I really wanted to get more than one chapter in before I reviewed again, but unexpected stuff came up. Still this was a pretty long chapter so I think I have enough material to get a review.

I wasn't sure what I was expecting from this chapter, but I think it had pretty good stuff to add. I don't think any of my general impressions of the world or characters have changed other than the fact that Ampharos is now my second favorite character, with Goomy sliming his way into third. I relate to Ampharos way too hard for him to be anything but my second favorite, and seeing the way Goomy is treated by everyone even his "friends" made me sympathize with him way more this chapter than before.

Nothing major with the overall story except two points which I will go through in a moment. So I guess that the next step will be going over my notes from the chapter. Here we go.

Tricky being late after promising to be early is perfect. I relate so hard.

Interesting to see what the other world-ending events are in this story's canon. I like the mix of in-game teams and teams from other sources.

I also really appreciate that at least someone understands that "human" "new apocalypse scenario". Good on them.

I'm conflicted about having Espurr use her Psychic to mess with Watchog's mind. On one hand it is a little morally dubious, on the other he is psycho so... it's fine.

"'...I tell you to and he won't even notice we *were* there.'" - Was that supposed to be "weren't"?

Deerling being grumpy about the redraw is a little funny considering if they do redraw she would probably be paired with Tricky. Maybe that is just me.

I'm enjoying getting bits and pieces of how Dungeon's work as we go, but I have no idea how they all fit together. How does an anchorstone relate to "Class A" dungeons or how they shift?

Of course this is the Dungeon where it all started. Who else is entering the betting pool with "something horrible happens".

I do love Pancham's uncomfortable flirting, I do wonder how that line works when it isn't written down though.

"'You *really* wanna be like the pest?'" Pancham is such a dick.

Loving the setup for Goomy being able to change his body shape here. I didn't remember it, but it is a fun thing that readers can come back to when you leave us hanging after the tree falls on him.

Espurr is back at the beginning. It's nice to see this familiar setting after everything she has learned. Of course there are no Pokemon chasing her now, but details.

Deerling is such a pain. I really don't understand how she doesn't treat Pancham and Shelmet nearly as bad as she treats Tricky. They deliberately attempted to kill Goomy in a Dungeon and while she doesn't like them, she certainly doesn't call them foul names.

I do like this confirmation (or the first confirmation) that Budew wasn't human. Makes me feel a little worse for the little guy now. ~~Not that I didn't already feel horrible.~~

Also why was this test a race, Watchog?

I like Goomy also partially blame Deerling for leaving him behind. Especially since she is pretty much the only one who is his friend. ~~Don't know where Espurr stands on that.~~

Riolu statue. Unfortunately I spoiled myself today about his identity so I don't feel as bad for him. Still, the other human was caught. Espurr is our only hope.

How is Audino the only responsible adult?

Why is Watchog a teacher if he hates children?

Goomy is able to hold his own. He isn't weak, just afraid. I like that dynamic.

Tricky is maturing a little, she just needed some help. I really appreciate that. It is no longer about just exploring, it is doing what an Explorer should do. Just in time too before they got their membership.

"'It'd take nothing short of a miracle for them to get out alive.'" - "Sometimes children die on your watch. Stuff happens." - Vice Principle Watchog

Espurr, you will use your power when you are five minutes late to class, but not to get out of detention. Priorities.

Good thing Espurr and Tricky are friends. What if Deerling and Tricky had to share a Society Membership.

"'You just insert your blue orb of choice...'" - What other kinds of blue orbs are there? Part of me wants Tricky to try and shove an Oran berry in the slot before Espurr suggests the Connection Orb.

Curious how one charges an Expedition Gadget. How does Ampharos expect Tricky and Espurr's to last all summer on one charge when Mawiles's only lasted a couple of days?

Is Cloud 9 HAPPI's base? Reminds me of the Aether foundation.

And that is it. That is all I had for this chapter. There was just a bit. I enjoyed this chapter so much and it gave me two more characters that I liked. If you have any other comments or follow up questions, you know where to find me. Until next time.

Always nice to see an espurr fic update

I finally caught up! I don’t have time for a big review right now, but here’s a few thoughts.

The later part of the story hasn’t gone how I expected. The inter-guild intrigue, staying in the village and making friends with the rest of the students. It’s interesting, just not what I guessed. I expected they would move on shortly after the graduation, and the two stories (the Society and Espurr/Tricky) would come together. I know almost nothing about the game plot, though.

Riolu seems to share Espurr’s lack of personality. It’s kind of a neat contrast now that you’ve fleshed out the other students.

The transitions between the two plots have gotten less jarring than they were early on.

I feel like they’ve done everything there is to do in Serenity Village. In fact, I’m a little bored with that part - but only a little.

I liked the slow buildup of horror with Espurr’s dreams, the voices and disappearances and possession, and then it all starts to come together with the voidlands (which reminds me a lot of Dante Alighieri’s interpretation of Hell) and the Ancient Barrow.

I’ve also enjoyed everyone stumbling around trying to figure out what’s going on. Too many authors give their characters an obvious goal right away (take the ring to Mordor).

“…an apocalypse of ice and snow” sounds familiar!

The title should have been “Do Psychic-Types Dream of Psyonic Sheep?”. Missed opportunity, 0/10.

On a more serious note, the premise of your story is one I’ve never quite seen before. It seems to be PSMD, but without the player character? Huh. Initially I thought it would literally be the game from the perspective of Espurr, but I’m starting to think the player character straight-up isn’t going to appear. Leah and—sorry, I meant Tricky and Espurr have already rescued Goomy and shared Tricky’s scarves. Things that happen in the games, but with the player character.

Pffft, Tricky. Such a silly name, yet one so… perfect for her.

Speaking of characters, I’d argue those are by far your strong point so far. Your dialogue is on-point and paints a variety of character voices with all their nuances and personality: Espurr’s quietness, Tricky’s hyperactivity and excitement, Goomy’s shyness, and so on, so forth. Every character so far has had a unique character voice. That is no easy task, believe me. You also seem to be able to weave from a goofy tone to a more serious one quite seamlessly, which, once again, is no easy feat. It’s easy to see you have a talent for this.

I’m really, really excited for the political side of this story. The game never mentioned any form of government whatsoever, and by the postgame it felt like all of civilisation was limited to the four or five settlements you see in the game. Here, by showing the Expedition Society exploring these deserted cities, you accomplish two things. One, that the world isn’t literally limited to five villages; and two, that the Expedition Society is serious business. These aren’t just teenagers running around with badges—though Ampharos’ sense of direction remains exaggerated for comedic effect—but are instead people who seriously risk their lives in their line of work.

I hope the political side of the story is expanded. I hope we get to see presidents, prime ministers, kings, parliaments, city-states—something that hints that this world is lived in. I fully expect it not to be the main focus of the story, but that’s fine. Even having that background detail works wonders. I’m also curious what role guilds like the Exploration Society play in this world. They haven’t yet been linked to any government structure, so are they independent organisations that wield significant political and social influence? Or are they the police/Civil Protection of this world?

While there are already signs that the plot will not be an exact retelling of PSMD minus the player character—the last scene of chapter two comes to mind—I do hope that it diverges further than it does currently. I know the story of the game, you know the story of the game. I hope we get something more than that, though it already looks very promising on that front. Keep building your characters. You’ve done a great job so far.
The title should have been “Do Psychic-Types Dream of Psyonic Sheep?”. Missed opportunity, 0/10.

On a more serious note, the premise of your story is one I’ve never quite seen before. It seems to be PSMD, but without the player character? Huh. Initially I thought it would literally be the game from the perspective of Espurr, but I’m starting to think the player character straight-up isn’t going to appear. Leah and—sorry, I meant Tricky and Espurr have already rescued Goomy and shared Tricky’s scarves. Things that happen in the games, but with the player character.

Pffft, Tricky. Such a silly name, yet one so… perfect for her.

Speaking of characters, I’d argue those are by far your strong point so far. Your dialogue is on-point and paints a variety of character voices with all their nuances and personality: Espurr’s quietness, Tricky’s hyperactivity and excitement, Goomy’s shyness, and so on, so forth. Every character so far has had a unique character voice. That is no easy task, believe me. You also seem to be able to weave from a goofy tone to a more serious one quite seamlessly, which, once again, is no easy feat. It’s easy to see you have a talent for this.

I’m really, really excited for the political side of this story. The game never mentioned any form of government whatsoever, and by the postgame it felt like all of civilisation was limited to the four or five settlements you see in the game. Here, by showing the Expedition Society exploring these deserted cities, you accomplish two things. One, that the world isn’t literally limited to five villages; and two, that the Expedition Society is serious business. These aren’t just teenagers running around with badges—though Ampharos’ sense of direction remains exaggerated for comedic effect—but are instead people who seriously risk their lives in their line of work.

I hope the political side of the story is expanded. I hope we get to see presidents, prime ministers, kings, parliaments, city-states—something that hints that this world is lived in. I fully expect it not to be the main focus of the story, but that’s fine. Even having that background detail works wonders. I’m also curious what role guilds like the Exploration Society play in this world. They haven’t yet been linked to any government structure, so are they independent organisations that wield significant political and social influence? Or are they the police/Civil Protection of this world?

While there are already signs that the plot will not be an exact retelling of PSMD minus the player character—the last scene of chapter two comes to mind—I do hope that it diverges further than it does currently. I know the story of the game, you know the story of the game. I hope we get something more than that, though it already looks very promising on that front. Keep building your characters. You’ve done a great job so far.

Poor "Goomy". He evolved and now he can't see. But at least the band is back together Watchhog and Riolu. I'm interested in how this plays out. And how Sligoo's mom reacts.

Huhu how fun can't wait until the next one.

Alright, I thought that was a satisfying conclusion to the Ancient Barrow arc (at least I hope it is), I'm glad that all the kids and Watchog and Riolu made it out safely

Hoho will espurr rescue her friends with the help of riolu and if so how will they do so? FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON DO PSYCHIC POKEMON DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP!

That was such an incredible descriptive prologue! It was so detailed and well written I felt like I was right there with Espurr and Audino

I hope Espurr finds all of her friends...
So far this is becoming quite interesting...

I. must say this story really keeps me coming back, but damn that latest chapter...
I really hope the other kids make it out alive, especially Pancham and Shelmet... also the chapter before I actually felt sorry for Pancham because how scared he was...

This is more a collection of nitpicks for chapter 2 than a real review, I guess, but take it as you will.

"A strange hum floated through the air, and suddenly the area all around him took an ominous tone to it." - This sentence is a bit weird

It is nice that the expedition society members are introduced in a way that generally gives us some sense of their personality-mostly they seem to be consistent with their characterization in PSMD so far

I do think that I would have liked more detail during Ampharos' encounter with the beheeyem

A couple of times the story says "Farfetched" instead of Farfetch'd

"Everyone jumped to attention at the abrupt noise it made, and Farfetch'd cleared his throat, now sure he had everyone's attention." - Bit of a redundant sentence there

"The sole oblivious mon was Tricky, who happily munched on her assortment of fruits, vegetables, and nuts without abandon." - I think we mean "with abandon"

"She put it in her mouth and bit down, enjoying the slightly sweet, slightly oily texture it had." - "sweet" is not a texture.

"He handed out a trio of lists to Espurr, Tricky, and Goomy, who took it with his slimy paws." - Technically I think it should be "the latter of whom took it..."

"It was hot." - This closing strikes me as a bit of a non sequitur.

I like that we get some sense of archen's personality during the bit that takes place from his perspective

"Al three students[...]" - missing an "l"

""What'shis problem?" She quizzically asked" - I don't know if we need the "quizically" in this case

-
"I have a horribly awful sense of direction." the pokemon tried his best to simplify the sentence. A second later, he shook his head.

"Oh, where are my manners?" He lamented. "My name is Ampharos. A traveling pokemon, known far and wide as…"

I feel like the above two paragraphs maybe could be combined
-

""Oh…" The disappointment on Tricky's face set in faster than a flat cake." - I didn't really get this, but maybe that's just me

""We're just a loo stop on your way over the Mountain."" - a loo?

-
"I mean, we don't get a lot of tourists here," Tricky said, orbiting Espurr as they walked up towards the residential section of Serenity Village . "We're super out of the way! The last one was…"

"…well… you," She finished, tilting her head at Espurr.

I also feel as though these should be on one line. Closing the double quotes and then making a new paragraph like that seems to imply that someone else is speaking the in the second paragraph.
-

"…I like them," She said, looking up at Tricky." - We have an extra quotation mark

Archen is kind of being a jerk toward the end of the chapter, I have to say. I don't really like him as much now.

"We can't declare the place off-limits until we have solid grounds to do so on" - Usually I'm not particularly fussy about whether or not a sentence ends on a preposition, but in this case I think it sounds off.

"Like almost every statue the pair had encountered so far, they were standing in battle position" - based on the earlier descriptions I was inclined to believe that this was not the case

"To dark to see" - "To" should be "Too"

"It actions had proved very much so." - "It" should be "Its"

"Was this what pokemon used for lights at nighttime?"" - We have an extra quotation mark at the end.

Anyway, I think the chapter did a solid job of establishing mawile and archen's dynamics even though I'm not sure if archen was meant to come across as that much of a jerk. Though I'm conflicted about having multiple perspectives, because on the one hand it does slow the story down, but on the other hand, it helps give a sense of where it's actually going.
The part where Tricky tells Espurr to read while Goomy picks the berries was amusing. Tricky continues to be my favorite character, I would say.

I don't usually read stories directly based off of the games, but the premise of this one intrigued me. There are some interesting changes that I really like. Having Espurr get taken in by Audino drastically changes her relationship with Nuzleaf, and I'm curious to see how that gets handled down the road. Turning Gabite into a former explorer who lost himself to the influence of a dungeon makes dungeons a heck of a lot scarier than they were in the game, and I hope the significance of dungeons gets explored later on. I loved Ampharos, but I felt like the game overplayed his clumsiness, so I'm glad to see it still there, but toned down a bit. It's nice to see school lessons used as an opportunity for worldbuilding rather than just reading off nursery rhymes. The scenes with Mawile and Archen do a good job of establishing the threat of Dark Matter earlier on, which really improves on the story's pacing. I like what I've seen so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing where this all goes.

Wow. Your version of Void Shadows are terrifying. And also Riolu is hilariously insensitive.

“The species of the pokemon directly involved in the Time Crisis were Meowth, Riolu, Litleo...”

hmm yes, I see

So, I've been reading this story over the past couple of weeks, and naturally I've got a couple things to say about this first part. I guess I'll get the nitpicks out of the way first.

First, I couldn't help but be a little bothered by the systems of time measurement this world uses.

...

Okay, I know, please hear me out.

From what I can gather, humanity hasn't been a factor in ten thousand years, so it seems a bit odd to me that the Pokemon of this world are still using things like hours and the BC/AD divide. I'd assume that they'd pick out another year zero or an alternate division for their days at some point, seeing as the reasons for these systems were pretty grounded in human beliefs. You know, unless this world's Pokemon kept the good word of Jesus going around even in the face of ten thousand years of Legendary fuckery, but that's another question entirely.

Moving on, Espurr's character seems just a bit flat to me when I look at her. Granted, a general disregard towards measly emotion is common for Psychic-type characters in Pokemon stories, though I think applying that to the main character is a risky move. Whether it'll pay off, I'll just have to keep reading and see.

Having the human be unable to read their new world's language is pretty common in stories like this, I've noticed. I'm guilty of this trope too, but that's beside the point. I couldn't help but see Espurr's nightmare teaching her the entire language overnight as a little bit of a cop-out. I get wanting to get that resolved, though doing it immediately through a spoopy dream kinda rubbed me the wrong way. Then again, it did help intrigue me as to what's going on here.

On that note, I'll move on to what positively stood out to me.

I'm quite enjoying the deviations from the original's story so far. Having the lead run into someone other than Nuzleaf in the beginning, for example, is an intriguing setup that I'm interested in seeing unfold. It helps give the story an air of unpredictability, a feature that helped my investment in Warped Skies past. Again, I'm excited to see where this goes.

The changes to most of the characters I've seen so far help the story. I mean, Pancham and Shelmet are still... you know, Pancham and Shelmet, but Deerling and Tricky in particular seem better executed than in the game. Deerling always seemed to come across as the straightmon in the game, I'm glad to see that was expanded upon here.

Now, then, Tricky. I'm quite happy to see she's been made a more believable character without coming across as too annoying like the game's partner. Even though what happened with Budew seemed to really come out of left field, I still appreciate that Tricky has that for background and motivation. (huh, this seems familiar for some reason)

One of a good few problems I had with the original game was the numerous instances where the boss battles just seemed to exist for padding and more often than not ended with “haha it was just a misunderstanding,” so I'm glad that was addressed here. Seeing the Gabite and Beedrill fights being played so differently, both in context and execution, was a pleasant surprise when I read them. I'm excited to see what else'll come up from this concept.

So far, I've gotten a good impression from this story, and I'm excited to read more. See you at the end of Part 2, I guess!