Today is four years to the day since I last played PLA.
Sometimes I get curious about going back to it, especially doing a playthrough of Shining Pearl right now, to see if I can recognize more areas in Hisui and how and if they line up with modern day Sinnoh (though so much did not).
But despite knowing Ingo went home, the game still leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, not to mention I need no reminders of a fandom that was deeply ableist and a total disaster site that I and many others gave up on early on.
And as of right now, Akari's/Rei's (Dawn's/Lucas'?) fate is unknown, and it just felt a bit hopeless knowing the end of the game was obtaining Arceus and it asking you to "show [it] Hisui through [your] eyes"...when you already had to scour every inch of Hisui to even obtain it. Arceus was the last thing in the game other than rematches. What a slap in the face, to not be able to help Ingo at the end nor see the player character get to go home despite doing what Arceus asked, to be forced to help everyone in the region but those who needed and deserved it most?
Not booting it up tonight or anytime soon. But one day I will just so I can put Arceus as the only Pokemon in my party and use HOME to send all my Pokemon to other games, leaving Arceus alone in Hisui. And I hope to see Ingo and Emmet happy and themselves in a future game.
