As the Pokémon Company’s massive year of 25th anniversary celebrations draws to a close, the Pokémon Evolutions miniseries — looking back and reimagining key moments from the game franchise’s history — has been upping its stakes and shifting its focus toward momentous events involving legendary monsters.
While Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl have brought Dialga and Palkia back into the spotlight, Pokémon Evolutions’ sixth episode, “The Wish,” retells a key part of the plot from Omega Ruby and Omega Sapphire, the Nintendo 3DS games that first introduced the trainer Zinnia. “The Wish” follows as Zinnia attempts to fulfil her role as the Lorekeeper and last of the Draconids, one of the earliest groups of humans to settle the Hoenn region, where Omega Ruby and Omega Sapphire take place.
“The Wish” details Zinnia’s quest to summon the legendary Pokémon Rayquaza, by getting her hands on a number of Mega Stones typically used by Pokémon trainers to induce temporary Mega Evolution in their monsters during battle. But rather than adapting the games’ story directly and spotlighting the trainers Zinnia stole the stones from, “The Wish” instead digs deeper into the Draconid lore about Rayquaza, and explains why Zinnia and her people have always seen it as a kind of magical protector.
Zinnia traversing the world and battling people to collect a punch of glowing MacGuffins in order to summon a dragon in hopes that it’ll grant her a wish feels like a premise pulled right out of the Dragon Ball franchise, but unlike any given adventure featuring Goku, “The Wish” keeps its story quite compact. Bittersweet an ending as “The Wish” has, it’s true to how Omega Ruby and Omega Sapphire play out, with the main player being encouraged to capture the legendary Pokémon for themselves. In the case of Pokémon Evolutions’ final two episodes, though, that might not be the case, particularly if they’re meant to send the series out with a bang.
Pokémon Evolutions is now streaming on YouTube.
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