#also the map looks like a pokemon region

[thyfleshc0nsumed]

I can't take forgotten realms lore seriously at all. It just all reads so dorky and uncool

[catboybiologist]

Y'all ready for a certified neurodivergent moment?

I had to sit through a thing I absolutely did not need any info from, and typed up a massive outline of the soulsborne pokemon game I just talked about. Massively cringe, yes, but hey it's not just living in my head anymore.

I've had this idea brewing in my head for a while now, pretty much ever since PLA came out (and I found it kinda disappointing tbh). Even though Hoenn has lots of love, it still feels like the most "grand" region in terms of the scale and themes of its lore, so I liked the idea of using it for a legends game that focused on the initial clash of Kyogre and Groudon. I had so many ideas brew in my head, and I guess now I sloppily typed them out.

Obviously this isn't actual game design. This is just me being cringey and detailing my dream pokemon game. At 26 years old. Anyways.

Pokemon Legends: Jirachi

In the times when Hoenn was young, the earth and seas shook. Titans roam the land- powerful individual pokemon that shape their environment to their liking. Humans and pokemon work together to keep them under control, but the earth and sea themselves shake, and Titans only grow more numerous. One day, a human wishes on a shooting star to become a hero and save their land, and something from up there answered.

In this game, Jirachi would be a kind of invisible "questmaster", giving an in-game reason for path markers, quest markers, and points of interest marked in stardust and sparkles. Once the main plot is completed, Jirachi would be able to join your party.

Core combat

The gameplay would be souls-like or Monster Hunter like, but with direct parallels to mainline pokemon mechanics. The six stats would be the same, and the four moves your pokemon can learn would be equivalent to the attack interface of a soulslike game- four trigger buttons. You would take direct control of one "primary" pokemon at a time, and use it as a souls-like character.

HP, Def, and SpDef would be largely the same, with the added benefit that less damage taken means more resistance to trips and staggers.

Atk and SpAtk are also pretty clear cut, scales your damage output per move.

Speed would be analogous to stamina or endurance. Dodging would work as in soulsborne games, and consume stamina. Most pokemon walking, running, attack speed, and dodging speed would be largely equivalent, but high speed pokemon would be able to sustain rapidfire attacking, frequent dodging, and continuous sprinting for longer.

Accuracy would be reworked into lock-on or charge up time- eg, a low accuracy move requires you to stay in one place for a longer amount of time before releasing, to charge up or lock on (imagine how swag ass this would look with focus blast).

PP would correspond to cooldown time. Each move would be infinite use, but have a cool-down after its used. So a move with high accuracy, but low PP, could be used instantly, but not spammed. High PP, weaker moves would then see an increased niche as a "default" light attack that can be spammed.

Attacks could also be ranged, up close, AoE, and have other features that would need to be tweaked and balanced in implementation. They wouldn't one to one map onto their in game counterparts, but this would at least provide a vague guide for how these moves work that builds on players assumed existing knowledge of pokemon games.

Special attributes, like never-miss moves and priority moves, would have features that play into this- eg, priority moves could be spammed with no cooldown, and never-miss moves would be immune to inhibiting effects.

Stat changes could be temporary effects applied to yourself when using the move, like a buffing spell in soulsborne games.

Nonvolatile status effects (paralysis, burn, sleep, etc) would work similar to monster hunter- invisibly accumulating triggers that occur as a side effect to to moves, or in the case of moves that directly trigger status like Spore or Thunder Wave, they would not do direct damage, but instead add massive amounts to the accumulated status trigger.

Field effects (weather, terrain, and special effects like wind, gravity, etc) could be set by regular pokemon moves in small areas, but would also be frequently encountered in the overworld.

Examples: the vibes of potential starter pokemon.

This is all just for the purpose of giving examples of how I envision some of this stuff working. Assume each pokemon would have regional variants that scaled their stats appropriately. This is just to show how different playstyles from the mainline games would translate to this format.

Lucario: example mixed offensive pokemon

Moves like aura sphere could be used with no lock on time, and little to no cooldown, forming the basis of a normal, light, ranged attack.

Moves like Close Combat would have no lock on, but give a temporary debuff and have a long cooldown time before they could be initiated again, making for a quick to use but infrequent heavy attack.

Swords dance and/or nasty plot could be used to provide a temporary buff for a period of time.

Focus blast would take a long time to charge and lock on, making you a sitting duck.

Reuniclus: example tanky pokemon

Light Screen and Barrier could lay down static areas on the ground. When an ally pokemon is located within them, they provide their corresponding defensive buffs. Cooldown for reusing them starts when these floor areas disappear.

Recover could be used to heal, but would have a long cooldown.

Liepard: example technical pokemon

Yawn would inflict direct sleep "buildup", but over time as opposed to instantly.

Fake out would instantly proc a stagger from the enemy, but could only be used in a certain time range upon being sent out.

Moves like taunt and torment function as usual.

The trainer and overworld traversal

Even though the player has direct control over pokemon, the MC is still a trainer, and pokemon are still capture in balls.

The trainer would be on the sidelines, with idle animations ordering the pokemon to do stuff.

Only one "controllable" pokemon could be outside of a pokeball at a time, or all of them could be stowed in pokeballs to directly control the trainer. The trainer can interact with NPCs, gather items, etc.

The trainer would also order "helper" pokemon. One or two "helpers" could be added independent of the party that would follow the trainer around constantly. Each pokemon has a list of field "helper" abilities they're capable of doing, independent of what moves they know. By targeting something that a helper pokemon can interact with in the world, the trainer would order that pokemon to zip out and interact with it. Think Republic commando. This takes the role of HMs and other field moves. For areas that require things like Surf of dive, the helper pokemon would exert a field of influence that essentially allowed the primary pokemon to act normally- eg, a surf helper would cause an area of surging upwards surface chop that lets the primary pokemon walk on water, or a dive helper would create small air bubbles centered around wherever the primary pokemon breathes from.

The trainer can also provide small support in the form of items, but this would be limited to encourage sensible use of stat boosting moves.

Pokemon would still be captured in pokeballs, but after they are fainted by the primary pokemon. Fainted pokemon could either be captured in a pokeball, or "relieved" of unique held items and resources before releasing them.

Pokemon would not gain experience by defeating opponents. Instead, each one would have material requirements to both level up and "customize" them. Like upgrading a weapon in Monster Hunter, every pokemon would have unique material requirements to level up, change nature, upgrade IVs, allocate EVs, or learn and relearn certain moves. This incentivizes a postgame loop, but could be curved to make the main game give you adequate materials to avoid excessive grinding.

The gameplay and story structure

The gameplay loop is basically monster hunter.

There would be a large number of normal-sized pokemon out in the world, that could be easily defeated and either captured and looted. But, frequently, a "Titan" would appear- a large, boss variant of a particular pokemon. Some pokemon can only be captured from their defeated titan forms, even if they appear in their regular forms.

These titan forms would appear semi-randomly, and requests to "quiet" them by defeating them would take the form of quests posted in the hub regions. These quests would then essentially be a monster hunter hunt- going out and fighting a particular titan.

Titan forms could be unique, or vaguely modeled after existing megas.

The world is divided into 8 main regions, and at least one "bonus" region. There would be 4 ocean regions, and 4 land regions. Each region would be seperate, but open to explore within that region (damn you can really see how much I've played MH:W)

Each region would have a drop table of pokemon that could potentially appear as titans.

Each region would also have one, single titan pokemon that gives the region its character. These 9 titans would be new, unique regional variants.

Each region, and by extension, each boss titan, would be directly associated with a different regional effect. So essentially, the boss titan and the field effect of a region would be reflective of its character.

The plot, like monster hunter, would be a gameplay loop of increasingly powerful titans within a region, building to the boss titans of each region. Once the 8 primary titans are defeated, it triggers the endgame main plotline.

The world

As mentioned previously, the bulk of the gameplay loop and storyline would be defeating increasingly more powerful "titan" pokemon, until you encounter a particular individual pokemon that is actively shaping that region and has ultimately caused the other titans along the way to be empowered.

Each region would have a dominant type, several field effects that come and go within certain parts of the area, and a unique boss titan. Each boss titan is about equivalent difficulty, and the player is encouraged to spread their efforts around to proceed through the "tiers" of titans evenly across the world before making it to the boss.

Hubs: Slateport, Lilycove.

Self explanatory, these would be the hub towns. Like in PLA, no other cities would be founded yet. Mt. Pyre would be integrated as part of Lilycove, and important characters and exposition could happen there. It would be an active cathedral. Kyogre and Groudon wouldn't be "known", but vague, amorphous titans of earth, sea, and sky would be referenced.

Land Regions

Meteor Cliffs and the Tranquil Plain

A gentle, grassy plain south of Mt. Chimney gives way to its southern slope. The slope, pockmarked with craters, has not been extensively explored, but is thought to hold deep caverns.

Regional effect: Pyschic Terrain

Regional Titan boss: Metagross (Steel/Pyschic)

Main game route equivalents: Meteor Falls, Rustboro City, Petalburg Woods, Petalburg City, Oldale Town, Littleroot town, 101, 102, 103, 104, 116, 115

Towering Forest

A deep, lush forest, sometimes so dense that you can't see the sky, fed by the crystal clear river cutting through it. The tangle of the canopy shudders under the weight of unseen pokemon above.

Regional effect: Grassy Terrain

Regional Titan boss: Tropius (Grass/Steel)

Main game route equivalents: Fortree city, Safari Zone, 119, 120, 121, 123

Jagged Stones

Deep, rugged canyons hide a basin-like desert, where a raging sandstorm elicits mirage-like visions.

Regional effect: sandstorm

Regional Titan boss: Tyranitar (Rock/Dragon)

Main game route equivalents: Verdanturf town, 117, 111, 112, all desert subregions

Volcanic Slopes

The peaks, caverns, and North slope of Mt. Chimney know no peace from the continuous onslaught of lava.

Regional effect: harsh sunlight

Regional Titan boss: Camerupt (Fire/Ground)

Main game route equivalents: Mt. Chimney, Jagged Pass, Fiery Path, Lavaridge, Fallarbor, 113, 114

Oceanic regions

Thunder Bay

An unrelenting, static haze hovers over the inlets of of Thunder Bay, impeding exploration of its deep subterranean caverns.

Regional effect: electric terrain

Regional Titan boss: Manectric (Electric/Dark)

Main game route equivalents: Mauville, New Mauville (replaced by a cave entrance), Cycling Road, 118, 110, 134, 133

Shifting Floes

A chill falls over the NorthEast seas of Hoenn, a climatic anomaly. Scattered islands and shifting ice platforms are continually coated with a snowstorm.

Regional effect: snowstorm

Regional Titan boss: Froslass (ice/ghost)

Main game region equivalents: Mossdeep, Shoal cave, 124, 125, parts of 126 and 127

Misted islands

A mysterious area of the ocean in which islands seem to shift locations as they phase in and out of sight.

Primary Area effect: Misty Terrain

Regional Titan Boss: Altaria (Dragon/fairy)

Main game route equivalents: Dewford Town, Granite Cave, Southern Island, Mirage Island (location changed), 105, 106, 107, 108, 109

Deep Blue

The open expanse of the ocean, and the islands within it, hold secrets beyond comprehension in their depths and constant storms. It is said that there is as much below as there is above.

Primary Area effect: rain/underwater (same effects as rain)

Regional Titan Boss: Wailord (water)

Main game route equivalents: Sootopolis city, Cave of Origin, Sky Pillar, Ever Grande City, Pacifidlog, Seafloor cavern, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, parts of 126 and 127

Special Area: the Delta Stream

Ripping across Hoenn's skies is an air current known as the Delta Stream, which powerful pokemon use as a causeway between regions and across the world.

Only accessible in the postgame, and with a "helper" pokemon that can fly. This entire region is above the clouds, and the only points that poke up are the peak of Mt. Chimney, Sky Pillar, and an updraft over Mt. Pyre.

Primary area effect: tailwind

Regional Titan Boss: Salamence (Flying/Dragon)

The Endgame Plot: after the titans are quieted

Once every boss has been defeated, the endgame storyline starts. Despite every titan being quieted, the land still quakes, and the seas still swell. The elders of Mt. Pyre urge you to investigate these at their source: the inner lava chamber of Mt. Chimney (subregion of Volcanic Slopes), and the depths of the seafloor (subregion of Deep Blue).

As you can probably guess, this is the introduction to Kyogre and Groudon.

The first fight with each of them uses your own pokemon, and gives you a "false" win- after you "faint" them in a suspiciously easy battle, they each revive into their primal forms, and head to the mountain island that would become Sootopolis. Hear, they battle on a kaiju-like scale. The MC watches the destruction from Mt. Pyre.

For the second time in the game's story, the MC makes a wish: this is beyond me. I wish a savior would come. Jirachi directly unveils itself for the first time to answer the call, touches the MC, and speeds off into the distance. A cutscene follows Jirachi to Sky Pillar (only a raw, uncarved spike of rock at this point), where Rayquaza is seen coiled around the top. Jirachi leads Rayquaza into the upper atmosphere, where it undergoes a primal/mega evolution. It pivots, shooting down towards earth, building speed.

The player takes control of M-Rayquaza as it slams down to earth, staggering Kyogre and Groudon away from each other, and engages in a special fight where they have to defeat both of them.

After this, Kyogre, Groudon, and Rayquaza may each be found at Seafloor cavern, Mt. Chimney, and sky pillar respectively, and may be defeated and captured. But its highly implied that they only go along with this willingly, and will freely resume their duties as the lords of the land once the MC passes on.

After the plot is completed, steps and murals start being carved into Sky Pillar, allowing access to the Delta Stream.

The post game would allow for infinitely generating Titans, rematches with previously captured Boss Titans as "enrichment" for them, and general gameplay loop grinding for items to train pokemon.

Yay, okay, no ones gonna read this far but uh. Yeah. That's the general idea I had. Hope it made at least some sense LOL

[pickles4nickles]

So I’ve been watching playthroughs of Yakuza games for a while now, but when I saw that the newest game takes place in Hawai’i, the place where I was born, raised, and have lived in for nearly 30 years now, I knew that this was something I had to have first-hand experience with and not let some guy tell me how to feel about it, to put it bluntly.

I went on a month and a half long journey to finish this game, so I sat around for a bit like

Jesus Christ I should write a review on it.

So if you’d like to read about 5k words on what I thought about The Video Game™, here you go.

Overall, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is a really really good game. However, as Hawai’i local it was kind of hard for me to turn my brain off to some of the cultural inaccuracies and as someone who tends to play smaller indie games, I clocked in about 110 hours on this and I burned out a little towards the end.

GAMEPLAY

Let’s get into Gameplay first because I think I have the most positive thoughts about it. If you haven’t heard my thoughts about Pokemon lately, it mostly boils down to “It’s the only RPG I’ve really been playing in recent years and the gameplay has been very watered down and I yearn for a decent PvE experience.” This game definitely scratched that itch in more ways than one.

Infinite Wealth’s turn-based combat system revolves around positioning. Some moves have an AoE of either a straight line or a circle. Positioning a character next to an ally will proc a combo move with them and positioning them near items will proc an item attack where you can beat a guy to death with a traffic cone or something.

The job system is robust. Every character starts off with a default class- Ichiban’s is Hero, an all-rounder that can pretty much do anything; characters like Nanba and Eric (I know the game calls him Tomi or Tomizawa, but I’m not the game and “Fuckin’ Eric” sounds way better than “Fuckin’ Tomi”) are magic-oriented, so they’re basically wizards by default. You can change their class to other jobs (Desperado is my favorite because it’s basically gun mage), which unlocks new skills as you level them up. You can also change jobs as much as you want and skills carry over between them, so there’s a bit of moveset mixing and matching that makes my brain feel good.

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, (the Yakuza devs, which we’re just gonna abbreviate to RGG from here on out) have always been REALLY good at asset reuse (again, I cast a dirty look to Game Freak). They’ll make a whole-ass map of a region and reuse that same map for several games down the line. Not only do you spend a significant time in Ijincho again and not only do you go to Kamurocho for little bit… AGAIN, but there are two… what I can only call “macro” games that have the best asset reuse I’ve seen in, like, maybe anything ever.

DONDOKO ISLAND

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth comes with a whole-ass Animal Crossing clone that’s also kind of The Sims called Dondoko Island. In this, you rehab an island that’s being used as a dump for some trash pirates (no, seriously, they’re actually pirates, yar har and everything) back into a five star resort. There’s a whole-ass crafting system where you go around the island, harvesting resources, to build furniture and facilities, which include whole-ass buildings which have appeared in past Yakuza games. The crafting system is GREATLY improved over Animal Crossing: New Horizon in that you can skip the goddamn animation and craft multiple of the same items at once. You don’t even have to have all the materials in your inventory, it’ll take it from your storage. Placing items in the world is also in an overhead view and the only grievance I have with the system is that placing paths is really weird and you can only place a limited number of them. But overall, Nintendo, was it really that hard to put into the video game. Why did you make AC:NH disrespect my time in that way?

Once the island has been cleaned up enough, you can start inviting guests over, which all have their own set of preferences for the vibe of your island (rustic, pop, sleazy, etc), their lodging quality, and how much of the island’s flora and fauna (and minerals, I guess??) you’ve discovered.

I really really liked Dondoko Island because who am I to say no to a management mini/macro game with decoration elements. I mostly really appreciate that it doesn’t waste your time. I wanna say I finished it in like less than 20 hours… which is not short for a game within a game (actually, that’s insane for a game within a game), but for a game of this genre, it’s pretty short.

There’s also an entire separate mini-island that further helps you with efficiently running your island by passively collecting resources over time and just being a general stockpile of bugs and fish to catch. But I can’t talk about this part without talking about…

SUJIMON

A returning character voiced by Keith Silverstein in the English dub – yes, that Keith Silverstein, who voices Masayoshi Shido of Persona 5 and Zhongli of The Genshin Impact™ is a professor who documents the behavior of weird and often hostile middle aged men, called Sujimon. When Ichiban goes to Hawai’i, he asks him to also document the native Sujimon there as there’s a prominent Sujimon scene there. Mans wasn’t kidding as there is an underground, more or less ilicit Sujimon fight club called The Sujimon League with its own Elite Four called The Discrete Four.

In the previous game, Sujimon was just your bestiary (literally called the Sujidex), but now it’s a whole-ass game, which I can mostly only describe as simplified Yokai Watch, but a glorified card game. Just so we’re not here for forever talking about middle-aged men cockfights… because I can talk about the mechanics and inner workings of middle-aged men cockfights for a hot minute, Sujimon League basically operates on a 3v3, with an additional bench of 3, rock-paper-scissors kind of system. You’ll need strong Sujimon to get through this macro game and you’ll recruit new guys through four ways- through random fights on the map, through literal Pokemon GO raids, through a gacha system, and through combining Sujimon of the same type into stronger Sujimon (don’t think too hard about that one). I had a LOT of fun with this and, again, it scratched an itch I’ve had for a while. Almost all of the Sujimon are just guys you’ll fight in-game, so, again, an excellent use of asset reuse.

Sujimon smoothly integrates into Dondoko Island in a way that makes Palworld look even more balls-less than it already is. You know that little island I was talking about a few paragraphs back? That’s Dondoko Farm. You can put your Sujimon to work on it! As you’re running around on Dondoko Island, letting it consume your life, your Sujimon will grow crops, scrounge around for resources, and earn some cash for you. The island also has some resources to help with Sujimon League by leveling them up with a small investment of some dondoko bucks and your time, but also a Pokemon-Amie type mini-mini game that helps strengthen the friendship of your current Sujimon team.

Yes.

This game lets you pet-

The sweaty, weirdo middle-aged men.

Don’t think about it too hard.

Especially don’t think about it too hard when you have a Sujimon on your team that uses Xander Mobus’ voice clips.

Anyway, there’s also another minigame called Sicko Snap, which is basically Pokemon Snap with Sujimon. It’s a good one, too.

STORY

I guess… the best way I’d explain my feelings on Infinite Wealth’s story is

Objectively, this is an okay story. Like, it’s par for the course for a Yakuza game. I have a lot of personal grievances with this plot which I’ll fully unsheathe my blade for in the next section, but for now I’ll just say… this game is basically Hawaii Five-O crammed into a Yakuza game and that was an emotional rollercoaster ride that I’m not sure I enjoyed.

Like a Dragon’s main theme is “Even if you hit rock bottom, it’s never too late to get back up again” and that’s something I hold near and dear to my heart.

They have used this theme to my benefit and to my dismay as this also apparently means it’s never too late for ~*Romance*~ which, sure, yeah, okay, true, but did it have to be Ichiban and Saeko?

I’m trying to give the game the benefit of the doubt because… to me, it’s mostly one-sided (as in, like, Saeko’s willing to give him a chance, but isn’t as crazy for Ichiban as he is for her) and, like, dude is allowed to have a crush. But from what I have seen… because I never got around to finishing her Drink Link (I was gonna but I’m like really burned out on the game), they kinda strap C4 to the Bechdel Test and raze a village to the ground with it when it comes to Saeko’s character arc because most of her dialogue and interactions are about The Incident with Ichiban, which sucks because she had more character than just a romance interest for the protagonist in the previous game. If you’re also REALLY not into this plot point like I am, the story DOES NOT let you forget that this indeed happened as it seems to be a plot thread that might continue into the next game as well.

Needless to say, I don’t ship it, and I don’t get to block tags and just walk away from this one.

The game also kinda keeps nudging at, “Hehe, Chitose’s pretty cute too, right?” to which I say

Yes I understand she’s of legal age but she’s only like 21 AT MOST and Ichiban’s like 40-something you stop with that.

It doesn’t feel like Ichiban really had a character arc in this… unless you count “proposing on the first date” to “saying I love you on a redo and then being weird about it again” as character growth. He went to Hawai’i, had some shenanigans, found mom, got backstabbed again, fought the cult (which I’ll be really salty about in the next section), went back home to help Eiji’s character arc. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just… Ichiban went on another adventure. And it was ok. I think maybe the game was sizing him up to, again, take Kiryu’s place and be The Hero, but… we already did that already? And I’m not even sure if the game was able to complete that message by the end of the game.

Kiryu probably got the most character development out of this game and talking this over with my friend Andrew, he brought up that it kinda wasn’t fair that this is supposed to be Ichiban’s game, but he had to share half of it with Kiryu. And I agree. His sections were also really hard to get into if you haven’t been a longtime fan. Again, I have a decent amount of Yakuza knowledge, but with Kiryu’s memories, a LOT of it went over my head.  It seems like RGG’s been trying to retire him as a protagonist for like three games now and MAYBE this time they’ll actually do it after this victory lap they’ve given him. But he did learn that “my friends are my power” and “never ever give up, you still have time to do better.” And you know what, that’s rad.

As far as the villains go, just, I dunno, they’re fine? Ebina and Eiji are very “okay bitch, stay mad, then,” and it’s. Fine? My only complaint is that Ebina’s arc felt like it was under-seasoned before they put it in the oven to cook and they could’ve peppered it on a little earlier in the game or something. Bryce’s entire deal I may have taken a little too personally, but that’s for later. Dwight was literally just Danny Trejo doing a villain role and I have absolutely no qualms with it. He was fun to watch.

The supporting cast was fun as always. Eric I hated at first, but he grew on me in the same way that, like, I’d bully a friend. Chitose I also kinda hated at first, was very sus of, but then she had a character arc that was pretty good. The Yokohama gang didn’t really have character arcs to them, but they were still fun to hang out with nonetheless. We got to learn a little bit more about Seonhee and she’s really fun. Both her and Zhao, who is my favorite for several reasons, are really really fun characters as they are both crime bosses (former, in Zhao’s case) who are BIG FUCKING WEIRDOS and I love them for it.

Joongi Han becomes a party member WAY too late in my opinion that, in a way, he’s technically an optional party member, or at least like getting a Dratini right before the Pokemon League in Gold/Silver/Crystal. He had some fun character moments, but felt kinda like an afterthought.

But also, ain’t no way he got his Hawai’i clothes at Hilo Hattie. There’s no way.

To wrap up my thoughts on the main story, I’d just like to say: the plot point that they sailed to Japan on a little tugboat in a handful of hours as opposed to WEEKS is peak Hawaii Five-O vibes and it infuriates me, but everyone kept telling me “it’s okay, the coast guard picked them up, like, halfway” and I will sit down and not start a fistfight over it. And just. That was the vibe of the game for me. Just… alternating between a J-Drama and Hawaii Five-O.

I don’t really have much to say about the substories except that they’re either almost Oscar-worthy material or they’re a snoozefest that I just tabbed through. I can really only think of three substories off the top of my head that were EXCELLENT, though - Nancy and Olivia, the artificial snow quest (THIS ONE IS EMOTIONAL WHIPLASH), and the traveling aquarium one. The rest I mostly just tabbed through because they were just……. Eh. But I think I’m okay with that since we have Sujimon and Dondoko to make up for it.

THE CULTURAL GRIEVANCES

So as I type this section out, I run my hands over my face to remind myself and say

This is a game that takes place in Hawai’i from a Japanese perspective, written primarily for a Japanese audience and I assume that certain things may come from a place of ignorance, but not maliciousness.

Hey Tumblr.

I want you to read that first bolded sentence again.

Because I know how you guys are with reading comprehension.

But that being said, as a Hawai’i-born Chinese person, there’s quite a lot about the Hawai’i cultural aspects of this game that I have problems with. If you wanna see me roast this game, you can stick around, but if not… Here is your chance to bail.

I’ve tried my best to write this in a way where I look at the thing that pissed me off and ask myself,  “Am I taking this too seriously or do I actually have a problem with it?” and write more or less objectively, but some of it might still come off as overly caustic. Just. I tried.

And after a deep breath,

Ho brah,

We go.

WHAT IS HAWAIIAN CULTURE, ANYWAY?

To start off, I’m not sure if RGG knows the difference between being a Hawai’i local and actually being of Hawaiian blood…? The game mentions at the very beginning that Akane is half-Japanese… and half-Hawaiian, which makes Ichiban one-fourth Hawaiian, which makes ME kinda… squint. Like, we’d need to know more about Akane’s backstory, but if you know anything about indigenous cultures, finding someone who’s half native is HARD nowadays. Akane also looks pretty light skinned for someone who’s allegedly half-Japanese, half-Hawaiian but that’s just my tiny nitpick?

I’m also… not sure what kinda research RGG did on Hawaiian last names because some of the ones I see on random enemies are kinda… 

Who is that

What is that

I have never seen anyone named that in my entire life

Sure, my worldview is a little shut in, but, no, what IS that?

Mililani is not a last name, that’s a neighborhood, why’s she Lani Mililani?

WHAT IS THAT?

The pidgin in the game is also there, but… small kine hit or miss. For those of you who don’t know, pidgin is Hawai’i’s creole, which came from a bunch of cultures who don’t speak the same language eventually falling into a kitbashed language system that works for everyone. Looking at the VA listing in the credits, they did hire some local people (they have Hawaiian names) and some of the VO performances work really well like Obispo in the restaurant side story and the cab driver dialogue that ONLY comes up in the Japanese audio version of the game for some reason. Others… are… hm (I don’t know what’s going on with Jeff the taco truck guy). I feel like the voice director got the intonation on the line reads down pretty well, but on the localization side, the syntax and grammar are a little off. Pidgin tends to come off as “broken english,” but it’s technically not since it’s its own language system with its own rules. So you have a lot of line reads that are in the right inflection, but the way it’s written is wrong for pidgin dialogue.

And it just doesn’t sound 100% right to me.

There’s also some… small pronunciation nitpicks that I have. Ukulele is pronounced the white way - it’s not Yooka-Laylee like the Chameleon and Bat, it’s ook-oo-leh-leh like Tapu Lele, the Pokemon. Some characters pronounce Hawai’i as huh-why and not ha-wuh-ee, which is more right (it’s SUPPOSED to be ha-vai-ee but I’m not native Hawaiian and this is kind of an axolotl situation so, y’know).

But shout-outs to the “Whatchu lookin’ at?” line guy.

Because that one is just, no notes, perfect.

NOTHING CAN BE NORMAL, I GUESS

Something that rubbed me the wrong way in this game is the mystification of a culture that’s foreign to you, that is, taking a culture that’s not yours and describing or representing it in such a way that it sounds so deviant and hard to comprehend compared to the one you’re used to. Think of that one tweet where someone describes hamburgers like a white person would describe asian fruit.

There's the lei substory where the girl needs to make a lei with blue plumerias (which does not exist by the way) because there’s an urban legend that if you give a blue plumeria lei to someone, it’s a way of confessing your true love. Lei are just… things you give as, like, a “congrats!” kind of a thing. Or if you wanna be touristy about it, a “welcome!” kind of gift. There’s nothing mystical about it, most grocery stores stock a few that you can just pick up, grab and go style. 

The entire game mechanic of “shaka to make friends” was so?? Like maybe after 8 hours into the Hawai’i map, I was like, okay, I’ll just… fine. I’ll accept it. But my god did I not appreciate it when Kson came up to me and was like “what’s a motherfucker gotta do around here to make some friends” and told me how FRIENDLY the Hawaiian people were and how you can just throw a shaka to make friends; while me, probably the saltiest, introverted Hawai’i local that throws stink-eye at tourists who can’t watch where they’re going, playing the video game on that day was like, “We don’t fucking do that, hello??” I don’t even know why we shaka?? Most people you ask that question will just be like “idk it’s the local thing, they do it at the end of the 5pm news on KHON2.”

There’s a substory in this game with a character named Nathan, but we were all calling him racist Alpharad because he kinda looks like him (ALPHARAD HIMSELF IS NOT RACIST OR IN THIS GAME I WANNA CLARIFY THAT) and he’s basically, like… a weeb. He’s recording what seems like a PBS special on Japanese tourists in Hawai’i, but he’s kind of a shitter about it. He makes Ichiban choose between local foods and cold-ass rice and becomes upset when he chooses kalua pork over the rice since it wasn’t The Japanese Option. It escalates to making Ichiban play darts with shuriken and when he loses, he tells him to “live up to his dishonor,” slides him a knife and board, and asks him if he wants to take a finger or hara-kiri. To which Ichiban goes “dude, I get you like Japanese culture, but you can’t treat people this way”

To which I look back at the game like

You clearly understand how this feels, so why are you doing this to Hawaiian culture?

Again, I understand that a lot of this game was written with maybe just ignorance, and not malice, and this isn’t really a call-out post to RGG or anything, but BOY…

Okay.

Now we get to my biggest gripe with this game.

PALEKANA CAN SUCK MY NUTS

I’m kinda disappointed in their choice to use a Hawaiian cult as a plot point. It’s not quite a native savages kind of a vibe, but… In the year of our lord 2024, I thought we would know better than to portray an indigenous religion as a bloodthirsty cult? I also don’t like how they’re conflating the Hawaiian religion with what’s more like a Christian/Catholic cult in this.

Palekana is portrayed as “cultists who worship a goddess who lives in a mystical land, forbidden only to her chosen and maybe one day we’ll be worthy of her blessings.” Hawaiian religion is… not… like that at all? They did get the part about “giving back to the community” correct as a part of Hawaiian culture is mālama ‘aina, meaning, you need to care for the land you live on, which is… reasonable? I guess the other basic idea of Hawaiian religion is that certain places, things, and times that are important, and you shouldn’t touch it unless you wanna fuck around and find out. But the game just kinda wildly overboils this.

Like, I don’t claim to be an expert, I’ve only scraped the basics from what I learned in school (a year’s worth of Hawaiiana lessons in middle school, a semester’s worth in college; went to a private Catholic school, took two world religion classes in college), but Palekana has a very Catholic European religion kind vibe instead of a Hawaiian one. And I really, really don’t like that the game conflates the two. The Palekana cultists wear hoods, which is a distinctly European thing (it’s too hot for hoods here!). The beaded necklaces also seem more like rosaries, which, again, very Catholic. The idea that a god-figure will save you is also a VERY Catholic idea. I’m also assuming the goddess Nele that they use in the game is an expy for Pele, which… okay, like, you can do that with locations. Ala Moana Shopping Center represented as Anaconda Mall in the game hurts me a lot, but… to change up the name of the most prominent deity in Hawaiian religion is like

Dude, I’m not Hawaiian, but I know better than to shit on Pele?

Maybe I’m taking this a little too seriously, but it comes off as a little(??) disrespectful.

To give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe RGG wrote this plot point in this way to be like, well, they’re the villains, so we’ll write them so hyperbolically evil and wrong so people won’t mistake that for the actual culture? But my gut reaction is that they’re only writing from what they’ve seen in the movies and they wanted to make a story like that.

This was my least favorite part of the plot because not only does the cult aspect feel like it’s in bad taste, but it’s SO MUCH of the story and you REALLY can’t get away from it.

Alright. So now that I’ve aired that out of my system, I’m finally capping off this section with the part of the game that hit the closest to me and that is

CHINESE IN HAWAI’I

Listen. Again.

This is a story about Hawai’i, written by a Japanese team, for a Japanese audience.

Yakuza is a series that often talks about the racial conflict between the Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans. And I don’t expect them to portray any of these groups in anything more than a neutral light in this game about Gang Crime.

But ohhhhh my gooooood did they get the Chinatown section so wroooooooong.

Right off the bat, the big glaring problem I have with this game is. All the guys speak Mandarin. I think they might just be reusing voice clips from Yakuza 7, which, sure, fine, I understand that video games are hard to make and expensive.

In Hawai’i, like, real-world Hawai’i, not the bizzaro Hawai’i this game takes place in, we’re definitely starting to see more Mandarin-speaking immigrants show up, but most of the town speaks Cantonese.

Most of the people here a generation or two above me come from Guangdong or Hong Kong, which are Cantonese-speaking areas. It’s an entirely different dialect that’s really only been represented in small bits in media I’m familiar with, like in Jackie Chan Adventures (the uncle’s chant is basically “no more ghosts, get out of here” in Cantonese) and Digimon Tamers (“Moumentai” is “it’s okay/don’t worry about it” in Cantonese), and it seems really hard to get VAs that speak it, so I’m not… really that mad about it.

BUT. Then there’s Wong Tou.

Wong is the Cantonese pronunciation of 黄 , Huang or Hwang in Mandarin.

So like… clearly they knew?? But?? Decided not to go all in on it??

(And then Daniel Dae Kim is his face model and I just??? Bro’s Korean, hello?????)

And then there’s the name of Wong Tou’s gang. The Ganzhe.

Which is a stupid name.

The Chinese dictionary gives me 甘蔗 which translates to sugarcane, which. I get it. The plantation times. The Chinese and the Japanese and the Filipinos and the Portuguese and whatever all used to work on the cane plantations.

…But you’re out here calling your BIG KNIFE GANG “Sugarcane??”

My guy, you could start a reggae band with that name instead.

SPEAKING OF REGGAE-

No one knows how to pronounce Ganzhe properly besides Eric’s VA apparently? All the other VAs pronounce the gan closer to “van” when it’s supposed to be more like a “gone.”

Yes. That’s right.

Ganzhe is pronounced more like ganja.

You know.

The Marajuanas™

I’m a Hawai’i-born Chinese, first-generation local on my mom’s side and third-gen local on my dad’s. I grew up in Chinatown, so this was a section of the game that was near and dear to my heart. So I THINK and HOPE you’d understand my frustration to see that work needed to be done on the representation of my culture in this game. It was definitely a little fun to see my hometown modeled in this game- they got Maunakea Marketplace and Keikaulike Mall down pretty accurately and some of the motifs on the buildings made me do a double take because they were so familiar to me. BUT, man, this cultural aspect of the game needed A LOT of work.

SO TO FINALLY CLOSE THIS OUT

Japanese people love Hawai'i a lot.

I think Japanese people love Hawai'i more than Hawai'i locals do.

But as for portraying it accurately, I understand that no one can do it as well as a local islander can. Did I personally think they did the best they could?

………………ehh

Like, if you turn your brain off, it's fine??

If you turn your brain off and not let Palekana get to you, this game is fine.

It can be a little campy.

It can be a little Hollywood.

It can be a little Disneyland.

And despite my four pages of bitching about it, at the end of the day. It is fine.

So with that, I’ve hit like ten full pages on this Google Doc. Despite half of this review being me complaining about what they got wrong about Hawai’i culture in this game, I liked it a lot! When the game didn't have me strapped down for an episode of a J-drama or Hawaii Five-O, I liked running around town, fighting guys, making other guys fight other guys, and managing a resort island. If anything, this game actually motivated me a little to make more local-themed stuff, because as I notice people getting older, there’s less and less people to correctly preserve highly specific culture stuff like this. So a lot of that responsibility falls on me, y’know?

Thank you for making it to the end of this review! I know it was a lot. I don’t know what happened. I do recommend this game, but I ask that you do NOT finish the game with the takeaway that you have learned everything there is to know about Hawai’i.

I’ll fight you with a lawn chair (in Minecraft, for the FBI agent reading this) if you do that.

Other than that, I think you’ll have a lot of fun but also take your time because this game is, like, a 100 hour commitment. Not Persona 5 Royal long, but a commitment nonetheless.

[adobe-outdesign]

Could I ask a review for the good old fish boy Relicanth

Relicanth is a coelacanth, no big surprises there. Much like the IRL animal, it was considered extinct for many years before being rediscovered and hasn't really changed at all in a hundred million years. I really like that it's found out in the wild but is still water/rock, meaning that it shares the secondary rock typing of most fossil 'mons.

It's a fairly plain Pokemon, but the big thing it has going for it is its grumpy old man face. It's a pretty subtle element in the grand scheme of things, but it is fun to have it actually look as old as it is, and it adds a bit of flavor to an otherwise straightforward design.

Outside of that, the brown coloration both reflects its rock-typing but also references the Indonesian coelacanth's color. As an added bonus, its shiny is blue, referencing the West Indian Ocean coelacanth.

Beyond that, Relicanth also has the weird feature of a random red dot on it. I don't mind adding some extra color, but the way it's just stuck there with no real rhyme or reason is strange. I've heard people claim its body is a map to the regis, but I've never seen any supporting evidence for this, and given that nothing in the 'dex mentions a map I'm not terribly inclined to believe it, though that would be a neat idea.

I think Relicanth's biggest problem is just that it's fairly forgettable—it's not a 1:1 of a coelacanth but it's pretty close, and between it being fairly monotone in color (save for the aforementioned red dot) and non-evolving there's just not a lot to really make it stand out.

But then again, you couldn't have it evolve, give it a regional form, etc. because the entire point is that it hasn't evolved in 100 million years. It's probably the only Pokemon where being a straightforward one-stage Pokemon is basically part of the theme itself.

So overall: it's a coelacanth, all right. If you like silly old man faces and like coelacanths, you're going to love this guy.

[mahoukat]

Perry Info Post

Additional Info:

Pronouns: She/Her

Orientation: Bi and Poly

Partner Pokemon: Route the Pidove

Love Interests: Friede and Orla

Personality:

Perry is a bundle of unspent energy due to a sheltered upbringing: bubbly, extroverted, a little ditzy and always happy to chatter, but often a little too much. She can end up on uninterrupted rambles if she's particularly interested in a topic. She is generally caring, but does struggle to understand social cues and boundaries, perhaps a bit like her mother. Nonetheless, she makes a good friend if you can put up with her!

She loves photography, maps, reading, sewing and collecting things. She stuffs random scraps of fabric and ribbons in her belt, and often carries a stupid amount of Pidove feathers in her hair from letting Route try to nest in it. While a lot of her camera roll is nice landscape photography, even more is of Route while he naps.

Backstory:

Perry was originally from the Unova Region, and because of an overbearing mother, was unable to start a Pokemon adventure when she was young like most budding trainers. Instead, she took solace in planning her future travels via Rotom maps, leading to a passion for cartography. While her desire was to travel, this ironically meant that she spent most of her days holed up in her bedroom. On the rare moment she looked out the window, she would observe a nest of Pidoves that had gathered on a low roof outside. One morning, a predator Pokemon had scared off the parent Pidoves leaving their chick unguarded. Perry managed to come to its rescue, and with the parents not coming back, raised the Pidove. This would become her partner Pokemon, Route. She would also catch Starly, Pidgey and Fletchling as they landed outside her window.

Eventually, Perry would leave home at 18, and immediately begin her travels. She had a clear affinity for bird Pokemon - catching a HootHoot (now Noctowl) in Johto and a Rowlet while briefly on Alola. However, her most significant 'catch' would come in Hoenn, when she met a mechanic called Orla, and soon after Orla's childhood friend Friede. Having failed three gyms on her travels, it was there Perry would instead join a ragtag adventuring crew called the Rising Volt-Tacklers, finally spreading her wings fully as a resident cartographer. Her battling skills were not fantastic, but it was where her love of Pokemon and the things she was skilled at could come to shine.

Template Credit: @/CherryR95 on DeviantArt

[realm-sweet-realm]

If you were going to turn the Pokemon villains into Pokemon as punishment, what would be the best choice for each one?

Haha, thanks for asking.

Standardizedbogey and I were talking about this last night because of her fic (which I highly recommend) were Giovanni was turned into a lillipup as a punishment, with doggy instincts and all. Some of these are my own ideas, some we came up with together.

Giovanni: okay, I couldn’t come up with anything as good as a lillipup, but yamper could work for the same reasons of being a small, helpless-looking dog (and we all know he’s a huge cat person), plus, this one gets the zoomies.

Silver: The best way to teach him a lesson in there being more to Pokémon’s worth than battle strength would be to turn him into a Pokémon that’s weak but nonetheless adaptable and determined. Perhaps an abra, which, while incapable of fighting, is intelligent and excellent at escaping bad situations.

Maxie: something very sensitive to changes in the environment. Perhaps a slowpoke would work- they live near water and require the health of a saltwater species to survive. Plus its instinct might deprive Maxie of his ability to use his intelligence.

Archie: like with Maxie, you could have him think twice about his goal by turning him into something that needs a very specific, non-watery environment. Perhaps a numel would work, as they’re very sensitive to water and would surely be wiped out if Archie went through with his plan. Doubles as punishment because numel are slow, weak, and can’t go in water.

Cyrus: Eevee. Just destroy his lone wolf aesthetic and fill him to the brim with instincts to be friendly and want to be with people and cuddle up on their laps because they’re sad. Or because they seem nice. Or because he likes their hat. Or. Or. Or. Or. As a bonus, Mars looks after him for a while and he evolves into a pink ribbon dog that might as well have “I love my friend” written across his forehead and has empathy as a superpower.

N: N doesn’t deserve a punishment, but he’d really hate being a slugma. There’s no handling Pokémon in need if you’d only burn them.

Ghetsis: Ghetsis needs to be taken down a peg in terms of power, so a regional rodent would be good. I think bidoof would be the best choice because then its absentmindedness would keep him from scheming without zoning out. Also, he’d probably have to rely on N for protection because Colress would definitely want to run some experiments on a human-turned-Pokémon.

Lysandre: a good punishment for Lysandre would be to become something insignificant and filthy, so I chose a gastrodon. He’s identical to numerous others of his kind living all across the map, he’s hideous and slimy, he has instincts to bathe in mud and algae, and people look at him with disgust when he visits populated areas. Used to being respected and revered, now people won’t even let him on their carpets.

Lusamine: I don’t really have an idea for her, but she definitely wouldn’t like being a trubbish. It’ll be pretty hard to command the Aether Foundation’s respect like that.

Guzma: Petilil. Guzma would hate being something weak and dependent, and a small, sensitive plant Pokémon would really ruin his aesthetic, plus he’d look tasty to bug-types! Plumeria will look after him, don’t worry.

Piers: Whismur. It can’t do any of the three things Peirs cares about: rock out, battle well, or help his family and community. Marnie would probably have to look after him, and he wouldn’t want that. Its evolutions are stronger and louder, but are just as unable to produce appealing music.

Rose: honedge. It drinks the life force of others, actively undoing what he tried to do. It can’t be around people without doing that, which he’d hate as a massive extrovert.

[quillpokebiology]

Ooc: Places that I think should be pokemon regions

I want these so bad omg.

Texas, USA

As much as a dislike Texas, a region based on it would be nice. It could also bring a lot of neat pokemon. Imagine the wild areas too!

South Africa

Or just an African region in general. I don't have a reason for this other than the cool pokemon that could come with it, and I have pokemon OCs that are from a pokemon version of South Africa. It probably won't happen because Japan has a lot of xenophobia and racism, but I can hope (They added a Hawaiin region and I know that's US territory, but all 3/4 Kahunas were Hawaiin and dark skinned, so it could be closer than we think)

Egypt

5th grade me made an Egyptian pokemon region called Asaro. I never worked on it much, but I remember making a ghost type eeveelution that was a mummy (it was a regional variant of the OG ghost type I made). If they were to ever make an African pokemon region, Egypt would be the best one.

Italy

I literally have no reason for this other than I think the towns could look nice.

Australia

I think the next pokemon region is going to be Asutralian because each gen gives us a hint to the next (Example: Pokemon swsh showed art of a cherry and a grape in the hotel, which is pokemon sv). For Pokemon Scarlet, we got an image of a mountain that resembles a mountain in Asutralia.

I think an Asutralian region would be super cool. I actually had an Australian region in 5th grade called Sonin, and I want the Australian region to be real so bad to bring 5th grade me peace.

Midwest, USA

Reason? I live in the Midwest, and I want a region where I can stand in and be like "Omfg, I live here." Specifically, I live in Nebraska, but the entire midwest is the exact fucking same, so it doesn't tmatter if they choose one state or combine all of it. I even have some cool fakemon ideas! Example: a cardinal fakemon that looks like a thief, a maid raccoon because they're actually pretty clean, and the early grass types you find that turn into hot plant ladies could be corn. My friend actually made one when we were younger, and I made a map of it during quarantine. I remember making a cool town that was underground and held a ground-type gym leader.

China

I don't have any reasoning for this. I just think it'd be neat. OH WAIT! I just remembered an old fakemon I made named Fumo! It was a starter for a Chinese based region I don't remember the name of, and it was a red panda. I remember liking it a lot, and I might redraw it some day!

India

India is a really big place, and it'd probably be the biggest region. Honestly, they might just have to choose a section of India. But India has a lot of culture, and also has 1 billion people, so a lot of fans would be able to relate to it.

Mexico

There's actually an artist @voidarkana who is working in a Mexican region on their insta. I'm actually surprised we haven't gotten one, or at least hinted at one sooner (I can because Japan is xenophobic as hell). Buy there could be cool things with a Mexican region. And could you imagine the mythical and regional variants??? Imagine an Alebreje pokemon, or a Dia de los Muertos Houndoom!

Brazil

I made one in 5th grade (I made a lot of shit in 5th grade). I don't remember what it was called. I think it was Bravo or something? Idk. I want this because RAINFOREST WILD AREA. Imagine climbing on these massive vines with the newer graphics, and being able to go on the canopy! Or imagine a town in a rainforest and it'd be a cool treetop city! It'd be like Fortree city, but so much better!

Germany

Germany has a lot of culture, which I think would be fun to explore in pokemon. Plus, they could make SO many pokenon off of the Grimm's fairytales.

California, USA

California is gross, expensive, and polluted irl, but it could be super nice in a pokemon game.

Canada

I made a Canadian region named Calle in 5th grade, and I liked it a lot. It's where I had a Buneary regional variant that was ice type and had these cute little slippers. And one of the starters was an ice type hare, and I thought it was super cute.

Greece

A YouTuber had an idea for one, and I liked it a lot. I don't remember who made it, but they had the idea of the gym leaders being based off the gods, and the champion being based on a Greek Hero. That'd be so cool!

[shining-kommo-o]

Same person again, and no you are absolutely right about Kalos and you should speak your truth, I remember it so vividly when I was 13 and the first trailer for it got released , I think time has forgotten HOW rabid everyone went for that trailer, microanalising every single frame of it, and making memes that finally Pokemon was going to be so so awesome in 3D , it’s one of those “you had to be there” type of moment . But oh boy the dissapointment I felt on release day, back then I didn’t have the words to explain why but looking back, these games were just, nothing. It genuinely was so bad that I was off put by Pokémon up until Gen 9, and even going back and replaying it plus the regions I missed , to this day as an adult I feel nothing towards Kalos , because I can see even clearly now the flaws of it. The story, the gameplay, the world , everything (minus the Pokémon themselves and Pokémon Amie )

Sorry for that rant as well, Gen 6 is… surely something eh

Finally someone understands!! I wasn't there for a majority of the discussion pre-release (and even post-release), since I had super limited access to the internet until I was about 16-17. But I was so hype when I got this game, and I ended up kind of disappointed but i didn't know why? Didn't have the words either back then, but now I do.

I think most of the people who really are ride or die with XY are the people who really loved that phase of the anime, or people who had XY as their first game. That's the pattern i've seen among my friends, and among online discussion, though i'm sure there are people out there who really love XY who fit neither of those categories. And if you like XY, no shade to you. I respect that. Live your life to its fullest, i'm glad there are some out there who love those games a lot.

But for me, the disappointment of Xerneas being stuck in this boring blue most of the time, the disappontment of my starter (chesnaught) not being able to mega evolve (and then having salt rubbed in the wound with greninja getting a new form in Alola, ik it's anime related but cmon), along with everything else, it stayed with me. I spent most of my time in Kalos gambling away by wonder trading.

Oh yeah and I also remember that bug that had Pokémon appear as grayscale around launch, that had people thinking if monochromatic Pokémon were a new, rarer than shinies variant.

There was also that glitched up Litleo too. That one was funny.

That and how you couldn't save in Lumiose City at launch, otherwise it'd basically ruin your save file. And how Nintendo literally released a map to show you where not to save before they put out a patch.

This isn't to say "Kalos bad because glitches", just that to me, someone really invested in glitches and oddities, those really stuck out to me :P

Anyways, I asked some friends a while back, what Pokémon game they'd rather play out of all of them, and I know this isn't really conclusive evidence, but usually the answers I got were ORAS if they wanted a game with mega evos, or USUM. And that tracks with my own thoughts as well (tho I mostly prefer to play base SuMo haha). Curious to know if others feel this way as well.

I think I also feel a bigger kinship towards SuMo because that's the first Pokémon gen I actually got to keep up with pre-release (anyone remember when they'd show new pokémon weekly?? I started college at that time, I remember watching them as they dropped, sometimes in class, sometimes with friends. I remember when Primarina, who had been leaked prior, was revealed. I was so happy ;w;)

[logan-fields-official]

Raihan x Reader<3

It was a bright, sunny day in the Galar region, and Y/N was feeling both excited and nervous as she made her way to the Hammerlocke gym. Today was the day she had been waiting for – the opportunity to witness Raihan, the dragon-type gym leader, in action. As she approached the gym, she saw a small crowd gathering outside, eagerly waiting for the battle to begin. Y/N couldn't help but feel even more excited as she joined the group of onlookers. Suddenly, she heard a loud crash coming from behind her. Turning around, she saw a man sprawled on the ground with a pile of papers scattered around him. Panicking, she rushed over to help. 'Are you okay?' she asked as she bent down to pick up the papers. The man looked up at her, and Y/N's heart skipped a beat when she realized it was Raihan himself. 'Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!' she exclaimed, feeling her cheeks flush with embarrassment. 'I didn't see you there.' Raihan chuckled and got up, brushing off his gym leader uniform. 'No worries, it was my fault for not looking where I was going.' Y/N couldn't believe she had just knocked down the gym leader. She had hoped to make a good impression on him before the battle, but now she felt like a complete klutz. As she handed over the papers, they both noticed that they were actually maps of the different regions in Galar. Y/N's curiosity got the better of her and she asked, 'Are you planning on traveling somewhere?' Raihan smiled and nodded. 'I'm always looking for new challenges and training grounds for my dragon-type Pokemon. And who knows, maybe I'll find some new recruits for my gym along the way.' Y/N couldn't believe her luck – not only did she get to meet the gym leader, but she also got to learn a little bit about his adventures. Just then, an announcer's voice boomed through the speaker, signaling the start of the battle. Y/N's heart rate doubled as she realized she needed to hurry if she wanted to catch the battle. 'I better get going,' she said, feeling a little disappointed that their conversation had to end so soon. Raihan gave her a warm smile. 'It was nice talking to you, Y/N. I hope you enjoy the battle.' Y/N nodded, a million thoughts running through her head as she hurried towards the gym entrance. She couldn't believe her luck – not only had she met Raihan, but she had also made a good impression on him. As she watched the battle unfold, Y/N couldn't help but feel grateful for the unexpected encounter with the gym leader. Little did she know, it was just the beginning of their friendship – one that would lead her on her own journey of adventure and discovery in the world of Pokemon.

[veterantrainerray]

Well, Paldea is a region that's divided into "areas" instead of having routes

Since this region has never had them, it'd be impossible to determine which parts would be routes and how they would be numbered and controlled nowadays. It'd simply be a enormously complicated task bc all the maps of Paldea would have to be changed

tbh when other people on this site talk about routes as something normal it just seems weird to me since I grew up in a region that doesn't have them

The sandwich fever is quite recent and is more of a kind of fashion that has gone viral than a cultural thing

I also suppose that you were surprised by poké centers! Paldea's look more like gas stations unlike how classy they look in Galar

I understand your culture shock since the Pokémon training culture is quite different. Hope you're enjoying your trip anyways

Those are Pokemon Centers? I figured they were field outposts. Paldeans really are minimalist, I reckon… haven’t really had a chance to take it all in just yet, but the weather’s been good so far at least.

Galar’s Pokemon Centers are mostly as nice as they are because of how hugely popular the League is there. Lotta money goes into everything League-related as a result.

[hyrule-in-a-pokeball]

WE'RE NOT GETTING GEN 5 REMAKES: HERE'S WHY

1: Workload and modern GameFreak Gen 5 is a very unique generation for a couple reasons. It introduced seasons, which have never returned to the franchise since.

Each month, the season would change, and the overworld would change to reflect the season. This means that every asset used in the overworld had to have 4 unique versions. Thats already an arduous task with a sprite-based game, but a 3D game like Pokemon is now? Honestly, I don't see Gamefreak putting in the work...

2 Its a two game commitment

Unlike every generation that came before it, generation 5 never got an "enhanced" version. There is no Pokemon Gray version, and there never will be. Instead, we got a sequel. Pokemon Black 2 and White 2. Games that continued the story of Black and White instead of retelling it in a slightly different way. The good remakes, like Gen 2 and 3's remakes, incorporate elements from their respective enhanced versions to create their remade versions. But there is no 3rd version to do this with when it comes to gen 5. So, if they were to remake generation 5, it would have to be a 2 game commitment. They couldn't just remake B/W and leave it at that. They would have to also do B2/W2

CONSPIRACY THEORY TIME Unova and Paldea are similar regions in that both of them are essentially circular.

You just don't really notice it with Paldea because you have freedom of movement.

What I think they could do, is forgo a gen 5 remake in favor of a 3rd installment set in Unova. Black 3/White 3. Instead of having seasons, they'd do what they did with Paldea and just have season based areas. Divide Unova into 4 quadrants, and each slice of the unova pie will be a different "season", sort of how Paldea has a random slice of Autumn just chilling out at the north of the map for no reason. (they did this in gen 6 too, remember?)

Seeing as Unova is already similar in design concept to Paldea, they could easily adapt it to an open world format. On top of that, since it would be a 3rd installment, they could include elements that were introduced in B2/W2, like the expanded Pokedex

"But wait! Gen 5 didn't have a gimmick. Will they just slap something in?" YES. Miss Briar teaches at Blueberry Academy and is looking into ways to bring the terastal phenomina to other regions. Blueberry Academy is in... Wait for it...

UNOVA

BW3 will take place after the events of the SCAVIO dlc, after Miss Briar has figured out how to get Terastalization to work outside of Paldea/Kitakami, and similar to how Legends Arceus was a gen 8 game, BW3 will be a gen 9 game. Or they could go completely insane, make it generation 10 and use that as an excuse to introduce a very small number of Pokemon because Unova already has an established Pokedex :shrug:

[riverofmolecules]

This may be too big for a pokemon region since each region has been focused on a relatively small area, but an Ancient/Classical Mediterranean region so you bring in the Classical Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, etc. and the map is wrapped around a big sea. The sea could have a mix of set islands and maybe procedurally generated ones but even the set islands' locations change game to game so you have to explore the sea or discover things as you go back and forth.

Then the villain team is like pirates/sea peoples who also patrol the sea looking for victims.

I guess this would be like a Pokemon Legends game to firmly put it in the past.

Instead of Surfing, you have a small craft and your Pokemon team is the crew.

Pokemon inspired by mythology, legendary Pokemon as gods, who might replace gym leaders as testing players. Or maybe it's "demigods" claiming descent from the legendary Pokemon.

[gelatinocomics]

Regius Development Update #1

As you may know, I've been working on a pokemon fangame for a while. I want to try posting progress about it more often, because I'm nearing the later stages of the project where the bulk of the hard work is already finished, and I have plenty of neat things I can share. Now is the time when I really need motivation to finish up the home stretch, so I hope you'll all enjoy what I've done so far!

I've already posted some of my progress on the game's maps here and here, and if you want to see every post I've made about the project, you can check out the regius tag. But I've never given a proper overview of what the game is all about, so that's what I'll do in this post.

Title

The game is called REGIUS. I'm still deciding how to format the title, and if it should have a descriptive tagline like "Regius: A Pokemon Adventure" or something like that. But one thing I have come up with is a banger logo and title screen to go with it:

I had more ambitious plans for the title screen graphics and created this version as a placeholder, but I'm pretty satisfied with it so I think it will stick around for a while.

So what's it about?

From the title screen, you can see that Regigigas will play some kind of important role, and in fact this is a game that primarily features the whole Regi family (except for the two newest gen 8 members, RIP regieleki and regidrago).

Furthermore, this is a game that takes place almost entirely on the ocean! You'll be exploring the Regius Archipelago, a series of islands connected by open sea. Here are some examples of the types of locales you might expect to see:

Hidden deep in each island, you'll find ruins from an ancient civilization, and a member of the Regi family sealed away. To unlock the secrets of the islands, you'll have to journey to each one and capture Regirock, Regice, and Registeel, and then the path will open to your final goal, Regigigas.

Unlike most other games, the map of this region is very well-connected, with every island joined by a large central stretch of ocean. Your exploration will be self-guided, and you'll be rewarded for checking out every corner of the archipelago, so decide for yourself how you would like to progress through the game!

New Pokemon

Of course, one of the most important features of this game is the set of brand new pokemon! The Regius Archipelago is home to a number of unique species not found anywhere else. In total there are roughly 50 new pokemon I've developed that can be obtained in this game, so look forward to befriending some new creatures when the game finally becomes available to play!

Development Details

This game is being developed using the pokeemerald decompilation project, meaning all my work is based on modifying the source code of Pokemon Emerald. It's a rom hack that will be playable on any GBA emulator (or hardware, if you can get it to run!). It's a lot of work to make a whole new region like this, but it's my preferred way of making a pokemon fangame! I like using the same game engine and graphics as official titles, it makes my game feel authentic.

Development Goals

Now that you have an idea of what the game is going to be like, let me talk about the project's current status. My goal is to get an alpha version of the game ready to release as soon as possible. This will have a full region ready to explore, every obtainable new pokemon, and the Regis all waiting to be discovered. At the moment, I am still working on filling out every map area with objects and scripts, the stuff that the player actually interacts with.

This alpha version, of course, will not be the final version of the game. It will provide you with a fun world to explore and lots of pokemon to train, but I have much more planned! Eventually, the game will have a bigger story, where the player will race against a nefarious band of pirates intending to capture the Regis and upset the balance of the islands. I would also like to remake the whole project in pokeemerald expansion, a large community mod of pokeemerald that includes lots of updated features, like a modern battle system and all official pokemon through gen 8. But that's a long way off, and I'm trying to stay focused on my current goals for now. Just remember there's a bright future to look forward to!

I think that's about all I need to share for now. Let me know what you think, and look forward to more development updates in the future! I'll keep on working hard to make this years-long project a reality.

[doubleddenden]

I've been playing 2 pokemon fan game demos recently

First off, Project Untamed, probably more well known as the Mazah Region fan game being made based on Subjectively's fakemon region project

The demo isn't long and only goes 1 gym deep so far, but this is definitely a fan game to watch out for. The fakemon all have this unique charm but unifying style that make them stand out, and the overall quality is pretty great. It's based on Central America, and overall have a Tradition vs Change motif. My time was fun, however brief it was. Mechanically speaking too, this is one of the few fakemon fan games I've played with an actual speed up button- something I desperately wish normal pokemon games had, and I definitely appreciate it. Artistically speaking the game is gorgeous to look at, and I admire the respect towards the culture and actually allowing it to... well, exist unsullied. A lot of pokemon games have this issue where they put regions in unique locations but skimp on the unique culture of the area in favor of a more generic map- which I would get why in some cases, but not others. Mazah shows it off respectfully, even the first gym being a ghost gym with inspiration from Day of the Dead (also I just want to say how funny and happy I was at the gym theme for that one). The characters are also endearing so far, and the game's humor is also on point, which I always appreciate.

Anyway keep an eye on this game. In a few years every poketuber will be hailing it as the best fan game of whatever year it comes out.

For my next game

I took a dip back into the Spanish side of the fan games to play a demo of Pokémon Armonia, which has a very decent English translation so far. I think 4 gyms are in, and I'm nearing the end of that.

Armonia's region is Safar, which I believe is based on Africa- at least the map sort of looks like the hook of the upper west side. The environments are beautiful and varied, and the art style is really high quality and filled with so much soul in each location and sprite. I find myself studying these Spanish games tbh, because there's always such a unique quality and extra care out into them, and I'm actually taking notes on the sprite style here as well. There's big photos done in pixel art as well that just... well, it looks great, as I've been gushing about for a while.

Remember how I said Spanish fan games have a unique quality to them? How's this for unique: the opening scene has VOICE ACTING. Yes, the world's richest franchise can't even add it to the spearhead of off their commercial operations for the next few years, but a fan game certainly can! I'm not sure if more is planned to be added in the future, but I hope so.

Anyway, that little aside put... well. Aside. I guess. The fakemon are fun and fantastic. I will say that it's rare to find fan games with fakemon in general, and of the 3 I've played from the Spanish side so far, they're still somewhat rare to see here. That's different in Armonia. The dex is still building, but so far, 4 gyms in, and I've seen mostly new designs rather than old- think something like Hoenn if that makes sense. Pretty much every single one has been a hit in some fashion or another and are fun to mess with. The regional variants are fun too, and I especially adore my Safaran Arcanine, which is Ground/Fairy.

I say this too, they do a very interesting take on introducing new evolution methods: in one particular side quest, they pull over and basically demonstrate the circumstances required to evolve a certain regional variant. Honestly, that is super refreshing from a story telling, mechanical, and time saving angle, and is something I really wish official Pokémon games would do instead of us having to wait for a data dump to reveal you have to take your guy to a particular spot under a particular tree at a certain phase of the moon while landing 3 crits in a row and singing The Macarena backwards. Like seriously, an NPC being like "hey, here's a rare candy, why not try evolving X here in this little spot?" Is not only immersive, it just makes more sense! It's simple, but brilliant! Honestly great job to the devs here.

As far as anything else mechanically speaking, the game also features a mobile PC like in Realidea System, and of all things, the selective multi exp share similar to the one from Opalo. I'm gonna guess that feature must be from a special build of Pokémon essentials or something. I really enjoy it and I think more fan games should make use of it.

So far, gyms and exploration are sort of straight shots, but I think that's okay given the story it wants to tell. And let me tell you, the story is looking interesting so far. I can't wait to see where it goes!

I'll probably make a team shot of the Fakémon I've used so far soonish. I'd definitely say check it out if you can- although I gotta say, hunting down the EN translation was ROUGH. It's a good translation, minus dex entries, but it is R O U G H finding it.

Good luck to both the Mazah and Safar teams! I can't wait to explore your fully made regions someday!

[kyogreblue21]

Thoughts about the DLC

Just saw the reveal on the Teal Mask and the Indigo Disk. Really excited on what’ll they’ll entail!! The new Pokemon in the Teal Mask are based on Momotaro, with a dog, a monkey, a pheasant, and an oni. The designs are all just “eh...” except for Monkidori, love that monke. Look at him.

Really wacky thing to do for making the player go back to Japan, especially since basegame SV takes place in Spain?? Carmine and Kieran, the new kids, they’re cool, basic designs tbh. But where’s Penny?? Where’s Arven??? Where’s Nemona!???? WHERE’S LARRY?????

The Indigo Mask is very interesting as well, since it takes place at the “Blueberry Academy” note how its not in Spanish like the other two.

Judging from this map, I’m hoping this is the southern France region. I wonder if they’ll be new convergents or regionals in either of the DLCs speaking of which... or just new non-legendary Pokemon. Carmine and Kieran appear to relevant in this story. Basegame trio erasure again!! Nemona and the others still have mysteries about them!!

Terapagos is a very very enjoyable design, it’s also very interesting, it doesn’t have that intimidating feel like the other third legendaries we have. It doesn’t feel as eldritch and monstrous as Necrozma or Eternatus. They look more like a scrunkly mythical!! I wonder if they have an alternate form much like the other third legendaries.

[slothfuzzz]

Pokémon Z-A: My thoughts & Predictions!

(Plus some Fakemon!!!)

While much was revealed in the trailer on Pokemon Day, the visuals and content told us enough about what may potentially be in the game. Partially from the fact that it's another installment in the “Legends' ' series of Pokemon games with the last one being Legends Arceus, we will probably expect similar gameplay. That being a more open world breath of the wild or monster hunter formatted game with lots of action and scenic graphics. Which at least for me as someone who is a huge fan of open fantastical environments I'm excited about.

Also, the fact that the last Legends game set the president learning about the past of the Pokemon world. This makes me hopeful that we'll learn a lot more about the events of what happened before Pokemon X & Y. both came out in 2012. Before I continue, here's a bit of context on X & Y conceptually as past Pokemon games.

Pokemon X & Y take place in the Kalos Region which is based in France with architecture like the tower in Lumiose City being insured by the Eiffel Tower. Also, the choice of Pokemon that were introduced in that game as well as the debut of the newest type at a time fairy. This game has gone down in JRPG infamy for introducing Mega Evolution as well as the amount of incomplete content it had which segway into my main point of writing this.

What will be answered in the new game? And what will be introduced into the games going forward?

Both of these questions are what I'll be using to guide my hopes & predictions of what potentially will be in this newest game.

New Pokemon:

The full visual of all the Pokemon introduced in X&Y.

Like I stated before XY was infamous for having only 72 new Pokemon. But it is revealed later in the original games that many Pokemon died in a war in the Kalos region's past. So theoretically if there is some type of time travel or Pokemon restoration mechanic there is the possibility some of these “extinct” Pokemon could make a comeback with their first debut in this game.

Time travel:

As stated at the start the last Pokemon Legends game involved time travel with the protagonist going to the past of a different region of the Pokemon world. And from the fact that we see in the Pokemon Z trailer two distinctly different maps of Lumiose City one that looks old and the other looking modern, I am led to believe that this could potentially nod towards a past and future jumping through time aspect to the game. Which depending on how it's implemented could be great.

Expanded character lore:

Through the past and future mechanics that are being added too, we could see past Pokemon characters (gym leaders, trainers, rivals, etc.) either fulfill their dreams from past games or find out who their ancestors and/or children are. It wouldn't be the first time Pokemon has done this. But generally whenever they bring back characters from past games or introduce characters that are related to other characters they almost always get really good reception. Especially since they are usually the opposites of the character they are based on personality which could lead to some entering in game dynamics.

AZ’s Floette:

So probably one of the biggest unanswered questions that's been in the Pokemon community for a decade if not more at this point is what happened to AZ Floette? Does it have an evolution?

For context, AZ is a character who created a machine that would revive his Pokemon that tragically died in the Pokemon war of Kalos past. He did this by using the love of other Pokemon to power the machine. Thus bringing back his beloved Pokemon but with a different more gothic form.

What's interesting about this is that even after we see Floette return to see AZ before flying away once again, it never evolves.

But there was concept art that was leaked several years ago of a potential Floette evolution that was drafted at Game Freak so there's still hope that we may not only be able to catch this mysterious Pokemon but also unleash its full potential.

Closing thoughts & Concepts:

Honestly, I think it will be pretty difficult for this game to disappoint me. Even though I have to wait till 2025 (which will break the Gamefreak year schedule of releasing a Pokemon game) I am okay with that if it means I finally get to experience a Pokemon game that is complete on release. For the past several years Game Freak has released a game and then some DLCs when all we want is the whole game all at once. And while the DLC content can be nice it should feel supplemental and nonessential like if I don't get it I am missing core content but that is a whole conversation in itself.

Out of excitement and the fact that whenever a new Pokemon game is announced I always love creating some Fakemon to see how accurate my predictions for the game may be and/or what concepts may be implemented but with my spin on it. Below are a few different Pokemon forms that I came up with for Pokemon that I hope will be in the game. I am fully aware that they won't look like my iterations but I have fun making them as an artist and Pokemon fan.

Quick sketch I did of Floette Evolution Ideas:

(may come back to these as game approaches release)

Paradox Vivillon I called “Iron Seasons”:

Alternative Furfrou Trim mock-ups:

(Ancient & Future Trims)