Part 3: Sweet Sleeping Wooloos

Update 3: Sweet Sleeping Wooloos

Postwick - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST

As we walk over to Gloria’s house, there’s a crash from offscreen.

Gloria, did you hear that just now? The gate’s open! And the Wooloo that was there…



… do you?

… Well… we should.

But it’s off-limits! Nobody’s supposed to go in there! Remember when Sonia went in? She was in a right state. And that was nothing compared to the earful she got from the professor afterward! Gloria… What do you say?

I’m not leaving it in the woods.

Right? Even if we’re not supposed to, this is the kind of scene where you simply have to – Hey! Gloria, wait up!

Slumbering Weald - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST



The fog is really coming on thick now… If we don’t find that Pokémon soon, this might be trouble.

Welcome to the Slumbering Weald, this game’s first wilderness area. If you popped open the music link, after a minute or so you’ll notice that tone that peaks and steadily drops off repeatedly; nice bit of sound design, that. Solid foreshadowing.

For those of you unfamiliar with the system here, in Pokémon you gather team members mostly through encounters in the tall grass: find wild animals hiding from you in the grass, have your tame animals maul them, then force them into prisons too small for them to fit comfortably. They’re also your third best source of experience; in older games, especially since you often couldn’t get in multiple rounds with trainers, you had to resort to grinding on wild Pokémon for a while, but in this game you have better ways to level up. Wild Pokémon don’t even offer as much experience as trainer Pokémon! Anyway, the squirrel’s hardly a threat. Mostly the monsters in here suck, plus you can’t catch them yet. There’s exactly one Pokémon hiding in each patch of grass; in the rest of the game,
you have a selection that wander around the grass and a few hiding out of sight in the grass itself.

Also, you have Hop hanging around nearby; he’ll heal your Pokémon for free, just like that. Way to trivialize this, Hop. With him to remove any threat from an already unthreatening situation, let’s take a moment to look at stats!



You can ignore most of what’s on this page except for the six stats displayed around that wheel in the center. HP is self-explanatory if you ever played an RPG, and speed is likewise intuitive since it just covers where in the initiative order your Poké sits. The two sets of Attack and Defense stats deal with different types of damage: Attack and Defense cover attacks cause damage through the Pokémon using physical force, and their Special equivalents cover anything that doesn’t, from fireballs to super soakers to mind control. Think Physical and Magic damage/defense in equivalent games. You also have a hidden Evasion stat that’s uniform across all Pokémon regardless of type or level. As you might guess, a lot of the strategy in this game comes from manipulating certain stats while emphasizing others in creative ways; say, use a move called Growl to lower their Attack, then switch out for somebody with a high defense.





It looks like this in practice. Of course, around here that’s completely inconsequential, but such is life in the outskirts of the Slumbering Weald. A little bit further in, we hear something that sounds like a digitized wolf howl.

Did you hear that? Was that a Pokémon crying out, you think?!

Soon enough, we hear another howl, Hop worries a bit more, and…



I think I get now why this place off-limits…









So, uh, this is a thing. It doesn’t really matter what you do to him, he shifts like a mirage and just stares at you menacingly. He doesn’t even attack.



He also releases more fog every round. It even fogs over the interface, making it harder to see.

Gloria, I can’t see anything! Are you okay?

Eventually, after another round of increasing fog and Hop trying to find you…







Wha – Lee? How do you manage to find your way here? You’re pants with directions. You always get lost.

Oh, that’s nice to hear from the little brother who had me worried sick! I’ve been waiting ages for you to, and you never showed! Of course I came looking for the both of you!

_{Doesn’t explain how you found us, though…}

Wait, where’s the Wooloo?! We were trying to rescue that Wooloo!



The little chap’s just fine. Though all of you had fainted by the time I found you here. You know this place is off-limits… But it took courage to come in here all the same. And I can understand well enough why you did it. You did good, Hop!

And at least that Wooloo’s all right… Yeah, Gloria? I thought we’d had it when that weird fog started growing in and that mad Pokémon attacked… but at least it wasn’t all for nothing!

Attacked by some mad Pokémon? What are you talking about, Hop?

It seemed loads stronger than any Pokémon I’ve ever seen. And it just had this sort of presence…

Yeah…

Our moves didn’t even touch it. I mean, really – they seemed to pass right through it!

…

Your moves passed right through it? So, the fearsome Pokémon they say live in the Slumbering Weald…

…!

Are they actually illusions or something? Get strong enough and maybe the two of you could be the ones to reveal the truth someday. For now, let’s get out of the forest. You’ll be all right now that I’m here with you!

Even if we did get an earful from Lee… what an experience! This’ll make a fine first page in the tale of my legend!

…

What, no commentary?

Sorry, lost in thought…

Oh – you all right there, mate?

Yeah… well, I’m a tad shaken up, but I’ll be fine. Mostly I’m just thinking something over.

A little bit later…

Postwick - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST

You better go tell your mum we’re heading out. She’ll go spare if you leave without a word – even worse than Lee just did!

He bolts off, as is his habit.

Wait, didn’t Leon tell Hop he did good?



And yes, I heard the news from young Leon. Glad someone bothered to tell me! Off to Wedgehurst, aren’t you? Here we are! A bit of pocket money for your journey. Buy yourself a little something at the Pokémon Center! Maybe some Potions or something.

You know me so well.

Remember that Scorbunny will battle to the very end for you. But he WILL battle for you, so don’t be afraid to let him put some work in. I don’t have to tell you to be careful with him. Just pace yourself, both of you. And you, Scorbunny! Look after my little Gloria! Come home to rest any time that you need. After all –

“East or West, home is best,” I know. But, before I go… I love you, mum.

Same, love. Have fun and stay safe.

I will.

We take a moment to jump-scare the Munchlax…



… Before heading out. And then we run into Hop AGAIN. Because the tutorial can never be over.

Route 1 - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST



Guess I’ll have Bonham do some training in the tall grass, get him a bit tougher. You should probably head over to the Research Lab. I’ll catch up in a mo’.

I mean, I would, but…



I think I’m taking the long way around.

Welp, time to get some obligatory Pokémon battles.



Would you look at that, we have a new option! Look at that X there; if you select it, it opens up the Pokéball menu. You catch Pokémon by smacking them with your balls. The weaker they are, the more status effects they have, the easier they are to catch. You have a bunch of different types Pokéballs with different effects, but I never bother using them unless I really want something specific; it probably won’t come up much (except for when we hit Ball Guy, but we’ll run into them later). Also, you can’t catch a Trainer’s Pokémon. That would be theft.





This Wooloo is now part of our team! I’m going to name him Wallace for now, but I’m open for suggestions.

On the other hand… I failed to screenshot this, like an idiot, but I just ran into a Pokémon with a sort of glowing aura. Those are called Brilliant Pokémon; they start out a bit higher level than everything around them and have moves and stats their local equivalents can’t match.



This Brilliant Rookidee came along with a move called Roost that restored all damage I did to her, which was infuriating, but I caught her! I couldn’t give her the appropriate name, but she’ll just go by Eggbeater for now.

Wedgehurst - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST



Welcome to Wedgehurst, our first actual town; it has a fast travel station, various shops, houses to visit and all sorts of other things we will promptly ignore to go visit Leon.



See how your world is already grown, all thanks to having Pokémon with you?





Something lets out a tiny bark.



It’s a corgi. A corgi Pokémon.



Looking for info on another never-before-seen, superstrong Pokémon? I wish you’d stop with these outlandish requests. Oh, hiya Gloria! How’s the mum?

She walks down the stairs and up to Leon and Gloria.

_{Good to see you, too, Yamper!}

Well, thanks. Says she has a Wooloo tikka masala recipe she just ordered in spices for waiting to go.

Oh, that sounds lovely! I’ll make her some of those chocolate walnut biscuits she likes so much.

What, gonna just walk right past me?

That I am! But go ahead and help yourself to the stacks, you know you’re welcome. Oh. Looks like your mum got you a Rotom Phone. Hey there, Rotom!



We get yet more tutorializing here. Basically, a Rotom is a Pokémon that is also your cell phone, interface, map, etc. Anyway, Sonia downloads an entire Pokédex into our pet’s head.

In the olden days, filling out your Pokédex was the official end goal of any Pokémon game. It starts out an empty list of silhouettes that you fill in as you catch Pokémon one by one; it stores their names, descriptions, and important combat data for you to peruse. I’m not sure I know anyone who actually used the Pokédex for anything, even to keep score, unless they already done everything else in the game.

Just so you know, that Pokédex is a gift from my gran! When you head out, could you let Gran know that you have it?

Sure thing, down Route 2, right?

Yep!

I’m off, then. Take care!

_{Rather quick to go, weren’t you? It’s alright, I understand. Leon’s a right amazing Champion, and I’m basically just an assistant… I’m not even Gran’s official assistant, either. I’ve just been calling myself one… I wonder which one of them’ll win…}

Just outside, a stranger walks up to us.





He hands us an item.





Random Stranger: It’s a Potion. Use it when you’re Pokémon’s HP – their hit points – get low…







Random Stranger: …on your journey!.

And then he just walks away like that wasn’t a bizarre thing to do. Speaking of which, I notice nobody bothered posting about Scotland. And that’s a shame! Granted, you didn’t have very long, which probably played a (big) part in that. So I’ve done some thinking and overhauled the OP: I cordially invite anyone with something interesting to share about Britain or Gen 8 to write about it; in return, they get to pick either of the options in the OP, plus get credit and a link in the second post. I am also taking suggestions from the thread on our Rookidee and Wooloo’s names; I’ll pick from them if and when the names are volunteered, the posting option just forces me to use your suggestion instead of picking for myself.