This is the one that reaches into a childhood memory and squeezes. Twenty minutes in you realize the special skipped the cozy rescue-team stuff and went straight for the part that wrecked you on the DS: Grovyle, the Time Gears, the Lost Continent, and a partner who has no idea what his best friend actually is. Piplup and Chimchar are drawn small and soft on purpose, which makes Dusknoir looming over them land like a punch, and it makes Primal Dialga's roar feel like the sky itself turning on you. The whole thing runs on a cruel piece of logic every player already knows the answer to, that saving the future means the boy who came from it stops existing, and the special does not soften it. One episode, no filler, no side quests, just the goodbye. Fans still cannot say the word "partner" without their voice doing something weird.

A boy who was once human finds himself turned into a Piplup in a world where Pokémon live and talk with one another, and there he meets a Chimchar. The pair form Team Pokédans, one of the exploration teams that probe the Mystery Dungeons born from strange anomalies in time. The Time Gears keep time flowing across the land, and Grovyle, a notorious thief, has been taking them. As the true cause of the trouble comes to light, the duo joins Grovyle on a journey to the far-off land where Temporal Tower stands. If they fail, the whole world will freeze in time for good. The special is a fantasy adventure built on that journey.