History VideoGame / PokemonDesolation

* DreamCrushingHandicap: This is the central point of one of the sidequests chains you can undertake. A little girl wishes to honor her family's tradition to travel through the island, taking pictures of several landmarks they visit, but she's stuck in a wheelchair and has trouble traveling by herself. You can help her out with this and even find her a Pokémon able to help her travel on her own.

* FightClubbing: Both Blackview and Cellia have one, both hidden under a seemingly legit bar. Garret even refers to the Cellia fight club as a secret better kept than the existence of the Undercity. People can take bets on who win, and the winner takes a cut of those bets, along with some Credits. The player can eventually access both and battle indefinitely here, allowing them to make some easy money and some Credits.

* DeconReconSwitch: The reveal that [[spoiler:the entire game was a dream constructed by the player character]] initially deconstructs a lot of aspects of mainline games, directly calling attention to the formulaic nature of the "an evil team wants to exploit the power of a Legendary Pokémon and the KidHero has to stop them" plot and the tropes inherent to the game's structure, such as PlotArmor. The game then goes on to turn around and call bullshit on that by revealing [[spoiler:the game was RealAfterAll]] and pointing out the story was never this straightforward, while maintaining several divergences with the usual formula: one of the evil teams actually gets defeated by story's midpoint (the end of the current build), and the Legendary Pokémon central to the plot is [[spoiler:the real antagonist]] rather than a plot device.

You and your two friends, Ava and Scarlett, are on a trip to Cellia City, the capital of the Ayrith Region, which is split into several islands. With a freshly made trainer license, you are preparing to challenge the local Pokémon League and hopefully have an unforgettable and fun time with your friends. Unfortunately, a gang war between two mysterious groups erupts and you are separated from your friends and thrown onto the wrong island with an unfriendly passenger named Connor, who does not hide his contempt for you at all but is willing to work with you. Accompanied by one of the abandoned Pokemon from the ship you were on and on the run from the unfriendly natives who worship a man named Kuiki, you and Connor seek to find your friends and survive. Unfortunately, things get even more complicated as you are entangled with the machinations of both a man calling himself Shiv, who seems to know you somehow, and the idealistic utopian dreams of a woman called Nova. Both hold strange powers that defy reality, and both vie for your support. How will you make your way through this region of mystery and deception? Things may not be all they seem...

* ActionSurvivor: YOU! The game begins with you being stranded on one of the Ayrith islands after the ship you were on is bombed, with no Pokemon save for what you find in the wreckage. You then proceed to fight several native trainers out to capture you and win.

** You can buy a Salandit from the Cellia North Pokemon Center. All the Salandit they sell are female, so you don't have to reset buying one to get a Salandit that can evolve.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Much like its inspirations, ''VideoGame/PokemonReborn'' and ''VideoGame/PokemonRejuvenation'', Desolation has a darker and more ambitious story than the mainline Pokemon games. To wit, the game opens on a terrorist attack that almost kills the player character.

* DrivingQuestion: As of Episode 6, it's [[spoiler:'What ''is'' Perfection, really?' At first you're given to believe that it's like a permanent form of Mega Evolution, one that people are working to recreate artificially. But as the game continues, you find out more and more information that makes everything more complex: Waldenhall and Reeve believe it's actually ascending to a higher plane of existence, and Pokemon-trainer pairs supposedly achieved it in the past. But then there's the strange god-like being encountered by Waldenhall and the player in the ruins at Fairbale Town, who seems to want to keep Perfection for itself. You also find out that Lilith didn't attain Perfection despite her Umbreon attaining it naturally, and her Umbreon is always sick and moody, which a Pokemon who attained Perfection naturally shouldn't be...]]

* EarlyGameHell: The opening section is easily one of the hardest parts of the game, due to the limited resources you have at your disposal, and some brutal boss fights such as the first encounter with Shiv and the gym battle against Connor. As the game goes on and you gain access to more Pokemon and items, things become more manageable.