Pie asks:

Did you ever get around to playing the Crown Tundra? Also, do you think the Hisuian variants/evolutions of some Pokemon you’ve ragged on before make up for the originals? (sorry if you get this twice, i think i accidentally deleted this the first time)

I did! I thought it was quite fun, and a decent answer to the honestly pretty intractable problem of “how do we fit all these goddamn legendary Pokémon into this game?” (to which my answer, frankly, would probably have been “don’t,” but we’ve seen the kind of response that strategy gets). I mostly just didn’t think I had anything particularly important to say about it. Broadly, I think the Isle of Armour and Crown Tundra are pretty similar to the kind of stuff that Pokémon used to add in its “third version” games like Emerald and Platinum, but priced as an expansion rather than a whole new game, which strikes me as a good deal less exploitative. It is what it is, it does what it promises to do, I don’t know that I think it’s anything special, but I did like the Calyrex storyline, so… yeah, sure. It’s fine.

As for the Hisuian forms… hmm… trying now to remember which of those I have ragged on… I dunno if this counts as changing my opinion on Basculin, who is still pretty silly, but I do think Basculegion is a nice addition and takes the shoal/school theme in an interesting direction. That’s probably the biggest one. Uh. What about Lilligant, was I mean to Lilligant? Eh, I dunno if I’m that big a fan of Hisuian Lilligant either, in any case; it’s kinda just “what if Lilligant were Tsareena?” Qwilfish…? Nah, I just refuse on principle to allow Qwilfish to settle into my long-term memory, no matter what they do with it. The name Overqwil is worth a lot of points, I’ll give them that.

Results of the Crimson Mirelands Archaeological Survey Project (CMASP)

[I was playing Legends: Arceus, but then after I finished exploring the Crimson Mirelands I dropped everything for, like, a week to perform an archaeological survey and write up the results in the style of an actual academic publication. Was this a good idea? No, obviously not, but I did it and here it is.]

Although the Galaxy Expedition Team’s understanding of the contemporary ecology, geography and society of the Hisui region has advanced dramatically in the short time since the expedition’s arrival here, the region’s ancient past is still largely an enigma. This is largely because no branch of the GET is explicitly dedicated to historical and cultural research. These tend to fall by default within the broad and somewhat nebulous responsibilities of the Survey Corps, as the branch whose members most often interact with Hisui’s indigenous peoples, the Diamond and Pearl Clans. In the interests of pursuing cultural research more actively, and at the recommendation of Survey Corps recruits assigned to the Crimson Mirelands of southeast Hisui, who had encountered several ancient “ruins” while exploring, the GET commissioned members of the Corps to identify sites of archaeological interest throughout the Mirelands and evaluate sites for possible future excavation by a joint crew drawn from the Survey and Construction Corps.

In a break with usual practice in survey archaeology, project staff were not instructed to catalogue surface finds. This is owing to the annoying propensity of the Hisui region’s characteristic dimensional anomalies to deposit artefact fragments of varying ages seemingly at random across the landscape. The resulting archaeological “noise” makes it extremely difficult to extract a meaningful chronology of human settlement from survey data using the standard methods of survey archaeology. Accordingly, the survey has focused primarily on mapping architectural remains that are visible from the surface, as well as features of the landscape that may be artificial in origin. This report discusses four major sites identified by the survey – the Gapejaw Bog Complex, Solaceon Ruins, Brava Arena and Shrouded Ruins – as well as the general characteristics of earth and stone archaeological features observed throughout the Crimson Mirelands.

This survey would not have been possible without the cooperation and guidance of numerous members of the indigenous Diamond and Pearl Clans, particularly Diamond Clan Warden Arezu, Pearl Clan Warden Calaba and Diamond Clan chieftain Adaman, all of whom have freely shared their knowledge and expertise with project staff. Staff also wish to acknowledge the contributions of numerous Pokémon recruited individually by members of the Survey Corps, as well as, and particularly, the regular invaluable aid of the “noble” Pokémon known as Wyrdeer and Ursaluna.

Full survey map. Green: beaten earth paths, ramps or earthworks. Bright red: standing or fallen marble columns. Dark red: masonry walls. Purple: marble arches. Yellow: stone paving. Orange: stone tablets and plaques. Blue: other stone features. Magenta: subterranean structure. Light blue: anomalous column. Teal: contemporary wooden architecture.

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Let’s Talk About Legends: Arceus (part 2 of Some Number)

Last time I checked in, I was about to try to do… something… about the enraged “noble” Pokémon, Kleavor, the Pearl Clan’s “lord of the woods.” Professor Laventon’s plan is to leverage the player character’s incredible skill at throwing $#!t by mashing some of Kleavor’s favourite foods into throwable clumps, which will in some way achieve something good, probably.

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Let’s Talk About Legends: Arceus (part 1 of Some Number)

listen, it’s been a mere week since this game came out and I started playing yesterday; that qualifies as punctual for me

For the benefit of anyone who hasn’t decided yet whether they want to buy this game, here are some thoroughly de-spoilered opinions:

It’s very different; it’s quite unlike the traditional Pokémon formula. Follows Pokémon Go and Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee in putting the emphasis on catching and releasing a lot of Pokémon to progress; follows Sword and Shield in putting the human characters and their motivations front-and-centre a bit more than previous titles. A lot more open-world-action-game-y than Sword and Shield ever tried to be. Cares a great deal about Pokémon’s exploration/discovery themes. Sometimes Pokémon try to murder you. Battles with other trainers are not completely absent, but so far a very minor aspect of the game, appropriately enough given its premise and setting; it’s mostly about wild Pokémon. So far I like it; the characters are great, the new Pokédex system is great, the environments (both natural and human) are very pretty if you care about that. I mean, I have to reserve full judgement until… well, if my previous record on Pokémon games is anything to go by, until about 10 years have passed and I’ve played it all the way through multiple times, but yeah, so far it seems good.

Also, while playing this game, I was watching an episode of House, M.D. (episode 8.8) in which the title character remarks – out of nowhere and to the utter bafflement of everyone else in the room – that “Arceus created a universe with three states of matter.” It’s totally in-character; House spends a lot of time playing video games and he enjoys saying cryptic things just to mess with people; I just thought it was a fun coincidence that I’d never seen that particular episode before and happened to watch it during my first day with Legends: Arceus.

Anyway, this concludes my not-a-review; from this point on, HERE BE SPOILERS (but only for what I’ve played so far, which is honestly not that much, so unless you’re observing absolute blackout protocol it’s probably fine). Let’s talk about the first… chunk… of this game, and some things I thought about it.

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okay let’s talk about the- fµ¢£- what are we talking about

apparently there’s a thing we should talk about

I am of course infuriated at being awoken from my deathless slumber to talk about whatever the hell this is, and moreover I am, as always, personally offended that this broadcast was not scheduled with my specific time zone in mind (it was at 2 am NZT). Naturally, I will be seeking spiritual retribution against Nintendo, the Pokémon Company and Game Freak by The Usual Channels in due course. In the meantime… let’s see what secret intelligence has just landed on our doorsteps.

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