Arven, aka Billy from Stranger Things, assembles a team of people just crazy enough to venture down into the Great Crater of Paldea and see just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Naturally, Don Joey & Esteban Humano fall into that category. Together, they venture into Arven's heart of darkness, where the whole episode becomes learning that a guy we harangued as being a pure and simple nepo baby actually finds out his parents are dead, and then they are recreated in AI, which also want him dead. Sad! (And that's mostly not a comment on the freaky new Paradox Pokémon we meet.)
[00:00:01] Hello! Alola! Konbanwa! No, that's goodbye. Oh, konichiwa! Yeah. And welcome to Experience Share. It's a Pokemon podcast. It is. Starring me, Tandy Shox. I do not know. You gotta look at the ancient Area Zero Pokemon if you want a little clue into who Tandy Shox is. Some
[00:00:38] of us did the research and looked at who our opponent, or our co-host was going up again. Sandy Shox. Oh. Spoiler alert! I like it. I think I like it. Tanner's you make me
[00:00:51] part Pokemon of the week. Come on. It sucks, Josh. What do you mean you like it? It's like Magnemite was already a tough sell. Magneton. It just had like a nostalgia going for it.
[00:01:06] But like, it was just balls with screws in it and magnets. It's like this looks like it saunters around. And then this one is like the magnets are bigger and it sucks and it's got like sleepy eyes and it's covered in like ferrite dust. You're wrong on this.
[00:01:21] No, I like it. Right. I'm right. You're wrong. AKA Tanner Greenring and I am joined as always by my co-host Iron Josh. That one's a tough one. Uh, iron literally anything? Iron Moth.
[00:01:37] Moth. Yes. Yeah. I could have gone with Joth, but that or Mosh. Yeah. I think you probably had to do Mosh. Iron Josh is lazy. I kind of just like Iron Josh. I mean, I love the sound
[00:01:52] of it. Obviously. It's trying to fucking like boost you up here. Hype you up. Iron Josh. And you're like lazy. Great. I do like the sound of it. Anyway, we beat the game last
[00:02:05] week. So we're like, well, what do we do now? I guess retire the podcast forever. And then Josh was like, no, there is the whole thing with the ancient Pokemon and future Pokemon
[00:02:16] in the area zero. And I said, oh yeah. Okay. We have to at least do that. So let's hop in and let's talk about, I guess what's really the true ending of this game because after
[00:02:27] this credits rolled. Yeah. We finally got the credits. We hadn't seen credits until this point. Wow. What a strange choice they made with the credits song. Oh, I don't think I had it
[00:02:42] turned up. Oh, I think I maybe, maybe missed it. Let me go to YouTube right now and just get a taste. You're going to need to listen to it because I was so taken aback. It's lyrics like
[00:02:56] it's actual singing rather than a beautiful, somewhat somber orchestral song that they usually do. And I only found out when setting up this episode that the song is scored by someone we all may be familiar with this song I'm listening to right now. Yeah. Can I say
[00:03:23] who it sounds like I'm listening to it. I'm looking at the credits. I see those little fish and the big fish. It sounds like my boy Ed Sheeran. Yeah. Is this Ed Sheeran? I just
[00:03:33] found out like when, what a get for them when I did this slaps. Sorry, I can't hear you. I'm listening to Ed Sheeran just belting out this song. You see tonight it could go either
[00:03:45] way. Hearts balanced on a razor blade. We are designed to love and break and to rinse and repeat it all again. I get stuck when the world's too loud and things don't look up when you're going down.
[00:04:05] I know your arms are reaching out from somewhere beyond the clouds. You make me feel like my troubled heart is a million. You make me feel lost and we're dancing out in a space, celestial.
[00:04:35] I did not figure out that that's who it was until I was Googling it before this episode.
[00:04:41] Ed head. No, I'm not a big Ed head. But so Bobby was watching and listening to me when I beat the game and the credits came on and he was like, what is this? And then we're listening to it for like a minute and a half.
[00:04:55] And then he goes. I think I think I like it. Yeah, it's good. I turned it down a little bit so I could be respectful to you and the listeners, but it's pretty good.
[00:05:06] And you know what? I say this having not checked in on Ed Sheeran in a while. So if something happened and he's like no longer in favor, please, please excuse me.
[00:05:15] Likewise. I don't know what's going on. But that's true of every Ed Sheeran song. They're all good. And you all want to say you hate it. But then you're like, actually, this song's pretty good. I'm not gonna go that far. Don't don't rope me into this.
[00:05:29] Okay, I think he belongs to like a secret society of and again, I haven't checked in on any of these people. And I apologize. musicians who you're like, that sucks. And then you listen to it. And you're like, actually, this is great. Jason Derulo.
[00:05:42] Okay, well, Jason Derulo. That's correct. Ed Sheeran. I'm not sure about Ed Sheeran. Let's see who else can we lump into that category?
[00:05:50] I mean, Bieber. Oh, do people not like Bieber? fucking owns? Yeah. My World 2.0. Yeah, is a banger. Yeah. Total banger. Telling you. And it's like, well, of course, sorry, sorry.
[00:06:06] We're still playing Carly Rae Jepsen in this house. And it still gets a lot of airtime. And it's still great. Oh, why would you ever stop playing car slay? Slay Jep slay? Especially during Pride Month. She's always on.
[00:06:19] I'm just saying maybe maybe there's this category of musician who you're sort of like sleeping on. But it doesn't sound like it sounds like you've just failed to bring Ed Sheeran into the fold. Specifically Ed Sheeran.
[00:06:33] Yeah. And I think this is your failing not Ed Sheeran's failing, frankly. Wow, what a song it just wrapped up. It's like five minutes. Oh, it's so long.
[00:06:46] I love it. If you haven't beaten Pokemon Scarlet Violet yet and listen to Ed Sheeran song, what do we call what do we call him this song? Celestial. Celestial. Go give it a listen because it's really good. I mean, go give it a play and beat the game.
[00:07:00] Basically, the whole reason to play the game is to get to this song in the credits. Yeah. It's the Easter egg. Basically, the reason for playing the series. I think that's true.
[00:07:12] Yeah, Pokemon starting in 1996 or whatever. It's to get to this Ed Sheeran song. Oh, I just I just served it back up. Oh, you had to hear it again from the beginning.
[00:07:22] Just like I'm just feeling I'm just having an underscore kind of this conversation and it adds like a power. A gravitas, you know, you're feeling celestial, perhaps. I think musicians who have associated that with themselves with Pokemon recently have been all hits that Post Malone song.
[00:07:43] That was a hoodie in the Blowfish cover. The Post Malone song. That is a banger. Is there any other recent ones? I mean, aside from the scores to the games, which, by the way, Area Zero's soundtrack is also awesome.
[00:08:08] The games always have good music, but the series in general consistently has harbored hits. Pokemon, the first movies soundtracks great. They did a whole album for the 25th anniversary with names on it that I recognize like Katy Perry and Little Yachty. Yeah, that album's great.
[00:08:35] Well, I haven't heard it. I just heard that one Post Malone song. I'm like too basic to like really dig into like the Pokemon album. But apparently I'm the one who's sleeping on it because it sounds like it's all great. Yeah, like the To Be A Master album.
[00:08:50] Awesome. 1999 Pantheon of classic albums. I'm sure Pitchfork would have given it like a two. Fuck them. But it's like a ten. Who do they know? Clowns. Bozos. Anyway, Ed Sheeran's Celestial, everyone. Check it out. It's the end credits of the game. But we're not there yet, Joshua.
[00:09:09] Don't rush us. We are not there at all. I'm not ready for Ed Sheeran yet. No one ever is. I got to earn it. I find myself hot off the heels of my battle with Nimona. Absolutely embarrassed her.
[00:09:23] Yeah, of course, because your levels are completely out of control. Game's fault. If you recall, we were told by Arvin that he had assembled a team of people who were willing to go into a little crack team.
[00:09:39] Yeah, his crack team to getting some pretty fucked up calls from Sada or is it it's not Sada in your game? Who? Arvin's mommy. Oh, right. You have a. Oh my God. Yeah, we haven't hot mommy. We've only been talking about daddy, Professor Daddy this whole time.
[00:09:57] You have failed to mention or remind me that you have a totally different professor and I know it's fucked when I've been making all these statements about how Arvin has daddy issues. So he's got orphan issue. Is it in your game that he has mommy issues?
[00:10:13] Yeah, of course. Okay. And we're getting all sorts of fucked up calls from Professor Sada, who's the hottest Pokemon character they've ever made. And I think both of them are. Professor Daddy is like equally hot as a man, right? Yeah.
[00:10:26] I haven't checked in on him in a while. I don't know why they made these characters so unreasonably hot. And then they turn them into fucking like AI sex bots. Well, you're. So like, hey, here's the two hottest characters we've ever made.
[00:10:41] And now they're also like AI sex bots go nuts. And I'm resisting the temptation because that's too easy. I'm an artist. No, it's too easy. Too easy. We're not going to be doing for affinity check because you can just piece it together.
[00:10:57] You don't need to even Google it. Just think about it. You should look up Sada. She's got like a six pack and like sort of like a, I don't know, like a primal sort of energy looks like a like a keto influencer. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:11:12] But she's kind of in like animal skins and like tooth jewelry. Like she's got a real like wild area. Wild area. Prehistoric vibe to her, you know? Yeah. Oh, she's got like wolf fangs. Geez Louise didn't even know that was something I was into. Time. Yeah.
[00:11:37] Well, we'll be in our bunks for a little bit. We'll come back. Anyway, I'm getting some pretty fucked up calls from Professor Sada who's like, hey, I'm in the in the area zero and I need you to come help me.
[00:11:51] You and my son, Billy from Stranger Things, whose name is apparently Arwen. Arwen. And in my game, it is Professor Daddy Turo, who is frantically calling Don Joey as well. Yeah. Real side of beef. That guy too. Oh, hell yeah. Where are we?
[00:12:09] Well, we have to go just on like the side of a mountain. Madali, I think, is the. Yeah, it's Madali and you walk up and there's like a big gate, but it's like there's also apparently a huge crater here that's always existed underneath Mount Glacier. Glaciotto.
[00:12:27] This huge underground network of like crystals and caves and like abandoned mill sec bases and the GPS company, whatever it is in Pokemon, we're not sure. This fucking game. There's cannot map. Jesus Christ. This we don't know what's going on in this crater.
[00:12:48] They're like, here's an incredibly complex system of twisting tunnels full of Pokemon and like dangers. You're not allowed to ride Corridon in here. No. Morayden Corridon has an aversion to this area that we'll find out why. But it glides you down.
[00:13:08] You get into the crater via gliding, but then it gets in the Pokeball and will not come out. Tell me who's in Arwen's crew. Oh yeah. The crack team. It's no Mona. Of course. Unsurprisingly, got to be there. She's a go getter.
[00:13:24] Arvin slash Billy and then Penny the Tumblr team. It was fucked up that Arwen was here. They could have just made Arwen stay back and we get back and he's like, Hey, where my parents in there? It's like, no, sorry, we didn't see them. There's still hope.
[00:13:40] Instead, what we are guided down is like a journey into the heart of darkness. Where it's all about reconciling Arvin's relationship with his parents. So we were done with Arwen. We fixed his dog. Okay, so you get, you arrive, you float down. Everyone's here. Everyone is constantly chattering.
[00:14:08] Yeah. Which means that you cannot send your Pokemon out to do let's go battles or whatever they're called. Yeah, I think that's right. Which is honestly, I'm not going to lie to you. I've now pretty much beaten this game. Do you casually do that?
[00:14:20] It's pretty much the only way I train. Because it's so ingrained because of the dung beetle. You talk about like battling people in the wild and ever since they took away site battles where you like cross the line of sight of a trainer and you initiate a battle.
[00:14:37] I think I can probably count on one hand the number of trainer battles I've had. So you have not been doing that and not getting the items from the guys. I haven't been doing any of the trainer battles or any of the items.
[00:14:48] I've done like a few like trainer battles that were like notable like Billy and Oner. But like mostly I've just been avoiding them. I miss when they forced you to do it. It has become a chore because so many of them are not, you know, their levels
[00:15:04] don't change based on what your levels are at. And so it's like, oh, I need to fight this person to try to get these trainers done so that I can get the item from the guy at the Pokemon center.
[00:15:16] But then you engage with the trainer and it's like basically every time it's like, okay, I got a level 30 Persian or whatever. Yeah. And it's like a total waste of time. Yeah. Complete slog. So I guess I get it that you're just not even bothering. Yeah.
[00:15:31] And I haven't the whole game and I've been just sending out my lead Pokemon to do those little like local battles. Yeah. And I was prevented from doing that this week. They're like, instead of being able to do this thing you've been enjoying where
[00:15:44] you send your Pokemon out to do little battles, you instead have to just listen to unskippable chatter between these three characters talking about nothing. Yap zone. It's not, they're not advancing the plot, you know, they're just yapping, chattering.
[00:15:57] I mean, depending on how much you care about the plot in terms of Arvin's familial matters, it advances the plot when you get to the, they all bond things. Also, Nimona reveals that her dad is on the board at the Rotom phone company.
[00:16:13] Do you pick that one up? Jesus Christ. Why does she, she's like, wants me to hate her. Yeah. Her family are the ones who are subjugating road. That's problematic. Whatever that company is. That's my least favorite of the corpos. Rotom phone company. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:30] That's bottom of the list. I agree. And we've seen some pretty dastardly fucking companies. But none of them were subjugating Rotoms. So I'm sure they all were. This one is the most fucked up. We arrive. They're like, here's the thing. You have all these obstacles up against you.
[00:16:49] We took you the game you were enjoying and we made it worse by not letting you ride around on your cry on and not letting you send out your Pokemon and making you listen to this chatter. Great. That's fine. I'm here to play your game Pokemon.
[00:17:00] And if you want me to walk down this path and unlock these locks in these little abandoned research buildings, I'll do that. But the least you could do Pokemon company is give me a fucking map. Yeah. No, man. You're broken map.
[00:17:16] If you're not going to give me a map, if you're going to be like, sorry, no map in this area, like maps locked. You could hide the one that doesn't work instead of just showing a broken one. Yeah. Get it off the hood. That's a good idea. Actually.
[00:17:29] Call of these people charge me a hundred dollars for this game. Yeah, you're right. I mean, the map should just not even be on the hood. At all. Because it's unusable. I didn't need the map. It's a pretty straight line down, but it's like, why?
[00:17:43] Why is this broken map like taking up like an eighth of my screen? When I first went in there, I was sort of like concerned. Like I was fearful. I was like, oh no.
[00:17:53] How am I ever going to be able to find these four research stations are the things you have to do pretty much see all four of them from the top of the crater. Yeah. It ends up being pretty straightforward. I mean, it takes a long time, but.
[00:18:05] It does take a while to grind down. You find out from what's yours, Sada, Professor Sada. I think, yeah. And Turo, professors, mommy and daddy make you descend the crater in order to unlock gates that are trapping them. And they're being so fucking weird. Very cryptic.
[00:18:30] You know what's fucked up? I'm just thinking about this story now. I'll reveal spoiler alert. They are AI robots as we AI sex bots, as we revealed earlier. Yeah. Professor Sada and Turo were both as the AI like sex bot keeps saying, like.
[00:18:46] Tragically crushed in like an accident. Yes. Perspired in like a incident at the base and we're crushed or something like that. It's like, okay. That seems pretty anticlimactic for this thing. You've been like dragging me along for this entire game. You're just like, oh, they're crushed. Yeah.
[00:19:05] They were just simply killed. Is that right? Are we both misremembering that? Or is that right? That's what mine said. Mine's like, I'm an AI sex bot that was invented by professor Sada because she died. There was like an incident at like one of the research bases.
[00:19:19] She put her memories. And I'm like the backup with like all of their memories. Yeah. And she's glitching out, but you know what I'm thinking about now is fucked up. That plot line makes sense for your guy who's from the future.
[00:19:31] So that's what I wanted to ask you about your game. Why is mine an AI? Mine should be like a cave woman, you know? Right. So like we get there and it's some primitive version of Sada who she like implanted her memories into.
[00:19:45] And she's like, oh, you no understand. Unga bunga. Yeah. I actually thought or I guess I was hoping that's what it would be. But you just simply have an AI as well. An AI version of professor Sada is also glitching out.
[00:20:01] But it's that they were trying to go into the past rather than the future. Is that a gateway to the past and all these like bad Pokemon are coming through? Okay.
[00:20:10] Yeah, I think that would have been more fun if it had been a setup that it was like bringing out the cave woman Sada version of like, you know, her great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, etc. And fun grandmother.
[00:20:26] Maybe that's what they were trying to do. And they just didn't have the resources. Kind of seems like that's the story of this game a little bit. You can see the ambition there. They somehow did not have the resources. Although I'll say this, like, I liked Area Zero.
[00:20:44] I think the music's good. I did too. Yeah, I thought it was great. The vibe is kind of interesting. The research stations, new Pokemon were like, I didn't really like any of them, but they're it's fun to have new Pokemon.
[00:20:55] The research stations really reminded me of like Half-Life or like late 90s, early 2000s, like video game renderings of dilapidated office spaces. Yeah. Or like that Backrooms YouTube series. There was one that was all like embedded in crystals.
[00:21:13] One of the research stations, probably the one Professor Sada died in. Rest in peace. Yeah. RIP. Rest in petals. Rest in petals. I thought for what it is, the vibe was pretty interesting. So let's talk about what this is, because it's actually pretty fucked up from Arwin's
[00:21:28] perspective, because he hasn't seen his parents in so long because one's been gallivanting in the past and one's been gallivanting in the future in this Area Zero. We suddenly get these like odd, creepy pasta calls from them where they're like, hello, son, it is me, your mama, mommy.
[00:21:46] And it's like, okay, what is going on here? Yeah. We go inside, immediately discover that not one, but both of his parents have died. Yeah. His mommy, or I guess in your case, daddy was already dead. Mysteriously.
[00:21:58] Oh, I don't know, but it sounds like in your game he's died. So he's recently lost both his parents. Yeah. He's an orphan. Little orphan Arvin. And then he has to like confront this robot version of his mommy, who's a crazed
[00:22:10] AI, who like keeps saying like, I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of how you've grown up. I'm your, like your mommy put all her memories in me. So I'm pretty much your mommy and I'm going to leave you now. Your dad truly loved you. Fucked up.
[00:22:24] Yeah. Very dark, very dark. What a weird way to end this game. And they think that it is the dad or mom. This kid's game. Until the end of these final research stations where it's revealed like at short
[00:22:37] circuits and then you find out and you see the AI version that like boots up and then it starts speaking in like elite speak. Yeah. That was kind of cool. It was kind of cool that they were like fucking with the UI, like the interface of Pokemon games.
[00:22:53] Like when professor Sada AI sex bot, the like paradise protection protocol activates and it says like AI Sada and it like scrambles out and it says like paradise protection protocol challenges you. That was cool. Yeah. And then she's got like lead speak.
[00:23:10] A lot of the effects were pretty good for this area. It's like fun to fuck with the expected stuff, you know? Yeah. They don't fuck with that stuff that often. The other stuff they fucked with is the Pokemon who are here. Let's talk about one of them.
[00:23:26] Well, let's talk about them in general because I don't even know what you had. Are we talking about a battle with her or the Pokemon around here? I encountered one prior to the battle that I want to talk about. Okay. It is Joshie sweetie. Okay. Iron bundle.
[00:23:47] I earned money. I looked into your Pokemon a little bit. Check it out. I think you win if it's a competition on who's got the better version exclusive. Really? I was assuming I was going to like the primal ones more. I'll say this.
[00:24:02] I don't think any of them really like offend me. What are they called? How do I look them up? Ancient Pokemon. They keep referring to them as ancient Pokemon in the game. Okay. Ancient. That's still paradox. Oh, paradox Pokemon. Right. Okay. So here's what you were up against.
[00:24:18] So we've seen, we've seen a few now. The one that they tease me with is my first. You make me barf Pokemon of the week, which is scream tail, who I think is a worse version of Jigglypuff. Barf. How is this a barf scream tail? Yeah, it's not.
[00:24:39] I'm going to scream tail about this. It's just jiggly. Like we had a jigglypuff. This is like, I think it's lazy. I think it's so lazy. I don't think they did a good enough job. I'm sorry. You're going to barf because it's lazy.
[00:24:52] I don't look at this and I say, this is an ancient jigglypuff. I say, this is a jigglypuff with like a different haircut. Okay. Well that argument, you have something there with that argument. Give me something here. Pokemon. That it's not like, why is this ancient? Okay.
[00:25:06] That's a good argument. This is the first one you're going to show me is this other jigglypuff. It's like, okay, a regional variant of Jigglypuff. Great. I guess this one's got long hair. It's actually got little fangs too. It's kind of cute. It's very cute.
[00:25:18] I, there's just no way. I don't understand how this is a barf. Even if you have less, this conceptual argument that is decent, but it's not a barf. I think you're, I mean, sorry. I think most of them are not to step on your toes.
[00:25:33] You're the arbiter of who's a barf and who isn't. Um, but it's hard for me to join you on this one. I think roaring moon is pretty cool. And I think slitherwing is fine. And I think the rest are all pretty bad. Slitherwing.
[00:25:46] I think Brute Bonnet has a cool name, but looks silly. I think Fluttermane, like if you showed me a picture of Fluttermane next to Misdreavus, I'd be like, I couldn't tell you which is which. Okay. Fluttermane. That's that is lazy.
[00:26:00] Honestly, when it was like Fluttermane is like Paradise Protocol is sending out Fluttermane. Who do you want to send out? I was like, Fluttermane, I guess it's a bug type. I don't know. And it turned out to be Misdreavus. That one sucks. Roaring moon. Great.
[00:26:17] Roaring moon is cool. That's, um. Salamence. Salamence. How about mine? Uh, Iron Bundle, obviously great. As I said, sweetie. Robotic version of Delibird. I think all yours are kind of cool. I mean, some of them are kind of lazy. Iron Treads I don't like.
[00:26:34] Iron Hands and Iron Jugulus are like, they just kind of look like their original version, just metal. Yeah. It's just more angular, basically. Iron Treads is okay. Iron Moth, cool. Iron Moth, cool. Iron Bundle, cute. Iron Thorns, cool. Iron Valiant, pretty cool.
[00:26:51] Iron Thorns, uh, in the battle that we're going to be talking about shortly. I had no idea when it was like, AI Toro is going to send out Iron Thorns. Will you switch your Pokemon? I was like, I have no idea what that is.
[00:27:07] And I thought it was going to be a grass type because of the thorns part. And boy, was I wrong. That's how they get ya. All right. Let's talk about this battle. Joshua and the teams we brought into it in level check. After this break.
[00:27:22] Yeah, I'm not falling for that one. I didn't ask you to. I didn't expect you to. Too easy. Lazy. Bequem und günstig fahren mit der Uber App. Uber vermittelfahrten und ist kein Beförderer. Welcome back, Mudcantres. Welcome back, Joshua. It's Experience Share.
[00:28:02] We are about to take on the Paradise Protection Protocol. Paradise Protection Protocol. The AI Sada and AI Turo. Turo. AI Mommy and Daddy. Sexbots. They have a full suite of Master Balls filled with ancient Pokemon. What are yours called? Future Pokemon?
[00:28:27] I guess the whole category is called Paradox Pokemon, but minor from the future. Basically, I guess we should clear that up for bug catchers who are not playing this game or never intend to. The scheme was Turo or Sada built a time machine.
[00:28:45] Yeah, a time machine just for Pokeballs. Yeah. Hurling balls into the future or the past and then bringing back Pokemon, which is also where I guess clearly Mariden and what's yours? Karidon? Karidon, yeah. Came from? I guess. What's so what's their future equivalent and past?
[00:29:03] What's our present equivalent? I guess the little Lizard. Cyclizar. Yeah, Cyclizar. Is their current one. Current timeline. Is your Mariden or Karidon from the future also, or is it the past in your game in Scarlet? The past.
[00:29:20] Which I think makes sense because he's all kind of like feathered and yours is a little more futuristic. I think they are telegraphing this to us. Okay. Yours looks a little robotic and mine looks like a feathered lizard. Yeah, mine's a hovercraft.
[00:29:34] I didn't realize how different ours was. Mine has webbed lizard feet and yours has metal. Karidon. Fenders. Oh yeah, you're right. I haven't looked at it in a long time. Oh, in fact, like scroll down on Karidon's page and look at like the ride on mode.
[00:29:49] Like when my Karidon is in like sprinting mode, he just kind of like folds his legs up to the side. Yours looks like a fucking motorcycle. Yeah.
[00:29:56] You've been referring to them as the motorcycles the whole time, but mine is actually the only one that really is like a motorcycle. Mine looks like a lizard. Yours looks like a motorcycle.
[00:30:06] So I guess they have been showing us this the whole time and we just were too ignorant to see it. Yeah. Wow. What a nuanced story.
[00:30:16] It's uh, yeah, well, uh, nuanced, but very makes it very confusing in terms of the canon that there is both just this twist with Sada versus Turo and the future versus the past.
[00:30:29] And she's like, it's like very like Final Fantasy because she's like, I am glitching out and going to like try to stop you. Please defeat me. And like a tear rolls down her cheek and it's like, oh God. That's what I was quoting earlier.
[00:30:43] That's like, I'll say this. I may only be the download of all of your father's memories, but I can also tell you because of that, that your daddy truly loved you, Arvin. Yeah. That sucks. And then Arvin is like, don't tell me this.
[00:30:58] Like this is obviously fucked up. Fucking robot. Get out of here. And then it's like, and now I am going to have to kill you because of my system processing. Shut down.
[00:31:08] I must kill you because it's hard coded that if you try to shut down the time machine, the AI gets overridden. Yeah. And turns into the Paradise Protocol protection protocol. And yeah, you must fight.
[00:31:23] Let's talk about the teams we brought into that battle with the Paradise Protection Protocol and level check. Level check. I didn't have any movement, just some movement in levels. All right. Well, then let's start with you and let's hear about your levels.
[00:31:41] Esteban Humano just brought his buddies into the Paldea crater. He thought, let's just pal around in there, see what we can get up to, see who we can meet. See if there's any dudes in there. Anyone who might want to join the crew? There's not. No, nobody.
[00:31:59] None of them are dudes. I scoured the list. You've got a dude potentially in Iron Valiant. Oh, Iron Valiant. Definitely dude. And Iron Hands, I think is a dude. Oh, yeah. None of my other dudes.
[00:32:14] Donna's car, Reverum, level 70 has outlived its usefulness, obviously, but I didn't have time to level Donna back up to 70. So I just kept her car. Donna is still in Joshua Tree? She's... Donna Baker? In Joshua Tree, yeah. Okay. Or she's in, I guess, like Palm Springs. Oh.
[00:32:35] Little California desert city. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's where she is. She's like an Adobe... Sweat lodge. It's like an Adobe building, like a retreat. Yeah. Yeah. Which I don't know, maybe she'll come back for the last one because Reverum, level 70, didn't contribute a whole lot.
[00:32:52] I mean, the toxic spikes continue just like, you know, those are fun. I poisoned every single one of Sada's Pokemon. Oh, that would be very useful on that battle. Sometimes swings the battle. Yeah. Yeah. Rick Bingo, King Gambit, level 76. Gregor Samsa, Rabska, level 76. Lady Beth, Armor Rouge, level 70.
[00:33:14] Fiona Eilish, Wellspring, Ogre Pond, level 70. I fucked around with a couple of the other masks this week or the other two masks this week. Yeah. But I just, I keep finding the waters is useful. Yeah. It seems that you're pretty subtle on Wellspring.
[00:33:29] That's the only one I hear you talk about. Proud Avery, Golden Go, level 72. Goldengo. Goldengo. How are you liking Proud Avery? Good. Proud. Shadow Ball's like always a standby. Yeah. And the make it rain thing is useful for collecting a little scratch.
[00:33:46] Shadow Ball, I think, is one of the best moves of all time. Execution, look. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Oh, and I figured out how it surfs because I had it, I was trying to get it to like go out and battle this week. Yeah.
[00:33:59] It surfs when you're in like Pokemon Go mode. Oh, I see. When you send it out to do the battles. It'll like surf down.
[00:34:05] And it's the only Pokemon I have that will actually keep up with me when I'm running, when it's out with me because it just surfs behind me on its little surfboard. So you had Proud Avery out surfing around?
[00:34:14] I wish it looked cooler because it's like kind of cool. I mean, that was the only thing when we were looking into Goldengo last week that was starting to sell it for me was the surfing. Everything else bad. Yep. Goldengo. Yeah.
[00:34:30] Oh, it's hard to learn some move that I cannot now remember the name of, but essentially it dies and in the process harshly lowers the attack and special attack of the opponent.
[00:34:40] And it's like, that doesn't seem, I mean, maybe if it's like on last legs, but like to spend a move slot on that move feels like you really got to be committed to some kind of path that I'm not on. Yeah, that's strange. Strange move.
[00:34:56] What about Don Joey? How's his band of merry warriors? Don Joey's Knights consist of the Duke, Pommat, level 75. Been around the whole game. Yeah. Still love him. What is Pommat? Electric what? Electric fighting. Oh. Great combo. I wish I didn't have so much steel on my team.
[00:35:18] And then we have Dame Trish of Lavencia, Tinkerton, level 71. Earl Jangles, Como, oh, level 71. Baron Claude Sire, Claude Sire, level 71. Viscount Arthur, Bax Caliber, level 70. No movements in terms of their chivalrous order this week, but there was movement with the squire I mentioned last week.
[00:35:48] Rouncy, sorry, Marquas Rouncy had a squire that he'd taken under his tutelage. Okay. Which was a charred cadet. Yes. Okay. Right. And as they were working together, you know, you've seen Skellidurge perform Torch Song is awesome.
[00:36:10] Basically, Skellidurge realized that like what he really wanted to do is just sing his little heart out. Keep doing that Torch Song. And he actually exited the band of Merry Gentlemen. Oh, you put your starter in the box too? Yeah. My starter is out.
[00:36:27] He's on his own path to become like, you know, the Ed Sheeran of Paldea, I guess. That sounds great. And instead, Esbern, the Cyriledge, level 72 has stepped in. The squire has become the knight. Is that fire steel? Oh, that'd be fucked up. What is it?
[00:36:49] No, it's also fire ghost. I replaced fire ghost with fire ghost. Okay. Because Arma Rouge is fire psychic. I would say that I think Skellidurge is better in a battle context from what I've seen so far with Cyriledge. But like, look at how cool this thing is.
[00:37:07] That's way cooler than Arma Rouge. I love Arma Rouge. I think Arma Rouge is a pretty cool Pokemon. But like... No, Arma Rouge is also cool. But this is cooler. Definitely. Cyriledge is way cooler. And it's got its signature move. It's called Bitter Blade. It's awesome.
[00:37:21] God, look at this thing. You're like baiting me into going to Fur Affinity this week. But I'm not going to do it, Joshua. No, no, no. You can't make me. No, no, no, no. We don't have time for that. This thing is a good looking Pokemon.
[00:37:31] Yeah, it's rad. Named for a character in the Blades in Skyrim who I hate. I do not like the Blades. I always go for the storyline where I save Parthenax, by the way, for what it's worth. But just so you know, with the lore, Esbern. Blades?
[00:37:49] Isn't that the main guys in that game? The Blades are the dragon hunters in the endgame. And you can either choose to go with them and hunt dragons or stand with Parthenax and the dragons. That's fucked up. No, no, no.
[00:38:01] No, that's a fucked up way to play the game. Those are Don Joey's nights. Let's talk about mashing these teams up against... AI Daddy and Mommy. The Paradise Protection Protocol. Yeah. Because this thing has sucked through a number of pretty intimidating Pokemon in Master Balls to battle you.
[00:38:22] And just when you think... It really is like a Final Fantasy battle because you just do this big, brutal battle. And right when you think you're going to be done, she's like, psych, you have to fight Kiriton too. There's like a mean Kiriton. Yeah.
[00:38:35] That's sort of the Kiriton-Muridon plotline is they've been like alphed out of Area Zero by like a meaner... It was like a territory battle. Yeah. Yeah. A bigger, meaner Kiriton slash Muridon, which belongs to Professor Seda. Slash Toro.
[00:38:52] Curious that the Muridon that I have is in a Poke Ball, whereas all the other Pokemon are in Master Balls. That seemed like an oversight to me. Like, shouldn't it be in a Master Ball too if it was Toro's Pokemon originally? Think about it.
[00:39:06] That is interesting because when the Paradise Protocol starts, she's like, battle me. And you're like, okay, I'll battle you. He slash she says battle me. And you fight the full suite of Paradise Pokemon. Paradox Pokemon. Yeah. This battle was the hardest battle I've played in generations.
[00:39:27] I think like since... Like, this is a level of like Cynthia in Gen 4 and Red at the top of Mount Silver in Gold and Silver.
[00:39:39] I imagine if my levels were a little more in control and didn't have like a pretty boss mythical Pokemon on my team or legendary or whatever Ogre Pond is, it would have been a little bit more difficult.
[00:39:50] And she did peel off a couple of my Pokemon, but just a couple. Just a couple. Okay. Well, I mean, that's more than most people. I lost. I whited out on my first round. My first bout. Yeah, that's too bad.
[00:40:04] Because my levels were also below where they are now because I did do some grinding after. I was fighting predominantly with like level 68 to like level 70 at the highest. Yeah.
[00:40:17] And as I said, with like Iron Thorns, for example, no fucking clue what that was going to be or what type it was. And it ends up being a Tyranitar, future Tyranitar that is rock and electric.
[00:40:30] So when I thought it was going to be a grass type, obviously completely wrong. Iron Moth was great. Killed Earl Jangles, Komoo. Iron Bundle had Water Pulse because I didn't know it was part water. That took out Cyril Edge. Iron Bundle. Oh, yeah. Ice Water. Delibird. Quark Drive.
[00:40:52] What is Quark Drive? So Quark Drive. Their battle item. Quark Drive was, I guess, an ability that Iron Valiant, maybe all of them have it, but Iron Valiant was the only one who activated it. And so it like made its attack wild.
[00:41:09] I don't know how much it was multiplied by, but Iron Valiant was like the ace that Toro had. The finisher. Yeah, that was Roaring Moon for Sada, the Salamence. It's a future version of like Gardevoir or like Gallade.
[00:41:24] And once Quark Drive activated, I had Komoo out and Outrage didn't affect it. I was like, OK, so I don't even know what fucking type this thing is. And then it used something and just one hitted Komoo. Yeah. And then I whited out.
[00:41:40] So I had to fight twice and then I won. Then I knew like what their types were, kind of. Josh? Yeah. Who's Walking Wake, Gouging Fire and Raging Bolt? I don't know.
[00:41:55] Feels like we just got done with the whole Area Zero and Area Zero plotline that they kind of railroaded us on and in fact made a joke about how they were railroading us on it at one point.
[00:42:07] In one of the like AI dialogue chatters, Penny's like, oh, I can't believe your mom is railroading us like this. It's starting to feel like a video game. It's like, OK. Oh, interesting. Well, I feel a little spoiled by these now that I'm seeing these.
[00:42:23] Because I'm looking, I'm on the page for Pokemon that know Photosynthesis, which is my version of Quark Drive. Oh, I see. Because I don't think anyone used it.
[00:42:31] And there's three new Area Zero Paradox Pokemon that I certainly didn't see in my entire time in Area Zero called Walking Wake, Gouging Fire and Raging Bolt, which are just the legendary dogs. Yeah. So there must be more to this Area Zero. Yeah.
[00:42:50] Oh, maybe that's what the DLC is about. We still have to do the Indigo Disc. Yeah, we had to do the Indigo Disc. But so what you're saying is you didn't really... What was your team like that you went up against?
[00:43:00] Your levels were crazy, so it still wasn't that bad. But what was the team? Slitherwing, Bug, Fighting. Yeah, it's interesting that they give us a crossover one. You've got Iron Moth and I've got Slitherwing. Oh yeah, future or ancient Volcarona. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:43:17] And then Screamtail, who's just Jigglypuff with a perm. Brute Bonnet, who's Fungoose or whatever it's called. Amoongoose. Amoongoose, but with like slime on it. Fluttermane, which is just mischievous. Sandy Shox, which is just Magneton, but with crud on it. And then Roaring Moon, which honestly, again,
[00:43:37] I think Roaring Moon is pretty cool. But if you showed me a picture of Roaring Moon and you're like, is this Salamence? I'd be like, oh yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean, but that's how it should be if it's a predecessor.
[00:43:46] But if you showed me a picture of Salamence and you were like, is this Roaring Moon? I'd be like, oh, I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. Side by side, I could tell the difference between the two, but independently they're just like the same Pokemon model, essentially.
[00:43:58] Much like Iron Juggles and Hydreigon are. It's just an angular version of Hydreigon. And something I'm realizing is I have a lot of steel and they didn't have anything that was very good against steel. I don't know. I pretty much just had a counter for everything.
[00:44:14] And when I didn't, like they killed Dotta's car. They always do. They probably killed a couple other people. But when it always like, when push comes to shove, I just put in Ogre Pond and then I win. Yeah.
[00:44:26] I feel like the future ones in Violet are more off-putting than the ancient ones in Scarlet, where I just assumed they basically all were part steel because of their look. Yeah. And I think none of them are part steel except Iron Treads.
[00:44:44] And as a result of that, it was matchup mayhem for me. Oh, but Iron Treads slash Great Tusk are not even in this battle. No, because we already solved them. We got them in the mainland. One of the Pokemon that escaped.
[00:45:02] And in general, it seems like they're all kind of trying to escape. Like once we get the doors unlocked to get into this Area Zero lab, which is where we have this battle, we also have to fight a bunch of them that were trapped in there
[00:45:16] and they're trying to escape. Yeah. Yeah. And Nomona's like, if these Pokemon get out like Paldea will fall. And it's like, really? Like, I don't think so. I think we could probably figure this out. Just more Pokemon. Yeah.
[00:45:29] And then you beat the first set and she's like, that was just my first form. And she sends out big mean Coridon. The dumb Moridon. And the Paradise Protocol goes into lockdown and anyone who has ball, anyone carrying their balls get automatically locked with little digital
[00:45:50] locks, which I didn't know you could do. Inoperable. And the only Pokemon who are allowed to fight now are Professor Sada's Pokemon, which includes my Coridon. And my Moridon. So it's finally, we've unlocked Coridon and Moridon's battle form. Yes. Which means they can just do battles now.
[00:46:08] And then mine almost got its ass handed to it. I was like taking some hits off and then it like did a big hit. And I Coridon was like, I managed to pull through just for you. Yeah. Okay. Which may be a small thing. Yeah. Okay.
[00:46:21] Which maybe is scripted. Yeah, it must be because Mike's magic stuff and they just like unlocks their potential. Yeah. I thought it was going to be curtains and then it holds on like float into the air and bulk up. Yeah. And survived with one hit point.
[00:46:37] And then I used a max potion. And then right after that, they're like, oh, the Tara orb is glowing. And then you can go into Tara form and you can use, um, what is it? Like Tara blast. Okay. Okay.
[00:46:49] I don't want to complain about this game so much because we've been complaining about it a lot this episode, but what Tara type was your? Dragon. Okay, good. Mine too. Of course. Yeah. I like this game. I had a lot of fun playing it.
[00:47:02] I'm looking forward to the Indigo disc DLC. I thought this was fun and I thought the new Pokemon, even though I didn't like a lot of their designs, it's like cool idea. Okay. They put the fucking dragon type crown for the dragon terrestrialization
[00:47:16] on the fucking head of Corridon. Who's got giant feather plumes and they didn't have the foresight to think, I wonder if these giant feather plumes will clip through the dragon's head in this. Climactic cinematic cut scene at the end of this game where this Pokemon like
[00:47:35] terrestrializes and dominates the final enemy, Josh, they did not think of that. Okay. I'll tell you because it was clipping through the models. I mean, I believe it. Yeah, it's fine. Okay. It's fine. It's fine. Thank you for the Pokemon game. Yeah, it's fine.
[00:47:52] Is that what you want to hear? Thank you, sirs. And thank you madams for the Pokemon game. We owe you our, our lives. Is that what you want to hear now? Make a good one. In general. I liked this quest though. The way home.
[00:48:05] I thought, yeah, I thought it was great. This is not really what I expected. The AI thing was a twist that I really did not predict at all. Yeah. And the elite speak and like the little, as you were talking about the, uh, fucking with
[00:48:21] the, uh, UI UI was fun. Yeah. Metal gear solid. Very metal gear solid. It wasn't fun for Arvin who, um, I think it's just like lost both his parents, rest in pedals,
[00:48:33] just going to be spending an ungodly amount of money on therapy for the rest of his life. Yeah. There was like a little bit of like a cut scene at the end after we defeated our wins, robot parents and send them back into the past slash future.
[00:48:44] They have to, they have to go into the future in order to shut down the time machine, but they're like glitching. Like at the end, they were like barely able to keep themselves together. So I think they're just going there to like shut down and die.
[00:48:56] Hopefully they're definitely going to die. That's kind of a paradox in my, I guess that's why they're called, but like, can you imagine sending back like a glitching AI robot into the past? Like that seems like a mistake. It seems like that's going to have repercussions.
[00:49:09] Isn't that what starts the butterfly effect? Yeah. Maybe that's what happened 3000 years ago in that like AZ plot line with Floetta. Oh yeah. Uh, in X and Y. Yeah. Could be the cataclysmic event. Interesting. Cry it on. Yeah. You beat cried on. She goes back into the past.
[00:49:29] Uh, we see the final cut scene and like our wins like resistant. I think our wins like now I'm just going to like probably lay down in this field and die because my entire life has been turned upside down and I'm what I've secretly
[00:49:41] suspected for a long time has now been confirmed and both my parents have died tragically. Right. And I never got to say goodbye to them and their robot clones also left me. So I'll probably just lay down here in this field and die.
[00:49:54] And everyone's like, no, no, no. Come with us. Okay. I'll come with you. We got to get together for one last caper. Who knows what it is? We'll find out. We'll chase waterfalls next episode. I think. Are we chasing waterfalls or are we doing Indigo disc?
[00:50:10] I think we're at the levels where if we wanted to go back to Kitakami, for example, we could deal with the glitterati and that Kitakami ogre clan. Yeah. Try to get the, uh, ominous black stakes out of the ground.
[00:50:27] We're going to chase some waterfalls and if it feels like we've got enough, we'll just do chasing waterfalls. And if it feels like we'll do more, we'll also maybe dip into Indigo disc next week too.
[00:50:37] But yeah, at least go clean up your game, get your levels up, go get those stakes. If that's the quest you're on, do whatever you want. All right, Joshua, we should go. We've got a lot of adventuring to do. Bug catchers, thank you for joining us.
[00:50:55] This has been experience share. We'll battle next week and we will clean up our teams, ourselves, and do our waterfalling and meet one another on the fever pitch. Yeah. You pick the place, Joshua, and I'll show up with my team. Absolutely dominate you.
[00:51:13] You know why you struggled so much in that fight against the Paradise Protocol? Because I'm not hideously over leveled. You brought like a knife to a knife fight, you know? I brought dudes to a Pokemon fight. That is why you keep winning. Right. Yeah.
[00:51:27] It's not the levels, it's that you have people beating up. People with intelligence and agency. I brought a gun to a knife. I brought six guns to a knife fight. You brought six knives to a knife fight. Great. Yeah, that's the problem. Good job. We'll battle next week.
[00:51:43] Hopefully you can make your knives a little sharper. In the meantime, this has been experience share. It's Pokemon podcast. My name has been Tandy Shox. I'm joined as always by my co-host Iron Josh. Please do rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts.
[00:51:56] Do follow the show everywhere you follow podcasts and do follow us at EXP SharePod on Instagram. Threads X, Twitter. And we have a Reddit. Yeah. And we have a Reddit. It's called reddit.com slash r slash bug catchers. You can have some fun in there.
[00:52:12] I know that I do from time to time. Oh, why do you say it like that? Yeah, it sounded weird. Sounded weird. Now that I'm thinking about it. I know that I do. Oh God. Have a lot of fun there on Reddit.
[00:52:25] That sounds bad, but the Reddit is the subreddit is good and our merch is good. And you can buy our merch at EXP SharePod.com as well. Joshua, thank you for joining us. Bug catchers, thank you for joining us. Alola, konbanwa. Konbanwa, alola. Bottom of the episode.
[00:52:41] And we'll see you later.