Legends Arceus was one of the first Pokemon games that made me interested in completing the Pokedex again in a long time. I liked the challenge of not just catching a Pokemon, but also completing tasks involved with it.
It took a bit of time, but I enjoyed every second of the process to complete my Pokedex. As I worked, though, it caught my attention that one Pokemon somehow managed to evade me completely. That Pokemon, I discovered, was Froslass. A surprising fact, considering I had both Snorunt and Glalie.
Registering Froslass to my Pokedex should have been easy, at least. Snorunt and Glalie were at the iceland area, it made sense for Froslass to be there, too.
For a while, I couldn’t find her. I flew around the area, searching through the Pokemon that spawned, but there was no sight of Froslass. I was ready to give up, until I remembered that the icelands had caves that Pokemon could also spawn in, completely invisible to my aerial scan. I landed, and began my search again.
I searched through the cave systems, until a peculiar visual caught my attention. Or, rather, I was startled by the sight as if I’d stumbled across a horror game jumpscare.
Standing before me was an Alpha Zoroark, poised to attack. It was mid-lunge, face furious… but not moving. After getting over the initial shock, I realized that the reason was because it was encased in ice.
I got closer, looking over the Pokemon. The Zoroark was fixed to the wall, as if purposefully frozen and placed there. Or at the very least, whatever it had been fighting had cornered it into the icy wall to freeze solid.
Up close, I noticed another Pokemon frozen as well. Behind the Zoroark, frozen into an eternal pose of fear, cowered a small Zorua. Somehow, I had the feeling that they’d been attacked together.
It was… a strangely morbid display for an environmental decoration in a Pokemon game. Sure, there was nothing graphic, but it felt slightly uncomfortable that the two Pokemon were clearly trapped there, permanently.
I walked past them, trying to ignore the feelings that were building from staring too long. The path led me to an icy room, that felt… different, in a way I still can’t explain. As if the room itself was unnatural. I tried to ignore the odd feeling, reminding myself it was a Pokemon game, not some kind of Silent Hill experience. By Giratina logic, maybe such a unique room meant a new or legendary Pokemon to go with it. I didn’t think there was one I wasn’t aware of, but I was happy if I got to be surprised.
In the icy room, I found more frozen Pokemon. They were arranged almost like decorative statues, against different walls and around the large pillars in the center of the room. As I looked around I spotted a moving Pokemon gracefully floating between the pillars, with its back to my character to luckily prevent it from seeing me.
Quickly, I ducked out of sight. It wasn’t a legendary Pokemon that created the strange, frozen gravesite. It was an Alpha Froslass. The Pokemon was huge, easily towering over a large amount of its victims.
The Froslass turned, and I backed further behind the pillar between us so that I could continue observing it.
She drifted around the room, sometimes pausing in front of frozen Pokemon. It almost looked like she was admiring her work. Whenever she stopped, I slowly crawled my way around the pillar. After all, this was a Froslass. This was the Pokemon I’d been looking for. If I caught her, I’d be able to continue my Pokedex.
I saw several different frozen Pokemon as I maneuvered around. Sneasel, Kirlia, Glalie, Aipom. Even Pokemon like Glaceon and Bergmite weren’t immune to becoming decorations for Froslass. There were even more alphas, like Lucario and Garchomp.
There was one prize that made me pause, though. Not just because it was so different from all the others, but because a paper note rested against the ice. The game let me interact with the note, so I got closer and read it.
As I finished reading, the game suddenly reacted as if I’d taken a massive amount of damage. With the sound noting that I was close to severe injury, the text was wiped off my screen. I turned my camera to find Froslass behind me, enraged. I hadn’t been paying attention to where she was looking while I was reading.
A blast of ice from her froze my trainer, and the screen went black.
Visuals faded back in, and showed my trainer frozen solid, positioned next to the human man who had the note delicately placed with his frozen body. I could move my camera around, and watched Froslass as it returned to wandering and appreciating its trophies.
However, none of my other controls worked. I couldn’t move to try to shake off the ice, or summon a ride Pokemon to help me. The game wouldn’t even let me open the menu.
Realizing I was softlocked, I accepted that there was nothing left to do but reset the game.
Except, after loading back in, I started right back in the same spot. My trainer was still frozen. Froslass was still watching. It was like she was taunting my character for being unable to escape despite my efforts.
Like my character, my game was just frozen. I could do literally nothing beyond turning my camera around to watch Froslass and the other victims in her den. I hopelessly mashed buttons for a little longer before coming to terms with the fact that my trainer’s eternal prison was mine as well if I wanted to keep playing the game.
I considered playing a new save, just to try something. I tested accessing Legends Arceus from another user and starting a new game. That didn’t work, either. I was still greeted by the frozen graveyard.
No matter what, that was the permanent state of my game. That was the permanent state of my character. I’d died to a Froslass – genuinely died – and playing Legends Arceus may as well have just been loading up a digital gravestone for my trainer.
What I don’t get is why the programmers would design something like this… or why no one else has seen this softlock, or these frozen Pokemon.