SPOILERS! Indigo Disk Discussion

[R_N]

Man the item printer really is fun
I was not expecting the Master Ball upgrade to have multiple items be, like, good. Going from 1 tera shard to 6 or 10 is great, as is all the other stuff you can run multiples of. I got 6 Balm Mushrooms!

Really looking forward to the Delibid christmas swarms, I'm going to stock up on all the materials I can.

You can physically go to BlueBerry and explore the terrarium, but the story is locked to those requirements.

I guess they felt not being able to do anything with the second half of the $35 dlc you paid for until beating everything would be a bit much
If I ever play the game again maybe I'll mess around with it. Even with not being able to catch the Pokemon in it for most of the game, there's quite a few items you can pick up.


Like the dozens of Dawn Stones that litter the Canyon drop tables, despite neither Ralts or Snorunt even being in the Terrarium.

 

[Slowpokeking]

I really think Geeta's characterization was meh.


She didn't have much memorable things, didn't get involved with the main plot much, the league battle was meh.
In DLC she also did very little. And how did she agree to send such a questionable team for such risky task?

 

[TenshouYoku]

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Gameplay wise it is definitely much harder and a wakeup call for players who are unprepared for the significantly easier pre-DLC. I do have a blast in fighting the NPCs but it (while far from impossible) does seem a tad bit too difficult given they can quite literally OHKO even trained mons at 100lv pretty easily.

The story is OTOH hot garbage I seriously wonder if most of that is because they couldn't get the technical details straight and had to half ass the rest of the Area Zero content in.
Kieran's character growth became a joke, Blair is a massive meme that not only is actively useless but causes issues (goading Kieran to try and revive Terapagos, making it Terastalize inside the cave).

Like just wtf is this plot? Nothing gets explained (the Paradox Pokemon in particular), the buildup for Terapagos is literally non existent, the story in the base game is such a massive far cry from whatever it's presented in this DLC I sincerely doubt it was what it's supposed to look like.

 

[Slowpokeking]

Lacey is the best, probably the only good part of the DLC story.

 

[doipy hooves]

I finished the DLC2 campaign, after spending a few days doing everything besides it. While I rotated my party slightly, this was my core team and the highlight for me was being able to use Illumise (Fake Tears/Charm/Struggle Bug/Encore (formerly Light Screen)) and Minun (Nuzzle/Thunder/Encore/Discharge (formerly Entrainment, Charm, and Light Screen)) properly with doubles giving them a purpose to be on the field as supports and not just wasting turns. I've posted about the miscellaneous aspects of this DLC throughout the thread, so I will mainly just post my notes about the gameplay/main battles of the campaign here.

Most of the time my general plan was to try to isolate targets with debuffs and just focus fire on one side which the AI usually doesn't really have an answer for. Overall I thought the difficulty was fair for the case of wanting to use mons I like at level 100, though Empoleon (Hydro Pump/Flash Cannon/Icy Wind/Protect) especially did a lot more work than I expected in both random trainers and bosses thanks to Competitive and all the stat debuffs, as well as just chipping random sashes. Quaquaval, Azumarill, and Ogerpon mostly retained their simple attacking sets from the main game, though I gave Ogerpon Spiky Shield with nothing better to do.

notes on battles

(Azumarill burnt)
Crispin: This was the first fight I had where I wasn't really sure what to expect other than going in with a bunch of Water types. I tried putting Toxic Spikes and Rain up but Talonflame immediately put Sun back. It was pretty touch and go but Ogerpon and Quaquaval ended up carrying most of the fight. Protect and Spiky Shield were nice to stall occasionally combined with poison.

Amarys: Pretty rough but closer than it looked. I had the chance to Encore Skarmory's Stealth Rock early with Minun, which I had an idea of since the Japanese previews mentioned it. Red Card ended up dragging out Metagross to instantly die from Bitter Blade so I never got to see it tera. Reuniclus lived though and she got Trick Room up and people started dying. In the end it was just Dugtrio getting some revenge kills to even it out.

Lacey: Very straightforward thanks to Competitive Empoleon. Illumise Charmed Granbull which made Stomping Tantrum survivable (and the occasional Fire Punch on Illumise), and then I set up Fake Tears for Empoleon to OHKO the rest even through Light Screen.

Drayton's trial:

I dug out a lot of random stuff but my trained Minun + random Plusle handled this fine, until the Lightning Rod Zebstrika which I just sent Flygon into. I accidentally Red Carded myself with Discharge at first into Golem, who also had Discharge. This is where Minun picked up Discharge and I forgot to switch it off.

Drayton: Also pretty straightforward. I led with Illumise/Azumarill and decided to set Charm on Dragonite while taking out Flygon. For some reason Dragonite decided to start off with Ice Spinner against Azumarill and quickly became ineffectual. Azumarill took out everything else while Illumise debuffed, until Archaludon where my Struggle Bug let it survive Play Rough with Stamina and I took an Electro Shot. I ended up switching Minun in to get the last kills with Struggle Bug and Fake Tears into Thunder.

Kieran: Pretty interesting final fight. By this point I removed Red Card from Minun. Prankster Illumise ran into some trouble against Incineroar being a Dark type. I led with Ogerpon for dialogue and it took out Politoed but I switched out to Azumarill for Incineroar. Porygon-Z ended up Hyper Beaming Azumarill down while Dragonite took out Illumise and we ended up even. I put Minun and Quaquaval in to revenge kill Porygon-Z with the rain, while I paralyzed Dragonite with Nuzzle. Grimmsnarl put up Reflect and Dragonite used Breaking Swipe, which I ended up encoring and switching into Empoleon to start stacking Competitive boosts, though it was paralyzed on the switch. Grimmsnarl hit a Spirit Break but Empoleon OHKO'd with Flash Cannon while Dragonite gave me +2 SpA and then Hydrapple gave another +2. Icy Wind finished off Dragonite with another turn taken for Hydrapple because of his random tera.

Area Zero: Even though the game was dropping healing items everywhere, the miniboss encounters weren't too annoying which I appreciate.

Terapagos: Azumarill 1v1'd the first phase but took a beating which persisted into the second phase. I ended up just healing so I could get my tera off, which did make Tera Starstorm super effective but I managed to break shield. I switched over to Ogerpon and hit some Horn Leeches super effectively until teraing to break another shield. Then I wanted to end it with Quaquaval but it resisted Water. I ended up taking a heal in between while I finally got to tera and 2HKO the shield with Aqua Step. Then I used Aqua Step again but Terapagos lived and Tera Starstormed me, but then I also lived on 1 HP thanks to affection and Kieran finished it off with Thunder. It was pretty neat to make you incorporate the tera charge mechanic from raids multiple times, even though it uses the SWSH mechanic of not letting you damage past a shield threshold.

Infinite charge for the tera orb is nice QOL, but feels like it's purely to solve a problem that's only relevant because of that one BBQ mission. It also brings back the question of why every Pokemon Center has the technology to recharge tera orbs when they're so exclusive, and why you still have to charge up tera energy in raids by attacking.

While I like that Snacksworth tracks all your quests already finished, I don't like that he has to be talked to individually for each snack even if he has a wholesome story for each one.

 

[Magcargo]

The DLC was poorly written. Kieran says he's been improving and learning, yet he swaps out the Uber Gliscor for trash like Politoed and Porygon-Z? Unacceptable.

Story thoughts

Story is OK. I like the atmosphere of the Terrarium. Also exploring the Area Zero underdepths is a really cool moment. It's like one of those moments you would dream about happening, where a secret area to a game you play gets unlocked (something like Bill's Garden). I liked the DLC characters like Lacey and Crispin. Kieran was also cool, big fan of him. Would have preferred if he remained the docile guy he was in DLC1. Fighting him as the champion felt intense.

However my biggest issue is that this DLC didn't explain much of the mysteries in the base game like the existence of the paradox Pokemon. This DLC wound up being mostly self-contained, which I'm not a fan of. Miraidon felt like it had no real role in the Story, which shouldn't have been the case.

The crystal pool event is really cool though. Was a big fan of that.

I like this DLC more than the first. Atmosphere of the new area is pretty good with its aquatic theme, there is generally more content and new features in the Terarium, I like the Unova fanservice, and the new Pokemon in this update are more interesting than the ones in DLC1 (not to say I don't love Dipplin and Sinistcha though). The way legendaries are handled is so much better than SS as well. Seeing them physically in the overworld and have the most up-to-date version of their themes is so nice! I like the new BP quest and synchro feature. Being able to freely fly is also sooo nice.

Design of the Terarium is very good, with a lot of complex cave systems and the like. Seeing additional touches like the electro webs on the walls in some of them was really cool.

DLC was somewhat challenging. The final battle with Kieran was an exception. I knew this guy had Incineroar so I brought Defiant, Rain Dance Annihilape (was previously Sunny for the Typhlosion raid I think) so I could get a defiant boost and setup rain for my Archaludon so I could sweep with Electro Shot. Little did I know, that Kieran set up the rain for me lmao. Something tells me that Archaludon was specifically made for this boss fight since it completely cooks Kieran. IDK how he was able to beat Drayton when he's practically setting up the perfect battle conditions for him. Speaking of which, why wasn't it Drayton that used the rain strategy

I liked that most of the Elite 4 members weren't locked to a specific type. They had some interesting type diversity to account for specific weaknesses like Crispin having Exeggutor for Waters, Drayton having Sceptile, etc. Lacey's ace being the Tera Fairy Excadrill was cool.

I don't like how Kieran scrapped most of his original team though. The only Pokemon kept was Hydrappl, which wasn't even his ace in the first match? Gliscor gets no love in the games as of late, no need to throw it in the trash! Still it was cool that all the Pokemon on his team were from multiple different generations.

Love the new Pokemon. Archaludon and Hydrappl specifically are the goats. Terapagos is a turtle and I love turtles. Don't care about any of the new paradox mons, though they are kinda funny, Iron Boulder esp.

 

[Worldie]

I don't like how Kieran scrapped most of his original team though. The only Pokemon kept was Hydrappl, which wasn't even his ace in the first match?

I think this tecnically fits the situation, as Kieran has been shown to have ditched "fun" for "win at all costs", so it's basically a Silver situation where he ditched his original team for whatever Pokemon he thought was cool or strong.

I still don't really get the Fighting tera though...

 

[SadisticMystic]

Three jeers for them being incredibly heavy-handed in making it impossible to protect Carmine's Sinistcha during the final Terapagos battle, no matter what combination of effects you throw out that should, by all rights, keep it safe. The damage figures are complete nonsense anyway in treating it as a "you die now no matter what" move; even without factoring in the Guard Split, Zen Headbutt is supposed to do less than 30%.

Guess they were just too tired and couldn't bear the thought of having to code support for a 3-player battle screen in which both siblings stick around.

 

[Worldie]

Guess they were just too tired and couldn't bear the thought of having to code support for a 3-player battle screen in which both siblings stick around.

Tbh I think it's other way around, the story script has Carmine go "oh no, Sinistcha is my last pokemon alive", and then has her to try to push Kieran to wake the fuck up during the figth as the MC is left to fend for themselves alone.
So they actually scripted it to force Carmine to get KOd.

The whole "Kieran pls stop QQing and help" doesn't quite hit as well if Carmine is still fighting.

 

[TenshouYoku]

Three jeers for them being incredibly heavy-handed in making it impossible to protect Carmine's Sinistcha during the final Terapagos battle, no matter what combination of effects you throw out that should, by all rights, keep it safe. The damage figures are complete nonsense anyway in treating it as a "you die now no matter what" move; even without factoring in the Guard Split, Zen Headbutt is supposed to do less than 30%.

Guess they were just too tired and couldn't bear the thought of having to code support for a 3-player battle screen in which both siblings stick around.

LMAO it just straight up erased the healed HP of sinischa and make sure it stays down

 

[AztecCroc]

Tbh I think it's other way around, the story script has Carmine go "oh no, Sinistcha is my last pokemon alive", and then has her to try to push Kieran to wake the fuck up during the figth as the MC is left to fend for themselves alone.
So they actually scripted it to force Carmine to get KOd.

The whole "Kieran pls stop QQing and help" doesn't quite hit as well if Carmine is still fighting.

There were more subtle ways they could have gone about it though. Terapagos was already using Tera Raid stuff, they could have had it fire off the buff clearing ability suppression pulse before attacking so you wouldn't be able to obviously see it survived and then get its health auto-drained like that.

 

[Ironmage]

Three jeers for them being incredibly heavy-handed in making it impossible to protect Carmine's Sinistcha during the final Terapagos battle, no matter what combination of effects you throw out that should, by all rights, keep it safe. The damage figures are complete nonsense anyway in treating it as a "you die now no matter what" move; even without factoring in the Guard Split, Zen Headbutt is supposed to do less than 30%.

Guess they were just too tired and couldn't bear the thought of having to code support for a 3-player battle screen in which both siblings stick around.

It's especially funny that they seem to be trying to tell the player basic raid mechanics despite this being the final battle of the postgame dlc. I suppose the logical follow-up is that since the first part of the battle is fake, is the second part also attempting to force an outcome (i.e. how losable is it)?

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Three jeers for them being incredibly heavy-handed in making it impossible to protect Carmine's Sinistcha during the final Terapagos battle, no matter what combination of effects you throw out that should, by all rights, keep it safe. The damage figures are complete nonsense anyway in treating it as a "you die now no matter what" move; even without factoring in the Guard Split, Zen Headbutt is supposed to do less than 30%.

Guess they were just too tired and couldn't bear the thought of having to code support for a 3-player battle screen in which both siblings stick around.

We sure this is just script shenanigans and not some weird nerf to Sturdy?

 

[Worldie]

We sure this is just script shenanigans and not some weird nerf to Sturdy?

Definitely, unless Sinistcha suddently obtained Sturdy as ability xd

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Definitely, unless Sinistcha suddently obtained Sturdy as ability xd

I meant that the script could be "once Sinistcha faints, this conversation happens" instead of "at THIS TURN, Sinistcha will die to whatever Terapagos throws at it no matter what so that the conversation happens". If it's the latter then it's just Game Freak being silly/lazy, but if it's the former, then it happened as in the video because they changed how Sturdy works with healing berries etc.

 

[Perriechu]

Okieee I've finished most of the events (main story) and I have someee thoughts - I'll spoiler cause potentially long. Most of these are just general thoughts overall.

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Terarium

The terarium was kinda a let down, the Pokémon choices were a little bit odd, but also I don't feel like they played with the variety enough, it seemed to be the same Pokémon popping up over and over again. Although I'm happy the starters finally all had proper dex entries, it sucked to have a large chunk of the Pokédex filled up with them - IMO the Blueberry Dex should have been a lot bigger. The concept was cool, though, but I still don't understand why they 1) Left out alternate form Pokémon, especially Alola formes and 2) Still don't allow the evolution of regular formes into Alola forms in various sections. I get that Alolan Exeggutor is available in-game, but it's annoying that I can't breed my own Exeggcute and evolve it into an A-Exeggutor without the use of 3DS games which are no longer in print. The same with Pikachu. And not even including A-Marowak was an odd choice. They could have easily had it so the Coastal Biome acts as a "Alola" evolutionairy ground or something. It's pedantic of me, but I like to breed everything from the ground up including IVs/Natures, so it's frustrating that I can't get A-Raichu, Marowak and Exeggutor the way I want them lol.

I also think the starters should have been added to Raids after unlocking.

Blueberry Academy / Battles / Quests

The E4 were genuinely difficult, and that was a really nice welcome change - Drayton was really hard, and even after reconfiguring everything he still gave me difficulty, as did Lacey (Decorate Alcremie on a Hax-ability Slowbro really took me by surprise) - Crispin was also fairly difficult and it was brought down to 1v1. I used several teams (Rain, TR, skill swap gimmicks etc) and it was really nice to be able to actually utilise them, it wasn't just rain setter + abuser and win, I was brought down to 1v1 quite often. The trainers around the area, meh, some were really challenging - the first one league member I ran into with the Blissey TR really took me by surprise, but I still wasn't sure why other trainers were using NFE Pokémon? But either way, this was probably the most exciting battling experience from Pokémon in a long time. The quests and BP grinding is very tedious, I get they need to make it that way due to the rewards, but cycling through the same 6-8 tasks is exhausting when it's for 20, 30, 40bp at a time.

Story

Perhaps the most disappointing was the story, all the way through - from the actual E4 story, to the Area Zero stuff, I was so disappointed. My own fault for setting myself up, but I was truly expecting a solid finish. The E4 story felt rushed, they were all pissed at Kieran, but it was all done so quickly that we never got a feel for it? I think linear battling would have helped with this, they mentioned Crispin is the lowest rank, so it should have been in order. We should have learned about each E4 member and their relationships a bit more, maybe a bit of an extra quest in between E4 + Champion, because the big risk just wasn't there. Sure defeat Kieran, your rival of 5 minutes, but there was animosity within the group that we never got to see manifest or develop?

Then the Area Zero stuff.. that just felt like an add-on? Area Zero itself is perhaps one of the best things Gamefreak has ever created within Pokémon and it feels so underutilised. First, why am I returning to Area Zero with two characters who have no connection? Where are Arven, Penny and Nemona? Then whilst exploring the lower depths, why is there not more paradox Pokémon?

To segue a little bit, I feel like we should have gotten a lot more Paradox Pokémon than what we did (or at least a few more) again; underutilised potential. Give us a Paradox starter group, cover legends, mascots etc - a very good concept that was so mismanaged.

Now the finish of the story just being Kieran wanting to get stronger - and that's it? Terapagos was used as a plot device, despite having the entire DLC focused on it. At least with Ogrepon and the L3 it had a genuine story but Terapagos wasn't explored further. We don't know why it was down there, or what it could do. There was no actual explanation for the Paradox Pokémon - it feels like such a waste.

I will say, though, even though it creates plot holes, that scene at the Crystal Pool with Sada/Turo was very sweet, and actually made me tear up lol, but again all of these things should have featured Arven in some way.

Overall I'm quite let down. I enjoyed my playthrough, seeing my favourite games / region (Unova!) referenced constantly, incl music remixes and things, was amazing and I'm perched for next year, but overall I do think the story needed more focus (Considering the SV story was really good)

It's a step up from CT, though. Hopefully for Gen X they can finally get it right across the board.

 

[Coronis]

Lacey is the best, probably the only good part of the DLC story.

 

[pika pal]

I don't like how Kieran scrapped most of his original team though. The only Pokemon kept was Hydrappl, which wasn't even his ace in the first match? Gliscor gets no love in the games as of late, no need to throw it in the trash! Still it was cool that all the Pokemon on his team were from multiple different generations.

I think this tecnically fits the situation, as Kieran has been shown to have ditched "fun" for "win at all costs", so it's basically a Silver situation where he ditched his original team for whatever Pokemon he thought was cool or strong.

Is this also a bad time to mention how many players mentio chananging their team up for the DLC (be it a power move or simply to vary things up)?

Jokes aside the "Win first" mentality for Kieran is the most likely explanation, which you can see shades of in the Teal Mask since he ditches his Furret and Cramorant after the 3rd and 4th battles respectively, which also are the battles that correspond to when he starts getting particularly broken up or unhinged (the "why can't I ever win?" moment after you hide Ogerpon and take the 3rd Picture, and the Loyalty Plaza argument). It's a logical progression that also corresponds to the DLC's shift to Doubles, which has a completely different Battling Style that his new mons play by more effectively (Politoed alongside Dragonite, Incineroar is a Doubles Poster Child, and Grimmsnarl is to tank up his nuke-and-vulnerable Porygon-Z or his slow-but-bulky Hydrapple).

I meant that the script could be "once Sinistcha faints, this conversation happens" instead of "at THIS TURN, Sinistcha will die to whatever Terapagos throws at it no matter what so that the conversation happens". If it's the latter then it's just Game Freak being silly/lazy, but if it's the former, then it happened as in the video because they changed how Sturdy works with healing berries etc.

The simplest solution I think would have been to give Terapagos the Raid Buff/Ability Wipe right before a turn where it's scripted to Crit Sinistcha (which would ignore other things like debuffs to it or Reflect that survive said wipe) and then just make sure the latter is statted to faint to the chosen move (Tera Starstorm with Carmina attempting to Terastalize her Sinistcha probably the easiest, or just a move that has STAB with whatever type Terapagos is assigned under the hood that phase). It's odd to me that this is the one they hard coded a behavior like this considering even the Raidon battle, while scripted still presents itself as working with regular mechanics (the Friendship Endure spam to prevent fainting and the scripted Tera -> Tera Blast still at least being how the mechanic works, just forcing you to do it).

 

[Missingno.1998]

My thoughts on the DLC:

DLC Thoughts

I was really really let down by this. I loved the Scarlet/Violet story, and was really looking forward to this DLC expanding on it. I thought we would get some good lore for Terapagos, an explanation on the Paradox Pokemon, how Terapagos ties to Tera, more on Area Zero...

Instead, we got a super rushed Elite 4 match up, barely any further character arc for Kieran (I thought we may touch on why he evolved this way and how the main character contributed, but nope), actually zero story line for Terapagos other than fueling Kieran's ego, the most barren areas under Area Zero, no lore whatsoever, and no epic conclusion to this beautiful they laid out. Like they clearly just rushed to crank out these DLC and move onto something else.

Super, Super disappointing. I did love the Terapagos final battle though, it was actually difficult unlike Eternamax Eternatus (and obtaining in game, props for that!).

Even the Teranium felt kind of weak for me, like I feel like I kept seeing the same pokemon over and over again despite there being so many new ones added? I'm also so disappointed with the dex choices, we have a limited dex and most of it was spent on starters and legends that I already have 150 copies of. I'm of the opinion that starters and legends should stay in their unique regions, so this was a bummer for me.

They failed to stick the landed of these games for me, which definitely weakened my overall opinion on this Gen.

 

[R_N]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1736938399536202081

Well that's a shame, Stellar felt like it'd be a fun boss for a legendary. Maybe they'll do a small update later in the game's life for some "final" bosses

 

[doipy hooves]

All of Atticus's auction works start from $100,000 and have a base price of $200,000. Based on their multipliers, the kid NPCs will stop at $200000, the 1.1x NPCs will stop at $220000, the 1.2x NPCs will stop at $240000, and the 1.8x NPCs will stop at $360000. Since you can just retry these infinitely and get them done all at once, it is worth withdrawing here to avoid the old NPCs if only to save at least 100k on each item.

 

[TenshouYoku]

There were more subtle ways they could have gone about it though. Terapagos was already using Tera Raid stuff, they could have had it fire off the buff clearing ability suppression pulse before attacking so you wouldn't be able to obviously see it survived and then get its health auto-drained like that.

To be fair, under normal gameplay conditions Sinischa is nowhere bulky and strong enough to survive so many attacks being dished at it, it is realistically not actually noticeable.

 

[Coronis]

So.. I’m still being lazy and haven’t grinded to get all the league coaches and legends are unlocked… are there any cool interactions between certain characters?


Btw I loved the whole awkward Crispin asking out Lacey aha

 

[DHR-107]

Blazed through the main story overnight, so spoilers ahead.

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For a DLC pack that wears the Area Zero association on its sleeve and is designed to reach a climax in a super-secret hidden section of the place… this kinda sucked in terms of being a resolution to the Area Zero mysteries?

Like, what did we really learn here? Going down the list:

7. Also, on the subject of that meeting with the real Sada / Turo, it seems that we are entangled in an ontological paradox, as through the dialogue choices, it is possible to give the Professor the inspiration for the name “Koraidon / Miraidon,” as well as the idea to contruct an AI duplicate of themselves. That’s all fine; I figured that a game with a time machine and things called Paradox Pokémon probably couldn’t resist throwing in the old bootstrap loop somewhere… but there’s a problem. We can infer that this is supposed to be a self-contained ontological time loop, because one of the Professor’s notes found on the desk at the entrance of the Area Zero underdepths describes this meeting from their point of view, and mentions that they received a white book from us. And when the scene plays out on our end, that does happen… but in exchange for Briar’s white book, the Professor gives us their copy of the Scarlet / Violet Book. The same copy of the Scarlet / Violet Book that Arven picked up in their lab and was carrying throughout the main storyline, which we used in order to shut down the time machine. But if the Professor gave us that book at a point in time before they had completed the time machine, it wouldn’t have been around for Arven to find.

I've highlighted one of these points here (not that I don't disagree on most of them - a lot of unanswered questions) but after viewing the cutscene at the Pool - This just ends up being really awful "Time Travel" writing.

SV and Zelda TotK inside

So I was talking to a friend about a lot of this (Hydrattler) and we just couldn't make the time loop work.

For example; In Tears of the Kingdom the "Time loop" gets resolved correctly. There are Two Master Swords and Two Zelda's in existence for the majority of the time prior to the game starting. We then send the Master Sword back in time to get brought to us in the future - there is only 1 in existence and it can exist in both sides of the loop. It gets back to Link the slow way around after we send it back and so there is now "One" again. This is also used in Chrono Trigger effectively with Robo and changing the timeline and creating an entire forest. We leave him there, hop to the future and he has changed the timeline.

However, these loops resolve correctly from the point of view of the object being time travelled. This does not seem to be the instance in Pokemon SV. Arven starts off the with the "SV Book" at the start of the game. All good. The game happens and eventually, Arven gives us the SV Book in order to shut down the time machine. The AI takes the SV Book with them. This all works fine linearly.

The player then gets given the White Book from Briar in the later stages of the Indigo Disk DLC. This White Book is referenced directly by the Professor in the Area Zero Depths and he mentions a meeting with someone by a lake where he obtains the book.

This happens to us after the events with Terapagos in the Depths, when we return to the Kitikami Crystal lake. This is where the problem starts. This Professor explicitly says they haven't got the time machine working yet, and are just as confused as you as to why they are there. They trade their copy of the SV Book to you for the White Book. We know it's the same book because it has the "This has Profs name scrawled on it" tag.

Therein lies the problem. If we have the book, the book could no longer be in Arven's possession at the start of the game as WE now have that book in the future. The worst part of this is ARVEN NOTICES THE NEW BOOK and says "Oh you got the copy from the Library?" LIKE NO? IT HAS THE PROFS NAME ON IT?

This could have been entirely resolved by the Prof having a throwaway line. Instead we have a full paradox occurring. This other timeline may resolve in Arven never discovering the Herba Mystica or even meeting the player.

I've thought about a few ways the game could have resolved this but none of them really work. The AI Prof sending the book back between Prof leaving the book at the surface and then you meeting him at the pool is handwavey, but the worse option is the "Prof made two copies of the book" which is just the worst explanation.

This has honestly frustrated me a great deal as they had the chance to make a good Time Travel Story but they just crapped the bed at the last. Like I said earlier, a simple quote line about "The book reappeared to me after my last visit to the surface" or something just to keep it being the same book (though this does ask the question of that book being potentially hundreds of years old depending on how many times the loop has happened).

End of rant.

As an addition to this, none of the questions about how Heath know about the paradox Pokemon get answered, again a very lazy explanation is that in testing the Time Machine Prof got the times a bit wrong and dragged things not far enough into the future, or fired them too far into the past. I don't really like that explanation either. A lot of this doesn't really add up and it's insulting that they didn't think people would see these glaring issues.

 

[R_N]

I honestly wonder if the intent with everything dealing with the paradoxes and time machine and the book was just leading to "wow! This is all weird and messed up huh? What a........paradox!" and then they mug for the camera, roll credits.

Personally I would have gladly accepted them just going, like you said "I/Terapagos must have messed with the Time Machine wrong while fine tuning it". It's still a paradox but its like...cute, about it. It fits. I'd have preferred a more in depth look at it but I'd accept it and moved on.
But just like...say it though.

So.. I’m still being lazy and haven’t grinded to get all the league coaches and legends are unlocked… are there any cool interactions between certain characters?


Btw I loved the whole awkward Crispin asking out Lacey aha

I like both of Larry's with Ryme & Iono.
Was hoping Larry would have one with Katy, or Tulip with Grusha, but doesn't seem like they do (or I just rolled bad RNG)

I hear Drayton & Hassel have good ones, though I'm still a few trades off from getting the E4 in here