After the massive plot dump and super cereals from last time, this is going to be a much more chill segment. I start off by leaving the bedroom, and the very next room (which I was probably in earlier and just never paid attention to it) has a number of doors and staircases blocked off by fairly conspicuous iron bars. Kinda weird, I wonder if that'll ever open up to anything. I go out further, and a cutscene triggers. We haven't had enough of those lately, so sure, bring it on.
Actually it's fairly inoffensive. Lille's gotten a change in outfit - while still sticking to the white color scheme, the hat has been ditched, her hair is no longer braided the way it was before, and the dress has been replaced with a fairly similar-looking top and skirt. But I suppose it's different enough to get across the point that she's trying to change her overall attitude or whatever, and does a cheesy Z-Power pose to really get the point across.
Then Gladion comes in and is all "oh by the way I found this really important relic downstairs, you should have it" and gives the Sun Flute to Lillie. But... why Princess Ruto? He says that the flute is to be played alongside the Moon Flute to call the Legendary Pokemon. I probably would have already known that if I had read that one poem earlier, but it annoyed me. In addition to the Sun Flute, he also picked up a Master Ball from somewhere and gives it to me. Alright, thanks then. Into the bag it goes for all eternity, unless I come across a shiny that has the ability to KO itself and I get desperate. Gladion then says that he's going to stick around a bit to "clean up Aether Paradise", whatever that means. Possibly just see how many other evil dudes are around.
Hau also shows up (it's always nice when people happen to wake up at the same time and head outside to the same exact spot), and says Lillie's new makeover looks fantastic, to which Gladion just says "What was that?". That's all he actually says on the matter, but I kinda like how he reacts, even if not much. It's the game designers reminding us that oh right, they're siblings. Gotta get that typical overprotective brother thing in there, but only for one sentence and then probably never bring it up again. Anyway, Gladion also apologizes for roping him into this whole mess, but Hau's cheerful as ever, just happy to be seeing new and exciting things. We go our separate ways for now, since he still has some catching up to do with Acerola's trial and stuff.
Now that I'm given free range to meander wherever I want, I of course try to see if there's any new items accessible (if there were, they were unimpressive) and if there's any new dialogue. In the big outside area there are a few people around, and I feel the ned to comment on a couple of their statements. One person says that when a Pokemon is injured in the wild, they go and hide somewhere to recover. Not an amazing concept in itself, but it does make me think how the game always says that wild Pokemon just "faint" instead of die, and honestly if they wanted to make it more realistic without having you kill stuff, they could just have the wild Pokemon run away when they get to 0 HP. I'm not really sure why that's not the case, honestly. 0 HP doesn't mean "dead" or even necessarily "unconscious" anyway, it's more of a "I'm too hurt to fight any more" sort of thing. The other thing was someone mentioning that it would be horrible if a Pokemon species was brought to extinction, because then we'd never be able to see them again. Fair enough, but then I remembered that this is a world with machines that can restore Pokemon from fossils. I'm sure they could clone up a bunch of something if it was never completely necessary. (Not that I'm saying go and overhunt anyway, but you get what I mean)
That's about all there was of interest in Aether Paradise, so it's about time to move on to the fourth and final island of the game, Poni Island. As long as there's no weird arcade games absorbing the souls of people, I'm good. I'm told that this island doesn't have many people on it, and is a lot more natural and untouched than the other islands. Guess that's why there's no more clothing shops, then. We have a bit of a moment between Lillie and Gladion where he apologises for leaving her behind (apparently Lusamine got quite a bit worse after he had left), but he was too focused on saving Null. I'd make some kind of comment on how those are some pretty messed up priorities, but for all I know, Lusamine may have actually been somewhat sane at that point and not really considered a threat, so eh. Before long, we arive on Poni Island.
The first location here is a small town (if you can even call it that) called Seafolk Village. It's basically a boardwalk with a number of boats docked around it, and all of them are shaped like different Pokemon. There's a Magikarp, Whiscash, Huntail, Wailord, and Steelix, so I've got a decent amount of stuff to explore before leaving this area. The first thing I found was in the Huntail boat, where a girl just kind of gives you an Aerodactyl for no reason. I mean, alright, I'm not going to say no to it, but how random was that? There's also a guy in the same boat who talks a bit about all these rare treasures he has, and he gives me an Electirizer and Magmarizer. Good to know that I'll at least have one of each without having to grind for BP, then.
Moving on, the Whiscash boat seems to be the home of an artist named Mina, and the whole thing screams "important NPC", so I'll be expecting to see her as a trial captain or something later on. Speaking of which, that reminds me that I did want to go back and battle Sophocles and Acerola now that I've completed that island, but I checked on Serebii and apparently you don't actually get to rematch them until specific points in the game later on. And I got indirectly spoiled towards something, so... oops. Not a huge deal though.
Going a bit further into the village, a cutscene triggers where the seafolk "chief" shows up and chats a bit with Lillie. And pretty much nothing of importance was said other that a little background information for this area - that it's just where people come to trade the various goods they find sailing around in the region. He tells us to go see Hapu, which I'm sure I'll be doing after wasting as much time as possible. First I've got me a Steelix boat to check out. It leads to the Flash Cannon TM (which nothing on my team can learn) and also the only fishing spot in the area. I get a Wailmer from it, and after a fair amount of searching, a Dhelmise.
Now here's a Pokemon that I have a few things to say about. Not only is Dhelmise fairly rare in one specific out-of-the-way fishing spot (which is stupid on its own), but I was also really looking forward to liking this thing until I found out that it's a Grass/Ghost type. And that's not a bad thing on its own, since I like both of those types and the combination, but it's the same type as Decidueye AND two Gen 6 Pokemon. I still consider those relatively new, and it seems like overkill. Plus, it's a freaking boat anchor, how is this thing not either Water, Steel, or both? Well, it's because the Pokemon itself is apparently just the seaweed coating it. It's haunted seaweed. With no face or ... anything. Now, I'm fine with object-based Pokemon for the most part, and I tend to like them just as much if not more than a lot of the animal-based ones. But I feel like Dhelmise is a bit too abstract. I can't think of any other Pokemon that doesn't have a face or any sort of personality to it, and no, I'm not counting the compass as an eye, because it isn't one. So yeah. I don't hate Dhelmise, I actually still kind of appreciate the fact that they tried something unusual, but I would have liked it better as a Grass/Steel, Grass/Water, Water/Steel, or basically anything else other than its current type, and I wish the Pokemon itself wasn't just featureless green crap that happens to be surrounding an anchor.
Ok, I'm done rambling. The last thing I do in the area is check out the Pokemon Center. This one is selling a number of TMs, most of which are of the high-power, low-accuracy variety like Fire Blast, Thunder, and Stone Edge. There's a few exceptions though. I pick up Calm Mind to teach to Laylee over Swords Dance, and Blizzard for Lena to replace Sing (since I found that I never use it, and when I do, it misses).
The next area I'm able to explore is Poni Wilds, a somewhat unremarkable-looking route that has a coastline to the west and some raised ledges and such to the east. I go to battle the first trainer here, and DAMN, I am not doing so well. Her two Pokemon were a Garbodor and Toxapex (the evolution of Mareanie). She also had the Poison Z-Crystal, for what it's worth, but yeah, I barely won that match despite my team massively outnumbering hers. I think this is a pretty good sign that I'm underleveled, but I refuse to actually do anything about that for now. As long as I can scrape a win, I'd rather be like this than breezing through all the fights like I was earlier on in the game.
The rest of the trainers aren't as bad, though I do have to go back and heal after basically every one of them, and same goes for half of the wild Pokemon. Speaking of which, I catch a Granbull and Exeggcute in the grass, and quite a few things in the water: Lumineon, Tentacruel, Gastrodon (East Sea), Wailord, Relicanth, and Lapras. For such a small section of the ocean that I have access to, there's a surprising amount of sea life there. Let's not question how massive Wailords are getting into this area, or how it takes so long to randomly encounter a Lapras through surfing when they're also fairly large and should be able to be spotted from a distance. While going through these battles, Lubba learned Power Gem (a good replacement for Ancient Power and an excuse for me to not deal with Stone Edge) and Lena attempted to learn Hyper Voice, but I declined. There's also quite a few berry trees around here, which seem to give the "weakens a super effective whatever-type attack" berries, so I'll have a lot of those to grow when my current crop is done.
The final trainer in this area (the "fight everyone else first" kind) is a dancer with all four forms of Oricorio. They also all happen to be holding Focus Sashes, they all know Teeter Dance, and half my current party at the time was weak to Air Slash. So yeah, it should go without saying that it was quite a difficult fight to get through. Somehow managed it though.
Moving on to Ancient Poni Path, I come across Hapu and her Mudsdale. She comments on Lillie's new outfit, which just makes me question why I'm able to completely alter my appearance every few days and nobody seems to notice. She also makes the comment "no one could call you lily-livered", which is not only an awful pun, but also a really obscure one that I had to actually look up to understand. She mentions that there's no kahuna on this island, which I find highly suspect, especially since she was apparently the one to fight off the Ultra Beast that had appeared here earlier, and then wanders off to the next set of Ruins.
Immediately after this, an old lady spying on us from behind a wall introduces herself as Hapu's grandmother and uncermoniously gives me access to Machamp as a Ride Pokemon. Oh lord, I knew this was coming eventually. So in case you haven't seen it, Machamp carries your trainer around in its two lower arms and uses its two upper ones to push giant rocks. The way it cradles you around and your character just kind of looks up at it with the usual face of serene happiness is uh... pretty suspect. It was kind of funny with the two golfers back at the hotel, but the Machamp obsession this game has going on has gone a bit too far, I think.
Before checking out Poni Breaker Coast, I'd like to do everything else possible (as usual), so I start by exploring the immediate area, including the big house here. As is tradition, I must attempt to sleep in every possible bed to see what kind of creepy comments are made about them, but this time we get a little something different. As a callback to the scene in your own bedroom where Meowth wakes you up, there's an Alolan Meowth here that does the same thing. Except it does it by punching you repeatedly in the face, before handing over the Awakening. I've gotta say, I didn't expect that, but I rather enjoyed it. I then go to see if I can access the other connected areas here. Vast Poni Canyon is the first I check, and it's apparently blocked off without the kahuna's permission. But... Hapu said there wasn't one. Yeah, I was pretty sure that was a jape. So I move on to the next area, Poni Grove. This one is even better, since it's blocked off until I become champion. Yeah, that's fine. Just have a random jungle area that literally only one person in the entire region can access, seems reasonable. Reminds me of the guy back in the Thrifty Megamart who wouldn't sell me anything until I "train a little harder" and become Champion. Kind of limiting your customer base there a little bit.
So uh, Poni Breaker Coast. It's small, and it's fairly useless. I got the Frost Breath TM, but didn't teach it to anybody. I also caught a Sharpedo here after reloading the rippling water spot about 25 times. That's pretty much all I can say about it.
The only other thing I can do now besides progress like I'm supposed to is to go back and push the Strength boulders that I've come across previously, and luckily enough, I wrote down where all of those were. The first was in Ten Carat Hill, and it leads to, interestingly enough, the Flyinium Z. I guess that's one less to get from a trial captain or kahuna then. The second was in Diglett's Tunnel, and it leads to a little section of Konikoni City with a lighthouse. There's a little ramp going down from here to the main area, but there's a small fence built in the middle of this ramp that prevents all passage. Then... why put the ramp... just WHY. Oh, and there's a TM for Will-O-Wisp. Not a bad move, but not going to use it. The third and final Strength rock was in the Lush Jungle. Pushing it leads to a little cave that randomly dumps you out on a ledge on Route 8, and this contains the Energy Ball TM. This one I actually do use, teaching it to Fellana over Razor Leaf. (It's not a physical move, but it'll do for now.)
Oh, and I go and check out the other two sets of Ruins now that I can get through them. It was a waste of time, you can't actually get anything from them yet.
At this point, things got a little weird. I was watching the Vinesauce stream archive of this game, and he was doing a bunch of Wonder Trades and trying to sync it up with the chat so that people watching could try to trade with him. I suddenly got the inspiration to try and do the same thing myself, even though I've never actually watched any of his streams live and I don't know if I'd even be able to realistically. But that's not going to stop me from randomly hoping that it'll somehow work out.
So I tried to think of a Pokemon that he'd be interested in getting, or would at the very least be somewhat relevant. I decided that a Snivy would be kind of cool, but that would require actually catching a Serperior through Island Scan first, and I've been avoiding doing such things until the postgame. I looked it up, and apparently Serperior appears on Poni Island on Thursdays, and it's a Thursday now, so I figured it was worth trying. I scanned 10 QR codes (all of stuff I've already caught, and none as shiny, since I don't really want to fill my dex with stuff I haven't gotten on my own), and started the scan to see where Serperior would appear. "Exeggutor Island", apparently. Well crap, I haven't gotten there yet. But I looked it up and it's extremely close to where I am, so sure, why not.
The next sequence of events happened very quickly, since I only had an hour before the Island Scan would run out. Because of that, I kind of skipped through the dialogue really quickly and didn't pay super close attention to it. I could look up a video of it, or at least look at the game script, but that would almost be going against how it actually turned out, so I'll just try to recap it from how I remember it.
I meet up with Lillie at the entrance to the Ruins of Hope, and ... go in without much happening. I'm sure some stuff was said, but I sure as heck don't remember what it was. I go inside and Lillie attempts to push one of the giant cubes despite it being at least twice as tall as she is and made of solid stone or metal, because she is an intelligent person. I hesitantly get into the warm embrace of my Machamp once again to shove them out of the way and get through, only to find that Hapu is already there. So either she was able to fly in even though the game won't let me do that, her Mudsdale leapt gracefully over the blocks, she teleported, or the blocks moved back into place after getting through. My money's on that last option, judging from how the last few Ruins seemed to operate.
Hapu gets a piece of tinfoil from the altar and thanks Tapu Fini for its gift, as apparently she has now been named kahuna of the island. Ok, question time. I thought she was just yanking my chain earlier about the "no kahuna" thing, and that she just didn't want to admit it yet, and the guy blocking that one path seemed to indicate that I was probably in the correct line of thinking. But now I don't know what to believe. Anyway, I guess her grandfather (I was very tempted to either say "Elf Grandfather" or "Grand Dad" there, but I was strong) was the kahuna here previously, but after his death, nobody else was named one for ... some reason. Lillie shows her the Sun Flute and Hapu's all "oh yeah, I know exactly where the other one-of-a-kind legendary artifact is, it's on Exeggutor Island where anyone can get it. Let's go there". And then suddenly they ride off on Mudsdale. I'd fly after them, but Charizard can't be called here. And then when I leave, the Strength rocks reset, so ... yeah, maybe there was some truth to the "jumped over the blocks" idea after all. After slowly shoving them out of the way again, I meet them back at Seafolk Village.
Once again some kind of dialogue occurs and I don't read it because I'm in a hurry, despite having like 45 minutes left on the timer. It wasn't anything major, probably just "oh, you want to go to Exeggutor Island? Not many people go there because reasons, but if you hop in my Magikarp boat I'll be happy to take you there and then wait there for ages while you fly away and go do other stuff for like six hours". Because spoilers, I do that. I arrive at the island, Lillie's pumped and ready to get the other Flute, and I completely ignore this and instead look around in the grass for a while until Serperior shows up. After a few encounters, I run into it and catch it in a Premier Ball. Woot. Time to breed this thing like crazy.
Fast forward about an hour or so (probably longer) and I now have an entire box of Level 1 Snivies named "Vine Snek". Step one, complete. Step two, try to be awake at a time when Vinny streams this game and wait around until he hopefully does Wonder Trades again. Step three, try to get stupidly lucky and have my trade be one that goes through when there's dozens if not hundreds of other people doing the same thing, not even counting all the other people that happen to be Wonder Trading at the same time unrelated to the stream. Yeah... my chances are not high, but I'm a big enough fanboy to at least try.
After breeding and hatching all of those Snivies, I decided to also hatch the starter eggs I made a while ago for living dex purposes. And then bred a bunch of other stuff that needed to be bred, such as the fossils (once again, for living dex), and the things that have prevolutions not found in the wild. So that means Snubbull, Gible, Shellos, and Carvanha. And since I was in the mood to procrastinate (mainly so this entry wouldn't be super long), I also went and cleared out most of the SOS encounter exclusives on Akala Island, catching a Jigglypuff, Espeon, Seaking, and Starmie. That just leaves Umbreon (which only appears at night, so I'll try for that later on) and Goomy (which is weather-specific, and I could get one from Route 17 but I'd like to see if it rains in Lush Jungle anytime soon).
That's pretty much it. Well, aside from another massive outfit change that cost me somewhere around 200,000 Pokebucks. I wasn't really feeling that last one, so I figured I might as well change it up again. I do rather enjoy the new one, but I'll hold off on updating the Trainer Card picture until the next update because I haven't really done anything in the new one yet. That's totally the reason why, and not because I don't feel like busting out the webcam at 12:30 in the morning and trying to get a good shot of it. Maybe it's a bit of both. But yeah, you'll be seeing it next time. Will I ditch the glasses this time? Will I finally give Luna proper pants instead shorts or a miniskirt? Will I continue to combine blue and green articles of clothing in a random assortment that doesn't really resemble how normal people dress? Will I try out a shorter haircut for once? Find out ... right now! The answer to all of those is "no".
Current status:
(the "+2" under the Pokedex numbers is for non-Alolan Pokemon, since they don't count towards the Dex in this game. Serperior and Snivy, in this case. For the record, there's 85 of them available without Bank, counting the Greninja from the Demo)
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