Hello, and welcome back to the Eldiw region! This is the third entry in my Text Play of Pokemon Xenoverse!
Before we begin, I do want to warn you all, I will be spoiling this game.
As such, I highly recommend that you play the game for yourself first. You can download it here. The game is playable in English, so don't let the Italian intimidate you. And with that, let's go!
Last time, we made our way through the creepy...well, not so creepy place known as Darkhole Island, caught another X Pokemon, and made it to Polaris Town. See the last entry to learn more. And now we have to enter...the Zero Cave. When we first enter the cave, we're in a small chamber with a ladder. Go down it. In the next chamber, there's a bit of a fork in the road. If we go to the right, and we meet Ropert the Hiker.
He and his brothers help guide Trainers out of caves. I think that it's the game's way of replacing the Escape Ropes. I also think that it's also a nice little way to help reduce frustration playing this game. I can imagine this is also a bit of a balance to the need to spend money to use the Porygon Centers back in Darkhole Island. Balance is one of those hidden themes in Pokémon games, so it does make sense here from this perspective. If we go downwards and to the right, we find an entrance and a TM box.
The box contains TM79 (Frost Breath). Appropriate that a TM that can teach an Ice-type move in a snowy icy cave, ha ha. The entrance in there is another Pokémon Den. I believe that's the second one we've encountered here so far.
Naturally for an ice cave, the ground of the den is icy, so your Pokémon will be slipping and sliding alongside it. Maybe I should try sending in an Ice-type Pokémon. Maybe that would help. Unfortunately, I can't seem to change the Pokémon to send in. It's a bit annoying, as I wanted to see if sending an Ice-type Pokémon on to this icy area would be a way of getting around the sliding puzzle.
Anyway, during my little misadventure slipping and sliding on the ice, I found a little aside here.
It's driving me bonkers that I can't seem to get at that item. I want it I want it I want it I want it I want it IwantitIwantitIwantitIWANTIT!
That's a TM box! It could be a TM containing a really awesome move! Ah, well. We head upwards from here and there's another big icy patch. Above that, there's this chamber here.
The box contains a Razor Claw. And with that, we've cleared this Den. Yeah. We cleared it. This is weird. I mean, there were no Pokémon in this Den. Isn't there supposed to be a Pokémon in the Den? The last Den had a Pokémon in it. This is weird. But in good news, I managed to get to that other box. How did I do that? Well, it was surprisingly simple. First, I stood like this.
Then I slid down to this iceberg here.
Finally, I slid to the right, and made it to the TM box. It contains TM39 (Rock Tomb). And after that, we head back up to the ladder and then go down the hallway with the Hiker to the right. This hallway leads to another ladder. We go down it and...
We have another ladder.
We go down that ladder...
Oh, look! An actual floor! And here is Taraxo again! I wonder what that vegetable head is doing down here? Only one way to find out, and that's to talk to him. He reveals that his job is to research the Pokémon in this here cave. He wonders if I finished that job for that kid in Polaris Town yet. Look in the last entry to learn more. Let's just press on and go down that ladder.
Sheesh. At least this room has an item. It's a Rare Candy. We go down the next ladder and we find ourselves in another room with another one of those sliding ice puzzles.
I swear, if the prize for this is another blasted Ice Heal...
Seriously. I never got why the prize for doing those puzzles was Ice Heals. They could be bought in stores! I get the gameplay reason for it. They're starter ice puzzles. Something simple, so it makes sense that we'd get a small prize for doing those. But still, maybe the developers should have considered something else for the prize, an item you just cannot buy at a Poke Mart. Just a thought.
Sorry about that little rant. It was just something I had to get off my chest. Let's get back to this, shall we? This icy area has an item in it.
Yeah, you can see the top of the box on the way bottom of the screenshot. To get to it, we go down, right, down, and left again. The box contains a Great Ball. Yeah, it's another item one can get at a shop, but at least it's not a third Ice Heal. From here, we go right, down, right, up, right, up, right, and down. Here, we find a pair of twins tormenting a Pokémon.
This must be the Hikiloo that Wolfey is missing. Remember him? He was the kid in Polaris Town that wanted us to find it for him.
Evidently, the two punks wanted to get some quick candy money, so they decided to kidnap Hikiloo and hold it for ransom. The punks brought out a Drowzee and a Blingrimm. It's here I encountered the first real major issue with the game. I don't know about anyone else who has played this, but the game seems to slow down in this double battle. Also, the camera needed a bit of adjusting. You didn't see both
With the punks defeated, I take the little fox-like Pokemon back to Wolfey in Polaris Town. It makes me feel good inside.
Since I did what he asked, Wolfey gives me the reward he promised: Perseum H. Based on Wolfey's description, this is the games' replacement for Rock Smash. Which I like. Since the game has a "stellar" theme, I can't help but wonder if the name "Perseum" is a reference to the constellation Perseus. If we go back to the cave, it turns out the path that Taraxo had blocked with his work is now clear.
So there's an unexplored area of the cave to check out!
With the icy patch, we go down, right, and down. And we end up here.
We can't get past this big rock to get to that entrance. Luckily, we got a way to get past it. This is the game's way to show off the Perseum H. The...device? Modification? Whatever it is to our PokeWES creates a holographic Trapinch to break the rock. You get a nice little animation of the rock being broken down, and we can go in the entrance.
As shown in the screenshot, the entrance takes us to the exterior of a mountain. We go up the nearby stairs and there's another entrance to the right. There's a rock that can be smashed nearby it. Smash it and you have a chance to catch a Geodude. When we go into the nearby entrance, there is...a ladder.
I love ladders.
Anyway, this leads to a chamber and an exit. The exit takes us to Route 3.
The route's grassy area leads to a bridge, where you fight a Ryu-style trainer. His name is Mustard. That's hilarious. The bridge leads to a clearing with a house right smack-dab in the center of it.
Well, he won't eat me. That's reassuring.
Bernard turns out to be a rather jovial guy, letting us rest here in his house. That's very nice of him.
The fireplace here is basically a Pokemon Center. There's also an item box in the house. It contains a Super Potion. Below the house is a path that continues Route 3. We go slightly to the left, and I found something that amused me.
There's clearly a Trainer hiding in that snowpile. You can see his glasses, and he has a PokéBall on the top. You can tell camouflage is not his strong suit. Below this human snowman is an icy lake. You can slide across it to save a little time. Below that is another snow-covered grassy patch.
As you can see, in the lower left corner, there's a box behind this barrier of big rocks. Since we have the Perseum H now, those rocks are no obstacle. But be warned, if you use Perseum H on the rocks, you'll end battling some Geodudes. The box contains an Aspear Berry. If we go right, past the trainer, there's a ledge to jump off. But there's still an area to explore here. To the immediate right of the icy lake is a large snow-covered grass patch. Above that is another icy lake.
As you can see, the top of this lake has a box and the entrance to another Pokemon Den. The entrance is on the right, between those two trees. I think this the third Den we've found? The box can be accessed by using Perseum H to break the rocks around it. I love this thing. The box contains a Pearl, so if you need a bit of extra money, you can sell it. I sent Trishout into this Den (I wish you could pick which Pokemon entered these things), and it was surprisingly empty. Nothing in there, except stalagmites...who are actually Bergmites.
My guess is to clear this Den, you have to fight the Bergmites. But if you engage them, they kick you out. However, there are two that stand out.
These two are not on snowy ground. The one on the left is a Bergmite. The stalagmite on the right is not a Pokémon, but a regular stalagmite. It gives you an Oval Stone. And with that, you completed the Den.
From here, we head to the right and we find ourselves at a bit of a crossroads.
Hey, Newtron City! I think that was our original destination before we got shipwrecked. This is also the beginning of Route 4. If we go downwards, we find...a very odd sight.
Yeah, it appears to be a small beach. In the middle of a snowy area. Man, climate in this region is weird.
The sight of a fisherman fishing in a snowy area in a clearly unfrozen lake is hilarious to me. I don't know why, but it is. I also get the idea from this that unlike regions in official Pokemon games, the Eldiw region is not based on an actual place. Also, encountering another one of those dorks in snowpile cosplay. Anyway, the box in the screenshot contains a Great Ball.
With this area explored, let's hit the bridge. You fight a couple Backpackers on the way, and you meet this guy at the end.
Who is being accosted by this Daft Punk reject here.
The Daft Punk Reject is demanding something from the researcher, but he has no idea what he's talking about. The Daft Punk Reject calls him useless, comparing him to an earring. The Reject sees me and flees, dropping the earring. The researcher gives me the earring and heads back. ...what was that all about? Well, the entrance to Newtron City is right at the end of the bridge. We head there, and find out the Daft Punk Reject had some friends.
Evidently, they've been a pain to "the campus". Huh. Newtron City is a college town. And it's here we learn that the Daft Punk Rejects are actually Team Dimension. And since of them called me "human" earlier, I think it can be implied they came from the same place as those X Pokémon we've encountered, the Xenoverse. The pink haired girl and I join forces to take care of them. This battle ends up not being a double battle, but a single battle for some reason. The grunt we fight is named 2OI.
After the battle, the girl introduces herself as Alice. And her Pikachu is pink...and looks different. I think this is a regional variant. Alice herself claims that it's from another world...so it's likely an X Pokémon. She claims these otherworldly Pokémon can't be befriended...yet she did just fine with this one.
She's here to visit the big library in Newtron, which was the target of Team Dimension. They took everything in the library. I can imagine that a library a place like this would have a ton of books, magazines, CDs, games, etc. They took all of it? They must be really bored.
As such, the place is crawling with Team Dimension goons. From the entrance to the campus, the path forks in three directions: Up, down, and right.
The right and down paths are blocked off by Team Dimension flunkies. Also, note the Porygon Center in the screenshot. We've seen and used these before. But there's also this right nearby it.
Yeah, a nurse. I admit, I was a bit annoyed by this at first. Why would one have a Porygon Center here right next to a nurse who can heal your Pokémon up for free? But then I remembered something. Porygon Centers allow you to access your PC Boxes if you want to change up your Pokémon team. True, it costs money to do so, but a nurse doesn't have that feature.
I have to admit, Team Dimension goons infesting the place like cicadas on cocaine, this area of Newtron City has a...relaxing aura to me. I personally think that it's because the trees with their brown and orange colors give me the aura of autumn. I like autumn. Things get cool, but not too cold. And there's something rather...relaxing about the season to me. I don't know why, to be honest. I also saw this, which amused me.
What're the odds that under that mask is a face that looks straight out of a monster movie? Now that would be a twist!
Anyway, since the only direction we can go from the fork at the octagonal pond here is upwards, we may as well go upwards. Going up, we walk on a path with some benches on it. Hey, if you want somewhere nice to sit... This little path ends at an arch, with a Team Dimension goon standing guard. Time to whup him.
After defeating him, the Grunt says he must warn the other grunts...and says he'll be "scrapped" for his failure. Now, this may be the Transformers fan in me, but hearing that he'll be "scrapped" instead of "killed" implies to me that these grunts are...not entirely human. Likely robots or cyborgs. Passing the arch, we run across the bridge, and end up here.
There's a nice little mini-mart right there. It's got a good selection of items for capturing and healing up Pokemon in it. To the right of the mart is a nice-looking house.
Unfortunately, Team Dimension seems to have its occupants under its version of house arrest. Talking to the Team Dimension members guarding the house reveals that this is the game's Pokemon Day Care center, where you can breed Pokemon. So, no breeding for us until these guys get cleared out. Anyway, to the right of the Day Care Center is a long path that leads to a bench.
The box next to it contains a Rare Candy. Might as well go back to the Day Care Center, as there's nothing else here. Above the Center is Team Dimension's target, the Library.
I noticed the statue of the Granbull there. Is that the mascot of the Newtron City campus? Go Granbulls! To the left, there's a little grassy aside with a TM Box in it.
Don't worry about it right now, we can't get past these two big trees. Hopefully, there'll be a way to cut them down...
The two Team Dimension grunts try to taunt us by saying that Sergeants in the team are much tougher than they are. Sure, Jan.
I really shouldn't do that. Never underestimate your opponent. You don't face the two grunts in a double battle. Which is likely for the best. I don't think this game does double battles well. You fight them one at a time, one right after the other. One we beat them, we can go inside.
When you go inside, the first thing you see...is books. Shelves and shelves of books. This...this is my heaven.
There are Sergeants inside the library. Because of the why the library is laid out, you cannot avoid them. You have to fight them. If you beat them, they make buzzing noises and yell out things like "Error!" and then vanish. Yeah, this adds a bit of fuel to my theory these guys are cyborgs/robots. If you head upwards, you see what looks like a pair of VR Troopers rejects.
Seriously, they look like the VR Troopers had a baby with the members of Daft Punk. One quirk of A and B's speech here is they say "roger" at the end of every sentence, like they're speaking through comms. They're after a stone that is displayed here. At first, they think I'm after an autograph. That made me chuckle. So, these guys are the Pokémon universe's version of Daft Punk? They explain their letter names represent things. "A" as authority. "B" as bravery. And they also hint that they're the children of a musician. We also get a guest in these proceedings.
We are joined here by Ginger. He's the Gym Leader of this city. Ginger is none too happy to see Team Dimension occupying the place, as he believes the library is sacred. Personality-wise, Ginger comes off as a bit of a stereotypical cocky jock. No doubt overcompensating for his name.
He asks us to help him beat these guys down. Might as well. Showing he's not a complete jerk, he heals up our Pokémon for us. The double battle is pretty tough, as A and B's Pawniards are pretty tough. They're armed with the attack Knock Off, which can wreck a Pokémon. We're going to have to do some grinding in order to have a better chance against him.
At least, that's what I thought. You see, the game tricks you here. You see, Pawniard is a Dark/Steel Pokémon. I sent out Trishout to deal with them. After all, Trishout is a Fire/Sound Pokémon, and Fire is strong against Steel. So, easy battle, right? A couple Fire Fangs, and they're beaten, right?
Exactly. These Pawniard wreck your team, and my Pokémon's attacks seemingly have no effect on them. It's like they've been unnaturally enhanced. When you attack them, their life bars briefly flash red. It's like they're...absorbing them.
Even Ginger's Hawlucha is no help. They take that Pokémon out to the woodshed, too! And considering that its trainer is a Gym Leader, we can assume it's no slouch.
I wouldn't be surprised if doping is an issue in Pokémon battles. Anyway, the Pawniard completely dominate our team. Ginger can't bring out any of his other Pokémon, as it'd be too risky. He fears damaging the library. A and B are about to send their Pokémon to take us out next, but then something happens. The ground shakes. We're surrounded by crimson light. Ginger utters what sounds like a prophecy...
"The day the plate is taken away, the chosen one, alongside a sacred Pokémon, will awaken the Red Energy becoming a bastion of hope."
Yeah, as a comic book fan, when I hear the words "Red Energy", I don't think of hope. Ginger points out something is glowing red in my bag. It's the Odd Earring, the earring we got earlier before entering Newtron City town. It appears to be reacting to the plate that A & B are after. The energy generates an item called the Terrestrial Ring. Ginger orders me to give the ring to my starter Pokémon. Which means Trishout. It's in the Key Items area of the Bag. Trishout then transforms into an alternate form.
The ring works like Mega Evolution stones, allowing Trishout to transform into a much stronger form. This is called Terrestrial Evolution. We rebattle A and B. The transformed Trishout and Hawlucha are easily able to take care of the Pawniard. I'm assuming that since Hawlucha is fighting alongside the transformed Trishout, Trishout is able to allow Hawlucha to hurt Pawniard. A and B now know what it's like to be dominated. HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!
Anyway, with them beaten, we also get a completed achievement: Would you like an autograph? A and B are beaten, but they claim they got their job done. I wonder what that means... Ginger notices that the red plate in the display is now gray, as if all the energy and color were drained from it. He tells me that I am now the owner of the Earth Core, the very essence of the Earth. The energy in the odd earring allowed Trishout to undergo its burst of Terrestial Evolution. He hopes to see this phenomenon again in our eventual battle at the gym.
Personally, I have to admit, I felt the creators of this game kind of flubbed up introducing this twist. Now, this just might be me, so please keep that in mind. I get they wanted to show off what they likely considered a unique mechanic, but having A and B utterly dominate your team...well, I did feel the game was trying to trick you. When they utterly wrecked my Pokémon, but I saved before I fought them, so I shut off the game and did a bit of grinding, thinking my Pokémon were not strong enough to face them. They still wrecked my team, until the ending twist. This is just me, but I felt like the game was tricking me a bit. But that's just my opinion. Back to the game.
Before we leave the library, we look at the plate's display.
Representing the Earth guardian Pokémon's heart, aye? Maybe that means there are Water, Fire, and Air guardian Pokémon as well? I mean, that would make sense. And what if I had chosen a different starter from Trishout? Would this plate have allowed my Pokémon to undergo this Terrestrial Evolution? Could the other starters do this? I wish I could have gotten all three to test this out.
Those are questions we'll have to tackle next time. Thanks for reading this blog entry! See you next time!
Pokemon Obtained:
(Zero Cave)
- Reindear
- Sneasel
- Cubchoo
- Onix (this one was a PAIN to catch)
- Geodude
- Hikiloo
(Route 3)
- Buizel
- Koinkoin
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