#i cried pokemon mystery dungeon style

[demifiendcruithne]

today on digital devil saga 2 is criminally under-researched (aka crui is a nerd about a 20 year old game)

so i finally got the impulse/opportunity to test out something i've been suspecting for a while but have never seen any documentation on: dds2 has some form of STAB* mechanic with elemental spells for playable characters, based on their associated element (the one they resist + the one their unique gun combos use)

*for non-pokemon folk: STAB == same-type attack bonus. so for example, a chimecho (psychic type pokemon) using extrasensory (psychic type move) will deal more damage than a non-psychic-type pokemon with the same special attack against the same target

i have more tests i intend to make when i have spoons (i'm just grinding mantras for the superboss and noticed it while fighting wild narasimha because that hecker disables my berserker ring), but so far i've tested with my three active characters fulfilling the following:

are fighting the exact same narasimha who has no elemental weakness/resistance/etc (savestates were used and run multiple times; the rng is not fixed until a move is actually used, so i could get multiple data points quickly by making a new savestate every time i loaded it to advance the rng)

have 99 magic

are level 99

have no elemental boost or amp skills equipped

have no rings equipped that may affect damage, outside of boosting magic stat to 99 for consistency

use two different dynes; one of their associated element, and one not. the former consistently did more, and with repeated runs i cannot write it off as damage range.

under cut: many images; by virtue of being in endgame, these will have some spoilers for endgame in plain sight. if you're reading this and haven't gotten to the final dungeon, i highly recommend you go do that and come back later. once you've reached the final dungeon, you're safe to check it out.

(but seriously - i can't stop you, but i highly recommend actually. playing this game first. it's great)

if you're reading this, you've either gotten to the final dungeon or don't care about spoilers; in case of the latter, i'll do a quick explanation of our last party member momentarily. i have been a little misleading because they are. very much a BIG spoiler. but first - gale resists force, and does more damage with zandyne than bufudyne; likewise argilla with earth/teradyne/ziodyne.

(bufudyne was a random pick for gale because i had only five for omoikane reasons, but in hindsight it was a good one...)

now - for those unaware, this last party member's name is seraph. they're a fusion of two other party members both of said party members were associated with/resisted ice, and i'm near-certain that they also got the boost to bufu spells (i can check this at some point, i have a backup save right before endgame) the same way gale and argilla do.

but what's seraph's elemental affinities? no weaknesses, no resistances. so what does this mean here?

extra screenshots because the first agidyne was a high roll - literally the highest i've seen on a non-stab unboosted dyne against a narasimha. yet it's still clearly estranged from gale's zandyne and argilla's teradyne.

the other part? seraph's bufudyne does the same as gale's, and the same as argilla's ziodyne and their own agidyne, the same as expected without stab.

i'm not sure what else to say about this thus far besides putting a list of further tests to do eventually / get proper data for:

100s of attempts so it can be statistically analysed better. easy to code the data collection into seraph (my helper program, named after this seraph because. yeah), possibly more difficult to analyse but my partner got me into this game he can deal with the consequences (being asked to do data stuff) :v

including cielo and heat as well, probably after i beat satan and grind them up as a victory lap (in the mantras sense not the internment facility sense)

earlier save reloads for data for serph, sera, and roland - i doubt they'd be any different, but regardless

other elemental spells - both the basic and -la levels, the ma-s, the maxed out mantra ones, and the dances. is the boost approximately consistent?

does it affect combos? i believe it doesn't, same as amp skills and the like (and because i feel like i would have noticed by now), but will get data for both participants initiating

does it affect items? i feel like that's unlikely, but worth trying

is there a 'reverse-stab' for someone's weakness? i don't think so, but i'll get the data for free and if there's a trend i just got to test the ailment damagers for cielo

likewise, is the elemental boost innate like the gun combo elements? almost certainly. but it would be funny if equipping x resist made your x do more damage. and also not really that helpful?

does seraph get a boost on almighty? my first instinct would be yes, purely because of seraph's gun combo doing almighty damage; it's near-useless if you got reincarnate but still worth checking. and if so, does ragnarok behave differently from megido+/last word?

on that note, does seraph resist almighty? i... wouldn't be surprised - status only says no weakness, not no resistance, but almighty resistance tends to be invisible anyway (looking at you, devil survivor 2 that shows everything else) (you're fine just using as an example)

that would be a lot harder to test but if i get a party of seraph / someone with dragon ring / someone else with all maxed stats and just find something with megido+

anything else i might have forgotten

if you hack pyriphlegethon onto heat does it do more damage. i don't think i can test this one but i would. honestly be curious

but yeah. this is pretty cool, maybe i'll check for it in dds1 as well. if anyone else checks any of this out and makes a writeup or anything please ping me i have autistic hyperfocused on jrpg mechanics for over two decades :v

[driftingballoons]

Do you have any opinions on the other mystery dungeon games? Like obviously explorers is the best but how do you feel about the others?

Ooooh you’ve opened the floodgates :D

I never played red/blue rescue team, but I watched a playthrough once, it looked like a lot of fun! I considered the remake, but it’s very $60, so still not sure.

I overall enjoyed Gates, really had fun playing with the new-at-the-time gen 5 pokemon (god that was eons ago). The whole twist with munna and hydreigon got me, I do like a twist villain/ally ahaha, although it felt a little like a rehash of explorers. Also I liked how they got kinda meta at the end, talking about how they wish you could come back while looking “at” you. I think the big issues I had were that I was going in still thinking about the impact of explorers of sky had, and the plot here just…didn’t do it for me. It all seemed kind of small scale, I found many of the characters quite forgettable, and the relative lack of post game was kinda disappointing. Also, while there were lots of beautiful visuals with the 3D art, I did miss the older style and sprites.

As for super, I think they improved over a lot of the stuff from gates. It felt like there more world building went in to it—I loved exploring all the different continents, lots of eye candy! I also liked the emphasis on connections throughout, and how each pokemon was more of an individual. It also made the missions more compelling than in explorers; instead of saving 1000 budews from various dungeons, the way you could do the mission for one and then see all their “connections” really helped flesh out the characters. Plus the callbacks—I’m a sucker for callbacks, so seeing all the past teams and everything was really fun (although it did make me question the timeline of explorers; the guild members and everyone were there, but also the future trio ahaha). The plot felt more compelling to me than gates as well, although again, I found the characters quite forgettable :( Also having partner be the one to disappear had more impact for me…cried more than gates for sure 🙈

other drawbacks…again the 3D sprites (I played as snivy and hnnng they kind of struggle to render it and it’s evolutions faces in 3D 😅). Otherwise maybe just the predictability of some of it? Like I was already expecting a twist villain, and having the main villain be another conceptual entity was a bit boring. Also, it felt like the great negativity it was supposed to be wasn’t as prevalent throughout the game as the hopelessness in gates. Also, the logic behind hero/partner losing their memories was a bit weird to me…like if you failed in past attempts, I should think you’d wanna remember so you can LEARN from your mistakes 🤷🏼‍♀️

explorers wasn’t perfect either, but I think the plot, themes, style, and the time it came into my life was what made it my favorite of the series :3

[o-wyrmlight]

1, 2, 4, 5, 11, 13

Honestly I would do all of them but that seems like a lot for one ask

1. Favourite game(s) in the series?

My favorite games in the series are absolutely the first trio that I've played: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky. It's just so nostalgic and wholesome and I just love that trio to bits and pieces, and the story is just so beautiful and tragic and I cried and... you get the idea.

2. Do you prefer the 2D or 3D games (in terms of style or the games in general)?

I prefer the 2D games. I actually prefer all of the Pokemon games in a 2D style, but that might just be me being stuck in the past in that regard. I grew up with 2D Pokemon games and Pokemon Pearl was the first Pokemon game that I actually beat (the first Pokemon game I ever got to the Elite Four with was FireRed). I'm a '99 kid, so I'm a touch retro, I guess. 2D pixelated graphics is just so charming to me.

4. What were your hero characters like before being turned into Pokemon? What did they look like and how were their lives? Do they ever recover any of their memories?

Hmm! I've never thought about it! I suppose in regards to how the main character in Explorers of Sky is, I suppose I imagine them mostly as a character that is firm and determined to the end, with their companion Grovyle. They're resolute and determined, and their life was difficult and bitter in the perpetual stasis that the world existed in. I never put much thought into how they look, but I like to imagine that they got their memories back at some point and have found peace with themself, even if their companion Pokemon is no longer with them.

5. Which Pokemon from Gen 7-8 would you consider potential hero/partner options, outside of the regular Starter Pokemon?

Oh! Hmm. Hmm, that is. An excellent question. I didn't play Gen 7 or Gen 8. Keeping in mind that I know literally nothing about them and am just looking through them as I go, I think! I think it'd be interesting to have a dragon option to start off with. So maybe the Jangmo-o line if we're going by Gen 7. In Gen 8, I have to admit that I do think that the Impidimp line is pretty neat. I'm sort of tempted to say them. Or maybe even Farfetch'd, so you can play around with Sirfetch'd! I suppose. Maybe. Maybe.

11. Any headcanons that take place after the games that you want to share?

I just like Darkrai, okay? Rise of Darkrai has tainted my vision, and he deserves a second chance. I like to imagine that he might eventually regain his memory and earnestly regret all that he's done, though he might not outright say it. ALSO HOT TAKE: PMD DARKRAI IS TRANS. Assigned genderless at birth. Goes by he/him. I love him. He is valid. Hell yeah.

13. Free pass to talk about anything you want!

Every single PMD game should have the opportunity to take multiple jobs at once. That's something that Darkness/Time/Sky have spoiled me with, as the first PMD games that I attempted to play, and that is something that I haven't had in any PMD games that I've tried to play afterwards. There's just such a rush of delight when you get so many jobs done at once--it makes you feel productive, it makes you feel like you worked hard and that you deserve those rewards that you are getting. And I love it. It's such a great feature! Someone make a mod to put that in Rescue Rangers. Please.

[quartings]

For the first time in over 4 years, I'm not heartbroken at Pokemon.

People are 100% allowed to hate things though- I'm not gonna call anyone "entitled" for being mad about how condescending Gamefreak has been to children recently, or selling SwSh with half the content for 50% more money. But as for my thoughts on the games themselves...

Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl

The chibi style is a bit much but I don't hate it. I just hope they fix up the lighting a little bit. After all the stress I was having about how'd they'd adapt Sinnoh's grid maps, HMs, and even the DS bottom screen, I'm actually happy to see what is essentially a remaster as opposed to a Gamefreak-mandated remake.

But the most important question remains: Why should I play this instead of Platinum, one of the best Pokemon games ever?

I feel like people don't talk enough about how amazing of a remake Mystery Dungeon DX was- QOL updates, more dungeons, and cross-gen evolutions. Unlike what Gamefreak did with ORAS, Chunsoft took the original games and added more good things without removing other good things.

So I hope ILCA knows how important it is to have the Platinum dex expansion, boss teams, and BATTLE FRONTIER!!

Legends: Arceus

Wow. They finally figured out how to make a Switch game! Between this and Crown Tundra, I have a lot more confidence in how Gen 9 is gonna look and play now- especially since they're not doing annual releases anymore! I'm so glad they're outsourcing remakes to other studios so they can have more time and freedom to make newer, bolder projects! *Cries* I'm so happy we're back to 4-year gens...

I'm gonna paraphrase Shofu and say- the garbage framerate doesn't matter for now, don't worry. We don't even know if Ancient Sinnoh is gonna be Wild Area bland or Expansion Pass pretty!

The starter choice is kinda funky- unless they have snazzy new forms, I'm probably gonna ditch them for a Sinnoh starter the earliest chance I get, sorry. I love them all design-wise, but Cyndaquil is the only one I didn't feel was underpowered when using them in the past.

Most importantly- There's no box art for this game yet- we could very well get a new Arceus form! Especially since Mewtwo, Groudon, Kyogre, Rayquaza, Zygarde, Necrozma, and most of the Galar Legends have beaten its stat total. And even if it's still regular Arceus on the boxart, it could still have a secret form, like Necrozma, Zacian, and Zamazenta.

It'll also be awesome to see if this is the exact moment we see Regigigas get bound and sealed in Snowpoint temple!

Extra thoughts:

But yeah! I think it could be really cool to get a fully-polished Gen 9 debut game with an expansion pass, have an outsourced Black and White remake, and then a sparkling-clear BW premake or B3W3!

I think the manga arc for Sinnoh remakes will be called Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, but they'll mostly cover Arceus Legends content, be it through flashbacks or time travel.

I wonder if we'll get a big spinoff game to satisfy the late 2022 release slot!

[thestalkerbunny]

What kind of pokemon you would like to turn into? Mistery dungeon style.

Again, I would say Gengar; but to jazz it up, I would say a Banette this time.

(I honestly cried when I played the first mystery dugeon game, that game had NO BUISNESS playing with my emotions like that.)

[the-concept-fountain]

What are your other favorite games?

OKAY! I have dozens upon dozens of games that bring me joy, and that have inspired/influenced my life as a whole, honestly I could ramble on for days, but I will share my top 11 in no particular order. Besides the top 3 hehe ;)

11. Dokapon Kingdom

I was into Dokapon before everyone decided it was cool to play Dokapon Kingdom, but this game is just a blast to invest time into! I have played many campaigns, and each one is a drastically different story from the last. Easily one of my favorite games of all time, blast to play and I am always looking for a reason to play.

10. Splatoon

I won’t lie, when I first saw Splatoon come out, I had no interest in it. I completely brushed it off and thought nothing of it. But then my brothers would end up getting it, and OH BOY. I feel head over heels for this game, I am in love with the sense of style the series has, I am captivated by the cool mechanics, and I bump the soundtrack in my dorm. My fashion style has changed to try and match this game! I can’t get enough of it, and I have invested hours upon hours playing matches.

9. Fire Emblem Blazing Sword

I was not a fire emblem fan, at all. I played Awakening and was mildly interested in the series, but this game put Fire Emblem on the map for me. I am sucker for the sprites in this game, having all of my units feel unique and have some type of a persona. The game play is addicting to me, and feeling of seeing my favorite characters develop into powerhouses is like no other.

8. Cave Story

I have been waiting 11 years to play CaveStory, I originally got a taste of this game on the demo off the wii shop channel. But me being forgetful, I never sought after it despite buying many other games off the wii shop channel. That would change in 2018, and I felt like I have been missing out. The story, the music, the easy to pick up hard to master gameplay, GOING THROUGH HELL! I have died many times in this game, and it always keeps me coming back for more. Everyone should play CaveStory at least once!

7. Celeste 

Now unlike CaveStory, the moment I saw Celeste I knew this game was going to be fantastic! Before the game was released I would jam out to the bits of the soundtrack online, and the moment it landed on the eshop I snagged it up. Its similar to Cavestory in gameplay being easy to pick up but hard to master, but the story. I can’t spoil anything but I cried alot while playing this game, and it inspires me to bring together the good and the bad I see inside myself. It helps that the soundtrack is perfectly atmospheric, I think it is criminal if you haven’t given Celeste a chance!  

6. Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R

Spoilers, but this is the only fighting game I have on this list, they are all great but this game will hold a special place in my heart. Guilty Gear is an anime, air-dashing fighter that has exquisite game design. I wish I could FD in all fighting games period, but alas I can not. This is the first game that I got my behind handed to me on a daily basis, all my late bus rides home were spent playing this game and coming to terms that I did not understand this game. I sucked at this game, but getting my ass kicked just to slowly grow and become a beast with my main Ky Kiske is the kind of determination that will never leave me. 

5. Mother 3

Please go play Mother 3, it is a fantastic game with an even better story. I know from friends that the gameplay isn’t the best thing in the world, but I think it keeps things entertaining enough to most rpgs. This is a game you have to play with sound on, the sound design and soundtrack is fucking great. There were many tears that fell on my keyboard due to this masterpiece which is why I can’t say too much but I got attached.

4. Xenoblade Chronicles

I still remember the day Shulk got announced for Smash for Wii U/3DS and everyone look at me like I was a crazy person for knowing who he was. Xenoblade has consumed many days of my life, just mindlessly exploring the gorgeous landscapes, and getting engulfed into this tightly crafted story about a guy who has the power to change the future. Which would lead me to take my own future into my own hands and where I want it to go. 

3. GitarooMan 

If any of you know even remotely what Gitarooman is, please message me because no one realizes this game exists. This is another case of me thinking lowly of a game until falling madly in love with it. GitarooMan has these wonderful little themes and a little story that just work in harmony with one another, despite being a short rhythm game. U-1 journey from his humble start to his satisfying ending resonates with me, and inspires me. It also helps that the gameplay and the music feel great to play and listen too

2. The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks

This was my first Zelda game, and the only game I have ever 100% completed everything. I originally gave this game to my best friend as a birthday gift, to only get the game myself two days later. I think the train is adorable, the story is great, the spirit flute can go burn in a fire, and I remember the feeling of satisfaction of figuring out a puzzle that halted my progress. This game would give me the courage to face my fears while I was younger, and always serves as a reminder that I can’t do everything on my own sometimes.

1. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team

Not the first video-game I ever played, not even my first Pokemon game, but this would be the first videogame I would beat and the first to make me cry. I have created many rescue teams, each with their own team names and mottoes, all of them being unique and rewarding with their experiences. My sense of adventure was created from this game, going out just for the sake of getting lost and figuring what was out in the unknown. Always having my partner, alongside my team. to keep me grounded, to support my goals, and to go on adventures with. This game is a part of the core that makes me who I am today, and there isn’t a day that goes by where I am not searching for my next partner and to lend a helping hand to someone in need

[rjalker]

Random question, have you ever heard of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon?

Yes I have, but I've never actually played any of the games because I don't have the patience for that style combat.

But my twin sister @shipsallshipshoweverimprobable keeps begging me to play them and she says to tell you that she has cried over these games and she cries upon hearing the music. It still doesn't convince me to put up with that combat though, lol.

I would play them if it had the normal Pokemon combat Style but, not just smashing X that's too boring.

Espanola Pokemon games, I've played Generations 1 through 3 and then. Just get past everything else straight to X, and then nothing after that because money, lol.

And in general I just absolutely adore Pokemon. Except for the sun and moon anime, which I hate. With a passion.