#i need to actually play a pmd game all the way through...

[wildflowercryptid]

kieflo pmd style... ( bonus below the cut! )

[smilepebble]

6, 7 & 10 for the pmd ask thingy?

uhhh this one got long so it's under the cut. i have many thoughts and opinions on the pokemon mystery dungeon franchise

6. which game has the best soundtrack?

that's a tough question... i feel like all the games have extremely well done and unique soundtracks. they're just all really good and made by very talented people. that said, my personal favorites definitely come from the 3d games. i think psmd's soundtrack is my favorite, mostly bc i have such a personal connection to it. but i am also a huge fan of gates' ost too, especially with its use of leitmotifs. the theme of hope and magnagate arrangements make me go crazy every time i hear them

7. which game has the best postgame?

this is a hard question for different reasons... bc really pmd2 has the most substantial postgame out of the whole series. the rest of the series' postgames are just "do some special missions and get legendaries" and/or "bring back the hero/partner". ive only played the pmd2 postgame in its entirety once (which... is very surprising considering it's by far my most replayed game), and i found that it explores the relationship between the hero and partner in a really interesting way!

but honestly i think that the postgame i'm most passionate about is psmd's. i mean... if you need proof, just look at the huge psmd hero analysis i made and the (sadly unfinished) psmd epilogue rewrite i was working on early last year. i care about psmd's epilogue not really because i thought it was good, but more because i think it could have been good. like... it's fine as is i guess, but i was very disappointed about two things: how mew's character is handled, and how nuzleaf's redemption arc (or, let's be real, lack thereof) is handled.

mew, as a character, is only really there to service the hero and partner. they're used as a constant reminder of partner in order to explore hero's grief. by itself, this isn't a bad writing choice, but mew as a character is not really developed beyond this point. i think it would be interesting to see how mew is different from partner, and that hero won't be able to find partner through them (other than the very literal way). we never really get mew's feelings on being compared to partner either, which could have created a very complex relationship between them and hero! imagine you're just a little kid, and an older kid is your only friend and caretaker, but you constantly remind them of the dead friend they were looking for when they found you. are you really wanted, then? do they actually care about you, or do they just care about what you remind them of?

i feel like i've already talked about how nuzleaf was handled here at length, but it's just disappointing how his redemption is just "he played the villain again but it helped partner come back so he's all redeemed now". plus the fact that "he wasn't actually evil, he was just possessed by the actual bad guy!". it's just... i don't know. he was a very important character to me when i first played psmd on release, because it was the first time i really experienced a character resembling an abusive parent that wasn't like. comically evil. not to get too personal, but it did help me make some realizations in my own life. so i wish nuzleaf's redemption involved more effort on his end to better himself, instead of "oh he's acting evil again but it's justified this time".

10. what starters would you add?

OH MAN HAVE I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS... especially back in 2022 when me and a few friends were playing around with an original pmd game idea. i spent entire days making so many portrait sprites of potential hero/partner characters and i had to like... physically make an effort to take breaks. fun times!

anyway, aside from the gens 7-9 starters and the obvious fan favorites (alolan vulpix, both zorua forms, rockruff, growlithe, both sneasels, etc.), here were the new starter ideas we were throwing around for that pmd game idea: ralts, glameow, buneary, pawniard, misdreavus, kubfu, trapinch, deerling, joltik, pikipek, mareep, deino, tinkatink, helioptile, bagon, dwebble, minccino, murkrow, fidough, swablu, and venonat.

personally id love to see more ghost, flying, and bug type starters. and like less popular more quirky starters too! like of course your pmd team can be whatever you like, but i sometimes get kinda bored only seeing teams that are just a combination of like... eevee, riolu, vulpix, shinx and fennekin over and over and over again. it's fun to branch out and try new pokemon from time to time! you never know what new favorites you'll get! also just imagine playing as dwebble. have you seen how adorable she is? imagine how amazing that would be

[canonicallyginger]

I have beaten Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of the Spirit, and honestly? one of the best fangames ive ever played period. The understanding the writer(s) had of the characters is perfection (especially Wigglytuff). The gameplay was pretty damn fun, even if i struggled through the Road To Shaymin Village the entire way. The story concept was amazing, and the exploration of the themes presented in Explorers of Sky was wonderful.

That said, the ending was the part that disappointed me. Big spoilers ahead

The ending was so anti-climactic. The way they negated the stakes before even getting to the final showdown was certainly a choice. I think it would have worked better if Celebi had pointed out that the world isn't ended after the final boss rather than before. Because taking away the stakes takes away most of the excitement.

The fact that there's no room for post-game disappointed me too. There was so much I wanted to be able to explore in this take on the setting. I wanted to be able to see Shaymin Village, and I wanted to have the opportunity to talk to the legendaries that apparently exist without purpose in the setting. If there'd been any post-game at all, i think i would have been less bummed out by the anticlimactic ending.

Also, the player character's disappearance doesn't feel nearly as sad for the partner pokemon. Every official PMD game has made me cry at the ending, but this fangame, which handled the characters so perfectly at every other point in the story, failed to stir up any emotion other than disappointment in the final act.

Also, the way Breloom returned but didn't have any dialogue for the main duo? That was a huge disappointment for me. I just... I feel like they spent so much time developing a truly interesting new character and then they just. didn't give him anything to say about the hero and partner.

But back to the good things-- still spoilers:

When Ampharos and Mawile mentioned in the epilogue that they were moving on to explore other continents, that make me go "IT IS THEM!!! It's THEM! They're in this! I knew i recognized their mannerisms!" because Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is literally my favorite pokemon game. The way Team AWD is written is also fantastic. Letting the team be morally gray instead of just blandly antagonistic and greedy was really interesting and good. Team Charm being morally gray for the same reasons was great too. The fact that Wigglytuff sent the main duo to Armaldo in hopes of showing them that he doesn't believe anyone is beyond redemption. The way Darkrai gets actual motives!!!!!! The way the partner just chucks the Odd Keystone in the epilogue because of the game's thesis statement of "no such thing as an irredeemable spirit," which was something Explorers of Sky tried to convey but then didn't follow through in the final act. The way Grovyle is clearly not sure what to do with himself in a world that doesn't need saving. The way Celebi is just fucking pissed at him for going on another fucking adventure without even trying to let her know. God, there's so much i can say about this game being amazing and that wouldn't do it justice.

If you've read through all this and haven't seen or played it, then i'm mad at you for ruining the plot by reading these spoilers, but you should still give it a go. You're expected to know the entire plot of Explorers of Sky tho

[ask-obt]

A question for Woo. Would you enjoy an explorers DX getting revealed on the upcoming Pokemon Day?

// if this hypothetical proposes that this sort of explorers DX would be almost exactly the same in execution to rescue DX then I'd have to say................ no..............

before you bring out the pitchforks, let me explain myself. anyone who attends my streams or catches me in the wild in discord servers knows that I don't really like how the 3d games look. it's not as much a debate on "does pixel art or 3d models look better", but more "which style does chunsoft handle better", which I can sum up how I feel about in one screenshot

which is to say, my main problem with the 3D games is that the charm kinda got sucked straight out of them. it's true that pixel sprites have limitations- it's why we have portraits to more easily convey how characters are feeling, and your brain can fill in any missing details. but with 3D games, every aspect is able to be rendered out, and if you aren't going 100% all in, it's a lot more easy for the intended emotions to fall through. we have the ability to have pokemon emote like this now,

so why on earth is this the range that we're stuck with for PMD?

the simplest answer I can think of is that chunsoft is trying to apply the same strategy they used with sprites onto 3D models... which I think could work in theory, but not in the way they're applying it. as is, they don't have the models emote much and rely on portraits to carry the intended emotion through. the models also have some of the most stiff rigging I've seen in any game to date. I'm sure it has something to do with hardware limitations, but if that's the case I don't see why they couldn't create something that would fit their needs better like pokemon rumble's low poly models. well I know the answer is that they don't wanna actually render new 3D models for a PMD game and just use the library of models they got from gamefreak, but I like to think something like XY or ORAS's overworld models would make for a nicer looking game.

one pet peeve of mine is seeing folks praise DX for its unique look, which I think is true for the backgrounds!... but not really the models. I don't think putting an outline and paper texture overlay on the models is particularly revolutionary. it's a good direction to start, but far from peak aesthetic.

other problems I have with DX are how the main hub areas look (the grass for pokemon square is so blown out I have to play the game with lowered saturation and a darkened screen), and how the general UI looks in the dungeons. idk if it's because I'm neurodivergent or if it's just a "me" thing, but there's so much useless information being thrown at me at all times in a dungeon that it makes it really hard to focus on what's happening

I imagine this is mostly a side effect of losing the dual screen ability on the switch and I don't really have a proposed solution, but at least removing the text bubbles that come up every single time you get attacked or use a move would be a good start. maybe just save those for critical hits or smth idk, I don't really need to hear every single thought that comes out of my team.

I also think accessibility features like the auto-dungeon crawl feature are nice for those who want it, but it does feel a little overpowered by (seemingly) knowing exactly where the stairs are in a dungeon, which can take the exploration aspect out of playing the game. I'd also like the ability to disable that feature in a menu since I tend to misclick sometimes and accidentally activate things lmao

I just kinda tore into DX, but there are a few things I do like about it. the gummi system is vastly improved first of all (thank god I can stop grinding for one million gummis), and I think the dungeon environments are some of the best to come out of the series. I also think the models wearing scarves is super cute, I loved it in Super and am glad it made a return here. I'm sure there are other QOL features I'd like in theory but I kinda... didn't get very far in the game due to the aforementioned graphical and UI issues that felt like actual sandpaper to my brain.

if there was an explorers DX, I actually think one fun direction the series could take is something like pokemon cafe remix or paper mario, which is still the energy of a 2D game just using nice looking art assets instead of sprites. I just think a PMD game that looks like this could be really cute and charming...

and it'd probably be closer to chunsoft's wheelhouse since it'd take notes from how they put the sprite games together! just wishful thinking though. my current crack theory is that rescue DX was just to test the waters for how popular PMD still is and maybe to test out the engine on switch before releasing an original game, a la let's go pikachu/eevee to sword/shield. I doubt they'll make an explorers remake.

[ifbench]

Rescue Team DX

Rescue Team DX is a game that means a lot to me. Not only was it the very first PMD game I truly played, it was the first Pokemon game I finished. Before this, I never finished a Pokemon game before.

I got it as a graduation gift from my siblings, and originally didn't have any plans on playing it, but after talking friend of mine in another community, who was a big fan of PMD, I decided to try it, and liveblog my experience to her.

Best decision I ever made in 2020.

It was the most emotion I felt about a game ever up until then. Closest thing to it was maybe Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks or Mario and Luigi: Dream Team.

Rescue Team DX was the first game that I actually cried at. When me and my partner were chased out of town, with Run Away, Fugitives playing...I legitimately teared up. And when my partner called out my name as I drifted away at the end of the game...I started full-on crying.

Compared to other PMD games, its story may be simplistic. But does that invalidate it as a story? Does that make its story any less worth telling? I don't think so.

It may not have the grand, time-spanning or world-spanning plot points of Explorers or Super, nor the fantastically-developed characters of Gates. But it has heart.

It has a tale it wants to tell, and that tale is one that resonated with me to my very core. It's a simple tale of finding your place in an unfamiliar world, but I love it with all my heart.

I think Rescue Team DX made a masterful decision in having the artstyle be similar to a picture book. It's a simple tale, one a child could enjoy, yet still has enough heart and care put into it to make a grown man cry.

DX embraces this with the artstyle, painting the world as if it was a bedtime story that you want to hear again and again every night. It feels like childlike wonder recaptured.

Does it have its flaws? Sure. The Mankey gang quest, for one. But a few too many treks through one dungeon isn't enough to sour the experience for me.

Rescue Team DX is something truly special to me, in that I could only ever play it once. I could never find it in my heart to start another save file, to erase the memories me and my partner had together.

Acacia the Chikorita may have just been pixels on a screen, but I cared for him. I cried over him. I wanted to hug him.

Sometimes, I do play a little more. Going on with my current team, and doing a few more rescues. But for the most part, Acacia lives on through my writing and memories.

Rescue Team DX is a story of coming to terms with an unfortunate event, and learning to make the most of what you have now. It's about learning to find yourself in an unfamiliar world. It's about growing attached to that once-unfamiliar world, and wanting to stay. It's a story about self-discovery.

And, in a way...given what I was dealing with at the time I first played it, it was exactly what I needed.

I love, with all my heart, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX.

[foccaccia]

Hello!! I want to say hi because I see you interact with Rads a lot, and he also told me you love Pokemon \ PMD :)

From your interactions that I noticed on Rads' page, you sound like a nice person to talk to in general, but also... as of late I've been slowly getting into Pokemon ^^"

I played Black last year (loved it, especially N lol), and now I'm finally getting into Mystery Dungeon too (I'm playing the DS version of EoS via homebrew). I wanted to try PMD for years, but it did not click for me until just a few days ago, so... When Rads told me you're talking to him a lot about it, I was like 'omg I could use some advice and just have fun hearing about the game!!'

so yeah, that's why I'm writing this. Have a nice day!!

hi, omg this is so sweet! i LOVE pmd2 eos and im always way too excited to talk about it. my sister and i played it together growing up - we'd do individual missions and grinding and stuff on our own but as soon as plot came we'd close the ds and wait till the other was around so we could both watch what happened. i've played it a billion times since then, i just think it's fun! it has a genuinely good story and smooth and fun, if routine, gameplay.

(i'm a fake pokemon fan though, i havent played a main pokemon game since x/y and i havent FINISHED a game since platinum. i obsess over the side games tho lol. the pmd games, the ranger games, and colosseum my beloveds)

advice-wise, i can give you a few tips without spoilers i think? if anyone wants to add more feel free though!

reviver seeds are your best friends. they are more important than any other item. hoard them. spend all your money on them. my sister always told me i was missing the 'spirit' of the game by going into dungeons with 12 reviver seeds, but when one of your missions is escorting a low-level pokemon through a dungeon and another is fighting a high-level bad guy, you will appreciate the reviver seeds then.

you will eventually encounter monster houses. always carry a petrify orb, foe-stun orb, or some other item that will affect an area of pokemon. you shouldn't get monster houses too early in the game but it doesn't hurt to be prepared.

pmd2 is a kids game, and as such you won't need to heavily grind. still, depending on your comfort level, it can be really nice to have a few extra levels. pmd2 also is a game where plot events are scheduled - meaning if you go on a certain number of missions/otherwise use up a certain amount of in-game days, plot points will automatically occur. if you want more time to complete missions and otherwise level up/goof off, you often don't actually have to go on the plot mission, even if an npc says you do. just do your own thing anyway, it's fine. they'll keep reminding you but whatever, lol

to that last point, sometimes you'll be on longer missions and will be offered two paths to take from area to area. it will be obvious which is the correct one, as the incorrect one will always be labelled as 'foggy path' 'dark path' 'rocky path', etc, ending in 'path'. that one will just send you in a loop. you can take it as many times as you want to level grind. or you can skip them entirely if you want to get on with the game!

save, idk, 3-5 blue gummis in storage if you plan on finishing the game and doing post-game stuff. it isn't game-changing, it really isn't important, but it'll save you some minor time and annoyance.

there's no shame in looking up a guide for the personality test at the very beginning that determines which pokemon you play as. if you enjoy the surprise and/or actually want to align your personality/pokemon type, hell yeah! but there's a fun list of possible pokemon and it can be fun to pick which pokemon/type you like playing best as. personally, i love being riolu, learning focus punch, beefing it up with ginsengs, and destroying all in my path. i'm also weak to eevee, skitty, and shinx, because these four were the two my sister and i played most.

don't be afraid to use your normal (non-pp) attack, but also don't be afraid to use pp attacks. max elixirs aren't hard to come by, but not endless. however, you Will Not make it if you never use pp attacks. you'll find a balance!

you can control the moves your partner uses by switching them on/off in their move menu. if they have no moves selected, theyll default to the normal attack. im pretty sure they dont use normal attack if any pp moves are selected, though? you can also edit their "battle tactics" - eg, whether they follow u, seek out battles, run away, etc. this can be really useful as the only character you yourself fully control is the main character. make sure ur partner saves their low-pp high-attack moves for important situations, etc.

this isn't a NECESSITY but it helps if you and your partner are well-balanced or at least not exactly the same type-wise. it'll be just you two a lot, and you'll save yourself a lot of trouble if you picked a partner pokemon whose type balances out yours so you're not struggling through certain dungeons.

if you're using an emulator, save states are lovely, especially since dunegons are all randomly generated, but i know some people consider it cheating and don't like it. up to you!

there will be randomly encountered shopkeeper kecleons in dungeons. unless you can get to the stairs IMMEDIATELY, do not steal from them. jesus christ do not. or at least prepare to reload the game or give up on the dungeon.

if you can, take a bunch of missions at once in the same dungeon and just blast through them all in one trip.

play with the music up if you can! it has a deceptively incredible soundtrack.

i think that's enough to be dangerous with! there's more i could add, but honestly this game is pretty straightforward. if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask! this game means a lot to me, nostalgia-wise, and i genuinely love the story and the characters. just let yourself feel out what your favorite play style is. some people like bigger exploration teams and some don't, some people use every amenity in treasure town and some don't, everyone prefers different items and moves. but in the end, it's a kids game, and i know you'll do just fine!

[mathewryf]

Monster Houses are an interesting bit of design. I remember being a new player, fresh into Red Rescue Team, and I was pretty nervous about them when I ran into my first. In the early game I generally avoided them unless the stairs were literally in the Monster House. Even then I tended to make a rush for the stairs. On occaision I'd use seeds or orbs to clear the way. I played that way for the entire story of RRT.

In the post game I got access to Heat Wave, and being that I rarely switched from the Hero, that was my go-to for Monster Houses. Beyond that I never had a real plan beyond brute force.

It wasn't until Explorers of Sky that I got smarter about it. Since screen-nukes weren't a viable option, I learned a better method: if I saw a Monster House ahead, I would make the rest of the party wait in the hallway, and then I would go in alone to trigger it. I then went back into the hallway to funnel the mons into a chokepoint and picked them off one-by-one, only switching places with my Partner if I needed healing. It was a step in the right direction, but it wasn't perfect. Of course that was also when the typeless attack was still a viable means of damage.

Gates to Infinity didn't really have much in the way of Monster Houses back when I last played it. It took until a long way into the story before I actually ran into one. That said, GtI also wasn't as punishing as the prior games, so there wasn't as much pressure to improve my tactics.

Then Super Mystery Dungeon happened. That game broke a LOT of my bad habits from the other PMDs, but the biggest one was my tendency to hoard items! The first difficulty spike the game threw at me threw me so off my game that I finally opened my bag and unloaded every stick, pebble, wand and orb I needed to get from point A to point B.

I ended up getting through the rest of the game doing that. Especially once I started gobbling down unattatched Emeras for the free stat boosts. Stick sniping was my favorite passtime on my way to the many bosses in the latter half of the game. I literally used up every stick I picked up, bought or stored. By the time I hit the final dungeon I was rocking Iron Thorns and when you're cracked-out on Emeras those things do a SHITTON of damage.

And, as you can imagine, that made dealing with Monster Houses INFINITELY easier. I still used my old strategy of funneling mons for a while, but eventually the sticks I was throwing did so much damage I could legitimately clean house as soon as I stepped into it.

The most important thing I learned from my experiences with Monster Houses is that if I had used ALL of the resources I available to me AND applied some thought, there's a genuine chance I could have gone into most of the mid-to-late game dungeons in the earlier PMD games with half as many items, cleaned out every Monster House on the way, and STILL made it to the boss with PP and Max Elixers to spare.

Does anybody actually avoid Monster Houses? Whenever there is one, I always go to it and most of the time I just e nd up leaving the treasure there anyway because my bag is too full.

[thatgardenerguy]

Introductory Possstttt ✌️

🍀Hi (wave wave) call me J.

🌼[He/they/she pronouns :)]

🌷Autistic swagggg

I work as a Unovan berry farmer with my team; Silly (my lovely Spritzee friend), and Sprinkle (Slowpoke I found in the mulch)

Not much good at battling unfortunately, (to the upset of every youngster in a 50 mile radius.) and no team specialty, but I seem to attract pokemon that are pink???? Does that count???????????

Feel free to say hello! 🌻‼️

///OOC Hi!!! Gotta put some important notes in here :)

1) please feel 100% free to send me any Pelipper mail or other ask games, even just regular questions! I tend to be a little shy with other people on the internet, but I don't mind those one bit!!

2) for reference! I'm working with a version of pokemon wherein they are *intelligent* but not exactly in a human way. Kind of like the anime, i guess?

Basically: sapient but still very much weird animals.

2.5) Pmd characters and talking pokemon are still welcome of course! They're just a little bit outside of J's worldview and so they might not. Realize they're actually talking to a pokemon at first. He's kind of under the impression that its just people pretending on the internet. That can change, of course!!

3) not too many ask rules, like evil team stuff is ok; all i ask is that you dont send anything super unreality enducing, anything to do with self harm, or anything that could trigger moral ocd, because i will sadly have to just delete it and block you :(

i like playing in the space but mental health is important!!! I haven't really had many followers before, so I want to make sure you all feel safe and comfortable reading through my blog :)

4) if anyone's interested, or feels like doing a background check for some reason? My main blog is @stained-glass-idols . Its a bit..um.. messy ^^"" and i mostly just lurk about in the muck like a turtle and reblog stuff.

I do love bugs, especially beetles, so if those are a problem for you... be careful, please, because i do reblog bugs from time to time /gen

5) i use tone indicators because i am autistic and need tone indicators. If you tell me to stop because they are cringe i will block you and make a post about how cool tone indicators are /srs

5.5) Also!! If you're unsure about sending me an ask because of this: If it's not immediately and glaringly obvious that you are, for example, making a joke, wanting genuine input, or mad about something, use tone indicators!!!

(Sarcasm especially does not translate very well over text)

6) As always, remember to take care of yourself! I wont know if you don't tell me, but I like when people are happy and I would prefer for you to be, so. Drink water, take meds, eat a safe food and remember that small steps are better than no steps, no matter what.

○•~🍀~•○

[hisuian-history-makers]

We know the usual story. Get called to the Pokemon world, wake up as a Pokémon, and get dragged into our first mystery dungeon...

Except we don’t see the struggle each human goes through adapting to their new body. Fur takes longer to dry than our skin, scales would probably itch when shedding, and accidentally breathing fire will be a constant worry for them. How do instincts work with the human mind? Some moves like Tackle or Scratch might be easier to regularly use than say—Razor Leaf. A whole new center of gravity to figure out while doing demanding exercise every day. Pokemon logic means all the options seem to have teeth.

The pokemon probably have different written language considering what we see in close shots in-game. Imagine for a moment being illiterate in a world that functions without the internet. Where the easiest way to earn money is by going to dangerous places where innocent people get lost daily in. Places that change their layout each time you go in and space bends to make these crazy dungeons with infinite foes. Most Pokemon we defeat in there disappear like illusions with us having to beat up enough to maybe find one mon who can actually talk.

If dungeon Pokemon are supposed to be the quote-on-quote “wild” Pokemon, then why do they still attack us after we save the world? How is attacking any non-dungeon Pokemon considered more riled up than normal? I wish the story went into further detail since we know some live-around dungeons. Like the Luxray/Manetric pack or the three-mankey. The word wild fits them better than the MD Pokemon.

Moving on, why do we only see helpful mature humans as the protagonists? Where are the poke-verse native kids who grew up with horror stories about people turning into Pokemon? I’d expect them to be pretty scared if it happened. There are probably some humans who want to profit from the main currency gold coins. Maybe some people are turned into Pokemon they know nothing about or dropped in places with ones not native to their home region.

What about more skeptic partners who don’t believe us outright when we say we are human? I mean, there will be very few Pokemon who know exactly what a human looks like. We might have been the ones to invent TMs in the universe. Literal CDs that contain moves with no computers in sight. What if the Ninetails’ Legend was more well-known making most picture us as manipulating monsters? The partner could form a team with us in the first game to watch over potential danger. A crazy mon could hurt themselves while an actual human will probably mess with something old.

Could humans even understand Pokemon? Or did Grovyle play charades to tell his human partner about something? Would scarves work on humans in the first place, wands I can see being farmed for them to take advantage of.

(Just a bunch of PMD thoughts I had recently. So many unanswered questions and mysteries left in the entire series. Needed to format my thoughts to get them out in all honesty.)

[shima-draws]

SHOUTS I’m replaying PSMD right now and honestly going through this I really, truly think that PMD Sky is the Perfect Game. The game ever, if you will.

Things I’ve noticed playing PSMD and comparing it to PMD2:

-It takes Eight Years just to get through one dungeon seriously why the FUCK does it take me 15 minutes just to get through three floors. I can scale three floors in PMD2 in under a minute the pacing in the dungeons is just SO much better. Also the wild Pokemon feel way more balanced regarding actual appearance? In PSMD it’s like every time I turn a corner there’s an enemy Pokemon it’s never ending I cannot catch a break ever

-PSMD has that garbage feature where moves get “powered up” the more you use them. The issue with this is that base moves absolutely suck ass AND their accuracy is god awful so I’ll miss like 3 or 4 attacks in a row. Why. WHY is it this bad. It should not be this bad. Moves had a way more reliable accuracy in PMD2 and you could power them up by choice so their base power was already good from the beginning

-More about pacing, the actual story…takes so long to get started…I’m fairly certain that you spend more time in Serene Village in school than you do at the Expedition Society, which is supposed to be the main catch of the game. You barely ever get to explore on your own until like. Post game. AND the fact that the story forces you to proceed, there’s not a lot of times where you can stall and go to dungeons to stock up on items or grind some levels. In PMD2 you can do whatever the fuck you want and go wherever you want (within reason) and stall out the main game for as LONG as you want. AKA me grinding levels until I’m 15 above where I should be at that point in the game, which I enjoy bc I’m a sucker who loves being overpowered and absolutely dominating boss fights.

-PSMD’s recruiting system…the concept is cool but the execution is reeeally bad. The fact that you can only recruit ONE of each Pokemon and that they aren’t always readily available when you need them? Logically it makes sense but as a gameplay mechanic it’s so terrible, I don’t want to have to wait a day to get the member I want to use or rearrange my team bc someone is out for the day;; PMD2…okay you get my point right you can recruit as many of the same Pokemon as you want in PMD2 and take them with you whenever you want

Anyway I love PSMD so very much but GOD it has a lot of flaws. Meanwhile PMD2 my beloved who’s never done anything wrong in its life ever and continues to be the pinnacle of all PMD games. My original thought was that nothing could ever compare to PMD2’s plot but now I’m starting to think it’s the same for its game mechanics as well lol

[everydaydg]

Thats a pretty good set of games!

Dillon is a series ive been thinking about trying for a long time, I enjoyed the demo for dead heat breakers a while back,

Rising board is one ive never heard of before! so ill def give it a look! it looks fun

Im a bit mixed on harmoknight... while the visuals are cute (I cannot hate tempo and the rabbit) ... I found alot of the music to be forgettable which kinda sucks... not a bad game! just a shame that I genuinely forget about it because none of the tunes stuck to my head

PMD... Im sure id love this series if I didnt have existencial dread when thinking about the plot (no im not kidding. something about getting turned into a pokemon forever has always rubbed me the wrong way). Ill consider it, I do have Chocobo Mystery Dungeon DS+ and Shiren the Wanderer loaded on my DSi so I can probably give those a shot in order to see if im down to give PMD a propper shot but till then, ima pass

3D OutRun!! I love that game! Ive 100% the game before doing all routes twice! (Once on its standalone release, once through Sega 3D Classics (the bundle of games). I love the outrun series,, ive played most of them!

I actually enjoyed Pokemon Rumble World a fair bit, the progression is a mess, yes but I did enjoy the gameplay loop quite a bit. Im sure I can have some fun with Blast! For some reason its been on the back of my head for a while so why not.

ok I genuinely had no idea that rage of the gladiators was even on the system. at all.

I need to check it out, never tried it on wiiware but it did stick out to me

(Okay everything from this point is a bit scrambled, sorry about that.)

Oookay I do have Shantae (first three), AA (Trillogy, Apollo Justice, Dual Destinies, Great Ace 1), Wario Land (All Four GB games) and Shovel Knight installed already! I need to get arround to them soon.

Ive never seen anyone talk about wario land 3 in a bad light, thats a bit of shock but hey that makes it all the more interesting!

Danganrompa... sorry not my cup of tea, out of everything here thats the one series I genuinely dont want to play... id play it as a joke for stream but nothing else... sorry...

but hey! I am def playing Ace Attorney blind! most I know about the series (appart from the few cases I have played) is christmas (out of context) and that Apollo Justice has some ass CGI for one case lmao.

I have played most of Metroid 2 before! got lost late into the game sadly... will start it again in the future.

Gargoyle's Quest seems cool! I do have the second game installed already but not the first.

I need to get aloooott of MegaMan done. Was thinking about playing ZXA recently, the world games seem cool! ill def give em a shot after finishing the classic entries I have left (4-6, 9-10). I feel id enjoy seeing how they deviate when im familiar with the regular entries.

Tails Adventure... honestly I keep forgetting this game exists. Ah why not! I need to try more GG VC games.

I have heard good stuff about Kid Icarus of Myths and Monsters. Ill get it off the bucket list some other time but hey its on the bucket list for sure

Thank you so much for all of this!!

Oh yeah, does anyone have any DS/3DS recomendations?

Been looking to try more stuff in both of these system's libraries!

I am fairly familiar with both but im sure ive missed some gems in there

[teeterarting]

here's a list of things i love about PSMD for no reason other than i think it deserves appreciation (spoilers)

the hero gets adopted by a nuzleaf. Hero, a young child that doesn't know why they were brought into this world, attacked by beheeyem, scared and alone, finds someone that takes them under his wing and gives them a home. it's really sweet that once Nuzleaf brings them to the Village, Hero's not alone anymore.

yes it was all a trick, he deceived you. but being betrayed by your father figure hits so much harder. it's much more personal, especially when both Hero and Partner are kids. and when Nuzleaf goes through all that ordeal in the post game, then gets accepted back into the village?? And his little speech to Hero????? it's heartbreaking and incredibly touching at the same time

everything is just so cute!!!! you go to school with your new friendo and you're friends with the schoolkids, and you make the trip to school every morning taking in the scenery, the smell of dew and fresh grass, and the sun on your face... and you take classes about Mystery Dungeon mechanics, and principal Simipour is a big BRO, the school nurse Audino is super kind and helpful... and you get to play with your pokemon friendos in summer vacation, and explore a dungeon with 'em... AND your bond with your Partner begins to form, getting stronger and stronger from then on. PSMD's beginning arc is so warm and pleasant, it's like reliving childhood memories all over again, when things were happier and you didn't have to worry about how cruel the world is. this story section's one purpose is to get the player used to the game's mechanics, as well as foreshadowing. unfortunately most of the school kids get forgotten later on, but I still love this part for everything it is, even if unintentional.

it's not just the beginning that's cute. PSMD'S ENTIRE WORLD IS ADORABLE. It's just filled with life every town you go. there are a bunch of pokemon locals and they all have interesting things to say, in the main story and the post-game. there's a point where their comments get repetitive, but that's bound to happen in any PMD game. Even then, the days are never the same. one morning you wake up and the Lively Town locals are exercising, then the next they're having singing lessons, and then they're practicing martial arts. and you get to connect with (or recruit) some of them just by.... chatting!!! Sitting next to that big ol' venusaur and sharing stories, laughing and having fun. it's good stuff.

Sometimes you find travelling pokemon in dungeons and it's jsut the coolest thing. Imagine you're exploring a dungeon, then your Connection Orb notifies you there's a fellow explorer in the floor. First thing you do is try to find them, and when you do - oh dang a travelling Archeops!!!! And then they just,,,, exchange their experiences and thoughts on exploration and how hard it is to fend off those enemies and the cool treasure they found the other day (the game calls it "[Team Name] and [Traveller pokemon] compared notes"). then the traveller heals you, fills your belly and restores your PP. and they go on their way. idk man it's such a cute interaction. explorers chatting, empathizing and helping each other, bc their job is not an easy one...

PSMD Partner is the most developed Partner in any PMD game yet. They start off as this naive, hyperactive kiddo, then stuff happens, and worse stuff happens, and you get to see how they grow and change and by the end they're a different person than they were before (in more than one way ...). It's just so nice to be by their side, from the beginning to the bitter end, and watch their growth. in contrast, Hero is a little unbalanced in that their backstory is not explored as much, and their personality is kind of a blank - probs meant to be vague so the player can be in their shoes. to me this just gives you the opportunity to shape their character however you want, so you can have tons of different hero/pardner dynamics.

The music is rlly flippin' good. Some of the tracks are recycled from previous entries, but when they go original??? it's a blast!!! "Echoes of the Mystical Forest" is one of my favorites in all four entries, it has no right being so amazing for a random dungeon. "Time to Set Out" makes me cry immediately (also i think it would be a better fit for the parting ways scene at the end...). Don't even get me started on "Second Dark Matter Battle", it has everything an epic climax needs and MORE. the Partner remix????? absolute genius

speaking of which, Dark Matter ITSELF,, is freaking amazing. Its actions were foreshadowed in the very beginning, though they were not blatant through the game. i do think they could have done a better job at showing the pokemon's negativity raising in the world, as well as negative feelings in the characters... but it's not like Gates did a good job at it, either (outside of cutscenes, all the locals in Post Town are incredibly nice to you and fights didn't "break out often". it's like the game tells you the world is a dark place, but what it shows in gameplay doesn't add up). so i'll cut them some slack. Still, I find Dark Matter a more compelling villain than the Bittercold for several reasons. it is sentient. its speech is a jumbled amount of voices all talking at the same time - the anguished voices of the world. It actually concocted a plan to hurl the planet into the Sun, using pawns like Nuzleaf and Yveltal to do its dirty job. in the Voidlands, Hero and Partner discover its past, and how it'll come back after defeat, like a cycle. when Partner accepts Dark Matter, they accept negative feelings as something everyone has within themselves. Most of all, the fact that Dark Matter is a manifestation of negative feelings doesn't make it just a generic threat, a final obstacle to be defeated so the world can be saved. It makes Dark Matter - negativity itself - a natural part of the world, the yin to its yang. and that's why I LOVE IT SO MUCH DANG IT EVEN THANKS PARTNER FOR THEIR ACCEPTANCE

The fact that Dark Matter can possess pokemon that have "even the smallest amount of darkness in their hearts". it makes me think of Mr. Nuzleaf and what he might have gone through in the past to make him so easy to be controlled. Did he hold a grudge against someone?? Did he commit a crime?? Had Nuzleaf always been malicious???? And if so, is this why he shows so much remorse in the post-game??????? because he had always been this vile fiend and then he met this small kid and got attached, but still carried on with his evil actions because his malice was still stronger than the positive feelings and Dark Matter's hold on him intensified?????? I don't know!!!! and as much as i wish the game could have given us that sweet mr. Nuzleaf backstory, it's pretty fun to have freedom to come up with your own version.

Everything about Super's climax is just phenomenal. Every single flippin' legendary is there to help you. Arceus is in the game. MEWTWO IS THERE. and when things are looking hopeless, they really seem hopeless. First the Tree of Life is dying, then your allies get turned into stone and sent to hell The Voidlands, Arceus gets turned into stone, the entire world is stone (except for several mon' that are still safe and holding onto hope, but they're so few). Your Harmony Scarves stop working and you and your Partner are back to your feeble, basic stage forms. You are bordering exhaustion, you have no Emeras, it's just you and your Partner against an eldritch abomination that's killing the life on the entire planet like a parasite, devouring all hope. but you still fight back. Given how adults in the game always discourage the village children from going adventuring, that they cannot do this or that because they're so little and fragile, it's awesome how Hero and Partner beat Dark Matter as tiny kids.

PSMD is not a flawless game. in fact there's plenty of things that hold it back and i even mentioned some... but it's still full of love put into it and it resonates w me more than PMD Explorers of T/D/S and Gates to Infinity (Rescue Team is a close second). its my all-time favorite PMD game.

[heavy-lobster]

Okokok I’ve had thoughts and I am going to organize them into several paragraphs so buckle up

PMD DX is an important game, because it marks the PMD series not being completely dead, and has given people hope for more entries in the future. Of course, I think everyone would prefer that next entry be something new, rather than a remake of a past PMD game. Even then, since DX was announced I’ve seen plenty of talk about the inevitability of a PMD 2 remake, whether it’s coming next or will be following something new. Most people I’ve seen talk about this seem in agreement that PMD 2 would be the next game in the series to get remade if any. This is really strange to me.

I don’t feel like Explorers of Sky really needs a remake. Here me out.

Like a lot of people, EoS is my favorite PMD game. The pixel art graphics are pretty much everything I could ever want out of a game and the soundtrack might just be my favorite video game soundtrack of all time. The story is incredible and the characters are fun and charming. While I personally don’t really play PMD for the gameplay at all, EoS has the most enjoyable gameplay in the series in my opinion. I really love this game, so why wouldn’t I want a remake?

I don’t feel that EoS needs a remake. I just don’t feel like there’s any improvements to be made here. Let me clarify; I’m not saying EoS is perfect. It definitely isn’t. No game is. EoS has plenty of issues and things that could be improved and added to the game. So what’s the problem? I just don’t feel like hardly any of the things that actually need improving would be improved in the remake I know we would get. The remake would most likely just “update” the graphics, “update” the music, change and update some gameplay features, and maybe some new post game content or something if we’re lucky idk.

I feel the update to the graphics would almost be reductive in a way. The pixel art style of EoS just doesn’t really need “updating”. Clean, stylized, pixel graphics are timeless and will ultimately hold up better than any 3D graphics, the standards for which just keep getting higher and higher. It’s distinct and charming and I don’t feel that anything of value would be gained by making the game 3D. To clarify, I don’t hate the graphics of the 3D PMD games. They look just fine and there’s some parts of these games that look fantastic! I just feel like in the graphics department of an EoS remake, there nothing to be gained and everything to lose.

Music wise, this argument is entirely based on my own nostalgia and biases. I like the music! It’s good! Every orchestral rendition I’ve ever heard of a track from these games just hasn’t done it for me. Part of just really doesn’t want to hear an “official” version of these orchestral arrangements because I just. don’t like the sound as much. I’m a music nerd and even I genuinely can’t justify this with any kind of logic beyond just the nostalgia factor for me personally.

The gameplay is the only area I can see being actually improved and even I’m not really sure what more they could do other updating it to be more like it was in DX. Which would be nice I guess but it still just doesn’t feel that necessary to me idk. I doubt the story would go through any major changes, for better or for worse, so overall there’s just not enough improvements to be made to justify a whole remake.

If any PMD were to get another remake, the game I feel is the most deserving of it is Gates to Infinity.

Gates has grown a reputation for being the worst PMD game, the reasons for which are completely beyond me. Gates is my second favorite game in the series. The story is great and it fixes one problem I’ve had pointed out about EoS story-wise,,,, that being the generally pointless flashbacks to events that happened 5 minutes ago. The graphics are outdated by today’s standards yeah but,,,, Gates was the first fully 3D Pokemon game so how hard can you really be? The music, while not quite as good as its predecessors in my opinion, is still very good! Especially the goodbye theme, that’s a good one. The gameplay is. Certainly gameplay! Overall it’s a really good game and I like it! So why do I think it deserves a remake more than EoS?

There’s a lot more things to improve and expand on with Gates. Gates felt like it was being held back from what it could’ve been. There were so many cool features n shit that just wasn’t really utilized much and it’s sad because these games could’ve been even better! Gates feels almost incomplete to me, like there was supposed to be more to it. Probably not but it feels like it to me.

Graphic wise there’s a lot of obvious improvements to be made. The models in Gates definitely aren’t bad, but they could be better for sure. The environments would look SO good if the graphics were touched up,,, I wanna see the great glacier in high-def dammit! A lot of the animations were kind of awkward too, those could benefit from a touch up. A big problem with Gates is that the camera is zoomed in wayyy too much. You really can’t see shut most of the time and it just doesn’t look very good. That could be fixed in a remake. The music doesn’t need much of touch up that’s not really one of my points here it doesn’t get its own paragraph.

One thing I want improved story-wise is the post game. I really like the post game of Gates but it’s so short and there’s just. Not much there?? There’s actually kind of sort of a bad ending to Gates! You can straight up refuse to return to the pokemon world and then the cave collapses and fades out to some weirdly eerie text. I really like this!! I like everything about this climax in the post game! But that’s like,,, pretty much the only thing worth noting! I like the overwhelming feeling of emptiness, and I like the way your partner just silently stares at your old bed every morning before you get to control him. I just think it’s neat! But it could’ve been so much neater!! I just want to see it expanded on.

The gameplay is mostly fine in Gates dungeon-wise. The other things I’ve mentioned plus just updating somethings to fit in with recent PMD games would fix all the problems I have with the dungeon gameplay here. No I don’t care if they add hunger back or not, hunger adds nothing of substance to the gameplay and I couldn’t care less whether or not it’s a feature.

The gameplay I want to see improved isn’t in the core dungeon aspect. I want to see the Paradise building aspect of the game improved and expanded on. It’s a really cool feature! It could be so much cooler if it wasn’t as limited as it is!! I have so many ideas but I’m,,, not writing them down rn sorry. Also magnagates! That weird little feature no one cared about. Those were cool I just wanted to bring them up,,, I kinda miss them.

TLDR; I feel like there’s so much more they could do and improve with a Gates to Infinity remake, whereas there really isn’t many ways to handle an Explorers remake. But also I really don’t want them to remake another PMD game I just want new content please I’m starving here-

[radramblog]

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is basically OK

Recently, I’ve partaken in some kind of cultural exchange with a friend of mine- namely, I’ve lent her my copies of the Scott Pilgrim novels (god do they kick ass), and she’s lent me her copy of Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, seeing as I never played it at the time.

Well I’ve now beaten this game, and I have some thoughts about it, so chop chop Keara the story isn’t getting any younger I expect a full book report on my desk next Sunday.

Jokes aside, this was my first experience with a PMD game since Sky (discounting the demo for Gates to Infinity), and having missed the series’s third entry (fourth if you count those Japan-only WiiWare games), it’d be remiss of me not to at least mention that maybe some of the things I’m going to complain about were originally that game’s fault. But apparently that one actively sucks ass so who cares, just shift the blame over, eh?

(ah, primary-school-tier bullying, exactly what I want in my Pokemon game, cool)

I think one of the foremost issues people have about PSMD is the story, and I can’t help but agree. The game spends what feels like forever fucking about in Serene Village, doing what could charitably described as tutorial followed by slice-of-life-ish plots, and while I love me a good slice-of-life anime, those tend to be a lot less slow than this. Also the characters tend to be a lot less one-note, but it’s a kids game, so whatever. Speaking of kids, this to my knowledge is the only PMD game where you and your partner character are canonically children, and spend a lot of time around others. The game seems to establish unevolved Pokemon as kids, which while it doesn’t really add up with the rest of the series (e.g. in the first ones, Caterpie is clearly a child, but Metapod is as well and Gulpin is at least adult enough to run their own store), it would ultimately be excusable if it didn’t make that huge section of the game so boring.

They aren’t consistent with that kids thing, by the way. When you finally reach the Expedition society, you’re met with a bunch of unevolved Pokemon (Archen, Buizel, Bunnelby, Swirlix) that are running around behaving very youthfully, who then turn around and go hey we don’t allow kids in our gang please leave. Like, the plot had been leading me to believe that the whole place was shut down, Ampharos as its final member, and those kids were just running around an abandoned building, but nope, here are your teammates for the rest of the game.

(brown sus)

The remainder of the plot is basically fine, its not like the plots in this series are the greatest on the planet (save maybe Explorers), though the focus on the villains turning people into stone felt pretty awkward. It’s like they wanted to pull off a more dramatic, more personal-stakesy plot but couldn’t actually kill anyone. This gets kind of egregious when you end up in actual hell for a bit, in what I guess is the series tradition of potentially traumatic experiences and blasted hellscapes being exposed to the protagonists. The endgame plot all seems to come at you at once, not helped by it being lots of chained dungeons without returning to towns beforehand- it wouldn’t be as bad if the whole game was like this, but with such a slow start, it just feels so inconsistent. The endgame twist was pretty spicy, I’ll admit, but it didn’t have enough buildup to feel earned in my honest opinion.

(pictured: the best character in the game)

But the plot doesn’t matter so much as the gameplay does it? And as someone who has also concurrently been playing through the first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game on my GBA, there’s a lot of interesting comparisons to make. The dungeons on the whole are shorter in PSMD, with few of the main-game ones reaching beyond 10 floors (and not going much past it) compared to the prequels’ capping off with a 25+5 floor behemoth in Sky Tower. This is made up for by every floor of the dungeons in PSMD feeling much larger and more labyrinthine than anything in other PMD games, meaning each one takes much longer than you’d think. I dread to imagine what the 99-floor dungeons are like in this game, especially considering you now need an item to quicksave the game if you want to do anything else now. The dungeons themselves additionally really do not feel like they’ve taken advantage of the 9 years of potential design improvements and two console generations of technology improvements between games- it is frustratingly same-old same-old in the dungeon design.

These problems are capped off with the increased difficulty- that is, that every individual Pokemon is significantly more of a threat to you than in previous games, and you don’t really get the opportunity to level grind much. And I’m not opposed to difficulty in games, obviously, but what it does in PSMD is ruin the flow of the gameplay for me. What works in Mystery Dungeons previous was that blend of exploration and combat, and in Super, that gets completely broken up by protracted encounters with even the chump-tier mons you encounter along the way. Also, they made the basic attack complete shit, and I don’t like that.

That’s not to say that the gameplay is all bad. I won’t comment too heavily on the Looplet/Emera system, because I’m kinda mid on it, but it didn’t help that despite all the game’s tutorialising I still didn’t get part of it until most of the way through the story. The game does have some moments of genuine brilliance in design, though. The way you recruit more Pokemon is so much better than the luck-based mission of the previous games, wihle managing to actually make you want to go on the random missions you get thrown throughout the game- for one thing they aren’t random, but it means you have a guaranteed good reward instead of the semi-RNG system where you just end up with a bunch of Gravelerocks and berries you’ll never use. In addition, the system where on non-plot days (and in the postgame) you just get 3 random Pokemon recommended to you, that get bonus EXP if you use them that day, is a great way of encouraging the player to diversify their Pokemon usage substantially, which is nice.

There’s a few other nice gameplay things I’d like to highlight. Considering the increased difficulty, the ability to rescue yourself (read: come back with the overpowered mons the game dropped in your lap) is really nice, especially since it’s not like anyone else is playing these games who can help. The way moves get better the more you use them is nice, especially considering how much more you use one move over and over in this game compared to main series Pokemon games. The random bonus missions and travelling mons you encounter in dungeons are nice, as well as the increased variety in missions available- as well as actually being able to revive fallen escortees, it makes the mission system overall much stronger than in previous entries.

Beyond that, though, I’m not sure what else I have to say about Super Mystery Dungeon. The game is a decent entry in what can barely be called a franchise these days, considering it’s 6 years old and yet still the newest entry, excluding the remake of the first ones that came out last year. It’d be a shame if this was the note we went out on for Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, but to be fair, I don’t think they’re ever going to be able to recapture the magic of the first two games. They struck gold with a lot of people, but I guess at this point, the gleam wore off.

[twilightvolt]

Well....that was one way to start a new decade, i guess. >  >’

Ok, from the death and destruction to the quarantine caused by viral disease to large parts of the world literally going up in flames, this year was like an ominous beginning that revealed the true ugly colors of everyone around us.

But there’s something telling me that that was just the universe releasing all of it’s built up rage from the last decade, so to think on the bright side, the only way to go is up now, right?

Regardless, pushing all the crap that happened this year aside, this feels like one of my best years yet in terms of art. i don’t think there’s any wedge of this clock that i wasn’t completely satisfied with and i had a TON of tough decisions on what to put in said wedges cuz i just luved almost everything i’ve created this year.

If you’re up to it, i’ll have my usual month to month reflection under the cutoff, but if you’re not, i hope to keep giving y’all even better art next year! ^  ^

So without further ado, let’s review!

January: ~ Days ~

Runner up: Team Solar Rises Again! (drawing in celebration of PMD finally returning with a remake of the first game)

Kicking off right where 2019 left off, i was hot on the heels of my Beastars phase, still cranking out countless drawings and doodles, mostly featuring Legoshi, and even hanging around the Beastars Amino and making some new friends there. this piece in particular i think encapsulates what i was mostly doing at the time, making up stories and stuff within canon to give myself more wolf boi content. which is something that i rarely do normally since i’ve mostly just done OC related writing before this.

February: - Sk8ter Wolf -

Runner up: Re:Hukaro (That thing i drew for Moon)

Ahh yes, the day i peaked with punk rock energy and created something in a highschool notebook sketch style. ngl, with the release of Beastars’ english dub on the way and the fandom quickly growing, i felt like i was on fire with the amount of stuff i was drawing. i felt so inspired and things can’t possibly go bad.

Or can it?

March: We Can Be Heroes

Runner up: One More Day, Emo Bird Boi Sketchies

Ahh yes, the month the worldwide quarantine started because they discovered the virus around this time. from this point onward, time pretty much meant absolutely nothing since i was stuck indoors for a majority of the year, only going out if i had to. on top of that, i tried a little attempt at a fandub and got picked on immediately by yahoos on Youtube. it...wasn’t fun.

I tried doing a little challenge i made up called Animarch where i drew a drawing representing anime i liked every day, but i only got about 5 days in i think? ehh, whatever. i did try, so that means something. lol

April: - ANOTHER SIDE -

Runner up: BEAST CROSSING ~Legoshi & Raymond

This was pretty much the final month i drew anything Beastars related as i slowly started shifting back to Pokemon due to the wait for season 2. but not before getting the new Animal Crossing and drawing a thing with Raymond and Legoshi that would blow up with hundreds of notes and interactions across every platform i posted it on. lmao

Regardless, i feel like Another Side was a perfect way to end that phase of my art journey. it’s like a nice finale to a long string of ideas that i will totally return to once season 2 drops next year.

May: - KOUJI -

Runner up: Fashion (that sketch of Alex and Jet in casual clothing)

What happened this month again? oh right, i went back to Digimon for a hot minute cuz i continued playing the copy of Cyber Sleuth Complete that i won from a giveaway on Twitter and created Alex and Jet, my latest Tamer and her Hawkmon partner. i should really do some more stuff with them.

ANYWAY,

June: - DOUBLE TROUBLE -

Runner up: “No Time to Waste! HENSHIN!” (AF attack against IonicIsaac on Twitter), Cafe Mix ~Ace, Yagami, Lance and Seliph

Art Fight. third year. and this time i kicked things up a notch and beat my old record from last year!...after uhh....cramming in 8 attacks at the very last night and totally going insane from the amount of sleep i lost. ^  ^’

But trust me when i say i will NOT do that again next year, i swear.

July: Squad Up

Runner up: Comin’ Out to Stun (Jet the Hawk sketches)

So after playing and beating PMDX, i started fleshing out Lance and Selpih’s characters and made more art and stories surrounding them and the rest of the team. one of those being a drawing for Mystery Dungeon Day, which happens the day after Odaiba Day. which is in August. why did i put this down for July then? some questions just don’t need to be answered.

August: - TOGETHER -

Runner up: In the Storm

You can tell by now just how uneventful life was this year cuz i have literally nothing else to talk about other than the art parts. no life issues, no big adventures like moving or something. just....indoor stuff.

It’s...kinda sad, now that i think about it. but hey, at least i was making the most of my time, trying new things and getting around a bit more.

September: Small World

Runner up: Rescue Together, PMD Forever!, Midnight Adventuring, Down Time

So this year, i turned 21, which a lotta people say is important. not really, if you can’t do much i guess. though, i did crank out a ton of art i’m super satisfied with as you can see by how hard it was to frickin’ pick one to use for this month’s wedge on the clock.

October: Feathers of the Shadows

Runner up: PAPERMOON - Final Mix - (not picked because it’s a touch up of an older drawing)

Hoo boi, this month was crazy. cuz i drew a whole lotta e d g e .....and a whole lotta Murkrow. lol

It was fun letting my inner edgelord out this month. even if nothing really significant happened in reality.

November: ~ One More Game ~

Runner up: UPokerap Project: Frogadier, - LEAF STORM -

This month....was actually kinda rough. it was basically me falling into a depressive episode after a scare at the dentist made me worry about my self image and insecurities again. but this time it really hit me just how much permanent damage i’ve done to myself in that aspect of my appearance. i know i shouldn’t worry so much, but it’s not great when people tell you to smile when the most i can do is grin since i’m just so....unhappy with my teeth.

But then around the end of the month, i stumbled upon a Pokemon themed Discord server with people that made me feel....not as alone as i suddenly felt i was. which i’m glad i could meet them even after only knowing them for a month now. if they’re reading this, i hope you know i’m thankful for raising my spirits when there’s still things i just can’t do due to financial issues.

December: Colors of the Heart  + Happy Holidays! ~Grovyle ver.

Runner up: ~ After the Battle ~ (the two part KHII anniversary drawing), - XIII -, Sketchmon: Buizel

And now this month. on top of my insecurities, i’ve now been struggling with my frustration with not being noticed as much as i should, watching as some people quickly climb up in following when i’m going much slower. honestly, i feel like the months when everything started lightening up for the world....was when things started falling apart for me. yeah, i know. pretty depressing way to end, huh? i hit 300 before the year ended thanks to the support from my new friends though, so i’m actually pretty happy.

But that doesn’t mean i’m not still scared of the future. i mean i have my teeth to worry about and also my wisdom teeth are coming in. so next few months...might be kinda rough.

Though, that’s not to say i didn’t soldier through it. this month i pushed myself, plowed through as many commissions as i could get to raise money for my new computer and made some of the best drawings that to me, feel like a great accomplishment. even if a couple of them weren’t as grandiose as some of my previous work. it was a big step forward for me as an artist. at least in my eyes.

And i have a feeling....that it can only get better from here.

[catflowerqueen]

Still not quite finished with Gates, but I’m nearing the finish line for the main game? I think? So I have some more structured thoughts below. 

(Apologies for the length, but... well, that’s part of why I’m putting it under the cut)

Most of the mechanics I think are an improvement on Explorers—and definitely on Rescue Team, since Explorers introduced a lot of improvements (like the way healing items are handled—in Rescue team you had to throw them at your allies, and only the hero could eat them directly from the bag). I like how Gates handles experience for allies left at home, and the way that you can level up individual moves and share them among everyone rather than using a ginseng on a single move for a single pokemon (that I don’t think retains that level up if you forget it but then go and remember it again? I can’t recall that part), and some of the team skills are useful… but the problem is that they are really luck-based in terms of actually acquiring them. I’ve only gotten two so far. Comparatively, IQ skills were very much based on the individual, but also a lot easier to get, allowing for a sort of customization aspect? It allowed more care and a better sense of victory, at least.

The V-wave thing is pretty cool, though, especially when paired with how exp works, even as annoying as I find Victini.

Getting rid of the hunger mechanic is I think positive overall? It does free up some inventory space, which is nice, but it also removes a bit of the puzzle and challenge for some of the longer dungeons—and I can’t help but wonder if the reason they did so is just because of how many dungeon layouts in Gates were comprised of many, many sprawling hallways with tons of intersections and small, unnecessary turns and corners, but only, like, three rooms—meaning that everyone would starve to death if the hunger system was involved. I know Explorers had some of those, too, but those were mainly for later stage dungeons, where bigger challenges were expected. It also makes a lot of the dungeons… really boring and repetitive? Like, the graphics are great, but there isn’t really too much variety of the non-plot dungeons beyond differences in color schemes? And while the puzzles involved are excellent, there aren’t really a lot of them, and so far Inflora Forest is the only one where the puzzle is still relevant after making it through the first time—the other ones seem to keep the bridges and stairs you make the first time around, leaving those sections rather superfluous.

And while I like how Companion mode lets me have more of a casual sort of playstyle, and I can build up Paradise and do mini-games without interference from the plot… It kind of makes Post Town really unnecessary beyond specified plot scenes? Like… I don’t have to wait to open any Treasure boxes. Once a dungeon ends I get instant gratification of finding out what’s in them (assuming I have enough money). Same thing with the gold bars. And since Quagsire operates as a shop as well, there is really no need for Kecleon (in Post Town—the ones in the dungeon are still extremely useful) beyond maybe him having some rarer items on occasion—but even then, getting certain shops in Paradise also makes him even more redundant.

 (Though, speaking of Paradise shops: Elite boutique—not worth it. Maybe if all shops operated that way—were only around for a specific period of time before inevitably closing—it would be less grating… but there was no warning that that shop would only be run for a few days before closing forever, in addition to the fact that I have to watch Gurdurr’s sad face and laments about destroying the place [after a big part of his backstory involved someone deliberately destroying his work, mind you!] when they could have easily solved it as running more like the travelling salesmon in post town—you never know who or when someone will show up, or how long they’ll stay, but the possibility is at least there that someone will show up again.)

I also don’t like how you can’t stack missions—it really takes the emphasis off of the actual “exploring dungeons” part of the game, and puts it more on trying to build up Paradise. Which is fine, but it just doesn’t feel like traditional gameplay for a PMD game, you know?

As far as characterizations goes… It’s honestly kind of a mixed bag for me in comparison with some of the other games? Like… I do think that, overall, your immediate team and allies had better characterization visible in story, following the plot. As in, they came right out and showed you in the cutscenes, and didn’t depend on you going and talking to them individually in town, reading their diaries, and playing special episodes. I don’t think that the partner is the absolute best-characterized one writing-wise, but they were very, very well-done and do show good growth throughout (Rescue Team is the worst, mostly because of how bland they actually are—especially in the Post Game, where they are completely optional, and no longer follow you around or really talk to you at all like an individual character, rather than just another pokemon you recruit from dungeons [and on that note—I’m kind of sad that Gates got rid of the feature that actually let you talk to your team in the dungeons themselves. Sure, most of what got said was the same ten or so bland lines for everyone, but… I still liked having that option to just turn around and discuss things, especially since at some points it was unique based on where in the plot you were!)

But at the same time… that does take a little mystery out of it? Like… it makes your own (the actual, physical player’s) relationship with them a bit… less rewarding? You aren’t actually working at forming them, this way, the way you would be if you were exploring the town, happened across someone from the guild, and then decided to talk with them. That way, learning all these cool little hints and quirks was almost like a puzzle itself, something you had to work for, something that really embraced the idea of exploring and immersion.

Which is also kind of why I’m of two minds about the fact that the hero does actually have scripted lines, beyond just their thoughts and the little “running motion” indicative of things being said, but not actually described. There aren’t as many dialogue trees, you don’t really get to make that many choices, and the lack of space left up to the imagination… well, it doesn’t make me resonate with the hero as much as in other cases? I don’t really feel like they’re “me,” or could be “me,” so while they do feel in-character for the “character” of the hero… it just doesn’t feel like I’m actually the hero. It doesn’t leave space for that option the way that the other games do.

As for other characters… honestly, it’s kind of hit and miss for them as far as characterization goes, and I think a lot of that has to do with my earlier remarks about how unnecessary Post Town feels most of the time. I feel like they were really over-ambitious with their ensemble cast? Because, sure, some of them like Leaveanny, Swadloon, Lillipup, and Herdier I thought were well done… most of the others were rather forgettable? There were some travelers like Trubbish, Mienfoo and Dwebble that I really like, but I think that most of the others just don’t get enough characterization. Sure, it’s nice that a lot of them care about the player and greet them as their own individual, clearly trying to convey that relationships are being formed… but I just don’t care that much for the town as a whole? The others don’t really grab me, or add that much to the plot at all? Especially since half the time bigger plot discussions only really happen with the group in Paradise?

Like… Explorers had a lot of people, but the fact that they did travel in and out of town, and would sometimes go missing for days, but clearly had their own little stories and plots they were following was really interesting! Same with Rescue Team—the Pokémon Square was small, but it actually felt like a lived-in town? And I’m pretty sure the main towns of PSMD that you were actually using as a hub had that too—Serene Village definitely did. But Gates… I just don’t really see it. They were too ambitious, and they fell flat. I feel like maybe they could have fixed this if you were allowed to visit it in Companion Mode, too—or if they just didn’t let you visit any non-Paradise shops and only allowed Quagsire to edit your party—or if they shrunk it down so that the only thing there was Swanna’s place and the hill, and had the individual characters visit on a basis similar to Explorers, but… yeah.

As far as plot/story goes… well, some of that is hard to determine, just because of how much is involved in a good story. Characterization, like I said, is fine overall, but the story does seem really… low stakes? For the most part? Especially when compared to Rescue Team or Explorers. I think it has good progression over all—especially when compared to the mess that was PSMD!—but there isn’t quite as much of an overall… driving force? I think?

Like… okay, I know I’ve said before that it is a little weird that the hero in Explorers—and I guess also in Rescue Team—spends so much time focusing on other stuff rather than figuring out exactly what happened to them, why they turned into a pokemon, why they have amnesia, etc. (especially since that is part of their stated reason for joining the Guild in Explorers), but in all fairness… what else are they really supposed to do? They have amnesia, they have no clues as to a starting place to even look, it makes sense that they would want and need a safe place and routine figured out so that they can even start looking. And there are some hints pretty early on about their backstory/the state of the world (in dreams and dimensional screams). But the Gates hero… well they actually do have something of a starting place, and they have far more reason to really care about figuring all that out. For one thing, they do not have amnesia. The game makes that pretty clear, and the partner even makes comments on that—asking about friends and family, etc.

So why aren’t they making more of an effort to figure out how to get back home so they can actually reunite with those loved ones?? Or at least commenting on why they might not be concerned about that?? And since the hero doesn’t have amnesia, they also clearly remember the fact that they were called to the pokemon world specifically because someone was asking them for help—and they had a visual description of who they assumed that someone to be. They have a starting point. Why are they not asking around about that?? Why did they wait for more dreams to happen first? And, while it did get brough up in game a little bit, with them commenting on how maybe it wasn’t the greatest idea for them to be taking one of the spots on that initial Great Glacier Expedition because they do, actually, have some responsibility they’re supposed to fulfill, and they don’t know if they’ll have more dreams on the way… they still go on that expedition! Without bringing any of that up verbally, or to the partner who has by that point already agreed that they will go with the hero to save that pokemon as soon as their dreams clear up more.

But… like… they shouldn’t just be being so passive about this??? There are things they could all be doing to prepare! And maybe that is getting into some different facets of the partner’s personality, and showing how really dependent they are on the player—like, having their reluctance to do more be because of how much they really don’t want them to leave after (which does get brought up a little bit)… but I don’t think that’s quite what the game was going for—and if it was, then that needed to be made clearer.

So I guess over all… I think that Explorers is a better game to play if you do want something more story/plot driven, and want to, well, explore things a bit, while Gates is better for a more casual sort of play. Like… the actual plot almost seems like the side story or Special Episode in the face of building up Paradise.

Though, that probably does say more about an individual’s playstyle over the game itself, huh?

I guess… if you’re more into direct characterization via cutscenes, Gates is better (though there are times I wish it showed more of the visuals—like for some of the party scenes, or the housebuilding scene). But if you want a more integrated plot, Explorers is better—or Rescue Team, but it doesn’t have as good of a post-game).

And PSMD… well, I still stand by my earlier statements that I think the first part of the game was great, and the partner was the best-explored/characterized of them all… but it quickly lost plot cohesion and most of the adult characters are terrible people who should not be allowed around children—and the player character really got screwed over by basically everyone and never got closure for any it.

(Also, I can’t actually say anything about DX, since I don’t have a Switch, but from what I’ve seen it’s basically just Rescue Team with some improvements to gameplay mechanics? The story seemed to be pretty much the same from what little I saw.

Oh, and also Ekans’ sprite looks very, very weird.)

...I think that’s everything I had to say for now.