Mr. Moon's Wild Ride Week 8: The Beach Episode

Picking up from last week, I made it to the Hano Grand Resort along Route 4. I'm suppose to meet up with the members of Aether Foundation that I rescued from Team Skull. Naturally, I explored the area as best as I could before I went to the waypoint. There is a beach on the eastern side of the resort with some trainers to battle, hidden items to find using Stoutland the Ride Pokemon and a "job" you can take once a day to earn 20k Pokebucks. One of the resort staff will offer you 20,000 Pokebucks if you throw back all the beached Pyukumuku. I'm caught in a weird spot where I'm grossed out by it but also think it's cute. Sadly, you don't need to fight these Pokemon to complete the job. Walk towards it and tap and you'll send them back home.

Honestly, I debated making this entry on how I spent the past week farming this job and doing nothing else while I played through my backlog. I spent a good amount of my Pokebucks on healing items while trying to train my Pokemon/raise their affection in the wild. For a few days I would boot up my 3DS to do the part time job and quit but then I started to fiddle with the Poke Pelago.
There are 5 islands, each housing a different activity that helps the trainer. Each island has a box to deposit Poke Beans into, which either speeds up whatever task you are working on or does something extra. You can upgrade the islands by using the Pokebeans you have saved up while also having a certain number of Pokemon in your Poke Box. I apologize for the vertical captures but it was for the sake of the narrative!

Isle Abeens

 The first island has you shake a beanstalk to get Poke Beans. If you deposit beans in this island's box, wild Pokemon have a chance to pop up. If a Pokemon does pop up, you can interact with it and it might join your party the following day. Wild Pokemon that wander onto your island will have a thought bubble over their head and if you check on them the following the day they will have a heart in  their thought bubble if they want to stay. I think if you don't check on them the following day the Wild Pokemon will automatically leave the next. The more this island is upgraded the more beans can be produced from shaking the beanstalk (mine is maxed leveled). Note: The time it takes an activity to complete is listed as [hours:minutes]. I made the mistake of thinking time was [minutes:seconds] and was incredibly disappointed.

Isle Aplenny

Although I do not utilize berries as much as I should (curse that RPG stigma of hoarding you items!), this is a nice island. You have access to a plot of land for growing berries and you can access on demand. Different berries have different growth times. I've seen growth times as 24 hours, 48 hours and 72 hours. By feeding your Pokemon Poke Beans, you can halve the growth time of berries for however long you like depending on how many and what kind of beans you feed them. Although mine is not upgraded, you increase the number of plots you can use by upgrading this island.

Isle Apun

You send your Pokemon on expeditions in search of treasure. At max upgrade, you have four "routes" for your Pokemon to explore. The different routes yield different items. Being low on Poke Bucks, I've been utilizing "Path for Rare-Treasure Hunting!",which you unlock at max island upgrade, for items to sell like nuggets and pearls. Feeding your Pokemon here halves the time it takes them to complete an expedition depending on how much they are fed. I think feeding them only affects the clear time, so don't worry about not feeding your Pokemon beans and getting less items as a result.

Isle Evelup

Possibly my favorite island,this island allows you to passively train your Pokemon's EV stats,which determine how well a given stat grows, depending on what "drink" you feed them before they stay on this island. There's also an EXP drink you can order that will passively level the Pokemon left on this island. Although this means the mini-games you played in the last gen to EV train are dead, I'll gladly take this as substitute. Your Pokemon gain the drink bonuses at the end of a play session, lasting 30 minutes. I believe you can set how many sessions you'd like your Pokemon to undergo and of course, feeding them berries halve the completion time depending on how much or what beans you feed your Pokemon. Leveling up this island increases the effectiveness of the play sessions and how many Pokemon the island can hold.

Isle Avue

Simply put, this is a hot spring for your Pokemon that raises their happiness. Happiness should not be underestimated, at high levels your Pokemon gain experience at an increased rate as well as gain a chance to dodge moves, heal status effects, land critical hits or even survival a fatal blow with 1 HP!  I'm not sure if this was a tip in game or one of the things I had spoiled for me but you can also leave eggs at the hot spring to have them hatch quicker. Careful not to leave Pokemon in for too long, they will get exhausted and start losing happiness! Poke Beans increase the rate of happiness gained and further speed up the egg hatching process. Leveling up the facility increases the number of Pokemon the island can hold.

Vacation's over, I suppose. After having my fill of Pyukumuku throwing and passively playing the Poke Pelago, I headed to the waypoint to meet with Faba and Hau followed shortly after. He decides to take Hau and myself to Aether Foundation's island compound, Aether Paradise. They built a man made island and act as a Pokemon sanctuary or something from what I've gathered. I met two more named characters while I was there,one of which is probably's Lillie's Mom going by her design. And that's where I left off! The last thing that happened was a wormhole popped up and a creepy jellyfish popped out. I don't mean to leave things on a cliffhanger but I lost my motivation to play it with my backlog staring at me. I'll probably have to fight that creepy thing, hopefully it won't kick my butt!