#fun fact: my first Pokémon I ever got in my first ever save file of a pokemon game was a male chikorita I thought was female

[sincerely-sofie]

I reblogged a post yesterday evening asking what starter pokemon people feel like I’d be and am genuinely very surprised by how many people get fire-type vibes from me. My childhood hatred of both the type at large and (charmander in particular) is turning in its grave.

[orangeoctopi7]

I’m curious. How’s your team in Pokémon Sword and Shield looking? I’d imagine they’ve grown a bit since the introduction post you made.

Thanks for asking! I got really busy with Christmas and work after that first introduction post and I kinda forgot to ever follow it up. The roster has expanded quite a bit, because I can’t confine myself to a team of 6. It’s more like a team of 12 now.

Trix has grown into a lovely Cinderace and she kicks all the butt. She was invaluable against Rihan in the Championship. My beautiful girl is all grown up!

Metaknight was also a key player against Rihan, as well as Zacian. He’s a beast and I love him.

Badger has become such a tank! His Obstruct saved me from a lot of trouble against Leon’s team, and the lead-up to the fight with Chairman Rose.

Winston didn’t get a chance to be on my Championship team, unfortunately, but only because I have 3 electric types on my roster and I didn’t really need him. Strong Jaw + Thunder Fang = A very poweful pupper!

Applebloom DID get to be on my Championship team and was invaluable in so many battles. She’s such a powerhouse, I love her! She might be my favorite pokemon of this run! (don’t tell Trix)

Muddybuddy didn’t make it onto my Championship team either, due to the fact that I already had ground and water covered. He’s still a great buddy though, and Yawn makes him my go-to for catching.

Now for some new team mates!

Wirt had actually joined my team as a temporary member against Nessa. I wasn’t expecting to keep him on at first, but I’ve always loved Lanturn and I realized this was probably my first chance to raise one in-game. He was my ace in the hole against Leon’s Charizard, being water and electric against a fire/flying type. He did a great job!

Next is DougDimadome, owner of the Dimsdale Dimadome! Haha, I couldn’t NOT have a Galarian Weezing on my team. Weezing’s a great tank, and Neutralizing Gas is a great ability. He was a great help against Bede.

I was also lucky enough to catch a Gigantimax Butterfree named BigStink. I’ve always been a fan of Butterfree, so of course I HAD to get a Gigantimax one. She was a pain to catch, but she was so worth it. She was my go-to against Bea, and remained a fun team-member afterwards.

I didn’t want to raise the Toxel i got from the daycare at first. But when I got to Ballonlea, I realized I had nothing on my team to answer against fairy types, and quite a few weaknesses against it. So I dumped all my EXP candies into that little guy, and was pleasantly surprised by how good Toxtricity became once it evolved. He helped me take down Bede on several occasions.

I caught Jenny early on, but didn’t add her to the team until I lost my first try against Bea. I realized I needed more against fighting types than just Metaknight. Thus, I added Jenny and BigStink. Jenny’s a great support pokemon, with both Reflect and Lightscreen, plus U-Turn. I’ll usually send her out first to set up, and the U-Turn out to whoever I want.

The latest addition to my team is Rarity, a Galarian Rapidash I traded from my cousin. (Yes, I realize it’s male. I took what I got and I did what I wanted) While DougDimadome is a fairy type, he hasn’t really learned any fairy moves, so this is my first time raising a fairy type. They’ve been fun.

I also just started a Nuzlocke on another file, so I’ll be posting about that in the next week or so.

[melonthesprigatito]

Melon's Pokémon Shining Pearl Playthrough Part 2: Adventures in the Oreburgh Mines

Figured I might as well make this a full series because I got Stuff to say about this game.

Fun fact, because my first Pokémon game ever was White, I had never heard of Geodude until I played Pearl. Actually, Pearl was my second ever Pokémon game. So when I encountered it in the Oreburgh Mine I just saw this funky little rock with arms called GeoDUDE and thought it was just the funniest thing in existence. I don't know, "dude" was just one of those funny words to me back then and I couldn't believe that they'd name a Pokémon that. I caught it and showed it to my brother and we were both laughing hysterically at it.

For reasons that not even I know, I stubbornly decided I wanted to beat this Onix with my Starly... despite the fact that he had a type advantage... and my Wing Attacks barely did anything... and he used Harden so my Wing Attacks did even less... I don't know why I decided to suffer for five minutes instead of swapping to my Piplup-

Also, I forgot to take a screenshot of it, but I used to think that Roark was a girl... I have no idea why, he just looked like a lady to me. This mistake would be made again with Lucian, months later.

Now I gotta grind these guys up a bit to take on Roark. Don't get too attached to the Shinx and Starly, I'm replacing them with Pachirisu and Togekiss later. I just don't want to be stuck with only Piplup until I reach the Valley Windworks to catch a Pachirisu. Oh yeah, in my previous playthrough of Shining Pearl, I accidentally traded away my Luxio and I felt really bad about it. So Static the Luxio 2 is gonna stay nice and safe in my PC Box this time.

And finally, guess what. I cheated the system and got a Pokémon you normally can't get until postgame for my playthrough team. I got an upcoming team mate to fight the second Gym right here in this Egg here. What I did was

Bred a Ditto and the other parent Pokémon in Solaceon Town.

Traded the egg over to my brother's Brilliant Diamond copy for safe keeping.

Traded the egg back to my new Shining Pearl save file.

But Melon, that sounds overcomplicated! Why did you not just use Pokémon Home?

Well, you can't put eggs in Pokémon Home for some reason. Also, this way, when the Egg hatches, it will have my Trainer ID so I don't have to deal with that traded Pokémon disobedience thing. It's actually how I got this Pokémon in my previous Shining Pearl playthrough. Someone traded me the egg and I used it on my playthrough team. What's in the egg? It's a surprise! :O

[ghostmartyr]

Pokémon White Randomized Nuzlocke Run [Part 2]

Here we are in Part 2, where I have maybe learned a thing about how to keep these from being dreadfully boring. Part 1 saw us defeat the first Gym, as well as my dawning sadness about the HM state of my available pokemon.

Now we move into the Badge 2 phase of the game.

Breathing Pokemon:

Boeing (Latios)

Frogger (Seismitoad)

Timon (Tepig)

I think I will be ignoring the Cut problem until I absolutely can’t, which will be in about five minutes.

I don’t know why I didn’t walk left earlier, but I didn’t. Is there grass here? Can I catch something? My team is basically just Timon and Frogger. I love Boeing, but he is not made for this rough life. He likes relaxing and eating. Not fighting.

And the answer is that the Professor’s scientist friend has supplied a plot barrier. Sigh.

Welp.

....

I can’t even pretend to be surprised. Dang it, Boeing.

I don’t want to use anything outside the confines of the challenge if I can help it. The idea is not, “win all the fights” under these conditions, it’s beating the game.

Congratulations, Boeing.

You’re temporarily useful.

Grass! Beautiful grass!

Also Team Plasma.

Cut is so much more useful than Psywave and I am very sad.

Team Plasma dealt with, obligatory plot detail I wasn’t paying attention to dealt with, we are now free to pursue the grass.

Or will the grass pursue us.

I can’t remember how Tangela evolves normally, or how it evolves given the settings of the run, but I do think that Tangela probably could have learned Cut just fine, and I can’t remember if the Move Deleter costs anything, or even where it is in this version.

But that’s only a concern if I catch a thing that can learn Cut. Let’s do this, Boeing.

Sleep Powder is hypothetically useful. I don’t think it has ever hit when I try to use it.

Two Poke Balls and nothing. I think I am going to sacrifice the Great Ball some random NPC gave me.

Victory!

Good job, Boeing. See, isn’t life more fun when you’re useful?

You know, I don’t normally nickname my pokemon. They just keep the same name every edition of them in the wild has, and that’s perfectly fine with me.

Your name shall be... Grape.

Because look at all those vines writhing... writhe... wrath? Grapes!

Such thought. Much wow.

I think it’s time for healing and grinding.

Oh, but first, Grape! Let us find something out about you.

He is Brave and quick to flee. His Speed suggests that he isn’t that great at fleeing.

Other pokemon we could have gotten from the HM grass spot of doom include Sudowoodo and Beedrill. Tangela looks to be rarest of the set, so I suppose we can add lucky to Grape’s list of traits. There’s a Potion and a Parlyz Heal lying about that I go grab, and until the plot brings us back later (probably sometime after we get Strength), this area is just going to be a grind station.

Until I get bored after about three minutes and want to go back to exploring. I’m not sure I’m made for a Nuzlocke.

...Why is Constrict a move? It’s about as useful as Splash, only with the false hope of being capable of dealing damage.

Yeah, I don’t have the patience for this. I’m going to go left again and see what there is now that the plot isn’t keeping me trapped. ...Only after I talk to Fennel again. Apparently just letting her collect the whatever thing is not enough, I have to listen to her discoveries.

I do not. Button mashing away, we now have our C-Gear and Pal Pad. I think the first of those will end up having uses. I mostly remember all these different event skins being available for the gear.

Now I should be able to go.

Ha. I have conquered the plot barrier.

Since this is a separate section from the garden area, I think once I have some kind of rod or Surf I can come back and nab something from the water. ...I wonder if grass vs water even matters in a randomized run. Are they all completely random, or random within water? I should know these things.

My guess would be completely random. I cite the level 4 Salamence on Route 2. But either way, something to come back to.

Aw, how cute. I’m gonna demolish you (I hope).

It looks like battling is going to happen before finding out what pokemon belong to this route. In the interest of learning how to do this better bit by bit, I think I’ll limit capping battles unless something truly ridiculous happens. This early in the game there shouldn’t be much tension.

I will probably keep track of how many times Psywave misses if I use it, though. That obviously falls into the realm of Importance.

I will also say that Lillipups continue to be terrifying. And that I am so temporarily glad that Boeing knows Cut. Consistent damage. That hits.

I can’t believe this game encourages taking preschoolers’ pocket money. I know I’m only ten, but wow.

Ah, but the nice thing about beating up preschoolers (’ pokemon) is that they have a teacher around very used to healing pokemon up. Walking back to centers to heal is one of the not so fun aspects of

Whoops.

So it’s a good thing I only did grinding, because I clicked the load file option instead of the save file when I was trying to save. Good grief. I am become error. Will return momentarily. With one fresh water short, because I was stupid and a Beedrill almost murdered Timon. Also Timon now knows Flame Charge.

Okay.

Back to making forward progress, hopefully.

Let me go in the grass, Cheren. You’re supposed to be one of my two best friends. The fact that I had to be reminded by a professor whose name I also couldn’t be counted on to remember myself does not take away from our friendly bonds.

There really are a lot of non-NPC duels at the start of this version.

Okay, let’s go squad.

Boeing and Timon do a good job taking down his Meganium. I think I’ll let Frogger take the Purrloin. As the one on the team who did not need grinding, he hasn’t been used in a bit.

And that’s that. Cheren is sad/frustrated because we have the same number of badges, his starter is fully evolved and useful, and yet he still can’t win. Of course he can’t; the run would be over if he did.

But before we can celebrate and get into the grass, the plot arrives.

Team Plasma please. At least I have the option of going into the grass before getting the little girl’s pokemon back. Which I will take.

Let’s see what we get!

...Another thing that doesn’t need my help to evolve. Sigh.

As ever, that only gets a chance to annoy me if I catch it, so time to see how that train goes. I’m going to try throwing my only Great Ball. Psywave got it into the red, so...

!

Awesome! Based on videos I have seen recently most people aren’t that lucky when it comes to catching these things. Now I can sulk about having a fully evolved team (except for the treasured Timon) in peace.

What the heck do I name you, though? You’re a dinobird... Oh, I know. I’ll call you Ptera. Welcome to the team, Ptera. Let’s check you out.

He has a Mild nature, and he’s proud of his power. I feel like that Defense is going to end up making me cry, and I don’t think you’re a Special Attacker, so the Nature is pretty much all flavor. It’s nice to have something that can Fly; hopefully he’ll be around to use it.

...Oh geez, that Ability. Ptera Ptera Ptera... You are going to make me so sad.

The good news is he can kill his wild kin in one hit. So that’s convenient.

I’m sorry, what.

This is the exp grass now. Other finds include Octillery. Grape eats them for breakfast.

...

Oh.

It knows Aurora Beam.

It got a critical hit.

Grape was only a few points off of full health.

There was no way to know.

This is really sad.

I am so sorry Grape. You were a valued member of the team. You were only with us a short while, but you knew Grass moves. You balanced everything out wonderfully.

The exp grass is a dangerous place.

Maybe if I had just gone after the little girl’s pokemon...

It’s too late.

Grape is a raisin.

In the process of going after Team Plasma, it looks like Chimecho might be replacing Audino in the rustling grass. Maybe once, maybe always. Who can say. That would take paying more attention when messing with the settings.

A place to find Grape’s replacement. It would have been where we’d finally have a team of six, but...

Oh hey we found something already.

Okay, I can roll with that.

......Surprise, Ptera is stronger than expected. I knew enough to use Wing Attack, not Rock Throw, but I guess Ptera is just that good. Filed away for future reference. No new pokemon. A fitting tribute to Grape’s absence. The slot may remain empty for a little longer.

We get some Heal Balls from the little girl, and those could actually really come in handy. Assuming I ever properly catch a new teammate again.

One battle against an NPC later, and I think it’s safe to say Ptera is the new Frogger. He is overpowered for this section of the game.

You know what wouldn’t be overpowered? A Slugma.

I forgot about the darker grass. Route 3′s has Minccino, Teddiursa, Quilava, and Emolga.

Boeing could you please just learn something good. Please.

Whenever I see an Octillery now I’m just going to be filled with so much hate. I will kill every one that comes across my path. Unless I screw up and it kills me again, which is an absolute possibility.

We’ve made it to the next Gym city. Normal type. That shouldn’t cause any particular problem, but I do remember this fight packing more of a punch than I was expecting the first time I played, so cue the grinding montage I’m not going to screencap.

As well as the exploring the town montage I’m not going to screencap.

One of the NPCs asked me what I started with, so like a fool, I said Snivy, since that’s what Boeing replaced.

Now I have a Miracle Seed. And nothing that knows Grass moves.

Grape casts a long shadow already.

New area means new pokemon. Ones I have no plans to murder, but might very well anyway.

!!!!!

It’s. Grape’s replacement.

I love Shroomish and Breloom. One of the best pokemon in any gen, and I would dearly love one to follow me on this journey.

Yesssssss.

Let’s see. How about Palm, because your design reminds me of a pomegranate.

Palm has a Calm nature, and is somewhat of a clown. I’m pretty sure that is not the combination I want, since Breloom is more of a physical attacker, but hopefully it won’t matter too much. Poison Heal is a useful Ability to have.

Other things we could have caught in Pinwheel Forest: Vileplume, Froslass, Klink, Clamperl, Bellossom, Glaceon, Ducklett, and Metagross.

Wow. That’s a nice collection.

Oh hey and this happened.

Timon is now a robust Pignite, and has a move that will be of great use in the Gym!

We’re just going through the forest and annihilating everyone, but I spared a moment to commemorate Palm’s moment.

Tympole confused him, and he still used Absorb twice in a row instead of hurting himself. Then he snapped out of confusion and won. Contrary Nature aside, I am liking our new addition very much.

Especially since the fight against the next Tympole followed the exact same script. Good job, Palm.

The rest of this is basically all grinding, which is fun for me since I don’t have to come up with something clever to say when nothing much is going on. That is one benefit of doing this in this format.

My usual rule of thumb for these games is ten levels per gym until that much grinding becomes unbearable. Everyone’s currently level 18 (Ptera’s 16 and trying to fix that almost resulted in a Glaceon murdering him), and I’m thinking I might have hit that point.

...Yeah, I definitely have. I’ll just hit the Gym and let Ptera nom some things. Boeing will probably have to sit this fight out, because as we all know, what Normal type really means is Lillipups that know Bite. Those are not things for Boeing to face.

It is amazing how many different patches of grass suddenly have pokemon when I’m trying to leave a place, good grief.

Hello, am I fighting you again already? Or are you just doing your mysterious thing?

No, yeah, we’re doing a battle. And he opens with a level 13 Pidove to my level 17 Ptera. I don’t think he’s going to win this one. N, of course. Ptera has it in the bag, because I think it’s fair to say I have overleveled myself.

Palm was continuing his great streak of not letting Tympoles make him hurt himself, but sadly he did hurt himself once in this fight. Still, not bad, and much better than I usually get saddled with.

Ptera fighting the Timburr might be an incredibly stupid idea. He can one-shot them, but if they get a Rock Throw crit, it will be bad. This has been learned from the Fighting trainers in the wild that I didn’t screencap.

Those guys were at level 16, though. N’s level 13 is nowhere near the same brand of problem, and Ptera cleans up.

Alright, that settled, can I enter the gym now?

I forgot about the museum in front. Lenora’s got good taste.

Another Fresh Water for me. This one I don’t plan on using up. I don’t think I’ll need to, based on N’s levels. I really overtrained for this whole badge, probably. But that’s okay. I don’t like worrying about my pokemon dying every fight. Steamrolling is fine too. The main fun with all of this is finding out what I’ll end up with and raising them.

Then the very first trainer has a level 17 Patrat.

I feel less silly in my decisions.

Followed by a level 17 Herdier.

This is where I would consider doing more grinding, except by the time I’ve decided to stop grinding, I am generally not going to start again for a while.

The trainer with more than one pokemon starts with a level 15 Lillipup, so the Gym Leader’s are probably around 17-20. That should be okay. I’m healing before I go forward anyway, and Ptera’s going to grow another level beforehand just by beating this last trainer.

I really like Lenora’s Gym. It’s educational and has a secret staircase. I don’t think you can ask for more (though if memory serves, some of these get pretty wild this version).

Heals, then fight. This should be fine.

I want this office.

Ready... FIGHT!

She’s opening with a level 18 Herdier with Intimidate. Sigh. I forgot that was an ability. That might make this a little more awkward than I want, but Ptera is still part Rock. If things are going to go wrong, they should go wrong slowly enough for me to switch.

Take Down with a Leer boost only does 12, so yeah, this should be okay.

She uses a Super Potion, it takes three of any of Ptera’s attacks to down it, but Ptera gets a crit, and it’s Watchdog time!

I remembered she had this one.

For the sake of safety, I’m going to let Timon and his super effective attack handle this one. I think the Watchdog likes to sleep things.

A level 20 Watchdog. Do not want. But I believe in you, Timon. Go for it.

Uh.

Huh.

Fuck?

That’s. Wow, okay.

Watchdog with Retaliate. Awesome.

I don’t trust Ptera’s Defense to withstand whatever comes next, so Frogger... please do not die. Please. I need you to be alive and useful, because I just lost one of the greatest helps to this run.

Of course it has Hypnosis.

It’s so red. So close.

Retaliate does 30 damage without the fainting teammate ahead of time, and now Frogger is asleep and in the red. He needs to get out of there now, but I think Pursuit could be one of Watchdog’s moves.

I have one Soda Pop. He’s asleep anyway, so I’m willing to try it.

Geez this is scary.

tfw Watchdog also has Crunch and now Frogger’s Defense is lowered.

He isn’t faster, I don’t think. Even if he wakes up...

Switched to Palm and now Palm’s asleep.

Switching back to Frogger.

Frogger takes two Crunches, needs a Fresh Water, the next Crunch is a critical hit, and Frogger is still asleep. I have two Super Potions, now one, and Frogger is still alive and still asleep.

What in the fuck.

I know the sleep counter gets reset if you pull it out, but come on.

He finally wakes up, and because Watchdog only needed one more hit, victory is achieved.

Not worth it.

Lenora I don’t like you anymore.

And before we can end this segment, Team Plasma attacks the museum. Yay, plot. Plot to distract from the pain. The horrible, sad, awful, pain.

I can’t even remember their excuse for stealing the skull. Was there one?

I don’t know and care even less.

So we are assigned to search for the thieves with Burgh, Castelia’s Gym Leader, while Cheren and Bianca stay at the museum. Bianca is playing Fennel’s gopher, so we now have Dowsing Machine (MCHN) we will never remember to use, but if you’ll excuse me, I have more important matters to attend to.

...Bye.

I know the screenshots don’t show it, but you did a great job. Nothing else would have survived the gym if you hadn’t made training in Pinwheel Forest so straightforward. You did good, Timon.

Next Gym gets grinding. No complaints.

[archonreviews]

The Archon’s Review of Eador. Genesis.

Eador. Genesis is a turn-based strategy game by Russian developer Alexey Bokulev, set in the fantasy world of Eador, a shattered world, its shards floating forlornly in the Great Nothing.

As interesting as the setting sounds, the fact of the matter is that each of Eador’s constituent shards is its own self-contained stock fantasy setting. And when I say stock fantasy, I mean STOCK fantasy. You’ve got Halflings, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, and Goblins, all as Tolkienien as it gets. There are also Lizardpeople and Centaurs here and there, but they hardly count for anything ever since the Elder Scrolls and Harry Potter series made them cool, respectively. As for the landscape of each shard, you’ve got four types of terrain to traverse: plains, hills, forest, and swamp. There’s so much green on display, you’d think it was St. Patrick’s day in perpetuity. And given that there are apparently hundreds of shards, you’d think there’d be a few deserts or barrens or jungles or tundras. To be fair, there are oceans and mountains as well, but neither are normally traversable, so they might as well have cut those out entirely.

But enough about the setting, what about the player? You play as one of the Masters, a group of magical beings able to shape and create their own little worlds made up of the shards floating around space. You do this by beating down any lords who happen to rule those shards and by kicking off any competing Masters. Essentially, there’s only one path to take in this game, and that path is war and domination. There’s no diplomatic victory, no religious victory, no other victory except fighting everyone. This is peculiar (at least, to me), because when I first saw Eador, I mistook it for a 4x game.

Allow me to clarify that statement somewhat. When I first came upon an Eador, it was not Genesis. In fact, it was Eador: Masters of a Broken World, a game which very sensibly separates its title from its subtitle with a colon, as opposed to a period. It is also a game which has a graphical quality similar to that of Civilization V or Endless Legend, although closer to the former. Having just played both of those games, my mind was in that 4x mindset, where anything with so much as a grid-map and turn-based system looked to me like another gem to be unearthed from the rough of the Steam store. But then I saw something that stayed my wallet: a “mixed” user review rating. I read a few of the reviews, both good and bad, and then proceeded to hem and haw about it for a long time, eventually forgetting about it entirely. But then, I saw, more or less by chance, Eador. Genesis. A flash of memory rushed to the front of my mind, and prompted me to click on it. I discovered a game with similar tags, by the same company listed as Master‘s developer (Which is peculiar, because the company in question came into existence in 2011, when E.G. was released to Steam in 2009), and even a “very positive” user review rating. It being only $5.99, I quickly snapped it up. I was actually surprised it ran as well as it did on my PC; older games tend to run poorly on more recent computers, and I perceived this to be an older game. What it wasn’t, was 4x, but it does a very good job of appearing as such.

I suppose it’s time to put forth my definition of a “4x” game. It’s actually a lot simpler than it sounds. The phrase “4x” actually stands for “eXplore, eXploit (resources), eXpand, eXterminate”. A 4x game is one that has the player doing all four of those things in the context of a turn-based strategy game, often with a grid-map of some kind. In E.G. the player will be doing plenty of exploring, exploiting, and exterminating, but not too much in the way of expansion. Expansion in a 4x game refers to the use of some sort of element that allows the player to found a new city, or settle new lands. Settlers or colony ships serve this purpose in some games. If the player has to take it from a hostile force, that would, no doubt, count as extermination. In Eador, every province the player conquers must be taken by force from a neutral party or an opponent. There are no settler-type units to found cities with, only armies to be marched into foreign lands. Even in empty provinces, the player must contend with the undead. And this is why I say I “mistook” Eador. Genesis for a 4x. It has a lot of the trappings of a 4x, but is missing a crucial element. It reminds me in this way, of Lords of Magic and Heroes of Might and Magic, both great games, but neither of which I’d call 4x.

But now that I’ve tangented all over the place, let’s talk about the unique mechanics of E.G. The game has a campaign in which the player must conquer shard after shard in order to build their world, fighting other Masters for domination. Each shard the player conquers unlocks new building and training options for use on future shards. Feeding into the plot is a binary moral choice system. Whenever the player takes a benevolent or malevolent action, the player’s alignment changes. There’s no alignment meter or anything like that, though. Instead, you can see how far you’ve risen/fallen, via your character’s epithet. For example, if Baron Peaceful Splendor conquered a shard via pillaging and engaging in rapine and wanton villainy, he might become known as Baron Peaceful Splendor the Terrible. Conversely, if he took over a shard while making sure to protect his people, caring for their needs and allowing their freedoms, he might become known as Baron Peaceful Splendor the Kind. In addition, individual units have alignments of their own, ranging from “Champion of Light” to “Evil Incarnate”, and if a unit serves a Master with an opposing alignment, they’ll suffer a morale penalty, and vice versa. While the inclusion of a binary moral choice system might turn some people away from the game, I have to admit, it’s interesting to see it applied to this kind of game.

Here’s a riddle: What does Eador. Genesis have in common with any Pokémon game? The answer is that you only get one save file. So, that means no save scumming, outside of messing about with the files, right? Au contraire, mon frere! As it turns out, you can go back in time. You can either go back in time one turn, in exchange for a deduction in score, or you can make like a Republican politician and pretend your cock-up never happened by going back to the campaign map. Doing this reduces permanently your energy income, which could have gone toward giving you bonuses at the start of a conquest, but I hardly noticed the loss.

The alternative to the campaign is a sort of single player skirmish mode, wherein everything is already unlocked, the player only has to fight for one shard, and the hypothetical Baron Peaceful Splendor starts out neutrally aligned. There’s also a multiplayer mode, or as the game refers to it, “Several Players”.

Combat is a straightforward, grid-mappy, turn-based affair. It’s very intuitive, although when you’re finished with one unit, the game has a nasty habit of switching to a seemingly random different unit. A word of caution though; If the game says that you can win a battle “without casualties”, don’t listen to it. It is a dirty liar, and you will likely lose at least one unit.

The graphics are pixeley, but highly detailed despite it. The sprites have no animation at all whatsoever, but that didn’t really bug me. In fact, it gave each combat I fought the air of a chess match. This game is a great example of what can be done with pixelated graphics.

The game has many difficulty levels, all of them condescending. The beginner level is described as “A reasonable choice”. All of the other difficulty levels carry some form of “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” as a descriptor. To spite the game, I stuck with the beginner level, but even then, the difficulty curved in strange ways. There was a moment where the AI pulled higher-tier units out of its ass, and there was very little I could do to counter them. Another time, the AI seemed to have glitched so that it stayed in its stronghold the whole time, never so much as hiring a hero to explore or fight with. Generally, I found the best strategy to be to conquer as many provinces as possible, as that will make you as much gold as possible.

Now, full disclosure, I did not finish the campaign, and this is where we get to the petty niggles. Each game, each conquest of a single shard, takes bloody forever. This wouldn’t be such a problem, but as mentioned earlier, the landscape is nothing to write anywhere about, much less writing home. And again, there’s not a lot of interesting things going on with the fantasy cultures either, just Tolkien with a dash of Elder Scrolls to taste. All of this combines to create a repetitive play experience, where I was auto-calculating more battles than I was genuinely fighting. The music is uninspired; I was muting it and putting on some choice Youtube channels in the background. The moral alignment system really got me bugged when it decided that “Lawful” was good and “Unscrupulous” was evil. “Unscrupulous” and “Evil” are not at all the same! There’s a difference between having no morals and having bad morals! ... Anyway, of the four hero units available to the player, the Warrior is the best. In fact, while the Commander might be the most fun to play, the Warrior, once properly leveled, can act as a one-man army, taking no damage from weapons or spells. To anyone who wants to say that I just didn’t get far enough in the game to find things that stop warriors, please refer to my earlier points about the game being long and repetitive. Also, the game saddles you with this Gremlin creature named Zarr; he’s supposed to come off as snarky, but his dialogue comes off as unnatural and stilted, causing me to become annoyed with him quickly. Unfortunately, he’s pretty much the only source of lore, especially in the early campaign. To pick on the moral alignment system some more, it takes way too long to go from one end to the other. I had decided to be an evil dictator because apparently it makes barbarians really happy, but then I got chastised by an old man, and it made me a bit sad. So I resolved to be a benevolent autocrat instead! But then it took me three whole shards just to get from where I was on the evil side of the spectrum back over to the slightest good end. And on each of those shards, I delayed finishing the game so I could farm karma to the maximum. So that was frustrating. Also, the economy in this game is extremely gold-intensive. I had oodles of the other resource, gems, but I was constantly running out of gold. Maybe if there were more ways of getting gold, or more of a balance in early-game resource gathering, or something, it would improve matters.

Really, Eador. Genesis is a game of many petty niggles and annoyances marring a few interesting concepts. The length of the game I think is what really kills it. The reason 4x games get away with it is because there’s usually no story, and there’s usually more aesthetic variety; but once you attach a story, and thus, something to strive for, each hour spent on a single drawn-out match becomes yet another frustration.

Now, I think the way one must judge a game is three-fold. The three questions we must ask ourselves are as follows: Would I recommend it? Am I going to play it again? And are the game’s intentions nefarious? The first question will be conditional; and I think it always will be, as everyone has their own tastes. So, to answer that first question, I would recommend Eador. Genesis only to people who really like Tolkien, and who like attaching epithets to their names. You know, I really want to like this game; it looks good, and when the niggles aren’t getting in the way, it feels good to play. I keep vacillating between not being able to recommend it at all and being able to recommend it to fantasy fans in general. I suppose my final answer is a compromise between those positions. However, I am not going to play it anymore. Ironically for a game with this much green, I’m moving on to pastures new. As for the game’s intentions, I don’t think there’s anything malicious about the game. I mean, it’s kind of a sausage fest in terms of meaningful characters, and I can understand if that might bother some people. I mean, there are only two definitely female characters out of a pretty vast cast, and the recruitable heroes are never female. I want to chalk this up to antiquated thinking and a boner for Tolkien, especially since the game makes absolutely no overt statements on gender at all whatsoever.

To summarize, I’d only recommend Eador. Genesis to people who don’t mind a preponderance of dudes, people who have a boner for Tolkienien aesthetics, and people who don’t mind performing repetitive tasks.