#at least i already have a nintendo online subscription

[mangostar]

i wish the nintendo music app had a lil bit more games….

[luigiblood]

Why Nintendo 64 - Nintendo Switch Online is shit

I have been very critical of Nintendo 64 - Nintendo Switch Online since the beginning, not only the very noticeably broken graphics emulation was certainly a case that everyone understood, but it did certainly make me completely avoid the Expansion Pack subscription entirely for a year because that was genuinely shit in 2021.

Now how is it in 2024? Well, it's not that much better. They did fix a lot of problems during that time for sure, and that's something that we do need to acknowledge to do at least something resembling fair criticism.

Current context

That one Dark Link room in Ocarina of Time was fully fixed, as the fog and even transparency emulation was just outright broken, somehow worse than its Wii U Virtual Console counterpart (which was already not very good), it also affected other games like Super Mario 64 where the fog was actually not correct, but oddly enough, it's not as much of a problem in Super Mario 3D All-Stars, and I'm not entirely sure what happened between that and Nintendo Switch Online for it to have such a massive emulation downgrade.

I've done some analysis of the software, though not a ton because I don't have that much time to waste reverse engineering emulators. Through that, I found out that iQue was responsible for the Nintendo 64 emulator on Wii U and Switch, because of the emulator framework, named "TRL," being 100% identical to their NES and GBC emulator for 3DS, confirmed to be iQue through leaked source code among other things, and the debug menu is seen on Wii U if you have more than one game ROM in the folder, and it's just like the 3DS one.

The Wii U Virtual Console N64 emulator was already seen as worse than its Wii VC counterpart, mainly due to the dark filter, but that thing has nothing to do with the emulation quality it was providing, aside from apparently some additional slight input lag on top of the already massive input lag which I find mindboggling, the graphics emulation was already considered worse than on Wii, a lot of issues that people saw on NSO were already on Wii U VC, which turned into a massive mess of complaints because, yeah, it turns out the Wii U was just not successful, but the Switch is, making obvious complaints very much more important.

The Dark Link room just happened to be using a bunch of graphical features at once which made it very noticeable when they don't work as intended. When I discussed this with other people, I couldn't help but feel terrible at the answer I get: "It's good enough."

This response annoys me to no end, but in truth, yes, the games are playable, nowadays graphically you probably wouldn't tell the difference from the real N64 with an untrained eye, and in fact, so am I at times too. But the problem is that it now becomes an actual history rewrite of how the game actually was, and you could still say that you would prefer the N64 games now than before with better framerates, better resolution, all that.

Better performance is always better?

Now this is still more of an opinion piece so here's my opinion about better framerate and better resolution: It's fucking misguided. Doing better framerate and better resolution works a lot better for games after that generation than the 32-bit and 64-bit era of the mid 90s to 2000, because the graphics looks a lot better for it and the standards are closer to the current era that we're in.

For N64 however, simply running the game better does not work as well as it should most of the time, and, frankly, seeing big polygons in 720p does not work as well as it should for most games. 2D games especially suffer from this and get some really weird filtering that just bothers me, especially in games like Yoshi's Story and Harvest Moon 64, where the emulator seemingly can't decide whether the graphics should be almost pixel perfect, or become vaseline.

Speaking of vaseline, where's the anti-aliasing? The N64 is very much known for its blurry anti-aliasing! While I'm pretty much immune to aliasing myself, I can still see it's not really respecting the original N64 very well about that, and it only deepens one of the biggest history rewrite of the N64 nowadays, where most people is more likely to look at badly emulated footage of a N64 game than seeing the game running on the original system, and this really bothers me that when you have every single other system on the service to care about this to the point of having a CRT screen filter, and even outright and pretty faithful reproductions of the Game Boy series' screens, N64 is the only one that forces you to play in its uglier HD resolution with no actual option to play games in their original resolution with some CRT filter or not, and that is just a real evidence of a lack of care to me compared to the rest of the systems.

When it comes to better framerates however, as much as I love that (Pilotwings 64 on NSO is actually one of the few experiences I can recommend on it), a lot of the games' speed are tied to the framerate, potentially making games harder than they should due to its speed being more accounted for the actual system, and sometimes, causing actual desync problems that iQue had to implement ways to manually slow the framerate down in specific moments of games just to account for it, but this only works for games that can run faster than intended. A lot of games sometimes have their framerate completely capped and doesn't run any faster.

But emulating the N64 lag is genuinely complex, and it's a problem that's not fully solved to this day even on unofficial N64 emulation, because there's way too many factors to take into account that it would probably take too much performance to figure out where it should take more time to process or not, so, on this one, I have a bit of sympathy about that as a developer, but it is still possible to roughly approximate that, even if the result can be weird; but I don't seem to notice any legit attempts about that.

Besides, a lot of people would be annoyed about the N64 lag and bad framerates, but to me if you want better framerates, in my opinion, it would be done differently, and unofficial emulation absolutely can deal with it in ways that isn't intrusive to the game's performance: If you played the N64Recomp PC port of Majora's Mask, you would know this, as RT64, the new graphics plugin powering this port (and hopefully emulators soon), actually handles interpolation between frames, allowing better framerate without sacrificing the game's performance to be better or worse than intended, and it makes for some real impressive results while still being relatively low in cost. For me this seems like a potential avenue to attempt to ease in comfort with N64 games.

Is N64 emulation really that hard?

…frankly, if you asked me this question 10 years ago, I would have said yes, at least to my understanding back then, but also now. But if you ask me this same question now, the answer is no, mainly because of brand new standards that actually makes a huge difference in how to handle N64 emulation in current systems, even through unofficial emulation.

I know it's very easy to mock unofficial N64 emulation as relatively hard to play, and this I would agree with, but this problem is purely user faced now. The old problem of unofficial N64 emulation was mainly that not many people were doing work on it and their time is just not infinite, but that is very much changing nowadays.

The Nintendo 64 is actually a well understood system, additional research are still being done, but for the most part, we can understand the N64 to a decent degree. The actual bottleneck of N64 emulation was actually how to emulate it on current systems, when we were stuck to older graphics API standards like OpenGL and DirectX 9.

However, a shakeup happened since with Vulkan and DirectX 12, allowing deeper GPU control. This, is actually one of the most important events of computing that actually unlocked bigger N64 emulation potential and finally get rid of problems that plagued N64 graphics emulation and it started with an adaptation of THE most accurate N64 graphics plugin as Parallel-RDP, and its extremely good, but its pretty much asking on performance and requires a decent GPU (no need for the latest stuff though).

Unfortunately, not much happened since on that field, due to as I said before, a lack of developers, but now RT64 exists, and is made to be extremely performant, and especially made to be accurate without relying on any game specific code for it, which is extremely impressive and shows a lot of potential for the future, while providing tons of new features that allows enhancements like frame interpolation and more. RT64 was fully enabled because of Vulkan and DirectX 12, else it would simply not exist!

Now why did I talk about this stuff that's seemingly unrelated to NSO? Well remember that Majora's Mask PC port I talked about earlier that uses RT64? I saw that thing running on Nintendo Switch, seemingly perfectly fine, with enhancements as well.

This makes me look at N64 NSO differently, and with even more criticism than before. Instead of making good graphics emulation through Vulkan, they seemingly instead just ported the graphics emulation from Wii U VC's GX2 API to Vulkan. That isn't without effort, but it is quite frankly lazy, and means that whatever they're doing, they're not using the technology at their disposal to the fullest, especially since Vulkan is a standard that applies to pretty much every current GPU under the sun now, whatever the work is done here, it would likely work on the long term, especially the next systems after the Switch. Why Nintendo did not allow that is just sad, and a waste of time. RT64 was done by mostly a single developer, and while it took many years to be developed, these years could have been reduced a lot more if it was handled by a team fully dedicated to this, with possibly even more cutting edge to it. The ingredients are there, but the recipe was just botched.

Genuine trust issues with the quality

But aside from all this stuff I just talked about, if you didn't understand much of it, hopefully this part should help you understand other issues that I have with N64 NSO.

Remember that the first version of N64 NSO was graphically buggy, and while they did fix that over time, new games sometimes were outright buggy and possibly game breaking:

When they added Paper Mario to the service, while the game did actually receive some improvements over the Wii U VC emulator, the game, somehow, was more prone to crashes. If you game over with Watt as a partner, the emulator crashes, and you lose your progress. If you have the curiosity of hitting trees with your hammer, one of them in the snow town actually crashes the game too! Thankfully both were fixed, but you still needed to wait months! If you had no idea why crashes could be caused as Nintendo just never warns about that stuff, that is genuinely inconvenient.

When they added Kirby 64; the western version actually had a game breaking bug that makes you softlocked if you get hit in a particular way underwater. That is genuinely a terrible bug that could affect just about anybody playing the game. Thankfully, they fixed it the next week, but that REALLY shouldn't have happened to begin with!

There's also the smaller problems like Yoshi's Story's boss, Inviso, where the point of the boss is to be invisible. Except he's very visible at all times making the point of the boss moot and any respect to the original game gone. For some fucking reason, they took more than a year to finally fix it, and that's just a huge shame.

There's also how Jet Force Gemini had a worse widescreen mode and somehow thought it was good for release, thankfully fixed 2 months after, but you still had to wait 2 months!

And then F-Zero X still has genuine framerate problems to this day where the game just runs worse over time. That game is known to run a perfect 60 FPS on the original system, so there's no excuse here.

I could also mention Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, but just look up Graslu's videos on them, he has done a full comparison, showing what's wrong with them with enough detail.

For these, I just mentioned the glaring issues plaguing several games, but a lot of times these issues just comes on their addition to the service, and then only gets fixed months later; and for me, that's an actual disrespect to the player. I understand the developer is doing their best here, but frankly, what that looks like to me is a legit constant: they visibly seems just scrambling to get games to work to a "good enough" state. I am NOT accusing iQue of this, however I accuse Nintendo to not have taken any measures to stop having these kinds of problems to begin with.

To speak better of iQue, they seem to be good at reverse engineering, as they do patch games to fix issues, or sometimes just modifications like anti-epilepsy measures or other kinds of hacks.

The controls

I had some really bad things to say about the controls, but it got partially invalidated when I played Perfect Dark on the service to see how bad it got. I think I simply overthought about it.

Now I have an opinion about the controls of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark that will not please people: They're… fine. The default controls I mean. I know people have some real aversion to FPS that doesn't use a double stick, but frankly I dare say those controls didn't age as badly as you'd think. Some people say it's best played on a N64 controller but I don't agree about that, it's also okay on a regular Switch Pro Controller.

Turok however, oh boy, the default controls can be a double stick FPS… except it's reversed. That's where the ability to remap controls would be very useful here, or possibly just one moment where better forced control setups would be actually nice here.

Or how Pokémon Stadium has minigames that uses actually both the D-pad and the Stick, it could be great if the right Stick acted like the N64 Stick at that moment on a Pro Controller instead of the C Buttons!

Instead, I sometimes get told it is an excuse to get the (frankly expensive) N64 controller. Fuck no. I should not be forced to buy that, and I actually dislike using that controller, and I played tons of N64 games through emulation with different controls without having serious issues either, so for me, this isn't an excuse. Wii U VC also provided button remapping!

The forced use of ZL as the N64 Z button, and L for N64 L button for every game, also bothered me. I know they care about consistency, but then, I got actually curious to check how they handled Z and L on Wii and Wii U VC… and holy shit. They handled it right from the start. On Wii they actually just used the L button for the N64 Z button! But, the N64 B and A buttons do correspond to the B and A buttons on the current controllers regardless. Though, on that one, for most games, it's not as much of a bother, but if you're playing games like, let's say Wave Race 64 or F-Zero X, this is particularly worse.

F-Zero X has the use of strafing left and right, so I'll let you imagine how worse that sounds if you use ZL and R. NOT ZR, that's for C Buttons macros on the face buttons. It feels horrible and unintuitive, but also there's how the B and A buttons on N64 are vertical, and you just use your thumb on both buttons, making it easy to boost or to soften bounces on waves in Wave Race 64, which is a pretty darn important thing to understand, but instead you have to handle it on horizontal B and A buttons, making it a slight bit more annoying to your thumb, physically speaking. It just feels unintuitive and actually bad for your thumb, frankly.

It's where I wish games would actually make either ZR or R buttons to be swapped depending on the title, to be the R button and C button macro, and also offer an option to rotate the face buttons so that B and A would be placed on Y and B instead, corresponding more to the actual feeling of the N64 controller.

Sin & Punishment is oddly enough the only game of the bunch that comes with slightly custom controls, more adapted to the game, and I'm sorta glad that they bothered.

Just to go back to the N64 stick emulation, I also wish the sensitivity of it was managed better on current controllers. It really seems like when some games run faster than intended, added with the fact the stick isn't reproduced faithfully, some games are a lot harder to play, especially with Joy Cons if that's your only and basic options, where for example, turning the camera is way faster and you just keep wanting to reposition all the time.

Missing features

Man, imagine emulating the Controller Pak for the ability to save in games that only uses it instead of battery backed save memory in the cartridge, but then, literally never use it, ever.

Well that's what happened to Wii U VC and N64 NSO. iQue has actually emulated it, but for some reason, they never use it, and I just do not understand why, especially in games where the Rumble Pak isn't supported.

Speaking of the Rumble Pak, it is emulated, but there's one thing I just do not understand: Why isn't there code to automatically swap the Controller Pak and Rumble Pak? They have the best ways to actually handle this in ways that is pretty transparent and unobtrusive, but somehow, they don't bother with it, and it's just very strange. I know the N64 games are weird about it, but some outright allow to swap them, sometimes they even bother to remove the No Controller Pak message in Winback, but in other games they don't even bother removing the Rumble Pak swap message. It's just inconsistent and weird.

We don't have Transfer Pak emulation unfortunately, but that one, I can partially understand, it's definitely a bit messy, but it would still have been cool to play Mario Tennis and Mario Golf with your GBC characters and to level them up on the N64 games. Instead, in Mario Tennis GBC, you actually get the Transfer Pak content unlocked from the start, which is still pretty cool of Nintendo to care, and a mere reminder that they do care about these details in other apps. But in Mario Tennis on N64 NSO, the Transfer Pak courts are yet to be unlocked.

Then there's the wish to see 64DD emulated, which they initially did some work towards that back on Wii U VC, but then simply never touched in years, and then removed the code after I noticed they tried to support the fanmade cartridge ports of them. It's probably just for testing though, I don't really care that they do it like that, but I would think it's particularly crass had they used them officially on the app. This has yet to be seen again, so I don't have my hopes up. Here's hoping the Nintendo Museum made them care though, considering Doshin The Giant 64DD actually showed up there.

The future

I think I pretty much said what I wanted to say the most in one place. It might have been a little hard to read, but I really wanted to make my points very clear.

When I look at N64 NSO vs the rest of the service, I just cannot help but see how worse it is in general, I have genuine trust issues as it is very badly managed as games get added but then doesn't run properly, only to get resolved, if it does, only months later. It just makes me want to put off for later any time I wanna play a N64 game on that service, and I really want to love that service, I want to recommend y'all the biggest N64 library so far that Nintendo has given us that surpasses both Virtual Console libraries on Wii and Wii U, but I just can't.

Unfortunately, I don't see the future to be that bright. I see no reason to believe Nintendo has done any big efforts to allow a better N64 emulator, and of course, Nintendo has never really addressed complaints, and I partially blame the "good enough" feeling. When I read ArsTechnica to make an article just to complain about the borders after the N64 NSO ordeal, it just makes me feel like no matter what, this bigger complaint of mine across all of N64 NSO just cannot be seen seriously. It's a much bigger problem than borders (though, I agree, they should allow more, including pitch black borders).

I don't see any reason for Nintendo to read this either, but that's my full impressions of N64 NSO so far. Nintendo 64 NSO is just shit, and disrespectful to the legacy of the N64.

I outright accuse it to force people to buy a N64 controller just to play it correctly, which definitely worked as it definitely was out of stock several times, but if that's truly what they aimed for, then it's an app that doesn't know what audience it wants. If it aimed to be played by casuals, they'll be put off by the controls. If they aimed for the hardcore, they'll find problems, no matter what.

And it really cannot be helped when the emulator is clearly designed for the developers to manually fix problems per game instead of having a better emulator overall.

[otomiyaa]

Profile Tag Game 💕

Hello - Lol hi I'm Ginny and this is a fun something I was about to do on my previous blog, and I remembered it! So I decided to still do it here. It's a random self introduction based on genshin impact character profiles! Maybe even a better fit for me to do it on this new account.

Chat: Tickling - I may have said this before, but I am a very bad tickler. In fact, I can barely remember tickling anyone properly so far in my life. I've done some quick pokes and scribbles, but I just can't go much further than that. Everything I wrote in my fics and hcs is just pure creativity and imagination. Not experience.

When It Rains - I get all cozy when I'm indoors and it's raining, like right now! But when I have to go out, it can make me frown and whine a lot.

When It Snows - I hope I don't fall down... I've got quite a number of experiences already, of slipping and falling in the snow.

Good Night - It's almost 1 AM. I should probably go to sleep. Ah, I'm too wide awake at night these days. And too tired during mornings hahaha.

About Me: Language - I speak Dutch, English, and Japanese and in all languages I sometimes struggle with formality levels at work. Especially when Japanese people call me by my first name without 'san', I am like..!!!! It's always a challenge to find the perfect balance of not being too impolite, and not being too formal and distant. I get the feeling I worry more about language and formality aspects than others.

Something to Share: Subscriptions - I've actually got way too many subscriptions running - Cinema, Spotify, Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Nintendo Switch Online, and Just Dance+. I kinda pay too much for things I don't always need, but I do need them a little and can't get myself to cancel any, even when they shamelessly increase their prices. Does it make me a money disaster? Hm.

My Hobbies: Journaling - My friends and I all have bullet journals and working on those while chatting and listening to some music is one of the most calming and satisfying things in life for me.

My Troubles - Needing a new laptop so I can play games like The Sims and Honkai Star Rail, but my current laptop isn't so old yet. Also, the Taylor Swift store doesn't ship to the Netherlands, I cry.

Favorite Food - Sushi, bibimbab, spaghetti with meatballs.

Least Favorite Food - Cheese.

About @ticklygiggles - On June 16, 2016, Mia sent me a message on Tumblr, starting a conversation. I messaged her back, and from that moment on we just... talked daily, grew closer and closer, watched anime together, wrote fics together, called and sent voice messages, and last month for the first time we FINALLY were able to play genshin together (Mia made a new acc because we weren't on the same server, huhu dedication girl). We did the Heart Island thing in Mia's world.

About @ragewerthers - We talked about it recently but our friendship started so smoothly and sudden. I was reminded it was because of Ragewerthers getting randomly shadowbanned on Tumblr, as well as our mutual interest in the soccer anime Days, Final Fantasy XV and Minecraft.

Tagging some fellow genshin fans @ticklygiggles @wertzunge @lovelynim @shy-lee-chu @eliankrios @xsezzie @kusuguricafe @fuckparty and ofc anyone else who would like to do it:) Feel free to add more / use other lines or do literal voice-overs! I'll stick to just text hehe.

[blackpearlblast]

i actually have a minor like... There is something in regards to what i just found out that i need to make a decision on. i have a lot of games i've already purchased for switch so i would be fine to just play those and just not give nintendo any new money ever, but there is the issue of nintendo online which is a recurring subscription. normally i would just cancel it but it's required to play splatoon (at least the casual online matches i'll explain why this is important). as silly as it sounds, playing splatoon 3 is something i frequently do to treat my frequent nausea and muscle tightness. i don't know exactly why but something about the focus and reaction time it requires forces me to loosen up and distracts my brain and it just.... helps. and that's something specific to the online matches i don't think story mode would have the same effect. but i would need to keep giving nintendo money in order to be able to do this (i think i use it to manage nausea at least once a week minimum it's a very frequent issue for me) i'm definitely not buying any more games or merch or anything else but i have to figure out how i want to handle this

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

y'know im about to go feral on how EVERYTHING is under subscriptions. want this viddy game to run better??? get *insert viddy company name here or or viddy game title here* plus or extra or up your plan to get access to EXTRAS!!

bc the other day, i was making a list of all the different games i might download on my xbox in the future. fallout 76, which has fallout 1st.... which is a $22.99 per a month or $179 a year subscription, just to get better skins etc in the game. i want to download trivial pursuit for me and my dad. but xbox and ubisoft keep recommending "get ubisoft+" which is ANOTHER subscription service through ubisoft. another like $25 a month. like given it could be worth it for me if i got into assassins creed on a bigger level than casual. get EA play to get exclusive sims content!! for ANOTHER $6.99 a month. get xbox games pass (which i have) for $18.95 a month!!! and to be fair, i get EA play for free through xbox game pass. but still.

for example, the other day i updated my nintendo online sub account to the extras pack or whatever.... all bc i wanted to look at the gameboy advance online thing...... but instead of letting me look at it and play super mario world 2 on it on my NORMAL SUBSCRIPTION (which i already had access to on nintendo online snes/game cube or whatever.... and plus i though the GBA platform would have more games than it did (like 10 games but i thought it'd have like 50 or something) i had to change my subscription to the nintendo online plus extras pack for GBA online. but that subscription, was $41.95 this year bc i bought it on sale,... however, next year it'll be $60. like at least its $60 a year and not a month. but i'm still pissed off. i should've been able to get access to this for the $30 a year i was already paying!!! and for a measly 10 games not the like 50 games on the game cube/snes online game offerings.

just. im so sick and tired of EVERY company demanding customers to pay a monthly or yearly subscription for access or extras or for something to run better. who the fuck is made of enough money to afford fallout 1st??? ubisoft+??? like dgmw, i get it if you're SUPER into any of these games. like it's worth $22.99 a month to access extras across the library of ubisoft+ if you're a hella fan of assassin's creed or their other games (ie trivial pursuit). or $6.99 for EA play for the love of sims or every single sports game ever.

just i guess it's burn out maybe that EVERYONE wants your money. a section of your wallet continuously until you cancel. i have to subscribe to my area's local newspaper for $179 a year. i subscribed to an app by the adf (australian defence force) to do job aptitude tests (im ignoring it tbh lol). i subscribe to the NYTs games app for $2.99 a month. i WAS paying $15 a month (but now it's closer to $20) for scribd, which is now everand, for audiobooks. for better use of my xbox, i subscribe to xbox games pass, as i said earlier, for $18.95 a month. and from next year, i'll pay $60 a year for nintendo online (unless i drop down back to the cheaper option to get rid of GBA online). i subscribe for $100 a year to microsoft for the essential apps of microsoft word/powerpoint etc. i pay $100 a year for norton antivirus on my windows laptop that i barely use now.

there's adhd apps that I keep getting recommended on fb that are like $150 a year or something. astrology app subscriptions (that i'll NEVER buy) that are like $15 a month.... as examples of apps that i won't use, but I get suggested all the time on social media. once i get a job, i'll be constantly asked about what tv streaming apps im subbed to as well (none). WHY does EVERYONE want my fucking money???? i am so sick to death of subscriptions.

[anderswelten]

How to farm special Pokeballs

The main focus of my collection lies within Event Pokémon. But from time to time, I‘m also collecting Aprimons. Aprimons are Pokémon which are caught in special Pokeballs. You may came in contact with them already. Since all special Pokeballs are not easy buyable, they are valued relatively high in comparison to other items. Especially, if you are collection shiny trophies, you‘ll come to the point that you want your trophy in a matching Pokeball sooner or later. Let‘s see which ways we have to get multiple of those special Pokeballs.

First things first, let‘s declare what can be considered as a special Pokeball:

All Apriballs, which are Fast Ball, Friend Ball, Heavy Ball, Level Ball, Love Ball, Lure Ball and Moon Ball

Dream Ball

Beast Ball

Safari Ball

Sport Ball

Actually, there are more than one possibilities to get most of them in SV. Only Sport Ball is limited to one option. And obviously, we‘re speaking about not-genned items by a random bot…

1. At the marketplace of Porto Marinada you‘ll get: Fast, Friend, Heavy, Level, Love, Lure, Moon, Dream and Beast - BUT those auctions are pretty rare and expensive. You‘ll need to farm money as well…

2. With the help of the item printer, you have a chance to get all - BUT the Pokeball lottery is random and if you’re very unlucky you’ll get nothing. Additionally, the item printer is DLC exclusive and you need to farm the new currency BP (blueberry points) which are way easier to farm if you do it with a group. However, the item printer is the only way to get Sport Balls in SV now.

3. PokeDex rewards include several of those special Pokeballs. If you own the DLC, you’ll get each except Sport Ball. If you do not have the DLC, you’ll get „only“ Fast, Friendly, Heavy, Level, Lure, Moon, Dream and Beast - BUT you have to fill your Pokedex completely and once you’ve collected the reward, you cannot get it a second time.

4. You can trade for them like I do it sometimes - BUT you do not know the origin of those items.

All those options have their own advantages and disadvantages. The most popular option by the player community might be the item printer. However, not everybody owns the DLC or a Nintendo Online Subscription and farming BPs on your own is very painful to get a useful amount of them in the end.

From my point of view, the PokeDex rewards are the most underrated possibility to get those items. Especially if you don‘t want to depend on others. Let me explain you why you should consider to farm special Pokeballs with this option.

If you have not yet, you should really work on a Living Pokedex. You can use random traded Pokemon or your own, whatever you prefer. You will have several advantages if you do it - just to name a few: immediate access to Pokedex rewards, the shiny charm, spotting a specific Pokemon if you have not seen it yet, etc. I own a Living Pokedex since Generation 6 (XY) and it helped me in many cases - but tbf, Pokemon HOME access is not always available with the release of a new game, however, it is available for SV

If you are preparing your Living Pokedex in HOME, you can easily swap the needed Pokemon from one save to another. Btw., it is not necessary to leave HOME and open your SV save so that the Pokedex entries are registered. Just save the changes in HOME and open HOME again to place the next batch into your boxes.

Except for a very small group of Pokemon, you‘ll get all with Let‘s GO Pikachu/Eevee, Sword/Shield, Brilliant Diamond/Shining Perl and Scarlet/Violet.

Some people are doing extra challenges - which are extra fun - like that all Pokemon are self-caught, collecting all different forms (regional and gender) or caught in a Poke Ball. Some even have the rule to catch each Pokémon in their original generation („Origin Dex“). Whatever you‘ll choose, it can be a big challenge with much fun.

Ok, last but not least, we need to clarify how you get all the special Balls to your main save. Unfortunately, this is the most boring part of it. You need to trade them from one save to another one by using a second Nintendo Switch. Fortunately, you can send over your HOME save to your second Nintendo Switch like all other game saves - I have done it here. Therefore, you do not need to subscribe for Pokémon HOME a second time and complete a second Living Dex as well.

And last-last but not least, I want to tell you a little secret. Well, it is not that much of a secret, but maybe not that obvious: Always, when I‘m preparing a save for redeems or Tera Raids, I‘m also completing the PokeDex with the help of my Living Dex. On the same time, I trade a few farmed Events for special Balls (my standard ratio is 1 Generation 9 WIFI Event : 30 special Balls). When I farm herba mysticas in various 5-7 Star Tera Raids, I always combine this with completing my Aprimon collection. And sometimes, I even use my farmed special Balls to just exchange them with Aprimons (my standard ratio is 1 special Ball : 5 Aprimons).

Sometimes, I‘m thinking about to ask straight for 150 Aprimons in exchange for 1 Event I‘ve farmed. But I think it is not reasonable to ask anyone to take that amount of time for breeding…

[despazito]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This franchise deserves better.

You deserve better.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[6ad6ro]

okay my bad...

i guess nintendo switch snes and nes games DO let you play offline? it's just confusing and stupid. you have to like... "check in" with the apps to "verify" your subscription? and then you can play offline for like a week without any internet connection.

i just never knew that because i usually wanna play old games randomly/impulsively. i never thought "oh better start up snes classics before i leave JUST IN CASE i might wanna play em" since i didn't know about the restriction. so i'd open the app when i was out and get "cant verify so cant be played" errors. i just assumed it was online-only and server-side data, considering how weird n obnoxious n is already being abt roms?

they REALLY didn't explain that shit well. this is the first i heard about it. the only reason i thought to look into it more was because the n64 part of the direct claims "play these games whenever and wherever you like". and even then i had to dig around for like an hour to find MINOR info, and eventually just test it myself to find out for sure.

like i still think charging extra for n64 and sega is pretty scummy... charging an online subscription fee for old games in general is pretty icky and financially manipulative? when they could just let you buy what u want individually (like they used to do).

but... this is still kinda a relief. like at least it's actually PORTABLE. meaning it's worth getting... until steamdeck comes out and i can just play EVERY game fullspeed on emulator. without weird subscription fees, lol.

[viostormcaller]

Thinking about it, it kinda sucks just how little new horizons has.

Like... I love the game to pieces and maybe this is just bc im in a shitty mood (which i am) but like... god this is gonna be long and ranty and I'm sorry in advance that mobile tumblr doesnt have the read more feature

For starters, holidays are all scheduled on the company's terms, meaning in 7+ years or so there will be no more in-game holidays because by then they'll probably be thinking about/getting ready to release the next installment of the series on whatever console is out at the time and they won't want to update new horizons anymore. And adding onto this, you need the internet to download the updates. What happens to the players who don't have internet?? Can they just never experience the holidays like bunny day and toy day and turkey day? That takes a HUGE part of the fun of the series out right off the bat. Sometimes making everything rely on the internet is a bad idea. Idk if anyone can like tell me if having no internet means you can't take part in the holidays, but like... god if that's true thats really sad.

They recently took out the hybrid flower and big fish islands, which makes no sense whatsoever why they would do that to a game that has so little, but ok?? It's not like that feature was hindering the gameplay any

There's a lot of furniture but Not a Lot of Furniture, you get me? They took out EVERY set except the classic set (renamed "antique") that you can buy for an insanely high price, and the log and wooden block sets that you can craft, but other that that it's all unrelated items that aren't part of any set, aside from the cute set and diner and throwback sets which as far as I can remember are the only other sets you can buy in the game. No alpine, no ranch, no minimalist, no princess or gracie, no modern or sleek, none of that. And 90% of all the buy-only furniture in the game is just the color variants. You can't even customize them! And it's hard as fuck to find the color variants you want, much less for completing a furniture set

And speaking of which, your starting villagers don't get their default house interiors. Your first three + your two starters from the tutorial days have the same generic layouts. You NEVER see what their houses are supposed to look like, and even if you give them the wallpaper and flooring they're supposed to have (if you figure that out online somewhere), their house doesn't change (I tested this with Sherb and was kinda disappointed).

And stuff is so EXPENSIVE. I know it adds a challenge but my final loan was NEVER 1 mil+ bells in New Leaf. And you can't even expand the extra first floor rooms you get. I'm literally getting less for WAY more. The biggest rooms you get are the basement and upstairs rooms. The first floor rooms aside from the main room really don't have a lot of space and with the different furniture they DO offer, I don't have a lot of room to put things in. But it's not like I can even afford it anyway -- just a freaking air conditioner was 63,000 bells. In New Leaf it was 2500. That's a MASSIVE jump. And the kitchen items are so freaking expensive, as well.

And speaking of houses, for someone who was literally in the real estate industry in the last game, tom nook adds very few house exterior options. And the even more shitty thing is that a lot of the colors straight up don't match. They couldn't even add a plain white roof.

God and the fucking DIY recipes. I know I've said this before on my other tumblr but the RNG for this game is the worst I've ever fucking seen. There is no reason why, two months into the game, I can be given a recipe for a simple DIY bench, which EVERYONE LEARNS IN THE TUTORIAL. Who the fuck am I giving it to?! No one, because literally every player knows it already, and you can't gift diy recipes to villagers! And I keep getting repeats of recipes. My villagers give me fruit DIYs all the time, it's so rare for me to get any new ones. And two days in a row I've gotten the recipe for the deer head mount thing from the same villager. New recipes should 100% take the priority before repeats. This game is slow paced, sure, but that's just frustrating. It doesn't make me excited to learn more recipes, it makes me feel like I'm never gonna learn any new ones because I'll get the same fruit DIYs for a week straight.

And speaking of which, you can't put trees, bushes, or flowers in your storage, which to me makes literally no sense. I can fit a giant ass fountain in my storage but I can't put a flower plant? Really? And speaking of storage, for a game that added 300 whole slots for mail instead of the usual 10, I will never understand why they decided to halve the amount of items a player can order a day from the nook shopping, AND make it so that it takes a whole day to get there instead of making deliveries at 9 am and 5 pm like in New Leaf.

And the fact that they made it so hard to get non native fruit and flowers and shit??? Like they at LEAST added Lief so flowers aren't as much of an issue anymore, but you actually have to travel to other people's islands just to get all the fruits?? I know you have to do the same thing in New Leaf but the reason why this is an issue for me is because you have to pay for online access, meaning most of those nook miles for planting all the fruits are locked behind a paywall unless your villagers can gift them to you. And your mom, when you first start the game, has a chance of giving you the one fruit that's on the non-native fruit mystery island, meaning you'll only get ONE new fruit and not two separate ones (for example, my sis got pears from mom but her non native fruit islands have cherries i believe. I got pears from mom and my fruit islands also have pears. Doesnt help that that's the one fruit i hate lmao). They also took OUT a bunch of fruits, like mangoes, durians, lemons, bananas, lychees, persimmons...

And the fact that your nook miles rewards are ISLAND LOCKED. That is the WORST SHIT. Not everyone has the ability to play with others, bc no internet or no money for the subscription every month. Not everyone WANTS to play with others bc maybe they get social anxiety (like me, which is why i havent asked for things that are impossible for me to get even though i want them for my island or house), or maybe they simply just don't want to. But the fact that each island has their own color variants of the same goddamn rewards that CANNOT BE CHANGED makes me so upset. I do not want nor should I have to rely on others to get the items I want because my game doesn't have my preferred color variations. And it's not like I'm far enough in the game to have anything worth trading for said items, nor do I have the bells.

And Isabelle does next to fucking nothing and I'm really irked about how they made her character in this game. Yeah she's cute, but that's ALL she is. She became more ditzy than anything else. She doesn't let you know about visitors in the town or the plaza or if a bridge or incline was built bc of a completed donation goal. Like really useful info to know would be if Flick or CJ is in town or who is selling stuff in the plaza. Flavor text is nice but if that's all you say 24/7 it loses its charm. In New Leaf she was helpful and hardworking and super focused and on top of things. Idk why they changed that aspect of her. I know her role in New Horizons isn't as big as it was in New Leaf, but still.

And then there's glitches that STILL haven't been patched (as far as I know anyway), like the game-breaking villager corruption glitch (which you'd think nintendo would have made a priority but they're too busy removing other features it seems) or the house exterior glitch.

And it's bad enough that your game saves to your fucking system a la Fantasy Life. But even WORSE, no one can have separate islands on one console. It's not enough to own two copies of New Horizons. Each player has to own one copy of the game and a whole new Switch just so they can play on their own islands. Parents can't usually afford that (aka $360 for each kid give or take) so for a game marketed towards kids, I don't know why they thought that was a smart move (well, I DO know, and that's because money, but still). And to top it all off, cloud saves are not supported normally. If you lose your game or your switch and aren't subscribed to nintendo online, well, it looks like all your progress is gone! And there's nothing you can do about it. And they directly claimed that they did this just so people can't manipulate the game because it's supposed to be played in real time. But people can still fucking time travel by setting the system's clock! They achieved nothing except to make the players frustrated!!! If you make a game you need to accept that the player is going to play how THEY want to. You shouldn't try to make everyone conform to the way YOU want them to play. That just makes you a controlling asshole and the game loses a lot of its fun.

This game was 60 bucks and they took so long to make it and we ended up with less than we got in New Leaf. The main thing they gave us was a shit ton more clothing items (which I really like). Like I said, I love this game to pieces and it's actually one of my favorite games right now. There's so much I love about it -- I certainly don't hate it or anything. But this game has SO MANY flaws, a lot of which are needless. And I think the kid in me just misses the days where you can pay for a game and get the whole game right away. No updates in tiny batches, no content locked behind paywalls, no day one patches, no reliance on internet connection and multiplayer... mainstream companies have all gone really downhill with that shit and it just disappoints me to no end. But because Nintendo is kid-oriented, I think that's where it hurts the most. It was supposed to be accessible, family friendly fun like back during the days of the Wii and the DS. But companies get so wrapped up in competing with each other and trying to make the most money that they forget about all that. I dunno. It just sucks.

If you read all this, god damn I'm surprised XD I got super ranty and I apologize. But I'm in a sad mood and I after learning about features they've taken out I just had to get all this off my chest. It's been weighing on me since the game released, especially since for months prior this game was all I could think about and I was really looking forward to it. It just let me down in a lot of ways, I guess.

[kyndaris]

Shine, Surf and an Ever-Present Home Loan

Initially, I had no desire to pick up the game. Yet, when release date rolled around and with so many comments on Facebook, I finally caved in and bought the latest Animal Crossing on Nintendo Switch. To my great surprise, it proved an interesting diversion and a great way to visit my friends in spite of the pseudo-lockdown in Australia. Of course, when I say ‘visit,’ I mean through the aether waves that is the internet. I even managed to enjoy a birthday party, though there were constant drop-outs and hosted my friends on my excellently formulated island (after I had purchased a Nintendo Online subscription). But as with all sandbox games with a very surface level plot, after a week or two of playing I found my attention wavering. Let me be clear that is of no fault from the game. Rather, I’ve always been one that prefers a narrative or an endpoint to the gaming experience. As such, it came as no surprise when I started to juggle two games at once.

Animal Crossing New Horizons starts with your character getting an offer for a deserted island getaway from Nook Enterprises. Once you land, you are able to name the island and begin the life of picking fruit, catching insects and fishing up sharks. Though this was my first game in the series, I was already familiar with the likes of Tom Nook and Isabelle. How could I not, considering how immersed I am with gaming?

After being slapped with relocation fees, it was off to try and cut down my debt as fast as I could. Why this was not earlier discussed prior to the purchasing of the deserted island package will remain a mystery to me, but I was going to make the best out of a bad situation. Within an hour or two, I had accrued enough miles to regain a sense of freedom...

Until of course, I took out my first loan for a house. Then it was back into the grind of collecting and selling as many items as I could reasonably fit in my pockets.

Slowly but surely, Animal Crossing New Horizons took on the aspects of a chore to be done each day. Rather than use time-travel, I allowed each day to pass as it did in real-time. It was a slower-pace than I would have liked, but it worked. Every evening, after work, I’d log in and complete my daily tasks. Within a few days of hard work, my island was free of weeds and I had started to plant in groves of pear trees. Even better, Blathers already had his museum up and running.

After a week or so of progress, I had the Able Sisters and four more residents to my island oasis. Yet, by then, I was already champing at the bit for a more meatier story-related game. Still, because my friends were playing the game, I felt compelled to continue. In fact, just the day before writing this post, my turnips could be sold to Tommy and Timmy Nook for 476 bells (a strange made-up currency so that Tom Nook can help enslave you). As you can imagine, dear reader, my friends flocked to my island, hoping to make an utter killing on the Stalk Market. 

As Animal Crossing New Horizons is very much a sandbox game, what you do each day is decided utterly by you, the character. This can be a daunting responsibility, though it is somewhat helped by the Nook Miles+ system on your Nook Phone, which grants you Nook Miles (another form of currency) by completing certain objectives. Think daily quests from games such as Hearthstone or a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) like World of Warcraft. In this way, it gave me a sense of purpose even as I lusted for other titles. Such as Final Fantasy VII Remake, which broke street date in Australia and was released on April Fool’s Day at brick and mortar stores.

Still, Animal Crossing New Horizons is an easy game to get into, particularly for people who aren’t as familiar with games in general. There’s no senseless murdering (though the memes would disagree) and it’s about cultivating an amicable island life. It’s also about taking things one day at a time and doing things at your own pace. For that reason alone, I suppose, it’s an interesting game to try out and explore. In addition, it’s the perfect way to play with your friends when have to be at least 1.5 metres apart. Or basically, sequestered in your own homes because there should be no gatherings of more than two (unless family). 

Animal Crossing New Horizons proved to be a fun game, though I often found myself running out of things to do within an hour or two. But I also thought many of the island residents were cute and had fun poking around my island. Except that creepy Easter rabbit guy that looked as if he stepped out of a Five Nights at Freddy’s game. Am I the only one that was getting serial killer psychopath vibes? 

[pokesception]

Pokemon Home is a Team Rocket scheme to steal your pokemon and lease them back to you.

Up front I want to be clear, this is not to hate on Pokemon Sword and Shield in and of themselves. As stand alone pokemon games they look good, great even, and if you're looking forward to them with eager anticipation, that's great too. But for me, the feeling is more dread and dismay, and the reason why is Pokemon Home.

There are lots of ways to love and things to love about the Pokemon games. From solo adventures to trading with friends to competitive battles online, there's something for almost anyone, but from the very beginning one of the core appeals of pokemon has been collecting. It's right there in the theme song: "Gotta catch 'em all." While some pokemon fans just play each game in turn, many lovingly cultivate a menagerie of pocket monsters from game to game catching and naming and training them all.

From that completionist's perspective, a key feature of Pokemon as a franchise, the thing that elevates it above all the other monster collecting games that have followed in its wake, is that you never need to leave that collection behind. For years you've been able to take your pokemon with you, watching your collection grow from game to game and generation to generation. You could feel free to spend hours naming and training and growing attached to each little packet of bits and bytes, confident they'd still be with you years and games down the line.

That continues with generation 8, but there's been a fundamental change. For the first time since generation 3, you can't bring all your pokemon into the new games. Instead they're supposed to live in "Pokemon Home," a cloud based paid subscription service, from which only a curated selection of pokemon will be available in any individual main series game going forward.

Pokemon Home is a trap. Once you transfer your pokemon to Pokemon Home, on a fundamental level they simply aren't yours anymore. That's that’s the Pokemon Company's collection now, and they’ll get to decide which you get to play with, when and how you access them, and most importantly how much you'll have to pay them for the privilege.

If they only want to charge you only a small nominal price for the first year? That's great. But maybe next year they decide they want a few more bucks a month. Or a few dozen. What are you gonna do? They already have your pokemon. If you want access to them, you'll have to pony up. Worse still, if you miss too many payments you’ll be risking a one way trip to the pokeglue factory for all the pokepals you've gathered over the last decade or so.

"Stop being an alarmist," you might be thinking. "Pokemon Home is just an updated version of Pokemon Bank, and Pokemon Bank never had exploitative pricing." And you’d be right.  Heck, I myself loved Pokemon Bank and have happily taken advantage of the convenience it offered, considering it well worth the price.  But this is where Sword & Shield (and, according to dev interviews, all main line Pokemon games going forward) not supporting all past Pokemon makes all the difference.

In the 3DS era, the new Pokemon games always supported all pokemon up to that point. If the Pokemon Company ever did hike the price of Pokemon Bank to something unreasonable, you could always just transfer your pokemon to the latest games & stop using the bank entirely. With Pokemon home, you can't do that. Once your collection is transferred to Pokemon Home, at least some portion of it will always be stuck in the cloud. You will never be able to take it all back. You'll have to keep paying those fees in perpetuity, however high they become, or say goodbye forever to at least some portion of your pokemon.

And while the price for Pokemon Home isn’t yet confirmed, you can already see the groundwork being laid for a significantly higher fee than Pokemon Bank. After all, it doesn’t just transfer pokemon between games, it also lets you trade pokemon online via GTS and Wonder Trade. With that increased functionality, of course we should expect an increased price.  It’s only fair, right? Never you mind that GTS and Wonder Trade used to be just part of the game in previous generations, no additional charges needed. And whatever the fee turns out to be, it will be on top of having to pay for Nintendo's internet service to even access Pokemon Home from your Switch to begin with.

Just because Gamefreak *could* exploit the heck out of this new system doesn’t mean they definitely will, but if there's one thing we all should have learned in recent years, it's that corporations, even the ones that make the things we love, are not our friends. You give them an inch and 9 times out of 10 they will take the proverbial mile. Their shareholders will insist on it.  Nowhere is this more true than in the realm of AAA video games, where the industry has stumbled from pre-order bonuses to micro transactions to loot boxes, gorging at each table in turn like a ravenous snorlax.

In the past, the Pokemon franchise always seemed to be above stooping to such indignities.  After all, between cartoons and films and merchandise, they never needed to, and turning the games into exploitative cash grabs ran a risk of tainting the brand.  Why take that risk over a few petty portable games when the big bucks were in children’s card games anyway?  Then Pokemon Go proved that the pokemon fandom was more than willing to put up with a little “nickle and dime”ing if meant more pokemon in our lives.  With Pokemon Home I fear we’re about to pay the price for that Giratinian bargain. 

Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe Pokemon Home isn't just a cynical corporate ploy to turn Pokemon from a series of fun games into a (shudder) "live service".  But even if Pokemon Home wasn’t deliberately designed to take your pokemon hostage, that’s still in effect what it’s doing by letting you transfer some pokemon in but not back out.  And even if Pokemon Co. never charges more for Home than they did for Bank, that still doesn't mean your pokemon are safe there. Budgets are tight and there are more and more bills and subscriptions eating away at our wallets with each passing day. Who's to say that even an extra $5 a year might be too much for pokemon at some point? If that point ever comes for you, that’s still just too bad for whatever pokemon you have on Home that can't be transferred to whatever games are currently supported.

Again, this is not to bag on Pokemon Sword and Shield. So far they look like fine stand alone Pokemon games. The wild area is a bold step forward, raid battles sound fun, I love all the new pokemon we've seen so far.  And after the recent Godzilla movie I'm super hyped for some kaiju sized dynamax pokemon battles. I mean, that's been a dream since the giant tentacruel in the first season opening of the anime! The development team for Pokemon Sword and Shield are clearly talented and committed people who care deeply about the pokemon franchise and its fans, and have worked very hard to bring us the very best games they could - or at least the best games that their corporate bosses would allow them to make.

No, the problem here isn't Pokemon Sword and Shield, it's Pokemon Home - the control it gives the Pokemon Company over our collections, the daggers it hangs over the heads of our pokemon, the syphons in sticks into our wallets.

So if you're still looking forward to Sword and Shield, by all means, buy them! Play them! Enjoy them!  But DO NOT BUY Pokemon Home. Do not transfer your collection to it. Not until Gamefreak changes their tune and recommits to supporting all pokemon in these and all future main line pokemon games, so that Pokemon Home can never be used to take your pokemon hostage.

Until then, Pokemon Home simply isn't a safe home for your pokemon.

And for Arceus's sake, those who have been making a stink about this, keep it up. Don't actually harass the developers, don't threaten anyone, don't attack fellow fans who don't see the problem.  But keep the pressure up on Gamefreak and Nintendo and the Pokemon Company and, heck, maybe thrown some shade in Warner Bros. direction. As we've seen with online friend play in Mario Maker 2, sometimes the squeaky wheel really does get the grease.

It’s likely too late to fix this before relase, but Gamefreak can patch the needed functionality in at any point after launch.  We don't have forever, though, there is a ticking clock. Pokemon Bank still probably has a couple years of life left before it's put out to pasture, along with online support for the 3DS era Pokemon games in general. There’s plenty of time before that for Gamefreak to change their minds, but if this problem isn’t fixed by then Pokemon fans will be faced with a painful choice - either hand our pokemon collections over to the Pokemon Company as hostages, or else leave them to fossilize in our gen 7 games, never to join us on future pokemon adventures again.

[scarletdestruction]

Just learned about Pokemon Home and it’s pricing...honestly I’m a little disgusted.

It’s only $4 less than a Nintendo Switch Online year subscription, 3 times as much as what Bank was. And to add insult to injury they’re trying to appear generous by making Bank and the Poke Transporter free for a month after Home releases.

What’s the point? The free version of Home can only store 30 Pokemon, and you can’t transfer those mons. Meaning you can’t transfer from this generously free Bank to the free version of Home.

So unless you pony over some money to get the premium version of Home, them making Bank and the Transporter free for a month is pointless. And it’s obvious why they’re making them free. It isn’t to be generous, it’s to entice you into spending money so you can transfer the precious mons you’ve caught over the years. Basically, if you don’t want to spend any more money...all Home does for you is let you store 30 Pokemon at once from the Switch games, and trade them one at a time on the GTS.

Keep in mind the GTS used to be free in the games and a staple. You could just quickly look up mons, and if you had a mon someone wanted, you could trade it to them. Now? Now you’ll have to look through the GTS on Home, try to remember if you’ve caught that mon in one of your games already, take the time to transfer it to Home, and hope someone else hasn’t already snatched that trade up. At least I assume that’s how it’ll work, based off the website.

Noooot to mention, well. They improved the GTS by letting you trade three mons at a time, and then locked it behind a paywall. You can only trade one at a time on the free version of Home.

Anyway, rant over.

[luigiblood]

Nintendo Switch Online, 1 year in review...

Well, well, well... Nintendo Switch Online...

You’re cheap, but you’re too cheap in return sometimes. I want to talk about it and some of my frustrations about it (and not necessarily with Nintendo). To do this, I will talk about each feature seperately.

Online Play

The most obvious feature is Online Play. It went from being free to being paid, which is pretty much a problem but then the competitors do the same. Many Nintendo games do not have the most stable netplay, even though I do not have most of the problems that other people get.

I’m not going to do a P2P vs Dedicated, or rather I would like to say that people genuinely don’t understand basic netplay and are all going against P2P without knowing that some of the games that works fine are probably all running on P2P to begin with.

I’m not gonna go into the details, nor do I want to say I’m an expert, each have their own pros and cons, but I think the main issue is ultimately the netcode. Here’s hoping with GGPO being open source and free to use for professionals now, the future could be a lot brighter.

I would want Nintendo to take netcode a little more seriously and test it in homes with slower Internet. Testing it with Wi-Fi and Ethernet and everything.

Save Data Cloud

This feature technically works. You’d think it’s hard to fail, right?

Of course they did when some games just don’t provide the support for it because of fear that people may abuse it for cheating... Meh.

Nintendo uses the exemple of having a broken Switch to where this feature might come in handy. Too bad this also means completely lost saves for some of the most important games like Splatoon 2 or Animal Crossing, the latter being really annoying if you lose hundreds or even thousands of hours...

Smartphone App

This one is tough because potential was there. Truly a waste of time.

All of the main services could have just been a website that works on PC and Mobile. But I think the main issue is that people don’t really want to check stuff about their game all the time because there is simply not enough feedback.

There was actually better execution when SplatNet was a regular website accessible on every device, Super Mario Maker Bookmark website too, instead everything is stuck to an app, limiting uses.

Content should be seen from everywhere when it’s possible. Making it work behind a subscription fee was a terrible idea.

And then let’s not even talk about the voice chat. That is a truly depressing thing. Why making it stuck to mobile? I get that you don’t want the Switch to process that stuff for performance reasons but truly that stuff is supported on it too...

Special Offers

Let me list what extra stuff we got from Nintendo Switch Online:

Exclusive Splatoon 2 Gears

Tetris 99

Game Vouchers

The right to buy NES/SNES Controllers

Game Trials (for only one game)

I did not list another thing that will be its own seperate bullet point.

Tetris 99 was truly the best part of this. It’s actually a pretty darn good game. Game Vouchers could have been nice if you couldn’t get the brand new games for cheaper in physical form.

Game Trials was a thing they tested at one point, but then they just didn’t bother...

We, subscribers, don’t really get a lot of extras, do we?

My Nintendo (Bonus Rant)

Nothing has been more of a waste than My Nintendo. Gold Points finally started to be kind of useful since it became an equivalent to a cent for the Switch eShop, but that’s the only good point I could give to it.

Its execution is terrible, and unlike many people, I do not have a lot of good memories about Club Nintendo (the European one, that said), because most of the cool items we only could get the stars we needed much later and then then the item was gone. That’s literally most of my experience with Club Nintendo.

When I learned that with the North American Club Nintendo you could get virtual console games and other cool shit I was genuinely disappointed how the European one was. And I’m not mentioning how the Japanese Club Nintendo had some of the cooler things than the west ever got.

And then My Nintendo has none of the cool things from any regional Club Nintendo... what’s the plan, Nintendo? Why does this exist?

The day 3DS and Wii U will stop being supported, what will happen to the vouchers that you guys always put up? Will it become even more useless?

NES / SNES Nintendo Switch Online

Now the real meat because that’s the stuff I really would like to talk about.

You guys know how involved I am with retro Nintendo content and I can be very invested about this kind of stuff because I just love Nintendo’s games.

Unlike many people, I don’t mind the subscription aspect and the fact you don’t really own these games anymore compared to Virtual Console games. I think this has ultimately been the better thing to do. However I find many problems with the execution of it, especially in the long run.

Due to its subscription nature, I did expect it to have less games than Virtual Console. Rights have to be renegotiated, and the most I expected were Nintendo games. Turns out we got some third parties, some even high profile, pretty cool.

But there are pretty infuriating stuff, like the slow drip feed we get. I get that you want to keep interest going for these games over time but there’s a lot of problems with that entails, and that’s how most of us are frustrated that Nintendo is not using the Switch to its highest potential, and especially about having all of the Nintendo games possible in a small amount of time.

Its portable nature wants us that Nintendo puts all of the retro games as quickly as possible, we want to dedicate our time to the Switch instead of plugging the Wii and Wii U for VC games that aren’t there. We want N64, GB/C/A, GameCube, and more. We want to have Mario Party 2 netplay in an official capacity, and so on...

I noticed the potential of retro Switch Online offer when I found myself addicted to Balloon Fight. Actually a game I’ve never downloaded off ROM sites before, as I usually dismissed it as being too simple. However the game was just there and I gave it a shot. This is one of the reasons why its subscription nature didn’t mind me, it got me to spend time with some games I usually wouldn’t spend time with, especially for NES.

I want to put a list of things that I want Nintendo to do with their retro offering to bring interest, but also sustain it:

- Bigger Drips of games

This seems trivial, but keep in mind that games have to be tested before going live, we pretty much want at least 3 games per month for each console. But stuff takes time and we at least want more communication about this aspect. We just want more games.

- Localized games

This is a personal pet peeve and only works for people whose native language is not English. I do not expect of Nintendo to localize retro games, but at least to release localized ROMs of games when they exist.

I expected of them to release these:

Kirby’s Adventure, French and German versions (yes, they exist)

Super Metroid, European version (that’s a bit more controversial however...)

Zelda: A Link To The Past, French and German versions (French even has an official 60hz version)

Yoshi’s Island, European version.

I know what you could say, 50hz games suck, music is slower- Stop. My only answer is fuck you.

Also, SNES 50hz games cannot have slower music, aside from a few rare ones. If you remember games having slower music on PAL SNES you have a bad memory and mixed up with NES or Mega Drive or something.

I don’t see how, as a developer myself, a selection menu could not be implemented for selecting the language for a game. That way you let people play whatever they want, it’s less painful, everyone is happy.

I still wish for Nintendo to localize retro games however, or maybe even bring unreleased localizations of games if they approved it back then...

- Random Game of the Day / Moment

This seems like a dumb idea, but when I played Balloon Fight I noticed how Nintendo could bring attention to games that don’t necessarily get it.

When the library gets bigger, some games will be left on the side over others, a system to bring motivation to play those games, even as simple as a random game name at the top, is better than what piracy can even bring you.

Maybe you could even implement a button that selects a random game.

- Game Tweaks / Special Versions

AKA USE LUA SCRIPTS IN GAMES

Now we’re starting to get a bit on the expensive side of things.

Special Versions of games aren’t really good on NES, they’re just save states. Some are useful (Golf Course unlocks), some are amusing (Zelda), but most of them are just a save state at the end of the game.

I want them to go on the next stage of this, actually hack the games, or even scripts on top of them. You see, some emulators have scripting features that can alter the game, in ways that improves them (map on Metroid NES), or outright gameplay altering (Kirby Canvas Curse gameplay on Super Mario Bros. 3).

I gave real exemples of use, these could be used to make games easier, harder, balanced, weirder, just like another concept that Nintendo did... NES REMIX. (What a waste of a concept... This really got people into NES games.)

I wish for Nintendo to use their LUA script system already in place for the menus, for their emulator.

This could also aid in development of localization of games without altering the ROM and without space issues.

And this could aid in making SNES Mouse games to work on a touch screen and more, it’s genuinely easy to figure out I could do it myself in a day... ;)

- Shared Library of games between Japan & International

...Well all I want is that I don’t have to need to download the japanese app or the japanese to download the international app to play other games that are not present in the local library. I thought this would have been solved with Super Puyo Puyo 2 but guess not.

This could have the added bonus of japanese games on top of the american (and european?) ones.

- Game Events

Sort of an extra to game tweaks, bringing events for people to play a specific retro game and give them gold points or something. Events could have objectives, achievements, scoreboards, many things could be done here.

You could even bring in the Nintendo World Championship ROMs, other competition stuff, or even games like soundlink games from the Satellaview like BS Zelda, BS Super Mario All-Stars and so on. These games are made for competition!

This is the ultimate thing to bring people to play retro games, bring the unusual games that most people have possibly never even heard about!

- Others

Some of those bullet points don’t need a big explanation:

More Unreleased Retro Games (Japan only or even anywhere)

Localize Retro Games that were never localized (not just in english!)

Borders

Small Control Scheme Help (to compensate for lack of manuals)

5-player Netplay support for SNES (Super Puyo Puyo 2 supports 4 player)

Netplay with Global Rooms with passwords and not just stuck to friends. (This should be a thing for EVERY GAME. This could even be a Switch OS feature.)

Automatic Matchmaking for certain games?

I have also always said this: I’m interested to work with you, Nintendo, on this kind of stuff...

[chestmimic]

in regards to the pokemon post, people are saying it's because of being able to buy nintendo online through it

after doing a bit of research, it sounds like you’re only really going to be able to purchase the nintendo online switch subscription through the game, which while it’s convenient, it’s still something that you’re required to buy to access online parts of the game, which in my opinion, is kinda shitty.

from what it looks like (and someone who knows more about this can correct me if i’m wrong) but you’ll need the subscription to participate in max raid battles and online battles and i can live without online battles, but the max raids??? really?????

the max raids/gigantimax pokemon battles have been the gimmick that sets this game apart from other pokemon games, asides from new pokemon and a new region. i don’t think that nintendo should be blocking, essentially, an aspect of the game that makes it distinctly unique behind a paywall. it won’t impact someone’s gameplay if they already have the subscription but it still rubs me the wrong way.

also, i know that nintendo has done paywall stuff with pokemon before. the first thing that comes to mind is the pokemon bank, which tbh i dont know if it’s even available anymore. but! at least you didn’t have to pay for it to participate in Actual Gameplay!

also!! the fact that they, again, put a core part of the game behind a paywall doesn’t sit right with me. i also don’t like the fact that they made it an in game purchase, even if it was for convinces sake. i’m sure that everything you need for an online subscription can be ignored in order to progress the main story in sword and shield, but my point still stands.

i sincerely hope that this type of fuckery ends with this game. i’d hate to see this stuff repeated in new installments in the franchise. 

[michael-radi-the-glamorous-life]

Submit To Me!

All professions are riddled with systemic flaws that everyone knows about, and yet very little is done to fix them. For playwrights and musical theatre writers the systemic flaw that I hear complained about the most is the submissions process.

Now, these complaints are completely justified. The problem with the system is…well, there isn’t one.

In the professional theatre world - at least where play and musical submissions are concerned - it’s a total free-for-all. (and not the enjoyable kind, like a lovely game of Super Smash Bros. on the good ole Nintendo 64! …no? just me being a video game dinosaur? oh coo, cool…)

And like most problems, this one gets completely ignored and nothing is really done to change it. Well, I won’t say completely ignored. Writers talk about this all the time - how messy, inconsistent, biased, and often expensive the submission process can be (yes, many come with attached fees). But the people who have the power to do something about it (aka the Theaters and the theatrical community members who receive submissions) either don’t want to change the way they do things, don’t want to engage in the discussion, don’t have the time, or aren’t aware that there is a better way to go about all of this.

And there is a better way, isn’t there?

“Opportunity Is Not A Lengthy…whoa, but there are so many opportunities!”

For those of you who are not theatre writers and have never gone through the process, here’s a little peak into the world of submissions.

The first thing to note is what types of opportunities you can submit for. There’s:

Competitions - Prizes are usually monetary, but sometimes also come with readings, workshops, or (in rare cases) full productions. And the institutions may cover your travel to see the fruits of this, or they may not.

Festivals - Festivals range: geographically, in numbers of participants, in what is provided, in how many performances are allotted, in administrative and creative support from the organization, and in fees to participate. But what they all have in common is that, at the end of the day, you either need to have a producer raising the money for you or you will be producing this yourself. And they range from your local Fringe festival to Edinburgh to NYMF.

Residencies - Generally these are lovely retreat-style blocks of time set aside for a writer or writing team to go somewhere secluded and pretty, and to get a great deal of work done without the pressures and stressors of regular life. Often room and board is covered, though not always, and sometimes you are provided with access to rehearsal space, recording equipment, full living access, other artists, and/or a presentation gathering of some sort at the end of the stay.

Conferences - These include the “biggies” like NAMT and the O’Neill. Conferences are like a mixture between a residency and a festival - you reside in a place for the length of the conference and workshop your material, and at the end there is a large presentation. The larger conferences are highly sought after due to the fact that they attract producers and industry professionals looking for projects to take on.

Theaters and Theatre Companies - Although there is a sizable difference in the result of submitting to a large regional equity house versus your friend’s small theatre company that started last week, in both cases you are submitting to an entity that you hope will take on the burden of producing your material for you (in comparison with self-producing, as in a festival). These entities all have mission statements and many of them also have specific new works programming, and if your material fits what they are looking for then you can submit with the hope of getting programmed into a future season.

New Works Development Opportunities - Many of these are part of a Theater or Theatre Company’s set path to producing new material. The opportunities might be a reading, a workshop, a script analysis, a staged reading, etc., or there may be tiers of opportunities that you will be considered for. And if you are accepted, then the participants in these opportunities are then put in a pipeline of consideration for the one new works production slot for the following season. Though each theatre company treats their own programs quite differently, and these can vary greatly.

Awards - Much like competitions…well, really these are competitions. But like a theatre company, awarding entities come with mission statements that specify what kind of artists and what kind of works they are looking to award. And the awards are monetary and often quite large. For instance, the Kleban Award ($100,000) is specifically for musical theatre Librettists and Lyricists (two separate awards). Other times the work must fit within specific parameters, or the artists must be from a certain geographical area or ethnic background.

People - Producers or artists in whom you are interested. Generally, these submissions are more personal and have no parameters, and they only tend to be successful when you already have a connection to the person you’re contacting.

Cold Submissions - There are thousands and thousands of theatrical entities out there, and sometimes they have no submission policies whatsoever. Maybe that means they don’t take submissions, or maybe it just means they have no official policy for them. Cold submitting an inquiry rarely works out unless you have a connection to someone at the theatre, in which case it’s probably better to submit to the person than the entity. Well, that’s my opinion at least!

And that is just the spread of what exists out there that you could possibly submit to. Whoa. Right?

And let us keep in mind that this is you - the writer - submitting to these places. Unless you are lucky and/or rich enough to have a secretary that does this for you, then you are the person looking through all of these opportunities, checking websites, researching people and theaters, making lists of deadlines, writing up all of the submission materials and statements and cover letters, and sending the emails or filling out the online forms. That’s a lot of time and work.

But never fear! There are websites dedicated to helping writers find submission opportunities and that give the deadlines so you can plan on when and how to submit!

Now, granted, some of these websites are really looking to make money off of you and this information (paying for subscriptions and whatnot). And some are far more comprehensive than others. But the Dramatists Guild Submissions Calendar and Play Submission Helper are probably the most comprehensive of the sites for American submissions, and both are quite helpful.

“I’ll take…one with everything - but hold the synopsis!”

So what exactly do the writers submit? What are the limitations or parameters?

Well, if you thought they types of submission opportunities were varied, then just you wait (Henry Higgins)!

The first thing I will point out is that many of these submissions to the more prominent institutions and producing entities are agent submission only. Theatrical writing agents are not nearly as plentiful as acting agents, which really limits the groups that are able to submit to these places. Which is of course the point. Sometimes there will be a way to submit an inquiry if you don’t have representation, but more often than not you are simply out of luck. Rough times. (“No Submission Without Represen-tition…!”???)

Another limitation that might exist is needing the accompaniment of a professional recommendation letter to your submission - preferably from a recognized theatrical institution. There can be even more restrictions than this, but they aren’t as common as the agent restriction.

But if there is a submission policy that is open to the general theatrical writing public, then there are myriad types of materials that might be requested of you. This list below will include a mix of information that might be asked of both playwrights and musical theatre writers:

Log Line - A one-sentence description of the show and its themes. Not quite a tag line or hook, and also not quite a synopsis. These are pretty rare outside of in-person pitches.

Short Synopsis - These are almost always restricted to a certain word count. For instance, The King’s Legacy has different short synopsis versions in: 100 words, 150 words, 250 words, and 500 words. Writers must do their best to summarize the plot, main characters, and themes of their shows within these word counts.

Treatment/1-Page Synopsis - A little more lenient than the short synopsis - though strict on the page limitation - these synopses are the opportunity for the writer to give a full blow-by-blow of the entire plot for their show. Now is the time to say exactly what happens, when, and how. No worries about mystery or spoilers here - they want to know the ending.

10-Page Dialogue Sample - A small sampling of the feel of the show. Generally best to start at the beginning if you can, but if that doesn’t show off the piece at its best, then it can be acceptable to choose ten pages from elsewhere in the script.

20-Page Dialogue Sample - These should definitely start at the beginning. If you aren’t showing off your best work in the first twenty pages, it might be time to give the top of the show another pass.

Lyrics with Descriptions - For musical submissions these are fairly common. Choose [2/3/4/6/8/12] songs from your show (yes, I’ve had all of those restrictions at some point) to send. They want the full lyric to the song, but with a detailed description of the characters, plot placement, and other context.

Music Demos - Again, the number of these may vary. Most submissions are very forgiving on the quality of the recording as long as the music isn’t garbled and the lyrics are understandable. Occasionally you are allowed to send demos for the entire show!

Links to Media - Many online forms will include a box to add links to other media, though this generally means Videos if you have them. Youtube links, or a link to a Video page or a playlist, are great items to have!

Production History - Exactly like it sounds. It’s a list of where and when the show has been produced. If it has not yet been produced, or has only had a couple full productions, then provide a list of where it has been developed, in what manner, and when.

Other Relevant Materials - This is the space to add in any of the other materials that this submission did not specifically ask for. Or this is a great place to include a link to your website if you have one (and you should!).

Artist Bio or Resume - It’s always one or the other, not both. Why? I am unsure. But have these handy always!

Artistic Statement - Now we come to the parts that take the most time per submission. Artistic Statements are basically personal essays that speak to who you are as an artist, what your goals are, and why you do what you do. They must also be catered toward the place you are submitting to, particularly if they have a mission statement readily available.

Letter of Intent - Similar to an Artistic Statement, but these are usually laid out for you with specific questions to answer in the body of the letter. (ie. Tell us about…? Why our theatre? What do you hope to accomplish with this opportunity? etc.) It’s part Cover Letter, part Artistic Statement.

Cover Letter - Or Letter of Inquiry. These are used to introduce yourself, speak about how you found the opportunity and why you are interested, and to introduce the piece you are submitting. Generally, less than one page is desirable for these letters. And sometimes this is just the email that precedes all of the asked-for submission materials.

Full Script (and Score) - You lucky duck! They’re going to read your show! Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen nearly as often as we all would like.

Blind Materials - Sometimes theaters ask for any of the above-mentioned materials without the writer’s name, for a more fair and unbiased judging of submissions. There aren’t a ton of opportunities that ask for this, but it’s good to have blind copies available just in case.

Dizzy yet?

These materials can be (and are!) asked for in any combination without even a semblance of consistency between the submission processes. And because every submission opportunity is different, it takes a great deal of time to write up every submission that you send out. Not to mention that you want to have done your research and personalized the submission as much as possible.

*Tip: Keep track of your submissions in a document! Write down what you sent, to whom, and on what date. It’s great to be able to reference back!!

Can We Consolidate?

As you see, this is a mess of a system. So the question becomes: can we consolidate all of this information?

Well, there is an entity out there who is trying to do just that! They are called The New Play Exchange. Their mission is essentially to be the hub where writers go to upload their pieces and all attached materials, where submission opportunities go to post and search out what they are looking for, and where producers and directors can go to search out scripts of a certain criteria so they can read what they are interested in. It’s a fantastic idea, but it’s definitely still in its youth and will need more time to make a greater impact.

I don’t know what any other answers may be, but if there was a standard submission packet that everyone took for every opportunity, it would make the theatrical world far more productive. Writers wouldn’t have to spend so much of their writing time doing specific and varied submissions, and institutions would know exactly what they are going to receive from writers (whether or not they care to look at all of it). All I know is, there must be a better way.

I could say oodles more about submitting to opportunities, but I think I’ll leave it here for now. Honestly, I have two submission opportunities in my inbox right now and, well, that means I’ve got some deadlines to hit!

Until next time, folks!

[dragonairlairgiveaways]

Thoughts on Let’s Go

So as someone who has beat the main game of Let’s Go Eevee (like I’ve said before I’ve played through Kanto so many times now. I can do it pretty much blindfolded.) I have thoughts both good and bad on it. There will be SPOILERS here so I advise you to scroll past if you’re new to Kanto especially but also if you’ve played through the region before but not here yet because there are some new things/changed details. ANYWAY: 

PROS

I really love how expressive both your Partner Pokemon and following Pokemon are. Interacting with them is such a delight and makes me even more attached to my Pokemon.

Kanto is beautiful. Whilst I wish they’d kept more of the Savannah/grassland feel it had in past generations (because it made Kanto unique vs temperate Johto it shares its landmass with), the region feels so full, vibrant and alive.

I really love the gym re-designs, even if some are only subtle. I also love seeing the Gym Leaders and E4 with defined personalities. I was ESPECIALLY happy to be able to see Sabrina’s telekinesis in action thanks to the graphics we have now. 

Pokemon distribution across Kanto is so much better than in past games and makes forming a balanced, structured team so much less of a nightmare. Same goes for the altered movesets. 

Pokemon Tower. Oh God, the cutscene was so short, sweet and subtle but made me cry. It gave us the emotional attachment the older Kanto games missed out on. 

I really appreciated the changes to important locations game-lore wise that made them more fitting. Pokemon Mansion for example made me super uncomfortable thanks to the additions of the cloning/testing equipment in the basement and the confirmation from Jessie & James that sweet old Mr Fuji is the same Dr Fuji that created Mewtwo. 

It gets its own section because Cerulean Cave is BREATHTAKING design-wise and a lifesaver with the valuable respawning items hidden in the crystal dust on the floor. 

I love the rival. He is an absolute sweetheart and I just want to hold and protect him. 

Player! Character! Is! Expressive! No more thousand-yard stare in cutscenes. 

Can Ultra Balls be this cheap in the regular games please? 

Leaf/Green finally, canonically exists other than when chosen as the player in FRLG and my heart is filled with joy by this y’all don’t even know. 

NPC Pokemon with nicknames show up with that nickname when spoken to, not with their species name and idk it’s such a small thing but makes me happy. 

I really love how self-aware this game is in terms of how Pokemon plots go by talking about the E4 and people asking/speculating that they’ll come deal with the threat. Y’know given how in past games they’ve largely been suspiciously absent and left everything to a child.

The cutscenes in general are pleasant to look at/watch and don’t run in forever and are less frequent. They hit a good balance here I think. 

Speaking of which, the ones that play before taking on the Legendary Birds/Mewtwo are INTENSE.

Pokemon Box in your bag is super convenient, I just wish it wasn’t just one big, huge box so I could organise better. 

Getting to dress up my Partner Pokemon is precious. 

Riding on Pokemon is great and there are some rideable choices that were a nice surprise. 

The replacements for HMs are so silly and I love them. 

I’m a shiny hunter so I think the new shiny hunting method is super fun and relatively easy depending on the Pokemon you’re hunting. Streaks are easy enough to build and avoid breaking and seeing the Pokemon with its shiny colouration in the overworld adds the little bit more of excitement to me. 

Cinnabar finally has an obvious volcano on the map even if you can’t actually access it in game. (it’s not like you haven’t let us roam around active volcanoes before, Game Freak.)

I really like the torches in Victory Road? Lmao it’s such a minor thing but it makes it feel more... idk.. magnificent, I guess? Like it’s a manmade cavern. The final test. It feels more like it now with those and the changes to the puzzles. 

Thank you for the random NPCs that will heal your Pokemon when you’re far from a city/town. 

The spy NPC was great. I love her. 

Rare spawns are a neat little mechanic. Area unknown in the Pokedex? LOL GUESS AGAIN. 

Cons: 

The big one: Only Kanto Pokemon. It’s a huge sticking point for me because it’s quite limiting and just... a tad annoying. I get this game was an experiment and with its success will likely come more Let’s Go side games but... it was still disappointing. Even if they couldn’t add all Pokemon from later gens, they could’ve at least added the prevolutions/evolutions of Kanto Pokemon that came later to give the region an expanded Pokedex and just added more diversity to the game. Lance having a Seadra really brought that point home for me when it literally has a DRAGON TYPE evolution he could’ve used. 

Whilst the capture mechanic is fine I miss wild battles. If you need to grind especially it’s annoying because you have to burn through Pokeballs to get EXP. It would be nice to just be able to faint wild Pokemon. 

The rideable flying Pokemon. I’d hoped for something more like the Soaring mechanic from ORAS but nope. You also have to go into the party menu to return the Pokemon to its ball to be able to move between gate/map areas. It would have been so much better if you could just press one of the buttons to do that so you didn’t have to go about constantly opening/closing menus.

Super sad Trainer Customisation is so limited. I’m pleased they kept the option for skintone choice but I wish we could at least change the eye/hair colour of the player character. What outfits we get to mix/match are cute I just wish there was more. 

The lack of Abilities pains me. They added depth to the game both in and out of battle and I sorely missed them. (Hello yes, why is your Pokemon not getting paralysed after coming into contact with my Raichu? Oh right, Static isn’t a thing here.) 

Getting Meltan itself isn’t hard even if you just briefly download Pokemon Go to get it. Getting Melmetal however? Good luck if you just play casually or not at all really with how the crate feature works. 

I like that the Go Park exists but I’m sad it replaced the Safari Zone and that it doesn’t work in a similar fashion to Pal Park. Wasting Pokeballs on Pokemon I have already wasted them on to catch one already is kind of annoying. 

You can’t ride the Legendary Birds and that is just straight up NONSENSE to me. 

I wish we could play with/feed our other Pokemon, not just our partner. Pokemon Amie/Refresh is one of my favourite mechanics in the main games so I’m sad it’s limited to only our starter here. 

Not specific to Let’s Go but given a huge part of Pokemon has always been playing with friends, having to pay for an online subscription to access trading/battling really rubs me the wrong way and I still think it’s a bad move on Nintendo’s part as a whole. When Gen VIII comes along and if Pokemon Bank gets ported to the Switch (or a similar thing) am I going to have to pay for both? That kind of sucks for kids who play if their parents aren’t willing to pay for it or for people who can’t afford it in general. 

Big Mad that outside of completing all the research in Go (Again, not something everyone can do, I have severe anxiety/agoraphobia and therefore cannot leave my house much.) the only way to get Mew is to pay the ridiculous price for the Pokeball Plus. An event Pokemon that has always been given out for free shouldn’t be behind a massive paywall. 

Grinding to be able to take on all the Master Trainers is hellish to be honest. And not a good feature in lieu of an actual post-game. 

RIP Sevii Islands, it would've been nice to at least visit the first three (since they only have Kanto Pokemon living on them in FRLG). But no. 

So overall... I liked it more than I thought I would. There are things in the game I really, really loved and hope to see more of (PLEASE let following Pokemon return in the main series, I’m begging you Game Freak). But I still have my hang-ups and things that I think removing/keeping out took away from the Pokemon experience as a whole. 

As side games I’d like to see more of them with hopefully some improvements. But I definitely have a preference for main game, regular mechanics as a whole. The games definitely won’t be for everyone and YES, they are incredibly easy even for a Pokemon game - which was the point - so for some people that might be a problem/make them boring given the lack of challenge but I’d still recommend giving them a go if you’re a die-hard fan of the franchise. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.