[ti]closed[/ti][C/Altair][TUTORIAL] Here, Kitty!

"Sadly, there isn't yet," Josh added. "Wouldn't surprise me if it's at the end of the current main quest line that's going on. Dragon is one of my favorite four types, too. The other three being electric, fire, and flying. They're the four types with the highest median travel speed." Because of course that's what the Pokémon racer wanted.

Altair's point made sense, given how much of the map was covered by ocean. If it was anything like other video game world maps, all the land masses would conveniently fit in a rectangle, with no wrapping around the edges. Final Fantasy II was the only game with such a landmass that came to mind, and was that game ever poorly received. A failed experiment, that much was for certain.

"I want to fly, too," Josh nodded as their Pokémon continued to rout out normal-type Pokémon. "I've heard there's a serious height limit, though. I would just love one zone where free flight is possible. Could you imagine, say, flying on a Dragonair? With how nimble they are in the air, it'd be like a living roller coaster."

Josh, too, reined his mount to a stop as Altair paused, his friend clearly upset with the revelation that flight was limited. "I haven't been able to try myself," he admitted. "Don't have a flying Pokémon I can saddle yet. I couldn't tell you firsthand." He had his Naganadel, Izoni, but the young trainer was nowhere close to being able to saddle the Ultra Beast. That would be one long grind. Rewarding in the end, but a very long grind.

"My guess is maybe...a few dozen feet in the air? There's got to be a free flying zone somewhere. They probably just don't want to have to deal with performance issues that come with great draw distances." Even with modern hardware, processing limitations were a thing. He expected to experience it when he saddled the very fastest Pokémon UNOVR had to offer.

"I am growing tired of hearing Lillipup. Think they chased all the Purrloin away?" Josh half-joked as he waved for Altair to keep moving.

"It's one thing that's going to be a bit annoying with raising the Pokémon I want," Josh mused as he watched Altair 's Pokémon chase the Lillipup away. "Canine and feline Pokémon are both fast. Real-world wolves can hit 40 miles an hour. I can't imagine how fast a wolf Pokémon could go." A Mightyena could be fun to travel on in the early game, but the power would taper off so quickly.

"That or the devs start adding free-flying zones," he added. Limiting flying made sense to ensure they wouldn't have unfair advantages in combat, such as being out of attacking range. Even so, a place where he could ride a diving Pokémon, only to swoop up at the last moment, sure would be nice. "A place where we could race Pokémon and take full advantage of the third dimension. Of course, I'm nowhere near the level you'd need to be to ride a flying Pokémon. A Yanmega is the first one I'll have access to, but not until... I think level eleven. And even then, it doesn't seem like a great first one to learn with."

Altair's reaction came to no surprise; those uneducated about how truly massive the species would find out of their scale when they saw the bug-type for the first time in person. "They're... big. Really big. When I get Xira evolved, you'll see. That's a ways off, though. Four whole levels. And every level seems to take more time than the last one, despite moving to zones that have Pokémon that are the same level I am." The bigger concern wasn't the size, but the noise. Wings strong enough to lift an insect of that size on top of a rider on its back had to be extremely loud. It would be yet another solution he would need to handle when he got that far.

Josh rolled his eyes at the sight of yet another Pidove. The little bird was cute, but not the Pokémon he was looking for. "No kidding. 25% encounter rate, my ass," he swore in frustration.