Pokemon Legends: Z-A, Part 3 - Club Vandermon

 

Today on Pokémon Legends Z-A, Cataluna gets dragged into more of this Poké-battling nonsense, as I begin to wonder if anyone actually goes to college in this universe. Is she never going to start the European Sex Tour with her new best friend Lida? It was supposed to be their journey of self-discovery, ending in Barcelona, directed by Woody Allen.

Dragon Quest VII? There is no Dragon Quest VII.

Urbain interrupts our heroines planning a sexy night out to talk about more nerd shit.

In the previous episode, Cataluna managed to finally find some decent shoes, and it really makes a world of difference in both her confidence level and the playability of this infernal game.

...yeah, I'm really not crazy about the directions this game went in, but I'll get to all of that.

This is a big one. In some generations of Pokémon, Kadabra is super overpowered. Not so much in this one, but it's still a very worthwhile team member for as long as you want it around. I was going to get him evolved (along with a Gengar) but I found that the team filled up before too long and Kadabra ended up with a serious case of "sixth man status".

You never want to be the sixth man. Not on a basketball team, not on a European Sex Tour, and not as a member of the NWO.

Speaking of overpowered...there's one ability that is very much worth getting: Toxic. Not to be confused with regular poison which does flat damage, Toxic is a DoT that increases over time and quickly snowballs. It's usually a very potent ability in this series, but especially so in this game where you can kite enemies around in real-time. Toxic is so overpowered now that it's basically a death sentence once it lands, so to compensate they upped the resistances of most foes. It often takes a few casts before it lands. Regardless...I need to track it down. To Google AI!

....uh, yeah, thank you Google AI.

"Where is Jakarta located?" "In the Milky Way Galaxy"

Toxic is located up on some construction scaffolding here. I think it can be reached at any time, so Toxic can probably be acquired very early.

Here it is, at the top, illuminated by gold.

The only issue with it is finding 'Mons that can use it, as most of the good ones can't. The best 'Mon I found for using it was Venusaur, which isn't until later.

In the meantime, I throw it on a Bellsprout.

"I have a moment of usefulness!" says Bellsprout. "My time is now!"

Cataluna now goes shopping for sexy clothes while listening to Britney Spears' "Toxic".

This would be a good thing to basically wear nothing under and show up at someone's door as a surprise. She should give it a try with some lucky fellow, but with her luck she'll get intercepted by Urbain wanting to talk her ear off about the pros and cons of Bug-Types.

In the end, she sticks with the outfit that works. Boy, does it work. The lads are spellbound!

Nearby cars get into distracted traffic accidents as Cataluna climbs a ladder!

Next stop: Farming the Purge zone to get points for the next boss fight. It was a good idea to break up the monotony of these grinds by adding side-objectives that speed up your point gain.

After defeating some of these trainers, they just straight-up ask Cataluna out on dates. Maybe these new shoes are working a little TOO well.

Alas, she can't date anybody, because she has to do NERDY POKEMON STUFF. Urbain would be furious!

The next boss is this punk kid. We're both Rank X, so the winner of this match moves to Rank W. Instead of scrabbling about with same-ranked trainers to try and move up, all of these folks should be gunning for people with much higher ranks. This system does make a fair amount of sense, though, if everyone in this city is going through their own trials of leveling up and catching 'Mons.

This guy is all about Bug-Types, which have to be the most underutilized and under-respected type of Pokémon throughout this entire series. They didn't even get a gym in Gen 1. It's strange because bugs were the very inspiration for the creation of Pokémon to begin with, specifically bug-catching in the wild.

Yey.

At this point I get to choose a Gen 1 starter for the team, which grounds this game a bit in the world of Pokemon. It's great to see these fellows again. After all these years I still have a hard time choosing between them.

This time around I go with Bulby, since I need a strong grass-type (and he'll be able to use Toxic). Feraligator and Fennekin already have the other two core elements covered as far as starters go.

GO BULBY GO!

Cataluna momentarily gets excited, but this Double Team doesn't involve her and Lida and a soccer player. It's a pretty good move that I almost never actually use in these games.

Our heroes have the latest in a long line of strategy meetings to talk about the same old stuff. These are where all of the plot happens, in-between grinding in Purge zones.

What a motley crew. Well, the girls are alright.

Our heroines have a moment without all these boys and nerdy things around. I wonder if Lida's last name is Caine.

You can cut the sexual tension with a KNIFE.

Before the next tedious run of Poke-battling, Cataluna goes out and broods on one of these anti-homeless benches. Just hook up with Lida and get it out of your system, no one is counting. She's got a month to run wild in Europe and she's spending it on THIS. Well, at least Pichu is fuzzy.

Back to the ::sigh:: game, time for another Purge zone grind.

It's more of the same, though Android 18 here was nice to see. At this point the Purge grinds are long enough to take two nights instead of one, luckily sitting on benches allows you to move time forward.

The next boss is noted waiter Rintaro, no relation to Kintaro of MKII.

Stuff happened, there was a match. Nothing has really posed much of a threat so far.

The next section has me chasing Zygarde through the streets. Zygarde is the legendary Pokemon of this game, but he starts out as a lowly dog and gains power as the game goes on. You never really get him on your team (at least during the base game) but he's a formidable ally at the end.

Next mission is recruiting Absol, which is the first Mega-Evolution you get. ...well, besides cheat code Gardevoir lol

This involves a weird (for Pokémon), Souls-like battle where you dodge-roll to avoid his attacks and sic your 'mons on him. Boss fights like this are prevalent going forward and are probably more than half of the remaining boss fights. Not real keen on these fights. It gets me Absol, in any case, which is a pretty strong 'mon and gets another of the extremely-premium party slots. This means Kadabra is getting the boot, I think.

Bulby has evolved already. They grow up so fast, especially if you get them mid-game.

These crazy bastards are having dinner on a rooftop inside a Wild Zone.

More Purge zone grinding to get points for the next boss. Anna The Waitress has a hot outfit.

...then she asks Cataluna out. If only she was spending this vacation the way she originally planned to, this would be going great. Well, back to throwing balls at people.

Now Rintaro the waiter wants a slice of Cataluna! She is only one woman, she can't be all things to all people.

More battling...this may be the worst Pokémon game, but I can't argue with the look the MC is rocking.

Gardevoir finally evolves; that took a while. And moments later...

...starter reaches final form. Now I'm ready for the big time. It might seem like I'm only about a sixth of the way through the trainer ranks, but we're about to get a big jump in that regard. This is more like 40% of the way through the game.

Next up: A big boss fight with Vinnie, the corporate guy who is many ranks higher than Cataluna. What does defeating such a higher-tiered opponent mean for her ranking prospects?

We'll find out next time. In the meantime...

THE BIG N, EVERYBODY

More of this $70 game with PS2 graphics later. I actually like it, I swear.