The Media Man Plays: Pokémon Legends ZA (Day 2)

Read Day 1 here.

Welcome back readers! Here's Day 2 of my Pokémon Legends ZA playthrough. Let's see what adventures await us today...

Emma's Side Missions

Emma gives me three side missions to complete. One involves defeating an Alpha Bunnelby, the second involves getting a Pikachu to trade with an NPC for a Heracross (awesome!) and the third involves getting a ring back for a woman who lost it to a Sableye. They're all pretty easy missions to do, even the Alpha Bunnelby mission. I do love how you get a free Heracross by doing one of these. Heracross is a tough mon, so it's quite the prize I say. I did take a while to get the side missions done though, but that's only because I got carried away exploring Lumiose City and breaking Mega Shards so I can buy Mega Stones later. Seriously, there's so many and it's so easy to get distracted just farming those shards instead of getting on with it. XD It also helps that Lumiose City is a big city and you can get lost just exploring for a while. And people idiotically thought it was going to be a small map... (rolls eyes)

After that, Emma tells me about Mega Evolution and I battle her. She only uses a single Mareep, which was easy to deal with.

She then demonstrates Mega Evolution by Mega Evolving her Ampharos. This was unexpected since in X and Y, she never actually uses one. Also surprising that AMPHAROS of all Pokémon is the first mon to Mega Evolve in the game. You'd think they'd make it Lucario or something. Anyhow, Urbain asks Emma to give him any updates on his case. It seems he wants Emma to look for someone. Hmm...I wonder who he's looking for...

Before I continue onto the next part of my gameplay, I want to bring this wonderful bit of fan service up. One of the locations you can visit is a museum and the museum has an entire exhibit dedicated to Legends Arceus. That is just so awesome and a lovely call-back to the very first of the Legends games we got in this series. The exhibit has everything from Rei and Akari's Survey Corps uniforms to a map of Hisui to statues of Dialga and Palkia and much, much more. Fans of Legends Arceus will very much appreciate this part of the game.

But of course, I MUST bring up this big Copperajah-in-the-room regarding this exhibit. Volo's trademark Arceus inspired uniform is on display here. That seems innocent enough, but then you talk to this guy and, well, you can see the dialogue in the picture. To make things even creepier, he mentions how the person was also "gazing at the sketches by Professor Laventon with a nostalgic air too". So this game is pretty much implying that Volo, the main villain of Legends Arceus, the guy who tried to kill us with Giratina and is obsessed with Arceus to the point of lunacy...IS STILL ALIVE?!?!?! 0_0

Nah, I don't buy it for one second. No way is he still alive...is there?

On a less creepy note, one painting we look at reveals that Ingo eventually returned to his own time, so that's nice to know. He got back home and is back with his twin brother Emmet again. I bet they were so happy to be back together again. ^^ Oh and the museum also has a side quest where you have to find 12 Spewpa, so you will come back here at some point.

Ranking Up To Rank X

Night soon fell and it was Battle Royale time again. I'd since managed to evolve nearly all of my team by this time with Ralts currently the only mon still unevolved. I went in using Croconaw, Pikachu, Flaaffy, Pidgeotto, Ralts and Heracross. Sorry Beedrill, but until you can Mega Evolve, Heracross is the better bug to use for now. This part of the game was really fun for me getting to sneak up on trainers and ambush them. A lot of the time, I actually knocked out their Pokémon straight away, which was even more fun. XD The Rank Y trainer I had to beat was an office worker named Yvon, and her wish is to...make Lumiose City ruin a marathon. Uh...OK? Does ANYONE in this damn tournament not have a crazy or stupid wish here? Yvon was no challenge at all. She uses a Spritzee, a Swirlix and Vivillion. Despite having two Fairy types to deal with and no Poison or Steel moves, I had no trouble with the first two and Vivillion was easy prey for Pidgeotto. So here I am now up to Rank X!

I also got our first rival battle with Naveen because Lida wouldn't respect his privacy and decided to make it so that if I beat him, he tells us his backstory. Kind of a dick move there Lida, why couldn't you just accept that Naveen didn't want to tell me anything? Anyhow, Naveen says he's not much of a battler, but he proves to be surprisingly strong with a Spinarak that knows X-Scissor (seriously, since when could Spinarak learn X-Scissor that early? Naveen must've been stacked up on TMs or something!), a Sableye and a Scraggy that knows Rock Tomb to cover Flying types. I tried to use Ralts to deal with Spinarak and Scraggy but because Ralts can't take a hit for toffee, she got taken out and I had to use other mons to win instead. After beating him, Naveen tells me that he's here because he wanted to be a fashion designer and stormed out after his grandmother threw away all his sewing equipment. Sheesh, no wonder he's so moody and withdrawn. Gotta hate it when family doesn't encourage your interests...

After that, it was time to get promoted to Rank W. My opponent I had to defeat then was Xavi, a kid who really likes the letter "X" (and who can blame him, it IS a cool letter). And that's all there is to his character. He's such a nothing character that we don't even get to hear what his wish is. So I guess he's in the Z-A Royale just because. Anyhow, I managed to level up and evolve more of my Pokémon before coming to this match (I even got mah boi Raichu at last) and I ended up swapping out Flaaffy for Gyarados. The Totodile that I've picked to start things off is also a Croconaw now. Anyway, Xavi was ridiculously easy, and all because I unintentionally had counters for pretty much every Pokémon he threw at me. Venipede? My Kirlia took it out with a single Psybeam. Kadabra? My Gyarados knew Bite. Roselia? My Pidgeotto was too strong for it. Furfrou? I had a Heracross with Rock Smash at the ready. What's funny about all this is that I have NOT looked up any of the characters and the Pokémon they use in preparation for this, I'm going in totally blind not knowing what anyone has to offer, so the fact I was so well-prepared to counter his team was very unexpected and highly coincidental!

After that, another Rank Up for me in the Battle Royale! Rank W already, hooray!

Battling Lida and getting a Kanto Starter

After that, the remainder of my playthrough was pretty uneventful aside from battling Lida and doing a few side missions and also farming more Mega Shards. Lida battles using a Clauncher, a Vanillite and a Staryu, which was expected since the trailers outright confirmed she uses a Staryu. Considering I had a Kirlia with Magical Leaf and a Raichu on my team, she had no chance of beating me. XD

The final side mission I did for the day was one where Mable asks the player to pick a Kanto starter. While I prefer Squirtle and Bulbasaur, I picked Charmander since Mega Charizard X is my favourite Mega Evolution and I can't say no to that, can I? I'd stacked up on EXP candies, so I was able to quickly evolve him and catch him up to my other team members, so now I have a Charmeleon on the team. Hopefully it'll be soon I can get that Charizardite X and Mega Evolve him when he becomes a Charizard...

And of course, with my Pichu now a Raichu, I had to get another café photo with her (the blunt tail tip means my Raichu is female just FYI). They grow up so fast, eh? ^^

And that's the end of Day 2. Come back for Day 3, and hopefully I'll get the chance to Mega Evolve at last...

Current roster: Croconaw, Raichu, Gyarados, Charmeleon, Kirlia and Heracross

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