Who's that Pokémon? I don't know!

[spindizzy]

Right, here we go, update on my Pokémon shenanigans! Spoilers through to... Route 7? The road to Circhester anyway.

• I FOUND THE OBLIGATORY LITTLE GHOST GIRL! She is in Hammerlocke, she is 100% a little ghost, I don't know where the old man who is going to have been her childhood sweetheart is, but I'm sure he's around here somewhere. (UPDATE: She was 100% a ghost, I gave her letter to the grandpa, I did not tell him that she died when they were kids because I'm not a fucking monster. But also she wasn't there when I went back to tell her, so I guess she must have figured it out somehow?)


• I got distracted and accidentally started a massive evolvarama, by which I mean I literally spent half an hour with a bit of paper and google and wrote down all of the Pokémon I had that could evolve and hadn't, and what I needed to do to make that happen. So far Alcremie has been the most ridiculous, because I didn't even know that I could make my little human spin around, let alone that it would do anything. ( I have eight of the nine Alcremie forms, and NO IDEA which one I'm missing? Because I'm sure I'm missing ONE. Is the dynamax form a separate form that I have to catch?) I think I evolved/bred like 120 Pokémon in the last week, my Pokédex is half-filled, and I don't know who I am right now because obsessively completing my Pokédex has never actually been my style.


• It might just be because I am an obsessive list maker and don't have the leisure time to play Pokémon for seven hours every day like I did when I was eleven. But seriously, making a list of Pokémon and crossing them out every time I evolve them to their final forms is INCREDIBLY satisfying.


• (I still have eighty-four Pokémon unaccounted for on the "have seen" side, which I'm NOT making a list of, because apparently that's where I draw my line. Somehow. Apparently THAT is the bridge too far.)


• Me, a fool: Wait a second, these Pokémon have baby forms! What happens if I try to hatch one? ... Nothing. Because those forms aren't in this game.
  
• WHAT IS THAT LADY WITH THE FOSSILS EVEN ABOUT. I HAVE LIKE TWENTY FOSSILS, AND YOU SERIOUSLY EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE THAT I DIDN'T FIND A SINGLE FISH FACE THAT COULD GO WITH A FISH BUTT. REALLY. YOU ARE THE PERSON WHO DOESN'T WANT TO CURE CANCER, YOU WANT TO TURN PEOPLE INTO DINOSAURS.


• I like that they've gone "Cool, Galar has history, we graze sheep on it," because yep! This tracks!


• Me: Someone destroyed the mural! ... Eh, it was ugly anyway.
  Lex, who has heard me rant about the destruction of historically significant objects and sites before: I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to agree with them.
  ... IN MY DEFENCE, I'm pretty sure one of the NPCs said it was a modern recreation of an older work, so nah mate, fuck it!


• I beat the fairy gym! I'm sad that Opal didn't want to hire me to take over the fairy gym, because that is ABSOLUTELY MY SPEED. If I was a gym leader, I would be either all fairy types or all normal types, and then I would crush people with a ridiculously overlevelled Pidgey because that's who I am as a person.


• (HOW DO THEY KEEP FILLING THESE STADIUMS?! Is the mission there to slow me down while the crowd comes in? Are they fake crowds? What happens if you don't complete the challenge, do they get people to do exhibition matches? How does this work!)


• THE CHAIRMAN IS SO THE VILLAIN, I'M SURE OF IT, AND I DON'T KNOW IF THIS IS BECAUSE ADULTHOOD HAS MADE ME CYNICAL AND UNABLE TO ENJOY A WHOLESOME GAME AIMED AT TEN YEAR OLDS WITH NO SUDDEN BETRAYAL, OR IF THIS IS A GAME FOR TEN YEAR OLDS SO HE HAS TO BE THIS BLATANTLY THE VILLAIN. I mean, I GUESS it could be the assistant and she's making it look like the Chairman, but it feels a bit obvious. Like, I feel sorry for Malevolant Magenta, because they're very "I DO THIS RIDICULOUS SHIT FOR YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU!" but also Malevolant Magenta is a fourteen year-old melodramatic douchecanoe, SO.


• I like how Opal is just like "Oh, yes, you've blatantly been manipulated and cast aside by the Chairman's assistant, yes yes, now you MUST IMMEDIATELY COME AND AUDITION AS MY REPLACEMENT." So I'm possibly wrong about the chairman, but I'm happy that Malevolant Magenta is being giving opportunities that don't involve being obssessed with the Chairman.


• So yes, I've spent like two months running around the Wild Zone levelling up my Pokémon and hatching eggs as part of the grand trading scheme that me, captainraz, and jilliferium have going on. Tonks has Sword, Jill and I have Shield, I have been breeding and catching Pokémon to pass in either direction because apparently I'm the nexus of this trading hub.


• By which I mean if you need any of the Shield/Sword exclusive Pokémon, let me know and I'll see if I can get it for you. Will take Magikarps as a fair trade because Magikarps are cool.


• I evolved a Sirfetch'd! Whoever decided it needed to crit things in battle apparently was not aware of my grand master strategy of training my starter until its twenty levels higher than everything else and then ONLY USING THAT, so it was a bit of a shock to the system. Got there eventually!


• GALARIAN PONYTA IS MINE, I LOVE MY TINY BEAUTIFUL PASTEL RAINBOW PONY! I don't know why it's a psychic type when it's so clearly a fairy, but don't care, tiny beautiful sunshine horse is mine.


• ITS MANE GLOWS WHEN IT ATTACKS OKAY, I LOVE IT.


• Also the Galarian Rapidash is somehow LESS floofy, which is obviously a betrayal.


• I don't understand why the Hammerlocke vault only has the three tapestries in it. Where's all of the other accumulated junk that should be clogging up the area?!


• Leon and Sonia telling me to let the grown-ups deal with the power plant exploding had me going both "Excuse me, I'm the protagonist, I do what I want," and "YOU'RE ONLY FIVE YEARS OLDER THAN ME, YOU ARE NOT A GROWN-UP," which is probably the most honest reaction to a sibling, lbr.


• (I have no idea how much older than my character either of them is, but hey! Me and my level 62 Rillaboom can deal with anything!)


• The Wild Area successfully confounded me, because I was SO SURE that I had the right weather conditions to track down a Vulpix, and it turns out that REGULAR sunshine isn't good enough. Booooo.


• I have no idea what Hop's storyarc/important lesson is going to be, unless it's "Stop worrying about what other people about you" and "Your brother is not the measuring stick you need to measure your life by."


• I don't wanna do the ploooooooooooooot, I wanna catch more Pokémon and enjoy having an unbroken run of numbers!


• I love that I've played Pokémon with Jill and Tonks now, and both of them had an aspect of being in the Wild Area that they'd just never bothered with. Jill had never done raids! Tonks had never been camping! Both of them were further along in the game than me, which means that they were one of that day's lucky 10,000!


• I love how general actions aren't dependant. Want to fly to a city? Go for it, you don't need to have a flying Pokémon and the right HM, you can just get a taxi! Want to go across water? Cool, you can upgrade your bike so it floats. Want to manage your Pokémon team on the go? There's an app for that. Like, if you see anyone going "Back in MY DAY we had to have a Pokémon that learned Flash!" you send them to me, because I am probably the same age as them and willing to challenge them to a Pokémon battle.


• (Plus, joke's on them for being a coward, you COULD make it through the tunnel without Flash as long as you didn't mind bumping your character around a black screen for three hours.)


• So far, Motostoke is my favourite city, because it feels like home. I know that's ridiculous, but LISTEN: you bring me a soot-stained mess of a city with canals running through and clear signs of where the industrial revolution hit it, that is home to me. Good work game devs.