It's been a long road—made far longer than it should've been by distraction, life, distraction, etc.—and this post could very well be the end of it. Could being the operative word. I say a lot of things, like "there's no traditional professor intro" and "I've been trapped in this room by a shouty lumberjerk", and then five seconds later they turn out to be blatantly untrue. Maybe this is the end, maybe there are a few posts that can be squeezed out of this demo yet... well, we're about to find out!

 

Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot

Oh, look! Our bossy friends the lumberjerks have finally moved that tree! I'd like to think I played a small part in the clearing of this path. Or a large one, possibly. Clearly the machine would never have been fixed in the first place if there hadn't been a child handy to run errands for them.

Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot

Yeah, yeah. Consider just calling the mechanic next time, would you?

Okay! The northern part of Avocet Forest awaits, and hopefully some fancy new fakemon to go with! I'm pretty satisfied with my team at the moment, but it's always nice to have a whole PC box full of fancy.

Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot

Uh... hey? Where... where's the forest? Where's the fancy?

Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot

You're welcome! How about you reward me by letting me move past this featureless void and into the forest, eh?

Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot

But... but... but I ran a pointless errand and got yelled at by a man with an axe to make it into this forest! What do you mean this is the end?

Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot

...oh, yeah, I guess I did. That feels like forever ago. They were the pushovers who gave me money when I punched them, right?

Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot

Yes, that's a good idea. At least let me be a little surprised when you step aside and let me explore the forest behind you.

Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot

Aww. For a second there I really thought you were gonna say "this section of the forest".

Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot

But the only thing I think I haven't explored yet is that item I accidentally missed in the gym!

Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot

Wait, what? But— no! Then I'll have to walk all the way back—

Ethereal Gates Demo 1.0 Screenshot

—here.

Soooo I guess this really is the end, and Phoenix is warped back home with far too little money to replace her geriatric television and the nagging feeling that, if only she'd been less tired and Tumblr had been less laggy, she could've wrapped this up in post #20 after all. Ah, well. 21's not a bad number, either, and Pokémon Ethereal Gates is certainly not a bad game. It's a great game, in fact! It's got its rough patches and its glitches, definitely, but it is only a demo, and those bugs are hopefully going to be ironed out with an update very soon. Grinding and hiccups aside, this is a very technically impressive game that's clearly had a lot of thought and love put into it, and on the off chance you haven't already then I'd definitely suggest giving it a shot!

Me, I'm probably going to take a little break from this, at least until the 1.1 update drops. I've got a big video game backlog to get through and a NaNoWriMo to think about, hopefully in such a way that there will finally, finally be some sort of explanation for the dorky, contextless names I gave my team and all of the nonsense I was spouting about bug people and fire-breathing elves. Hopefully. Maybe. You guys saw how these past two Junes went. But I probably will pick PEG up again soon, and maybe even do that mono-normal run I was talking about. It'd be a shame to let that towering mountain of normal-types go to waste, and maybe it'll help me get over my newfound fear of croaking chihuahua-terriers. ;)

Thank you all for bearing with me as I gave this "liveblogging"/LPing thing a try, and I hope that it was largely entertaining! I think I might give Pokémon Uranium a spin at some point in the future. I've already played all the way through the current content once before, and I'd probably take the time to edit and proofread a bit more carefully rather than "liveblog", and I'd probably not post directly to Tumblr because seriously writing long posts full of images in here is awful why did I do this to myself, but it's a fun game that could always do with more love, and I wanna take the new non-binary protag for a test drive. Then maybe even that NetHack LP I keep telling myself I want to do even though that is a bad idea because NetHack is hard and I am terrible at it. Who knows!