everyone we meet in that sequence are the real people; the hyperspace battle zones are definitely 'fake' people... but some of the sidequests are a bit ambiguous. 
  
• Zach, Le Eternel Z: "Wow! I managed to reach a place that's not on the map! I must be an amazing driver!"
• Mable: "If I knew that this place was safe, I'd love to do some research... but I do value my own life." Gee, thanks, Mable, for that vote of confidence on the safety of these interdimensional planes. 
• Grisham: "I suppose we'd better prepare, too." Griselle: "We ARE prepared!" Griselle just has an expression that screams 'I'm done' when Jacinthe pulls off her nonsense antics, and, sister, same.
• Ansha's childish crayon drawings does bypass the need to make two versions of the drawing for male protag/Taunie and female protag/Urbain. Everyone looks like a stick figure! 
• Corbeau and Lida seem to confirm that at least for Rayquaza, there's only THE Rayquaza, the one from the Hoenn region. Nice, we're going back to at least some legendaries being special and only existing as a singular species throughout the various games. 

Let's Play Pokemon Legends Z-A, Part 43: Lumiose Foodies

More side-quests as I grind towards the finale of the Mega Dimensions DLC, and pulling back the curtain a bit on the production of these articles, there's a bunch more side-quests while doing the DLC's "post-game", such as it is. Some of them may be merged together here, since I took notes/screenshots and am just following the order of how I experienced these events. 

Most important is meeting another new Mega Evolution... and this time, it is Golurk! I wasn't as excited about this as Golisopod, but I love Golurk and I love that its Mega Evolution ties to its Pokedex entry noting that the seals around its chest is holding in its true power. Mega Golurk is a design similar to Mega Banette where this seal is removed, and its power is just overflowing out... taking the form of... butterfly wings? I do like the extra bits of glowing light around Golurk's 'chains', and the X across his chest. Pretty cool design, I have no complaints about Mega Golurk. 

Another Mega Evolution is one from the newer games, Mega Glimmora... which is also a design that I feel is quite logical considering how it looked like before. Glimmora is a very dynamic design that's meant to be appreciated as a moving 3D model, with the flower closing and opening, and Mega Glimmora takes it up to eleven by showcasing the impressiveness of the 3D model the way Mega Steelix did back in Generation Vi. It has got six huge chunks of petals rotating and moving in synchrony around the main body, Pretty cool design, and one that's quite enjoyable to look at. I don't really think that much about Glimmora, but it is a pretty fun design. 

The last of the 'hyperspace scuffle' events where we do a double battle against a pair of characters from the same faction is Grisham and Griselle, on top of a random building. Emma is the one that shows up here, asking some questions to them. Grisham and Griselle are happy to oblige, and we get another double battle. This one was very easy for me becuase my donut is particularly overleveled for this rift. Yay, Donut crafting and berry gathering skills being more important than the core gameplay, woo.

Emma asks Grisham and Grisellle about Xerosic in particular, querying why he was working for Team Flare. Grisham explains that Xerosic was working on ways to enhance humanity's abilities in a way not dissimilar to mega evolution, and the result of this research was the Expansion Suit. Grisham and Griselle were apparently planned to be the original test subjects, but those plans ended up shifting and Emma became the one to bear the Expansion Suit instead. 

Emma notes that Xerosic was always kind to her (despite the... brainwashing?) and she wanted to know more about who Xerosic was as a person. Grisham notes that while Xerosic valued research over all else, the exception was when Emma was involved, because he showed kindness to her. I have the options to say 'remember him hoow you wish to', and 'I don't think his kindness was a lie'. 

Which... I dunno. It really did feel that when I was playing through XY that Xerosic was fully villainous, and was playing Emma like a regular manipulator and that he just didn't have the guts to go through it all the way. Don't really like the idea of him being portrayed in this more positive manner, but maybe I have to rewatch the XY Emma story again. 

Canari has a quest for me that asks me to last 30 seconds in a 'dodging' little minigame. Which I thought was kind of cute, where I dodge around in the Racine Construction garage while Ampharoses and Hippowdons shoot attacks at me. It's not difficult, but it's a cute little minigame that's a nice little diversion. 

Cafe Introversion is besieged by a random Nacli on the rooftop that launches salt into people's coffee. Who does that? I have to run up to the rooftops to chase tthe Nacli, and this is kind of interesting becuase I need to catch it. Okay? Like a criminal on trial, Cafe Introversion's barista brings up the Nacli and shows it to the customer... who ends up actually liking the salted coffee. Oh, I guess it's like those salted coffees from Vietnam? That's kind of a cool little twist, and not one that I expected when this quest started. 

The barista ends up being a bit surprised, but very quickly decides to work this salted coffee into their secret menu for 'those in the know'. 

A differrnt cafe, Cafe Triste, wants to have less customers and its proprietor Suzie wants to find a way to reduce the crowd that comes to her store, without losing all of her customres. She wants to offer what's essentially weird hipster food, food that's weird enough to attract a certain clientele, but to turn off most of the masses. Her solution? Sushi coffee. Sushi would clash horribly with coffee, and so it will 'attract only a modest crowd of true enthusiasts'. For this, she wants me to show her the three Tatsugiri forms. 

I end up eating the sushi alongside coffee as a reward... and as I do so, I got bamboozled by a random food blogger, with pretty fun streamer dialogue as 'Brenda's Besties' notes what a bold and strange and interesting cuisine innovation Kalos is doing right now. This leads to a mssive crowd gathering around Cafe Triste, a brand-new 'hidden gem', much to the distress of poor Suzie. 

Speaking of coffee, Brula, one of the baristas in the most expensive coffee places in Lumiose City, gives me a quest to come and taste her 1,000,000 Poke-Euro coffees, the Ultimate Beans of Ultimate Supremacy. This quest is a lot of dialogue and a lot of zooming in to Brula's face as she keeps asking me if I'm sure, if I'm truly a coffee gourmet, and all that. It's just a huge money sink disguised as a side-quest, but I found the little jab at super-expensive, super-posh coffee (and wine) culture to be funny enough to enjoy this. 

Another quest has a rather atypical Pokemon choice. A rich boy is struggling with getting his stinky Pokemon to take a bath... but instead of like, a Garbodor or a Mabostiff or something, it's the adorable Wigglytuff, who gets some cute angry expressions in protest. I need to use bubble beam in a battle against him, but Wigglytuff gets wise to his tricks, slaps him and floats off. Bad Wigglytuff! Baths are for your own good! 

A rather long sidequest involves a dude called Adver, who offers to give me one of Charcadet's two evolutoinary items. He, however, then goes into a long tirade about how he wished since he was a child to have this over-the-top elaborate backstory about having a rival that also has a Charcadet, and that he and his rival would grow up with different evolutions and backstories and it's all angsty and very shonen anime. It's actually quite cute, particularly with the zoom-in and giving the sidequest more cinematic proportions. 

Ultimately I pick Ceruledge and fight his Armarouge, but not before he goes through a whole LARP session of meeting me under the bridge, going 'oh, my rival from the past!' and because everything is just made-up, I can say whatever I want about the outcome of our past and he has to basically roll with it. It's actually quite neat. I didn't level up my Ceruledge so it gets beaten down by the Armarouge, but I still complete the quest regardless because all the guy wants is a LARP partner. That's cute. 

I also finally collect the 999 Gimmighoul coins to evolve Chesty into Gholdengo. The dude I bring Gholdengo to has the gall to ask if I want to give Gholdengo to him and I'm like... no, that's my Pokemon. He has some words talking about how he's going to resolve himself to evolve a Gholdengo of his own, which... is a bit of an anticlimax to such a long quest. Seeing Gholdengo surf around is cute, though. 

Speaking of another endagme money-sink grind, in addition to the TM vendor to sink my mega crystals to, the proprietor of Cafe Ultimo, Brula, has created a super-duper expensive coffee. Instad of the $100,000 Ultimo Brew, Brula introduces a brand-new super supreme cream of the crop coffee that can only be harvested at a select area, and a few can be grown at any time... etc etc etc to make it feel exclusive. And this brew costs... one million poke-euros! That sure is a money sink all right!

A guy shows up and asks me if I know about the now closed-down Cafe Lysandre, being rather sad that his favourite cafe is closed for good. After a call with Grisham, he directs me to some of his Team Flare Nouveau allies, leading to a barista called Trois who brings in her old master, Mait. Mait has retired, but both he and Trois used to work for Cafe Lysandre. They then challenge me and the client to a double battle. Rather interestingly, Trois uses Liepard and Flareon; while Mait uses Scrafty and Houndoom. Scrafty and Liepard are actually the two Pokemon used by the two nameless Team Flare Grunts that were disguised as the waiters in Cafe Lysandre in Pokemon XY, and this is a nod to those grunts. I appreciate the continuity nod!

This quest ends rather wholesomely, with Mait revealing that he has retired completely from cafe-making, but doesn't tell the client that. He lets us drink coffee in Cafe Lysandre, before revealing that it's his protege Trois that brewed the coffee and they are pleased that the taste of their coffee was passed down to a younger generation. That was a nice little conclusion, I think, to two previously nameless NPCs. 

Finally, we'll close this off with a fun little sidequest. A Rust Syndicate Grunt is yelling around the sewers, having heard a deathly scream. Just like Corbeau, he's a good guy and actually wants to investigate, but is too scared and frames it in a way that he's simultaneously trying to intimidate me while also begging for my help. 

In the sewers, we get to see Cofagrigus floating in its full sealed coffin form. Punching it causes it to go "guh wuh wuh wuhh!!!" and float away. I basically have to clear the Cofagrigus from this side of the sewer, beating up the floating sacrophagi while dodging the local wild Pokemon. There's an Alpha Cofagrigus at the end that fights me... but the one that abducts a person is actually floating on the ceiling, tucked neatly a bit away from sight. It took me a fair bit to find it!

This Cofagrigus actually did trap someone in it, dropping a Canatic fan, who ended up being attacked by the Cofagrigus when he yelled in excitement at seeing the newly-arrived sarcophagus Pokemon. The Cofagrigus's insides is apparently so comfortable that he... fell asleep. Yeah. You could fall asleep permanently, being sealed in a coffin like that. All that's well ends well, but the Rust Syndicate Grunt gets a funny little jumpscare when the Cofagrigus appears behind him. This one is cute. With some extension, I actually could see this being a 'Cofagrigus spotlight' chapter of the manga or episode of the anime. 

Anyway, next up we'll conclude the main story of Mega Dimensions, although there is still quite a fair bit of content to grind through. 

Random Notes:

• More Infinite ZA battles! I fight Emma! And... some others! I think I'm slowly running out of opponents before I trigger the final quests. 
• This particular blog was written in conjunction with the other two 'main story' ones, so some of these quests may be unlocked after I defeat the final DLC boss... but it's the order of me doing the side-quests, if that makes sense. 
  
• More side-quests that I don't have much to say about:
• The author man is back, with a new set of Pokemon (a Fairy, a Dragon and two Alphas) he wants to see, and makes a silly love-romance story that devolves into Romeo & Juliet... apparently, despite the cheesy writing, his script ended up being adapted into a movie, starring Sabrina and Brycen of all people. He then has another set of Pokemon and makes it a locked-room Sherlock Holmes story. He offers to repeat the story with different Pokemon, but it's such a poorly-done quest in general that I really don't care. 
• A waiter wants a classy and gallant Pokemon to serve at his cafe, and wants me to give him an Indeedee. The Indeedee ends up serving giant Lumiose Galettes the size of half the table, which was a genuinely funny punchline. 
• A terrible quest that barely has anything to do with Pokemon has a lady ask me to watch her store for a while, and I have to memorize item prices while people run in and go 'give me 3, uh, fizzy drinks and 2, like, the water one, oh wait...' At one point a Grumpig comes up and it's kinda funny, but the whole quest is super boring. 
• Someone trying to set up a 'sweet dreams' service with his Musharna asks my aid to help put a customer's Flamigo to sleep. It's a bit short and bland, but at least it ties to the lore of Musharna. 
• Hidden on top of the roof is also a quest with Rotoms, where a guy fight me on a 1-Pokemon-battle with all forms of Rotom. It's the way to get the Rotom Catalogue, but dear god, can't he just have all five forms in the same party? You can make the terrible puns (which I admit are fun) without having to reset the battle every single form!
  
• A guy goes on a date with a lady who really likes Purrloin, and keeps asking me for questions about Purrloin trivia. Sounds like a terrible way to get to know a date, since he doesn't actually know a lot of the stuff he's discussing with her. 
• Suzie does actually highlight that serving curry would put Cafe Tsite in the shadows of Hotel Z, so despite the team bullying Taunie about it all the time, turns out that her curry is well-known enough to have a reputation! 
• To be honest, Charcadet, Armarouge and Ceruledge are so under-showcased in Scarlet/Violet, and they were games that spotlighted most of their new Pokemon relatively well. I always found their designs to be silly Mega Man immigrants, and this is probably the first time I've ever really cared about them in-game and that's through the silly chuuni quest. 
• "Knowing the bitter taste of defeat teaches one how to draw out the bitter notes in their coffee." Okay, Trois.