11. Area Zero (Pokemon SV)

*(originally posted September 25, 2023)

A collection of simple thoughts on last levels, final dungeons, and endgame zones.
Spoilers for Pokemon Scarlet/Violet Edition.
Table of Contents

Context: Area Zero is a massive crater in the center of Paldea, entry forbidden. Your friend and rival Arven once ventured inside, searching for his missing parents, but his partner Pokemon Mabosstiff was critically wounded. After proving your valor by completing all three main plotlines, you and Arven call upon your allies to venture into Area Zero to discover the truth.

I'm willing to call Area Zero the best final dungeon in any mainline Pokemon game. It's probably one of the better ones in RPGs in general, honestly. In the Collector Base post, I said:

This is what I personally want out of a Final Dungeon, I think. Not necessarily something that's Big and Climactic and Difficult - though the Suicide Mission is all of those things, as are most final dungeons - but something that ties together everything you've been doing until now in a satisfying way.

Usually, the final dungeon in any given Pokemon game is a big honkin' cave called Victory Road preceding the Elite Four boss rush; a notable exception is Black/White, which has a final dungeon after the boss rush. Like the Lunar Subterrane, Victory Road usually serves as a check to see if your party is at a baseline level of numerical strength appropriate for the endgame. In Scarlet/Violet, "Victory Road" is the entire Gym Challenge curriculum track, which is one of three plot prerequisites to access Area Zero.

Pokemon is now an open world game, so like BOTW's Hyrule Castle, the edges of the Great Crater are visible from basically anywhere on the map, keeping it present in your mind throughout the game. If you've been paying attention to the plot, you know to expect that it'll be full of dangerous Paradox Pokemon (ancient and futuristic versions of existing mons depending on if you're playing Scarlet or Violet). However, once you're in, it's a pretty leisurely stroll down to the bottom; it isn't really populated until the postgame, and there isn't much challenge to beating down a bunch of prehistoric Jigglypuff. Instead, what Area Zero does is give an opportunity for the other characters to talk amongst themselves, bantering as you descend to the depths.

For a mainline Pokemon game, this is a pretty fucking huge leap forward.

Despite broadly being about the Power of Friendship and whatnot, Pokemon is usually a pretty solitary experience without much Hangout-itude. Your mons don't exactly have personalities, they're more like interchangeable equipment or cards in your deck. Rival characters usually just show up to say hi, immediately challenge you to a battle, and bail. As much as people miss the blatantly antagonistic rivals of R/B/Y and G/S/C, it fits the vibes of the franchise better to have friendly NPCs who interact with the player on a regular basis. Ash wouldn't work without Misty and Brock, so why do I have to spend 10 hours crawling through tall grass with only my pets for company?

_{(Aside: a noted exception is the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon subseries but we don't have time to get into that right now)}

This is why the best part of X/Y is the very beginning of the game, where the other characters are visibly going down the first couple of routes with you: it creates that sense of hangout-itude and camaraderie. S/V does it by giving each plot track a major character acting as its face. Nemona, Arven, and Penny feel like your friends by the final dungeon because the point of each story track has been helping them with their problems. Even outside of direct plot beats, you see them in the background in class and whatnot. That's hangout-itude right there.

In theory, the player character has no reason to enter Area Zero other than some vague "that's where the plot is" - they already became a Champion and dealt with the Team Star situation and whatnot - but you naturally want do it because Arven asks you to, and you've been meeting up with him periodically across the whole game to help him save his dying dog. Are you not going to help him with this? Similarly, recruiting Nemona and Penny feels earned in the same way that calling on Garrus to lead the secondary fireteam does: they're your buds and you've been through a lot together (relative to the game's stakes).

The writing captures that specific feeling of being the only mutual friend of three people who know who each other are, but not really anything beyond that. They jab at each other a little, bond over points of common ground, and compare tragic backstories. It's pretty slim compared to something like the skits in a Tales game, but it's a lot for Pokemon.

There are some other big plot reveals and boss fights and whatnot (including some that are weirdly dark and bizarre for a game aimed at 7 year olds), but Area Zero having a party that isn't made of monsters is why it sticks out to me. It's a real solid final dungeon.