#Jeffu plays Pokemon

[bainhardt]

realized I should catalog my Scarlet and Violet ranked seasons/teams here as well instead of just on twitter. here are the first six months - crazy to think the game’s been out over six months already. my goal is to get Master Ball every single season of the game’s entire lifespan without missing any, although I have no idea if I’ll actually stick with it... certain seasons in SWSH had me completely repelled and I imagine SV could see that happen again lol

either way, what I’ve learned for sure is my teambuilding needs serious work. I generally play BO1 specific anti-meta stuff, and I wonder what it’d be like to put together something with some actual merit and consistency

[bainhardt]

decided to watch Blade Runner tonight, as I’d never seen it before, and work on a Route 7 hunt for Spritzee I’ve been taking at a leisurely pace since about halfway through last year. it’s stretched triple over odds before I even phased (at least as far as I noticed), with this Ducklett shining at 12353 encounters. I kept telling myself I’d rather phase on a Smeargle or Ducklett over Croagunk or Roselia, so that much is all right with me. still curious to see if this Spritzee ever comes, though

[bainhardt]

I’ve wanted to add a Hololive Pokemon to my collection since the early days of HoloPoke cup preparation on Sword and Shield, and this morning I finally managed to get my hands on one! And from Reine, no less!!

One of my dreams has been realized... My emotions...

https://youtu.be/PeouJi8pX1w?t=11877

[bainhardt]

Suddenly started my SoulSilver Badge Quest earlier tonight, by which I mean my starter happened to shine while watching Youtube with some friends lol. I'd been doing this reset so haphazardly since finishing my Pearl BQ that I legitimately forgot claiming means I now have to... play the game. It's such a fast and painless reset, I wouldn't have minded putting more time into it. 1682 logged means 5046 starters seen. Nice.

I would've been happy with any of the three, as I've mostly been playing BQs like Nuzlockes where half the fun is in seeing what random assortment my team ends up. Totodile is admittedly pretty damn cool, and another example of a Pokemon I don't think I'd ever have gone out of my way to hunt in isolation.

I don't plan to go too hard on this game anytime soon... I have other things I'd rather be doing for the moment, but I'm sure once I plan out a couple targets in Johto I'll catch the bug once again.

[bainhardt]

had the sudden urge to Pokeradar so I hopped on the daily swarm (Windworks Electrike) and zoned out for a bit to some Youtube and voila. actually think these two look pretty slick in the gen 4 sprites. nice

[bainhardt]

batch three of Scarlet/Violet Master Ball rank seasons

teambuilding has come a long way and while I don't think I'd be anywhere close to doing well in open teamsheet or BO3 tourneys, I've really gotten the hang of crafting strats for BO1 play lol. Indeedee + Iron Valiant is my favorite combo this year and has been putting in work for months

[bainhardt]

Pokemon Pearl Badge Quest complete

(Happiny ended the game at level 84)

[bainhardt]

Holy hell, I am so glad to finally be finishing Pearl.

Obviously, the lead up to the final gym is when most of the games interrupt with their respective legendary/villain storylines, so I figured I'd stop fighting the terrible encounter tables Sinnoh has to offer and SR for Palkia in the home stretch. Might as well go out with a bang. And it's still only the second SR hunt I've ever done, to be honest. I mean, I didn't really want Palkia that badly, but it felt fitting. When else am I ever gonna bother doing this hunt than on Pearl?

I didn't put much time into it right away, with the entire thing once again more of an accessory to times I felt like throwing on a show or movie rather than something I'd specifically decide to do. That changed around February or March, when I felt it was high time I close out this Badge Quest so I didn't have to feel it hanging over my head all the time. I want to move on to other hunts.

Didn't end up over odds either, with 7568 recorded SRs, and thankfully pretty quick ones. Only about 20 seconds each at peak efficiency. Probably faster than random encounters in some games, lol. And as SRs don't involve much walking around, Happiny has ended this phase at level 83 off travel around the region and up Mount Coronet.

Overall, it's crazy looking back over the momentum this Badge Quest had in the start, with the first four hunts taking under 3 months combined, and the back four taking over 6 months each.

Would you believe me if I said I already want to do another one? Okay, maybe not right away, but since beginning this arduous journey back in 2021 I've filled in the rest of the gaps in my DS Pokemon collection with JP copies, and SoulSilver is looking like it could be pretty fun...

[bainhardt]

second batch of Scarlet/Violet ranked results through to the end of 2023. still keeping strong on the Master Ball grind, and I've come up with some interesting teams along the way. I can definitely see growth there, even if I am still pretty stubborn about avoiding common picks to my own detriment lol

[bainhardt]

Happy Halloween!

As it would turn out, it's been juuuust shy of 12 months since the last knotch on this ever-long belt known as Pearl Badge Quest, with the sixth being Golbat on Iron Island. Thankfully, the lead up to the seventh gym introduces - gasp - new areas, with actual new encounters! Can you imagine.

Anyway, I had most of the progression done so fast I don't even remember it (almost a year ago), then set to work encountering on Route 216. While all of the previous hunts I can recall were done solo on the BQ file itself, we've moved past the available party slots with the hunt for Shiny #7, so I figured I might as well multihunt with my game-cleared Platinum trudging through the snow alongside. Platinum has the opportunity for a couple different encounter slots, so all in all I was looking at a wide range of Pokemon new and old like Machoke, Noctowl, Sneasel, Meditite, Snorunt, Snover, and Zubat.

My target was Snover, but as usual I'd have settled for anything I didn't already have (Zubat and Meditite, and I have a Noctowl on a different game, too). Though I didn't go all that hard on this hunt, I would pick it up from time to time when I had something I wanted to watch, and finally got to see that shine today after 11212 encounters - and on the Badge Quest file once again.

After a quick refresh of the Daycare tracker app, Happiny has gained two levels, reaching level 82.

[bainhardt]

pictures that tell a story

[bainhardt]

occasionally playing a classic Nuzlocke of Ruby and found this shiny Plusle last night while grinding on route 110. first shiny I ever found on a gen III game and I wasn’t even hunting. unfortunately I don’t think Plusle’s shiny looks particularly great on any of the games - I could barely tell the difference except for the sparkle because I was playing on my original DS at the time. definitely wouldn’t have tried to hunt this in any other case.

[bainhardt]

Pokemon SV thoughts: tumblr exclusive dlc version sorry this is so long but too bad lol

I got to the credits tonight and to be honest, I feel like I have way too much to say about SV, but that'd be kind of exhausting, so I'll try to keep it to broad strokes. It reminded me a lot of Legends Arceus: I had my share of fun, but I have numerous complaints as well.

First, if what people are tired and cynical about is Game Freak's supposed lack of "innovation," I feel this game is proof that they are finally coming around to trying new ideas. This and LA are the freshest the franchise has been in decades. But new ideas take a lot of refining.

The most fun aspect was exploration. It's legitimately awesome to simply wander, see Pokemon, and catch Pokemon, and you can go basically anywhere you want from the word “Go.” I remember wanting far more out of the exploration in Legends Arceus, and I was relieved to find when playing SV that it felt much closer to what I had envisioned for the concept. This is a big step forward in terms of freedom (and the region is pretty cool, which helps).

But the battling is the same as always (even with the new gimmick), the gyms are the same, the E4 is the same. If the core gameplay loop has grown old for you, there won't be much to win you over; you can do these battles in any order you like, but they're still just... battles.

Add on top of that this game has... a LOT of cutscenes, and it can really drag just trying to get things done so you can progress and become stronger. Story is always subjective, but if you're not invested in the plotlines, you are NOT going to enjoy the pacing (I didn't).

Despite that, the "endgame zone" so to speak is probably the single coolest thing I've seen in a Pokemon game to date. idk that I'd say it makes up for the first portions, but I did start to enjoy the story in the back half. imo the coolest villain/plan segment in the franchise.

Lastly, this game runs like shit. This is THE worst technical showcase of any game I've played on my Switch, bar none. I'm not talking your occasional slowdown or something - this is literally a game that spends more time chugging and breaking than not.

It really brings the entire experience down to know this was a game that was willing to put the work in with its ideas and ambition, only to be held back by hardware limitations and likely development problems (three Pokemon games in a year, all felt crunched and unpolished). I honestly feel like now that the fanbase at large has gotten their hands on gen 9, just about anyone would’ve been willing to give up BDSP and Arceus if it meant this game got the time and resources it really needed. But that problem rings true for any one of them; all three of these games needed more work than they got in the end. Not one of them has felt truly complete when compared to SWSH.

Anyway, all I really had left in terms of complaints are minor ones, but man, I had about a thousand. You can't turn move animations off, you can't L=A mode, there's no Battle Style Shift or Set option, the Pokedex and Bag don't remember where your cursor left off in between uses, the PC box takes forever to load each page, you can’t change to the All Boxes view while holding a Pokemon, the summary screens work differently between the PC and the Party screen, the Bag and Pokedex have no fast scroll buttons, the sandwich recipe menu has a favorite button but then no way to filter by favorites, each time you use an item on a Pokemon it deselects that item and makes you select it again... you get the idea. Many people don’t notice things like this, but for me they’re like pebbles in my shoe, and holy shit - this game was like walking on goddamn gravel.

If this game worked as intended, it would very probably rank the best in the franchise like, unanimously. For a lot of players, it likely still will be. But to me, it's hard to recommend a game that feels this broken, that feels this slapdash when I know they can make them better.

Also, I never tend to include this as part of my actual review’s parameters, but I liked a lot of new Pokemon (most since like gen 5 maybe) and thought a lot of new abilities/moves/battle stuff was really creative. This was the first game I can remember in years where I actually used a team of nothing but new guys, and a full team of six at that. But there's also some truly batshit insane powercreep stuff that's looking to make competitive a nightmare (getting my predictions in early). Continuing the post-3D trend, practically every new Pokemon has a signature move, signature ability, or both, and holy fuck some of the new moves are unbelievable. And the two box legendaries have some Calyrex-ass double down abilities that are sure to make the restricted format full of them. Ugh.

Another thing I felt even before the game came out and after playing still feel is: I really hate the approach to graphical presentation and how that factored into the designs and appearances of the human characters. It’s admirable that they’re trying to add more detail to the Pokemon with texture and lighting, but the people in this game look properly fucking weird to me. The clothes are textured to look more real, the hair is attempting a realistic texture with like visible strands (although it does look pretty shoddy)... but then the skin and faces are still giant plasticy anime-style deals. It reminded me a lot of fashion dolls. Just kind of uncanny, you know?

And personally, I don’t even want the graphics to be more realistic at the end of the day; Pokemon is supposed to be cartoony, and I think this bizarre middle ground only hurts the style in a lot of ways more than it improves it. The trainers and NPCs at large suffer from this lack of cartoonishness, and I feel like the entire world’s color and vitality gets brought down a level from generations past. Yes, the gym leaders still manage some good and a couple great designs; yes, the Star leaders are probably the best designs in the game. But virtually everyone else in the game look like “boring human in clothes.” Battling what few trainers I did, it felt hard to believe this is the same franchise that used to have unique Youngsters, Lasses, Beauties, Fishermen, Hikers, Ace Trainers, Battle Girls and Black Belts, where everyone from business people to scientists to janitors to students and their teachers had memorable and new appearances each generation. Looking at this game, the notion that we could see a repeat of what happened to XY’s Hex Maniac, for example, was laughable. They really put all their eggs into one basket with the main cast, which I think is a significant step backwards.

The actual, real, final thing I can remember to say at this time was that I felt the gym/E4′s use of Terastallization was poor and a huge missed opportunity. Each gym, the leader uses a random ace that they Tera into their gym’s type, which only serves to make the battles as much of a sweep as always if the player is sufficiently prepared. When wiping the Water gym leader with my Electric type, I actually paused for a second when seeing his final Pokemon was Crabominable. I thought “huh, now I don’t have a great move for this, do I switch out to-” before remembering he was, of course, going to change it to a Water type like everything else and I could finish the battle with no more trouble than before.

To me, the better way to handle this and introduce the depth and possibilities of the mechanic is to have each leader’s ace still be a Pokemon of their type, which they Tera into something different and unexpected, reflecting the way it will work in real battles with other players. This also serves to showcase a range of basic strategic choices for each type players could choose to use in their own teams. The only leader that felt close to this was Iono, Terastallizing a Mismagius into Electric so as to have no weaknesses with Levitate. Giving her something like a Volt Absorb Pokemon to Tera into Flying or Water and negate a weakness wouldn’t have been as “strong,” but I feel it would’ve been more thematically appropriate while requiring players to actually vary their approach a little more.

[bainhardt]

spent the past couple days playing this sickass romhack called Pokémblem. helped immensely with passing the days until Scarlet & Violet drop. my team was Blastoise, Primeape, Nidoking, Gloom, Aerodactyl, and Dragonite.

overall I had a great time and I think the fusion feels really fresh in the broad sense, though there were several janky hiccups throughout that would probably need polishing out if a full game were made in this style (whether official or indie in origin). for a romhack though, it was incredible what they were able to do and many of the features pushed the limits of what I thought possible in the FE GBA engine.

[bainhardt]

#RibbonQuest2.0 - Part 4: From GBA SP to Pokemon SP

Jin, wake up!

You’ve been asleep for a full year! Almost exactly to the day, in fact!

They’ve finally added Pokemon HOME support for the gen 4 remakes, and you know what that means... yet another remake-return on our quest, back to Sinnoh for the second time!

For a refresher on Jin’s travels so far, they’ve gone as follows: Orre > Hoenn > Johto > Kanto > Sinnoh > Unova > Kalos > Hoenn 2 > Alola > Galar > Sinnoh 2. But for this, we’ll first need to go HOME.

This temporary trip won’t require us to separate Jin from his Ribbon Gang 2.0 for very long.

He won’t even be separated from his moves. Thought this was an interesting feature!

And we’ve arrived with everything right where it ought to be. No titles for the ribbons in this game, unfortunately.

I decided I’d give Jin the chance to get used to being in Sinnoh all over again after so much time away. We have some traumatic memories from this region, so it seemed fitting to revisit some of the happier ones.

That’s him down in front, in case the Master Ball wasn’t a giveaway.

Like that time I randomly contracted Pokerus! The only time in my history with the franchise, an infection which has obviously sprawled its way across countless games of mine in the time since. That was a fortuitous event, a symbol of good luck for the trials yet to come.

Or the Ribbon Syndicate! I remember describing it as the sweetest moment in the entirety of Ribbon Quest, getting to knock those hoity-toity gatekeeping snobs down a peg... only to then have to grind hundreds of thousands of Pokedollars in order to buy ribbons from them. But we’ll be keeping our cash this time around, ma’am.

How about Ball Capsules!? One of my great regrets from the original RQ was neglecting to collect these on my DS games and make Jin a capsule that shouts DUCK or something. The bad news is they removed the letter capsules for the remake so I still can’t rectify that, but I did what I could to whip Jin up something special with what I do have.

And who could forget the Battle Tower!?

...Actually, I’d like to forget the Battle Tower. Luckily, the ribbon for this is identical to the one from SWSH, so we’re sitting pretty there, no new Ribbon Gang 2.0 members needed.

All right, let’s just get this over with and go back to Galar. Where exactly is this new ribbon we need to get?

Ah fuck. The only way this could get any worse is if Cheryl’s waiting on the other side of those doors...

So yes, much like ORAS’s Contest Star a couple generations ago, these remakes added another new contest prize called the Twinkling Star Ribbon. The good news is these contests are largely different from those in the DS versions of Diamond and Pearl, so with any luck I’d have the ribbon easily enough, no Poffins or accessory spam required.

Jin still represents the pinnacle of Pokemon Performance in all regards.

Basically these contests are a short rhythm game, and while that was my least favorite aspect of the DS contests, it wasn’t quite as bad. Each rank only has one song, so there’s no randomness there, and with practice it’s not too hard to get the pattern down. You can gain a small boost by decking your Pokemon out with capsules, and you can use a Contest Move once per show which temporarily eliminates the need to even hit any notes.

Jasmine resurfaced specifically to remind me she doesn’t play around.

Each attempt didn’t take very long, and in the end, after a combined seven or so tries, the Twinkling Star Ribbon was ours without much trouble. I think I even had a little fun, although I am glad I didn’t have to grind all the previous tiers of contests beforehand.

Jin is likely to spend the remainder of his time on the Switch in Galar where this new ribbon isn’t displayed, so for the return trip I wanted to snap a quick shot of him in the Mobile App version of HOME to showcase the nifty ribbon gallery visible there. Lookin’ good as always, old friend.

With that, Jin is officially an 8th gen Ribbon Master once more, and permanently... for at the time of this writing we’ve already seen the announcement of gen 9! Which means the future of Ribbon Quest is again uncertain until more details about Scarlet and Violet come to light.

Until that time,

POKEMON BDSP: COMPLETE!

[bainhardt]

My Wurmple evolved into Beautifly, and some mirror matches for direct shiny comparisons.

It’s pretty cool playing through the entire game with nothing but shinies on my team. I got a small taste of it with two when I recently played Crystal, but it’s a totally different story when every Pokemon you send out sparkles. Although it’s having an adverse side effect on me in wild encounters...