So, here I stand, in N’s throne room, at the heart of Team Plasma’s castle, as my antagonist stands on the brink of taking over the world with his Reshiram’s awesome mind-control powers.. or something. I’ve never been clear on exactly how it will work, whether there is magic involved, or if he’ll just point his dragon at people and tap his foot whilst they hurriedly release their Pokémon in order to avoid a short and painful death. Nonetheless, this has gone on long enough, and he needs to be stopped. Thankfully, N himself is looking for a fight with an equal – a new incarnation of the two heroes of Iris and Drayden’s legend, who will battle to see whose worldview is the best. Sure, that’s not even what the original story was about, and it’s not like you can realistically settle philosophies with a Pokémon battle, of all things.. but N wants to believe it, and since we’ve now established that he’s a deluded man-child, anything goes. Except, I don’t have a legendary on my side yet, so apparently, it’s not a fair fight. Pfft.
This fact is further underscored by Reshiram making its entrance, and blasting us with an epic heat wave that exists purely for dramatic purposes and doesn’t do any damage to either of us. It does, however, trigger my magical macguffin stone; clearly Zekrom is dissatisfied that only his counterpart got to show off, and so finally turns up, making a dramatic entrance of his own. N rubs his hands with glee in anticipation of the showdown, and practically begs me to capture the beast. Alright then.
Five minutes later… well, that was easy. I understand that since this is a plot-relevant capture, it had to be pretty easy, but that was too easy. Zekrom, (and Reshiram, since the two swap places in Black version) has a catch rate of 45; that’s the same as a Farfetch’d. It’s actually more difficult to capture a Murkrow. I shit you not. If I’d known this at the time, instead of looking it up in suspicion after, I’d have simply thrown a Quick Ball and proceeded to win.
Nonetheless, with a Zekrom in my pocket – literally this time – it’s time to duel. My pet legendary forces its way to the front of my team, even though I swapped it for my Eelektross who was in the last slot, just so it can have a dragon showdown with its counterpart. I’m hardly going to say no, since it’s thousands of years old, several feet taller than me, and looks pretty pissed, so I let them go at it, exchanging feeble Dragonbreaths and not-very-effective signature moves until Zekrom wins. Yay?
With that business out of the way, I get to face the rest of N’s team. My Lampent has a Inanimate Object showdown with his Vanilluxe, the most epic ice cream in all of the land, and wins. N shows how he does have good taste in Pokémon by sending out a Carracosta, which falls to a Power Whip from Ferrothorn, and an Archeops, the other fossil Pokémon of this generation, who squares up against my Braviary in an epic bird fight and gets shattered out of the sky by a mean Rock Slide. From there, N sends out a Klinklang, the final form of Chargestone Cave’s pet gear, so I throw in my Scrafty to smack it with a Hi Jump Kick. It’s only after I kill it that it’s revealed that I was actually fighting a Zoroark, a dark type in cunning disguise.. who is also weak to fighting type moves. Nice work there, N. Oh look, here comes the real Klinklang. Hi Jump Kick, awaayyy!
And so the dust settles over the ‘final’ battle, and guess what, I was the one who was right all along, according to N’s own arbitrary rules and regulations. I can only imagine that this isn’t how he was expecting this to go – it certainly isn’t what Ghetsis expected, as the man behind the man storms in in a rage, followed by Cheren and Alder, who’ve finally caught up. And now, all is revealed; none of this is fate in any way. Both N and myself have been subject to Ghetsis’s cruel machinations, using his son as a figurehead for Team Plasma in order to acquire ultimate power. Guess what? He had no intentions of ‘saving’ the world of Pokémon by convincing trainers to release their friends. Nope, all Ghetsis wanted was to convince everyone else to release their Pokémon so that, as the only one who still had monsters in his pocket, he would be default be the most powerful person ever, and thus become the ultimate ruler of Unova from his new pimping castle.
So basically, he destroyed the life of his son to fulfil his own desires of world domination. Complete monster it is then. Seriously though, Ghetsis, you’re just as much of an idiot for leaving it to ‘fate’ as N was set up to be; if you’d killed me long ago, instead of waiting for some significant final battle bullshit, you’d be pretty much unopposed right now. Plus.. about your plan.. well, I think once it became apparent what you were pulling on the world, they’d probably rise up against you. As much as I hate to side with the ‘the Pokémon world is full of love’ crowd, I doubt that simply releasing Pokémon would be enough to break the bond between human and trainer, and once it became apparent that they’d been manipulated, they’d team up again and kick your ass.. Just like I’m going to do now. You think you’re tough, old man? Bring it. I’m going to beat you to hell on N’s behalf.
This is the true final battle, and with that in mind, it’s a lot more difficult than the fight with N was. For starters, Ghetsis leads with a Cofagrigus, a near-untouchable ghost type that spits Toxic over half of my team before I manage to take it down. I then moved to counter his Eelektross with my Ferrothorn, and got massacred by a Flamethrower that I really wasn’t expecting. Scrafty did the work instead, following it up by defeating Ghetsis’s power ranger. The bastard then threw me a curve ball by switching in his Hydriegon; the pseudo-legendary of this generation (which basically means that it’s completely overpowered in relation to pretty much everything else that isn’t legendary). Handily, as a Dragon/Dark Pokémon, it was once again weak to fighting, and I was able to deal heavy damage with a final Hi Jump Kick before Scrafty was finally taken down. Carracosta finished the job, and also took out the opposing Bouffalant, but finally fell before Ghetsis’s Seismitoad, despite nearly killing it. My last Pokémon was Braviary, who had about a quarter of his overall health left and was poisoned to boot: nonetheless, he was fast enough to KO Seismitoad with Superpower, and barely win me the match.
Phew! That was close, as befits a final battle. We return to the overworld to a scene of carnage as Ghetsis goes completely mental with rage over his abject failure of a plan, before Cheren and Alder cart him off. I’m left alone with N, who has dealt with the revelation that his entire life has been a lie quite well; in all fairness, he was already aware that the Pokémon world wasn’t as terrible as he’d been led to believe, due to his various encounters with me – he was always noting how close myself and my team seemed, and seems to attribute that closeness to our strength in battle. How sweet. In any case, other than giving the Pokémon League an extreme makeover, N hasn’t technically done anything wrong, so I’m content to let him hop on the back of his Reshiram and vanish into legend, as the credits roll.
That was the most awesome ending to a Pokémon game ever. Of course, it’s by no means over; I’ve got half a region left to see, yet. But as the culmination of the game’s plot, it was much more involving and interesting, and it was good to have a final showdown with the bad guys for once, rather than dealing with them beforehand and then heading off to the Pokémon League to wrap things up. Sadly, since Ghetsis’s plan descended into psychotic wankery at the end there, I guess the game isn’t going to answer the thorny issues it raised regarding the relationship between people and Pokémon, other than by falling back on the old standby; the Pokémon world is a Wonderful Place.
I suppose I can live with that.
