I go through the next layer of the trick house, which is just a lot of rock smashing. The people inside indicate confusion and fatigue, but it’s so tiny… Raiden gets poisoned early on, so that whittles him down. With him in the red, I decide to go collect berries, and that reminds me that the berry area is next to another area where there’s some new water pokemon, but I couldn’t get there before, so I fly to Mt. Pyre and head down.
There’s a psychic hanging out behind a thorny tree. His solrock uses cosmic power, which seems like the same sort of thing that empowered the claydol/baltoy originally. So are they animated by the same force, or did one create the other?
Lot of items around, too.
I fight a L36 crawdaunt that takes apart my team. Doduo’s the only one faster (well, presumably Raiden too, but), so I revive him and finish it off. When I return to the pokecenter to heal, I dump off Raiden and take out my tirtouga.
This route is nice. Everyone’s got high level pokemon that make battles difficult, and it’s hard navigating as well because everything funnels you toward lower ground and you can’t get back, so you have to fly back to Pyre to go a different way.
Finally, I reach the pond I could make out so long ago and catch a corphish.
Corphish were originally foreign Pokemon that were imported as pets. They eventually turned up in the wild. This Pokemon is very hardy and has greatly increased its population.
Time to do some contests!
I really love that Silver’s ability turns out to be making a rainstorm. Glorious foreshadowing.
Lucki’s Pokemon performed the best! chirps the receptionist over and over.
The game talks about friendship and how it’s all a partnership, but they also don’t even bother to identify my pokemon in most dialogue.
When I finish those, I decide that I should also show off my ownership of extinct pokemon.
Also, many of the talents seem weird but this particular one is really, really weird. What’s even going on here? Where are they?
I inevitably win the cuteness contest because just look at how cute my omanyte is and someone’s waiting for me!
It’s me, Chaz the a-a-a-a-awesome!
Dammit.
Heh! No Lisia today–too bad for you!
Chaz, do not taunt your future god.
But try not to look so disappointed. Sheesh.
His machoke looks around. Mamach! Machee?
Guess it’s too bad for you, too, Macherie. You missed your chance to see Ali, huh? He turns back to me. Lisia’s spending all her time practicing moves with Ali lately. She’s waiting for you to win all the Master Rank contests.
I’m trying but then someone told me to meet them here and started talking to me!
For you to become a real contest star… She says she wants to become better than ever so she can do her best performance together with you. That’s why she’s trying so hard. She’s practically never here anymore. He turns away. She looks like she’s having a lot of fun when she’s practicing, though. I guess she wants to show you something that’ll knock your socks off. Honestly… I really wanted it to be me.
I know, but my sympathy is tempered by the fact you’re kind of a dick.
But… If you can’t win all Master Rank contests, you’ll never be able to stand toe-to-toe with Lisia… But you already know that, huh? M-me, I’ll never be able to stand toe-to-toe with her.
Maaah…
Cheer up, Macherie. You’re my sweet and adorable girl! And that’s why I’ll never, ever make you do a Toughness Contest! I can’t make a cutie like you try to increase your Toughness! No way!
Uh. Not sure how to take this. Is he being nice by respecting his pokemon’s wishes, or is he being a raging dick by ignoring them? The problem is he puts the emphasis on “my sweet and adorable girl” so it could just be him that doesn’t like the idea.
I’m still the best rival for Lisia.
Chaz actually has a point. Even if Macherie can’t do toughness contests, I’m just picking a new pokemon for every contest. It’s the both of them that are trying to win with a single pokemon.
I’m not wrong about that. But it doesn’t mean that…well…that you haven’t got a part to play, too.
My part appears to be shaping up to teach Lisia that pokemon contests can totally be as exploitive and heartless as regular battling.
So, um…you know… Just take this and give it your all. Macherie, could you open the box?
…I get a paralyze heal?
And a moomoo milk. And a wiki berry. Not that I don’t generally love stuff, but only one of those three things seems to have even passing relevance to contests.
Lisia’s not the type to care about beating somebody else or whatever… The point is that the contest lets you show off how fantastic your Pokemon are…
Oh, just you wait.
Guess I’m saying…well…I’m behind you, too.
Cham cham!
And they run off, probably to cry about how much they love Lisia and Ali.
Now it’s time for me to continue.
I’ve been making sure to get items from my fans each time, and I run into someone who says, I was fortunate enough to be able to view the contest in which you just partook. As a spectator of the contest, I am confident of my taste and discernment. It is my considered opinion that your performance was dazzling! I expect more excellence from you in the future! Also, please be so kind as to wear that costume next time!
This guy makes my skin crawl. What the hell.
And most of them repeat their lines if you talk to them, but if you talk to him again, like if you can’t believe he just said that, the final bit is gone.
Anyway, on to the final contest. I need to top the fact I’ve revived the ancient dead for my servants.
You…
…used the (shiny) god-ancestor of all pokemon like a circus animal, just to let everyone know I had one?
You did it! You did it! YOU DID IT! You beat all the Master Rank contests!
Hm. You know what would’ve helped here? If I could only use one pokemon. The contest pass registers one human and one pokemon. The contests have been made easier now that you can stuff your pokemon with pokeblocks all you want, and reusable TMs and move relearning mean you can assemble a decent variety of movesets. Lisia made a huge point about how this is as much if not more about the pokemon performer, but because I could’ve won with combination of pokemon, she can’t refer to any individual here.
Amazing! You are SO amazing! I don’t have enough words to congratulate you! It’s just brilliant, Lucki!
Alilililili! trills Ali in agreement.
You know, I’ve scouted a lot of Trainers for contests. Of course, they’ve all been great! But… But, Lucki! You’re really something special! It’s not just ’cause you’re the 100th person I scouted, either…
Yeah, I don’t think anyone ever believed that.
It’s like… It’s like you’ve got something no one else has. I really want to know what that something is!
In the biblical sense.
“Idol versus Star! A Serious, Spectacular Battle!”
The music disappears. There is only dead silence as the camera zooms in on her face.
The next time you take part in a Master Rank contest, Lucki… Ali and I will take part, too!
It’s not really sinister when that’s what you’ve just spent two hours unlocking.
We… We won’t lose to you! I’ve been doing my best as a contest idol for a long time, together with Ali. And I’m gonna use everything I’ve got against you, Lucki!
Rather than being excited this just makes me feel bad. Contests are her whole thing, and I’m going to win because I’ve got all the bonuses and can keep trying forever.
If you and I appear in a Contest Spectacular together, the fans will love it. Most important, it will be really, really, really fun! No holding back! Let’s both give it our all!
And the cutscene ends, but not the conversion.
Hm? You want something?
I ask, Where were you?
You wanna know where I’ve been? Well, duh! I’ve been getting ready so I could stand on stage with you! Tee hee! Ali and I did a ton of special training so we’d be ready to shine!
I ask, What about your idol job?
I’m still keeping up mu work as an idol, of course! Just the other day I filmed a commercial for the Village Sub Combo in the TV Mauville Studios! “It’s the taste that’ll Unov-ite the whole world! Village Sub Combo now at the Mauville Food Court!” Have you seen it? (music note)
I talk to her a third time.
Tee hee! It’s hard to believe we’ve made it this far already, huh?
Kind of rushed, honestly. The system of each contest hall doing a particular rank was a good one. I could’ve won those bit by bit.
Well, let’s do this!
Or not.
All the build up and the bird beat your god. At least I assume that’s what it beat.
My rock squid, actually, followed by max everything red scarf cosplaying pikachu. I tend to do worse the more jamming moves are involved, and the clever section is full of that, so I figured I’d play to my strengths and win that way. Apparently nope.
Where Lisia gets you is that when a pokemon with a Mega Evolution is holding the stone and gets the fifth audience heart, it Mega Evolves as part of its Spectacular Talent and gets double the hearts that turn.
Beating her actually requires a little planning, shockingly enough.
I noticed, but honestly Ali was already kicking my butt even without that.
That they’ve carefully programmed the man to not repeat his skeevy-beyond-all-get-out remark is disturbing. That means actual thought was put into that comment, and that they knew it was wildly inappropriate but somehow felt it was necessary. Because the playing Pokemon experience isn’t complete without random sexual harassment, I guess.
And also, like you say, the primary motivation to talk to him again would be disbelief he actually said that, and suddenly it would seem like he hadn’t. Pokemon, now with gas-lighting.
He makes that remark when you play as Brendan also. Make of that what you will.
I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the line disappearing, though. If it disappeared due to some kind of coding oversight, it’s not the only example of that happening or the biggest one, but explaining what may be might veer too far into spoiler territory.
Eh, it’s still creepy if you’re playing as a boy, though marginally less so since the boy’s contest outfit isn’t revealing.
I can’t guarantee it wasn’t a mistake, but from my admittedly limited understanding of programming, they would actually have to program in steps to make the final remark missing. An NPC’s dialogue should remain unaltered unless they choose to alter it, basically.
At this point I personally can’t be bothered giving Gamefreak the benefit of the the doubt. I really don’t think they’re trying.
It’s possible it’s an error, as all the NPCs have a final line giving you a berry the first time you talk to them, so they did have to edit it for the second time. But it’s unsettling it’d be that NPC with that extra line that disappears.
And yeah, still creepy for a boy. Any time an adult is insisting you wear the same outfit for next time it’s creepy. “That thing you did, I need you do do exactly that thing again and again!” pretty much only happens when it’s porn.
Ah, okay, that’s a bit of a relief. It’s still a skeevy and unnecessary comment, but at least that means there’s a possibility they weren’t consciously aware of that and trying to fuck with people’s heads.