Let's Play Pokemon Violet - The Indigo Disk, Part 12: Peach Devil

We pick up where we left off after last part where we fight a bunch of mochi-possessed villagers, and... somehow, despite his possessed sister being the whole reason I'm here in the first place, Kieran doesn't connect two and two and realize that the dance that the two farmers were doing is the same thing that Carmine is doing. Whether it's a curse or something done by a Pokemon or whatever, you'd think that Kieran is smart enough to realize what's going on? 

Nemona is wandering around in the background, though, so we chase after her, passing a whole bunch of brainwashed nameless NPC's going mochi-mochi in the town. 

I go to the Festival Hall, and Kieran's grandparents are there, seemingly still normal. They left Carmine sleeping at home, though I do think that it's not the wisest thing to do when your granddaughter is possessed. At least leave someone to take care of her! Grandpa (who we got the name of, it's Yukito) talks a bit about how they're here to buy some festival noodles with the hopes that they will make Carmine better. 

Grandma Hideko? She's already possessed, holding a plate filled with donut-shaped mochi. She is very insistent, telling grandpa to have some mochi. Eat it. Eat the mochi. 

Despite all the creepiness going on with Carmine, Grandpa just shrugs and eats the mochi after maybe two lines of arguments. Even if Grandpa hasn't seen what's going on in town, his insane granddaughter is literally yelling 'mochi mochi'. You'd think he'd be suspicious or at least uncomfortable. I guess he just really listens to Grandma? 

Neither Kieran nor my character do anything to stop this, and, of course, Grandpa's eyes becomes purple as he gets infected with the mochi zombie virus. The purple miasma consumes both old people, and they start yelling MOCHI MOCHIIII and do the dance. 

Grandma Hideko and Grandpa Yukito challenge us to a double battle, and it's actually quite interesting. Grandpa uses Arbok and Weezing, the two original Pokemon of the anime's Team Rocket. Grandma, meanwhile, wields a Chandelure and a Mamoswine for some reason. That one was a bit bizarre!

They go down pretty easily, and kind of just stands in place rigidly like the two farmers we beat up. Kieran panics, afraid that he'll end up like the rest of them because of the curse or whatever until we figure out that, yes, all the people yelling 'mochi mochi' has something to do with the mochi that they eat. It's kind of mind-bogglingly simple and I think that's the part of this whole story that irks me the most. 

Arven calls at this point, because he and Penny are kind of besieged in the Community Center. In some typical horror movie trope, they are attacked by folks offscreen and all we can hear is things breaking, people screaming, before the line goes dead. Penny and Arven have fallen to the mochi people, it appears, and there's something ominous as Penny yells about there being "something there" at Peachy's. 

Kieran and I rush back to town, to find that... Arven and Penny are absolutely all right. They gave me the wrong impression! Penny saw something weird, knocks Arven, and the phone being dropped was what caused all the screaming over the phone. But then Pecharunt shows up hovering above Peachy's in his 'sealed' form. I do like the fact that Arven and Penny are bamboozled, thinking that it's a drone.

Pecharunt then attacks, and I get why the mochi are shaped like donuts -- they're supposed to be the segments in his chains! Pecharunt shoots a bunch of mochi-donuts from the halves of his peach-shells. My character manage to dodge it. Kieran, the doofus, gets clonked in the forehead. Arven and Penny swallow them whole, and... I guess they have zero gag reflex, because they just swallow the two mochi whole. 

And, of course, they begin to glow purple and demand a battle. Moche MOCHEEEE! The game has some fun emphasizing just how much Penny is more worked up than Arven, yelling a lot and mixing up her 'Mochi' with 'Eevee'. Which... leads her to yell 'ECHEEEE' a couple of times which, uh, is kind of unfortunate. (Penny would be the one out of the three Paldea buddies to be an ecchi fan). 

Pecharunt just looms in the back of this battle, constantly splitting apart his peach shield and having it open and close. 

And... the fight is a double battle between Penny and Arven against Kieran and me. Arven has Greedent, Mabosstiff and Cloyster. Penny has Umbreon, Leafeon and Sylveon. It's... it's not super duper exciting, honestly, since I've fought Penny and Arven so many times and they didn't even give them new Pokemon this time around. 

After they get beaten down, little Pecharunt actually tries to slink away and act all innocent, which is actually adorable! 

Kieran tries to stop Pecharunt, but Pecharunt just cha-cha-cha slides away in his sealed peach form. For something that's basically a ball on a point, Pecharunt can move. This time, we chase down Pecharunt down the west side of town all the way to Loyalty Plaza, which is still ruined and will remain forever ruined because I don't want to give the greedy caretaker money to fix up the shrine to assholes. 

Ahem! 

The possessed Arven, Penny and Carmine are following us, as is basically the population of the entire town. Nemona is waiting with Pecharunt at the destroyed shrine, and of course she is also possessed. Where Penny was just mixing up Mochi and Eevee, Nemona is actually saying some words like 'match' into her possessed insanity, and Kieran even lampshades this. 

And... throughout all this the music just jumps back and forth between the very calming Kitakami background OST, or the ridiculous circus chicken dance music. And I know I sound a bit like a broken record at this point, but damn, it is distracting that none of the music actually match the mood. 

I fight Nemona with her full party. Lycanroc, Goodra, Pawmot, Kommo-o, Milotic and Meowscarada. At this point Blueberry Academy has kind of leveled up my Pokemon so much that I kinda steamroll Nemona without trying too much. I had Ogerpon, the shiny Camerupt, plus a bunch of Paradox Pokemon in my party, and they just absolutely steamroll the opposition.

And finally, Pecharunt himself comes down to play. 

And... I gotta do it. I gotta have Ogerpon show up and fight the shit out of Pecharunt. It seems only fair! Ogerpon even gets a "GRAH! Pon PON!!!" angry reaction when she sees Pecharunt in the battle. Pecharunt also has some special interactions with the Lousy Trio, but honestly, winning this entire battle with just Ogerpon is kind of appropriate. 

Because, well, if you forget in the midst of all the chicken-dancing silliness, Pecharunt corrupted the Loyal Trio and mutated them into monsters, and is implied to be the actual mastermind behind everything terrible that has happened to Ogerpon. Sending the Loyal Trio to attack Ogerpon, attempting to steal the mask, and indirectly involved in the death of Ogerpon's old trainer. By the way, I love that short video in the official Pokemon site detailing Pecharunt's backstory, which is implied to be framed in such a way to garner the audience's sympathy towards Pecharunt. Manipulative little devil, isn't he? 

Anyway, I tend to not give a shit about terastalization in this game, but I think in this case it's appropriate narratively that Ogerpon activates the full power of the masks that represent her old trainer, goes full-on giant oni mask mode, and I let Ogerpon just Throat CHOP THROAT CHOP THROAT CHOP Pecharunt in his non-existent throat until Ogerpon wins. 

Now this music, by the way, fits the battle. It's a bit more tense with some background taiko drums. Thank goodness. Pecharunt's signature ability is that any Pokemon he poisons gets confused as well, which represents the whole 'mind control poison aspect of his powers, but... despite me not using any berries to heal Ogerpon, she just keeps breaking through confusion. That's the power of VENGEANCE for you! It actually was pretty fun. 

And eventually I catch Pecharunt in a Love Ball, because the heart on it looks like an upside-down peach. Pecharunt is defeated, and Ogerpon's revenge is satiated. 

And... I do like this storyline. Pecharunt doesn't have much to say or do, but the context gives us enough to close the book on Ogerpon's story. I kind of wish Ogerpon actually had some cutscene closure with either Kieran or Pecharunt, and that's what I feel is kind of missing from the DLC. Neither Ogerpon, Terapagos or Pecharunt have much of a closure beyond the boss fighting, and I thought they all could've done with some. But oh well.

The miasma is gone, and Kieran (who's been holding back the zombie crowd) recaps everything to Nemona, Carmine, Arven and Penny, all of whom have amnesia of the time they spent doing the chicken dance. We have some brief gags between Penny's sarcastic comments and Nemona jumpscaring the party by acting out the chicken dance one last time, but otherwise I really don't think there's much to say in the wrap-up.

And we cut to 'several days later', where the Paldean students prepare to return to Paldea from the Community Center. Carmine and Kieran come to see us off, and apparently Nemona has battled the Kitakami siblings 'dozens of times', causing Arven and Penny to snark that they can form a 'Nemona Survivors Club'. 

The events of this whole epilogue basically has closed off Kieran's story, and he finally gets his confidence back to go back to Blueberry Academy, wanting to give it another shot. Carmine has also apparently taken a sabbatical from school throughout all of this, and is jubilant that they can go back. Kieran acknowledges that Carmine cares for him in her own wacky 'big personality' way, and... and that's the end. 

It's a nice bit of storytelling, poor mood music notwithstanding. I do think that while it's not a perfect storyline, they put in a fair bit of effort in trying to draw some thoroughline with Kieran's story, and to wrap up the Kitakami mythology. I do feel that ultimately, this does reinforce my belief that the Blueberry Academy, despite being a great overworld area, ends up being a gigantic distraction from the stories that the game developers wanted to tell -- making the Indigo Disk segment of the DLC feel fragmented and awkward. It's ultimately a small complaint, though!

And... now I'm back to hunting. I did detail some of what I did off-screen in the 'random notes' section, including starter-hunting and doing a lot of upgrades to the Blueberry Academy. I feel like the game lends itself well to 'grinding', but the BP missions do get so repetitive and I'm kinda miffed that I can't do it in greater Paldea or in Kitakami since there are some Pokemon drops that I would like to farm. I'm going to be playing Pokemon Violet a lot less intensely now (and real life caused me to extend this playthrough maybe two months longer than I would've otherwise) but I do plan to unlock all the gym leader rematches in Blueberry Academy -- which wouldn't be hard; it'll just be time-consuming. This BP grinding stuff is admittedly a fun, brainless way to play the game while I watch TV. 

I'll maybe do one more post later on if I have enough stuff to say about the post-post-game stuff in Blueberry Academy, with all the legendary hunting and the rematches and whatnot, but right now I'm going to focus on finally writing up the final "Gotta Review 'Em All" for Generation IX!

Once again, thank you guys for reading through my ramblings as I play through this Pokemon game. It's frankly surprising just how well these Pokemon articles do compared to a lot of the other articles I do on this blog. 

Random Notes:

• Again, I really wished that we had creepier music. Save the funky-dance music for the chicken dance reveals, sure, but I really wished that the atmosphere actually was a bit creepier than it is. The visuals are good enough, and the blank expressions of the people dancing to mochi-mochi is honestly creepy enough, but I feel like this whole DLC would've worked much better with a different set of music. 
  
• Honestly, the music when we get the buildup to the orchard workers or when Pecharunt attacks Arven and Penny are quite suitable. It's just that they really like the goofy theme. 
• I do like that there's a laughter track in the background of the annoying theme, which I assume is Pecharunt himself. 
• Penny got herself a Veevee Mask from the festival grounds offscreen. That's adorable. 
• There's nothing super exciting about it, but I've finally unlocked the Canyon Biome's upgrade, which puts in the rest of the starters. Squirtle, Litten, a bunch of others. 
• I caught a Shiny Drillbur! I didn't even realize she was shiny until my Pokemon refused to attack it. They really ramped up the shiny rate in this game, huh?
• Also, I've finally gone and tried to complete my Blueberry dex as best as I can with only a copy of Violet. A couple of the starters were a bit hidden! Torchic and Cyndaquil only spawn in specific caves in the Polar Biome, and I missed Totodiles in the swampy waters in the Savanna Biome entirely! I actually had to look up a guide for those. 
• I also upgraded a lot of the stuff that I could in the Club Room. There's an item printer, a bunch of new poses and new music... and I finally invited a trainer. I invited Katy, the Bug gym trainer. From Katy's arrival I don't think we're going to get a whole ton of new content for me to talk about. I don't think we get any real new context the way that the original post-game rematches do. Or maybe Katy's just boring? She adds a sixth Pokemon, an Araquanid, to her party, but that's basically it. 
• I also did some rematches with Crispin and Amarys, and I guess this progression will depend on who shows up in the League Club Room. I'm not sure what changes this, but I guess I'll just fight whoever's around. Not a whole ton to say about their rematches, but they don't give me new clothes like Drayton. Boo. 
• Amarys gives me a brand-new pose, the 'finger heart' pose. I ignore poses almost entirely in this game, but I love the dialogue where Amarys is apparently taught this pose by Carmine, who somehow got her to believe that this is an 'invincible' pose. That's why she did it!
• Crispin gave me a bunch of sandwich picks. Man, you're lame, Crispin.
• I actually want to do a playthrough of New Pokemon Snap, but I'm not sure if there's going to be enough content in it for me to do a let's play series. We'll see. 

Let's Play Pokemon Violet - The Indigo Disk, Part 11: Mochi Horror Dance Party

First up, I capture Iron Boulder. I honestly don't have much to say here -- Iron Boulder is just straight-up a robotic Terrakion. Those ugly-ass plastic tumours on his shoulders look more 'natural' on the artificial Iron Boulder's body. He's Rock/Psychic, and... yeah, the Psychic common type between the Paradox Lightsabers of Justice is a bit weird. Iron Boulder didn't take too much time for me to capture, it's just a bit surprising that he's hiding behind a giant grassy slab next to a waterfall. It's a bit annoying that they don't give us a proper map of Area Zero. You'd think after completing the main story and two DLC's, they do it? Eh. That's all the new legendaries. 

I did run around and bump into Articuno in one of the waterfalls in the icy parts of Paldea, and I captured him. This isn't my first or second or third Articuno that I've caught, though, so I don't really have much to say here. Cool Generation I Kanto music, though. I also captured Zekrom, who's just hanging out on the South-East corner in the map just hanging out while I was there for a completely different reason -- Axew hunting. Again, just like Articuno, a real nice remix of the Unova legendary music. 

______________________________________

And now... it's time I do the Mochi Madness DLC! This one was a bit... confusing for me, and I really wished Nintendo and Pokemon don't do a repeat of this. Just... just make your DLC chapters downloadable in an automatic patch, man. 

I had to go online to look up a whole guide on how to activate this, since it's a rather significant chunk of content. In addition to finishing up the storylines of the main game, Teal Mask and Indigo Disk, I need to upgrade my game, go to Mystery Gift to download the mysterious Pecha Berry, and go to the general shop in Kitakami. And while it's perhaps somewhat intuitive for people who're a bit more caught up in all of this theorycrafting and easter egg finding, it really was a rather 'guide dang it' moment. The other DLC or postgame content had people call us to clue us in to what to do, and this is a pretty long chunk of content -- not a relatively shorter sequence like the time-mist stuff with the real Professor Turo. 

Anyway, with that rant out of the way... the moment I go back to Kitakami, my attention is drawn to the dusty old doll that looks like a peach, with an obvious seam line down the middle. I can interact with it, and the comment basically identifies it as a 'dusty old decoration' mixed with all the daily goods and things.

I do really like this, since I really do appreciate the 3D games' attention to moulding the background accessories to these shops and rooms. The fact that this little thing turned out to not just be significant, but to straight up be the mysterious legendary Pokemon itself is pretty glorious! I did notice this peach during my runaround of Kitakami, but I really didn't think much of it beyond it being a decoration. My character briefly wonders if the doll just moved.

Arven then distracts me with a call. He's apparently caught up with what I've been doing for the past year, and kind of wants to visit my house, and gets excited when I accept. 

The moment I turn back, the mochi decoration is gone and my character is shocked and bamboozled at the spookiness. The calm Kitakami music also stops abruptly, before the title "MOCHI MAYHEM" with purple goopy borders appear on screen. Okay, here we go!

At this point, the mystery pecha berry or whatever also disappears from my inventory, so presumably the proximity of that mysterious pecha berry that the powers of the internet granted to my character has awakened Pecharunt. Okay! 

So I fly back to my house, which I haven't been in for a long, long time. Penny and Nemona are already there, and we get some dialogue about Arven apologizing that the two tagged along. I'm just kind of happy that I don't have to go on a round trip to pick them up from different locations or whatever. We get some typical wackiness as original academy buddy trio hang out in my room. Penny gets super-excited about my Nintendo Switch, which is a fun little joke. 

It's kind of nice having these guys back. They're not like, the most well-written characters ever or anything, but it is nice to have the vibe of these familiar characters back. There are some nice touches here and there, with Penny being generally 'innocently rude', Arven being the one that's the most polite, and Nemona not getting social cues initially but jumping to help when it's pointed out to her. Arven also gets some rather 'awww' moments as he tells me about my very nice mom. It's a nice little reminder about his status as an orphan.

My character's mom gives me a letter from Kieran, and there's actually an option to be a jackass and tell mom that I don't know who Kieran is. She just shrugs it off, though, giving me the letter regardless. Kieran and Carmine went back to Kitakami after the events of Indigo Disk, and wants to catch up, and has enclosed with the letter a bunch of airplane tickets. Man, their family must be loaded!

There's a cute bit where I can hesitate before calling Kieran my friend, and Arven picks up on it, and gets instantly defensive about his status as BESTO FRIENDO. But, well, we all decide to fly off to Kitakami together. 

There's a brief scene of Penny arguing with her dad, who is apparently master of the dad jokes and makes puns like "adven-tour", and she grumbles about her ultra-annoying dad talk. Arven notes that, well, her dad is just probably an ultra-nice dad, and Penny actually realizes that she's being a bit of a jackass in regards to her dad, and ends up appreciating the gesture. Not to her dad's face, though. While Arven's parents are dead, Nemona doesn't really even acknowledge her parents in this conversation. We know her parents are rich but absent, and it's kind of sad, really. 

We arrive in Kitakami and after some initial comments by the Paldea gang, we meet up with the Caretaker. Who still doesn't have a name. Penny gets absolutely flabbergasted and horrified that my buddy Kieran doesn't have a smartphone. "How is this kid even alive?" she yells out, which I found very funny. 

The others have different priorities, though. Nemona heard about Kieran being the Champion of Blueberry Academy and she just wants to fight-fight-fight like a lunatic, while Arven is all insecure and very much wanting to defend his title of besto friendo. 

Interestingly, Kieran is still in his Indigo Disk era outfit. He's back to speaking like a dork, though, and he mumbles about things being 'crazy at home'. Instead of explaining anything about this, however, Nemona arrives and yells on top of her head about battle battle battle, and poor Kieran is just confused. Penny shows up and has the only sensible reaction out of the three, while Arven throws some passive-aggressive shade, identifying himself as the real Best Friend. The Bestest of all Best Friends. 

I do really like this little argument back and forth between them. Penny and Kieran kind of hit it off by both being kind of a break from their school (after being antagonists in both their schools) and Arven delivers some ridiculous lines like "Penny! Don't go sympathizing with the enemy! Keep this interloper at arm's length!" God bless you, Arven. 

Nemona, meanwhile, just bullrushes her way through social interactions and essentially all but drags Kieran off to battle in front of the community center. If this game has a more robust animation library, I bet she would've done so already. As Nemona and Kieran go off to battle, Arven realizes his mistake and mumbles about how Kieran's actually a good guy. 

Penny? "We introverts know how to recognize one another."

Ain't that the truth. 

I really appreciate the scripting in this DLC. Honestly, a lot of the storytelling and pacing in this game hasn't been the best, but the scripting has been pretty consistently top-notch, particularly for the main character NPC's. 

The fight, however, is over by the time I catch up to Nemona and Kieran. Nemona beat the piss out of Kieran, who is confused, but isn't too confused when I tell Kieran that Nemona is the champion of Paldea. One of many. Nemona, in all her battle-frenzy, walks up to Kieran and is all happy about the battle, noting that winning or losing doesn't matter as long as BATTLE happens. It's a blast. And... I didn't really think too much about it until I see the two of them interact on-screen, but Kieran's a pretty good foil for Nemona, isn't he? They're both obsessed with battles in a different degree. And there's a neat bit of character development for Kierean as he smiles and acknowledges Nemona's point. 

And then Carmine shows up out of nowhere, shocking the shit out of Arven. She's also got pink-purple eyes, and just looks forward... before going "m... mo... mochi MOCHI!!" and she does... uh... a dance or some shit, bobbing up and down with tucked arms and doing this weird series of... exercise movements? It's a chicken dance. I'm calling it a chicken dance. There's weird music in the background, and... it's just kind of weird. I think it's meant to be unsettling, but it's just so ridiculous that it doesn't quite have the same vibe of 'creepy but wacky' vibe that they're going for.

Nemona, as clueless as ever, thinks that Carmine might just want to join in all the BATTLE fun, but Kieran breaks the meeting up, and we drag Nemona back home offscreen. 

And this is when Kieran explains what's going on. Apparently this has been happening for a while, and the reason that Kieran sent the letter in the first place. And... was there really any reason for Kieran to be elusive about it, actually? I originally thought Kieran was 'already infected', that's why he sent multiple tickets to me in Paldea and didn't tell me the whole story, but apparently it's just some Kieran awkwardness. But that doesn't really explain why he doesn't tell me in the letter, or when we first meet up with Kieran in their parents' house. Sure, Nemona is a huge, gigantic distraction, but you'd think "guys I called you here because my sister has been possessed or something". 

There's a bit where they discuss the possibility of all of this being caused by a curse. Penny is a bit terrified by the idea of actual curses. Nemona, surprisingly, is the one that's the most on the ball, trying to figure out if there are any local legends about it. I guess she doesn't care about ghosts, she would punch the ghost. Nemona's got real strong 'dumb shonen protagonist' energy to her. Kieran mumbles about how I've already cakewalked through all of the local legends. They're all in my Pokemon box! Arven and Nemona quickly volunteer to help, and Penny also joins in because she doesn't believe in horror movie tropes. 

The quintet regroups in the community center, and they briefly note that the lady that runs the Peachy's shop is gone. That's not ominous at all, considering what's been happening. Nemona goes off to buy some soda pop or whatever, leaves behind some money, and sees some 'help yourself' mochi and ate it. Oh no, the zombie plague is spreading. 

Arven, Penny and Kieran decide to find the remote to the Community Center's television. Arven wants to watch movies, and Penny has the superior idea to play video games on the TV. Unfortunately, as Kieran points out, the TV is stuck playing the same tourism video on a loop. The Nameless Caretaker has hidden the remote, and the group gets excited over finding it. And it's a simple run-around as I go and check everything, but notably Nemona is going "..." and quietly looking at the exit while Penny, Arven and Kieran are running around. I, of course, find the remote. It's hidden in the planter for some reason. 

But by the time that I found the remote, Nemona's disappeared. My other buddies were standing in front of all the other doors, so Nemona's clearly gone out of the building. I did feel like the Kitakami BGM music is a bit too cheerful for this scene. Penny does the smart idea of immediately taking out her smartphone and calling Nemona, but she doesn't pick up -- and neither do they hear the ringing of the phone. Realizing that she's not in the Community Center anymore, our group... decides to split up. 

Okay, Penny, I know you said something about not liking horror movie tropes, but you really should've realized what's going on here. 

Right outside of the community center, the place is deserted. Peachy's is empty, and the bitchy nurse even warns me about how people have been acting weird in the village, and tells me to heal my Pokemon while I have the chance. Kieran recognizes two people that normally works the orchards, who eyes glaze over in purple... and go MOCHI MOCHI!

And I get it. It's pretty obvious from the get go that Pecharunt's making mochis that mind-control people into doing the mochi dance. With Nemona eating the free mochi, she's also been 'turned'. I don't even mind the whimsical imagery of the possessed humans yelling Mochi-Mochi all the time; Pokemon's never been into the grim-and-gritty things and having this extra layer of ridiculousness fits the genre. What I don't like, though, is the music design. The annoying thing is that as the talk with the two possessed villagers show, they actually have some creepy music, but it gets replaced after the cutscene and when people start dancing with this ridiculous track. I'm not the biggest fan. 

Anyway, Kieran and I fight Shige and Aya, who are possessed as they toss out a bunch of Pokemon. Salazzle, Ariados, Victreebel and Noctowl. Nothing too fancy -- I guess these are just possessed people with some local Pokemon. I do find it interesting that Kieran's Poliwrath is dead-set on doing a Belly Drum combo.

Are these Pokemon also possessed by the mochi? I remembered in Sun/Moon when Lusamine was possessed by Nihilego that her Pokemon also have a uniquely 'blank stare' effect to their eyes, but I don't know if the Salazzle and Noctowl that these guys use are just blindly following orders, or if they have fallen under Pecharunt's spell as well. 

And... with the two defeated, they just mutely go 'mochi mochi', all deflated despite a creepy purple miasma covering their bodies. The town is also completely deserted of NPC's, other than a couple that are doing the Mochi Chicken Dance. Apparently the mind-control zombie apocalypse is spreading, Carmine's been affected, and it looks like Nemona's also been affected. There's quite a bit that I wrote in this one, so I think we'll pick up on this next time!

Random Notes:

• I'm working on the Mochi Madness DLC in conjunction with writing up the 'Gotta Review 'Em All' segment for the Generation IX DLC Pokemon, so if that article gets released first, know that I've finished the Pecharunt quest before talking about his story. 
  
• I can fly in the Paldea overworld now! It's a fun little novelty. I don't necessarily think there's much left for me to explore in the overworld, but it's nice to be able to fly around and spot items from the sky. 
• When they arrive in Paldea, apparently in the bus ride on the way from the airport to Kitakami, Penny "loaded up on internet goodness" before she arrives in a town that may or may not have internet service. Is this something people do? And also, how does the bus somehow have better service than the town? 
• I do like that when Carmine is first doing the chicken dance, everyone's heads bob up and down slowly as they follow Carmine's movements. 
• Penny: "Sweets and carbonation! My two love languages!" She would be an energy drink kind of girl, wouldn't she?
• I do like the gag of Kieran lampshading that the TV in the community center only ever cycles through the same promotional video over and over again. That's not because the caretaker is trying to keep it on a loop, that's just because Nintendo's too lazy to program more pictures in a TV most players won't even notice!
• I'm slightly disappointed the remote isn't in the trash can. That feels like a very old-school Pokemon thing to do. 
• Kieran does give a reason about why the group splits up -- Kitakami's dangerous at night (dangerous from what? Hoothoots?) and both Kieran and I have experience running around in Kitakami. Plus, Nemona might return to the Community Center. But i honestly still think it's a dumb thing to do!
• I did some minor stuff in the Terarium. I still have the final upgrade to unlock for the starters, but I did spend some BP on improving the League Club room. I also did a trade with Drayton (with many of the 'catch a Psychic-type Pokemon' bullshit quests) and he gives me a Duraludon that... doesn't feel all that special other than a random ribbon. Okay, then. I think the rematch with Drayton has the exact same six Pokemon, but he gives me his clothes, a tracksuit. Okay? I'm trying to think if there's any specific characters I want to steal the clothes from, but I really can't think any other than Mela's ridiculous boots. 

Let's Play Pokemon Violet - The Indigo Disk, Part 10: The BP Grind

So a good chunk of what I've been doing is just running around collecting BP to both upgrade the Terarium but also to upgrade the Clubhouse. It's not something I'm really stressing about, honestly, since I got through most of what I wanted to with the game and I'm okay with this just being a passive game I slowly play over the year as I clear out content and unlock gym leader 'coaches' and whatnot. Again, the main part of what I do want to clear out would be the 'Mochi Madness' post-game in Kitakami (which the game doesn't really do a good job at cluing me to -- I need to download a mystery gift key item for no real reason instead of just making it part of the DLC) and to meet as many Pokemon as I can so I can write the "Gotta Review 'Em All" article.

It's also really nice to have multiple starters running around, and I do find that it's a nice initiative to get the players to start trying to complete the pokedex. Each starter you unlock and evolve to their final stage unlocks three pages of the Pokedex, which is such a rapid-fire way to get to the quota that Perrin wants before she gives me the Paradox Terrakion and Paradox Cobalion quests. 

I've unlocked the Coastal Biome expansion for the starters, and I do find it hilarious that while Popplio in the ocean does make sense, apparently Froakie also swims in the ocean. They're frogs! The sea will kill them! Grookey, Bulbasaur and Chikorita round out the rest of the Coastal Biome starters, and I'm quite happy to see my two old-school grass buddies just hanging out in the beachy area.

I also found out that Sobble also spawns in the Savanna Biome, and I'm just actually quite surprised by the number of starters that show up. I also find Mudkip, rather unexpectedly, in the Torchlit Labyrinth or whatnot. I do like that they do put some thought into where they put these starters. 

I think I expected several tiers of upgrades per biome, but it's just 3000 BP per pop. Okay! So each upgrade will add like maybe a half-dozen starters. 

I've also slowly evolving a lot of the Pokemon in the Terarium. I find it interesting that despite owning the Kantonian versions of Slowbro and Slowking; the Blueberry Academy Pokedex doesn't acknowledge them and basically forces me to evolve the Galarian Slowpoke into its two poisonous evolutions. There's a bit of an annoying sequence where I have to wait for Galarica Twigs to spawn so I can bring them to a random guy who's going to craft the wreaths and bangles for me to turn my Galarian Slowpokes into Galarian Slowbro and Slowking. I do appreciate that there's a cute little beach where it's filled entirely with Galarian Slowpokes hanging out, though. 

In addition to the shiny Rellor (who I haven't evolved yet, he's got a cute golden ball and I want to keep him as a shiny golden-shitball Rellor for a while) I've also been slowly raising up a Slither Wing. No real reason, I just find a kaiju butterfly that fights by punching his enemies to be hilarious. 

But well... apparently my shiny luck for this DLC continues to happen, because I met two in quick succession while running around mindlessly grinding out BP points! The first one is Camerupt, just hanging out on top of a mountain. I've always loved shiny Camerupt with all its black fur and whatnot, and it's a colour scheme that I thought was always superior to the default colouration, with the black fur and yellow rings being much better looking than default Camerupt's random blue rings. 

And then I also get a bunch of shiny balls in shiny Exeggcute! Not the biggest fan of shiny Exeggutor, so 'Kintama' here will forever remain as golden eggs forevermore. I like this one! I forgot if it was the Generation IV or V games that had an NPC fight you with a shiny Exeggcute just to kind of taunt you, so it's neat that I have one now. 

So I decide to do the Team Star content -- which, recapping what happened previously, has them change out of their epic Team Star outfits, dress up in the most generic-ass student uniforms ever, and have asked me to tutor the rest of the Team Star admins. And... it's nowhere quite as expansive as the original post-game Team Star interactions, but it's still nice. Ortega is a gigantic prissy prick and continues to be 'tsundere', but he's just nowhere cute or funny enough for his attitude to be charming. Atticus is hilarious by the sheer dint that he's kind of non-recognizable with those handsome eyes and hair, and I think he even flirts with Eri quite a bit. 

I do really like the bit where my character and Giacomo gets a lot of grief from Ortega's nonsense tantrum, but Eri just walks up to him, and starts intimidating him with nothing but words. It I S U N A C C E P T A B L E R I G H T? I like Eri. I just wish she said this with her fancy KISS outfit. 

There is a short bit where I have to run around and find Mela, who's hanging out in the courtyard, and... I thought this was going to be a bit of a longer Mela-focused sequence, but other than a bit of a "I came to raid your base" joke, Mela's just kind of solemn and mellow. 

Also, Mela still uses her old walk cycle, back when she wears thigh-high flaming boots that forces her to walk like a robot. I guess old habits die hard. 

The tutoring takes place in three short Q&A as we help each of the Team Star admins answer a question. Ortega isn't pleased about being forced to study literature, and gets angry that he has to figure out 'what made-up characters are feeling'. Hey now, literature review is serious business! And extremely therapeutic! The joke here, of course, is that I and Giacomo point out to Ortega that the story of the backwards-compliment of the 'Mama Maushold' is basically just like Ortega. 

Atticus gets to chew the scenery. "What I know is that I know naught! I have fathomed the depths of mine own ignorance!" I point out that despite wanting to go into fashion, Atticus does still need to know about mathematics. I thought this was going to go into something about using mathematics to measure cloth and whatnot, but the game actually goes on a slightly more realistically mature direction by Atticus realizing stuff about supply chain, economics, sales and profit, and all the economics-business side of things that mathematics is actually used for. I... I'm impressed! Good on you, Atticus! 

"Curse thee, fractional division! Why must I invert the numerator and denominator? Why???"

God bless you, Atticus. 

Mela wants to ask me a personal question, and tells me to promise not to laugh. Her personal question is how important dreams are to me. The right answer is obviously "like, our future goals", but the other two are obvious joke answers -- "like, when we sleep" and "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA", which was way too hilarious for me not to try to pick. Mela gets absolutely pissed off, though, and gets angry at me and promises to never ever open up ever again. 

There's no takebacksies on this one, surprisingly, and autosave means that Mela's probably pissed off at my character forevermore in this save file, but if you actually take the right answer here, Mela actually confides about how she's not sure about her future career, and we get to give her a whole motivational speech to get her to get interested in a career in the thing she is interested in -- art. 

After finishing the three of them, I get Wise Glasses and Team Star outfits! Which... isn't anywhere as cool as I thought it'd be. I really just want the admins' outfits, but they just give me the funky glasses and the rolled-up-sleeves uniforms. Which is nice that they look kinda different from usual, I suppose, but it also feels rather disappointing. 

This whole chapter closes out with Penny arriving, and being an awkward introvert she thought that all of her best friends are gathering together and explicitly excluding her, causing her to almost run out of the room and tell us to continue with what we're doing. The Team Star quintet shortens out the misunderstanding... and Penny gets ticked off and doesn't accept the apology, because as friends, well... sometimes you do want to help out your other friends, and that isn't a burden at all. It a nice, wholesome ending to this whole storyline.

And, of course, Penny makes a dismissive handwave about how if all things really did get that bad, she'll just hack into the school system and alter their grades. Ah, to have a master hacker for a friend! GIacomo and the others are absolutely shocked and tell Penny not to do this, though. Man, fuck the system. 

I then unlock my third domain expansion or whatever it's called, picking the Polar Biome. Perhaps very appropriately, the first new starter I come across is Piplup. Penguins living in the icy region, who would've thought? Other starters I find in the Polar Biome include Oshawott (do otters survive well in colder waters?) and around the Chargestone Cavern are Chimchar and Scorbunny. I guess the Fire-types generate their own heat to survive in the mountains? Eh. 

More importantly, with these starters and their evolutions getting me up to 200 Blueberry Pokedex entries, I can finally unlock the two new Paradox Swords of Justice. Or rather, as I will now forevermore call them, the Lightsabers of Justice. Get it? Because lightsabers are futuristic swords, and these are futuristic examples of -- oh, never mind. 

Anyway, in yet another disappointing follow-up to the Teal Mask, Perrin doesn't actually have a side-quest like the Bloodmoon Ursaluna. No, after unlocking her miniquest, Perrin just congratulates me, and gives me a couple of pictures of the new Iron Boulder and Iron Crown Pokemon. And... that's it. The only 'mystery' is Perrin herself, in-universe, never having been to Area Zero, so she doesn't know what this place is. There's not even an utilization of the Area Zero Underdepths, which I really would've liked since it'd give that area some purpose instead of just being used once in a cutscene.

And honestly, there was no reason for the badass Stellar-type monster that guarded the crystal tree on the way to Terapagos not to be one of these new Paradoxes, y'know? I don't know. The presentation of these guys are just so all over the place.

The first one I found is Iron Crown, the futuristic Cobalion. He's literally just hanging out near the entrance of Area Zero, and I guess I just missed him in the seven dozen times I've romped around Area Zero. He just... sits there in his grove, just chilling until I talk to him. I like him. He yells out "kaw-braaaaah-onn", if you don't quite realize that he's a Cobalion variant. Like Iron Leaves, Iron Crown has his own little extending lightsaber, with his two deer horns expanding into massive curved sickles when he uses his multi-hit "Tachyon Cutter" attack. 

Anyway, I catch Iron Crown and... I don't really have much interesting stuff to say about capturing another legendary. Does this guy count as a legendary? I guess he does. All the Lightsabers of Justice share the Psychic type as their secondary typing, replacing the Fighting of their original counterparts, but Iron Crown is particularly appropriate since this causes him to end up as Steel/Psychic, and being a robot, Steel makes sense!

Random Notes:

• I do know that the BP grind is much easier with a full party of multiplayers, which also unlocks some kind of a Ditto quest? Apparently you need Nintendo Online to access the group quests and can't do it with local friends. I wouldn't know, though, since my copy of Scarlet doesn't have the DLC installed and it might be the lack of DLC that's causing the missions to not trigger. 
• There are a lot of Pokemon that evolve by trading in the Terarium, huh? Magmar, Graveler, Electabuzz, Porygon (twice!), Rhydon...
  
• I am reminded by this DLC how much I dislike Thwackey. He looks even worse the more I look at him. I don't mind Grookey and Rillaboom at all, they're pretty neat for what they are. But man, Thwackey is just uggo. 
• "Verily, scholarship is a labyrinth." - Atticus, 2024.
• At this point in time, I've seen all of the new Paradox Pokemon designs. The dino-Johto-beasts are... interesting in the wacky, high-on-drugs design aesthetic that the past/ancient Paradox Pokemon are. But the Lightsabers of Justice... well, I've gone on record in thinking that all three of the Swords of Justice are probably some of the worst-looking legendaries to come out of the Generation III-V era, the one that looks the most toyetic and plastic with random greebles and accessories hot-glued to them. All three are vastly improved when they are robots, where there's an aesthetic reason to all of these clunkiness and inorganic proportions.
• Man, these full-art TCG cards are very, very pretty. If it's like, a guarantee of one of these in every pack or so, I'd definitely buy a lot more Pokemon TCG cards. 
• While all of the tutoring is going on, Giacomo provides some lo-fi music. I love that little detail! (I honestly study better with something more bombastic). 
• Ortega is apparently one class above my character, despite behaving and looking like a little brat. 
• All these Sinnoh starters did get me thinking if I should go out and find a used BD/SP cartridge for cheap and just blaze through that game, just to see how (allegedly) bad of a remake it is.

Let's Play Pokemon Violet - The Indigo Disk, Part 9: The Origin of the Paradox

Before we get to our regularly scheduled playthrough of me catching up with the DLC of this game...

POKEMONS LEGENDS Z

Pokemon Z is real! Zygarde! Lumiose City! Some actual potential lore about the region that didn't get much love from anywhere, which had an actual war in its backstory! Everyone was expecting Unova remakes, but no, we skipped straight to Kalos! That was actually amazing. XY was when my hype for Pokemon was reinvigorated ever since I was a kid, and while I wasn't the biggest fan of the XY game in general, having a second Legends game and one that's set in a region that I definitely would like to revisit? 

And Pokemon Z! I've always thought that XY was leaving a fair bit too much for a third version that never materialized, and while I liked ORAS and Sun/Moon, it did come to light that there was a lot of concepts that got scrapped for XY that would've made it more exciting than feeling basically as the most generic Pokemon game out there with 3D and Mega Evolutions being the only thing that set it apart. 

I definitely would love to have some new Mega Evolutions, if Legends: Arceus is anything to go by, and maybe even some Paradox tie-ins? Lots of things that can potentially come from this one! That mysterious locked tower in XY, the mysterious ghost girl, more backstory about AZ, Zygarde's connection with Kalos, more context about the ancient Kalos kingdoms, actually having the Eternal Floette in the game...

___________________________________________

So yeah, it's been a while since I've finished up playing through the final act of the Indigo Disk, and... turns out that there's a fair amount of epilogue. Which frustrates me a lot, since these are the pieces of story content that actually felt like they put a fair chunk of effort into, instead of giving a very underwhelming and extremely unsatisfying storyline with the Kieran stuff. 

The epilogue is unlocked by bringing Terapagos to the Crystal Pool in Kitakami, which... is actually nicely hinted with the mention of the 'white book' and the 'Eastern lands', which isn't actually meant to be a foreshadowing for the next region but rather this very one! 

Anyway, Terapagos pops out and creates some kind of timey-wimey mist... and Professor Turo shows up! "Have I somehow broken through the boundaries of space and time?" he asked. And then he looks at me, and is confused about who I am. My character is also confused on whether this is the A.I. Turo that got sucked into the time machine, but turns out that this is the real Turo, who is confused about the idea that he is a robot imbued with an A.I. personality... though he notes that it would be an interesting idea. 

So yeah, I guess the clue has always been in the 'Paradox' part of the Paradox Pokemon's title. 

This was the main story all along, where the original professor was apparently transported across space-time during the time that he was building the original time machine, and therein is the paradox -- he's inspired by the conversation with my character about the AI robot and the time machine, but my character only knew about the AI robot and time machine because Turo invented those things in the past. So where did the idea originally come from? Paradoxes!

Also, I guess this really puts to rest the idea that the Terastal crystals or the time machine 'brought to life' the 'dreams' of Turo/Sada, and that these are time-displaced Pokemon... just displaced, perhaps, from another alternate timeline in the multiverse. 

Miraidon pops out, seemingly happy at recognizing his old master, and Turo is confused about the 'Iron Serpent'. We tell Turo the name, Miraidon, and that name is also likewise a paradox since in 'our' time progression, it was Turo who named Miraidon in 'our' past. Ah, time travel. 

Turo quickly realizes that he got transported into the future, although he also muses that the complexities of space-time is beyond normal human understanding, and even notes that it's possible that our encounter might not even be occurring in the same timeline. We've been experimenting with multiverse stories in Pokemon ever since Sun/Moon, with the Ultra Dimensions -- one of which allow travel between the Solgaleo/Lunala dimensions; and the Guzzlord-destroyed alternate dimension. ORAS's Delta Episode also mention a bunch of alternate dimensions, too, and US/UM also mention alternate dimensions from the original non-remake games. 

Which is to say that multiverse theory is the reason why all of these Paradox Pokemon exist, I guess. 

Anyway, Turo talks a bit about how he was analyzing data in his secret lab -- the one we saw earlier in the Underdepths -- one moment, and then he's transported all the way to Kitakami in the future. He wonders if it's caused by the dormant crystal Pokemon, or some kind of link between me and him... which I really doubt. Turo also notes that this was a time when he was struggling with trying to catch Pokemon that live in different timelines, so it's before the invention of the time machine of doom.

And he's trying to get some insight from this conversation, since he's hit a bit of a roadblock. There are several questions I can ask him, and he mentions briefly having a son (but not a spouse, poor Sada) and wonders if he's lonely. He then asks about Kitakami a bit, then about the 'Iron Serpent'. One of the answers I can give him, hilariously enough, is 'you can ride it all over the place'. Of course, the proper answer is to tell Turo that Miraidon is a precious partner to me. 

Turo's answer? Damn Reed Richards wannabe says that my personal attachment to the creature has no meaningful relevance... before he backtracks and notes how rude his answer is. At least he's self-aware? 

Turo then sees the book I'm holding, which is Briar's book -- the Hidden Treasure of Area Zero. And this is where the rather obvious paradox storyline is going to go. Among Turo's notes is an enigmatic mention of receiving a 'white book' from a 'child' on the 'Eastern lands'. So that is us, and we're using Briar's white book to inspire Turo... when Briar herself is only able to do what she did thanks to Turo's own research onto Area Zero. 

Turo gets entranced about the descriptions of the Underdepths, Terapagos's awakening, and Briar's pedigree as Heath's descendant. He calls the Hidden Treasure of Area Zero as a book that would ignite the imagination of any true scientist. The mists around him begin to hum, however, causing Miraidon to be sad and for Turo to very quickly realize what's going on. Turo wants the white book, but he doesn't feel right to take the book without giving me something back. 

So he trades his Violet Book with my White Book... and the key items get swapped around. I guess the special thing is that this Violet Book has Turo's name on it, as noted by the description, as compared to the Violet Book you can find literally in every library in Paldea. But Turo goes home, noting wistfully that he'll go home and enjoy some time with a good book, before the mists of time swallow him up. Miraidon is sad and... 

...we cut away to a new loadscreen with the new Violet Book. Okay, that's cool. 

I wake back up in my dorm room in Uva Academy, and the game tells me that Giacomo and Eri are hanging out in the entrance hall. Which is surprising to me, because the DLC have been sidelining practically the entirety of the original Paldean cast other than Jacq. 

And I must admit that I spent way too much time running around the multiple floors of the entrance hall looking for where my Team Star buddies are at... until I realize that they're wearing regular uniforms. They lost all the cool, unique punk-rock attire and swapped them out for normal uniforms! No! Look how they massacred my buds! Giacomo at least looks not that different since his outfit is the least flamboyant out of the Team Star admins, but the shorts really don't do him justice. And Eri is just straight-up unrecognizable if not for her eyes and her height. 

Giacomo and Eri tell me that apparently the Team Star guys are all doing makeup exams so they don't have to repeat a year, which is another reminder that this is supposed to be a school. Turns out that Giacomo and Eri are both passing their exams, but not the other three. They rope me into being a tutor, and I do like the brief sequence from Giacomo where he acknowledges that he's so good at math, but he doesn't understand why other people can't get it. He 'can't wrap his head around what it is his buddies can't wrap their heads around', to quote the game. Which I can totally understand -- math isn't my strong suit, and seeing people who are undoubtedly smart and good with math try to teach me without knowing how to teach? Just because you're smart doesn't mean you can teach, after all. 

So yeah, we're going to have a couple more content with Team Star. Which I appreciate. They tell me not to tell Penny, because they don't want to get her stressed. These guys are precious, you know that?

Also... I kind of wanted to say it first, but I got another Shiny. Scarlet/Violet is really kind with these, huh? Unlike Litwick or Duraludon, I didn't catch this one in an outbreak, no. I just randomly stumbled upon it while doing mindless quests. 

It's also a shiny of one of my favourite Paldean Pokemon, and one of the prettiest shinies, too, with the golden ball. As you can probably tell... I caught a shiny Rellor with a golden ball! It's going to take a while for me to evolve it into Rabsca because of the evolution method, but I was so surprised and so stoked to get one of these.

This is my third Paldean-native shiny, I think, alongside the Garganacl and Espartha in Scarlet. And very clearly my faovurite!

In the meantime, I've also been going back to the Terarium, trying to get the 200 Pokemon that Perrin wants for her sidequest. In addition to Charmanders, the Savanna biome upgrade have also unlocked Rowlet... which is rather hilarious because the areas where Rowlets spawn now have random giant owl nests in them. There are also Fennekin and Snivy around, too, though it took me a fair bit of wandering to find them. I guess each of these fill up like 3 Pokedex pages, which will help me a lot for the Perrin sidequest. 

As I go around catching some Pokemon that I've missed during my hiatus in December, turns out that there's a brand-new NPC in the entrance hall of the Terarium called Snacksworth. Terrible name, but turns out that he's the one that's going to give me certain snacks to summon legendary Pokemon after I complete some BBQ quests. Each legendary Pokemon comes with a funky story that Snackworth tells us was his previous encounter with them -- he met Terrakion after rock-climbing, hung out with Virizion in a forest with mysterious trees, got saved from a sandstorm by Moltres... all this stuff. And since his snacks are, presumably, the real deal, I'm going to assume that he's also seen all these legendary Pokemon for real. 

So far, he's given me snacks for Lugia, Terrakion, Kyogre, Zekrom, Virizion, Zapdos, Lunala, Articuno, Moltres and Spectrier. Presumably there are a bunch of game-exclusives, with the likes of Groudon, Reshiram and Glastrier exclusive to Scarlet. Either way, I'm not too much in the mood for legendary hunting, though I really do like that Snacksworth actually gives me clues about all of these Pokemon. I haven't really paid too much attention, but I do know his description of Virizion is basically Tagtree Thicket -- a forest with strange-looking trees. It's so nice to make use of the Paldean overworld again, which is honestly kind of underused after the initial story. 

Anyway, I'll try to post another Violet playthrough a bit sooner, though I do think a lot of the content right now has to do with grinding. Finding legendary Pokemon, grinding out BP quests, and eventually doing the Team Star dialogue. There's also the Pecharunt event, I think, which I'll try to do as soon as possible. My priority is admittedly to just meet all of the new Pokemon as soon as possible before I write the "Gotta Review Em All" segment for all the new Scarlet/Violet DLC Pokemon. 

Random Notes:

• My next big goal is to finish up the "Gotta Review 'Em All" segment for all the Pokemon in the Teal Mask and Indigo Disk DLC's. I wanted to do everything in a single article initially, but I think it's best for me to split it into two due to the volume of what I have to write about Ogerpon and Terapagos.
• I still think it was a nice, smart move to wait until both DLC's are out before I do the review, though, because of the lack of information on Iron Leaves and Walking Wake; as well as Dipplin still being a pre-evolution. 
• I have also done some slight edits and revisions to the previous batch of 'Gotta Review 'Em All' writeups, specifically in the bits about the Paradox Pokemon -- I won't get too much into the specifics as I did in the let's play, but I basically talk a bit about the true origins of it and to downplay the 'dream machine' angle. 
• Still, man, I really had hoped that we would get some more Paradox Pokemon content in the DLC.
• I forgot entirely about Perrin and her quest! Apparently she's the one that will unlock the new Paradox legendaries for me. I do think I'll need to boot up Pokemon Scarlet to do some of the evolutions, like Magmortar or Golem or the Porygons -- I don't have the DLC in Scarlet and honestly am not planning to buy it there, but I do hope I can get enough Terarium Pokemon to unlock the questline. 
• While running around the Terarium, out of all the Pokemon that I haven't caught... somehow I missed Blitzle and Zebstrika? Huh. 
  
• Amarys has a new flying trial, but all I get from it is just extra BP. I'm good, thanks. 
• Flying up to the big not-Terapagos giant Tera Orb does nothing, unfortunately. 
• Looking up a non-spoilery guide for the post-game stuff, in addition to the epilogue questlines, Team Star hijinks, gym leader challenges and hunting down legendaries... apparently Meloetta of all Pokemon gets a new sidequest that I haven't found out about yet. Huh! I guess every generation they're slowly making formerly-mythical Pokemon into being available. We've got Deoxys in ORAS, Keldeo in Sword/Shield, Manaphy and Darkrai in Legends Arceus... keep it coming, guys!
• Also, insert your favourite 'Unova confirmed' joke here, I guess. 
• Throughout the whole sequence, Turo refers to Miraidon as the Iron Serpent. In Scarlet, Sada would probably refer to Koraidon as the Wicked King. 
• Eri almost mocks her model change by saying that "I'm sure that's obvious". I mean, yeah, I guess her height is obvious, but I really did run around trying to look for the two of them.