#// 7/10

[wiptw]

Pokémon Stadium Series

Nintendo 64 - Nintendo - 2000 to 2001

You as a Pokémon fan are absolutely fucking spoiled these days. Aside from the mainline games you have spinoffs and fangames offering different experiences, you have entire websites dedicated to documenting everything down to the internal maths of the series, there's no end to the free content you can access with an internet connection between emulators and battle sites like 'Showdown!', and it's now socially acceptable in most circles to be older than 13 and have something with Pikachu's face plastered on it (especially if you're female presenting, especially if your friend group is also infected with the Pokémon hype). Back in my day™ you had almost none of this. You had the anime on Saturday mornings, you had the early run Pokémon licensed merch which WOULD get you called a baby if you continued buying past 10-12, and you had the games. Those sweet, sweet games that indoctrinated a generation of young people into being gamers and awoke a horde of JRPG addicts.

Literally Me

So remember this when I tell you that Pokémon Stadium, both one and two, aren't great games because they do something back then that you can't get today; they're great for what they did back then. So Pokemon Stadium 1&2 were a duology of games from 2000 and 2001 respectively that allowed players to battle Pokemon in 3D, with the addition of some side content such as minigames included to prevent the game from being 100% Pokemon battles. Because otherwise, the game is in fact navigating a series of menus and completing Pokémon battles with 3D models.

Whether it's taking on the gym gauntlets, the marathon of battles in the Pokémon cups, or just free battles with friends and loved ones, 98% of the experience is either selecting Pokémon from a roster of pre-built 'rentals' or transferring them from a saved game using the Transfer Pak, then fighting them in a series of 3D environments. An experience which you can definitely do today using web apps but as I said earlier, we didn't have that.

The peak of Pokémon battles in 2000

So if you're buying Pokémon Stadium (either version really) you're already probably a Pokémon fan right? So that means you have Red/Blue/Yellow/Gold/Silver/Crystal, so why not just play that game and get the full experience? The fun of exploring, talking to NPCs, discovering new and exotic locations? Simple, because in those games battles looked like this

While in Stadium, battles looked like this

If you grew up watching the anime while playing the Gameboy games, there was this special kind of dissonance where you might find yourself saying "Yeah, (for the time) these graphics are RADICAL but I wish I had something closer to these cool Pokémon Battles they had in the anime." As you hide under the covers with your Gameboy Color worm light, nestled in your Ash Ketchum pajamas while you attempt for the 100th time to capture a ditto. Pokémon Stadium was the answer to this dissonance, providing you with vibrant 3D graphics unlike anything you'd ever seen before; bringing Pokémon to life in a way that would be unmatched until Colosseum came out during the Gamecube era.

So, to actual mechanics, you play both games pretty similarly; by building a team of Pokémon (either on your handheld or by using the rental mons the game provides) and take part in a series of battles to become the ultimate battle master. To use your own Pokémon, you'd need to use the aforementioned 'Transfer Pak' to plug in a copy of Red/Blue/Yellow (for 1) or Gold/Silver/Crystal (for 2) with a game saved to the cartridge; otherwise the rental Pokémon covered all released Pokémon (except for some hidden ones) allowing you to build your dream team, sans a few caveats here and there.

Evolved Pokémon have better stats but worse moves, while weaker Pokémon tend to have better moves to compensate

In terms of WHERE you can battle, there's two choices: Either in the Gym Leader Castle, or the Tournaments held in the center of the map on either game. Either way, the game will then have you battle through a series of 3v3 matches versus a set number of trainers who will also select 3 random mons from their full team of six.

A bit bare bones, but there's some spice to how things are run. For one, the rental system was a huge thing for us younger players back in the day. Even if you had the games some Pokémon were hard to catch, had evolution requirements some players couldn't complete (like the trade-mons), or were locked to a version you didn't have. The rental mons give you a list of every Pokémon (some exceptions, but not many) and then lets you build your dream team. Sure, you can't set their moves, EVs, IVs, and it's the era before abilities and natures but I CAN HAVE A MEOWTH/PERSIAN ON MY TEAM. Do you know what I had to do as a child to have this Pokémon outside of Stadium? I had to find someone in the American South who also enjoyed Pokémon, hoped they had Blue instead of Red, hoped they had a link cable, then get them to agree to a trade despite both of us being children (and therefore, objectively terrible) which likely meant giving away a rare Pokémon in exchange for what amounted to common garbage in their game because it was Version fucking Exclusivity™ and everyone seemed to know that meant you'd do anything to get that one fucking Pokémon you wanted.

In the handheld games, if you wanted to build your dream team then likely you'd have to put in some more effort than other games of the time would've required of you. With Stadium, your dreams come true, and if you already have that dream team you can just import them to fight in glorious 3D. Circumventing the fact that rental Pokémon are kinda terrible overall.

Don't feel like building? The challenge cup mode that gives you randomized team comps that has it's own charm (for masochists)

Not to say all of them were bad but construct a normal distribution of 'Good' to 'Bad' picks then that graph is gonna skew left so hard you'd be forgiven for thinking it was just a straight line. To keep every choice 'viable' Pokémon rentals were balanced around stats and moves. More powerful evolved Pokémon and Pokémon with high Base Stat Totals (BST) were given weaker moves and first form and low BST Pokémon were given generally better moves. Charizard might have better stats than Charmeleon and Charmander but his only fire type move is going to be something like Fire Spin. Conversely, Charmander might have Fire Blast but his stats are gonna make him an easy target for the computer's pokemon, which are not bound to the same builds as the rental mons you're using.

Once your team is assembled, then you're off to battle trainer after trainer after trainer with beautifully scored (for the Nintendo 64) soundtracks giving you an unearned sense of importance every step of the way. Battles themselves are conducted with a weird, but functional control layout where A and B access sub menus you then check with the R button before finalizing with the c-buttons, which on original hardware or a USB N64 controller is fine but on emulation with a more modern controller like Logitech, can be a little nerve wracking as you worry about whether your 'up' input on the control stick was up enough for the game or if you accidentally drifted right or left using an unintended move.

fun fact: the name of imported Pokémon affects their coloration in Stadium

Battles are also largely regulated by (at the time) tournament standard rules. Little and Pokecup have level restrictions, and all three non-random cups include clauses for sleep, held items, and repeat Pokémon. Additionally, in any cup if you win the round with all 3 Pokémon still in tact, you're granted a continue; meaning you can retry the battle if you lose. Additionally, there is no 'draw' outcome in these games. Use a move like Explosion or Selfdestruct and the game will register it as your loss on your final Pokémon, regardless of whether you took down the opposing fighter with you or not.

You'll be doing a LOT of back-to-back fights here against trainers with varied team comps, but even with over 246 Pokémon in the available potential lineup you'll get tired fast of fighting. This is, however, slightly mitigated by the 3v3 nature of the matches but even so be ready to here the same Pokémon noises, watch the same effects play out, and wait for the same health bars to tick down over and over as you claw your way to the spot of Pokémon Master.

The art style of non-battle scenes like the main map and minigame plaza have that nice, 90's charm to them as well.

If you do get tired of battling it out, then Stadium 1 and 2 both offer minigames for players to partake in. Either in a tournament format or by using the free-play browser, players are able to take part in a multitude of different Mario Party-esque (without the hand burning) minigames featuring the Pokémon as stars. Minigames consist of stick twirling, button mashing, and point collecting all while controlling fan favorite Pokémon such as Togepi, Eevee, Scyther, and Pichu with no real rhyme or reason behind why these game exist aside from a amusement park theming the minigame zones have for their icons and menus.

You won't get a real explanation as to why you're racing Donphans, cutting logs as Scythers and Pinsirs, or playing Simon Says with a bunch of Clefairy, but you don't really need that either. The games are fun, the models are charming, and watching Clefairy get smacked in the head for each wrong input brings me a level of joy I should probably talk about with my therapist. You won't likely spend hours in this mode, but it's a nice breather from the onslaught of battles otherwise.

fun fact: I still won't talk to some people because of the outcomes to Rampage Rollout over two decades ago. You know who you are.

Additionally there's a quiz minigame separate from the main selection of minigames with easy/normal/hard difficulty selections. Players compete to see who can be the first to get a number of questions correct before anyone else based on facts about the Pokémon (typing, size, silhouette, etc) or facts about the game (where you can find things in the game, names of routes and towns, names of figures in the game).

It's not the most challenging on easy or normal, but playing on hard the game will try to screw you with trick questions so playing with others becomes a balance of "do I let the question play out, or attempt to steal it before someone else can answer correctly?"

Sometimes even playing the game won't prepare you for how out of pocket the questions can get

The real advantage of 2 over 1 is that, in addition to minigames, the game has the trainer academy; a kind of in-depth battle tutorial to teach players not only the basics of Pokémon fighting, but also some secrets as well

You can learn about held items, a feature new to the second generation, as well as participate in mock battles to demonstrate the materials you've been reading and quizzed on. Some of this information for the time too was obscure or hidden knowledge, like the fact that using Defense Curl before using Rollout would boost the damage significantly or that using Stomp on an opponent who used minimize would double the damage.

Some type matchups just make sense, like Ground v Electric.

Overall though what really makes this game is the presentation. The soundtrack does a great job selling the feeling Nintendo wants you to experience, climbing the ladder in a tournament or the Gym Leaders Castle makes you feel powerful, and the little details on top of it all just tie it together in a nice package.

The fights, for example, are also narrated by "The Announcer". A bombastic voice shouting over every detail of a fight. When you score a crit, when you apply a status effect, even using certain moves will get the announcer loudly narrating each detail like a Pokémon prize fight. Seeing the ground rip apart when you use Earthquake is only half the charm, the other half comes from that man yelling in your ears "A DEVESTATING EARTHQUAKE ATTACK!". Clearing gyms or clearing opponents in one of the cups grants you gym badges, a dream for any child growing up on the handheld classics or watching the anime who wished they too could earn shiny bits of metal that gave them an inflated sense of importance.

I would literally kill everyone I came across if it'd get me a real life Zephyr Badge.

Stadium 1 and 2 aren't evergreen classics. They're stuck in Gens 1 and 2 respectively, the roster of Pokémon while impressive is largely useless and makes collecting trophies way harder than it has to be, and the games were made before things like abilities and double battles were introduced, leading to the Pokémon battling game missing out on the generation of Pokémon that made battling more fun (Revolution doesn't count, Revolution is dead to me and disappoints me more than I disappoint myself.)

But for the time especially, it gave fans an opportunity to experience a form of Pokémon more advanced than what the handhelds could output. It was a window into a world of potential that wouldn't be truly fulfilled until arguably the 3DS era of Pokémon released, and gave fans a fun little romp handcrafted for them at every twist and turn. Whether you were a gamer or you enjoyed the anime, there was something here for you.

Overall: 7/10 Sound: 8/10 (for the time) Graphics: 9/10 (for the time) Memorable Moments: Stadium 1: Hearing about Mewtwo, thinking he was an urban legend, then finding out he wasn't Stadium 2: Finally beating the elite 4 using only rental mons.

[hilacopter]

So far I've only reblogged posts about October 7th/leftist antisemitism today, but strong reminder to not shame anyone on jumblr or israblr that's still reblogging or making lighthearted, unrelated posts. We all have our own ways of coping, and no one should go out of their way to make themselves miserable for the sake of mourning and being respectful.

[abislwise]

jews: the friends we lost are dead.

I've been thinking about how to say this for a while. None of us want to hear it, but it's true. The friends we've lost since October 7th? The ones who suddenly went mask-off, or started spouting horrible shit without a second thought?

They're dead.

They're dead, and like a parasite emerging from the host, they were killed by the people who were revealed to be within them the whole time.

You're not mourning the loss of a friend who's antisemitic. You're mourning the death of the version of them that wasn't. Because that version? It's dead, and it's not coming back.

Oh, sure, they might grow a brain and/or a conscience, reform themselves, and come back full of apologies. But that won't be the same person. It'll be a person who looks like that person and has many things in common with that person, but is also a reformed antisemite. The version of them that was never an antisemite? Died.

Does this mean you shouldn't forgive them? There's no way I can make that decision for you. There are people I've lost that I would forgive in a heartbeat. (I miss you, M. It was hard to lose you, Ja.) There are people I will never trust again as long as I live. (You deserve nothing more, Ju.) But you need to admit to yourself that the person that you knew, as you knew them, is gone forever.

If it felt like your friend died when they betrayed you? This is why.

[daisyswift3]

“All this showmanship to keep it for you in sweetness, way to go tiger, higher and higher, wilder and lighter, for you….Your little hand's wrapped around my finger and it's so quiet in the world tonight, your little eyelids flutter 'cause you're dreaming so I tuck you in, turn on your favourite nightlight”

[theoscarsproject]

Henry V (1989). In the midst of the Hundred Years War, the young King Henry V of England embarks on the conquest of France in 1415.

Kenneth Branagh has truly been collecting Shakespeare roles like infinity stones for more than 30 years. 7/10.

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Finished watching “Alien Romulus”. I’ll work on a full length review later but my immediate thoughts are:

1) Fede Alvarez should make a Resident Evil movie, the same way Ari Aster needs to make a Silent Hill movie.

2) It’s the 3rd best Alien movie I’ve seen. Aliens 1986 is still king, followed by Alien 1979.

3) While I respect the effort…it felt like a reskinned, updated version of the first movie. The two complainers, the captain, the synthetic, the person who cries all the time, the Ripley. It’s like how Evil Dead 2013 felt like a reskinned, updated version of the 1st Evil Dead (also another Fede Alvarez effort).

4) I feel like they tried so hard to make Cailee Spaeny’s character the new Ripley, but forgot the part that Ellen Ripley was a 3-dimensional character who could be both fun and serious. Cailee did fine, but her character’s writing felt pretty flat and dull. She was the least interesting character in the cast, especially since everyone else got more distinct personalities.

5) Andy was the true protagonist. He actually had an arc and he had the most interesting character development. And honestly, I think Fede Alvarez recognized that Andy would be more liked than Rain. He gave Andy the big hero moment, as well as Ellen Ripley’s, “Get away from her you bitch!” line. Andy, the MVP of the movie.

Overall…solid 7/10. It’s nice to actually enjoy an Alien movie, especially considering the state of the franchise.

[shlufim]

בר תומר ז''ל, בת 25, נרצחה על ידי מחבלי חמאס בטבח במסיבת הטבע נובה ליד רעים ב7 לאוקטובר 2023. יהי זכרה ברוך. ת.נ.צ.ב.ה.

Bar Tomer z"l, 25 years old, was murdered by hamas terrorists in the Re'im music festival massacre in the south of Israel, on October 7th, 2023. Bar was a beloved daughter, sister, granddaughter, friend. May she rest in peace.

[luneemeritus]

Just watched the new short!!

1- cute creepy goats, fantastic, loved it, that little black one that started a cult reminds me of Black Philip from 'The Witch'

2- seeing DHORKS again was pretty funny, I wonder if they'll have more importance in the future

3- OMG BLITZ YOU CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT THAT CLOACA 😭

4- Blitzo acting like a lizard is everything to me

[stupidjewishwhiteboy]

As we are one day out from the one year anniversary of the 10/7 attack, may I *gently* suggest to the antizionists who might feel tempted to protest that you can either be for a ceasefire OR for the violent destruction of Israel and be able to claim to having moral coherency.

If you claim to support the former but you’re protesting next to people protesting for the latter all you’re demonstrating is that you don’t support the cause you claim to. This is why the Zionists et al don't believe you, btw.

If you're a supporter of the latter because you honestly think it will lead to peace and harmony between Jews and Arabs in a new Palestinian state, well, at least you're honest but 1) you're painfully naive if you think that Palestinian nationalism will be able to incorporate Jews into its fundamentally Arab chauvinist framework and 2) you realize that your viewpoint is fundamentally equivalent to the Israeli "deescalation through escalation" strategy (that the destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah and possibly the IRGC itself will lead to peace in Gaza and Lebanon and Iran in the long time)--granted neither you nor the people you support will ever be able to achieve your goals while the other side is currently attempting to achieve their goals, but that doesn't stop your goals from being at least morally dubious.

If you're a supporter of the latter because you think Israelis/Jews are ontologically evil and must be purged, well, you're just a racist and you really are a Nazi in leftist clothing

[the-storm-of-bela]

#Happy Birthday to me 💋

#Feliz aniversário para mim 🎂

[niexs-sxein]

Happy kist day!! >:]

Killer belongs to Rahafwabas

Dust belongs to Ask-Dusttale (I think)

[Edited]

[gimmick-blog-reviewer]

Review requested by @hydra-collector did not specify if vae owned the gimmick blog or not.

Gimmick blog: @theresatmgsongforthat

Gimmick: Providing a song by the band The Mountain Goats that is related to posts, situations, emotions, and/or characters (maybe even blog reviews?).

Gimmick rating: 6/10, interesting and requires genuine effort and familiarity with the subject matter to do. It's a rarer kind of gimmick, I don't think I've seen anything like this before but I wouldn't be surprised if it existed. However, it's niche, it's really niche. The bit wore through for me pretty fast and I found the account just kind of boring. Indie rock isn't for everyone, and I imagine this account does more for the people it reblogs than the people for follow it. People who enjoy the mountain goats are going to know all these songs already, people who don't enjoy them aren't going to be interested.

Blog rating: 8/10, very dedicated to the gimmick. Only occasionally does things other than provide TMG songs, and those other things are typically related to TMG.

Overall rating: 7/10, a respectable gimmick blog. Held back by its niche but nonetheless thriving in it.

Sidenote: When blogs are requested to be reviewed, they will be reviewed slightly harsher. I'm just not going to pull punches when someone asks me to hit them.

[antisemitism-eu]

The man, only identified by his first Hebrew initial Dalet, tells Channel 12 news about how he was fleeing the onslaught on his own when forces from Hamas’s elite Nukhba unit caught up.

“They pin you to the ground, you try to resist, they take of your clothes, laugh at you, humiliate you, spit at you,” he says, his face blurred and his voice distorted to avoid recognition. “They touched [private] parts, they rape you.”

“There is a circle, [people] laugh, and you don’t know what to do in the moment, whether you should resist or let it pass, how to deal with the situation. There was a very difficult rape. At some point more people arrived and called for them and so they had to stop,” adds Dalet.

“It’s a very tough moment. Weakness in the entire body. As if your blood is cheap. They were wildly intoxicated, celebrating, laughing with their pistols, with their knives. You disassociate yourself from the situation, but on the other hand experience it very strongly. Very difficult,” he says.

The network says Dalet eventually managed to escape, with the help of Israeli forces that showed up.

[kat-the-kitty]

Cheese

Ham!

[cadere-art]

TOEM by Something We Made

Toem is a cute little game about going on an adventures and solving fetch quests by taking pictures. There was clearly a lot of love put into it and it definitely has heart, and does not have any obvious flaws to me, but was also kind of mid. I'd rate it around 7/10. Fun enough, pretty short, but I didn't wish it was longer.

Honestly i just. don't really have anything to say about the game. The stylization works. The music is unmemorable but not bad. The quests are interesting enough and don't feel too repetitive or trite. I felt somewhat annoyed by the fact that, as you play (and especially as you read a walkthrough to find what the hell is it you missed), it becomes obvious that there's an order that if you'd had done things in that order it would've taken a third of the time and one tenth of the backtracking, which, to be fair, did feel typical for the sort of game.

I felt somewhat like I was not really the target audience for the game, and that I'd have liked it more if I'd played it at the same age I first played nintendogs. In this it felt similar to Carto and The Spirit and the Mouse.