Okay, daytime and people are outside. Let’s talk to townfolk again.

Welcome to Lacunosa Town. In this town, people live as methodically as clockwork from morning to night. If you live your life soaking up sunlight, you can sleep very well at night.

Booooooooring.

The big scary monster that comes out at night is a Pokemon, right?

First off, shouldn’t you know better than me? Or are you a tourist or something? Second, I thought you had walls to keep it out.

It must be a really scary Pokemon if everyone believes the legend and follows these rules…

Or maybe they’re just really boring.

Huh, all the pine trees are in pretty autumn colors. They’re an evergreen plant, Japan.

My Pokemon just runs around on its own. Maybe it doesn’t need a Trainer?

Another PLASMA WAS RIGHT notch.

Policeman: I don’t have anything to do every since I took a post here. Since nobody goes out at night, it’s very peaceful.

See, this confirms my theory that it’s just they’re very boring people. It’s not like you can’t commit crimes during the day. Also, assuming he’s including himself, that means you’d be able to commit any crimes so long as you did them at night.

Okay, nothing else seems to be happening, so let’s continue.

Oooh, rare candy! Lots of items over here, actually.

Probably should have remembered to heal first, that was close.

There’s a battle girl. I like them.

Although it just occurred to me they’re the female counterpart to the adult male martial artists, which is annoying.

It’s the idea that doing male pursuits is a temporary thing for anyone female – if you’re male, you can continue to do it as you get older and be respected for your skill (they’re identified blackbelts, after all), but if you’re a girl, it’s just a childish thing you do as a tomboy before you learn to accept your proper, makeup-wearing role. Do you know what we don’t have in this game? A class called battle boy. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous and condescending? You’d expect to find the kids in one of the preschool areas.

But still. I think she’s one of the better sprites.

And some other girls.

Tolerable.

The real problem is that the game doesn’t limit itself to dressing cheerleaders in cheerleader outfits. Remove the pompoms and they could be most female trainer classes. It’s the same issue as you can see with the swimmers:

This kind of thing is supposed to be where the designers get a free pass for fanservice, or, given how tiny these are and the availability of better porn, artistservice. Instead, this is exactly the same thing as the rest of the game.

Okay, apparently there are pokemon on this route I haven’t seen yet, but they look to be rustling grass pokemon, otherwise known as an enormous waste of time. Onward!

In the connecting area, there’s some guy saying he caught a minccino for his daughter because it’s both cute and strong. Because that’s sure how you talk about your friend who is totally your equal.

Trying to cross the bridge. Some old guy stops me.

Wait! Waaait!

Bear in mind that he’s not running after me here, he was in front of me and he’s run up to me.

I’ve been waiting for this day! You’re the 1,000th opponent!

Huh, that raises a question, how many trainers do you fight in the game? How many have I fought over the generations, through the restarts…?

I’ve got a 999-win streak. Be my battle opponent!

I’ve gotta get out my amulet coin for you first. Gentleman trainers always give lots of money.

I understand. I’ve got a 999-win streak! It’s natural to be intimidated. But I can’t let you go further unless you battle me! And there’s definitely no way around me. Nope. You shouldn’t use Surf to cross the river, for example.

God this is stupid. I don’t need the game telling me that I don’t even need to try to beat its challenges.

There’s some tennis players who fight you. I’m really not that enthusiastic about all the people with other hobbies showing up as trainers. If I’m beating a person who has a job and another major hobby of theirs at some additional thing they do with whatever free time they have left, it’s just not very impressive.

Below, there’s some guy playing music amid patchy tall grass. Surprisingly he has a name.

Derleth: What is piercing my mind is a sad sound. What is piercing my heart is a cold night wind.
Derleth: Fwee… Fwee… Fffweeet fweet…
Derleth: The only things that come out of my mouth are my whistle tunes and complaints about my life. The bridge is a meeting place for people like me who like to complain.

Right then. This maybe will amount to something later? I don’t know.

Well, the pokedex tells me I’ve caught everything here already, so no need to stick around.

The river itself has white fencing across either end so you can’t go anywhere beyond the area. That’d actually be extremely hard to maintain and just result in a lot of gunk getting jammed into it. What’s wrong with the standard rock barrier? Or just letting the player go places via water for once.

And…huh. Two of my pokemon faint in one turn during a triple battle, and now it won’t let me switch in fresh ones. It lets me select one pokemon, then brings me back to the screen and asks me what pokemon I want to switch out. Selecting any other pokemon produces an X can’t be switched out message, and selecting the pokemon that’s already in battle gives the “X is already in battle!” message. Selecting the same pokemon just repeats endlessly.

What’s really weird is if I go back to the start, selecting my in-battle pokemon brings up the subscreen where it says it’s in battle, but once I select the first one, it immediately gives me the in-battle message without changing screens.

So I guess I have to reset. Fuck.

Okay, back again.

Okay, my escavalier leveled up to get x-scissor. Power 80, accuracy 100. It already knows bug buzz, power 90 accuracy 100, chance of lowering special defense. That one’s special though, and x-scissor is physical.

You know what’s annoying? You can’t see the stats when you’re picking what move, so I forget if they’re special or physical attackers. I mean, I assume it’s a good physical attacker, but sometimes pokemon are about even in each attack stat. I keep having to go to Bulbapedia to see what the standard stat layout is, and Bulbapedia’s pokemon pages are really annoying because they’re gigantic and they lead with bullshit sections:

Biology

Physiology
Escavalier’s head sports a feature quite resembling the red horsehair crest of a knight’s helmet, with a visor underneath it. The shoulders of Escavalier have large, round metal ridges, from which its thin black arms extend. The arms are tipped with red-striped jousting-lance like protrusions. Escavalier’s face and torso are bare of armor, but its lower body is concealed within a swirled gray shell with a red spike on the underside, which is presumably the shell of a Shelmet.
Gender differences
None.
Special abilities
Its tough armor protects its entire body. They fly around at high speed, jabbing foes with their pointed spears.
Behavior
Escavalier are brave and will face against any challenge even if in trouble.
Habitat
Diet
Main article: Pokémon food

Every goddamn page has “Diet” and a link to the pokemon food article with no other content. I just want stats, moveset and locations.

I should probably just pay more attention in the first place…

Seems old guy says the same thing when I approach from the other side.

I accept, then.

Gwa ha ha! Even though you’re just a fledgling, you’ll still be my 1,000th win in a row!

I feel sort of bad…

But I win easily.

I’ve steadily extended my win streak for two years… And now it’s over… But I have a strong will. I declare that I’ll try again to have a 1,000-win streak! I won’t battle you next time, though. You’ll just break my streak.

Good luck, weird old guy.

Into more houses.

I wish someone would raise me like this. With three meals and a nap every day.

I hated naptime even when I was in preschool. I like being able to make my own decisions, thanks.

I wonder if veteran Pokemon raise or train young Pokemon.

I can’t believe no one’s done studies on that! So they have no idea how trained pokemon interact with other pokemon, despite them being released whenever a trainer feels like it with absolutely no oversight? And this means they’re either not allowed to have kids in captivity, or else they’re not allowed to raise them.

My great-great-great-grandfather and his Gurdurr worked together and built this Village Bridge.

You know what I don’t see in your house? That gurdurr’s descendant. In fact, your house appears to have no pokemon at all. Did you build a separate house for the gurdurr? Well?

I’ll be a stonecutter like my grandpa! I can get help from powerful Pokemon!

Yes, but what are the pokemon getting out of it? Friendship? If friendship is worth it, why don’t we see a single example of people helping pokemon accomplish something without any reward, the way we keep seeing pokemon do in all these little anecdotes?

If Team Plasma had tricked everyone into releasing all their Pokemon, it would have been impossible to build a bridge like this. People and Pokemon are inseparable… The relationship is not more or less than that. That’s what I believe.

Talking about how you don’t want to do something because it’s not in your own best interest totally convinces me that you have no ulterior motive.

The core problem is that this is really supposed to be looked at from the perspective of humans working together with nature. Pokemon are the stand-ins for nature spirits, which is why the series tends to be holding up the basic concept of people working together with nature at large rather than the individual pokemon involved. It’s sort of like when Wiccans say they respect the spirit of such-and-such plant, and that’s why they’re tearing a chunk off to make a charm. I forget where, but I saw someone suggesting a “realistic” take on things where the tauros tribe makes a deal with the human tribes where the humans eat them but in return they venerate them for bravery and strength, and it missed the fact that human myths really do not make any sense if you stop to ask yourself if you would agree to the other side of the deal.