#i need some logic to combat the thoughts(TM)

[daemon-in-my-head]

Genuinely confused as to why people follow me. Why? Has someone threatened you to do it? Lemme know and I'll hit em. I'm not contributing anything to society over here. I'm literally just talking shit about 2-3 men I made up and occasionally the drow woman and her ex.

My version of Gortash or Durgetash is straight up just pain. A lot of pain. And even more pain. I'm not even horny posting as evidently displayed by that one fic of mine that literally just blueballs people repeatedly.

I haven't written anything good in over a month (sorry bout that btw) and the art I do post is occasionally and not that good to warrant anything.

The asks? But they're new (fyi new version tmr, got nearly all questions transferred now and split it into ten parts, albeit they are anything but balanced)

I'm confused and genuinely idk what people expect of me. I also don't remember if I've asked b4 cuz atp I have over 250 drafts. I'm scared of opening that tab so I just keep creating new ones. Help lol

[ilikekidsshows]

Basically, the issue that's causing the anti-Dadrius folks is the same thing that caused so many issues in the Miraculous fandom, the Gravity Falls fandom, etc.: past generations thought "everyone who disagrees with me is wrong". Today's generation thinks, "everyone Secretly Agrees with Me Already, but some psychological dysfunction is preventing them from seeing things properly". So, today's fans are obnoxious because they don't think the rest of us are wrong, they think we're Brainwashed (TM).

I have seen the argument that some people online think that they're so correct that everyone does agree with them, but is just hiding it for whatever reason. That they're using the argument that: "you have no reason to trust anything a stranger online tells you," to justify completely making up everybody else's personality. But I've mostly seen that attitude in people who think: "Maybe we shouldn't act like asses 24/7 when online," should always be answered with: "This is the internet! Everybody's an ass!" while the fact that someone just politely asking them to be less of an ass should already be evidence to the contrary. "Everybody else is an ass, so I am justified." Basically, they feel they're so correct, they don't actually write any proper counterarguments despite being the one to start the argument.

There is more to the tendency to try to pick fights in fandom spaces, though. I feel stuff like tag-bombers and post-hijackers are a result of more people online disregarding the concept of personal space, even in a digital space. Like, how often does someone defend hopping onto someone else's post with something combatative with: "You posted this publically online, so I'm justified in arguing with you," completely forgetting the possibility that the post might be trying to reach like-minded individuals? They definitely show the Everyone Secretly Agrees With Me attitude in viewing this behavior as okay when they're called out on it.

These people also actively stalk the tags used by people who disagree with them to find posts to argue with, or just post their opposing takes but tag them with the tags used by the people who are guaranteed to disagree with their posts. They often play coy ("I used the ship tag because I'm talking about the ship no other reason I swear!"), but tag-bombing is about picking fights. Basically, everything is treated as an invitation to debate, every topic as something suitable to debate over and every other fan as a willing debate partner.

I've seen people lamenting how we no longer use phrases like: "Don't like, don't read." Basically, fandoms can no longer just accept that one group of people thinks this way and another group of people thinks that way and if you feel too strongly about mutually exclusive takes, you probably should avoid each other for the sake of having a lighter fandom space. Shipping wars have always been a thing, and could get pretty ugly, but these days people seem to feel so strongly about everything and feel the need to prove that they're correct more often than before.

For many, it used to be enough to privately think you are right and chuckle with your like-minded friends over how everyone else is wrong, but now you have to prove that your way of thinking is actually the most logical one. Like you said, these people think that the only reason anyone thinks differently from them is that they don't know any better and they just need to be educated, because, surely, if they knew all the facts, they'd agree with the "obvious correct take".

Some fandom behaviors have gotten more exhausting, is what I say.

[itsclydebitches]

Controversial take, but vol. 6 is the worst season bc its built entirely around fan service. Qrow's letter (IQ was popular), Ruby's proactivity, backstory at last, Ozpin's awful treatment, Bees, killing Adam, adults suck(tm), even Penny's return... just saving throws to keep RWBY alive. So everything failed in 7/8 bc fans thought they had been shown beats that mattered, but CRWBY never added those into their actual plan. Since vol. 6 began its all been misdirect, no one knows what to look at.

Putting aside my own very personal desire to not treat Ozpin and Oscar like that (because that’s where the bulk of my criticism stems from), I think Volume 6 is only a bad season retroactively. The concept of fan service isn’t inherently a problem, especially if the desire for certain things stems from the fans recognizing why that would be good for the show. People tend to reduce fan service to a purely negative thing, produced to appease the “rabid” fanbase, but fans aren’t pulling things they want out of a hat. They’re recognizing what things the story has lost (can our main character make decisions again?), what the story has intentionally or even unintentionally set up (these characters have great chemistry!), and what things might keep the story feeling fresh moving forward (maybe we need new combat ideas, like semblance upgrades). And that’s largely what Volume 6 is made up of, following the highly criticized Volume 5: a whole bunch of changes that were meant to both reintroduce what made RWBY great before and breathe some new life into a six year show. 

Our title protagonist should have agency again, so Ruby starts making decisions. We really should know more about this world and the quest they’re on, so we get an entire episode devoted to lore. We need to make the grimm a threat again, so we introduce the Apathy. Penny, as an android, always had a good chance of coming back, so let’s do that in Volume 7, originally meant to appear in Volume 6. It’s not fans’ love of a character demanding that the story sacrifice something (like logic) to meet that desire, it’s fans picking up on the internal logic of the story (androids can be rebuilt) and extrapolating possibilities. Now, we’re seeing the same work going into Volume 9. The frustration that Jaune fell into the void in part stems from recognizing that our main team hasn’t had much development lately and has been separated a lot since Volume 3/sharing time with JNOR, resulting in few Team RWBY moments. A desire to make Sun a significant part of the Vacuo arc stems from the knowledge that he’s there, he was formerly an important character, he’s friends with our other characters, and it would overall make sense to incorporate him into this part of the story. Hoping that Qrow and Robyn get their own adventure stems from a desire to keep the story internally consistent (please don’t have them arrive in Vacuo within a day when the Atlas citizens supposedly couldn’t just fly off to safety) while the hope that they’ll be set aside entirely until Volume 10 comes from recognizing that our cast is bloated and we need to pare things down. 

So much in Volume 6--giving us lore, introducing a SEW mentor, even acknowledging their headmaster’s mistakes to try and forward the protagonists’ growth--wasn’t bad on its own, but the execution failed horribly for some parts during the volume (Ozpin) and, more importantly, everything else petered out. As you say, the fans, myself included, had all assumed that this was going somewhere, but across two volumes we realized that RT didn’t actually know what to do with these plot points, they just threw them out and then... nothing. Things were either dropped or changed because they never had a real chance to begin with. How many times were we reassured that the group was going to reconsider their position with Ozpin and there would be a whole arc of growth, ending in heartfelt apologies on both sides? Just wait! Two years later, there was no development, no mention of it, and only one, quick apology to scoot that plot point off screen. How many times were we reassured that Penny was coming into her own and that resurrecting her/making her the Maiden was the beginning of a long, fulfilling journey? Just wait! Two years later, she had the powers for two days in-world, had her android identity stripped away, and then died again. The concept of new grimm didn’t have an impact because our group wasn’t fighting them in the Battle of Atlas/they killed the Hound in an episode, Maria as a mentor means nothing because she’s forgotten by the group and then literally forgotten by the story, Qrow’s relationship with Ironwood is tossed out for a kill threat that was then also tossed out for him to fight Harriet instead. It doesn’t feel like they planned any of this. The vast majority of what’s introduced in Volume 6 has no meaning or payoff. In reality, most things are actively contradicted by what comes next. What’s the point of establishing the horror of keeping the Salem secret if Ruby’s just going to turn around and keep it herself? What’s the point of establishing that the Lamp attracts grimm if that’s not going to impact Oscar carrying it around? What’s the point of spending a whole volume with Ironwood trusting them only to make him a cartoon villain at the start of the next? What’s the point of spending a volume emphasizing how much Nora cares for Mantle only for her to go start up Amity instead? What’s the point of Ren questioning their choices and supporting Ironwood if he’s just going to reverse course once his semblance upgrades? And on and on and on. Ideas don’t just disappear, the cast frequently does the opposite of what they should if those ideas had ever mattered. 

The worst part is, I’m still seeing so many fans pushing the “You just have to wait” argument. The conversation surrounding Emerald is nearly beat for beat the conversation surrounding Ozpin. Sure, things were pretty rushed and the emotion of the scenes was all one note… but that won’t last! Just wait until next season when Emerald’s redemption takes center stage. And then if that doesn’t happen there will be lots of excuses—this was the spirit world volume, we’re not supposed to be focusing on Vacuo yet—with further confidence that it will all come to a head in Volume 10. And then when Emerald either dies or is left behind by the plot, those fans will realize across Volumes 8-10 that RT isn’t writing a planned, cohesive story, the same way we realized that across Volumes 6-8. The fan service itself isn’t the problem, it’s that RT introduced a ton of ideas—ideas the fans obviously wanted—and then didn’t have any idea what to do with them. 

[chibipika]

Hey look, I found the itemized list of things that needed fixing in LC for Revision 11.  Written sometime around 2010, before I started the new thread on Serebii.

Back then, I genuinely thought I could just make a list of what needed fixing, run through the list, and then repost the fic.  But then the list got longer and longer.  And then the amount of things that needed changing slowly started to outnumber the amount of things that could stay the same.  It wasn’t until the S.S. Anne arc (an arc I really liked!) needed to get rewritten entirely that I realized that the entire fic would have to be done from scratch.  I honestly did not expect Revision 11 to be a total rewrite when I started this list.

(Note: none of the chapter numberings line up at all.  In this plan, there were going to be 25 chapters in book 1.)

Asterisks indicate things I had already finished editing at the time.

The huge amount of typos is thanks to this being written in Notepad

*add note to LC chapter 5 about jetpacks and rockets, fix ending of chapter 4 and part with the gun

*make Jade see fire while riding on route 22

*fix crappy entei description

*fix patchy logic in stalker's rebellion plan

*make chapter 5 not suck

*fix executive / combat unit setup

*fix aros and stygian's names

*fix crappy chapter 14 transition

*less decription from jade in prologue

*fix vogra (make experiment, not fakemon)  mention devron?

*fix rebellion HQ raid--more personal, less drama

*FIX dark crystal legend and midnight island legend

*fix Chibi's characterization (give reason to stay with jade, make rant less cheesy)

*add more to convos in ch20

*Make fic start in late spring, not winter!

*fix jade's vermillion stay (not enough money to live in PC for 3 weeks.)

*remove fakemon

*fix kiti /light pokemon mess finally removed

*firestorm personality beginning ch 4

*no backpack in ch1.  fix rocket's convenience in letting firestorm stay there(how?)

*fix Jade's characterization.  more eager and excited at the beginning--more cautious and regretful later.

*fix rudy's personality (not running away in fight) - legendary obsession

*make jade's escape with spencer more realistic.

*add arcanine abilities  ch2  (also scene in 22) (astra intimidate; spencer F.F)

*Add SUPER AWESOME PLANE RUSH ATTACK IN CH.3  FIXES ALL PLOT HOLES AND = AWESOME

*jade attempts a conversation with chibi in the fields.

CHARATERIZE OTHER REBELS MORE.  chapter 9, 10, 11, 14, 17, all of them GAH.

fix scene training with stalker ch6 better

battling class explanation ch 6

fix Jade's poor battling.  remembers facts, bad at concepts.  learns more in ch.6, but still not very good.  tutoring in ch.11 less out-of-nowhere.

make sure to add team rocket's pov on their actions

fix rocket base scene in ch.6--more realistic

make raikou mission cooler (it needs to be about 20% cooler) (also rebellion takes down mean look pkmn.)

add jade's reaction to raikou's capture

add bit in ch7 with stalker not responding to calls after mission. also explains that he was doing something else at beginning of ch8)

Add explanation in ch 8 about master balls being so rare after getting back to base  mention master ball monopoly

fix jade's experiment mission chapter 8 -mention the other experiments, improve the beginning of the chapter in general.

*add scene with experiments held in containment center. Jade opens the Pokeballs and is confronted by the experiments.

*fix rockets' experiment storage procedures (cages = lolwut?) one-on-one convo with razors

*fix razors's personality in ch 9

add note about tms beginning of ch.11 and fix the battle (better strategy)

MENTION firestorm's fiery battle nature in some training scene  also have him be in awe of stalker's charizard

add firestorm asking about evolution in ch11

better characterization in ch14 transition

add stalker conversation in chapter 14 (after escape from rocket base)

rudy in PC ect.  his reaction.  more characterization for him.

Ajia regrets her actions from before the revolt.  She was too naive and idealistic and acted rashly or in ways that got others into trouble.

better Jade thoughts before missions

come up with new years?  (date)

8:20 when leave

fix battles--better strategy

fix poor characterization of pokemon's love of battling

"is he, or was he ever on tr." big emphasis on this.  she asks twice, freaking jade out.

add parents scene in ch1(?)

develop viridian base attack better  ???

descirbe faint attack a bit less uber

-Legendary control testing must be undertaken in Celadon for Chibi on the plane to make any sense.-

Experiments/Chibi therefore must be held in Celadon

Experiments created in Celadon

Once I have:

*Fixed Chapter 1 / made the plane incident make sense

*Written the cool ending to chapter 3

*Made the ship boarding / encounter / Chibi speech better

*Fixed the Chapter 5-6 mess

Rewritten chapter 8

*Made the Mewtwo subplot make more sense

Finished CHapters 22 - 23

*FIGURED OUT THE ENDING

THEN I will repost LC.

Needless to say, I did not complete this list before starting the new Serebii thread.

[integratelier]

Ni no Kuni - Cross Worlds: My First Foray into MMO

I’ve been curious about MMO since I watched Log Horizon. I watched SAO before that, but SAO was more about “how to escape this weird thing”, whereas Log Hora was more about building an entire civilization! Sounds hella cool.

Some time ago I said something about being suck at games. I still am, so this post is about how to get less suck at games, specifically Cross Worlds, my first foray into MMO.

Firstly, my friend told me that to get a true MMO experience(TM) I should try RO, so this is probably not the best place to start. I don’t know… I suck, so there’ll be no difference I guess *shrug

Secondly, the game is chock full with content that the first week (or month…. it’s almost a month since I last start playing, I think…) felt like plunging into a deep river while being unable to swim (which is a perfectly accurate description of me irl). So the most logical strategy for me to try to at least stay afloat is not read the infos, not click things out to know what those buttons are for, not follow tutorials… but pester my friends about what’s what 😂

Honestly, I still don’t understand what’s what even now. I mean, aside from leveling up, what else is there? And even the leveling up feels secondary. The story is so fricking long. My favorite thing of a game is the story… but I don’t need every minor quests to have a full on dialogues that I can’t speed up (•_•)

Thirdly, I don’t like that at the end of the day, what matters is your combat power (point?). I mean, there are a ton of things you can do in this game. Quests, challenges, weapons, familiar, dungeons, a plethora of other things (I mean, literally, when you open the menu, there are a bunch of things you can click, which opens to submenus, which then open to subsubmenus… you get what I mean). But all of that result in one, all-encompassing number: Combat Power (Point?).

I mean, why have 5 elements when everything just sums up into one thing? Why not, maybe, have elemental powers, so we can choose to excel in one element, or what have you. I’d also love to have my familiars gain experience and level up from fighting monsters, not only from consuming items which obtaining almost always depend on luck and/or RpRpRp.

The funny thing I found about Cross Worlds is that you can teleport to places, but it doesn’t work how I imagined them to be. So, like, you can teleport from one big area to another, but within that area, which is still pretty huge, you actually have to walk. I thought if I chose a Fast Travel option I would get teleported to the spot I wanted, but no, within an area Fast Travel meant “get on the cat horse”. Idk, it’s not that weird, but I just find it funny. Especially when I’m auto-ing quests, I expected my character to just teleport to quest/quest giver spots, but no… he has to make good use of those legs lol.

Auto! That’s the next funny thing. You can auto things out in this game… which I heard is not the norm of the genre. For example, your character has basic moves, and then class-specific moves, and then some more special moves (that could be class-specific, but some are class-unspecific—I’m making up words, I know). You can just put your character in monster-focused mode, and choose auto, and the character will automatically rotate between moves, only spaced out by the skills’ cool down time.

So if you need to farm items from the monsters, or just need to rack up EXPs, turn the game on, go auto, and just leave it for a few hours, days, or probably weeks, and voila! Level up. You should probably check once in a while in case your character dies, because if they do, they’ll revive in a safe spot without monsters, so they’ll cease gathering up EXPs or items until you restart the auto thing again.

The same principle applies to special battles, too, such as boss fights. Go auto mode, and then move your character around just to get out of the attack range and you’ll mostly be fine 😂 (especially if your class is a long-range type). You might contribute less in the fight, though, so you’ll receive less rewards, too. But my topmost priority is to survive and still get rewards, so it’s OK.

And here’s my not so original strategy to fighting in this game,

especially when you’re fighting monsters that can kill you in just a few strikes:

Full auto mode

Auto-potion at 85% HP (the pot I currently use restores 25% HP, but because of pot cool down time (10 sec), you might get potted up at less than 70% HP so I guess it’s ok. They’re awfully cheap, too.)

Equip reduce pot cool down time skill, if you have it. It's probably effective, but I'm not too sure.

After one round of class skills, which cool down for 10-12 sec, run around the arena until you can fire those skills again. You’re on auto, so don’t worry about aiming. Usually the monsters have all gathered quite close with each other after chasing you, so your skills will have better chance at hitting all of them at once.

Try to not stand in front of the monster

Try to position the camera so that you can see about… idk, probably 30 m radius around your character. You’re on auto, so you’re free to use your left hand to move the character and right hand to move the camera.

Disclaimer: this method works well for me, who really, really suck at this game, Rogue (archer) class, use keyboard, and don’t use mouse.

All in all, it’s quite a fun game, especially when you have friends, albeit just a few, to play it with you. Even an introvert crave socializing (❁´◡`❁) (don’t ask me to go outside, though).

[mytwitterisdogtoast1]

Blastoise is the best starter *

For decades people have been arguing who is the best starter when it comes to the kanto region. This is usually through many means of math, personal choice, and in general, a heavy nostalgia factor. People play differently from others all the time and one of those ways is through the use of the rules called Nuzlocke rules. As of writing this I personally have done a Nuzlocke with all 3 Kanto starters in the 3rd generation game remakes. These games are called Fire Red and Leaf Green. This argument even lasts within these games and I want to try and settle it with a fair argument in several ways. Who is the best starter in Fire Red and Leaf Green?

We need in general to establish a few arguments that are important and a few that I personally have come across. We also in general need to establish the parameters of what this argument is based on. So let us try and do both of those:

:We will only be using Fire Red Leaf Green to quantify this argument BUT I will touch up on those games as well for a reasoning. :We will be using 3 different arguments from - Replacing your starter Who is the best of its type What battles you will be facing and what each Poke'mon can bring to the table specifically

I hope these are in general the best parameters for people to agree upon to make this a fair argument as some people will play using some ways such as replacing their starter, looking to find a better alternative, or straight up using it on their team.

Ok, first things first. Let's look at the games Red, Blue, Green, Yellow. We have a wonky system of how things work and a bare bones fighting system. This is fine as I would heavily assume that most people find the remakes of games from generations 1 and 2 to be the best games to nuzlocke as they are more within todays times but I know even if that is true that people would be angry if I didn't give some form of commentary on it. I would also be remiss to not give it a small thought as well since one of the arguments people have used against me was the use of generation 1 logic. From what I can conclude is that the best starters come down to 2 main factors. Firstly Charizard is one of the faster choices allowing him to have a huge critical hit factor with almost every move and it also gains slash which has a high critical hit factor which pretty much allows his pretty decent attack stat to allow it to shine through as well as his special attack. He can learn some pretty decent moves as well as will most likely go before everything you fight. Sure, he is frail but in general I think his critical hit chances are pretty decent if that is what you look for when it comes to an aggressive approach to combat. On that note Venusaur is by far probably the better choice as you have the chance to either deal massive damage with a critical hit move such as razor leaf and can set up toxic leech seed  combo. But this is only really my opinion since I personally do not nuzlocke the original games.

So before I really get into the meat of the argument I should explain a couple things. There has to be some sort of assumption written in that debates and any form of argument need to have a civil discourse where both people can make commentary on such things. Since this is right now not really possible I have to make some exceptions such as making assumptions on normal things to assume such as move sets. Next It is important to note the one thing that all nuzlockes have in common. The rules of the nuzlocke itself. If we change these rules than the parameters of the argument are changed as well. We are trying to determine the base question of who is the best starter in a Fire Red Leaf Green nuzlocke. Setting up based around your specific rules and regulations only changes the argument to better fit your wants and needs. We cannot do that as if I were to change the rules to what I follow than the real problem starts to arise. So until the argument is changed to something else we will start with the base argument before we change a parameter. The main parameters were already stated above with replacement and who is best of its type as well the battles you will be facing with only that specific Poke'mon. So without further ado let us begin the main argument and who would be the best and why.

Without giving an argument first I would like to first state who is best and then give the why as I feel that would be easier than to argue first than make the choice. That choice to me is indeed Squirtle. Some of you will see this and immediately go to the comments and start to argue, please, do not do this and read first. I will explain everything fairly.

First before anyone argues move diversity and diversity in general. Know that it is not as important as one might make it out to be. Many pokemon who are of the same type can learn enough moves to actually be diverse move-set wise as well as types only matter who you are fighting against more than anything else and when past the types who would have the advantage against you it would not be as important as you would make it out to be. Secondly we should also note that one bias that I personally have is that with the normal rules of the nuzlocke you would always choose bulkier pokemon as survivability is important since not dying helps you win. This is because with enough levels any Poke'mon can deal enough damage but not always necessarily outlive a stronger enemy.

Why is Squirtle the best choice. Firstly lets take into account the main argument. You can only have one guaranteed choice in your choices. Everything is random and with ever changing rules people use one main thing is consitent unless changed and that it choice of starter. We cannot use the base stats of a starter as they are all relatively even except for where the placement of those stats is. With the idea that survivability is the most important thing we know that Charizard is most likely to die to anything while Venusaur and Blastoise will have a higher chance of living. Since again the stats are very similar in stat total this will not be factored. Out of all the defensive stats Blastoise has the highest of defenses as well as the second highest of the HP stats but only 1 point lower than the highest. Let us take into account the reason why bulk is important is that we have to always assume the worst case scenario when playing. All enemies that can explode will always explode. Charizard is most likely incapable of surviving against those explosions. The best ones to use for this scenario are a Blastoise and Venusaur. With that in mind we have to also look at the important battles will be to see if they can survive those as well. We will be using who has the best advantage in each battle. The most important battles are as follows. Each gym leader, Rival, Elite 4 member, Enemy Team Leader. These battles are Brock, Misty, Surge, Erika, Koga, Sabrina, Blaine, Giovanni, Blue (for this instance his real name). When it comes to the enemy team we also should note that each member on their team in general will have the main types in Poison, Normal, Ground. So let's look specifically at the things we will be fighting.

We will start with the enemy main team first. The enemy main team will almost always consist of Zubats, Rattata, Ekans, Sandshrew, Machop Drowzee, Grimer, Koffing, Magnemite, Voltorb, Cubone. If we look at most of them it is something that Venusaur in general will have a more difficult time to fight, A total of 7 pokemon are either going to have a clear cut advantage or go even with him in terms of typing. When it comes to Blastoise it is a total of 2 that has a distinct advantage over him. We could put in favor of Blastoise in this situation as it favors him more methematically. Charizard to be fair is only effected by those same 2 in that they are electric types. Move sets are a little more difficult to break down against the fact that there are too many factors to take in with this so keeping it to the types with the worst assumption that each one has a super effective move at the best option would make it a better argument than assuming they are all with their weakest moves. This would mean we would assume all Zubats would have wing attack when fighting against a Venusaur while say all Voltorbs would have at worst Thunderbolt. This makes the arguments on these pokemon fair for all pokemon. On the adverse side of things we must assume that each of our chosen starters have no specifically advantageous moves learned from anything other than their move set for these as well. We could use moves taken from the TMS and HMS but let us instead put them at their individual weakest. Charizard can in fact defeat Machop no problem as it learns a flying move. Venusaur can defeat Sandshrew and Cubone as it learns a grass move. Blastoise learns a total of 2 different advantageous moves for things such as Drowzee with a dark move and both Cubone and Sandshrew with water moves. This would put Blastoise in the lead with most beneficial fights while venusaur will be at the least with charizard in the middle. This doesn't make any of them best or worst as this is only the weakest of arguments for any of them and we will now continue onto the leaders.

We need to take into account of how each type will give either a clear cut win, or a clear cut loss, or in fact it is even. In case of each of these we will also take move sets into account of what you would normally have at the level in case we want to use the argument of no over leveling as anyone with enough focus, commitment and sheer fucking will can in fact level up to level 100 before brock so using this as a parameter is the most fair way to make an assessment. Brock is the first person we will be fighting and he has 2 pokemon total in Geodude and Onix. Firstly we have Bulbasaur who has not evolved yet as your pokemon is in general the same as his highest level pokemon. Level 14 at most. This makes your move set Tackle, Growl, Leech Seed, Vine Whip. Brock will have no moves that are super effective against you thus you will be able to defeat him no problem. Charmander will have Growl, Scratch, Ember, Iron Claw. Brock will have on one of his pokemon Rock tomb allowing you to go "even" in this match. Squirtle will have tackle, Tail Whip, Bubble, Withdraw. Brock will have no super effective moves giving you the advantage. This puts Venusaur and Blastoise at a clear automatic advantage. Charizard is right now trailing behind by 0 to the others having 1. Misty would be second. from here we are going to assume very heavily that you will evolve your pokemon when given the level chance. Mostly because in general that is what the majority of people do unless your pokemon would learn a move before their next stage. Thankfully (to my knowledge) none of the starters do this. Ivysaur would to all assumptions for this have the move set of Vine whip, Leech Seed, Poison Powder, Sleep Powder. Misty would have Tackle, Recover, Harden, Water Pulse and her Starmie would have Recover, Water Pulse, Rapid Spin, Swift. You would have the advantage in that nothing hurts you that much and you could mitigate her healing with a Poison Powder. When it comes to Charmeleon you would have Smokescreen, Metal Claw, Ember, And most likely Scratch as it would not be resisted by her pokemon. Misty would again have her water move and would destroy your starter. You lose this match in general. When it comes to Wartortle you have Bite, Water gun, Withdraw, Tackle. Both her pokemon are in general psychic type and would lose to your super effective move giving you the advantage to her water and normal moves. Now Ivysaur would in general have an advantage since I assume you would use Powders and Leech seed to mitigate damage. This puts both Venusaur and Blastoise in the lead of 2 to 1 gyms where you can beat the gym leader or at least go even with. From now in instead of listing the move sets that will be used we will instead list the moves that will give each person of you and the gym leader a clear advantage on each of their pokemon because making the assumption for later move sets would cause too much of a problem and we will even at that point just show that brock would lose to grass move, lose to water move, go even with steel move to rock move, misty would lose to grass move, lose to dark move, and win against your non effective moves. When it comes to fighting Surge people would assume heavily that the victories are pretty cut and dry with things. Ivysaur would resist all of Surges moves that he mainly uses, Charmeleon would have a super effective move in Dig while taking normal damage going even as well with Ivysaur, and Lastly Wartortle would go even as well taking double damage but also learning how to use Dig would put you on more even terms. So far when it comes to who is at the most advantage it is still pretty even ground of 2 to 1  for Blastoise and Venusaur to Charizard. Erika comes next and this is where things get a little bit trickier. TMS are now a more important detail in that you can now if able buy or get some TMS that are most important to your playthrough. For this we have to keep in mind that the rules do no go against teaching your pokemon new moves via TM. Firstly you will go less than even against Erika when it comes to Ivysaur in that in general you do not learn any moves that allow you to have an advantage against any of her pokemon. Even Tangela goes even as it learns Ingrain to combat your Poison Powder. Charmeleon here is the clear winner of who has the advantage against this gym leader. Seeing as it learns Ember. It might not be the strongest move but it gives the clear advantage and seeing as in general they don't really have super effective moves you win this fight. Wartortle can go even with Ice Beam. This makes Charizard at an even 2 for everyone to have who would have the most advantage against gyms. Koga is next and has the clear advantage over Venusaur. Venusaur does not learn moves that allows it to combat fairly any of his pokemon. Charizard is the same way except with dig against his Muk. Lastly the same is true for Blastoise who does not also learn anything except Dig to fight Muk. To be fair though most of Kogas team use the Defense stat as their main defensive stat and those are the ones who are able to stop you from using Dig on them with Levitate. This would put Charizard and Blastoise as a clear cut winner compared to Venusaur who does not learn any super effective moves. The points now follow as such with everyone having 2 points for clear advantage against gyms as having a better stat distribution does not make you a clear winner. Sabrina Has the clear victory in that each of her pokemon learn a psychic move which defeats your venusaur. Charizard only defeats one of them with his fire moves and Blastoise has the clear victory with Bite and Dig to combat her Venomoth. This would give you the distinct advantage against her gym with Blastoise who now has 3-2 advantage. Blaine comes next and Blastoise as well as Charizard both resist his fire moves while also having moves to deal massive damage. 4-2 advantage of Charizard and Blastoise over Venusaur. Lastly is Giovanni with his rock and ground moves give him an advantage over charizard while Venusaur goes even against the types who are poison as well as ground who can go even with his poison type. Blastoise is the only one who has a clear cut advantage over them making in the end by this count 5-4-2 Blastoise, Charizard, Venusaur. Many people would argue the ability to heal or items but we have to make it that those things are not your pokemon so much as your bank account fighting. Secondly an easier way to look at fights is this. Venusaur learns a total of 4 damaging move types because Sludge Bomb is post game. Ground, fighting, normal, and grass. Out of all of these you will most likely not be putting Rock Smash on your pokemon as it makes 0 sense and other pokemon would learn it and Rock Smash is relatively a garbage move for fighting. So grass and normal moves are the things you would use in Strength and Razor Leaf or Giga Drain. Charizard learns a total of Fire, Fighting, Steel, Ground, Dragon. You would not get Dragon Claw until the E4 . Leaving Flamethrower, Iron Claw, and Wing Attack or Aerial Ace or Fly, and Brick Break. Blastoise would have Water, Dark, Fighting, Ground, Ice. You could fairly state that in general You would have Surf, Brick break, Ice Beam. Lastly you would most likely throw Earthquake on them if it was your only pokemon on your team as Earthquake would be helpful depending on the starter you chose. Venusaur and Blastoise would not need it as Charizard resists ground 100% while Arcanine would take damage from it and it would be best to throw it on charizard as well for other reasons.

When it comes to the Elite 4 we have to remember that their teams are not just one type like they say they are. Each one has a pokemon on their team that has nothing to do with their type. The idea here is to do the same thing as last time and see who would have the clear advantage over one trainer. Venusaur loses against lorelei as much as it has some advantage not every pokemon it fights is weak to grass moves while it is weak to ice moves. Charizard loses as much as venusaur in that even though it deals normal damage to some it also loses to all of them except Jynx who is the only real ice type while everything else has water moves. Blastoise is the only one who can go either even of with an advantage in that it has moves that cant be resisted as well as a dark move to deal with the two psychic types on their team. Bruno Goes even with everyone as he has some rock moves, and no one has real advantage move wise against everything so in the end it is relatively a fair fight. Agatha has a clear advantage with Venusaur as her pokemon resist him and in general he doesn't have anything special to deal with them. Charizard goes even while Blastoise has a ground, ice and dark move to go against them while not being defeated by their moves. This makes Blastoise a clear winner. Blastoise 1-0. Lance Is at an advantage against Venusaur as he learns multiple moves that hurt grass types and pokemon who resist his moves. Charizard doesn't fair much better with pokemon that resist his moves and lastly in general Blastoise is the only one who has a super effective move on all but one single pokemon while not having any weakness they exploit. This makes Blastoise an almost perfect fight against them. But sadly, that Gyarados fights against it.

The champion has the most diverse team in the game to fight against. He will always have a water, grass and fire type that changes depending on your starter choice and the main thing to remember is if you can again go even with moves against a pokemon on his team. Venusaur fights and goes even with Rhydon, as well as Gyarados, and Exeggutor. Losing only to his other 3 pokemon in Charizard, Alakazam, and Pidgeot. Charizard defeats Rhydon, Arcanine and Exeggutor with moves like Earthquake as well as Flamethrower and goes even with Alakazam and Pidgeot while losing to Blastoise. Blastoise has the best fight in that he has 4 moves that give him pretty even coverage to everything. You have Bite to fight Alakazam, You have Ice Beam for Venusaur and Pidgeot and even Gyarados and lastly you can outright beat Arcanine and Rhydon with Surf. This makes Blastoise out of the starters the best against the E4 and Champ.

Lets Take it even one step further and just assume Super effective moves let you outright win a fight against an enemy with some over leveling but not to level 100. A good amount is up to about 10 levels more than an enemy. This is a decent amount to give as some people (myself included since I wanna win) will do. In this we can look at all the moves given to each and say that in the end Blastoise is the only one with a real advantage in that he in general will be a pokemon who can outright defeat almost any enemy with a super effective move he can learn. What with Water moves to Brock, Dark to Misty, Ground to Surge, Ice to Erika, Ground to Koga, Dark/Ground to sabrina, Water to Blaine, Water to Giovanni, Dark to Lorelei, Water to Bruno, Dark/Ice/Ground to Agatha, Ice to Lance, and lastly, Ice, Dark, Water to Blue. Blastoise has way too many advnatageous matches in super effective moves that allow him to pull ahead of each main battle.

No other starter does as much as Blastoise does when it comes to being super effective. If we take roles into account blastoise has enough damage output with move choices as well as being able to get defensive moves to do the same as Venusaur. It learns Toxic as well as things like Rest and Double Team to make it hard for them to actually defeat him if he throws out Surf and Ice Beam. Charizard is just easier to beat if he goes the defensive route because he is not bulky enough to really take advantage of it. Venusaur is more of a defensive pokemon in general but can be offensive if need be. In the end Blastoise is the only one who can comfortably switch roles with no real issue. This would be my argument in general for using just a Blastoise only but the main thing to remember is you can alwasy fill your team with multiple members even if they are all water. Remember. It isn't specifically the type your pokemon is compared to the entirety of what it can do and what it fully has to offer. Stats, moves, abilities, stat distribution, typing, move set learning. Many things make up the importance or usability of your pokemon. Some people would assume replacing your starter would be the best idea. Let's look in general at the pokemon who could replace your starters.

One of the arguments I've faced when it comes to "replacing" a pokemon was that nothing compares to Venusaur but many things compare to Blastoise to which I would argue is an ignorant point to make. Let's talk about some hard facts when it comes to a nuzlocke. Before Brock in general you have some pokemon who can help out. Now sure, some of them might just end up dying before they can get in but thats chances we have to take. Sometimes a sacrifice is necessary and a completely horrible thing to do but 1 vs all is a fair thought to have. If this pokemon dies here i can save the rest and even this run. That's a thought everyone who has made a run has had ever. Let's be honest though. Saying there are no pokemon before Brock that can't fight as good as a starter is kind of wrong to say. Firstly you have Butterfree, Beedrill, Mankey. Now in general Beedrill is the worst of those three, but with enough growls and poison you should have no real issue fighting his rock move. Now, that is if for example Brock has no full heals. I believe in general he uses a potion or two but no full heals. Secondly even so, Butterfree and Mankey are pretty good solutions to Brock. See many people forget that even though he can throw a huge boulder, his pokemon kind of can't tank special attack hits making Butterfree a beast to fight with since it has a respectable special attack and learns Confusion. This is important to remember as special attacks are pretty much what really wins even more than than X4 damage from water and grass moves. Physical grass moves and water moves would probably hit that boy but not as hard as a special move does in general. That's why even with the resistance to fire you can still do some damage with even Ember. Mankey also in general just learns fighting moves that allows you to deal a decent chunk of damage while also resisting rock moves. Before misty you can catch magikarp, paras, zubat, clefairy, ekans, oddish/bellsprout. Magikarp who can evolve into gyarados who learns bite and is specially defensive, paras who is part grass and can tank some hits with his typing, zubat who learns bite who can damage them easier, clefairy who is specially defensive, ekans who has alright special defense and can learn bite, and oddish and bellsprout who are grass types with grass moves. Next you have surges gym which pokemon you can get before it are as follows of sandshrew, drowzee, diglett/dugtrio, nidoking/queen, and also the dig tm. Sandshrew, diglett, king/queen are all ground type and pretty much can defeat any of surges pokes and drowzee has a high special defense that he can straight up tank surges hits. The dig tm can be placed on things like raticate, arbok and so on. Lastly for erikas gym we have, well, we have a very large amount, theres like so many past and current route pokemon like flying types, psychic types, fire types, and so on. The list is diverse enough that by erikas gym you have a pokemon who in general can fight erikas pokemon and don't need your starter to do anything. From there you can collect and make sure you know what is basically going to be the main parts of your team for the rest of the game. Eevee is available, you can get a lapras and so many other things might pop up as well as even one of the Hitmons. Either way saying starters couldnt possibly be replaced compared to other pokemon is kind of a strange way to look at things from my view point. One of the arguments I heard was specifically that Bulbasaur is just too good compared to others of its type that you couldn't possibly do a fair trade while you can fair trade off Blastoise in general. Firstly, before getting into that I would like to again, say that you can in general not have a type on your team and team diversity is a small detail people get caught on. Personally I've had Blastoise, Lapras, and even Gyarados on my team and everything worked out fine. That's because middle to late game is where final team building is at its utmost importance. By the team you get to the end needing to have a grass type on your team or even a fire or water type isn't as important as figuring out what's best out of all your choices. You don't need a water pokemon who can surf if any pokemon that can use surf can fight evenly against Blaine. With that being said let's look at the pokemon who would be "replacing" anything because that is the next form of argument.

Venusaur - If we look at venusaur and what it has we need to look at what it mostly does as a whole. Venusaur is a defensive tank more than anything else. It has a somewhat shallow movepool diversity wise in that it learns 5 types, 1 of which suck and two of which are in general just tm's no one wants on their starters. Those moves being cut, strength, and rock smash. Strength in general is one of the only tms in the game that is worth using besides surf which is just strong in general and goes directly on anything that can learn it unless they have such low special it wouldnt matter. Like rhydon can learn surf, but why would you teach it surf? Point being that the main moves you can learn as Venusaur that are offensive that are really worth a damn in a nuzlocke are razor leaf, strength, giga drain, earthquake, sludge bomb. 2 I believe are late game in that earthquake is from giovanni, and sludge bomb is post game and a nuzlocke really ends when you beat the champ so you're not gonna need or get that move at all. So your 3-4 main moves are mostly razor leaf/giga drain, strength, earthquake. But I wouldn't throw earthquake on venusaur unless he was the only one on my list of possible team members who would learn it because venusaurs main strength lies in his tech moves and defensive stuff. This means your best moves lie in having sleep and poison powder/toxic, leech seed, synthesis/rest, double team, and maybe protect. Point is in offensive stats venusaur isnt really worth it as much as his stats show he can do damage because his best stuff is in things like poison powder, leech seed giga drain for more health and then outlast the enemy. Venusaur is a "thinking mans" pokemon which is great for fighting stuff no doubt but defense doesnt always win you a fight. If something comes along that can knock you out before you can outlast and whittle an opponent down the fight is mostly lose and we all know grass is one of the worst typings in the game being weak to most of the things you're gonna fight. Let's look at the other pokemon to show if they can "replace" venusaur.

Vileplume - If we look at vileplumes stat distribution and compare it to venusaurs roughly the same stat levels in everything but speed but since we're not looking to compare an offensive pokemon to an offensive pokemon and more leaning towards a defensive build like venusaur would we could take into account that the speed doesn't really matter too much in the end. With the leaf stone being what you need to evolve into this bad boy you could have him sooner than venusaur in your Locke if you for some reason had a stone, but since you get it around erikas gym lets assume they would evolve around the same level. Move pool isnt that much different except you don't learn strength or rock smash which isn't really a big loss. Moves are however a little more in favor of Vileplume in that it can learn petal dance while venusaur cannot. So if you wanted more offense you can do that instead of having to wait for or set up solar beams. (I personally don't use them but to each their own man.) You have acid, giga drain but again we're not looking for a super offensive pokemon in this 1 to 1 trade. Vileplume learns everything that venusaur learns except leech seed. But Vileplume learns stun spore which allows for an equal amount of trade off. Say you need to switch out but want to cripple them with lower speed for a pokemon to fight theirs. You can tank a hit, paralyze them, and then switch out. They now have that paralyzation for the match. Better than leech seed in some instances. Vileplume is almost literally a fair enough trade off to venusaur. They have the same typing, almost the same stat ratio, and to be 100% fair, its base stats are only so much lower, because of the speed loss. Theyre both pretty much even except by 5 points. Is 5 points too big a difference? No. 5 isn't that big and shouldnt sway anyone to choose venusaur because of it.

Parasect - This is one of the worst pokemon to have in any nuzlocke. Parasect sucks man. It really does. It is supposed to be offensively strong but there are some pokemon just stronger than it. Here is a quick list of pokemon who are generally better than parasect. Everyone. There, that is the list. Parasect has one move. Spore. That is its strong point and if sleep is good AFTER you tank a strong hit than fucking run 6 parasect. Tangent aside Parasect offers nothing besides spore and slash. Sure it can get dig and aerial ace but why would you teach it those moves when any other pokemon are better at attacking things like spearow, sandslash, arbok, dugtrio, and so many other pokemon who also outspeed this bad boys 30 base speed.

Victreebel - Even though we can't compare them both on a defensive stance Victreebel is literally the opposite in that offensively it is much better than venusaur. It might not learn strength like venusaur can but it does learn slam which is a comparable move power wise, while it deals equally as much damage. Now if we did compare them defensively Victreebel would indeed lose which I concede that point but in general they can both do the same offensively in growth, and special attacks such as razor leaf. Now in general Victreebel is kind of not that good compared to others, but in general it is good enough when it comes to being offensive compared to almost all the other grass. It comes in 4th and if you would rather have oddish in your party over bellsprout than the answer is simple. Play the game that has oddish in it.

Exeggutor - This is what I would say is equal to the other two best grass pokemon but I would compare them as apples and oranges. Both great but not for the same reasons. It learns strength, psychic, giga drain, stomp, and egg bomb. If you want it defensive it can learn all of what venusaur learns and stun spore as well as reflect, it can tank as well as be a power house. Is it slower? Yeah but if you're worried about speed just teach something sunny day and this bad boy will most likely outspeed things and take them on. As a 1 to 1 comparison it can't be dont but to say this isnt equal in value is what I would say in a word, wrong. Because venusaur is defensive compared to the offensive power of exeggutor.

Tangela - Do you want a tanky pokemon who can take hits and dish out some sweet sweet damage? Well look more further cause tangela isnt it! Jokes aside tangela isn't THAT bad but boy is it not that good either. Yeah it can tank physical hits but dies to anything special so even though it wont take double damage to psychic moves its gonna eat shit to all special moves in general. So it would tank against almost all the things that kill it (fire being the only special thing) but why would you purposely tank those moves anyway? Sure, in some scenarios its sometimes best to trade out something and let it die to let something better live but having a tangela on your team for that purpose feels, you know, kinda dumb. Positives? It can learn everything every other defensive pokemon learns except it also learns to dig into the ground and refuse to leave until it dies. You know, ingrain. Point im making is yeah this is fine, but it doesn't compare to anything and shouldn't be tried to be defended to take anythings place. Not a horrible pokemon, but certainly not good enough to take a first place spot. This is filler if there was anything it could be.

So the pokemon who are comparable to venusaur are exeggutor and vileplume. One of which is right before the second gym and also has multiple chances to be gotten in general. There are 3 grass types total who in general have the same level of use and that's a fair trade off compared to the lack of actual grass types compared to water types. Fire has it a little different in that it has even less options. Let's face it, Most of these pokemon as "fine" as they are only maybe 2-3 tops TOPS are even worth considering as one of the fire types to use in general but in the end I'd almost always give it up to the boy zard.

Charizard - Speed and damage are pretty much what you would get from big ol tubs the dragon. Charizard has a fair move set in that he can learn  a powerful fire move that is pretty much its strongest asset. Sure it can learn dragon claw but having a move set trying to be diverse isn't really the pull of someone like Charizard as you want to go in hard and go in fast. So having a tool box of moves isn't as important as hitting with the thing that will deal the most damage and if that is stopped use your second choice. This means throw out Lizard. Flamethrower. Repeat. If First move cannot be used than the best bet is to in general smack it with dragon move to deal damage. If that doesn't work than why use Zard?

Ninetails - The problem with Ninetails is that outside of meta it is not that good. It is equally as frail physically as other pokemon but it has a high special defense. The thing is it's a speed attacker who works like Charizard in that it wants to hit fast and hard but because its second main stat is special defense it doesn't hit like you want it to, and the only real move it learns is Flamethrower. Skipping Vulpix on your team also allows you to fill something else on the team to just have a Flamethrower slapped onto it that can perform special attacks and deal a ton of damage.

Arcanine - Even though it has a shallow move pool it is probably as good as or better than Charizard. In general you can still skip it but you have such high attack stats that even if you didn't just flamethrower things you could always just extreme speed them for a but ton of damage as well as priority. Iron tail allows you to fight rock types as well as ice that aren't resistant to it with water typing, you know, if you forget that in general that you can melt ice.

Rapidash - The only thing this pokemon has is that it can learn Solarbeam. That's about it. And if I didn't think Ninetails was a good replacement for Zard than I wouldn't think this is either.

Magmar - See, as strong as it generally is and how it can learn Thunderpunch which in this gen is amazing to have since it is a special attack and not a physical it sucks that you can't have it since that is an egg move. Here is the thing. Magmar just isn't that good compared to something like say Arcanine or even Charizard. Just no need to replace him unless you NEED Flamethrower using pokemon and Zard dies.

Flareon - Most people would assume I would say Flareon sucks but quite the opposite in fact. It has a large special attack even if it is lower than Zards and others but it has a huge physical attack in general. Which works for its more diverse move pool than the other two. You can learn a ghost move which is physical as well as ground, steel, and even dark type moves. Heck if you really want there is even a poison move. That's not the end of it. You also have a pretty decent special defense so you can tank some hits as well. The real issue is it is the worst of the 3 Eeveelutions in the game and most people would in general rather have one of the other two instead of Flareon.

When it comes to fire pokemon in general the 3 best ones in the game are Charizard and Arcanine and lastly Flareon. Now let's look at blastoise and see what compares to it and if you think this was alot to read and digest you have more since there are 16 of these water boys in the game and even though so many are later in the game we gotta compare them all since that's what we're doing here. Comparing every thing that could replace blastoise that is water type.

Blastoise - This bad boy is a tank who can dish out and take all kinds of damage and I mean all kinds of damage. Let's look at blastoise and see what hes got under the hood. Besides surf which comes on all water pokemon as if they were airbags on a car, we have bite, skull bash, rock smash, dive, focus punch, water pulse, toxic, ice beam, blizzard, iron tail, earthquake, dig, brick break, double team, rest, strength. All of which are pretty much viable moves on this bastard cause he has relatively equal offensive stats. He's almost as fast as a venusaur by 2 points and in general more tanky in pure stats but not in healing moves. Because blastoise, doesn't have anything other than rest which is fine because guess who has a pokeflute? You do. See as much as blastoise has so many other things it has to contest with, before even looking I can say it's going to outright be better than most of them with only 3-4 maybe tops by sheer volume being equal to it. Instead of going through and looking at them in order by number, we can look at the stuff that no one cares about first (nothing against faves, I mostly mean in stats, these pokemon are good and I like them but if seaking was good it wouldn't be in this dudes mod for the worst pokemon in the game as would most of these other pokemon.)

Kabutops - Let's be honest. It's alright. Its not the worst, but it's not really that good. Sure it has slash, and some speed, and it has rock moves and water moves grass ground flying and so on that it has diverse move pools but 1: It takes forever to grind out, and 2: It is slightly frail and the moves it does learn don't work on it well. Now sure The 2 gyms it will be good against as well as the elite 4 with some of the things you will fight you might have an upper hand but nothing that blastoise or something else in the better stuff can handle.

Omastar - Actually worse than kabutops in some ways except of how much of a wall it is in comparison. That being said it falls into the same categories because in general it has a worse move pool and just doesn't have anything special.

Seaking - Fuck yeah, seaking. AS much as I love this pokemon. It is hot garbage, Sure it can learn a grass and flying move. Sure it can learn water and ice moves. and yeah it's got ok stats but thats it. It's ok. It's not good and doesn't compare.

Seadra - This feels like a tangela in that it can tank a hit and deal a hit but only if that hit is not special. The thing is as much as it is fast and learns dragon dance it just also has nothing to offer compared to blastoise.

Golduck - Golduck is cool and all and can do a ton of things in that it has stats like blastoise does but it's just weaker and not a 1 to 1 comparison.

Kingler - Sure it has an amazingly high attack stat and yeah that is great but it lacks in move set areas where it is needed. If it could learn earthquake or maybe arial ace than sure, I'd rate this guy higher but in general he just isn't that good for a nuzlocke. Other play throughs sure. He is a good choice but his lack of moce set make it an issue to try and use him.

So here is where I'll start the good stuff to have and see if they can compare to blastoise.

Poliwrath - I'm gonna say it now. This dude is probably under rated. I wouldn't know as I have never used one in a nuzlocke but knowing its move set, and what it can do and its stats this bad boy is great to have in that he is just so good. Except the reason I haven't gotten one is I never get one. He is a little hard to get in general so as good as he is, he can't really be compared. It is better offensively in damage but not as good defensively.

Tentacruel - Easy to get but when it comes to a 1 to 1 in what they can do blastoise is well rounded while tentacruel is much more defensive. Sure it is easy to get as the Zubat of the sea which means that it doesn't die to sabrina but in general I think blastoise is gonna have to take this one. If built more defensive blastoise can easily fill the same role as tentacruel in that they can both poison a pokemon and set up healing and such. In the end as good as tentacruel is blastoise is still just better.

Dewgong - This is just like tentacruel in that as good as it is as a defensive pokemon, blastoise can do the exact same thing.

Cloyster - This is one of those amazing walls that if you can get it, use this bad boy. However, It loses to special attackers in that it just can't take this hits. It has one thing over blastoise while blastoise has several things over it. The defense stat is off the chart and sure with enough switching around you can make sure to mitigate most damage but in the end it isn't a 1 to 1 comparison like with venusaur and vileplume.

Vaporeon - A great pokemon with bulk and damage and even speed. Sure it might not have the greatest attack stat in the game or even compared to other water types but it has decent defense and hits the major move needed later in the game with ice. There are better choices than this in general and it only slightly falls short compared to blastoise in some areas but its bulk puts it up there.

These are the final ones who I think are even with blastoise.

Slowbro - You can only get this in leaf green but man if you can get it, put this bad boy onto your team cause the only thing it can't do is outspeed your enemy. you got psychic, surf, strength, water pulse, ice beam, toxic, iron tail, earthquake, psychic, shadow ball, brick break, flame thrower, fire blast, double team, rest, amnesia, curse, and yawn. Jesus man this is one of the best pokemon in the game when it comes to a nuzlocke it's like you're playing pokemon or something cause man your game is now easy. This isn't even a comparison in that this pokemon is so good that you can tank the hit, and proceed to flip them off and the game will see it and feel bad. It's also, psychic type. So it's the best type in the game.

Starmie - Man this bad boy is so good. I don't know how many times I'm gonna have to tell you these pokemon are good because in general the rest here are just that good. So let's drop that part and just say what they can all do from now on. Starmie can heal, it can do thunderbolts, ice beams, psychic, surf. It attacks hard and fast. You want an offensive pokemon? This is it.

Lapras - It tanks and hits hard with pretty much more diverse moves as well as being pretty much equal to blastoise. The only reason this is "better" is because of its typing and the fact it learns thunderbolt. But in the end they're pretty even.

Gyarados - Last but not least is gyarados. It's not as tanky as blastoise in some areas but what it lacks it makes up for in offense. It learns pretty much all the same stuff but only lacks in that it is "harder to raise". Which isn't a bad thing? The point is this is a great pokemon and is pretty much just as good as blastoise.

Looking at this large list of just water pokemon and trying to find a list of things to replace in general is one of those things that is easy to do but I have to stress that replacing your starter seems like a faulty idea to have in that in general they have great stats and decent move pools when compared to most other things. The other thing to remember is that grass types are some of the worst pokemon in the entire games types and even here you don't have much advantage trying to replace pokemon 1 for 1 in type specifically when you can per se' just throw moves onto a pokemon who can lose them. For example fire isn't needed in general but if you wanted one why not teach your Gyarados Flamethrower? Do you NEED to have a Fire type? That's a faulty way of thinking when it comes to team creation. It locks you into a team and how you construct them. Sure it would be good to have a good replacement for when a team member in general falls but to say you need to replace the one with another is just a foolish idea in and of itself.

Look, i get it. As someone who has had this argument a couple of times now with friends and random people on the internet and have now for some crazy reason made a large written reasoning why Blastoise is the best starter specifically in the generation 1 remakes that I get it. I love pokemon and I love nuzlockes in general because of how fun they are and can be. I also have nostalgia for certain pokemon in general. Heck, my favorite pokemon isn't even that good and most of my favorites are just bad in general but when we look at how good something is we can't just look at one angle and express that it's this specific reason and thus for all reasons this pokemon is the best. Blastoise out performs all other starters in Kanto. It also out performs most other pokemon in general in a nuzlocke scenario. It has some of the best moves any one can use and it also has great stats. Typing is not important compared to if your pokemon is able to not die. Again this also comes down to rules set up by the person playing the nuzlocke. Remember, the main 3 rules are as follows. Name it, First encounter only, and If it faints it is gone forever. With those in mind, not knowing what we can get and only being able to choose our starters, Squirtle is the best choice to make.

[roninkairi]

GAME REVIEW: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE

In the past few years my attention, when it comes to RPGs, has been spent primarily on Persona related titles (I blame my friend Anita for that) or Fire Emblem (I blame Smash Bros for this one). I even still have a copy of the original Persona 4 alongside my copy of Persona 3 FES and I still, on occasion, try to finish Shin Megami Tensei  IV when I have the time. So, when I heard that Nintendo and Atlus were going to have an actual crossover game involving both the Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem series, I was more than a little curious, especially given just how much different the two worlds are. Years later after the announcement, we would get the final product…and it is COMPLETELY different than what I imagined, or anyone else.

Tokyo Mirage Session is, as I mentioned before, a game that combines the worlds and game mechanics of the Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem series (and, to a minor extent, Persona) Now, as far as the plot goes, it’s rather, well, unique. If you were expecting the game to take place either in a mystical medieval landscape on the verge of war or a post-apocalyptic world filled with demons and other supernatural on goings, you may not like this, as the main story takes place in…Tokyo.

…At least it’s not Detroit or Newark.

Anyway, the story feels more appropriate for a 24 episode anime than an actual game. You fill in the role of Itsuki  Aoi, a high school student who gets roped in to the world of entertainment by his friends Tsubasa and Touma when a series of attacks led by Mirages. Itsuki soon learns he has an ability to work with unique Mirages in order to combat them and from there that’s where things get interesting.  Now,  to say that the setting of the game ruffled a few feathers is a severe understatement, as the idol industry in Japan is not exactly what I would call ‘cozy’. In fact the polar opposite of this game, Atlus’ Persona 4 Dancing All Night is actually a deconstruction of the industry and certain habits. Add to the fact that a lot of fans were not really pleased with the kind of happy setting that this game has and you can see why it didn’t fare as well as other games associated with SMT or FE. This is a shame because, at its core, the battle system in this game is quite good.

Mirages in this game take the place of the normal demons that would be present in the SMT series (and yes, the “Shadows” that populate the world of Persona if you wish to link that series), and they are also how the characters from Fire Emblem figure into the story. Characters such as Chrom, Tharja and Caeda become the partners of the main characters and transform into their weapons. They can be powered up by beating Mirages and collecting their “Performa” (yes, I know, just roll with it) to either become newer weapons or power up their current form. This, in a way, eliminates the need to buy new gear, but you still will need to grind for certain enemies if you want to make new abilities, which is handled by Fire Emblem mainstay Tiki (apparently she has her own version of the Velvet Room…). Other characters from FE will make small cameos too, if you keep an eye open.  As the game progresses the cast will expand to 7, each of which have their own specialty (Touma uses mainly spears and fire based attacks, Kiria uses rods and relies on magic and ice, Elenora is your bow specialist).

Combat, by the way, is primarily a three person based affair. As I said before, the game combines the fighting systems of both SMT and FE: certain enemies will have weaknesses and strengths based on the type of magic you use, which opens them up to a combo, or “Sessions” where members of your party can get in additional attacks. This also applies to weapons to, as the Fire Emblem weapon triangle is applied here in the game. You have to exercise caution though, as the same rules apply to your team as well, and some attacks can be nullified or outright cancelled. Getting Sessions done is important, as it helps to get you extra items, money and Performa. As you get further in the game, you can also learn special abilities like Ab-Lib performances and Dual Arts that can turn the tide of battle. A lot of the combat in the game has to be planned out in advance though, as you will find that there are battles that can get real tough real quick. And this is especially true when you come across Savage enemies. These foes are always 5 levels higher than you. The good news is that they provide particularly rare items. The tradeoff though is that they are significantly stronger than normal and you WILL more likely be forced to use part of your SP bar to handle them.

And that is another thing I wanted to get into, which is the difficulty of the game. It’s pretty standard for a Atlus or FE based game, in that it will punish you if you screw up and as you go further, the bosses will be more aggressive. This will become more evident when you meet certain bosses that not only have 2 attacks per turn, but have sidekicks that you need to kill quickly before they become a nuisance. And playing the game on a higher difficulty…I suggest playing it on Normal first, just to get a feel for the game. It can sometimes feel overwhelming at first, but when you get the basics down and find a way to get the sessions down and wipe the Mirages out its very satisfying. And some of the Dual Arts you can get are quite unique. (The less said about the one used by Barry and Mamori, the better.)

The cast of TMS, like I mentioned before, feel like they belong in an anime instead of a hybrid RPG. Itsuki reminds me of a long lost cousin of Tenchi Masaki—nice guy who has no clue that certain girls have the hots for him (in short he’s kind of bland) . Touma’s the resident Sentai hero fan and hot-blooded justice guy, Elenora is like Asuka Langley Sohryu, except less bitchy, focused on Hollywood and friendly with Mamori (she too was also the subject of certain controversy due to her heritage).  Mamori is the cute preteen…who wields a freaking AXE. Let me understand this, the cutest and nicest girl in the cast is the one that wields the biggest damn weapons?! How is that logical?!! Yashiro is the mature, blunt and focused guy (or, a dick for the first few chapters you meet him) Kiria and Maiko…

  ARE TOTALLY AWESOME AND SEXY AND I WILL NOT TOLERATE ANYONE TALKING SMACK ABOUT THEM.

And then there is Barry…I don’t know how to quite describe Barry but when you open his side story up, you may lose some measure of respect for him…a LOT actually.

Aside from the main story, there are plenty of side stories and missions to accomplish (Much like SMT and Persona) that will help to make your main cast members stronger and open up better abilities and new  Performances and Dual Arts or get you items that can aid you. Some are routine, like collecting a certain number of Performa and some are, well, ODD. (Like rescuing a girl from the Idolspehere or giving female Mirages a love letter from a guy who really needs to get out more. One of Touma’s side missions involves wooing ladies. Lets just say it went WAY better than what happened in Persona 3) The tone of the game is the complete opposite of the SMT and FE series as I mentioned before. While there is an overall serious plot to muddle through, the game has no issue with getting into lighter moments or taking some comedic liberties, like Kiria’s reaction to a special that Maiko has cast her in.

Now, in case level grinding in this game takes too long, there is also DLC that you can get. 3 bonus dungeons can be downloaded that can help you get experience points and skill points faster or you can take on a dungeon full of nothing but Savage enemies. The caveat for these, however, is that certain items will disappear if you do not get to them fast enough and over time, the enemies in the first two WILL get stronger. And the bosses in each dungeon will outright murder you if you are under level 50. Trust me on this, these guys are no pushover, I learned it the hard way. It’s an interesting way to help you get stronger, but if you spend too much time on it, it may make the game a little less challenging so I’d recommend only doing these if you need extra money and experience.

Now, there is one OTHER thing I wanted to get into before I give my final thoughts: the censorship. Yes, this game was edited prior to its US and European release. There are certain outfits that have been either outright removed or changed. There is also a DLC pack that is not available to us either. I don’t quite understand WHY the changes had to be made, other than due to the ages of the characters of the game.I know, they are listed as 18 for the most part (with the exception of Mamori and Kiria, who is a couple of years older than the main cast members.  Is it a deal breaker though? In my opinion, no. The outfits you have are only there essentially for cosmetic purposes and make no real difference to how the battles play out, and to be quite frank, it’s no big issue for me. Yeah sure, I have seen the alternate outfits on Youtube and holy hell, they look cool and sexy but it’s not really gonna help me slay that Platinum General any faster.

Overall, this game is an unusal but interesting hybrid. The plot does play off like something I’d rather see on CrunchyRoll but the overall game itself is quite fun and can be engaging. This was a very challenging RPG to play through and it even lets you go on a Game+ run when you beat it the first time for an extra challenge. (Oh yeah, there is a hidden boss, good luck fighting THAT). If you have a Wii-U I strongly suggest you give this game a go.