I haven't seen a pocket monster in a fortnight! Let's Play Palworld!

[nosimpleway]

It was inevitable, really.


Being spotted by the PIDF while in a sanctuary will put a "Trespassing" charge on my criminal record. If the PIDF sees me catching a Pal that lives on one of the santuaries, a "Poaching" charge gets added, too. And if I attack the officers themselves (or, outside of sanctuaries, any other human) then the charge is "Assault". The punishment for all crimes is death. The more and more severe the charges on my record, the more PIDF Infantry spawn out of thin air and open fire.


With my current equipment, the incoming gunfire is not particularly dangerous. It's annoying when I'm already fighting a Pal down to critical HP to catch it, though.


There are currently three ways to clear a criminal record:

• Wait a while. It takes several minutes but eventually the PIDF will decide they've shot the player enough and go back to whatever it was they were doing.
• Die. "Respawn" in the options menu works just fine, and is usually my go-to choice when I'm done with a crime spree since I decided this gameworld has no death penalties.
• Shut down the game, then open it back up. Starting the game always begins with a clean record. The game is kind of janky about spawning PIDF all over the place, which often leads to the it crashing-to-desktop. Fire it back up and the problems are all gone.

Oh, whatever. We've pretty well established that if I'm up on this cliff the Pals can't actually get to...
Wait hold on, a flying raid?


Well, shit. Flying Hyenas are Nitewings, Galeclaws, and Beakons. They're not at particularly high level, but compared to my Pals that have only had the experience of hanging around at base busting up rocks, it's a massacre.


Ha ha, yeah. There's a red aura in the corner because that's the low-health visual effect. I didn't come out of that fight unscathed, either. Either way, this base is shut down for the next ten minutes while my Pals recover.


Well, I can still operate out of Twilight DuARE YOU KIDDING ME


Not you, shut up


Uh...?


Some combination of defensive walls and the natural cliffsides broke their pathfinding. These guys just clip into one big stack and hover in the air. I top off my Galeclaw collection, and the rest just away when the raid time runs out.

[nosimpleway]

I come to explore this area mostly because having gigantic splotches of darkness irregularly covering the map is starting to get annoying. Pals around here are leveled in their teens or twenties, they're not always hostile, and there are several species I don't have yet. For a new player it's about the same as going to Moonlit Shores.



I start a collection of Kelpsea, Woolipop, and Relaxsaurus. This is where I'd find wild Mozzarina, had I not purchased my first couple of those instead.


Talkin' Pals: 034 Woolipop, a "Giant Cotton Candy"
"Its entire body is 18,000 times sweeter than sugar. Carnivorous Pals lured by its scent will find themselves overwhelmed by sweetness and even pass out should they take a bite of this Pal."
The lore: Warding off predators with the threat of pancreatic shock is the sort of goofy shit I'm looking for in a monster-collecting game.
The inspiration: Pokemon has a cotton-candy monster but it's a shaggy, slobbery dog. A cotton-candy sheep is a neat design.
The name: All that said, it's not a lollipop. Maybe "Woolifloss"?
In gameplay: The main appeal of Woolipop is that it generates the Cotton Candy food item, which is one of two foods that never spoils. It's also one of the weakest Pals in the game to drop High Quality Pal Oil, so catching/killing a whole lot of them is always profitable.


Talkin' Pals: 081 Kelpsea, the "Child of the Deep"
"Its personality changes depending on the quality of the water it was born into. Kelpsea born into polluted waters are generally ill-tempered and quickly become delinquents."
The lore: Delinquent Kelpsea presumably style their manes into ridiculous pompadours and deface their school uniforms to reflect their own style. Maybe one of 'em gets a bokken or something.
The inspiration: It's just straight-up a kelpie.
The name: It's a fish-horse, also known as a kelpie. It lives in the sea. It's player-submitted, with all the "not only is this the best a large group of people could come up with, it's also better than anything the devteam drafted beforehand" that implies.
In gameplay: A forgettable water-type in that I literally forgot to catch them until late in the game.


Talkin' Pals: 081b Kelpsea Ignis, the "Child of the Molten Depths"
In gameplay: I remembered these things exist and caught a bunch of them exploring Mt. Obsidian but never actually used them for anything. They're the counterpart to Kelpsea, which has starter-Pal level stats and suitabilities, and by the time the player reaches Mt. Obsidian where they naturally spawn there are many other, better fire-elements available.


Talkin' Pals: 085 Relaxaurus, the "Gluttonous Dragon"
"Contrary to its blasé appearance, it's quite ferocious. It perceives everything in its sight as prey and will stop at nothing to devour it."
The lore: One of the trailers had a Relaxaurus hoisting up a Pengullet or something and swallowing it whole. In-game they don't do that, they're not hostile to other Pals. Only the player suffers Relaxaurus's wrath.
The inspiration: An original enough design that it became one of the game mascots. The icon for the game itself is a portrait of Relaxaurus's dopey mug.
The name: It's not all that relaxing, it aggroes on sight and doesn't let up.
In gameplay: Before you can harvest High Quality Pal Oil from Mammorests in bulk, you're probably pulling them off of Relaxaurus. They're okay waterers at base but all of them come with the "Glutton" passive, so they'll eat up more than their share of food as they work. You can breed them to shed Glutton, but at that point why not just breed Elphidran Aqua or Azurobe and get something that takes less food than even a non-Glutton Relaxaurus?


Talkin' Pals: 085b Relaxaurus Lux, the "Gluttonous Thunder Dragon"
"One day, Relaxaurus had an idea. Maybe it was about time for a change. Just then, an electric shock raced through its body!"
Type shift: Relaxaurus is dragon/water, Relaxaurus Lux is dragon/electric.
In gameplay: Despite the description, wild-caught Relaxaurus Lux do not always have the "Glutton" trait. But considering they're hard to find outside of an Alpha fight in a lategame area and random spawns in difficult raids, a player is likely to get them by breeding. The breeding combination is Relaxaurus and Sparkit, so... they'll probably inherit their parent's Glutton trait in that case. But they don't always have it!


Well, I can't find any of the accessories to null the weather. I did gain a lot of levels catching new Pals, though, and that nets me a new tech unlock. I can now make Refined Metal Armor that is either innately cold- or heat-resistant. One level of weather resist doesn't do much, but if I wear cold-reisistant armor and accessory, I should be able to explore frozen mountaintops. Likewise, heat-resistant armor plus the accessory means I should be fine around Mt. Obsidian.
Resistant armor also has higher defense than regular armor, so this is more like skipping two tiers of equipment rather than one. I went from plain Metal Armor, defense 70, skipped heat/cold-resist metal armor and plain Refined Metal Armor, and got my resistant Refined Metal Armor at defense 180.
You will note that this armor is beeing made by Beegardes, who relish another excuse to leave the ranch beehind. I throw them back into the ranch to make room for Anubis, who does the job somewhere along the lines of thirty-six times faster.


So it's back to Mt. Obsidian for me. New Pals down on the shores are Fenglope, Bushi, Kelpsea Ignis, and Ragnahawk.


Talkin' Pals: 072 Bushi, the "Vagrant Warrior"
"Its body becomes a blade upon death, to be taken up by the next generation. If someone other than a Bushi wields this blade, the soul within torments them until they are driven mad."
The lore: Lots of questions here. What happens if a Bushi has more than one offspring? What does that offspring do up until its parent dies? Which came first, the sword or the Pal? This is "Cubone's mom's skull" level of fridge logic, here.
The inspiration: Sometimes Pokemon are just a little guy, ya know? Given that Bushi can learn grass, ice, and electric moves in addition to its native fire-type, the one that springs to mind is probably Hitmonchan... but they don't look at all alike.
The name: Y'know, Japanese warrior code. Its name in Japan is instead "tsujigiri", the thing where samurai would allegedly test out a new blade by killing some rando peasant with it.
In gameplay: Most Pokemon that are just a little guy (ya know) are fighting-type, so I keep forgetting that Bushi is actually fire. There's not a Pal in the game with Lumbering suitability 4, so Bushi is tied for first place with its Lumbering 3.


Talkin' Pals: 074 Ragnahawk, the "Wings of Inferno"
"Some think it is a related species to Beakon, but there is in fact no connection. It mainly eats rocks, and after many long years its beak and head have hardened to accommodate this diet."
The lore: Hey! Some think you are a related species to Beakon, but there is in fact no connection!
The inspiration: It is a fire bird omg it must be Moltres, except no, it looks more like a generic hawk with a mask slapped over its face.
The name: I'll grant that "Ragnahawk" is probably the best portmanteau name in the game.
In gameplay: I happened to get a Beakon first from an egg hatch, but Ragnahawk would have made a perfectly fine flying mount. They're not entirely useless even obsoleted, because they're one of the better flying mounts that are still small enough to fit through the narrow crevices that connect rooms in a cave.


Talkin' Pals: 093 Fenglope, the "Drifting Cloud"
"In ancient times, it was a familiar subject for painting because of its beautiful and majestic appearance. Fenglope is an endangered species, the Fenglope whose beautiful fur and horns are much sought after by poachers!"
The lore: Fenglope live in Wildlife Sanctuary 3 on the northeast side of the map, but they also live on the beaches south of Mt. Obsidian, all the way on the southeast side. Maybe the PIDF intentionally moved them to the Sanctuary as a preservation effort.
The inspiration: Yes there's already two deer, and an elemental spinoff of one of those deer, and a reindeer, but this is an antelope. Totally different. Anyway. What if Cobalion, but floofier? Fenglope looks slightly more like a fuzhu than Cobalion does, but there's still a pretty clear Cobalion influence going on here.
The name: "Feng" means "wind" in Chinese. This is an antelope with a cloud motif, fast as the wind itself.
In gameplay: A mount with "can't fly but is really fast on the ground" is less useful than "can fly" most of the time, but is better in caves. I'm pretty sure Fenglope is the fastest ground mount in the game, and it can at least try for vertical mobility with a double-jump.

[nosimpleway]

I haven't gone up the volcano proper quite yet, but I don't have to worry about smoldering to death if I need to get a little closer to the mountainside to grab a Lifmunk Effigy or an egg.


West Mt. Obsidian is where the Jetdragon lives. It counts as an Alpha but it's also the only one on the map, at all, anywhere. Being maximum level I wouldn't even be able to scratch it right now, so I leave it alone.



Up on the sides of Mt. Obsidan proper are bigger, meaner fire-types, but with as much of the Paldeck as I've covered there aren't many new ones. There's Blazehowl, Pyrin, Leezpunk/Gobfin/Kelpsea Ingnices, Reptyro Vanwyrms, Wixen, and Flambelle. These make way for Blazehowl Noct and Pyrin Noct once night falls. The only one of those I haven't mentioned yet are Reptyro, so:


Talkin' Pals: 088 Reptyro, the "Magma-Born Juggernaut"
"Magma-like blood runs throughout its body. If a large amount of water is thrown on it, this water rapidly heats, causing an immense vapor explosion."
The lore: If a large amount of water is thrown on it, it takes extra damage because water moves have type advantage over fire Pals.
The inspiration: What if Grotle was fiery rock monster instead of grass-type?
The name: Turtles are reptiles (or were when reptiles were still a classification, it's complicated), this is a pyro turtle, so reptile-pyro.
In gameplay: Reptyro makes a good base helper, since it's good at mining and, once it's got some ore, can work the furnaces to smelt it too.


Talkin' Pals: 088b: Reptyro Cryst, the "Ice-Breaking Juggernaut"
"Ice cold blood runs throughout its body. If heated rapidly, its blood evaporates, causing an immense vapor explosion."
Type shift: Reptyro is fire/ground, Reptyro Cryst is ice/ground.
In gameplay: The noteworthy thing about Reptyro Cryst is that it's the strongest ice-type around until the very end of the game when the legendaries start showing up.


Comin' 'round the mountain. I head home, my inventory is full of sulphur I've mined and eggs I've found.



Raids are starting to get tougher. This one is spearheaded by a couple Incineram Noct, along with the Incineram Regulars and Leezpunks. Come on, I just left the area with a bunch of fire-types and dark-type variations!


The next base upgrade demands a Refined Metal Chest. Which is more of a cabinet, really. It holds twice as many items as a regular metal chest! There's a decorative item I can put up that holds as much as a refined metal chest, that unlocks a couple of levels before, but it's an honest-to-god steel shipping container. It's needlessly huge. Just hold out for refined metal. This cuts the number of storage containers I need on my central base down to approximately three. One holds most of the craft materials I use regularly, one can hold schematics, equipment I'm not using at the moment, and other miscellany, and the last is entirely full of skill fruits. I might need them later! I don't know!


Talkin' Jank: Can't Make Me
Sometimes you can throw a Pal directly at a workstation and it goes into its usual automatic mode anyway. Here Anubis ignores that I need some more nails and Naruto-runs off to go do something else.


This pathfinding issue is getting to be a pain, even with the foundations under my workstations and stuff. Here Beegarde has left the base entirely. Pals aren't supposed to be able to do that!
also get. back. to. the. ranch.


I already have the Egg Incubator, Orphan Crushing Machine, and Stay Fresh Cheese Bag unlocked. Now I'm fighting Alphas as because they're unusual species or just happen to be near where I'm going, rather going out of my way for the Ancient Tech Points. But there's still more stuff to get, so I unlock the Mega Grappling Gun and have my Anubises throw one together.
I don't know if Deep Rock Galactic invented the grapple mechanics that work like this, but this is definitely the same grappling mechanics as Deep Rock Galactic. Since I unlocked flying mounts a long time ago the ability to skip climbing up the length of rope loaded into the grapple gun isn't terribly useful... but the grapple gun movement ignores my encumbrance level. If I'm overburdened to the point of my walking speed going down the tubes, I can grapple where I need to go.


I got a couple of Digtoises before remembering that a staff of Anubises can do all the digging I need and more. With a staff of Anubis at each base, the next breeding project is Anubis + Vanwyrm.


Absolutely worth breeding for. I'm even already a high enough level to immediately unlock a saddle.


Faleris is the second-fastest flying mount in the game, quite capable of contributing up to level 50. And with a combination of carefully choosing its parents and some sheer dumb luck, I get one with both Swift and Runner as passives, so it's even faster than usual.


Talkin' Pals: 105 Faleris, the "Sentinel of Dawn"
"When it finds its prey it unleashes a whirlwind of flames, burning the entire area to ash. Faleris breath is known for its pleasing scent."
The lore: ...the scent of ash, given what it does to its food.
The inspiration: It is not entirely un-Corviknight-like.
The name: Beats me. In Japanese and in the internal game files it's "Horus", which is much easier to trace.
In gameplay: Other mounts may be faster in a stamina-depleting dash, but Faleris can still go faster overall because it has more stamina than they do. Further, while it's the active Pal, ice-type Pals that are fought or caught drop more loot. Zipping around the Astral Mountains and sniping Mammorest Crysts from Falerisback is an excellent way to get all the pussy jelly needed for lategame recipes.


My stock of Gobfin Ignis reminds me I need to go back to Gobfin's Turf and catch some of the regular guys that appear there. This is not at all interesting, except...


Talkin' Jank: Neutered
Sometimes the Pal Tamer just cannot throw Pal Spheres. Push the button on the controller, character rears back their arm, but there's nothing in it. No throwing, no catching, all while a dozen Gobfins are hurling attacks my way. Nothing to do about it but reboot the game.

[nosimpleway]

Part 12: Mapped Out, Maxed Out


This is the easiest Alpha fight in the game, if you don't care about the loot drops. I just fly in, let the Alpha Tocotoco see me, and fly away until its two-volt chicken-brain decides to self-destruct harmlessly twenty feet below.


A high-level cave this time around? What's the worst that could happen?


This cave is in the side of Mt. Obsidian, so it's a bit warmer than caves usually are.


Which is to say there are the usual video-game-level open lava flows here and there.


Many of which can be safely stood upon.


My prize this time: Rare-level Assault Rifle schematic. I'm still not high enough level to craft a regular one myself!


ow ouch oof ow my bones
It takes me a moment to realize that flying around the volcano in two layers of heat-resistant gear on a Beakon is fine. Flying around in two levels of heat-resistant gear on a Faleris, which is fire-type, is dangerous. Unless the Pal specifically has an Partner Skill that shields the player character from environmental effects, like Arsox or Reindrix, then proximity to a fire Pal will increase the temperature and proximity to an ice Pal will lower it.


I'll head east and exlpore a more temperate zone instead. This part of the map is called the Bamboo Groves. Univolts, Arse-oxen, and lots of Swee and Sweepa live in the area.


Without anything better to breed I left Anubis and Vanwyrm to crank out more Faleris-children, for the up-to-ten EXP bonus. But Vanwyrm is one of the least reliable Pals in a game full of unreliable Pals, constantly getting stuck in walls and on ceilings it shouldn't. With Vanwyrm clipped into the landscape somewhere, no progress is being made on egg-laying.

[nosimpleway]

A FAP raid brings along a couple of Lyleens, which is convenient for me. Normally those are a rare spawn at Sanctuary #3, but these two were kind enough to show up at my front door.


Talkin' Pals: 104 Lyleen, the "Lily Empress"
"A docile Pal full of love. It watches over small Pals who have lost their parents. It uses a full-power Solar Blast to discipline naughty Pals."
The lore: We've seen Swee and Sweepa. We've seen Beegarde and Bee-yonce or whatever. Now we have the "the same but a little bit bigger" counterpart to Petalia.
The inspiration: "We're going to make a flower monster that people want to fuck" is the inspiration for several Pokemon already. Can we do the petals-as-gown thing again? Gardevoir is already really popular, right, what if we stuck Bellossom's head on top?
The name: Presumably just "lily" scrambled up and with an N at the end.
In gameplay: For farm bases, Lyleen has the highest Planting suitability in the game. Wild Lyleen have "Grass Emperor", boosting the power of all their grass-type moves by 20%. Even if a player wants all their Lyleen working back at base they're worth breeding Grass Emperor onto something else. But Lyleen itself is no slouch, and comes with the strongest healing move in the game. It's a bigger Petalia, of course it does the same thing Petalia does, but more!


Talkin' Pals: 104b Lyleen Noct, the "Empress of the Abyss"
"An elegant Pal full of grace. It admonishes any who are disrespectful with a painful slap. Some Pals actively seek out this punishment."
Type shift: Lyleen is grass, Lyleen Noct is dark.
The inspiration: "We're going to make a flower monster that people want to fuck" is the inspiration for several Pokemon already. But do we attract enough perverts? Can we make it a dominatrix this time?
In gameplay: The only wild Lyleen Noct is a level 48 Alpha. By the time the player can defeat and catch it, there's no shortage of endgame dark-types to choose from. Lyleen Noct is outranked by several others.


The rest of the FAP obligingly line up in a corner of the cliff, where Faleris can roast them all at once.


The only two that escape are the ones that clipped into the cliffside and under my floor.


I'm strong enough to take on wild Mammorests now. Probably have been for a while.


I have two rare-level guns waiting on a supply of polymer, and while I can take on Mammorests now, actually finding the damn things turns out to be time-consuming. So I just buy an industrial-sized drum of pussy jelly to turn into the polymer I need.


The "This Pal is too busy working to be reassigned" bug shows up again. I'd like for this Beegarde to step aside and make room for an Anubis to work here instead, but I can't. I have to go to the Palbox to despawn the Beegarde to get it to leave. (And go back to the ranch, your job is to make honey, not craft guns!)


I'm pretty sure this is nearly 50 attack power higher than the regular Assault Rifle. For each shot. In full auto. The rare pump-action shotgun is no joke, either.


For those occasions where I'd rather conserve ammo, I craft the final melee weapon. Finally... a weapon to surpass Metal Spear. (Melee weapons don't have schematics, so this is as good as it gets.)


Equip sword, T-pose for intimidation.


The last blessing of level 44 is the Wumpo Saddle. Finally, I can put a couple Wumpo in my party and not have to worry about carry weight anymore. At this point my inventory slots are more likely to fill up with eggs and fruits before getting overburdened by weight becomes an issue. (In order from least to most, the Pals that increase carry weight are Cattiva, Lunaris, Broncherry/Kingpaca, Wumpo Botan, and Wumpo.)

[nosimpleway]

Looking up the tech tree for the highest level saddle I can make, for a flying mount that isn't fire-type, lands me on Vanwyrm Cryst. It's ice-element, which will keep me cool enough, but I would have settled for "not actively on fire". Faleris is still the go-to for temperate zones, since it's just so much faster than Vanwyrm, but Vanwyrm doesn't immolate me while I explore Mt. Obsidian.



On the way, I find a nice spot. It's a hillside, sure, but apart from the tower on Cold Shores it's pretty much impossible to find an area for a base that is both flat ground and defensible.


Playing on a multiplayer server, I saw someone else had built a base here, and coveted having that much room to build. My envy was unfounded, as it turns out the game is too damn janky for it to function. Finally sick of the game forgetting that the floor here is made of floor, I tear it all down.
Still, this was my main base of operations for a long time. Leaving it all behind seems a bit melancholy. Maybe I should put something up to indicate this feeling...


There. Now everyone who sees this spot will understand my loss.


Excuse me sir or madam or whatever I understand you lived here up til now but you see
I live here now
(I'm not sure I've ever seen a Pal just lounging around like this, usually they're either up and active or asleep.)


It takes a few tries to get the Palbox into a spot that encompasses the least amount of hillside and the highest number of ore nodes it can reach.


Then it's a matter of trial-and-error-ing where I can put foundations down so my Pals can pathfind around the base. These stairs that end two feet above the ground indicate this ain't it.


I don't like that the upper level is visibly askew from the lower one, but I've finally found something that works at all and I'm not tearing it down now. I end up removing the little protrusion at the base of the stairs there so that it being obviously misaligned won't drive me crazy.


I put up a wall to serve as a grapple gun target.


And the base of that wall is where the storage chests go. I want my storage near enough to the Palbox that I can reach it easily when I teleport in, but with the Palbox set up in the middle of the ore nodes the storage structures would get in the way of mining Pals. This is the next best thing, I think.
I head off to Twilight Dunes where I dumped all the stuff I had in storage before, load myself up with enough wood and stone and coal and ingots and whatever else until I run out of inventory slots and I'm lugging something like twenty-five times my actual weight limit, stumble over to the Palbox, teleport to the new base, grapple onto the wall, and drop all that stuff into the chests here. Works perfectly.


Once the basic amenities are up -- a feed basket, enough beds for everyone, and a couple of hot springs -- it's time to decide where everything else goes. First down are some electric pylons, so that Dinossom Lux can charge them up while I build the rest of the base.


Building outdated workstations seems a bit silly, but there's a problem. The top-tier workstations require Circuit Boards, which in turn require Quartz. Which I do not yet have. Quartz nodes spawn in the Astral Mountains, north of Cold Shores, in parts of the map I haven't thoroughly explored yet.

[nosimpleway]

I feel like I just left here.


This cave isn't a distraction from my stated goal, for two reasons. First, caves tend to have lots of mining nodes, so a cave in the frozen north should have lots of quartz to get. Second, I need a couple of those Pals that were kind enough to spawn in the very first room.


Talkin' Pals: 079 Sibelyx, the "Pallid Lady"
"A Pal that likes the rain,and will often bask in rain showers until the weather clears up. On rainy days, Foxparks can often be found taking shelter beneath it."
The lore: Foxparks don't spawn anywhere near a Sibelyx, and also it never rains. Their description of "Pallid Lady" is also nonsense, since they're just as likely to be male as female.
The inspiration: A moth that resembles a lady in a fur coat is pretty similar to Frosmoth, though they don't look much alike apart from that basic concept. Sibelyx looks like it has fashionable clothes on because it's explicitly a silk moth.
The name: ...Siberian... Bombyx? That doesn't seem right.
In gameplay: Melpaca can retire from ranch work. No need to spin gigantic piles of wool into High-Quality Cloth when Sibelyx just generates the cloth naturally.


Other denizens of the cave include Reptyro Cryst, Maraith, and Lunaris (the first I've seen wild, and it turns out they sleep on their backs, hovering three feet above the floor).


Any cave also has no shortage of human opponents, in this case it's nuts-to-butts with PAL Genetic Research Unit Executioners. I run away, because these guys are needlessly difficult to fight and only drop money. Come on, at least the Rayne Syndicate gives me the occasional bit of ammo or a Pal Sphere!

Talkin' Lore: The PAL Genetic Research Unit
I dunno. They're "research and progress at any cost" sort of eeevil scientists. And they have their own military, I guess. They're the last faction in the game, and there's not much information on them.


I want to say I chumpo the Wumpo on the way out but then I looked at the next couple screenshots and realized I barely survived. So, uh, I barely survive the Wumpo on the way out. My prize is an uncommon Pal Metal Helm schematic. The Pal Metal Helm is the highest-defense headgear in the game, so that's nice, but I don't have any Pal Metal yet.


Back outside, I've mined enough Quartz that I'm overburdened... but dang, a Huge egg is too good to pass up.


Almost there...


Almost... there...


The grapple gun has a ten-second cooldown. This is either completely immaterial or an intense annoyance, depending on the situation. This is the latter.


Back at base, the grapple gun refuses to disengage and I get stuck on the wall.


But eventually get my circuit boards, build my Electric Furnace and top-tier assembly lines, and that maxes out my base level. I hit the maximum of 15 Pals per base, across three bases, quite a while back. Leveling up my bases didn't do anything else for me, but I'm glad to be done with it. (Server settings can allow for up to 20 Pals per base, if I wanted. I think the max per world is 128 bases in multiplayer, hamstrung by any number of players joining up into a team being limited to three bases total between them. So a multiplayer server can have up to 42 teams? That seems a bit much.)

[nosimpleway]

Now that I have a new, functional ore-mining base, I can go back and tear down the first base I built back in Windswept Hills, too. At least I won't have to worry about getting pasted in a random encounter just because the game decided on flying Pals for a raid.
Watching giant chunks of solid debris fall from the sky because I broke apart an invisible, intangible ring of light never gets old.


I don't intend to come back to Windswept Hills for much of anything, but I can't leave until I take down Mammorest Alpha. So I do.


Faleris's signature move is to throw two giant cyclones of flame, launch those at an enemy, then wrap its own body in fire and charge through the target. Most of my contribution to the fight was shooting Mammorest Alpha in the ass while it turned away and lumbered over to wherever Faleris flew off to.
Heh heh. Lumbered.
Because it's part plant, see, like it's named after forests, right...
Never mind.


Anyway, I remember to free up 50 points of encumbrance by hatching that Huge Frozen Egg I found. It's a Kingpaca Cryst. Not super worth the effort but the only Kingpaca Cryst that spawns wild is the Alpha. If I want to fill out a collection of ten I'll probably have to hatch them sooner or later.


And with the materials in now in hand, I build a refrigerator on the Mt. Obsidian base. Refrigerators do what you might expect, preventing food from spoiling as its timer runs out. Baking cakes takes a long time, and this helps prevent the eggs and milk from spoiling until I can get to them.

Talkin' Jank: Refrigerators
But there's a reason I never bothered building one up til now, though I've brought up the topic before. See, you've got to use Pals for everything! You can't just run a refrigerator off of electricity! So a refrigerator (or the cooler box you unlock well before it) needs an ice-type Pal working it to keep it cold enough to do its job.
Each stack of food in the game has a timer on it, and when that timer runs out, that number of items in the stack is diminished by one. A cooler box or refrigerator does nothing to that timer by itself. An ice-element Pal working the fridge sets the timer to 300 minutes or so, so that it never spoils. But as soon as the Pal wanders away, the timer resets to whatever it would naturally be, and food starts rotting again. Whether this is a bug or by design I can only speculate.
There are two good choices for fridge work. Foxicle has the highest talent for chilling work among Pals that don't do anything but chilling work. But it has to sleep at night, leaving the fridge unpowered and the food to spoil. So I use a Vanwyrm Cryst, which is the only ice/dark-type in the game so far, and thus can keep the fridge fridged without needing to sleep. Vanwyrm Cryst can also do transporting work, though, so sometimes it takes three or four instance of throwing V.C. at the fridge before it goes "oh you want me to stay here" and does its job. It's annoying, but I've been dealing with Beegarde for this long already...


Sheesh, finally. I can stop spending all my money on ammo and start saving it for... uh... well, I guess buying ammo is as good as use as any. But still. The option is here now.


Since I broke down two bases and replaced them with just the one, I have an extra I can build somewhere. These little mesas on the east side of Mt. Obsidian should do nicely. I don't need a lot of space, and as usual, my first concern is making sure hostile Raids can't charge in, break my stuff, and KO all my Pals.


Mozzarina doesn't do anything but work a ranch and make milk. But if there are any farms about, you can expect to find Chikipi doing harvest work instead of laying eggs. Sybelix, I suppose, could try to take over refrigerator work from Vanwyrm Cryst if I let it. And Beegarde would much rather be doing literally anything else than making honey.
So this base is just "where the ranch is". Nothing else. No distractions for anyone.
Except Beegarde, who will probably spend all its time carrying eggs and milk to the feed basket instead of making honey. Because Beegarde.


Oh, that's convenient. Hey, would you guys let me see if this base is really raid-proof?


It is. At least, from the ground it is. I wonder if I should put up defensive walls anway in case I get the omg birdrush kekekeke again


Vanwyrm, your job is to do the transport work so Beegarde doesn't have to. You guys take it easy, I'll be back to refill the feed basket and collect the goods once in a while.

[nosimpleway]

Whatever determines which raids the game will throw at you, I don't know. But apparently PALGRUE are on the list now. They are not any smarter than any other raid, trying to harmlessly crowd into a narrow crevice in the cliff wall. Maybe these aren't raids, they're just really aggressive games of Sardines?
This guy isn't running around in circles going "woop woop woop woop woop" like he's on the Three Stooges. It's one of those weird clipping/pathfinding things where his model expects him to be running uphill but he's instead sliding across the open sand.
Funny, though.


With the Mt. Obsidian base set up the way I want it, and my combat capabilities up to "pretty good" on account of my rare-level endgame guns, I go around and clear out some Alphas.


Sometimes the "there's an Alpha Pal here" icon on the map shows where the Pal is located, but it's nowhere to be found and there's no portal to a Sealed Realm. It's under the ground! Go look for a mineshaft entrance. It could be anywhere in about a half-mile radius. Alpha Broncherry Aqua is in one of those.


This ain't Tunic, where every waterfall has some secret behind it. Far as I know this is the only waterfall on the map worth checking behind, another mineshaft entrance leading to the Alpha Fenglope.


I haven't thoroughly uncovered the map around Moonless Shores, where Flopies live. So this fortress rescue is actually the first Flopie I've seen. Didn't even think about 'em up til now.


Talkin' Pals: 028 Flopie, the "Star of the Flower Beds"
"It prefers places that have an abundance of vegetation, but hay fever has apparently become a problem for Flopie as of late."
The lore: As a lifelong sufferer of pollen allergies I can respect that.
The inspiration: It looks like it could be one of those mythical Pokemon without looking like any one of them in particular. I've seen comparisons to Tinkaton, and... I guess? Tinkaton itself is just a Jack Frost, anyway.
The name: Flower pixie is the best I got.
In gameplay: Once its unique item is crafted, a Flopie in the party will zip around outside its Pal Sphere and pick up items to bring to the Pal Tamer. At least, that's what the description says. For all I've used a Flopie it seems to be bugged and doesn't do anything.



I'm off to poach some pals at Preserve #2, but, uh...


Anyway, I nab Wumpo Botan, Jormuntide Ignis, Quivern, Incineram Noct, Verdash, and Menasting. As can be expected with any extended stay at a sanctuary, the PIDF were on my ass almost the entire time.


Talkin' Pals: 095 Quivern, with "Wings of White"
"Sleeping while cuddling a Quivern is said to be a heavenly experience, but there are some who have been crushed and sent to heaven by ones that toss and turn in their sleep."
The lore: It's said to be a heavenly experience but can't be done in game, since Pals and Tamers each have their own beds.
The inspiration: What if we stuffed a Dragonite and a Reshiram into Dr. Cheevers' teleporter thing?
The name: It doesn't really have much to do with "quiver" in the trembling sense or in the arrow-holding sense. ("My arrow-holding sense is tingling!") It's got a hexapod body design, so it's not even all that accurate a wyvern, either. But it's what the dev Discord came up with and the devteam ran with it, so here we are.
In gameplay: Who would have expected a big cute kinda-dopey-looking dragon in the "Sealed Realm of the Winged Tyrant"? Quivern can fly, but it's one of the few Pals that can't fly over water, specifically. Like Elphidran, Quivern sinks like a rock.


Talkin' Pals: 099 Menasting, with an "Unstoppable Stinger"
"Being made of pure energy, its insides are completely hollow. This Pal crams still-living prey into its hollow body, where it absorbs them. Hellish screams of pain can often be heard coming from inside this Pal."
The lore: I can't tell if that's stupid in a good way or stupid in a bad way, but it's definitely stupid.
The inspiration: I can't think of any scorpion monsters that are actually hollow exoskeletons burning with energy inside.
The name: A menacing scorpion monster with a gigantic stinger. I'll give 'em -- and in this case 'em is the devteam Discord again -- that one.
In gameplay: It's dark-type and has a high mining skill, so they're excellent work-all-night ore-busters.


Talkin' Pals: 101 Jormuntide, the "Emperor of the Sea"
"Legends says the Jormuntide was once a wise man, who after being wrongly convicted and cast into a whirlpool, returned as this Pal to destroy those who wronged him."
The lore: Everyone can appreciate a good revenge-from-beyond-the-grave story.
The inspiration: It's a gigantic blue sea serpent. The visual details apart from the barbels are different from Gyarados, but Jormuntide does share Big G's always-pissed-off mood.
The name: Jormungandr, the gigantic serpent of Norse myth, and the tides that it can ostensibly control with its water powers. Personally? I'd have skipped the dumb portmanteau, made a massive pissed-off goose monster with a neck long enough to look like a serpent, and called it the Jormungander. But that's me.
In gameplay: Jormuntide is the strongest water-element Pal in the game. They also have Watering suitability 4, the highest in the game. But they are also also absurdly huge, so that in combat they'll clip into walls and ceilings trying to get the right distance away from their target to attack, and at base they'll clip into walls and ceilings and get stuck until they starve. The Alpha Jormuntide that appear in two different spots on the map both have "Water Emperor", so Jormuntide is nice as a breeding stud if nothing else.


Talkin' Pals: 101b Jormuntide Ignis, the "Volcanic Emperor"
"Legend says the Jormuntide Ignis was once a warrior who, after being wrongly convicted and cast into a volcano, returned as this Pal to destroy those who wronged him."
Type shift: Jormuntide is dragon/water, Jormuntide Ignis is dragon/fire.
The inspiration: The variation of the gigantic blue not-Gyarados is a gigantic red not-Gyarados. You don't find this Pal in the Lake of Rage, though.
In gameplay: Jormuntide Regular has the best Watering suitability in the game, stands to reason Jormuntide Ignis has the best Kindling suitability. Jormuntide Regular is the strongest water-type by pure combat stats, stands to reason Jormuntide Ignis is the strongest fire-type. Jormuntide Regular is too big to function properly, stands to reason Jormuntide Ignis also clips through the landscape constantly.

[nosimpleway]

Aww, they followed me home! Can I keep him?


I'm still a wanted man when I head over to Fisherman's Point to pawn off the treasures I don't want that I got from the Sanctuary. There are PIDF stationed here, but they don't care that I'm still wanted. PIDF Slacker, indeed.


But I figure if I'm already a criminal I might as well go all-in, and head to Sanctuary 3. I came here earlier because I was expecting the best loot, now I'm here because it's where to find a lot of end-of-Paldeck entries. I nab Blazamut, Orserk, and Astegon, and continue my collection of Lyleen and Faleris.


Talkin' Pals: 096 Blazamut, the "Cursed Tyrant"
"Legends say it was born during a volcanic eruption. A strange group even claims that this continent is laid upon the back of a giant Blazamut."
The lore: Holy hot damn, they got the lore straight. Bahamut is a mythical creature that supposedly held up the entire world on its back, and the creature they named after it does the same thing. Wow!
The inspiration: That's not a Pokemon, that's Ifrit from Final Fantasy.
The name: We have Gary Gygax to thank for Bahamut being a dragon, and then Final Fantasy took off and made it a recurring summon, and now we end up with this. Remember, in the original myths, Bahamut was a gigantic fish.
In gameplay: Wild-caught Blazamut always come with the "Flame Emperor" passive, adding 20% to the power of their fire-type moves. Even if a player doesn't want Blazamut itself, they probably want one to breed Flame Emperor onto any fire-types they want instead.
Blazamut is tied for having the highest Mining suitability in the game, and has Kindling suitability 3 as well. Bases that need to mine and smelt a lot of ore are well-served by having a Blazamut or two on staff.


Talkin' Pals: 098 Astegon, the "Ravager of Stars"
"A savage beast born of the abyss. Thou shall not stand before the beast. Thou shall not heed the beast."
The lore: Maybe I'm just old and jaded but reading pseudo-Book of Revelation verse is a fucking yawn.
The inspiration: As god is my witness, I thought Aggrons could fly. To be fair, it also looks a lot like Destoroyah.
The name: Internal game files have references to "Dragostrophe", another dark/dragon Pal with an almost identical Paldeck description, so it probably could have been that instead. Dragostrophe was in some of the earliest trailers, looking like a black-colored Quivern, so it's possible they split the design into that Pal and the lore into this one.
Oh, the name "Astegon"? No idea. Probably based on the Greek "aster", meaning "star", as the root of words like "astronomer" now. But it's the "ravager of stars", so once it's done, those stars are aste-gone.
In gameplay: Their Partner Skill is "Black Ankylosaur" but look at the damn thing. Does that look like an ankylosaur to you? It doesn't even have a thagomizer.
Astegon is the latest and last Pal to give a bonus to mining when mounted on it, so with a sufficiently wide-area attack fruited on it can instantly prepare fields of mineral nodes for collection. But by the time Astegon shows up, it's not that difficult to have a base set up specifically to mine anything a player needs, so who cares? Although now that I look at it, it does have Mining suitability 4, so it can do its thing when set to work on base, too.


Talkin' Pals: 106 Orserk, the "Roaring Thunder"
"It sends electricity into its foes' wounds, roasting them from the inside out. Fights between Orserk end in the blink of an eye."
The lore: Man, do all lategame Pokemon have Pokedex entries about how big and scary and unstoppable they are? Like, I feel like Dragonite and Metagross are both about how kind or smart they are, but all the end of the Paldeck is just Tyranitar after Tyranitar.
The inspiration: It looks as much like Garchomp as any other bipedal dragon kaiju, I guess.
The name: Would you believe this gigantic electric dragon is supposed to be an orca?
In gameplay: If you want an endgame electric-elemental Pal and don't want to use Grizzbolt, you probably want an Orserk. Wild ones have "Electric Emperor", which does what you might have come to expect by now. They can only be wild-caught in Sanctuary 3, but if a player is willing to forego Electric Emperor they can swing by Sanctuary 1 for a Grizzbolt and through Bamboo Grove for a Relaxaurus, crossbreed the two, and just enjoy Orserk's high combat stats and strong moves through the midgame.
Orserk possesses the highest suitability for Generating Electricity in the game. Big surprise, I know.


"Can you play that game, with the helper sheep again?" led to another round of whimsical naming by a six-year-old. Lamballs doing transportation work carry the items on top of their heads, rather than in their stubby little arms. This one narrowly escaped the fate of being "Apple Head" when I pointed out the little round red things it was carrying were tomatoes.




These two Surfents have been humming the Final Fantasy 8 battle theme ever since.





Listen, she's six.


She is also delighted at the idea of calling Pals over and giving them scritches. I'll just, uh, downplay the idea that all of my Pals came from ensaring them in tiny spheres after shooting them in the face, or in the case of these Anubises, a forced breeding program.
Which is probably where a lot of the criticism for the game comes from. It's whimsical! The core concept is a fun idea! Pals are happy to help! It's a lot like enslaving sentient creatures! Then you can butcher and eat them! That's still less bad than the other human factions in the game!

[nosimpleway]

Oh, speaking of. It's about time I had another appointment with the Orphan-Crushing Machine.


And speaking of breeding programs, I realized I had a couple of the parts I need for an endgame-level project. But first thing, I've got to get the Alpha Anubis out in the desert.
This screenshot looks like another example of game jank, where I'm firing at Anubis despite it being ten feet to the right. But that's intended: whenever Anubis takes damage, it does a flash-step in a random direction so you can't sustain fire. The shotgun is far more useful than the assault rifle here, since I can hit with all the bullets at once.
It is a rough fight. I have to drop three of my party into the Paldeck for ten minutes afterward. I barely survive at critical HP. But I get Alpha Anubis.


Wild-caught Anubis have a passive called "Earth Emperor" that increases the power of their Ground-type moves by 20%.


So I throw Alpha Anubis into the fuckin' tent with a Lyleen. Lyleen has Spirit Emperor (increases power of Grass-type moves by 20%), and I want a child of whatever species Anubis and Lyleen crossbreed into with both of those.


I filled in the map and took out a few more Alphas to kill some time while Anubis and Lyleen got bizz-ay. The result of an anthro jackal monster breeding with a regal flower monster is, of course, a giant pile of hair with a mustache. Obviously.


wait a sec I heard a noise
okay got it back to business


Having the breeding tent on ground that was not recognized as ground led to lots of pathfinding problems for the Pals inside. Having one on the second floor of my base is not without its own dumb problems. Returning from catching the lucky Fuddler I find Lyleen had teleported outside the base and was blankly staring over the horizon instead of getting sloppy creampies from somebody's first-draft fursona.
Well, I guess when I put it that way I understand.


Anyway. You may have noticed I didn't build any defensive walls around the main Mt. Obsidian base. This is why. Raids always spawn far enough away that they get stuck trying to run through one of the giant walls dotting the landscape. They always bunch up right here. If I had some kind of explosive damage...


Bamboo Groves mapped.


Next is Verdant Brook, to the northeast. This is the part of the map where I had Faleris knocked out in the cave Alpha fight and had to walk back to a fast-travel statue, remember that? It's home of Helzephyr, Grintale, Gorirat, and Mossanda.


Talkin' Pals: 033 Mossanda, the "Guardian of the Forest"
"A Pal so powerful it's hard to believe. In one experiment, this Pal tore through 3,000 sheets of paper at once! It's only by some miracle that this Pal isn't a meat-eater."
The lore: I don't know if Mossanda tearing through a shitton of paper is more or less impressive than Hangyu tearing through iron. Guess it depends on how thick the iron is.
The inspiration: That is a Totoro.
The name: It's a panda-like creature with exactly as much to do with moss as Gumoss did. My daughter saw a picture of one and decided it was "Growl", pronounced like that guy from the Foo Fighters. Which... okay. Grass grows, and pandas growl, so this is a Grow-l. How does it feel to be outdone by an actual six-year-old, PocketPair?
In gameplay: Mossanda are pretty strong, their signature move is a gigantic windup punch that sends anything hit by it flying across the map. But it's a gigantic windup punch, so anything that's targeted has probably walked out of the way before Mossanda lands the hit.


Talkin' Pals: 033b: Mossanda Lux, the "Inheritor of the Storm"
"A Pal whose power is truly shocking. By altering the electrical currents in its body, this Pal's been able to overload its own strength. When it comes to sheer power, this Pal may be top of the list."
The lore: Mossanda Lux has pretty high attack power but not the highest in the game. And it doesn't help you carry stuff like Cattiva or Kingpaca. I think the Paldeck entry is making shit up again.
The inspiration: Lots of Pals look like Pokemon, or whatever other monster the designer thought was cool (or fed into their AI to generate designs for them). So props to Mossanda Lux for stealing the look of other Pals instead! This is a Totoro that stole the mohawk off a Relaxaurus Lux.


Talkin' Pals: 097 Helzephyr, on "Wings of Death"
"It calls forth lightning from the depths of hell. One who dies from Helzephyr's inferno is sure to be sent to the underworld."
The lore: "It calls forth lightning" no it fucking doesn't, there's not a single electric move on its moveset, and doesn't have any particular aptitude for them if an electric skill fruit is used.
The inspiration: The coloration brings to mind a superb bird of paradise. You know, the one with the really dark feathers with bright-blue markings and the hopping mating dance that went viral a while back.
The name: Hell Zephyr, the fire-and-brimstone inferno underworld and the west wind.
In gameplay: It does make about as good a flying mount as Ragnahawk or Beakon. Their only suitability is Transporting 3 and they're are nocturnal, so a base that generates a lot of stuff could benefit from a couple Helzephyrs moving items around.


The top-tier firearms are the Assault Rifle and the Pump-Action Shotgun. Their attack power is high but mostly they work by hitting the target with a lot of attacks, rather than just doing one massive hit. That niche is filled with the rocket lawnchair -- single-shot, extremely slow to reload, but that one shot is strong.


Right in the middle of Moonless Shore is the Frostbound Mountains, which despite the name is actually a peninsula one big snowy plateau. The second tower with a boss in it is up there, too, but I'm skipping it. Boss fights are easily the least fun or interesting part of the game, and given the state of release it's in now, that's really saying something.

[nosimpleway]

This would have been a get a few hours ago. Any Huge Dragon Egg found on Mt. Obsidian is always an Jormuntide Ignis... but I caught all ten of 'em I need when I raided Sanctuary #2 a while back. Oh well.


I've seen lava that acts as normal ground and some lava that hurts to walk on. Look at these three dumb idiots, trying to walk across a damage floor.


The foot of the statue at Mt. Obsidian is nice and flat, with a couple of ore nodes. It's a pretty good spot for a base, since this one doesn't have Alpha Anubis wandering around.


Mt. Obsidian mapped. It was mostly volcanic rock! Flying over it to clear the map was only slightly more interesting that exploring the open ocean!


The view from the highest peak of Mt. Obsidian, facing north. That's Sanctuary #2 nearby, the Forgotten Island and the eastern part of Bamboo Groves on the right, and the Astral Mountains at the back. To the left, of course, is the World Tree.


Facing east. Astral Mountains on the left now. The icy plateau at center-right is the Frostbound Mountains. East of Frostbound is the rest of Verdant Brook, and beyond it is the Dessicated Desert. The blue bar across the sky is a rendering error.


The view to the southeast is blocked by the Mt. Obsidian caldera, but way off you can see Windswept Hills and Sanctuary #1. In the foreground is the Mt. Obsidian tower. The view to the south and west is just the slopes of Mt. Obsidian so I didn't bother screencapping that.


That's the majority of the available landmasses scouted out, and about half of the Alphas in the game defeated at least once.
"I'm just flying around filling in the parts of the map I haven't explored, here's an Alpha Pal I caught" isn't exactly the most compelling content, but I'm still waiting on those breeding Pals to work out, and that takes several minutes for one roll of the dice. And while it might not make much difference to you the reader, it's nice to not have big ugly black smears across the map every time I look at it, so I'm clearing up those where I can. Got a couple new Pals to talk about when I nabbed them as Alphas, though.


Talkin' Pals: 092 Warsect, the "Unyielding Colossus"
"The ultra-hard armor surrounding its body is extremely strong and heat resistant. Even a napalm blast would hardly leave a scratch."
The lore: Lies. Assuming napalm would do fire-element damage like the flamethrower weapons NPCs get to use sometimes, Warsect is weak to that on account of its elemental typing.
The inspiration: It's a Japanese monster-collecting game there's no way they weren't going to have a stag beetle. Or a Hercules beetle. Or... both at once.
The name: what the hell is a Kuwanger
In gameplay: By base stats, Warsect is the strongest grass-type in the game. It's grass/ground, though, so those who need an exclusive grass-type are probably looking for a Lyleen. Warsect's Partner Skill features its heavy carapace, increasing the Tamer's resistance to damage, fire attacks in particular. Which is weird because as noted above, Warsect itself, as a grass-type, is weak to fire. Its Partner Skill doesn't protect itself.
Since no Pal has Lumbering suitability 4, Warsect is tied with Bushi, Wumpo, and Wumpo Botan as the best Lumber-ers with suitability 3.


Talkin' Pals: 094 Felbat, the "Gloom-Shrouded Bloodsucker"
"Attacking from the shadows, this Pal traps its prey within its cloak-like wings. It's probably best not to know what happens within them, or why the inside of its wings are stained red."
The lore: I do have some questions about why the stock art is so small compared to the other Pals, though.
The inspiration: Dracular: related to or reminiscent of Dracula
The name: From "fell", the archaic word meaning "bad", and it's a batlike creature.
In gameplay: You don't see life drain very often, only Felbat and Lovander provide it. It's not really enough healing to be all that useful, though. In something of an unexpected twist, Felbat is tied for having the highest Medicine Production suitability in the game.


The lion's share of EXP comes from catching the first ten Pals of a species. I flip through the Paldeck to see what I'm still missing. Mau Cryst, no surprise, a few I've seen but not caught yet... Cawgnito, really? I thought I got those. Kelpsea, too. I'm still missing my tenth Beakon, and never topped off Blazehowl or Ragnahawk.
But most of the stuff I'm still missing are the species native to Dessicated Desert. Makes sense, since I passed through and saw all of them, but didn't catch any. A few Surfent Terra, a Rayhound or two, a couple Suzaku, some Robinquill Terra and bam. I hit level 50. The Pal Tamer is now as strong as they're ever going to get. (Innately, at least. There's still equipment upgrades.)


Talkin' Pals: 060 Rayhound, with "Electro-Charged Zoomies"
"At full speed, it could be mistaken for a bolt of lightning. If two Rayhounds collide, the sound is like that of a powerful thunderclap."
The lore: It's nowhere near that fast in the game.
The inspiration: All together now: "What if we took an animal and put lightning-bolt patterns on its fur?" It's got a Raichu tail.
The name: It doesn't look much like a greyhound but "doesn't look like the animal it's named after" is hardly unique.
In gameplay: They appear in Dessicated Desert, making them the "why would I use this when I could train up the strongest species of its type in the game, which is right over there -->" that shows up at this point in any monster-collecting game.


Talkin' Pals: 102 Suzaku, the "Ruler of the Crimson Dawn"
"It was once believed to usher in the dry season. Whenever there was a drought in the previous year, people would relentlessly seek to cull it's numbers, hoping to bring a plentiful harvest in the next year."
The lore: Suzaku don't spawn anywhere under level 40. If you want to go out and murder a whole bunch of them based on some superstition, good luck.
The inspiration: The Vermillion Bird.
The name: The Vermillion Bird. Come on, this wasn't hard.
In gameplay: Given the base stats of a lategam Pal combined with a Partner Ability that boosts the power of its own fire-type moves while the player is riding on its back, it makes a solid contender for an endgame party slot. The only downside is that the player has to be mounted for that boost to work, and fighting with Pals is typically better done with them independent of their Tamer.


Talkin' Pals: 102b Suzaku Aqua, the "Ruler of the Cobalt Dusk"
"It was once believed to usher in the rainy season. If there was a flood the previous year, people would relentlessly seek to cull its numbers, hoping to avert disaster in the coming year."
Type shift: Suzaku is fire, Suzaku Aqua is water.
In gameplay: Suzaku and S-Aqua might be more reliable than Jormuntide and J-Ignis, by virtue of being smaller. But they're not small, and they seem to fly higher above the ground that most other flying Pals, so they're not immune from getting stuck by any stretch of the imagination.

[nosimpleway]

Part 13: Legendary Tier

Oh, the reward for level 50? The capstone technology? The highest tier of top-tier equipment? Cold-resistant Pal Metal Armor. That's good. That's important. Highest defense in the game and insulation from the cold... But it's still a little underwhelming. It shares highest defense in the game with the Heat-Resistant Pal Metal Armor I unlocked last level, after all.


Dessicated Desert cave? Dessicated Desert cave. The highest-leveled caves are in the frozen endgame areas, but the second-highest are here. Let's see what I can find.
(Mostly "this was a plain fire-type but then we added 'Noct' to the name to make it fire/dark", the sort of stuff I see on Mt. Obsidian at night. Yawn.)


owo what's this? Not that, underneath the Incineram corpse. All the caves I've been in so far have been single-level, but paying close attention reveals a little crevice in the ground with terrain underneath.


A secret passage? This late in the game? Or is this just the most obvious one, and I've missed all the others? Let me just squeeze through... here...


lol, no, this was not a secret passage. It was a gap in the level geometry big enough to fit through, allowing me to fall off the map entirely. There's a patch of ground here underneath the room I was in, but I'm sure if I jumped off from here I'd fall through empty space until I hit whatever serves as a death plane at the bottom.


IDCLIP is fun and all but what do I do now?


Even if the rope was long enough there's no way my grapple gun would get me back through that little crevice.


Good thing I can fly. Faleris certainly can't fit through the tiny gap, so it's off to find some other way.


Level geometry is not directionally solid, it's as hard to break into as it is to break out of. There's no failsafe spot to phase back through the wall. It's possible to stand very close to a wall, throw Faleris's sphere so that it clips through and lands on the other side, and then give the command to mount Faleris and start flying around. Doing that moves the Pal Tamer to wherever Faleris is, and sometimes that's enough. But there's not an easy spot to set that up, since I'm not supposed to be over here, there's not a lot of ground to stand on at all, much less close enough to a wall to get Faleris to clip through.
But hey, remember how every boss arena has had a big tree in the middle?


That tree always has a beam of sunlight shining down on it from the cave ceiling, and that sunlight comes through a hole.
Once you realize the way back in-bounds is straight into the boss room, going out-of-bounds becomes a quick shortcut straight to the end. I've only managed to find this in desert caves, though. It'd be a gigantic timesaver to find an out-of-bounds in frozen caves, since those have the best loot.
Once in the boss chamber the fight with Blazehowl Noct and the rewards for the cave are nothing noteworthy. Sorry, uncommon pump-action shotgun schematic! You're already outclassed!


The Sweepa I bred with both Spirit Emperor and Earth Emperor got to crossbreed with, uh... I didn't screenshot it hang on. I'm pretty sure it was Alpha Univolt. Alpha Univolt with the "Musclehead" passive. The clutch of eggs from that union resulted in a brood of Katress.
Get it, brood, because they're dark-types so they're dour and cheerless. Oh, never mind.
Anyway, I haven't gotten one Katress with all three traits on it yet, but I do have a brother-sister pair who have the three I want and fewer of the traits I don't want. So, time for the incestuous feedback loop you usually get from breeding chains in video games. It'll probably be another two dozen eggs before I get a Katress with only the three traits I'm looking for.

[nosimpleway]

With all the hatching and catching and stuff, it's not long before the Palbox fills up again. But this time I'm not going to the Orphan-Crushing Machine to fix it. Oh no. There's worse.

Talkin' Mechanics: Butchering





Thank god for the censorship mosaic over what I'm doing, I'd hate for this to get to explicit.


Butchering removes a Pal from the game spawns another set of drops for whatever it is that got butchered. So Gumoss would give berry seeds and a Gumoss leaf, while Penking here would be Pal Fluids and Ice Organs. But in the case of Alpha Pals, they also drop the extra Precious [$whatever] and Ancient Technology Parts.
I guess it's intended as another deconstruction of game mechanics, where anything a player catches and doesn't need is just grist for the mill. In Pokemon you can hatch 250 eggs to get a mon with specific stats, and let 249 of them go for a life in the wild. Here, the solution is to "condense" them, whatever that means, or just outright kill them.
That's pretty fucked up, right?


It doesn't help that you can only kill your active Pal, so it's not just something you can choose out of a menu or anything. You have to put the ill-fated Pal into your party, summon it out of its Sphere, and then butcher it. And as the item description says, the cleaver puts "Butcher" in place of the "Pet" command. If you're too fast, the command doesn't have time to change over between the summon and the wheel coming up, so I end up giving a couple of them happy scritches before I flip them over and chop them up.
And, uh, I keep this gameplay element a secret from my daughter. I'm sure she'd be devastated.

Talkin' Jank: Butchering Spawns
In a one-player game the items that pop out of a butchered Pal are usually swept up into inventory immediately. Sometimes they clip through the floor. For some reason, this seems to happen less often when they're taken outside of a base to be chopped up, so a butchering session involves a bit of running back and forth to and from the Palbox.
On a multiplayer server, the item spawns have more or less the right X and Y coordinates, but appear to have a Z-coordinate of the very top of the skybox. You can butcher a Pal and then wait ten or fifteen seconds for the item reward to fall from the heavens to be collected.


All the Precious parts I manage to salvage from the Alphas I'd saved are worth a pretty penny.


I am interrupted by a raid. Most raids at this point throw at least a dozen high-level Pals at me, but a Tocotoco raid is only three individuals. Which seems lame until you remember what it is Tocotocos do. What do Tocotocos do?




Tocotocos explode.


Rocket Lawnchair isn't something I'm going to use every combat, but as a single explosive damage spike it's damn helpful in those instances I've corralled an entire raid into one little corner.


The next raid has a couple of Suzaku Aqua in it so I forego murdering everything in a single explosion in hopes of nabbing them.

[nosimpleway]

Glossing over some pretty tedious gameplay to actually do it, I go out and catch hundreds of Beegarde. I've got my ranch set up, and a Beegarde there to make honey, but that Beegarde is constantly fucking off to do transporting work instead. By improving its Partner Skill, it will produce honey faster on those occasions it deigns to do its goddamn job.
I'm so frustrated at my honey bottlenecking my production that I do this twice. (4+16+32+64)x2 means 232 Beegarde are getting glued together, meaning I caught like 235 Beegarde. Beegarde that like to self-destruct almost as much as Tocotoco do. It took a while.


Beegarde themselves drop honey when caught or defeated, so in a way the problem solved itself.


lol


The last way to thin out an overfull Palbox is to just sell the 'em off for cash. No telling what fate awaits them that way, but it can't really be worse than the only two other options I have, can it? At least there's a chance some of these Pals will end up in a happy relationship with a person instead of getting squished into another Pal or chopped up for a couple common drops.
I pulled this guy's nuts out of the fire in a fight with three Rayne Sydicate goons, so he thanked me for saving him, but he doesn't offer any kind of discount or reward for doing it.


While hunting for Beegardes I found another Huge Dragon Egg in the Verdant Brook area. Mt. Obsidian dragon eggs got 'em beat, this one was just a Relaxaurus.


Here we go, a Katress with Musclehead, Earth Emperor, and Spirit Emperor. Diet Lover I can take or leave but that's what I'm looking for. Moving on, it's time to try to get Ferocious along with the three of them.


Up to the Astral Mountains area. Fly around a bit catching the Pals that spawn here, sure, but mostly I'm looking for caves. Astral Mountain caves are higher level, and offer better loot for finishing, than any others on the map. In the meantime, Faleris helps me get even bigger stacks of pussy jelly from the Mammorest Cryst that roam the mountainside.


I discover that clipping through walls without being invited to do so with a gap in level geometry isn't even all that hard.


Ice caves have a reliable hole in the ceiling over the boss chamber, just like any other cave. I shortcut straight to the end of any cave I'm in as soon as I find a low enough ceiling or tight enough corner to throw Faleris's sphere out of bounds.


Uncommon upgrade to the endgame armor set. Can't complain.


Leveling up to 50 leaves at least 100 points' worth of technology left to unlock. I skipped several equipment upgrades, ignored the purely decorative furniture, and only unlocked Pal gear I intended to use. I hit level 50 with a surplus, but if I want to unlock everything, I'm going to have to find quite a few of these manuals. ("Lots" in the item description is a misnomer. There are three tech manuals, and Future here is the highest tier. It gives three tech points.)

[nosimpleway]

Back at base I get another Lovander raid, where the buggy pathfinding works against me. Lovanders crowd into a corner like usual, but once in a while one of them will get launched twenty feet into the air and land in-bounds in my base.


Lovanders mostly drop mushrooms but occasionally... well, they're designed to give The Ick as much as possible. That's the joke. It's funny! ha ha!


Finally. Heat Resistant Shirt +2 makes me completely immune to ambient heat. With this on, I can ride Faleris over the open lava flows in Mt. Obsidian and feel just fine.


Next cave offers me the opposite. Now I can ride Vanwyrm Cryst up to the highest peak of Astral Mountains too. (This is a bit overkill, since Heat- or Cold-Resistant Pal Armor offers the highest defense in the game, I'll always be wearing one or the other anyway. I don't need three levels of resist from one of the two accessories.)


Lazy.


Astral Mountains mapped.


There are lots of alphas around the map, and I've gotten most of them. But Alpha Elizabee stubbornly refuses to spawn where she's supposed to be. Supposedly I'm looking right at her. She's taken HP damage somehow. But she's nowhere to be found.


This kind of stuff is all over the map. The level geometry just doesn't connect. There are spots where you can crawl inside and not be able to crawl back out.
You can see the blue line delineating a new base here. Coal is one of those things a player needs a lot of all at once when they get to the part of the game where Refined Ingots go into most of the stuff that needs building. But now that I've moved on to Pal Ingots, made from ore and Paldium without any coal, I don't need as many refined ingots. So I can move my base from the desert location where the appeal was "multiple coal nodes" into this spot, which as far as I've found is the only place on the map where a single base can cover any amount of both coal and sulfur.
So this base will be set up around mines for ammunition. Sulfur and charcoal makes gunpowder, ore and coal makes refined ingots, gunpowder and refined ingots make assault rifle/shotgun/rocket ammo.


Lava counts as a solid surface to build on. Rock is rock, I guess, even if it's superheated until it melts.


And as always, when building a new base, make sure those defensive walls are up. Don't allow any wild Pals a path in, even cliffsides and other walls aren't always a complete defense against flying hostiles.


This runs into the usual problem with putting up defensive walls. Walls will usually clip into existing level geometry, so that it's possible to build a defensive wall right up into a cliff face without a gap. That said, there are no shortage of landscape props -- ruins, towers, boulders, and the like -- that are flagged as impossible to wall into, and there doesn't seem to be much pattern for which props those are.
So the vertical edges of the defensive wall are mostly fine. But the bottom... The wall sits on the ground at the exact center. There's no extra height underneath to compensate for building on a slope. Building on a steep slope leaves ugly, exploitable gaps. They're not always tall enough to fit the entire Pal Tamer underneath, so this is a particularly bad one.


Big comfy beds are a significant real estate investment, but keeping Pals happy is its own reward. The coal nodes appear in the upper-right, the sulfur node appears down the stairs to the bottom left. Walls are tall mostly to break line-of-sight from the Vanwyrms in the area, including that extra wall off to the right.

[nosimpleway]

Hey, what's that shadowy thing there, with the beak?


Talkin' Pals: 107 Shadowbeak, the "Unknown Life Form"
"Born from the depths of insanity, its very existence should not be. Having lost all genetic ties to other Pals, one wonders if it could still even be considered a Pal."
The lore: Shadowbeak is the crowning achievement of the PAL Genetic Research Unit and their efforts to make the ultimate combat monster. Why they roam wild in a Sanctuary is not made clear. Despite its description saying its DNA is too mangled to even count as a Pal anymore, it can be bred by crossing a Kitsun and an Astegon. And any Shadowbeak, wild-caught or bred at base, can then crossbreed with anything else. So it can't be that bad.
The inspiration: It's a gryphon monster, pretty bog-standard one of those. Then they had to go and add Arceus's floating spiky thing around its midsection. Unless that's the Iron Crown from a Darkest Dungeon crossover, given Shadowbeak's status as a Thing That Should Not Be.
The name: It's got black plumage and a bird's beak. Victor Ashford can't name for beans.
In gameplay: It was genetically engineered to be a combat beast, and it is. Shadowbeak has combat stats beaten only by the legendaries that follow it in the Paldeck, and one of the best unique moves in the game. It's even pretty fast when ridden as a mount, and while it normally runs, it can fly -- it's great for navigating caves.


Flying back from Sanctuary 3 I spot a new secret hint revealed on the map. It'll be quite a while before I take on Alpha Paladius -- like the Jetragon we saw before, there's only one of those critters around, it's the Alpha, and it's level 50.


We've found a Small Settlement in the hills near start. I've found Fisherman's Point down at the bottom of Mt. Obsidian. And in the middle of the Dessicated Desert, there's some kind of walled city.


But like those settlements, all there is in Duneshelter is a handful of merchants and about three citizens. I'm pretty sure the total population of Small Settlement and Duneshelter is the same.


And just outside the walls on the north side of Duneshelter is this... uh, well, from this angle he looks like just another rock.


But it wasn't a rock! It was a... guy who sells Pals.


This Black Marketeer's stock is pretty similar to that of a regular Pal Merchant, but it's possible that its stock includes rarer or stronger Pals than legit merchants sell. Sometimes, for instance, they have Pals that are only found at Wildlife Sanctuaries.
There are a lot of Black Marketeers around -- come to think of it, there are more Marketeers than there are citizens in any town by around an order of magnitude. I just haven't had much reason to go seek them out. By the time I had the dosh to spend on new Pals, I was high enough level to go get them myself.


Just southeast of Duneshelter is the Alpha Suzaku. This guy's important because his rare drop is the legendary-tier pump-action shotgun schematic.


And that's Dessicated Desert. Paladius (and his yet-unmentioned brother Necromus) up north, Duneshelter in the middle, PIDF Tower off to the right, and a couple Alphas -- Dinossom Lux, Suzaku, and Menasting -- here and there.
With that done, I've mapped all the landmasses there are. Now if I need to wait for eggs to be laid and Alphas to respawn I can fill in gaps over the water, I guess. Like finally getting my base to maximum level, this is progress I won't need to bring up again.

[nosimpleway]

I got all the passives I want on this guy. It took a while! So this Fenglope has +30% and +30% -- still don't know if it's additive or multiplicitive -- to its attacks from Musclehead and Ferocious, with an extra +20% to either Ground or Grass attacks. Which... isn't all that useful on a Neutral-type Pal.
A nice, strong Pal that's both Ground/Grass type is Warsect, so it'd be great if I could get all four of those traits onto a Warsect!
Unfortunately, nothing can crossbreed with Fenglope to result in a Warsect. Nothing that a Fenglope can breed can breed a Warsect, either. Sheesh, I could have planned this better. As it is, I've got to find at least two generations of intermediate parents to eventually get a Warsect out of this.


Should you find yourself playing this game yourself, and should you build a base over some open lava, make sure you cover up all of it. If a Pal walks into the lava and their pathfinding doesn't let them out, they'll just stand there on fire until they pass out.


Let them fight.


Now that all three of my bases are on Mt. Obsidian I need a better way to describe them than where on the map they are, I guess. I've got my main base around the ore nodes, a farming base around the sulfur and coal overlap, and then the ranch base, right? The ranch base gets raided, where all the Pals run over and get roasted by the Brotherhood of the Eternal Pyre's flamethrowers. Really not pleased that my Beegardes chose to use their self-destruct move to fight off the invaders. From the top of the cliff, where they could not have possibly hit anything with the explosion, fruitlessly knocking themselves out.
Once the raid is over I build some walls along the perimeter to break line-of-sight in hopes that the next raid can't do this kind of damage.


Back to the Sanctuary to pick up some more Pals.


The PIDF glitch out and try to hitch a ride on Faleris on the way out. Eventually the game just crashes.


Way off on the right side of the map are a small series of angular islands. What's here, secreted off in this tiny area that's barely visible from the coastlines?
One single egg spawn point.
Inside the egg this time: Cawgnito. Not worth the trip. I guess, maybe, it's possible that if the spawn point here produces a Huge Egg then it might be something worth picking up. But what are the odds of that?


Son of a bitch.


In this case the raid actually managed to do enough damage that they broke apart one of the foundations. I ended up throwing Pals down through the gap to kill the raiders, but okay, fine, point made.


I pack up and move my base from the east side of Mt. Obsidian to the south side, near the Anubis statue. Rebuild the fuckin' tents -- two of them, so I can have two projects going at the same time -- and the ranch. Set up beds that virtually nobody's going to use because half the Pals in this base are in the breeding farms and they won't leave to sleep. All set.
With a second tent, I can set another breeding tree while Fenglope bones its own sister, then the cousibling gets in with a Kingpaca for a little fresh DNA in the family tree. The new project: an Orserk to pass on Lightning Lord and Ferocious to a Rayhound, then have that Rayhound doink a Mossanda. The result of this union is a Grizzbolt, shooting for the right array of passives on a top-tier Electric type.


Talkin' Pals: 103 Grizzbolt, with "Claws of Lightning"
"With a friendly smile and a hardy physique, it is docile towards one it recognizes as a partner. For reasons unexplained, its personality undergoes a drastic change when wielding a minigun."
The lore: That minigun is enough to make Grizzbolt the last mascot mook for the game. It was in the earliest trailers, it got it a spot on the title screen. Minigun electric bear is important, dammit.
The inspiration: If you slap Electabuzz's now-standard yellow-with-lightning-bolts color scheme onto a Zangoose and give it a Gengar face, you'd have Grizzbolt.
The name: In English it's a grizzly and in Japanese it's a panda. Either way it's a portmanteau with some electrical-themed word.
In gameplay: While I am grateful that Zoe Rayne does not have a minigun for her Grizzbolt I have found that using the much-ballyhooed feature myself is a bit lackluster. They appear wild at Sanctuary 1, but only rarely, so I had to breed my own.

[nosimpleway]

It takes hours before I get any results but once I get results they come in rapid succession.
Let's review.
Anubis and Lyleen results in a Sweepa with Earth Emperor and Spirit Emperor.
Sweepa plus Univolt results in a Katress with one of those plus Musclehead. That Katress breeds with his own sister, then their offspring breeds with his own mom, to finally get a Katress with all three passives.
That Katress plus Kelpsea Ignis with Ferocious results in a couple of Fenglope, which crossbreed with one another for two more generations until I get the Fenglope I mentioned before with all four passives.
That Fenglope crossbreeds with Kingpaca, resulting in a Rayhound brother and sister that breed a Rayhound with all four.
That Rayhound breeds with a Cryolinx, eventually resulting in a Wumpo with everything I want.
That Wumpo crossbreeds with Menasting to start cranking out Warsects, where three generations of parent-boning finally gets a Warsect with Earth Emperor/Spirit Emperor/Musclehead/Ferocious like I want. And this isn't even worrying about its IVs...

Family trees should not do that.
I say "I could have planned this better", but with what I had to start with, not by a lot. I had to have Anubis with Earth Emperor and Lyleen with Spirit Emperor, and then whatever two randos happened to have Ferocious and Musclehead of whatever sex made it a compatible breeding partner.
I could have bred Anubis and Univolt to get a Bushi with Earth Emperor/Musclehead. I could have bred the Lyleen with the Kelpsea Ignis to get a Foxcicle with Spirit Emperor/Ferocious. Those two together would have resulted in a a Katress with all four... but getting from Katress to Warsect is at least two generations of breeding anyway (Katress + Nitewing = Surfent, Surfent + Cryolinx = Warsect). I could have skipped two generations, which isn't insignificant considering how many hours it takes for one generation to pay off, but it wasn't the grievous mistake I thought it was.

Now that I have the Pals with the traits I want, I've got to level them up from 1. That's gonna take a while.


For my next trick, I want a Chillet. Chillet is ice/dragon, so I'm going to want the Ice- and Dragon- equivalents of Spirit and Earth Emperor. There's a problem with that. Those are possessed by those legendary Alphas I've brought up before.
So it's time for my first attempt at the first of those legendaries. Meet Frostallion, on the west side of the Astral Mountains. Assisting me will be a Blazamut I managed to catch wild with both Flame Emperor and Ferocious, so he should be able to help.


crap


Blazamut just kind of stands around while Frostallion blasts it with type-disadvantaged but level-advantaged attacks. Faleris can't seal the deal, so it doesn't go well.
Guess my next project is gonna be an elite-tweaked Blazamut instead.


In the meantime, let's try an exploit. Jetragon is awfully fast, to the point of foolhardiness. Faleris gets Jetragon's attention with a Fireball, then flies off over the edge of the cliffside. With its aggro target hovering over the open air, Jetragon charges...


...and falls to the bottom. Remember when I said Pals take fall damage, even if they can fly? Jetragon sheds a solid seven thousand hit points frop the drop. I'm already in rough shape from getting hit while trying to pull Jetragon over the cliffside, but I manage to wear it down enough that a Legendary Sphere has a nonzero chance of catching the damn thing.

Legendary #1 of 4


Talkin' Pals: 111 Jetragon, the "Legendary Celestial Dragon"
"Looks over the island of Palpagos from the ends of the sky. When the calamity awakens again, splitting the earth and setting the heavens on fire, he will destroy it with a glare of complete obliteration."
The lore: Looks over the island of Palpagos Boufediz near one of the lava craters on Mt. Obsidian. It's never not there.
The inspiration: "What if this critter was a jet-powered mecha and also a dragon" is the origin of the design that was eventually split off into Blaziken and Lati@s. Jetragon obviously has similarities given that it's a jet-powered dragon and there have been jet-powered dragon Pokemon around since gen three.
The name: Oh, come on.
In gameplay: It's the fastest mount in the game, by a wide margin. It's also the easiest legendary to get, until they fix the fall-damage exploit. But in combat it's actually the weakest of the legendaries, with Jormuntide Ignis and Shadowbeak having better raw stats than Jetragon does. But it's still a legendary, and still the best dragon-element in the game.
Being a legendary it's a source of the "Legend" trait. Being the legendary dragon, it's got the "Divine Dragon" passive, which is the Emperor-type boost for dragon-element moves.


It's not fantastic with "Downtrodden" on its passives list, but it's got Divine Dragon and Legend. Legend is "Lucky, but better", offering boosts to attack, work speed, and move speed all at once.
I know I can take on a Jetragon, at least, so I can go back and try to get some better passives (or a breeding pair) when a new one respawns in an hour.
Several hours later, I get a second Jetragon, and by sheer luck it's a female. Now I have a breeding pair! Legendaries can breed with any Pal in the game, for the usual crapshoot on whatever Pal results from the union. But with two Jetragon and the "species always breed true" rule, I can hatch more of them myself.
Since legendaries can only be bred with one another, it can be tough to get a perfect array of traits onto them. It's all down to luck whether a desired trait mutates randomly onto any given offspring, and the odds are not good. I'd like to have a Jetragon with Swift, for instance, but have no way of increasing my odds of that happening.

[nosimpleway]

We're up to the "a couple hours pass between screenshots" part of the end section of a Let's Play. I've got Pals laying eggs... slowly. I've got farms and ranches making ingredients for cakes, which bake... slowly. I'm fighting Alphas for rare drops, and they respawn... slowly. I might as well spend my time catching a hundred more each of Chikipi and Mozzarina to rank everyone in the ranch up to 5. (I do.)
It takes several tries, but I manage to get Alpha Suzaku to drop its shotgun schematic. So I guess I'm headed back to base to craft carbon fibers and polymers... a reasonably-paced job, but I need a lot of those.


Then it's a matter of crafting the shotgun itself... slowly. It's a legendary-tier piece of endgame equipment, what do you expect?


This takes another several hours of play. I tried to start with Frostallion because Ice-types have an advantage over Dragon-types, so I was hoping it'd help me fight Jetragon. Not this one! Pacifist is the absolute worst passive that can appear on a combat Pal. It's -30% to its attack power. This guy's a breeding stud at best, and even then I have to be ready for half of its kids to end up with Pacifist or Clumsy, too.

Still, legendary #2 of 4


Talkin' Pals: 110 Frostallion, the "Legendary Steed of Ice"
"Guardian deity of Palpagos Island, known as the Winter Caller. In the past, when a calamity struck the land, it soared into the sky and sealed away the threat by casting the island into an eternal winter."
The lore: Your gods DESTROYED you!
The inspiration: Do we have enough horses yet? No, those are all deer, and I'm not counting the unicorns! Do we have enough horses? How about a horse Reshiram?
The name: A stallion that is frosty. The last community-provided name.
In gameplay: It can fly and it's fast (though not as fast as Jetragon) and it's the strongest ice-type in the game, befitting its status as the legendary that is an ice-type. If it weren't for its own elemental variant, it would have the highest stat total overall, though by a narrow enough margin over the twins that it doesn't make much difference.
It is no surprise that Frostallion has the highest Cooling suitability in the game, but given how Cooling actually works that doesn't make it any better than a Foxcicle.
Being a legendary it's a source of the "Legend" trait. Being the legendary ice-type, it's got the "Ice Emperor" passive.


I was so stressed about catching Frostallion without dying that I didn't even notice an extremely lucky drop. Legendary-tier gear has about a 3% chance of dropping from whichever Alpha Pal it is that drops it. It took repeated tries to get the pump-action shotgun, and after several Jetragons I still haven't gotten the rocket lawnchair. But Frostallion was nice enough to give me the Pal metal helmet on my first try. Thanks, Frostallion!
Anyway, the legendary Pal Metal Helm is 90 points of defense higher than the common Pal metal helm I'd been wearing for a while. Here's to not dying so fast when I rechallenge Frostallion and Jetragon!