Alright, so, to give you an idea of the hole I’ve dug myself into…

My current active-rotation pokemon:

Formantis L31
Charjabug L31
Deino L31
Sandygast L32
Komala L32
Marowak L33
Crabrawler L33
Ribombee L33
Bastiodon L35
Shiinotic L35
Bewear L35
Zygarde L35
Wishiwashi L35
Persian L35
Araquanid L35
Gumshoos L35
Dugtrio L35
Raticate L35
Oricorio L36
Mareanie L36
Salazzle L36
Comfey L36
Mimikyu L36
Grimer L36
Toucannon L36
Graveler L36
Lycanroc L37
Mudsdale L37
Primarina L37
Golisopod L37
Tsareena L37
Klefki L38
Pyukumuku L39
Togedemaru L41

Which is to say, they’re now taking up more than a box.

At any rate, I painstakingly make my way to the event flag. I am greeted by a horse.

Lillie: It’s good to see you again, too, Mudsdale! You look to be in fine form. Wow… Pokemon Trainers really do amaze me. It seems like a hard path to walk, and even so, you don’t let yourself be held back by the fear of seeing your Pokemon friends get hurt…

That is a very interesting way of looking at it. Especially when the rest of the game’s story has revolved around how very hard it is to not be a trainer, and how disappointed everyone would be in you for failing, and how if you don’t become great no one will ever love you again.

You just keep striving forward together… Lillie continues, unaware of the selfish darkness that lurks in everyone else’s heart.

Hapu: Oh! Been a while, Bonnibel. And you brought Lillie along, too?

Lillie: Yes. It’s good to see you, Hapu!

Hapu: You look different…like you’re ready to go all out in something now.

Lillie: Thank you, Hapu. I’ve finally discovered what I need to do. So this is my Z-Powered form!

no lillie why

Hapu: Ho! Then you do your best, Lillie. No one could call you lily-livered!

The problem with all this is Lillie’s problem wasn’t really cowardice. Maybe that was where it was meant to go, with our introduction showing her too scared to brave the spearow, but since then she’s kept going into the grassy area after grassy area that normally no one dares enter without a pokemon to do the fighting for them, and then she tries her best to go against her mother. Really, it feels like that’s the conclusion of the story…Lillie stands up to her mom instead of running away and gets Nebby back.

Lillie: Um, so, Hapu…do you know where we can find the kahuna?

Hapu: The kahuna? Hrmm. Don’t have one here on Poni.

Lillie: What?!

No, that does make sense. A kahuna’s supposed to be mediator between humans and also keeping the deity happy. If humans don’t even live on the island, that latter part isn’t such a concern, and boatland sounds like it’s actually a mix of part-time citizens from the other islands, plus we know they have their own person to handle things.

Lillie: Now what do we do, Bonnibel…?

I can’t remember why we needed to talk to one in the first place. We’re trying to get the flutes working, right? So anyone who knows the lore is good enough, and she’s living here in a weird ruin so we might as well ask.

Hapu: Hmph… Well, I supposed the time might be right now… I already finished up my battle against that odd little thing that appeared out of the sky…

I don’t like you.

Hapu: All right. Let us all proceed to the ruins. You stick with me, you two.

And then she rides off on her horse, which somehow goes way faster than mine does. I can see all sorts of stuff in the background, am I going to get to explore or just be dragged along?

Lillie: Bonnibel…we just have to keep going, right! But then again…you are a Trainer, aren’t you? I suppose you always keep moving forward!

???: Wait here.

It’s…some lady?

Lillie, spikyboxing, because maybe we’re supposed to know who this is, but she doesn’t even have a unique sprite… Eek!

Lillie: I-I’m sorry. I don’t think we’ve been introduced…

Then why did you scream at the sight of an ordinary person?

No-name-NPC informs us she’s Hapu’s grandmother and asks if we’re friends.

Yes, we are/How did you guess?

A return to dialogue choices that aren’t particularly. However, technically the second does not confirm her statement – How did you guess? could also mean literally “I am curious why you think this thing.”

Ho ho ho! You’d tease an old woman, eh? Traveling around the islands…making new friends… You kids are luckier than you know.

I’m not sure why, given apparently this is a standard rite of passage and also the islands are all tiny so it’s not like the adults should have too much difficulty in doing the same.

Anyway now I can “ride” machamp by being carried like a baby. Really, Bonnibel? You can’t even manage to piggyback, you’re this lazy?

But the cutscene ends without me getting yoinked to the next area, which is nice, although Lillie does run off and ditch me as a result.

I try going the other way and am informed I’ll need permission from the island’s kahuna, so there go my hopes of this place functioning differently and Hapu being like a priest or something with no secular connection. It’s weird what parts of the structure they’re sticking to – trials showing off gorgeous areas and making clever use of the new mechanics can be skimmed over or skipped completely, but climatic kahuna battles that are the same as every other battle must be preserved precisely?

I grudgingly turn back and move toward the event flag, diverting every chance I get. I am spied through a hole in the wall by a trainer, who says I’m rare and then shows off his own very weird pokemon.

You weren’t born in Alola. For some reason, that’s what I think.

Really. You figured out the girl who looks like she couldn’t get a tan if you sprayed her down with one might not be a native of the suntastic islands.

I then attempt to enter the grove and am told champions only. So, wtf is Prof. Labsafetyfail even doing, exactly, if they already have pokemon champions that are so interchangeable they even deny access in the same way as every other region does?

The Pokemon enshrined at the Ruins…apparently they purify our impurities, a tourist girl tells me. That’s spooky, but then so has the whole “ruin” business and it hasn’t come to anything.

Really like the hot geyser here, though. A very pretty effect.

I continue along, not needing the machamp I was told I would need.

Lillie: The Ruins of Hope… What is this place…? The air feels so oppressive… But…but if we go in there…maybe Nebby will return to normal!

Come to think of it, have we tried Plan A: tell one of the many knowledgeable pokemon researchers and caretakers what happened and see if any of them can help?

Lillie: The people believe that the guardian deity of these ruins, Tapu Fini, can wash away any impurities with its mystic water…

From what we saw of Nebby, I don’t think washing more of it away is going to help things.

That sounds promising/You think that’ll work?

Sorry, Lillie. It’s rare the game lets me actually respond after having an objection.

Lillie: Oh, honestly, Bonnibel! I’m going to make sure that Nebby gets right back to normal, just to show you!

Being aware your plan makes no sense is a statement of fact, not desire.

Lillie: So just you wait, Nebby! This time I’m going to be the one who saves you! Come on, Bonnibel! Let’s go!

Rotom asks if the ruins of hope are where hope ends or hopeful ruins, a statement I think makes a lot more sense in Japanese where it’d have been “Hope’s Ruin”. Really, I wish more stuff went with the possessive instead of the “of” option, it often works better.

I find Lillie contemplating those giant blocks that prevented me from investigating previous ruins. Come to think of it, I could just fly out and have Machamp move those blocks instead of these, violating the order I’m meant to follow.

Of course, I’d have to ditch Lillie for that, so that’d be mean.

Lillie: If we’re going to break a path, we’ll need to move these huge rocks! That’s what Hapu’s grandmother said, isn’t it? She then attempts to move the stones and, bizarrely, does appear to be making them shift a little, which is far more than a human should be able to do – another point for the theory of pokeworld having a different gravity than ours.

Lillie: I don’t think I can do this… I-it’s heavier than words can even express… We’ll have to borrow Machamp’s formidables strength for this task.

I thought that was the original plan.

Lillie: I read about it once in a book. If I remember right, it said… “When getting a ride from a powerful Machamp, Trainers can activate Machamp’s Shove by standing before a rock and pressing B! And if we find ourselves getting frustrated, we should probably remember to step outside again for a bit of perspective.”

While the first half is meaningless because obviously I’d just mash keys until something happened, I like the subtlety of the second.

To my irritation, however, I find that I have little control of the actual pushing – why can’t it move as far as I push it, instead of each block getting moved a full block length each activation. I feel this is a major issue with the current style of games – there’s too much scripting full actions and not enough fine control.

This puzzle, of course, isn’t much of one, which is pretty concerning for such a late stage puzzle. I suppose the next ones might grow more difficult, but I don’t have high hopes.

I enter the next room, Lille following right behind.

Lillie: I’ve read about them, you know… Alola’s sacred ruins…and the guardian deities worshipped within them. They go wherever they want, so it’s not easy to meet them…according to the books I’ve read. But if they are summoned here at the ruins, they do sometimes appear. The camera shifts to Nebby floating in midair. The books say that they are, well, capricious. Encounters with them do not always end as you hope they will. Maybe that explains why…even coming here to these ruins hasn’t evoked any response from Nebby…

I’m not sure that follows. We really don’t need further explanation for why the comatose pokemon isn’t reacting, honestly.

Lille: Oh! There’s Hapu!

I give my thanks for your great blessing, she says as she gets a floating shiny stone, and promises to care for both people and pokemon as kahuna. Is this how all kahunas are summoned? Is it a matter of showing up when there’s a glowey floaty stone and taking from an alter while people shrug and say that’s probably how the tapu communicate who they pick?

Hapu: Oh! So you two were watching? The kahunas are chosen by the Pokemon we worship here in Alola–our sacred guardians. They are chosen from among the people living on the island each guardian watches over. Lillie told me that you’re pretty new to our parts, eh, Bonnibel? You came to Alola from far off? You must really be something then. I heard how you were given a sparkling stone by the tapu, even as a stranger to our shores. My grandfather… My grandfather was also chosen for this honor. The honor of being our island’s kahuna. But he died suddenly some years back, and we were left without a kahuna on Poni. I tried to follow in his footsteps, but I was not chosen by the tapu back then. So I set out on my own sort of island challenge, traveling Alola and trying to grow stronger.

See, it really sounds like this is guesswork. No floaty stone, you wait a while and go back, floaty stone, you assume what you did while waiting was the difference, when really it could as easily be that the floaty stone appears at random intervals. (Maybe that’s part of what went down with the rogue kahuna, they or their successor snuck in to get a floaty-stone-of-kahunaness while the other one was still active.) And even assuming the tapu are picking people, it seems more likely that this has to do with the sky splitting open than anything Hapu did before.

Hapu: Lillie. The kahuna you wished to meet is right here.

Lillie: O-oh! Of course! Then please, Kahuna Hapu! Tell me about the Legendary Pokemon!

Hapu: So you want to know about Lunala, who we pay tribute to at the Alter of the Moone?

Well, a minute ago she was hoping for Tapu Fini, but I’m pretty sure the plot says we need to get Lunala so I guess she was always asking about that now.

Lille: My mother disappeared into the beast’s world… I know that she was a terrible person, but she is still my mother. I need to see her again, to tell her something. That’s why I want to ask the Legendary Pokemon for its help… The Legendary Pokemon is the only one who can go back and forth between worlds!

Really think Nebby should be a higher priority than any of that.

Hapu: The world of the beasts, eh… Is that what that thing was that came to Poni Island? A beast? Tapu Fini and I tried to fight it, but it nearly did us both in. We did not stand a chance. All right. I will tell you what I know.

Lille: Oh, thank you, Hapu!

Hapu: But what I know is not much. Just that there is a ceremony held for the Legendary Pokemon at the altar. A ceremony that uses two particular flutes to somehow give the Legendary Pokemon power.

Lille: This is the Sun Flute. It seems that my mother had it…

Hapu: Ho! This looks to be the flute that used to reside at the lake on Ula’ula. The other is said to be held on Exeggutor Island. I do not know why there of all places, but it has been passed down that that’s where it belongs.

Ah. And we know what sort of exeggutor they have in Alola.

Lille: Exeggutor Island… I think I’ve read about it before. It’s an uninhabited island off the coast of Poni, isn’t that right?

Hapu: Yes. And no reason to dally here. Let us go and speak with the seafolk’s chief! Lillie, you take Mudsdale. We proceed to Seafolk Village!

Amazingly, I am again not dragged off. Rotom tries to tell me to get moving, but screw you Rotom, I do what I want, and what I want is to check this place over.

Going up to the statue actually triggers precious, precious flavortext! You reached out and touched the statue… There is no reaction from the statue… Which I guess is supposed to tell us that it isn’t picking us as kahuna and there is something there making the decision, but it doesn’t contradict my theory about random times between activation – we just saw it activate, so it makes sense it wouldn’t activate immediately after.

Well. I’m glad I finally got into these temple places and got a bit more lore, but it really doesn’t sound like the actual plot will be going anywhere good from here. Time to capture all the things, I think.