And, of course, I end up back in my room. Some traditions are forever.

Mom: Looks like you slept well, Bonnibel.

A doorbell again.

Hau: A-lo-la! The salty breeze sang to me and brought me here to you!

Mrowr? says my meowth.

Hau: Oooh! And there’s that Kantonian Meowth! Look at that shiny coin on your head, kitty-kitty!

The meowth mrowrs again but doesn’t get a text box.

Hau: I finally got my gramps to go all out and be serious in a battle aginst me! I got some sweet rewards, so take this one, Bonnibel! Good luck is best shared!

Hau, proving he can’t count, actually gives me two special z-crystals for the other two starters. I note Hau said nothing of how well he actually did in the battle. He says something about me powering up as well.

Mom: That’s so nice of you, Hau. Thank you!

Hau: No problem, auntie! Say. Is Kanto, like, really far away?

It’s pretty close/It’s pretty far

Now that’s a question.

In Moon, there’s a twelve hour difference, and multiple mentions of jet lag, so the most straightforward answer is yes. But Moon is the same as Blue is the same as all the rest – we haven’t gone far at all from the original. Pretty close, really.

But…I do feel we went farther than before. It’s still the formula, and that’s been made particularly obvious in the end when everything is dragged, kicking and screaming, into alignment with Kanto for the anticlimactic big fight, but the mechanical shift…you’re rewarded for grooming your pokemon, sure, but the reward is paltry compared to just feeding them two rainbow beans and never going into Refresh again. Pokemon shouting for help and responding, as is them sometimes smacking each other when they show up, makes them feel so much realer, as does the the totem battles be entirely up to wild pokemon and the environment. In Kanto, there are no gods, in every other region there are god-ish things that have some stories but are so far above everyone they stop mattering, but in Alola there’s real connection between the different tiers of society, and a sense of pokemon as actors in their own right. Hoenn has a bit about environmentalism vs progress, but for the most part it’s pokemon existing at the sufferance of humans – they might not want a tunnel enough to destroy the whismur, but if they did the whismur couldn’t have really stopped them. Here, a pokemon destroys a human place without explanation and humans just assume there was some good reason for it.

And as much as I spent the entire thing making comments about societal demands that everyone fall in line and be a trainer, it really felt like that rather than everyone just being a trainer by default as in previous games. There’s the sense that other options are there, that some people want to take them even if ultimately they don’t. And more generally, a sense that what we see here is true from the perspective of the people telling it, rather than just how things are.

I don’t, at all, like where it ends up, but even there, it feels like I can have an in-universe opinion on it in a way previous games didn’t allow, with their “now let’s care about the redemption arc of some giant asshole!” or “N declares this entire issue never mattered, bye!”

…and, of course, It’s pretty far because it is impossible to go there. Lillie will never return and we can never go there to find her. But what if you could stay on the SS Anne when it leaves? But what if you could get on this boat with Lillie? You can’t. There’s a world out there but you can never touch it.

Mom: Well…it’s true that it’s not the next island or anything. But it’s still close enough to visit whenever you want to!

My mom has had a lot of practice of saying things like they’re true.

Hau: All right! Then it’s decided! I’m gonna get stronger and stronger, and then I’m gonna travel the world with my Pokemon! I’m gonna go find Lillie! And my dad, too!

Mom: Your father?

Hau: Oh, yeah, him. Heh… He’s a strong Trainer–real strong, I think. But I guess he really hated being the son of a kahuna and everything, yeah? So he works far away from Alola these days. I think I’m gonna go trainer myself up at the Battle Tree, then beat you, Bonnibel…and I’ll be a Champion the next time I see him! Seems like a nice little present, eh? Hehe!

Mom, instead of commenting on the holy shit no aspect of this, just asks him to tell us more about the new mechanic. Because it’s totally normal that a kid’s parent completely leaves and they assume they’re not allowed to see the parent again unless they become a super trainer so their dad will love them again.

She adds that, for once, NPCs other than blocked-unless-you’re-champion dude will be reacting to my championship and will try to challenge me for it. Not sure how that’ll work in practice – it’s pretty clear the game won’t do surprise ambushes or require me to defend myself at set intervals or anything, so maybe it’s just slightly different flavor for when I choose to challenge them. (And going by everything else I’ve seen, it’s presumably still impossible for any of my losses to actually be acknowledged by anyone.)

Parting words?

As long as you have a love for adventure, then I guess you and your Pokemon’s island challenge doesn’t ever really have to end, huh?

That’s cute, and a good transition to the postgame elements.

Oh, she says more than one thing. Something bland about Lillie being a trainer in Kanto, then,

Maybe Meowth and I should go on our own little island challenge… I could pass for 11, right?

A mom getting to be a trainer again would be pretty nice, actually.

But more interestingly… How much was the “pass for 11” thing a joke? We know the cutoff for captains is twenty, but is there a similar deadline you must finish the main challenge by? That could explain why the Skull kids don’t seem that much older than Bonnibel but are sure they’ll never be able to complete their challenge. Maybe they didn’t all give up, maybe some just hit the age when you’re not allowed to keep trying.

Outside, cutscenes continue.

???: Hey. You. You are the one they call Bonnibel?

I am/Not me

???: Hm… A certain…interested party sent me here to you…to give you this.

And now Bonnibel has an “enigmatic card”.

???: You should have a look at what it says. But take care where you read it. No one else is to know of my visit or that card.

Nobody tells dittochild what to do, buddy. She can read the card wherever she feels like.

He runs off and I ignore his dumb directions and read it right there.

Written on it is a request for you to go to a guest room in an Akala motel on Route 8.

Hm…I’m gonna go check out Po Town!

Grunt A: Ready for fly rhymes in your ear, yo? (music note) But, yo, what’re you doin’ here, yo? (music note)

Grunt B: This is what’s left of our Team Skull hideout. (music note) Gotta get paid, and then we gonna ride out! (music note) Team Skull leftovers represent! (music note) We may have lost, but we won’t ever relent! (music note) I feel like we fell right in the abyss… (music note) And so, why’d you come to a place like this? (music note) The clothes you’re wearin’ are so unbearable. (music note) To tell you the truth, I find it quite hysterical! (music note) Hey yo, check Spinda spin it! (music note)

Grunt A: Looks like you got no sense of fashion, yo. (music note) Don’t you know that that’s our passion, yo? (music note) I’ll show you what we got to help you decide. (music note) We got tops my fly than Charizard Glide! (music note) We got the roughest tank tops that you’ve ever seen. (music note) And when you wear a Skull Tank, you’re sure to look mean! (music note) With a price so low, you can’t say no. (music note) It’s just Y10,000. You wanna buy one, yo? (music note)

Yeah, I’ll take it/Nope

Let’s find out what happens if I don’t have enough money! I abscond for some quick TM purchases.

The Skull kids are unimpressed with my offer of Y95 for a shirt they’re trying to sell for Y10,000, and similarly unmoved by my argument that, regardless of the cost to make those shirts (I’m assuming they were ordered in bulk at some earlier point) the market has just dried up, so they should accept selling at a loss and be grateful for my handful of spare change.

Grunt A: Yo, what up? You think that’s funny? (music note)

I very obviously do.

Get outta here! Come back with mo’ money! (music note)

Disappointed I don’t get specifically called out for pretending to be broke when I’m newly crowned as champion.

Everyone else in the area appears to be stuck in their original dialogue, which is also disappointing.

How about Aether? I can enter the house of creepy metal bars everywhere, but the only thing I can actually do there is lie on the bed. The portal to icicle pokemon remains off.`

Fine, I’ll go to the meadow.

Dexio: How are you, Bonnibel?

Grumpy.

Dexio: Zygarde at 100%… You might be able to control it fully!

I don’t know why that was every in doubt when it otherwise seems like any other pokemon. Unless I’m misreading the emphasis and it’s supposed to be “you might be able to get to 100% and so be fully controlling all of Zygarde at once” but then it’s kind of creepy and man’s-dominion-over-nature-y.

Sina: While we were having you look into Zygarde for us…we were looking into the Z-Ring, too.

Cool, I’m happy to hear more about what’s actually powering that.

It’s so mysterious…to be talking about Mega Evolution here, in a region so far away from Kalos…

Mega evolution wasn’t even a Kalos thing for the full generation, and it was actually integrated into ORAS’ plotline while in Kalos it’s a side note.

Dexio: But we are Trainers. Rather than explaining it all in words, why don’t we just show you what Mega Evolution is!

Okay but I still want to hear about the z-ring info with actual words.

Oh, he’s got L60 pokemon.

…and they’re all psychic, which is a bigger problem for my poison with a dash of fighting team.

Still, with a lot of revives and abuse of my pyukumuku I win.

Dexio: The Trainer holds the Key Stone! The Pokemon holds the Mega Stone! And that’s how you can make your Pokemon Mega Evolve during battle!

So have we already dropped the fiction that friendship has anything to do with it?

Sina, who did not fight me and I’m displeased by that: You can use the Z-Ring! So you must be able to use a Key Stone that makes Mega Stones resonate!

I feel we skipped over quite a bit here. You were studying the z-ring, something something, therefore mega evolution? And it seems there’s still supposed be the idea that not everyone can use mega evolution even though we never meet anyone who officially can’t.

Dexio: If you have a Key Stone, you’ll be able to make your Pokemon that hold a Mega Stone Mega Evolve! This is a Mega Stone that makes Alakazam Mega Evolve. It’s called an Alakazite! I’ll give the Key Stone and an Alakazite to you!

But anyway, I guess now I can do that, and since there’s actually pokedex entries on the line this time, I even care about that fact!

Sina: You know, when you think about it… The Z-Ring helps the feelings of a Trainer reach his or her Pokemon and makes it so it can use its Z-Power, right?

Maybe?

Sina: It only follows that it should be able to achieve Mega Evolution, too!

That’s not how following works. Z-moves seem to feed off the trainer, while mega evolution was repeatedly stated to be a burst of energy from the pokemon and previously featured in the game about limited resources and genocide beams followed by the game about necessary sacrifices and pikachu furnaces.

Sina: We’ll be taking our leave now! Bon voyage!

And off I go to collect that alakazam of mine.

I then rush right into the grass. My L18 alakazam mega evolves dramatically then is brutally murdered by a raticate. But, I got the entry and that’s what matters.

Its hidden psychic power has been unleashed. A glance at someone gives it knowledge of the course of that person’s life, from birth to death.

It’s weird the overlap between psychic as smartness and psychic as magic that happens to deal in predictions, isn’t it?

I dump the alakazam again and finally head for the meadow, where I discover that, in fine tradition, the jerk blocking my way has just vanished so anyone could wander in. I then fight a guy with a L56 crabominable, and come on! I get cutscene ambushed by someone with six L60 pokemon just to get here, and now it’s one pokemon who’s weaker than any of those?

Well, the second battle is against someone with three L56es, which is merely disappointing and not awful. Then I get ambushed by a wild petil. There’s also a moving grass shadow that turns out to be a raticate, and it’s this that bumps my bewear, who’s also my only still standing pokemon, up to L50. I decide to swap it out and notice that I have enough money to please the demanding Skull kiddos. Back to there!

Grunt B: Makin’ mad sales to get out of this scrape. (music note) Gonna get that money and make our escape! (music note)

And now they’re gone. I’m interacting with people because they’re fun and “rewarding” me by making them leave forever is a really weird design choice.

I wonder if I can pull off wearing the shirt as a trophy of those I destroyed?

Also, the sleeping grunt is still here, as is the other spinda. Lazy programming or deliberate point?

I return to the meadow and oh hey riolu oh hey fainted damn.

A scyther!

While young, they live together deep in the mountains, training themselves in how to fight with their scythes and move at high speeds.

So, do they disperse when adults and then return to have their kids in the mountains? Or do they have their kids wherever and those migrate to the nearest mountainous habitat?

I find a wisteria cave complete with purple nectar, although none of the birds themselves are willing to come out. It’s also a lot less pretty than past areas, even with the lovely dangling flowers, because the rest of the area, grass included, is brown for some reason.

…and then there’s a cave. This is looking long and it’s getting late, so I’m going to save and try again tomorrow.