#I remember when the gen 5 starters were first released

[pokemonfrommemory]

love his dinner plate sized eyes

[tagfer]

so for a bit of Pokemon culture history that actually could be lost to the times, I'd like to briefly mention Female Shadow Pokemon.

When Gen 3 first started with Ruby and Sapphire in 2003, all 386 Pokemon were programmed into the game. (flexing on Modern games tbh.) But because RuSa only had like, 200 available to catch in it, and gen 2-3 transfers weren't a thing, this means 186 pokemon simply weren't available without cheating. One of those? Ditto. Yeah, the daycare slut wasn't a tool we could use. This made female pokemon incredibly valuable because that's how you could breed them. Want more of your starter? Hope it was female! Fossils? Same!Luck out and find a Feebas spot? Be sure to get a female! etc etc.

Then Pokemon Colosseum came. And while now it's mainly remembered for its story's gritty tone and the slightly higher difficulty for a Pokemon game, at the time it released a good number of the shadow Pokemon weren't available in RuSa! for example, the Johto starters & legendaries, but also Pokemon like Tyranitar, Shuckle, Houndoom, Furret, and Togetic. So just a silly assortment of newly available monsters!

But still no Ditto. So that meant when getting these new Pokemon in the game, you'd want to be resetting their (often one and only) encounter to make sure it's female so you could breed more. And Colosseum is not a quick game, and you have to view the credits before you can trade. So it was a pain in the neck if you needed to go back and get a female.

This of course changed a few months later when FireRed and LeafGreen released, which DID have Ditto in it, as well as the remaining missing dex entries. (Well, they made Lugia an event for some reason, but then Lugia got his own game with Gale of Darkness.)

But yeah. You wanted to catch female Shadow Pokemon in Colosseum. This brief and now antiquated bit of strategy would likely never occur to a person who wasn't there for that very brief period of time. like 5 months tops. and looking at gen 3 holistically and in retrospect, why would it matter? Ho-oh was the only Pokemon that you needed Colosseum for, everything else became available elsewhere, and future gens would make significant enhancements to breeding anyways. But at the time, it did matter.

Ditto was never unavailable in a game after gen 3. Genius Sonority, the company that managed to make a whole 3D Pokemon RPG that released on the GameCube in the one year between RuSa and FRLG, still works with The Pokemon Company. They do Cafe ReMix. You'd think they'd pick GS over ILCA to make BDSP, considering they still work together, but apparently not!

There's no greater point here, I was just reminiscing and realized most people who weren't neck deep in the 2004 Pokemon scene probably wouldn't ever know about the weird situation. And I know y'all like niche situations.

[yellowspiralbound]

Okay so video games have been my main escapism form for...ever. Youth me and teen me play VERY different games so 2 lists.

Youth:

Pokémon Black

This was my very first Pokémon game and I loved it so much. To this day, gen 5 is my favorite gen and Snivy is my favorite starter. The fact that it's next on the list for a remake has me so excited. I'm really hoping that we get a Legends: Arceus style game too where we could see the Pokémon that Kyreum, Reshiram, and Zekrom were before they split.

Both Poképark games

I played and replayed these two games so much. To the point that it's genuinely sort of concerning. Baby's first "open-world" game. I would sell my soul for a new one.

The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Series

I have one from every set ever released. Something about these games scratches my brain in the best possible way. I still play them to this day but I've never 100% one. Writing about them is making me want to replay so bad too. Would sell my soul for a new one of these too.

The Pokémon Ranger Series

Baby's first rage quit was with this series. I still remember how fucking frustrated I was. But I have completed all three of them and I liked the third one where you could ride the Suicune, Raikou, and Entei the best. When I was in fourth grade, I had to be in this Christmas concert/play thing. I was a video game (the story was how material things aren't the point of Christmas or something). I literally dressed up as this game. Guess what? Would sell my soul for a new one of these as well.

Petz Dogz 2

Holy shit they're not all Pokémon?! Nope, this shitshow is on here too. This game is so fucking bad. Like comically bad. And I ate it up as a kid. I would NOT sell my soul for a new one of these 😑

Teen:

Witcher III

This should surprise exactly no one who follows me lmao. I adore this game. It's so wonderful and fun. I think I could play it forever. Currently playing the OG Witcher game which is...bad but in an endearing way lol.

Pokémon Conquest

Listen to me. This is the best Pokémon game ever released. It's so fucking fun. It's like Fire Emblem style turns but with POKÉMON. Literally cannot get better.

Fire Emblem Three Houses

My all time comfort game. If I am sick or struggling mentally you WILL find me playing FE3H. Only the Black Eagles route tho. I've played all of them but the Black Eagles route is the only one that brings me comfort. I love them so much.

Dragon Quest 11

I love this game so much. The characters in it are so interesting and the world is so vast and unique. Fun fact: I have never finished this game. I stop playing before the time travel shenanigans because I find the time travel portion dull and uninspired. And I think the game is more meaningful if Veronica stays dead.

Breath of the Wild

First Zelda game I ever played. Nothing I can say about it that hasn't been said. Just...really good.

[venerabela]

{PSNL} Welcome to the Family.

An image of Vene welcoming Fuecoco among the family of other starters I've had playing other Pokemon games in the past. Pikachu for Yellow. Charizard for Blue. Cyndaquil for Silver. (With a dead save battery, hence why no Typh :< ) Serperior for Black. Decidueye for Moon. And now Fuecoco for Violet. This game started out with me collecting the cards and getting up for Saturday morning cartoons, watching the original Kanto region Pokemon series on WB Kids. My mom bought me one of the original Pokemon handbooks from Sam's Club, which I read cover to cover numerous times. My first Pokemon game was Pokemon Yellow, way too late into the scene. It was when Pokemon Diamond and Pearl were in the middle of their lives. Pikachu became my first starter and I was obsessed with making him happy. The next game I had was Blue, which I chose Charmander as my starter because I loved dragons. I dont remember much of my time with this Charmander, other than I knew it was a female one, and that I had just evolved to Charizard before I stopped playing the game. Later on, when I bought the original Ambassador Bundle Day 1 release of the Nintendo 3DS, I got Pokemon Black, and Snivy spoke to me WAY more than Tepig and Oshawott. Say what you want about Gen 5 being weak. Snivy is, to this day, my FAVORITE starter. I got about half way through this game before adulting took over and I had to focus on my real life. When I moved out of Texas, I asked for an ex's copy of Silver to bring with me, which I tried to play, but the battery for save files was dead, so I got part way through it before the GBA died, so I sadly did not get to evolve Cyndaquil. And then... With the sunsetting of the 3DS, I bought Pokemon Moon and went for Rowlett. Moon ended up being the first Pokemon game I actually defeated the Elite 4 and ran the credits for. And finally, I purchased Pokemon Violet yesterday. I've seen so many clips of the game, from the funny bugs caused by memory leaks to the hilarious takes on older Pokemon, such as Toedscool. I finally just said fuck it and bought Violet. I immediately chose Fuecoco over Sprigattito and Quaxley. The silly happy no-thoughts-only-love face had won me over before I'd even bought the game. I've kind of gotten in touch with why the kid in me loved Pokemon and would obsess over it over this game. So therefore, this image happened. I wanted to express my love for Pokemon, and share all the starters I've had, and that Fuecoco is an absolutely wonderful addition to that family. Vene and art © to myself  Wanna see these images early? Have HD downloads? PSD access? Consider becoming a patron on Patreon! >>> https://www.patreon.com/Venerabela <<< Want a commission? See other sites I'm on? Interact with me and my community? >>> https://venerabela.carrd.co/ <<<

Posted using PostyBirb

[absolutepokemontrash]

The Brothers and Side Characters Play the Sims

I don’t know what possessed me to make this but WHATEVER. I’ve been playing the Sims since I was a wee little girl, and I’ve seen my fair share of weird Sims stuff that I feel would fit these bozos perfectly.

My Sims have a Functional Family Life Because I Don’t (Lucifer)

God dammit Levi’s obsessed with another game... ugh.

Spends 5 minutes in Create-a-Sim and hops into a starter home.

Lucifer’s the type to start with all the average stuff and then build their stuff up as his sim gets promotions.

It’s just... so peaceful...

...he’s adopting a dog.

Look at his new little virtual family... his sim-kids are self sufficient and getting A’s in school, his Sim spouse MC or Diavolo take your pick loves his Sim-self, his sim-dog-

WAIT NO- THE DOG’S AN ELDER?!

AAAAAAAAAAAAA-

...

He’s fine. It was just a virtual dog. *sniffle*

He’s now spending his free time drinking Demonus and playing the Sims.

What’s a mod? Levi why does your sim have gun?

Behold, My Gorgeous Home... It’s a Box (Mammon)

Mammon, like the rest of the HOL, is mooching off of Levi’s Origin account.

“AW SHIT! This house looks awesome! I’m gonna build it for Sim-me to live in!”

Mammon proceeds to build a box with rooms. Yay...

He just picks the funnest sounding job if he picks any job at all for his Sim. That’s how he ended up making 9 dollars an hour in the criminal career.

Didn’t stop Mammon from buying that solid gold bathroom set from Get Famous... a box with solid gold bathrooms.

His Sim is broke send help-

“Leviiiiiii my sim needs money... the people my sim kidnapped and is forcing to paint aren’t making enough money...” ��Ugh... press control shift C and type ‘motherlode’.”

...Levi made a mistake.

“FUCK YEAH! MOTHERLODE!”

His sim’s life is so chaotic, he has a piranha pool that his sim has almost died in twice, the sim is carrying on several torrid love affairs, his sim got struck by lightning, his sim has nearly died in a grilled cheese making accident twice... in the same day.

At least once Sim-Mammon and Sim-MC get married things calm down a little.

Mammon finds out what custom content is and proceeds to download EVERYTHING HE CAN FIND.

And now he’s asking Levi why his computer is running so slow.

Expansion Pack King (Leviathan)

He got into it back when the Sims 2 was new, he’s a veteran fan.

“Bro remember when Agnes Crumplebottom would show up and whack the shit out of your sims if they were flirting?”

“Remember when that witch would show up randomly on the lot you were on if you had Makin’ Magic?”

“Remember when Bella Goth was abducted by aliens and we just... didn’t question it?”

He whines about the Sims4 and how crappy it is but still buys every expansion pack, game pack, and stuff pack.

This boy watches like 40 hours of built tutorials and ends up sobbing over his weird roofs.

“WHY DOESN’T IT LOOK AS NICE AS THE ONE I’M LOOKING AT?! THIS ISN’T FAIR!”

The mod folder is so full istg-

Levi gets custom content for the sole purpose of making his favourite fictional characters.

This is why Henry and the Lord of Shadows are married and Ruri-chan and Sim-Levi are roommates.

Oh my god they were roommates-

Levi also added his brothers to the world and uh... Sim-Mammon died in a tragic pool accident F.

Levi then proceeded to befriend the Grim Reaper.

He’s anxiously awaiting the release of Paralives.

Wait Gameplay? In This Build Simulator? (Satan)

Satan’s here to build and leave. Gameplay who?

Our favourite bundle of rage is a master architect and the amount of followers on the Gallery he has shows it.

He takes up those build shell challenges and always ends up making them look positively perfect.

Asmo’s always using his houses, and Satan often takes requests when he gets bored.

No Mammon, he reserves the right to refuse to build a golden castle for you- YOUR SIM HAS 40 SIMOLEONS-

No mods, no CC, he’s building with what EA gave him.

...and EA gave him debug objects, and he’s not going to explain how to get them.

The one time he did actually play with a family... it was one sim and seven cats.

He tries to play without cheats... and ends up getting frustrated and turns on cheats.

All hail the Pets Expansion Pack.

Custom Content Soap Opera (Asmodeus)

Asmo spends 5 hours in Create a Sim then just... clicks out of the game.

That’s how it goes most of the time, buuuuuut when he gets super invested in a family he’s made, boy howdy is he INVESTED.

Sim A is carrying on an affair with Sim C who’s in love with Sim B who’s married to Sim A but Sim D wants to kill Sim A and C even though they’re the illegitimate child of Sim C-

When Asmo realizes that in the Sims 4 he needs to manufacture all the drama himself and he can’t just sit back with a glass of wine and watch the fireworks, he switches to the Sims 2 and 3.

“...why is this old lady beating up my Sim..?”

He immediately recoils in horror upon seeing how ugly the Sims are pre Sims4.

HE NEEDS TO FIX THIS-

Ah, there we go, perfect. Custom Content to the rescue!

He ends up remaking the entire world just so he doesn’t have to look at weird looking Sims.

Asmo is the only one to have finished a proper Legacy Challenge, but it gets crazy chaotic after gen 3.

“My sim just got abducted by aliens and now he’s pregnant- WHAT?!”

He has about 40 saves and only two he actually plays.

Just a Big Ol’ Happy Family (Beelzebub)

Beel found the game, proceeded to make everyone in create-a-sim to the best of his abilities, and made everyone get along.

That’s why Sim-Lucifer and Sim-Belphie are on a swing set together, they’re friends :D

“Hey Luke do you think you can make this?” “I-is that a cake shaped like a hamburger?” “Yes. Please make.”

He took one look at the cooking options and decided to max out his Sim’s cooking skill to unlock all the options.

Beel proceeded to drool all over his keyboard. Gross...

Boy howdy did he have some crazy dinner suggestions!

Overall, very wholesome Sim-life, except for the time Sim-Levi died because the toilet caught fire, don’t worry, Sim-Beel knows how to make ambrosia.

All is good in the Sim save...

...until Sim-Beel ate pufferfish nigiri and fuckin died-

Wait Did I Not Pause- (Belphie)

Huh, this game looks fine... I’ll play for a little- *SNORE*

Belphie makes some sims, plops them into a starter home, plays for an hour, then falls asleep.

He wakes up five hours later to absolute carnage.

Three sims have died because someone decided to make Mac and Cheese and the oven caught fire, the kids were taken away by social services, and the dog ran away.

“...heheh, holy shit everyone look.”

He doesn’t play often, but when he does, death occurs. He has found out every death method for every game from Sims 2 to 4.

And that INCLUDES the Sims Medieval! You guys remember that game?

Sometimes it’s not intentional, but Belphie got bored with the totally normal life his sims were living and decided to spice it up.

“Why are the ghosts breaking my showers..?”

Help There’s a Bug- (Diavolo)

The Crown Prince started playing when he noticed Lucifer was playing it.

He was immediately obsessed.

Dia mostly plays the Sims Medieval because he likes the feeling of achievement after completing a quest!

“Barbatos... why isn’t my Sim completing their task? The icon won’t show up.” “My lord it appears the game is bugged.” “:(“

No one thought to tell Diavolo that EA doesn’t plan on offering bug support to a game made in like... 2009

This doesn’t matter! Look at how great his kingdom is doing- oh no his hero has the plague-

He plays through the Pirates and Nobles expansion and manages to get the peaceful ending, he’s so proud of himself.

“MC! Look! My Monarch’s sword is permanently on fire and I’m fighting an evil wizard!”

When he does play the other Sims games he’s pretty basic, though, he does a great job at furnishing!

Dia gets crazy sad when his Sims die... he turns off aging.

Builder no. 2 (Barbatos)

Barbie doesn’t have time for this... but when he does, he builds.

No create a sim.

No playing the game as intended.

Just builds.

It’s relaxing, okay? A nice little suburban house he’s never going to play in, maybe a treehouse, maybe a big Hollywood Mansion...

The only time he actually plays the game outside of build mode is when someone needs his help to fix something in-game.

He does download custom content build items if he feels bored by the current selection.

Oh Crap What Am I Doing?! (Simeon)

Help him. Please.

He’s so confused.

“Luke, why is my sim upset?” “He’s hungry, Simeon.” “Oh, how do I fix that?” “...Simeon-”

There’s a toilet in the middle of the living room.

The fridge is facing the wall.

There’s no bathtub or shower.

The house is on fire- there is no god- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

Okay, once he gets the hang of it he’s sitting pretty. His sims have good jobs, the kids are getting good grades, everything’s fine.

...

But Simeon won’t forget the nightmares.

What Even is This Save? (Solomon)

Solomon’s save is the definition of chaos.

One sim’s a vampire, the other is a spellcaster that really wants to fight the Callientes for some reason, there’s one normal sim that’s always sick for some reason,

It gets weird, confusing, and horrible.

Just how Solomon likes it.

His house makes no sense, like, what even is architecture?

Money cheats are needed because Solomon‘a goal of chaos and confusion is proving to be kind of expensive.

Square up Mortimer Goth, Solomon’s sims are here to steal your weird knight statue that’s worth a shit ton of simoleons for NO REASON.

He joined the scientist career for the sole purpose of getting to the alien planet and kidnapping adding an alien to the household via cheats.

The vampire ended up dying on their wedding day because Solomon forgot that he gave them the sun weakness.

Oh well, the ghost got added to the household! VAMPIRE GHOST!

The Child (Luke)

Before you say Luke’s too young to play the Sims, you should know that I was nine when I first started playing, and I turned out fiiiiiiiiiine.

He’s just happy to be playing.

Look, his sims are gardening :D

Look, two of them are getting married :D

Look, they had a baby :D

Look, his sims are building a rocket ship :D

Look, his sims’s rocket just crashed-

The concept of death hit the little angel right in the face that day.

“*sniffle*... my sims...”

Don’t worry, with tears in his eyes, Luke quit without saving and everything was fine!

Speaking of My Sims, Luke played MySims Sky Heroes and that was when Luke had his first bout of gamer rage.

MC came over to hang out with Solomon and Simeon, and in the distance they could just hear:

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY TIME WASN’T FAST ENOUGH TO CONTINUE THE STORY!? I’LL SHOW YOU FAST ENOUGH TIME!”

Okay, maybe Simeon should take the game away... just for a bit... he should take heed not to be bitten by the incredibly angry chihuahua.

Bonus:

MC: Why are our Sims married?

*Insert Boy Here*: Uh... that’s weird... I have no clue why they’re doing that...

[heckyeahponyscans]

As a pokemon fan, pokemon fans complain about everything to a degree. at the time, a lot of people who started with gen 1/2, were aging out of pokemon by gen 3. So it was often the case of 'look how adult I am by not playing something aimed at younger people'. However now a days its still considered a very solid game, and people enjoy it. Gen 5 had so many complaints on release despite the fact that its legitimately one of the best pokemon games that was ever made.

sword/shield are the recent ones everyone seams to 'despise' at first because they decided not to continue on with adding every single pokemon in the pokemon games. And the tree textures were bad. (Understandable complaints as the game could use more polish, but I really thought it was fun.)

Anyway I loved beast wars as a kid. I don't remember much about it, but it was so good! I mostly remember a character not surviving, (Which i'm being vague about for sake of spoilers as I know its still possible to watch the show.) and the Wasp character. Waspinator is still just so good. Think his story was that his speech pattern took a long time so they just kept having him be attacked/injured so he couldn't talk much. Which ended up making him so beloved by fan and creator that they didn't die when they were planned too.

Oh yeah, that character death . . . I know the one you speak of and watching that episode still makes me cry. So good.

On Pokemon, I'm not part of the Pokemon fandom (like part of the community) but I'm a Pokemon fan in the sense that I watch the anime sometimes (loved the Sun / Moon season) and play all the games.

IMO Sun / Moon was the best game, which as I understand it isn't something a lot of Pokemon fans would agree with me on, lol. But it was the only one that really made me love a region instead of going "well, that was pretty cool."

I'm not picky when it comes to playing Pokemon games, it's mostly about building and bonding with my team. And I like doing nuzlockes, so my perception of games is also influenced by, like, how many Pokemon are available on each route.

I disagree on Black / White being great, it was the third weakest game in terms of story IMO. But I will save that for another post because I have A LOT to say on it. (I did enjoy playing it, like I said I'm not picky and also I loved the Water starter, but wow after all the online hype I was expecting something better. For context, I played it for the first time last year.)

Pokemon Sword / Shield is just genuinely bad. The story is incomplete and just so sloppily laid out. But the biggest technical flaw is that Exp Share was permanently on. It was so frustrating trying to keep my team at a level that would make the game challenging. Plus I like switch training. It gives me the illusion that I'm actually "training" my Pokemon. I know that's not everyone's preference, but that's what the toggle was for. #bringbackthetoggle

[despazito]

Complete list of all problems known so far in Pokemon Sword and Shield with data and/or proof for each problem

[I am copying this post from the pokemon subreddit from u/Terotu]

Seeing as there's a lot of people that don't quite know the extent of the issues and that there's no real compilation of the problems, I feel like everyone needs a list with info and sources of each and every current problem with the games, it's a long list but I've tried to put it all together, it's not just dexit people. I will post everything that is 100% confirmed and known so far, there's potentially other problems, but this is made as a somewhat "quick" digest with info that has been 100% proven, for anyone out of the loop that wants to know exactly what's happening with these games.

1. The number of usable Pokemon has been cut, only less than half are now usable, known as Dexit, it means that you won't be able to use these pokemon in the new games, you won't be able to transfer them in, and you won't be able to do anything with them sans sticking them in home for the foreseeable future (Home will probably be a paid only subscription based service just like its predecessor), for all intents and purposes, these Pokemon are basically removed from the main games franchise and they will take probably years to come back, if ever. An image with the cut/not cut pokemon can be found here, pokemon in green are confirmed to be in, pokemon in purple have galar forms, pokemon in yellow are in the data, but there's nothing for them, they could be leftover data like the items and other things, could be giveaway/event only, could only come from other games, etc, there's no way to know what's the plans for them at the moment, if any, pokemon in red are cut. The excuse GF used for this culling was that it let's them work on delivering better animations and a more carefully crafted game, since they don't have to put more time and effort into redoing the models. This is complete BS as the game polish is worse than ever, and the models seem to just be somewhat edited XY models.

2. Just like the Pokemon cut, about 144 moves were removed, 99 moves excluding the let's go and other outlier moves, this includes extremely important and used mainstay moves like Hidden Power, return/frustration and Pursuit, on top of extremely old moves that have been there since gen 1, some of these moves were important for the viability of several Pokemon, which may cause them to be way less effective if not way worse when it comes to battles, on top of this, it also removed some SIGNATURE MOVES of certain Pokemon. The full list for deleted mainstay pokemon moves can be found here Attempts at transferring Pokemon with these moves will apparently get this message: "This move can’t be used. It’s recommended that this move is forgotten. Once forgotten, this move can’t be remembered."

3. Short game, the first streamer beat the champion at around the 14 hour mark, while he did this by skipping a fair amount of trainer battles, other streamers are clocking in about 16-20 hours, seems like the average will be about 18 hours to beat the game. Here's one of the many streamers, he's right before champion and clocking in at 14:34.

4. The graphics are extremely mediocre, it constantly looks worse and less polished than LGPE, the textures are often inexcusable. Examples of the bad graphics seen here 1 2 3 4 5 6 A comparison with LGPE can be seen here and here Here's a game recently released for switch, another picture found here, the difference is unreal.

5. There's constant graphical issues, not just low quality graphics, pop in is present at all points of the game due to bad coding, trainer models will also disappear mid battle when an attack with a high number of particles is used, this also happened in SM, however, SM moved the camera away to avoid people seeing it, they didn't even try this time. This means it's either a carry over from SM and they just copy pasted most of the code, or they somehow have to remove the trainers to avoid a switch from somehow getting fps drops. The pop-ins can be evidenced here and here. Trainers dissapearing mid battle can be evidenced here

6. Animations, one of the main reasons why GF cut pokemon, at least in the interviews, are as shoddy as ever. There's extremely lazy animation all over the game, from normal attacks to key moments in the game, such as the encounter with the box legendaries. Most of the animations are also completely copy pasted from older games, one example seen here with Hau(the entire character of hop is basically a copy paste of hau.) Most of the animations for the camp are also copy pasted from xy amie, evidenced here. Pokemon battle animations are just as bad as before, if not worse, pictured here is a pokemon headbutting with its feet. Another example found here, THE MAIN BOX ART POKEMON CINEMATIC, THIS IS THE GAME CLIMAX, another example on the other version found here In fact, it could be considered way worse if compared to the last gen, example of upscaled USUM cutscenes. (Notice the graphical change isn't that big, the only difference here is increasing the resolution)

7. Cutscenes and restrictions, like previous Pokemon games the cutscene and story forcing and restrictions are insane this time around, seems to be even more intrusive and in your face than before at times, while keeping the same level of cutscene intrusion than past gen. The video for this point was taken down, but if you wish to see this you should be able to find it by searching the gameplay clips/streams online

8. The difficulty, just like the cut scene problem, this carries over from earlier games and it's even worse.There were constant heals, to the point where in the first routes you're not able to go beyond 3 trainer fights without getting a full heal. The first streamer avoided fights and didn't train at all, it still was one shotting gym leader dynamaxed ace pokemon.This can be seen here.

9. Post-Game is almost non-existant, as usual since masuda-Ohmori started directing, there's no frontier, there's also no frontier like facility. The post game consists of battle tower and a very short sequence of missions where you beat some dynamax pokemon for your rival to catch the other legendary. Not only this, but the battle tower is also an inferior version of past towers, it doesn't have super single nor super double battles, it has no triple battles and there's no "tower bosses", it's just random trainer npcs after another.

10. Problems with game design and behavior, beyond difficulty and progression, there's other problems in the overall game design. Examples of this is not being able to catch Pokemon in the wild areas until you got a badge allowing you to do so, which usually covers your current level. Meaning if you find a level 31 shiny or a level 31 pokemon you really want, you won't be able to catch it until you go and beat the next gym. For shiny hunters, this one is gonna be really important, you cannot see if your Pokemon is gonna be shiny or not in the overworld, this means that on top of the badge limit, you also got this potential problem. Evidenced here.

11. Removed past features with virtually no new additions, seems like this is a mainstay in Pokemon, removing older features so they become one of a time gimmicks, but unlike earlier titles this new game doesn't adds anything new except dynamaxing, which is limited to gyms only. This particular gen removes Mega Evolutions and Z moves, mega evolutions in particular were a huge deal and seeing them suddenly removed means that there's little reason to get involved with any new addition, no matter how mainstay or how much GF forces it when it will very soon be gone. A list of these removed features can be found here.

12. No scaling whatsoever, models are the same sizes of XY (giving more plausibility to them not really redoing the models).Any argument against this is thrown out of the window when dynamaxing exists, since the models seem to be edited XY models then the problem remains. Here's the non scaled model in sword and shield. Here's an scaled model, released in a game that came out 15 years ago for a the Nintendo Gamecube, something way less powerful than the switch.

13. No GTS, retera thread on the discovery found here, the only strings that refer to the GTS are leftovers from Let's Go code, as seen here and here. This is most likely due to Home(this means that you will have to pay for switch online+home for services older games already included) Thanks to /u/c_will for pointing this one out and gathering the info.

14. A 20 dollar price increase for less content than earlier 3DS games, with subpar graphics and removal of features, an overall shoddy release for a higher price point.

15. Performance, game is locked to 30 fps, and while that's not a big issue by itself, this is coupled with slowdown at certain moments such as dynamaxing, it can drop fps to the floor and turn the game into a slideshow for a while. Evidenced here. Still gathering more info on this one, as it's a relatively new occurrence that hasn't happened to all users, take this one with a grain of salt

16. The overall lack of quality, polish and effort put into the game, this is all the minor/somewhat minor but still very telling problems with the game. This is apparent in many ways all throughout the game, things like the wrong backgrounds or just voids for pokemon battles. Two example of the wrong backgrounds seen here and [here] (https://clips.twitch.tv/FriendlyCleanOstrichArsonNoSexy) One example of the void background seen here (these happen on indoor fights and some non indoor but scripted battles)Examples of backgrounds on indoor and everywhere else in both LGPE and colosseum, seen here and here. Then there's complete lack of music in the game story most important moments, seen here. Starters are also shiny locked. The entire world freezes when using certain objects, as seen here. To this, you add up the emptiness of the wild area and the badly implemented weather changes that don't make much sense, both seen here No animation for flying, no elite 4, no victory road, etc, this is added to all the other problems that show the lack of effort put into them.

This franchise deserves better.

You deserve better.

These games are not only a huge step down from earlier titles, but it goes beyond what used to be already barely  tolerable standards to way below standards, keep in mind this is the biggest, most profitable franchise on earth.

This is the first time a pokemon main game is released on console, people were excited for game freak to finally do whatever they wanted and it's been done with the most minimal of  efforts, all the money you've spent on Pokemon didn't went on making this a better game, it went straight into the pockets of the people in charge, those that made sure this was made with the most minimum effort and those that cut  corners.

Companies that made games decades ago on hardware less powerful than the switch shouldn't be doing a better job than game freak, and companies doing work in the switch have completely obliterated game freak when it comes to developing a video game.

Keep in mind that your purchase of these games causes this:

Continue the yearly release cycle that makes the games rushed and forces the devs to insane crunch time, creating the low morale problem

Tells them that you're ok with these problems, and they will keep lowering the bar and cutting corners on development

Your money will continue going into the pockets of those responsible for these problems

I implore you to be a smart consumer, I've played Pokemon since I red, ever since I was a child, I can no longer support this franchise, I probably won't buy a Pokemon product ever again if this is gonna be how they're gonna treat the games and its fans.

[hilltopsunset]

I Regret Buying Pokémon Shield

I told myself I wouldn’t do it. I’ve seen time and again the lack of innovation from main-series Pokémon games, and I insisted nothing would convince me to buy this latest atrocity. Yet here I am, reviewing the game I said I’d never purchase. I should have listened to myself. I KNEW BETTER! Strap in, ‘cause this one’s pretty long.

Pokémon has been around for a long time—like, a long, long time—and I’ve been around for every single new main-series game that’s been released since the franchise’s first arrival in North America back in 1996 with Red/Blue. I was not yet 10 years old, and I still remember the childlike excitement of finding rare, never-before seen creatures, the stress of trying to catch a wily Abra or elusive Pinsir, and the challenging first encounter with the Elite Four and the Champion, a 5-man gauntlet of trainers with powerful Pokémon rarely (if ever) seen in the game prior to that moment. It was exhilarating in a way that keeps me coming back for more, hoping to rekindle those same flames of wonder. 

While the main gist of the games hasn’t changed much over the years, one of my favorite parts of playing a new Pokémon game is seeing the improvements each game brings to the series. Many of the initial sequels made huge leaps in progress: Gold/Silver introduced a plethora of new mechanics like held items and breeding; Ruby/Sapphire introduced passive abilities and was the first to include multi-battles in the form of double-battles; Diamond/Pearl was the first generation capable of trading and battling online and brought us the revolutionary physical/special split so elements were no longer locked into one or the other. These changes all had significant impacts on how players approached battles, formed their teams, and used each Pokémon.

Those changes, combined with the addition of new Pokémon to catch, regions to explore, and enemies to fight, were enough to keep me interested. But I know I wasn’t alone in imagining all the possibilities of taking the franchise off the handheld platforms and moving the main series games over to a more powerful home console. In the meantime, each generation that followed Gen IV highlighted a new, troubling pattern that became more and more prevalent with each addition to the series.

1.       Gen V: Lack of meaningful gameplay innovation

By Generation V with Black/White, not only was Game Freak quickly running out of colors, they were quite obviously running out of ideas for significant gameplay innovation. The bulk of Black/White’s biggest changes were improvements on or adaptations to existing staples to the franchise: many new Pokémon, moves, and abilities were added, and the DS platform allowed for greater graphical quality where Pokémon could move around a bit more on-screen during battles, the camera wasn’t as rigid as it had to be in previous games due to machine limitations; perhaps most importantly, they FINALLY decided to make TMs infinite. Thank goodness. While the updates were nice, they were nowhere near as impactful on the game as previous generations’ changes were and served more as needed quality of life adjustments.

I would also argue Gen V also had the least inspired Pokémon designs (like Vanillux and Klinklang) with the worst starter choices of any Pokémon game, but that’s a discussion for another time. Excadrill and Volcarona were pretty cool, though.

 2.       Gen VI: Gimmicks as the main draw

Pokémon X/Y (See? They ran out of colors) continued this new downward trend in innovation. Mega-evolution—while admittedly pretty cool—wasn’t enough to carry the new generation into an era of meaningful improvement because it was equivalent to adding new Pokémon rather than developing innovative gameplay, ushering in a new era of gimmicks in lieu of substantial updates.

Though the gameplay innovation for X/Y was minimal, the graphic updates were substantial: Pokémon X/Y was the first generation to introduce the main series to a fully 3-dimensional world populated by 3D characters. However, since X/Y was on the 3DS, it was a ripe target for the 3D gimmick seen in almost all games on the console, which I personally used for all of 5 minutes before feeling nauseous and never using the function again.

Despite the fresh look of the new 3D models, the battle animations were, to be frank, incredibly disappointing. Pokémon still barely moved and never physically interacted with opponents, nor did they use moves in uniquely appropriate ways. To my point, for years now there’s been a meme about Blastoise opting to shoot water out of his face rather than his cannons. I was sad to see that they didn’t take the time to give each Pokémon’s animations a little more love. But I figured, in time, when or if the franchise ever moved to a more powerful machine, they would be better equipped to make it happen, right? I also convinced myself that the lack of refined animations were kind of charming, harkening back to the games’ original (terrible) animations.

 3.       Gen VII: Focus on Minigames

The main innovation (gimmick) that came with Generation VII, Sun/Moon, was the lack of HMs in lieu of riding certain Pokémon. Sun/Moon also added Ultra Beasts (essentially just new Pokémon) and Z-moves (just new moves) which only added to the number of gimmicks present in the games. These changes, which provide some mild adaptations to gameplay from previous generations, don’t fundamentally change the way players go through each game, the way that updates in the earlier generations did. I personally played through the entirety of Sun/Moon without using a single Z-move or seeing a single Ultra Beast outside the one you’re required to fight to progress the main story. Ultimately, these changes were not a significant enough experience to warrant an entirely new game that is otherwise full of more of the same stuff with slightly different creatures who have slightly different stats and occupy a slightly different world.

Though Sun/Moon was comfortably embracing the franchise’s affinity for gimmicks, it brought to the forefront yet another troubling trend: mini games. Between photography, the Festival Plaza, and Poké Pelago, the focus on and attention to detail toward mini games had grown considerably over the years. Pokémon games have always had minigames and other time-sinks—which is great! Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate having more to do than trudge through the main story. But it is apparent that, with each new generation, more time seems dedicated to development of these extras. Pokémon Contests, Secret Bases, Super Training, feeding/grooming; a lot of their larger innovations after Gen IV were centered on non-essential parts of the game, which results in diminished game and story quality overall.

Admittedly, Sun/Moon did have some of the best exploration moments of any of the Pokémon games, which I did very much appreciate. More on that later as it relates to Sword/Shield…

 4.       Generation VIII: You Can’t Be Serious

When Game Freak finally announced they were launching Generation VIII, Sword and Shield, on the Switch rather than a dedicated handheld console, I was beside myself with excitement.

And then I saw gameplay footage like this, and my heart sank.

What is the purpose of launching the game on a stronger console if they are going to continue copy/pasting their sprites and their animations? If they aren’t going to provide the Pokémon any unique flair or create more appropriate animations? It was disappointing enough seeing the same animations/models from X/Y for Sun/Moon, but that was sort of expected since the games were on the same console. But now that the game has moved to the Switch, this is unacceptable.

When I learned that they were significantly cutting the number of Pokémon available in the game, I thought for certain that would translate to more time dedicated to the ones that made the cut, to focus on adding animations and character to the critters to make them feel like real parts of the world, rather than avatars of a child’s imagination, unable to fully process how the world functions. Alas, what was I thinking?

I thought the Dynamax gimmick would be one of my biggest gripes because it’s so pointless, or maybe the Wild Area’s severe lack of organic belonging (all Pokémon are just wandering aimlessly, weather can change drastically after crossing an invisible line, trees look like they were cut and pasted out of Mario 64, you can’t even catch Pokémon if they’re too high a level) but honestly the most disappointing part of the game for me was the pitiful routes between towns/gyms. Previous installments of the game included routes full of trainers and puzzles you needed to defeat or solve before you could progress—in Sword/Shield, the only thing that ever prevents you from progressing are some Team Yell grunts barricading paths the game doesn’t want you to take yet, for literally no reason. It completely removes player autonomy and a sense of accomplishment earned through overcoming challenges—now instead of learning that you need to find an item that allows you to cut through certain trees to gain access to new areas, you simply follow the story beats and then, upon returning, the path will be open. It’s inorganic, it’s clunky, and it’s extremely lazy.

Speaking of lazy, the story itself was another massive disappointment for me. Pokémon games are not particularly known for having deep stories, but Sword/Shield takes it to a new low. Every NPC simply pushes you to battle in gyms, and every interesting story beat that occurs happens just outside the player-character’s reach. Any time something interesting happens, you are shooed away and told to let the grown-ups handle it while you just get your gym badges. There COULD have been some interesting story moments where your character gets more involved with helping fix the havoc occurring around the Galar Region, but instead we as the player are simply TOLD what happened, why it happened, and who fixed it (usually the champion, Leon).

I honestly think having the game focus on the story of Sonia, Bede, Marnie, or even Hop (was not a fan of this kid) would have been a much more interesting game, because those characters actually had some depth to them, some bigger reason for taking on the gym challenges than simply “I want to be the very best.” Albeit those stories would have required a tremendous amount of work to add depth and details, the potential for a better story is in those characters. There is just no story at all to the main character, who is ushered from gym to gym because…because? Because that’s what kids do? I’m not even really sure what the motivation is.

There are SO MANY exciting, interesting, innovative ways Game Freak could drive Pokémon into a new and exciting direction while still maintaining its charm and building on existing mechanics, but they instead choose to demonstrate their lack of interest in significant graphical and gameplay innovation. I imagine this is largely because the masses will eat up just about any Pokémon product produced so long as there’s a new bunny to catch, and Pikachu is still involved. I’m disappointed, and I wish the Galar region could meet the expectations of my 10-year old mind’s imagination.

When abilities were added, we suddenly had to consider whether our Earthquake could even hit the enemy Weezing and adapt to the tremendous changes the passive skills added, reconsidering how we faced each battle. When the physical/special split occurred, entirely new opportunities opened up and certain Pokémon who were banished to obscurity due to their poor typing and stat distribution, like Weavile, were suddenly viable. Some even became incredibly powerful, like Gyarados, who had been hit pretty hard by the Special attack/defense split. There were also already-powerful Pokémon (Gengar, Dragon-types) who became even more so through access to STAB moves that benefited off their strongest stats.

I want new games to include updates that feel as impactful as these changes. If you’re interested in how Game Freak can improve on the main gameplay, I have some fun ideas that will be fleshed out in another article: How to Breathe New Life into the Pokémon Franchise. That article will be dedicated to explaining what those changes are, why I want them, and how they can improve future games.

[miraculouscontent]

You said that you could roast XY&Z for days in your last post. What about it didn't you like?

Keeping things short (...well, short for my standards anyway):

In terms of strictly just the anime, XY did a lot of things right and was a step-up compared to Black & White. It raised a lot of people’s hopes and seemed to be taking things more seriously in terms of plot, like how Ash’s team was actually getting fully evolved and such (some cases of which are admittedly ridiculous since the series is pretty short yet he has a Goodra and a Noivern, the latter of whom he raised from an egg), but ultimately, XY&Z just brings back all of the old formulas.

me when anything involving Zygarde happens: Wow, it would be great if any of this actually existed or happened within the games instead of just the show flexing like, “Hey, look at this cool thing you can’t personally experience!”

Serena losing her final contest performance. I know they’re actually showcases but it’s just Pokemon contests with a different coat of paint, let’s be honest. I was already sour about the fact that someone in the show, again, gets to experience something we can’t (Gen 5 had Pokemon Musicals and that was the closest thing we got to this, but that was in Gen 5, not 6), but the thing about Serena losing her final contest performance is that it’s irritating for a multitude of reasons, not just the fact that we can’t do showcases ourselves (to be clear, it’s not about how exciting/unexciting showcases would’ve been in-game; it’s that they had to make up showcases to give Serena something to do because XY was so light on content).

- First is that what we saw of Aria’s performance was really generic and unimpressive, but the second thing is big and just--I’m sorry, whichever writer decided that it was a smart idea to have the winner between Serena (a rando from Vaniville Town who’s only just making a name for herself) and Aria (essentially a celebrity who’s been around for a long time) be decided by the people in the audience needs to be fired. It makes sense when it’s a bunch of no-names all competing against each other, but when it’s a no-name versus a celebrity? For Arceus’ sake, the whole reason contests were originally decided by judges is because judges are (at least supposed to be) impartial. Did it suck when May and Dawn lost their Grand Festival? Yes, of course it did, but at least it didn’t feel so much like it was weighed against them.

- Like, imagine sitting and watching this episode and seeing the in-show audience decide who wins, most of whom probably have Aria merchandise like posters and figures and just, like--”Wow, gee, it really seemed like Serena could’ve had it! Wonder what tipped the scales for the audience!”

- To put this into perspective, imagine if the show decided that the viewers - the actual, real-life viewers - of the show got to decide who won the showcase. Even if some of them honestly thought that Serena deserved to win, you don’t think a majority were like, “Who cares about Aria? Serena’s our main girl and she’s gotta WIN!”?

Speaking of Serena--

- Serena at Ash before leaving to go to Hoenn: Hippity hoppity your lips are now my (implied) property.

Ash Greninja was a cool concept that amounted to nothing. The idea that Ash has this special link with one of his Pokemon (”Hey, look at this really cool thing that you can’t actually experience in-game!” until Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire and it’s underwhelming at best) and can feel their pain, but the link can cause him to get carried away because now he’s really experiencing the adrenaline rush of battle... that’s incredible! That’s a really neat idea!

- But... ultimately, it’s giving preferential treatment to a starter... again. Gen 6 already threw Charizard an extra bone by giving him a second Mega (and even when they got rid of Megas in Gen 8, they were like “lol let’s give him a Gigantimax form in advance and give him to the champion”; by the way, no, I didn’t play Sword & Shield because I’m a Living Dexer so the lack of - you know - Pokemon was a deal-breaker) and now here they are again not treating the starter lines fairly (even in-game, we have Protean Greninja, so it’s a double hitter). I was open to the idea and was getting swept up in the excitement, but... what does it mean in the end? It doesn’t amount to anything; Greninja is still another Pokemon who gets released essentially.

- Why didn’t they just do something with Pikachu (Ash Hat Pikachu was eventually a thing after all), which is something they could’ve easily carried over to future seasons and continued expanding upon? I mean, Ash’s Pikachu is already special in its own right and this would be like giving it the evolution it’s never going to get. Heck, even just like... they could have it where it wasn’t even either Ash nor Pikachu being special, but they engaged in some sort of special bonding ritual at some special place (anyone remember Ashachu? That was a cool concept too and they wasted it; could’ve even been a reason for them to make this connection at that place because Ash had been a Pikachu once before).

Alain’s existence. Just--like, his entire existence, fanservice Charizard X and all.

- I want to make it clear for anyone who didn’t experience XY&Z (count your blessings) that, when the Mega Evolutions specials were coming out, we were given at least the impression that it wasn’t going to have anything to do with the series. Then things started happening and this is essentially how it went down.

- everyone, seeing that Alain is part of the main series now: oh no

- everyone, seeing Ash plant the seed in Alain’s head about entering the League: oh no

- everyone, seeing Alain having a near-loss against Ash (after having a couple wins before) before Ash blacks out, ending the battle abruptly and leaving the battle undecided, which is similar to what they pulled with Sawyer (having Sawyer win once against Ash before the League so it would still have suspense and wouldn’t just be Ash wrecking him again) except now it’s in the opposite direction: OH NO

- The League finale episode, in Japanese, was essentially called, “Kalos League Victory! Satoshi's Ultimate Match!!” and yeah, it was blatant clickbait.

- Ash!Greninja pulls off a Giant Mega Death Water Shuriken for the final exchange of blows in the match (Water Shuriken VS Charizard X’s Blast Burn) and it amounts to literally nothing because Greninja goes down anyway (to a Fire move of all things, which somehow feels even more offensive).

- They didn’t play Ash’s theme when said Water Shuriken happened so it was semi-obvious that he wasn’t going to win. Heck, his mom didn’t even show up to watch the match from what I remember.

- So yeah, Ash lost and--People. Were. Livid. The dislike bar on the Japanese trailer for the following episode was insane. I think what it ultimately amounted to was that people were so sick of the formula and XY seemed like such a step up from the last attempt and people really thought that the writers were finally learning their lesson. They really thought everything was going to turn around, and--yeah. It just ended up being more of the same except worse because they did everything to make it look like they cared.

[semi-imaginary-place]

 thI’m gonna beat Platinum with only pachirisu (bibarel’s along for the ride, and HMs)

I named myself Pachi and my rival (Barry) was Risu because Gen 4 has a character limit to names and wouldn’t let me name them Pachirisu1 and Pachirisu2 or Electric Squirrel 1 and 2.

So i more or less blitz through oreburgs gym as fast as i could avoiding trainers and not catching any pokemon, and then spent the next half an hour trying to catch a pachirisu because despite a 10% chance, rng screwed me over and they refused to come out. After i caught the first one, I didn’t see another one for another half hour. Literally went from level 11 to level 17 before i saw another pachirisu. so my the rules i gave myself, once i caught the first pachirisu, I could only use that pachirisu. Now a level 11 pachirisu’s only damaging move is quick attack. this thing has base 45 attack. it was suffering. 

at level 13 pachirisu learn spark and things got better from there. Levels 13-27 were actually ok all things considered. Like it was only 30% harder than normal. I’m now at hearthome and I expect things to get much harder from here on out as other pokemon start evolving and getting better stats and moves. base 45 attack and special attack...

look at this thing’s pathetic moveset. Please remember this is gen 4 so TMs are single use. 

Geodudes are the bane of my existence, caves and hikers my arch enemies. by level 18 or something they learn magnitude and the only things i have to damage them are quick attack and swift. Battles are slow. Now pachirisu does actually have some bulk (well comparatively speaking for a ~lv15 rat) so these fights ended up with a lot of stalling and healing as I slowly chip away with with swift and bide (if they don’t magnitude me to death), I’ve ended up in a lot of battles the ended up in struggle. please note the pp of the above moves. Geodudes usually spend the first 1-3 turns rock polishing so that’s when i use charm to drop their attack into the void and then comes the guessing game of when they’ll attack (rock throw etc.) where i should bide and when they’ll do defense curl (and i should just attack).

.

well the hearthome, veilstone, and pastoria gyms didn’t cause me any problems. It takes 3 hits to take anything down but it also take 4 hits to down pachirisu. I’m also over leveled so i skipped some optional areas. all in all its not hard. yet.. probably because I’m overleved. pachirisu’s got discharge and superfang so im doing ok for now

the barry canalave fight went well until i got to the roserade.... its special attack is high enough i needed to heal every other turn. then it leech seeded me and kept sleeping me.... Canalave gym er well the steelix really caused me problems. I more or less heal stalled it to death. Pachirisu just doesn’t have enough power. That was painful just slowly chipping away at it.... healing every 3 turns, trying to keep it confused as much as possible.

By level 43, pachirisus’ stats are starting to fall behind, I can’t one shot wild pokemon 15 levels below me, and am increasingly relying on super fang to get through battles. The ice gym was pretty bad, stalled out a few time.... ended up struggling the froslass to death... bled a lot of money...

brb purging this from my memory

.

so catching 5 pachirisu was so mind numbingly boring that i got a mental block trying to catch no. 6 so i gave up. anyways went and caught my last pachirisu so now i finally have a full team. that said, I’m only really using 3.

I forgot how much i hated mt. cornet. i give up. Max Repels all the way. Team galactic was actually ok but mostly because they used a lot of murkrow and golbat. The final Cyrus fight was actually pretty good considering I’m level 48. Giratina though was a problem. So part of the initial rules was no catching pokemon so i had to knock it out. (I did catch a chansey because i wanted a lucky egg but the chansey and luck egg rates are so low i gave up and released the chansey i caught. also cynthia forced a togepi egg on me so i got that). Anyways the only move i had that wasn’t normal type was spark/discharge and giratina resists electric. so that fight took a while... i lowered giratina’s attack by 6 stages, paralyzed it and then kept it confused and slowly whittled down its health. didn’t lose too many, 1 KO from a crit.

Sunnyshore was a mixed bag, like it’d go ok and then I’d hit a wall and get stuck and bleed moomoo milks and then it’d be ok again for the next 4 pokemon. Pokemon like jolteon caused me a lot of problems since I only have normal and electric moves. I refuse to grind to for this so maybe I’m just making my life harder than it has to be but yeah not great but it could have been much worse. Overall I am definitely feeling pachirisu slowing down. The water route was fine, nice to be able to one shot things again (sometimes) but victory road is a huge road block with all the ground pokemon. it was terrible. I mainly used repels  to get through the first floor (got lost -_-) but I might go to iron island which i skipped earlier to grab iron tail. I haven’t used any tms yet because single use is terrifying and I’m scared of commitment but I’m considering toxic, double team, light screen, dig, charge beam, thunderwave. Charge beam looks good, but pachirisu is a little weak to be setting up and sweeping so i don’t know yet what I’m going to do. I don’t remember who is in the elite four either so i should look that up. The main problem with the elite four is going to be pp management. Maybe I will toxic and confusion everything to death...

.

yeah getting though victory road was a war of attrition. it was hard.

.

well that last barry fight was excruciatingly painful. I forgot it was there. Staraptor went down in 3 hits as did empoleon and heracross. Heracross kept one shoting me which was annoying and roserade resists electric so that took a while but snorlax was what really caused me trouble. I had to do that fight 4 times because of snorlax. So the problem with snorlax is rest, on a normal run you usually have something powerful enough to take down snorlax in 3 hits, but i don’t. snorlax is just so tanky that I can’t deal enough damage before it ses rest again. earthquake wasn’t so much a problem after 3 charms, but rest kept resetting any paralysis or confusion i got on snorlax. I had to exhaust all 10 pp for rest and all pp for earthquake plus switch out whenever crunch lowered my defense. it took a loooonnng time.

.

So I beat the elite four and champion with the power on money. Man that took forever. I went and looked up the sinnoh elite four instead on going in blind like i had been. Zap is my physical attacker and Glitz is my special attacker. Funny thing is that For most of the game Zap has been highest level but Glitz pulled aheah after i sp. a. ev trained on route 212 for a couple levels. sparkle is just along for the ride. So the main danger in relying so heavily on x items is that there’s just a massive set up at the beginning of each fight as i throw like 3 x defense 3 x sp defense 4 sp attack/attck and 2 speed onto my pachirisu. 

So with Aron ?? bug dude? the yanmega would u turn and i died to the heracross a couple times via crits. that damn heracross. I’d send out sparkle to put 3 charms on the heracross and confuse it then switch to Zap and start setting up. It was either the drapion or the scizor that survived a hit but my def was boosted enough to survive. Side note: WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE EARTHQUAKE. the drapion, the inpernape, the bronzong, all of bertha’s team....

To deal with Bertha I did teach grass knot to Glitz and set up on him with sparkle leading to charm the hippowdon. This (predictably) was the worse fight and i died the most here which was painful as i had to start over. uuggg. Also setting up took longer since hippowdon kept the sandstorm up. I thought its was only going to last 5 turns and hippowdon already had 3 charms on it so i didn’t was to kill it yet, well i learned. Rhyperior miraculously survived and then earthquake took half my health even with 4 x defends.

Ok so I’m convinced houndoom has an elevated crit rate or something because that thing crited me like once every 4 hits. I was originally pretty worried about magmortar and infernape but flint was ok, or well at least better than bertha. it was gallade in the next fight that gave me more trouble. Not to much but at one point i was praying to rng to not get crited on. But i made it through eventually.

At this point exhaustion is kicking is and I honestly don’t really remember what happened. I led with Glitz for this fight and the last 2 fights since their leading pokemon were all special attackers. Spiritomb was annoying because it kept lowering my sp defense. Set up too so long that by the time i was done, the only move it had pp left in was silverwind, so like 43 turns? I got through most of her team alright, except for the garchomp that survived and proceeded to earthquake me. My second attack left garchomp  with a sliver of health and after it attacked me, glitz was in the red too. After like 2 more turns of jockying with it i took it town with swift.

I can’t remember what fights these were but I got burned a few times and poisoned once and that was annoying. I think it was cynthia’s roserade which was her last pokemon, it's sludgebomb poisoned me i think but its was in the yellow health so i didn’t bother healing and took it down.

And that’s how i beat Pokemon Platinum TM with only pachirisu. In the end i really only used 3 pachirisu and you probably could do this with 1 pachirisu, i wouldn’t quite call this a callenge run since its not too hard. Its at the difficulty where anyone could do this. I mean the easiest way to beat the game with 1 pachirisu is to grind it to level 100 and stuff it with x items, but i hate grinding and since i skipped a lot of battles i was quite poor too. 

My final pokemon count was monferno (starter who i couldn’t bear to release but was poxed after valley windworks), togepi (thatcynthia shoved into the arms and I never used), chansey (i caught and released in a plan to get lucky eggs that i gave up on), tropius (for hms), bibarel (for hms), and 6 pachirisu,my pc boxes were very empty. i never had other pokemon and only pachirisu were ever in battles.

I don’t know why i did this. 

Pachirisu is cute.

[inikavulpixelreviews]

Let’s Talk About Pokemon - Gen 7 Retrospective

That's at least a little more sizable than the XY generation was. Granted we have some Alolan Forms to help inflate the numbers a bit. Sure, if you were to count Gen 6′s Mega Evolutions, Gen 7 would be the actual smallest Gen to date. But remember what I said last generation's recap with how Gamefreak seemed to be taking a “quality over quantity” approach for that generation? That mentality seems to be back in full force here. 'Cause we're looking at my second favorite Gen right behind Gen 5.

I did bring up that Gen 6 was my third favorite generation in terms of the new, numerical Pokemon introduced. What has Alola muscle over it is how it's crammed as much inventiveness into the designs as they could think. The starters, the Legendaries/Kinda-Legendary Ultra Beasts, even the common fodder Pokemon have a little more going on than their typical ilk. And even some of the more boring designs like Oranguru and Passimian have interesting battle mechanics by changing the way you can approach double battles entirely on their own.

That also seemed to be a focus this generation. Not all of course, but a lot of the new Pokemon seemed to be based on different gameplay interactions and having unique abilities or signature moves. Between Salandit's Corrosion to Minior's Shields Down to Mimikyu's Disguise to Toucannon's Beak Blast and to Toxipex's Baneful Bunker. They really tried taking a shot at making each Pokemon have something unique to bring to battles. They even essentially made a more tournament-rules friendly alternative to Arceus in Silvally.

But there's a little subject more contentious about Gen 7 than the Pokemon, of course. That being the games themselves, which feel like they got the fandom split. I like Sun and Moon, but even I'll admit Gamefreak's gotta try a little harder for Gen 8. All the inventive things they've tried from a gameplay perspective ultimately don't change much. The game still had an 8-mini-act structure just like the Gym games. HMs getting replaced with Ride Pokemon is nice, but is still the same mechanic with different dressing. The biggest changes in the usual story structure don't even matter that much, the biggest change feeling like you get to know the region's Legendary Pokemon from the very start in the form of Nebby. Otherwise, it's just A Little Bit Better Written Than Usual. Y'know, not that Pokemon games tend to be master classes in writing anyway, its only real competition there being Black and White's story. (And even then, Sun and Moon's in desperate need of a Skip Cutscene button.)

Then there’s the Let’s Go games, which I suppose are technically Gen 7 games. Those got even more divisive. Some love it, others hate it. I personally just find it boring as a rather dumbed down remake of the Kanto games, only really playing because it was an excuse to use Melmetal. There’s some neat things in there that I wouldn’t mind seeing implemented in the main series (namely overworld-wandering Pokemon and AVs replacing EVs.) Just please keep the very poorly implemented Go-imitating catch mechanics as far away from the main series as possible.

Pokemon’s also starting to get more competition recently as well. Other than Digimon of course. Ni No Kuni, eventually Tem Tem, of course, the rise of the mighty Yokai Watch, which to my understanding, has been wrecking Pokemon in terms of sale numbers in their home region. Each of them implementing monster-catching RPG mechanics in their own unique way. I can’t speak for Yokai Watch, but Ni No Kuni is a lot more like a traditional JRPG, with the monsters being familiars that still fight in battle, but the trainers themselves also participate in the battle as well! And Tem Tem, while very much like Pokemon, is giving it more of an MMO angle. While I’m not one to shout about how much Pokemon just NEEDS to make an MMO with ALL THE REGIONS already, I am interested in seeing where TemTem winds up. It IS a Kickstarter game that made way more than it asked for, but as we know from a certain Strong Numerical Value That Is One Less Than Ten, that’s no guarantee it’ll be amazing. But worth keeping an eye on. It still has the potential to be something Gamefreak’s gonna have to watch out for.

Whether I like these other games or not, I appreciate that they exist, because they mean that sooner or later Gamefreak's gonna have to get their ass in gear and do something about it. I'm really getting burnt out on a new Pokemon game coming out literally every year. What I've wanted more than ever is for Gamefreak to at least take a hiatus from the yearly releases to have the game that comes after said break to really kick it out of the park. I get that the Ultra games probably didn't take up much development time and from my understanding Let's Go was made by a whole different team, so those games coming out in the years between Sun and Moon and Sword and Shield might not have much bearing on the latter's quality, but still. Pokemon's not had a major mechanical update since they introduced Abilities in Gen 3. I just hope Gen 8 does something interesting or has some form of major mechanical overhaul. Not asking Pokemon battles to be in real time or anything. Just some new Super Forms and powerful one-off moves aren’t gonna cut it for me. After over 20 years of Pokemoning and on, what, year 8 of a new Pokemon game coming out every year? I'm a little bit fatigued.

...Okay, let's end this on a better note than that.

I AM still exciting to see what Gen 8 has to offer, and I hope they mean it when they say they're trying something different. And of course, I'm ALWAYS gonna be excited to see some more new Pokemon. Gens 5, 6, and 7 are proving they're nowhere close to being out of steam yet, and I can't wait to see more Gen 8 Pokemon come our way in the coming months.

Top 10 Favorites of Gen 7:

Dangit this is hard. So many to love! So many new super-duper-tippity-top favorites!! Shout outs to Palossand, Silvally, Salandit, Xurkitree, and Buzzwole. There's just too many good'ens!!!!

Bottom 10 Least Favorite of Gen 7:

Amazingly, the only Pokemon here I really “dislike” is Zeraora. The rest are just that cherry-picked handful of Alolan Pokemon I don't really care that much about. Hurray!

Bottom 10 Least Favorite Overall:

Almost got through with no new additions. Almost.

The Cutest:

God this Generation was good for Pokemon I just want to pick up and hug. Or in Mimikyu's case, get horrendously murdered by because I got a little too close to taking its rag off. And I'd still say “Thanks.”

The Coolest:

The Prettiest:

The Spookiest:

This gen was really good to scratch a Halloweeny itch. A BUNCH of cool new ghosts, complete with the eerie head leech Pokemon I never would’ve suspected would make it into Pokemon!

Most Creative:

Weirdest/Most Unique:

This section here could've been filled with Ultra Beasts alone if I really wanted to, haha.

Most Forgettable:

Magearna is here not necessarily because I think the design is forgettable, but gee wizz I keep thinking it's not a Gen 7 Pokemon.

Most Personality:

Here's a new section! Gen 7 had a lot of personality-based designs, so there was actually a fair bit of competition for a slot like this. Buzzwole and Bewear are just hilarious, and I'm still thoroughly impressed with Meltan. They managed to cram so much adorable personality into such a simple design. And I’ll eat my hat the day we get a Pokemon more smug than Salandit.

Most Under-Appreciated:

Poor Stakataka keeps getting dismissed because of its bad typing... not that I can blame anyone because Rock/Steel is easily the most boring of all the UB typings, especially when we had room to have a Ghostly duo between it and Blacephalon to have us our first Rock/Ghost type!

Most Long Overdue Concepts:

Seriously, how'd it take 7 generations to get a wolf and a mosquito? Let alone 6 generations to finally get a second MANTIS and traditional horse Pokemon?! As far as spooky Pokemon go, you'd think a shipwreck would be one of the easier and more obvious concepts to go after, even if the one we finally got didn't take the form I expected it to. And Araquanid's just here because a fully evolved BUG/WATER was a long time frickin coming.

Best Regional Variants:

At least I'm naming the category that way because Regional Variants better be a series mainstay from now on!! These are the Alolan Forms with the most fun alternate take on their original forms. And Vulpix and Ninetales are there because fox solidarity.

Best Ultra Beasts:

Again, I really hope Ultra Beasts won't be an Alola-Only thing. I want to avoid talking about Gen 8 spoilers to be considerate of anyone that wants to avoid those, but a certain image carved into the ground in a particular scene has me hoping Ultra Beasts might be returning. And that Xurkitree could have a big brother in the near future. There's hardly much basis because said carving could literally be anything, but. Please.

Anyway, I love the Ultra Beasts as a concept of extra-dimensional alien beings. Some sell the look of freaky aliens better, especially ones like Nihilego, Xurkitree, Kartana, and Celesteela. But nonetheless, these 6 are my favorites out of our roster. HOPEFULLY so far.

Pokemon That Should’ve Gotten Alolan Forms:

I tend to agree that limiting Alolan Forms to Gen 1 Pokemon only was a silly thing to do, but even minding that, I feel like there was crazy amounts of missed potential here. Seel and Dewgong just desperately need some fresh attention to stop being Pokemon’s more forgettable critters. While I suppose Lapras and Tentacruel are excusable given they’re sea dwellers regardless, I totally wouldn’t mind electric jellyfish versions of the Tentas, or even a Kracken-based form for the former. This was also MORE than an opportunity to redeem Dragonite with a more Dragonair-like variant. And some tropical jungle variations of Paras and Venonat would be neat. I’m just saying, a Venomoth turned into more of a Tropical Hawkmoth would’ve been killer.

And Parasect hurts the most. You’re telling you’re gonna have Parasect inhabit this jungle area along with another, brand new mushroom Pokemon. AND you’re gonna introduce the concept of Gen 1 Pokemon taking on new forms based on the new and radically different habitats in Alola. And you’re just NOT gonna place some glowing mushrooms on their backs, turn them pale white, and call them Bug/Fairy types?!?!?! Hello?!?!!??!?

...Oh, am I forgetting something?

Top 50 Favorites Overall:

...Surprise! Yeah, just sorta decided “why not?” This is our last Gen for the rest of the year, so let's end it on a “Look At All My Favorites!” type of a bang. Also because it pained me to see all these not make it to some sort of Top Favorites highlight. And of course, they might not be 100% consistent with scores or previous Top 10 favorites. I'm only a human with a finicky brain that is constantly changing how absolutely precisely I feel about every single one of these. 

And... that's it... that's every single Pokemon reviewed. Every single Gen Recapped. We've had lots of ups and downs and plenty of getting a little too excited about cartoon animals. Gen 8 is still a ways away, and even when it comes out, I'd like to wait a few months to let the new designs settle into my mind before I go writing opinion pieces on all of them. And of course, for official artwork to be out for everybody.

BUT I do have a handful of ways to pass the time until Gen 8 does come out... What's up next exactly? Well, we won't have to wait too long, thankfully...

[Archive]

[mrnerdteacher]

Welcome, Grookey, to the Honorable Fraternity of Under-Appreciated Starters

As Gita Jackson so aptly said on Kotaku, upon the reveal of the “Sword” and “Shield” starting Pokemon:

“People are already picking favorites. I love Scorbunny, though I also have a soft spot for Sobble. Grookey is also present.” Yes, if memes are indeed an expression of fan-love, it would seem that people are not overly “fauna” of the newest addition to the “grass type” family. But fear not, little guy; you are at least in good company. Here, submitted for your collective disapproval, are the most overlooked/undervalued starter Pokemon from each generation.

Gen 1: Bulbasaur

Having two brothers when the o.g. Pokemon released, we each, through no prior agreement or instruction, picked a different starter. The oldest picked Charmander, the youngest Squirtle. I, also the under-loved middle child, chose Bulbasaur. No regrets, but it always kinda bothered me that this meant I didn’t get to have my final evolution on the face of the game box. I knew that in Japan it was Blastoise who got the cold shoulder, but that did little to appease 12 year old Jeremy. Maybe the recent trend of pro-Bulbasaur Propaganda would have helped, although it’s a few decades late imho.

Gen 2: Cyndaquil

At first glance there are no clear losers, which might be part of the reason why this set is widely regarded as the best of all time. However, as teenagers, my brothers and I were always disappointed in final stage of the fire starter, Cyndaquil. For comparison, Croconaw becomes a bad-ass alligator, and Bayleef a flower-maned brontosaurus. But the forgettable Quilava just kinda stands up. If you think I’m exaggerating, imagine having clay sculptures of the middle evolutions, and realize how much less work it would take to reform it into Typhlosion. Kinda too easy, right?

Gen 3: Mudkip

There’s a reason only one of these evolution lines got snubbed by the Pokken Tournament organizers. You’ve got a gecko, a chicken, and a… what even is that, anyway? Turn out he’s based on an Axolotl, which is at the top of zero “favorite animal” checklists. No wonder, Urban Dictionary lists the phrase “So I Herd you Leik Mudkipz” as an insult.

Gen 4: Chimchar

My first instinct was to go with Turtwig, as I feel his evolution line is the hardest for people to remember, but then I realized that Gen 4 was the origin of Fire/Fighting Fatigue. It’s now a running joke in the Pokemmunity that every fire starter will end as a yawn-inducing Fire/Fighting anime cliche, and it wasn’t until Infernape pulled off the hat trick in this generation that people really caught on/got salty. Thanks a lot, guys.

Gen 5: Oshawott/Tepig Can I be honest for a second? This is the only Gen in the series I never played, so I’m a little torn on this one and would love some feedback. Tepig definitely seemed to be the most boring design of the three (his name is one letter away from Tepid, for Christ’s sake), but I think Oshawott’s final evolution is kinda lost in the sands of time. I’m just ruling out Snivy because he was so beloved at his reveal that some, like Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft, still prefer his fan-given pseudonym, Smugleaf. I happen to agree.

Gen 6: Chespin Another tough call, but here’s my logic: Greninja is such a beloved ‘Mon that he plays major roles in both Smash Bros and the upcoming Detective Pikachu movie. I also eliminated Fennekin because of Japan’s endless love for foxes and Braixen’s endlessly adorable inclusion in Pokken Tournament. Chespin, as much as I thought his design was a breath of fresh air after way too many “flower dinosaurs,” just doesn’t have the clout. Plus, Louise Belcher wears it better.

Gen 7: Popplio

When Pokemon Sun and Moon were revealed, the disdain for this clown-seal was immediate and intense. People thought he looked too silly, too cute, too ugly; you name it. Furthermore, the devs faced actual backlash from the fandom, and responded to multiple interviews in which they were asked, “How does it feel to know people hate Popplio so much?”, making him the ultimate underdog/puppy-thing. At least his evolution line gets the last laugh by turning into a magical underwater opera singer. Litten’s final stage is so predictable and Bro-y it actually made my wife NOT pick the cat starter, which says a lot (trust me).

Gen 8: Grookey

Which of course, brings us to today, where this “curious, tricky bastard” rates a solid Shrug-and-a-half on the MEH scale. But don’t worry, little guy. You’ll always have a place on my team. My older brothers already picked the cooler ones anyway. :-P

[puclpodcast]

The Fluff: Autumn Is Coming (a.k.a. My Top 6 Gen II Pokémon

Hello, my dear PUCLonians, and welcome once again to The Fluff. In September we’ll finally be able to use the Time Capsule again in a meaningful manner, by which I mean, without having our Pokémon stuck forever in old games. Gold and Silver are coming out on Virtual Console, and while I deeply feel the lack of an immediate Crystal release, I remain optimistic for a future one.

Gen II is kind of my unfinished Generation: due to various circumstances, I never finished my Silver game way back when, and in my SoulSilver, I could not bring myself to grind my sub-par team up to a level that would allow me to challenge Red. So in my mind he’s still sitting there, waiting for me to come find him. Will I ever? I hope so, and when I do, there’s a good chance I’ll bring some of these to the match: my Top 6 Gen II Pokémon!

Number 6: Chikorita and Hoppip

These Pokémon round out my rankings together, although for different reasons. The first time I played Silver, remembering how much of a good idea it had been to pick a Fire-type starter in Gen I, I chose Cyndaquil to begin my journey. But as my love for Grass types consolidated, Chikorita became my only choice. (Hint: it wasn’t a very good one, to be honest, as it’s by far the most difficult Starter for the Johto games).

When I got Pokémon Super Mistery Dungeon, the personality test said I was a Chikorita, and I was like, yeah, OK, that sounds plausible enough. And then every single person I know, from my PUCL friends to my Mom to my boyfriend, looking at a list of the possible starters for that game, pointed, umprompted, to the Chikorita as the best possible match for me. (My boyfriend called it “that zucchini thing”, but that’s besides the point.) So, apparently, I’m not a Whimsicott, but a Chikorita.

Well, I wasn’t a possible starter, which is absolutely preposterous, so I wouldn’t worry too much about that.

I don’t know, Whimsicott… it definitely left a mark. Hence Chikorita’s presence here.

So it’s a vanity thing?

… I suppose.

As for Hoppip, I’ve told this story countless times: Hoppip was the one Pokémon I remember coming across in a patch of tall grass, knowing absolutely nothing about it and never having seen it before, and it filled my heart with wonder and joy. (My heart was a bit disappointed when I caught it and realized it knew no useful moves, but that’s another story.)

With all the other generations after being pretty much completely spoiled by Japan having them in advance or by Game Freak being dumb, I’ve never again felt that wondrous feeling. And I miss it. Hopefully the spoilers for Gen 8 are handled in a better fashion… or I can devise a strategy to stay in PUCL without seeing absolutely all of them.

Number 5: Furret

Furret is one of those Pokémon that hovers around the top of my huge, ever-changing list of favorite Pokémon. But it is not a Pokémon that represents Gen II to me, so it’s a bit low on this list.

Furret is as useless as it is freaking adorable, and somehow learning it is as long as a man is tall does not take away from it.

… wait, what- Oh dear Arceus. This thing is 5’11”?

Yup. You’re used to my Furret plushie being tinier than you, but the real deal is huuuge. I’ve seen people make life-sized Furret plushes online, but so far none have been sufficiently fluffy in my opinion. If an appropriate one was made, you can bet I’d empty my wallet out for it in a heartbeat.

It would essentially be a body pillow.

Yes! The cutest one ever! Furret is definitely a Pokémon I’d choose to have in real life, for its perfect cuddling potential. And its pink shiny is delightful, although the color has lost a lot in the later Generations.

Number 4: Mareep

I guess it’s pretty clear that I love fluffy, sheep-shaped Pokémon.

And rightly so.

So Mareep was on the fast track to being on my team as soon as I met one in Pokémon Silver. While the loss of fluff upon evolving was a bit disheartening, I loved my Flaaffy and my Ampharos dearly, and years and years later, my love was rewarded with a super-fluffy Mega Evolution!

Thoreal the Ampharos sits in a box, waiting for me to find a way to use him properly in OU (I have a good set, just not a good team to go with it), which hopefully will be soon. I hope he and Tapu Cocoa, my Koko, can become fast friends.

I can take care of Ground types for them!

That’s sweet, Whimsicott, thank you. I’ll consider it. Anyway, after a first Generation in which the only Electric type I liked was Raichu, the Mareep line came in and strengthened my appreciation for this type, which, given my fondness for Grass types and their hatred of anything with wings and a beak, is a good, good thing.

Number 3: Celebi

Between my Mew and Jirachi 20th Anniversary plushes sits a Celebi from the same line. It has adorable glittery pink wings, and it has so far refused to let me go back in time to tell myself to buy Google stocks.

Gee, I wonder why.

Much like Mew in Gen I, Celebi was the unattainable dream of Gen II for me, because, much like with Mew in Gen I, Italy was pretty much the only country where Pokémon games were localized and sold in giant heaps, but no distribution events were held. My first Celebi came in Gen IV, in 2011, but the memory of its mystique never really left, and Celebi is pretty much the only onion I love (since I can’t eat most of them).

It’s kind of a bummer that it already had two non-Normal types and it couldn’t become a Fairy type along with me. I’d have been kind of OK with Celebi as my twin.

Really? I always thought you loved the exclusivity.

I do, but for a Mythical Pokémon, I might have made an exception. Now, sure, Tapu Bulu is a strong Legendary, but it has ZERO fashion sense. Unacceptable.

Yeah, Bulu is a good, bro, but… well. Let’s go back to Celebi, shall we? Despite its slightly awkward looong arms, it’s really cute and huggable. Also, we need a billion more time-travel plots, stat. They’re my favorite and I can’t get enough.

Number 2: Suicune

Speaking of time travel plots in Pokémon, Celebi’s mate in that movie I will, absolutely, watch some day (when the warnings about its awfulness from my PUCL peeps have faded enough from my ears) is the majestic Suicune.

Maestrale, my Suicune, was only used in a few VGC matches in a PFTT two years ago. Now I’m gathering Bottle Caps to give it a chance to shine in Gen 7.

Wait, Maestrale isn’t shiny.

No, darling, I was being metaphorical. Suicune is utterly beautiful, with its physics-defying ribbon tails, its flowing mane, its lovely blue shade… ah, it’s so pretty!

I mean, it was on a team with a shiny Whimsicott, so my eyes were elsewhere, but I guess it does look pretty nice, yes.

My love for Suicune is the main reason I resent Crystal not coming out this Autumn. This Pokémon deserves the extra storyline it got in Crystal and in the remakes, and I can’t wait to chase after it again, following the Northern wind.

Number 1: Bellossom

As I’ve mentioned before, I fell in love with Bellossom during its dance in the short that came with Pokémon The Movie 2000. I’ve always loved the Oddish line, and Bellossom was a fantastic addition to it. It is constantly on my list of “Pokémon I wish were more viable in battle”, and as much as Thatch tried during that one episode, I haven’t been able to find a set that satisfies me yet.

Maybe your expectations are too high.

Maybe they are. But when I do find that set, you can bet I’ll be breeding enough Oddish to plant a freaking forest of them, because Bellossom currently has the best shiny in the game. I do have a shiny Oddish already, but her Nature is not ideal, so my little green friend needs a little brother or sister. By the way, there is, out there in the world, one absolutely perfect shiny Bellossom plush. It was made on commission, so it’s not commercially available, but I want to share this awesomeness with you all:

By Sugarstitch on DeviantArt

Isn’t that amazing?

Not as good as a Whimsicott plush, but yes, cute!

With that, I suppose I’m done with Gen II until September. My dear PUCLonians, what are your favorite Gen II Pokémon? What are your fondest memories from that time? Let me know in the comments, and also let me know, if you managed to convince your Celebi to let you travel in time, how the heck you did it. Mine is apparently a real stickler for the rules.

It’s also made of fabric, which I’m sure doesn’t help, but keep dreaming, sister.

Until next time,

The Fluffiest Whimsicott

from The Fluff: Autumn Is Coming (a.k.a. My Top 6 Gen II Pokémon

[myonlypen]

Beta Gen 2 Pokémon Thoughts

1) Pikachu's beta design seems very round. There's that old joke that Pikachu's been losing weight since it debuted, this seems to be before that started.

2) You can see some of the other gen 1 Pokémon's beta designs look more like their RGB designs rather than the more anime-influenced designs they later got in the final versions and Yellow. Growlithe I think is one and the most obvious is Gastly's back sprite. I really dig Gastly's old design though, since it's completely spectral and is only detectable because of the gas. No weird floating Cloyster face.

3) VOLCANO BEAR. The world needs more Pokémon that are that cuddly.

4) If it is the case that the sea lion water starter was a very early version of Popplio I think it's great that Game Freak keeps their concepts around for so long to revisit. Imagine if they still have all of their rejected Pokémon ideas and they released it in a concept art book. It's be super interesting to look through.

5) There are a lot more (pre-) evolutions of gen 1 Pokémon than were eventually included. What's also interesting is that some of them were included in gen 4. I don't find it that surprising; some of the gen 4 members of gen 1 evolution lines were actually some of my favourite designs and felt like they could have fit in in earlier generations. It's also the case that some of the ones that are new in gen 4 are the ones I don't like the most (Magmotar for example)

6) Qwilfish evolution! That is something that does feel missing from the final game. Qwilfish is one of the most forgotten Pokémon and it does deserve more attention :can

7) I'm surprised that Weavile isn't among them. It has always struck me as being the most gen 2 looking gen 4 Pokémon. In fact if I'm mentioning unrelated Pokémon that I might have expected here, Meditite is another one. When I first played Sapphire I always thought it felt more like a gen 2 Pokémon.

8) Haha, Pichu is so round. It's cut- OH GOSH WHO SHAVED IGGLYBUFF

9) Marill was originally pink? So much for "Pikablu"

10) This "Twinz" Pokémon could be something really creepy. Presumably it's meant to evolve into Girafarig. But it also seems like something that they might have had some special attack or mechanic in mind for? Like some kind of double-slap kind of thing, or maybe even something like Mega Kangaskhan. Maybe the folks at Game Freak were in the very early stages of the thought processes that brought us double battles? The two sided Girafarig is one of these beta Pokémon that I definitely remember seeing in some video footage in the past.

11) Remoraid and Octillery being much more weaponlike. I can imagine they changes the designs to make the games seem less violent. But now the evolution actually makes more sense to me. I knew that they were vaguely based on a water gun and some artillery, but I never made the connection that that's why they evolve into each other. I always just got confused as to why a fish turned into an octopus.

12) I somehow I don't feel like it's surprising that Umbreon was originally poison type. Maybe that's because I have one that I use in the Battle Maison a lot whose main gimmick is its Toxic

13) BOMB SEAL. My party is going to be entirely fire types I swear. Volcano bear, bomb seal, baby Vulpix, baby Growlithe, baby Ponyta. They're all precious.

14) "Tigrette" reminds me heavily of a crying cat emote that I see people use on discord a lot. "Electiger" was likely merged with Raikou.

15) That voodoo doll and it's evolution. The twins one and now this. The designs of Ghost and Dark types here were so much creepier. Even Houndour looks scarier with a spine visible on its back!

16) Witch's hat Murkrow! While I definitely think the final design is an improvement it's nice to see it with a proper hat like that. I don't hide the fact that I dislike how Honchkrow pretty much retconned Murkrow's hat from being a witch's hat to a mobster underling's fedora.

17) It's noticeable how different the legendary beastdogcats are from their final versions. It's clear they had the general concept they wanted to work with done, but not any specific design in mind. If I recall correctly the final designs weren't by Ken Sugimori. Maybe these ones were his ideas for them? I don't think I can say much about the designs themselves. Entei looks like of boring to be honest; it's just a fire dog and we already have plenty of those. Raikou looks like a Final Fantasy protagonist, and I don't even know what's going on with Suicune's emo hair. Suicune's backsprite looks kind of cute though.

I could probably say more about the others but I don't feel like it'd be much more than simply acknowledging them.

[rrgupta]

The Decade.... What's the decade 2010 to 2019 called? That's the first question I had when I tried to review this ... Guess what.. No name! The last century this decade was called the "Teens", but this  name never caught on this century.  Gen Y or the Millennials are now getting middle aged (sorry guys!). And the Gen Z guys are now also  voters, so that's just for starters and context....! First, let me start with the "world view" , which is what a world class reviewer should do, right!? World peace, the one thing all beauty queens wish for was NOT acchieved. Despite the complete end to communism, peace is as elusive as moksha .. Wait, they mean the same, don't they??!! Anyways, the war on terrorism continues. Iraq and Taliban gave way to The ISIS or Daesh this decade, and that too was eradicated. Libyan Gaddafi was finished , but Syria, Yemen conflict and tensions remain. North Korea and Iran fortunately haven't attacked USA (or vice versa!) .  With peace "non achieved", I think poverty is under control... The miss world beauties got 50% of their wishes!  In the last 10 years famine and draught have not been in the news. Natural disasters I think the worst was right in the beginning of the decade ... The earthquake in Haiti, where more than 300,000 people died. Closer to home,  the Uttarakhand deluge in 2013 and the Kashmir floods in 2014 are the worst that come to mind ... Probably because in both, close friends and relatives had a narrow escape.   Leaving India aside, the biggest political news was the first Black President of the USA. Trump remains a typical American president, only more forthright. Putin is of course not going anywhere, has ruled Russia for last 20 years . Xi Jumping, president of life of China and paramount leader and core leader, since 2012 remains an enigma. No other world ruler ( remember.. I'm not including India in this section) is really now worth mentioning or one that we will remember in 10 years from now.  The last 10 years have been , in my opinion, the decade when the most change has happened, technologically! I'm OLD, so I guess you've got to take my word for this!  IPads were introduced ONLY  in 2010 and since then everyone, and his pet has a smart phone. I remember that it took much convincing for my mom to get a smart phone, and now of course it's an extension of all our lives. Google Baba is the ultimate arbiter for all disputes from when a movie was released to any political jhagda. I think, if Pakistan and India ask Google to resolve their issues, it would be a great idea!  Netflix, and the likes have replaced DVD, blu rays and laser discs  totally. VHS was last century, but the others existed till 7,8 years ago. Similarly pen drives cane and went. Email remains, but I believe it's importance is reducing in our business lives , and it's eliminated from personal lives. (BTW I'm doing this whole blog on a smart phone) Streaming of music, movies , news has changed the world in more ways we can imagine, getting everyone closer. Film photography.. What's that? I'm sure many teenagers don't know about this. the world now takes more pictures , in a SINGLE MINUTE, than were taken in the entire 19th  and 20th century put  together. Every world leader tweets his private thoughts and technically we are capable of getting them to hear us! Influencers, tweets, instaworthy, food blogging, emojis are words which didn't exist , nor their concepts existed at the beginning of the decade.  Internet of Things has given many lonely guys a new girl friend called Siri , but of course they cheat with her , by flirting with Alexa !  You can now feed your gold fish at home, sitting in Timbuktu, while your keyless home is watched by cameras you are monitoring on a phone. Drones are not yet delivering pizzas, but they'll get there in a few years.  Robots have taken over factories, not yet our homes , and hopefully will not take over the world anytime soon. We are safe , R2D2 and C3PO! No need to FOMO , guys, you can JOMO!!! Ethanol as a fuel came into fashion and went! Cars are becoming engineless and battery operated. That's the biggest change,in my mind...! Still a long way to go but hey! I own one, and I'm as commoner as can be!  Solar power is now as cheap as grid power.  Around 25% to 35% of world energy increase consumption annually comes from New technologies, which if they existed in beginning of the decade, were definitely not commercially viable in 2010! Coming to India during the last 10 years... Obviously, the biggest story of the decade is the change in the politics. Congress and their likes are in the opposition , with BJP in power for last 6 years . This decade is the first time since  independence, that Congress is so far away from politics. The decade should have been "young " Rahul Gandhi's , but Narendra Modi definitely is the story of the Indian decade. In my opinion, the biggest story in the last decade was when Indian IT industry became so powerful, but this year is the political upheaval. Last year ,2019, created more political changes..sec377, sec 370 , ram Mandir than since 1970's when Pakistan was bifurcated, or 1990s when Ram Mandir drama was on in full blast. The political agenda and direction of the country is undergoing a massive change, and that's defined India last decade, and will define India for next few years.  It's the first time since 1989 Rajiv Gandhi government, where we have no real coalition government. If played sensibly, India can go onto becoming a world leader!  Amongst other stuff-- God retired!! (Yes, Tendulkar reired in 2013), The Khan Trioka faded away...Amitabh is still going strong on KBC!! New HOTTIES of the types of Virat Kohli & Ranveer Singh are the new heroes of India & typify the New India in ways that are just PERFECT!! On the personal front... A lot happened this decade...  First, I'm older, much older... Maybe wiser, but I guess you guys have a vote in this issue! My 25th wedding anniversary (2012) to Renu was a huge event , life changer in many ways.  My kids , Priyanka and Madhur graduated. They grew up in the real sense , getting married to Harsh and Tulsi. All this happened in quick sequence of events ! Our family adopted Theo, the Yorkie, and Zoobie, the Goldie. This all made it easy to absorb some difficult times, and huge changes business wise, in the early part of the decade.  Of course, one of the biggest changes to me personally, is the hobby of writing these reviews. @RReviews_etc As the new year and be decade begins, I can only be thankful to the Almighty that he's been kind to the world, to India, to my Family and to me. I pray that he continues this trend! How do u rate the Decade -- 6/5 for me, since God created time, & He is perfect!! Rajesh Gupta @RReviews_etc #TEENS #2009-2019 #Decadeof change #decade #HappyNewYear

[estrelatzia]

Ok, so as I said before, I wanted to post my thoughts about the SWSH games.

These are mostly thoughts I had on a whim during my first experience, and they might change with time or by playing the games a second time. So please don’t @ me, I am not here to argue, these thoughts are just for fun and somehow a way for me to go back and see if my thoughts on the games changed since they were released.

I categorized them as “things I liked”, “things I thought were meh” and “others” (Others are just interesting points I wanted to talk about, that I might have gave me mixed feelings about, but are not necessary bad).

Before the games were released, they gave me a lot of mixed feels that I never really experienced before with Pokemon games. From the start, I always get excited about new Pokemon games, it’s one of my favourite things since I was a kid. And even when games were not my cup of tea or I was going through a “I don’t like Pokemon anymore” phase, I would still get the game and play along with my sibling and cousins, It’s almost like a tradition.

But this time, during the period before the games got released, I felt nothing...like I was not really interested??? Like I was excited for new Pokemon, the games looked pretty and I loved the thought of exploring a new region in the pokeworld, but besides that, there was nothing more to it. And I got exhausted after all the conflicts and the bad news I saw in the last months, that I barely followed up on the SWSH news.

So I kinda started the news games kinda blind? I knew about the officially released Pokemon, but didn’t check the leaks, so many new gen8 pokemon were new to me as I played. I didn’t read much on the gym leaders, except for knowing what the ones officially revealed looked like, or other little features of the games (Like the wild zone, dynamax, raids etc). And it was an interesting experience to me.

Things that I really loved:

The scenery is gorgeous!! It really had amazing views and it give a beautiful atmosphere. I know many will laugh, but to me exploring the pokeworld is always one of the things I am the most looking forward too. It’s something I did since I was a kid. So all this to say that exploring the regions was really important to me, and I adored exploring Galar. My facourite towns were Wedgehurst, Ballonlea and Circhester.

The new Gen 8 Pokemon were great! They were cute and while some of them were “meh” to me I admit, in general I love the direction they were going with most of them. My faves of this region are Scorbunny, Raboot, Hattena, Galar Ponyta, Galar Meowth and the evolution family of Corviknight (My champ ;u;).

I was surprised to find many Galarian versions as well, and it was so nice to see their new takes on pokemon (bonus points, they were from other gens than gen1! yay!)

The clothing option was great! I love the options they gave to us early on, and even tho I have some comments about it, I really adored the customization options!

I like camping and the curry option, not gonna lie. At first I was joking about completing the Curry dex, but really I want to complete it! It was so fun to me! I always took my time to play in the camp and try different types of curry lol

The Gym Challenges were super fun for the most part. My fave was the first one lol I was disappointed by some, but in general they were interesting concepts and I hope they can keep challenges similar to these in future games.

Also really I loved all the Gym leaders in Galar. I thought the game really made them all memorable by giving them personalities and details. I only played Sword, so I cannot 100% say since I didn’t interact with them, but I love the design of Allister and Melony. Piers was kinda relatable to me lol and Opal was a fun concept for a Gym leader. All around, It was a really strong gang and they were fun to interact with. I loved the cards we get knowing more about them and their backgrounds.  

The “rivals” are interesting. I feel like they gave us a little of every type of rival people like. Like you have your friendly neighbour/rival Hop, a friend you learn more about during the game Marnie, and the old fashion arrogant type of rival we all missed, Bede. My fave was Marnie! But I appreciate the arc Hop got and Bede as well.

Things that were meh to me:

First of all, when they introduce the Pokemon, the usual theme that would appear (Welcome to the world of pokemon segment), Is not there???? Blasphemy!! (This one is a joke, please don’t take this seriously. But it was weird not hearing the theme I was used to at the beginning lol)

The thing about GF being forced to release the game before the end of the year, and the fact that they were in a rush, kinda made me wonder when there were things in the game that didn’t settle with me. Like I was always wondering “Was it cut because of the lack of time?” or if it was just things they wanted to go with it, or if it was me being paranoid?” Because, not gonna lie, I kinda compared to the last games to try to figure out what was the reason being the things that made it meh for me.  

I love the scenery and towns in Galar, and once again, idk if it was because of the lack of time, but sometimes the places in Galar feels empty...? Idk how to explain, because there is a lot to explore and I love what they did with like the routes (for the example, the two mines look so different and are so pretty! it’s not annoying to explore). But I kinda compare/think to USUM (or even SUMO), some places feel like something is missing?

For example the Budew Inn in Motostoke town. If you have the chance to go to the second floor and explore, you will find most of the rooms look empty? Like there is a lot of space, but nothing much to decorate or make the room feel less empty, compare to the hotels in Alola. I know it’s a weird nitpick, but like I said I love exploring, and remembered that this was something cool to me when I saw the details in Sun and Moon, so I felt a little like things were missing.  

Another example are some towns have no homes to explore? Like the town of the first gym, it had no houses to explore and it was so strange? Our hometown had only two houses as well (Ours and Hop’s)...or the fact that Galar’s towns we get to explore are most of the time ones with Gym leaders in it (except for our hometown, the one where the professor is and the one with the champion battle), and it was strange to me not having just a town that is there to explore without having a major plot related thing? Idk if it was just me, but as someone who likes to explore the pokeworld, that’s my thougths.

About the clothing, I really super feel like they should have cabins to change your outfit in like every Pokemon center or something. Because you can only change in cabins at boutiques. But these are like available in about 5 towns. Sometimes you just want to change clothing or accessories after one town and have to wait until arriving to a town with a boutique to change (or go back to the last one). Idk why they removed this from SUMO honestly.

Also...as someone who choose a girl character, I was disappointed that I didn’t get option to wear many pants like the boy, since the girl’s option was mostly skirts :(  Like I like the skirts, don’t get me wrong, but idk why it’s such a downgrade compared to SUMO in term of pants.  Honestly, I just wish that all the clothing would be accessible to everyone regardless of the characters’ gender.

The rivals were great imo. But sometimes I wanted Hop to leave me for a few seconds ngl. Especially at the start, like he talks in a scene in every new town you arrive. I actually don’t have a problem with Hop, I enjoy these types of friendly rivals actually and his feelings during his arc were really relatable, but sometimes I just wish we could get a break from his scenes for a while lol But at the same time, I understand that maybe his arc would have seen less good if we would see less of it? On the other hand, I kinda wish we could have seen MORE of Bede’s arc honestly. He is the arrogant rival, then something happen that is a change in his life, and the next time we see him, he takes on this new challenge and has quite changed. We see what starts all the change, but it’s a shame we don’t see the change more.  

I am not big on online stuff in general, but the way to interact online in the game is such a big meh to me! So I was trying to find my sibling in the online feature to participate in a raid battle. So I filtered by raids, don’t find them. Filtered by friends, still don’t find them. So I try to find them on the map to see if I can interact that way, fly to the other side of the map, and even if I am still connected to internet, the stamps are gone???? So I have to un-connect and reconnect to the internet again and STILL don’t find them! It’s just weird and annoying to me honestly. The fact they don’t have the GTS anymore is disappointing as well :(  I know the GTS had issues, but they could easily fix the issues imo.

I could talk forever about the dex cut, but I won’t because we all heard about it. Instead, I will just mention, that I wish there was a way somehow to get alolan versions.

Other:

The music is so good and interesting but, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel like I got more like Final Fantasy vibes more than Pokemon sometimes. Like when we are exploring the Forest early game and our hometown really gave me adventure RPG vibes lol.

The Ex share all. *Inhales* SO I always somehow disliked the ex share all since XY. I just have some weird thing that I want all my pokes to be at the same lvl, but in prior games it was hard to do with ex share all, because my starter would always be more lvl, and when I capture a new poke at lower lvl it would be difficult for me to lvl it up to the same lvl as the others. It was such a turn off for me. But this game, I feel like they did a good job! The pokemon who battles gain more exp than the others and the poke you capture in the wild are definitely at a lvl that is closer to your team. I didn’t get really overleved like I did in prior gens as well and I am thankful for that. I feel like they balanced it very well and I hope they keep this type of thing in the future.

No night/day cycle: During the main game, the night/day cycle is scripted lol Like you arrive in a town and it is sunset and it’s supposed to give us an atmosphere and a feeling of time passing and I think it’s interesting. It took me a while to realise that the time in the Wild area actually corresponds to your time zone in the Switch tho lol

The curry and camp are neat, but a part of me is sad that I can’t give my pokemon pats like in Pokemon refresh/amie or feed them food directly especially when there are scripts ingame before battling where the pokemon says they want to be petted. ;;

The story is almost non-existent. The villain is kinda predictable (Lysandre you have competition!) and it seems all to happen in the very last part of the main game. The pacing was kinda weird, and honestly, I am not sure I got all of the point the villain was going for, so I will digress on talking more about it. I know some people wanted a briefer from the last games (SUMO was super plot-heavy). And it gives us the chance to enjoy the games for only the Pokemon journey, it’s just felt kinda like something was missing for me because I am so used to the plots in the games tbh. I am not sure where they were going with it.

There is a story post-game...but well...idk what to say. These recent gens seems like there are no much post-game content, so idk what to say here. It’s not super fun, but it adds to the story and is enjoyable? It’s interesting I suppose, but just like the main plot, I am not sure where they were going with this as well lol It was nice seeing Hop getting involved into it though!

In brief, It was a good experience. Not the best, but definitely not the worst. To me the worst game was Pokemon Let’s go, and I am so glad SWSH didn’t beat it as the worst lol I honestly feel like I would have missed a fun experience if I had skipped SWSH.

 I just wish GF would have spent more time on it not gonna lie. Some parts really need to be more polished. And I hope in the future they will stop trying to produce a game a year and take more time to fully and comfortably polish their games, but maybe I am hoping for too much here.