#in setting a good example of how Unova gyms work

[alolanrain]

Cilan: I’m the oldest of the trio. It’s only proper of me to set a good example!

Skyla: *major gym leader misconduct*

Cilan: *very deep breath* I’m going to hurt someone

[crystalelemental]

What about Gen 5 are you not liking? If I had to guess, I’d say the high evolution levels, considering you’ve been using weaker Pokemon these runs.

This is kind of a long answer, but it's not really the evolution levels. The crux of the problem is scaled experience was a bad idea.

In general, scaled experience changed the game from "By and large you'll be on level for most boss fights, but you might be underleveled sometimes, and will definitely be a bit for the League." This isn't usually a problem. What changes in Gen 5 is that being underleveled is now borderline mandatory, and by a pretty significant margin. Couple this with gym leaders having fully evolved Pokemon, then again with massive expanded movepools like Lenora having goddamned Crunch as Gym 2 despite not even seeing Ghosts that could cheese Normal, and the problems start to escalate.

Earlier games, type matchup was still significant, and your solutions to a gym could be found nearby. I use the Kanto examples all the time, so other showing: Morty's surrounded by Normal types that all know some form of Dark or Psychic move or have Scrappy if they're Miltank, and in GSC can learn Mud Slap to perform the same function. This happens even through Platinum, where major threats like Gardenia, who has a Roserade at Gym 2, a much more fearsome final stage statistically, can be handled with counterpicking because her moveset is still all Grass moves. The Bug/Flying types earlier handle her no problem.

So okay, let's talk about the last gym I beat: Clay. Clay has some options that work against him around his gym, including Ducklett on the bridge (Water), Vanillite near the frozen storage (Ice), and Deerling on the next route out (Grass). Pick any of the weaknesses of Ground, right?

I chose Deerling. I like Deerling and have never run it before. I caught my deer baby at level 23. Clay's highest level is 31. Deerling does not learn a single damage-dealing Grass-type move until level 32. You could argue that Deeling has Jump Kick, which is strong against Krokorok and Excadrill, and just tanks Palpitoad all day. But this is not exactly a clean solution. Vanillite and Ducklett are even worse, because Excadrill is hella faster than them, and has Rock Slide which will OHKO.

Now, this isn't the first time a gym has had answers to what exists around it. But it becomes a problem when tied to the fact that level grinding normally does not work. EXP scaling poses the problem of getting Deerline 9 levels just to have a super-effective attack, and how the hell are you supposed to get that? Even taking on the extra route exclusively with Deerling, who isn't even good at some of those fights, you don't get enough EXP, because scaling starts to hit real hard.

What this results in is not just the major gym battles being challenging, but several random encounters being unnecessarily difficult. The fishermen in the desert are the biggest example. They're basically at your level, because every encounter is, but they have Basculin, which are statistically really strong as single-stage Pokemon for that point in the game, and my Woobat and Tympole could not handle them. It was a bit of a joke at the time, about how you'd go through a whole-ass cave and have a random encounter battle set up outside of it before getting to a Center in the old days, but now there's a healer on every route. But man, that's because you goddamned need it in Unova, because every fight is worse than previous generations.

I do have to admit I'm also just kinda burning out on playing these games right now, so I'm not definitely putting it aside, but I can't play it right now. I'm taking on other games and we'll see if I go back to it, or just straight to Gen 6.

[prof-peach]

If you could cross over two of your favorite games, which would you choose? Please explain, why that crossover would be a good match.

Oh you’re going to regret asking this one, I’m bout to GET SERIOUS.

So Pokemon, obvs, I love the whole world it’s built in, but the games imo are REALLY boring, I haven’t enjoyed one a lot since gale of darkness, the main ones just are a little too linear obvious plots, pretty standard setups for story and style. Speaking of style, the games lack personality, the models aren’t animated well, moves have no dynamic energy or visual difference at times, and the turn based battle style just feels kind of, I don’t know, old? Slow? Just doesn’t suit what I enjoy personally, gives me a FInal Fantasy vibe and I just cannot stand the speed at which things happen in those games, plus not into 3rd person ‘let’s build a team of people’ much, but that’s a problem for another time. With this all in mind, the game I wish would happen is like gen20 Pokemon, far future sadly, I doubt I’d see it in my lifetime but god I’d be happy if I did!

Ok so take the newest Zelda graphics, the visual treat that was BOTW, open world, puzzles, not JUST combat, you got side missions, hunt the chickens, find missing pets, parcels, items, whatever. Love it! The horse taming?! Amazing you funky little game. Now take the bad guys and beasts from that. And put Pokemon in instead. Give them the diversity, the life and believable natures that BOTW gave the animals, I followed a frog in BOTW for 15 minutes, and it was a great experience, it felt like it was believable. Above world spawning, ACTUAL difficult gameplay, rare spawn rates, make dragons hard to get again, cmon, it’s too easy now, make it so we need a certain set of Pokemon for certain tasks. Water types big enough to carry you will be able to get you to new areas, rock types that can help you climb mountains faster, or break through blocking boulders. Actual towns with more than 4 houses in them, shops, barns, farms, homes. Like little link with the heat, maybe ice types would struggle in volcano areas, or bug Pokemon not be so comfortable in gale force winds. Give the weather more of an effect on your partners. Mounts, don’t even get me started that Pokemon Let’s go had you able to ride any of the larger species, but swsh did not???? Bitch please, give me my rideable Pokemon. The wild area too was far too closed, limited, online was laggy and a mess, camping is limited, let me do more with my team. Pokemon for me is all about the actual creatures, how they live with humans, and the many wonderful things they’re capable of. Yes of course it’s cool they can fight, but like what else you know?

I’d love a game that lets me buy a plot of land, maybe plant things, custom build things. I’m a sucker for the fallout4 settlement builds when they’re modded to hell and back, they’re fun! It can be a really calm and creative process. If I could do that and skip the main campaign and all the battles for a bit? Amazing, it sound perfect for me. I am that distracted hoe collecting flowers while the kingdom burns in the background. Side quests are everything to me. Let me give homeless people enough money to get them in a home? Let me adopt Pokemon that are stray around the town? Plz oh plz bring me a Pokemon game that allows me to work WITH my team to do more than KO other species. I want to save and buy a plow for my buddy gogoat, and grow amazing foods to sell to get currency to spend in decorations, to spoil my team. Give me actual game consequence, if I ignore that sick and injured Pokemon I find in the wild, later maybe it’s family don’t want to help me out with a different problem, too stricken from grief. I am all about the average bits, the old women who need help, the lost pets board in town, the general day to day stuff. Let me get cosmetic items for the Pokemon I keep, cute outfits, special gemstone items, let me actually live with them, or even feel remotely like they’re realistic.

Ok so in game, if it’s looking like BOTW it’s pretty beautiful but also stylised, I’d have it so you can send out a maximum of 3 Pokemon from your 6, using bumpers and such to throw them out. If you hit the trigger you switch from controlling the human trainer, to the Pokemon you’ve targeted with a standard lock on targeting system. You then can be the leader, but be the Pokemon. You could technically defeat the game without a human if you wanted, which incorporates the mystery dungeon games I think, and caters to that crowd. I’d love to see the use of attacks out of battle, things like using water gun to grow plants, using ember to start a campfire faster and stave off the cold. There’s no consequence to Pokemon anymore, and I think that’s where it’s lost me. I have to admit I miss the days of a poisoned pokemon fainting if you don’t heal them soon enough, I miss gym battles that were actually tough, damn, try picking charmander in red and beating brock without grinding in viridian forest first, it’s not easy. And I loved that. Yes it’s a child’s game, it will never be difficult again, but god it’d be nice to have a bit of a challenge, or maybe a difficulty setting, so some could play it with hostility turned off, great for kids, or you can be n adult like I know so many Pokemon fans are, and play it on expert mode and ACTUALLY have to work hard to beat the game. Alternate skill trees anyone? Train gun a fire type to ACUTALLy combat water moves?? Please! Cmon! It frustrated me that every challenger has pretty much a systematic set of moves to use to win. Grass opponent? Fire attack spam until you win. It’s dull, so at least with very difficult tricks to either find or learn in game would make it more achievable if you can send that fire type in and I don’t know, train them so much the heat evaporates the water mid-battle and you suddenly have a shot at winning. Pokemon has taught me that if you work hard enough you can achieve something, but the games just have such strict ways to win. Feels wrong.

In terms of battling, let us BE the Pokemon, let us learn to dodge, train our speed, train our defence, make a team of truly tough Pokemon instead of just, average? Some species have a cap on their skills, a squirtle has lower stat points than a Charizard, but you can’t ever change that? Let me choose the Pokemon I believe in, and let me work with them until they’re just as good, if not better than the game tanks. This would also make online battles more interesting. Everyone picks the top trio. Fairy, dragon, legendaries. And yknow what? It’s boring. That one IRL fight with the monster Pacharisu that won in the world tournament with follow me and the situs Berry? Unbelievable, I love that little rat so much because of this, so let us all have a chance to build a team that’s strategically viable, strong, and potentially a winner formula, even if they aren’t fully evolved, or the biggest Pokemon in the world. Yeah maybe you have to grind way harder with your unevolved Pokemon, but you get to the end game and win, because you put love and time into species that you enjoy, not just good fighters.

Unfortunately I am beholdent to Todd-idiot-Howard, and I love the Eldrescrolls and fallout games (before they got dumb, not that I don’t play the new ones. 76 I’m looking at you, you big asshole game.) honestly I hate online games, so none of that junk, just a good old fashioned open world sandbox game is plenty. Games for me are an escape from others, not an invitation to socialise. To each their own of course, and I do play online games sometimes, just pretty short lived ones, over watch and rdr2 for example. Would they be sometimes better on private servers? Yes of course, fallout76? Want to play with others? No. I do not. Please leave me alone. And if you buy a private server you’re feeding the monster that is Todd Howard, the man the myth the asshole, then we’ll get more bad games like 76. I just so desperately want the Pokemon company to see what a beautiful potential game they’ve got on their hands, that could be suitable for far greater audiences, but instead they’ve focused on the kids. It’s fine, it’s functional, but it’s lost to the fans from day 1, that are all 20+ years old now and want something meatier to play, something far more broad and inclusive. I also hate that there’s no wheelchair option in any Pokemon game. Like cmon, it’s not hard to include that.

In short, BOTW + Pokemon, with a sprinkle of open world sandbox to it, less fighting, more fun. Or, at least both options. Sure, go fight everything, great, but I want to farm carrots over here with 6sunflora, plz let me have some peace.

Edit: I forgot about harvest moon, chuck some of that in there too.

SECOND EDIT: someone in the comments mentioned to put this in Unova? Plz love yourselves, this game would be ALL MAPS. Stuff one singular location, this is the ideal game, put every map in it, join them, put islands in, make them more explorable, more detailed!

[anti-anti-a-la-bi-bi]

Can you rant about pkmn sword? Rants are enjoyable to read

Alright, so it took me a bit to get my thoughts in line. Lets start with how I feel about the pricing: I am all for having 30 euro DLC over a third version for the full price, however, I do think that if they do that, as well as with the dex cut, they should quit with having there be two versions. Nowadays, with internet communication, it doesn't really do much for social interaction, it's just another hurdle for those of us who wish to complete the pokedex(and especially when they remove the GTS and make you pay for it later). It's still a scummy tactic, and no one will complain if there's just one version+DLC. It makes a big difference in the pricetag, since being forced to buy nintendo online, or two switches and two games to trade, are both mandatory payments to make in order to achieve one of the encouraged goals within the game. Furthermore, people within one family will likely be using the same cartridge, so if there is only one version, all in all, it'll make a huge difference for people who use a whole switch as a family as well. Also, I do not think that sword and shield are worth 60 euros. I think they're worth 30 at most, since the base game is worse than x and y/sun and moon. They also locked following pokemon behind a paywall, which is bullshit and yeah, fuck that. I think swsh are enjoyable, but not when they sell at the same price as games with way more content, games that look much better, and usually both combined. For what the switch can do, swsh look really bad, actually. There are a few pretty spots, but that's the exception, not the rule. To add on to things that I think are horrible; the raid battles, especially the more difficult ones, in single player. I don't have switch online, and as such, I need to do all raids alone. But, the raids are near-impossible in a lot of cases unless you get really lucky with the npcs and ai. I got two gmax Toxtricity by using wide guard with Zamazenta for over four hours until I finally got lucky for each. This is both to blame on the ai, and the horrible selection of pokemon. Pokemon that should have evolved at level 60, well, they are still in their first form, so you have magikarp and mudbray at a 5 star raid. At least have them evolved. They have good moves, yes, but their base stats are so low that it doesn't matter. Also, the shield mechanic. It is predetermined how much damage you can do, and if you land a supereffective hit, it's not unlikely for it to only do a sliver of damage and then the shield goes up. It's annoying, makes battles extremely difficult because a lot of npcs just won't attack while the shields are up, and it just becomes a waiting game if your pokemon is just there to act as support(such as my Zamazenta with wide guard to prevent Toxtricity from 2-hit ko-ing all my teammates). Also, the fact that even if you beat a gmax pokemon, there is still a chance not to catch them. It often takes ages to even defeat them, and then, 'Congratulations! You just wasted over half an hour of your life! Get fucked!'. I had this happen with Applin t w i c e. Also, the wild area is... It's okay, really. Nothing exceptional, my immersion is ruined by the sheer amount of pop-in, something that happens even when there aren't a lot of models on-screen, the Onyx in Motostoke being a rather infamous example. The trees look like shit, the berry trees look like they don't belong, to put it bluntly, it looks like something a student would make in unity. You'd expect something better from the highest grossing franchise in the world. The ai of the pokemon is often pretty bad, with them just moving in circles, I have seen so many synchronized pokemon at this point that it's just... Egh. Also, the customization options are still so limited? Can't choose eyeshape, can't choose clothes that actually make your character stand out, and you can't even choose your challenger uniform after you become the champion. Why does Leon get a special uniform? I have never seen a pokemon game so set on making you feel like a celebrity after you win, yet you don't get to have much of an identity in the game even after you win. It didn't have to be difficult, just a customization screen inside the dressing room of the Wyndon stadium, perhaps some extra clothing options? As for things I like: I like the atmosphere. The music, though sometimes repetitive, does help my immersion. The gym leader theme is dynamic, shifting with what happens in the battle, making me feel like I'm actually standing there, and the ambient themes work well as well, though those were rarely encountered at all. I love the characters, the trainer cards giving you some backstory on them, they are, together with the Unova leaders, the most present gym leaders today, with a history of their own. It felt amazing to just read the trainer cards(and I enjoyed making my own as well). The towns have their own themes, and while I can't remember the names, I do remember each location well. But. There was so much wasted potential. The castle in Hammerlocke? The large building in the east? Hammerlocke's castle: the vault, 1 room and a roof. The large building? Nothing. You don't even get to see the attraction inspired by the London Eye. Wyndon is so small??? It has a small shopping street, the stadium and the inn and that's about it. Castelia City was bigger than that. Overall, the game feels rushed. The gym challenges at the start were cool, but by the end it's more of "battle these trainers in a row haha". Also, the animations. Gamefreak claimed to need to remake all models(they did not, the 3ds models were used with better textures), and to make better animations(only for newer pokemon, most pokemon used their pokemon amie animations and further animations from the 3ds titles). The animations are still bad, especially for something as powerful as the switch. I enjoyed the lore behind the region, but I really, really dislike Dynamax. I like gigantamax because the pokemon usually changes in a way that is distinguishable, but regular dynamax... Nah. Give me mega evolution back, perhaps update its mechanics so it changes the gameplay more and requires more strategy, but Dynamax just feels like something that is so low-effort. Pokemon but beeg. The curry making, on the other hand, I love. Pokemon should not be a cooking game, but it made me feel like I was actually bonding with my pokemon, that they were present in the mc's daily life. I would love to see more additions like that, the possibility to become the kind of trainer you want. Enjoy swimming? Perhaps go for a swim with your pokemon? It doesn't need to be complex, but I'd just love to see my pokemon interact with each other and with my actual character more. The routes are too linear. The last route is literally a straight line with some trainers, with next to no effort in it. I also think that the handholding needs to be talked about. When you get to Motostoke and have signed up for the gym challenge, a staff member will lead you to the in, which is literally one screen to the left. Such examples are found all over the game, and I hate it. They do let you skip some tutorials, which is a welcome change, but characters are so willing to force you to stop with whatever you're doing and make you listen to their speeches that it still often feels like a slog, especially because you don't get to do shit besides gyms until the very, very end, in which the fucking champion tries to catch a legendary in a regular pokeball, not even a great or ultra ball. The lore is great, but the actual story is so nonsensical that I just didn't bother to pay attention. Hop literally recycles Hau's animations. I would love for him to have his own, so he'd feel more separate, because they ARE different characters, with different goals. But Hop is even more annoying than Hau because he just won't shut up. You walk 5 steps and he shows up somewhere, for no reason at all. Meanwhile, there's this big event going down, a crowd has gathered, you get there and... Leon has already resolved it. You just get a picture, that was what you wanted, right? That sums up most of the game 'the adults will deal with this!' . The picture doesn't even look good. Swsh is fond of just showing you pictures, for example, right before the climax when Rose and Leon are talking. There's no background music or anything, just pictures and the sound of the textbox. It feels so low-effort. Also, if you have a character that is a singer, and he uh, he sings, it MAY be a good idea to include VOICE ACTING. They had someone sing in Black and White 2! Surely they can do it on the fucking switch, several years later? The mouths flapping about just feels incredibly awkward. I would recommend the game if you can find it somewhere for cheap, not for the full price. There is enjoyment to be had, but it's subpar in comparison to other games for the same price. I may rant further depending on how much time I have.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Elaborate on the geopolitical thing you mention about Noelle???

My lunch break is a perfect time to write up a treatise about international relations and governance in my Pokemon ‘Verse! Just remember you were the one that asked about it. And thus, asked for a thousand words about it. 

-

There’s two main governmental structures in the world - the Pokemon Leagues, and the Ranger Union. 

The Ranger Union encompasses Fiore, Almia, and Oblivia, with that one governing body for the three regions. The RU is headed in Almia, where the standard laws are set; Fiore has more autonomy beneath that umbrella than Oblivia does, by virtue of having more local Ranger bases and leaders who can set their own local rules, as opposed to Oblivia, which is sparsely populated and has its few Rangers directly in contact with the RU.

Unlike the Union states, League regions are entirely independent of each other, and are just categorized together because they all follow the Gym/League structure. (Depending on the person talking about the geopolitics of the world, Alola may or may not be lumped in with the League regions or set aside as its own unique entity, because it recently set up its own League but it’s still governed by council led by the island Kahunas, rather than a Champion.) Each League governs only over its own discrete region - e.g. the Sinnoh League, the Kalos League, the Unova League - except for the Indigo League, which covers both Kanto and Johto.

And I could break down the internal structure of how the League regions run even further (in many of them, e.g. the Indigo League, “Champion” is sort of a complicated, muddied title that multiple people can hold at once but only one has the authority of it, while in Galar only one person claims it at a time but it doesn’t necessarily grant any authority) but right now we’re looking at an international level. We can get to that if anyone has even gotten this far into my chatter, and I haven’t even gotten to the question yet!

-

Noelle is, for reference, an Almian Pokemon Ranger. In my little meme answer about her, I mentioned that the Ranger Union states trend more tropical in climate than many League regions. (Alola being a tropical exception, of course.) The difference in their climates has allowed some species of pokemon that have gone extinct elsewhere to continue to thrive in Fiore/Almia/Oblivia - the “fossil” pokemon as they’re known in common parlance, like Aerodactyl in Fiore, Rampardos, Bastiodon, and Omastar in Almia, and Armaldo, Kabutops, Rampardos, and Bastiodon in Oblivia. 

This...sometimes causes problems, when overzealous trainers from League regions find out about this. To get fully into that, now let’s talk about the cultural divide:

The Ranger Union promotes living in harmony with pokemon and sets very strict rules designed to protect the environment. Even ordinary-level Rangers aren’t allowed to take any pokemon but their partners out of their natural habitat. Immigration customs are very strict - Noelle’s family moved to Almia from the Sevii Isles, and fortunately for the ease of their being allowed into the country, none of them had any pokemon that needed to be cleared for entry. Trainers who are even only temporarily visiting on a trip or vacation are only allowed to bring one pokemon with them. Pokeballs are banned from crossing any of the Union state borders. They don’t want anyone disturbing the natural ecosystem by bringing pokemon in or out. Exceptions can be granted, but will take years to process and review - like if a retiring pokemon trainer wants to move to Oblivia to retire with their entire team, or if a trainer who visited for a few years made a friend that they want to take back to Hoenn with them, for instance.

Trainers wanting the tropical vibes generally choose to visit Alola instead, because Alola is more relaxed about its borders, but is still very different than most League regions with how they have their island trials.

League regions obviously have a very different cultural standard than the Union states. Galar is the only one with strict customs about what pokemon are allowed to be brought in (established by Chairman Rose and Macro Cosmos, but those rules are now loosening under Leon’s influence). And there’s a lot more free travel of pokemon around those regions as they accompany people.

The Union states are pretty tired of trainers trying to smuggle pokeballs into their borders to catch rare pokemon that are extinct in most other countries - again, go back to the “fossil” pokemon. And it’s worse when organized crime takes a stab at it - there’s poachers or Team Rocket type thieves who sometimes show up trying to take a bunch of pokemon out of the Ranger states to sell elsewhere. Omanyte fetch a real good price, you know! And they’re just...there, in Almia’s oceans!

So because of the cultural divide, the Ranger Union states don’t have particularly close relationships with any of the League regions. (Alola, again, has the friendliest relations with the RU.) And then relations soured further with a rise in poachers and other criminal types crossing the borders and causing problems. The Indigo League and the Ranger Union, quite frankly, have an abominable relationship that went very bad very quickly when Team Rocket first rose up under leadership of Giovanni’s mother. The RU demanded that they do something about this crime syndicate, and when the Indigo League couldn’t, they pretty much cut off any diplomatic ties that they had. (Giovanni when he took over Team Rocket honestly accidentally helped ease international tensions there, because he pulled Team Rocket’s scope back just into Kanto and Johto, rather than continuing to spread thin on the international stage. He caused way more problems for the Indigo League, sure, but at least the Ranger Union wasn’t one of those problems anymore!)

Toward the beginning of Lance’s tenure as Champion, after Team Rocket went to ground the first time (having been defeated in Kanto by two dumb of ass kids named Piper and Zeke), he started working on repairing relations with the Ranger Union states. Red (and his trusty Pikachu) ended up visiting Almia for a little while, so that the Ranger Union would actually have a good, friendly example of what Pokemon Trainers can be like, as opposed to them defaulting to assuming that they’re all lawless criminals. He and Noelle became fast friends after she was assigned to show him around Almia, and Red came back to Kanto to inform them all that Pokemon Rangers are very friendly too and aren’t just a bunch of uptight crunchy hippies with sticks up their asses. Isn’t cross-cultural exchange beautiful?

-

And that’s that on how the climate of the Ranger Union states causes problems in international relations between them and other regions!

[applin-around]

Paradise AU

Well, since it’s Pokemon Day, let’s go ahead and talk about the Paradise AU (totally not because I just finished typing it. Nope, planned it all along). The AU is supposed to be viewed as a game with branching paths, so I’ll be doing my best to portray my thoughts while giving the proper effects. We’ll only be covering the Galarian Region and Gordie as the player character. If enough people want, I’d be happy to share Allister as the PC and what’s going on in the other regions’ DLC.

The game starts with the narrator- a woman- talking about how the Regions have fared. It’s set on a Pangaea of all the regions, rather than them being apart. She recounts how Johto has become a massive raider kingdom, ruled by an Overboss with a few smaller bands, with their ferocious dragons quelling even the thought of rebellion. She explains how Unova suffered the worst of the attacks, almost everyone who survived remains in the ruins of a subway system. Hoenn is little more than a bunch of settlements just trying to survive. Alola is all but abandoned to the horribly mutated pokemon.

Galar? Galar seemed to have avoided just enough that they’re not quite so savage. The glittering jewel of the wasteland- Wyndon- far to the north. Smaller towns dot the landscape, but none capture anyone quite so much as Wyndon. Getting inside those walls is the dream of many-a-wastelander.

Gordie especially.

The scene cuts to black. He can hear people speaking. He hears a gunshot, then a ringing. The panicked voice of someone shouting for tools. 

His vision returned after a minute of silence. He’s in an old shack, a stranger there beside him. Strange… He can’t remember anything. Except for the face of a woman he… He thinks is his mother?

From there, the player gains control of Gordie. I’ll be covering the rough plot of each region DLC and personalities of characters. Please note that there are quite a few OCs meant to fill roles, but they’ll be largely ignored.

The Galarian Region is the base game. You have five endings without any updates or DLC

The Savior

The Savant

The Champion

The Demon

The Tyrant

Each ending is in lowering values of morality. The Savior and The Tyrant are completionist runs doing absolutely everything in one value of morality, good or evil. Savant and Demon are below, and The Champion is a special ending.

There are two main factions you can side with, plus Leon as a standalone. Before we get into the factions, let’s get into the characters.

Gordie is, as established, the player character. He has a default build you can go with- which is what he has if you’re playing as Allister, but can be customized however you see fit. Your choices will affect his tone and how he speaks to people.

Kabu is a veteran of a defunct group of military survivors. He’s one of the last survivors of the crisis that saw them all destroyed, working to keep himself hidden and away from others. He’s one of the first companions Gordie can get, within the starting town. He reacts badly to disrespected history and to the idea of machines having free will.

Piers is a former sniper for the faction that’s trying to gain control of the North. He was honorably discharged after an incident and never went back. He’s carrying with him the horrible guilt of his sister’s death and refuses to talk to Gordie about it without high enough affinity. He hates mercy killing and despises the faction coming up from the South. Gordie will lose him if he sides with that faction at all.

Melony is a doctor, working inside Wyndon. She’s one of the leading medics and she’s really just trying to help all these refugees trying to escape the battle before it tips. She’ll follow Gordie to the ends of the earth if he needs her to, and being around her increases his healing but lowers his intimidation. People just aren’t afraid of a man running around with his mommy.

Allister is a cursed child, which comes into play as the PC as well. He has a ghost trying to take control of him, and Gordie’s actions can influence if he loses control or not. It plays a much larger part as a player character.

Raihan is an unallied fighter. He’s just trying to survive out here and he really doesn’t want anyone taking control of his home. He’s the one to push Gordie towards siding with Leon. He is a powerful ally to have, both off and on the battlefield.

Other characters, generally, are refugees or trying to live a simple life. Gordie can recruit almost all the gym leaders as a temporary companion. For example, Milo is just trying to keep his farm going to feed Wyndon. Gordie can recruit him to help him find the cause of what’s causing problems with his water.

There are other factions, but the big players in Galar are what’s referred to as Legion, from the South, and Galar’s Rose, from the North. Leon’s faction is small, mostly just him, but he’s fighting hard.

The Legion is a glorified band of raiders to most in Galar. They hurt people and pokemon, they force people to obey, they’re slavers and criminals. Gordie can side with them but at the cost of the option of a good-morality ending. What they do is evil. Gordie cannot be good if he allies with them.

Piers’ personal experience with The Legion is worse than the other characters’. He despises them and will open fire immediately. He refuses to be near them and play nice, he will not disguise himself as a member. They’re the ones who killed Marnie, he’ll tell Gordie. That’s a half-truth.

Galar’s Rose is trying to protect the region, but they’re battling against a threat that’s horribly devoted to their leader. Cut off the head of the Seviper, they think. But that’s much easier said than done. All their assassins have been caught and killed. They’re different… Gordie can get any of the moral endings except the Tyrant. It really depends on how he handles things with them.

Generally, they are well-liked. Kabu seems a little against them but doesn’t specify. He won’t abandon Gordie, they’re better than The Legion.

Hammerlocke is the choke. It’s what they’re battling over. Control of the city that cuts the Region in half. Whichever faction takes it has a clear shot to take over and unite- or conquer- the rest of Galar. It would be Gordie that acts as the tipping point. The player’s input and control over his actions.

Now… I have one quest and scenes that keep playing in my head. Let’s cover that.

Gaining enough affinity with Piers unlocks a quest. You travel with him to the site of the incident, where he explains the incident. He walks along the path and tells Gordie of what happened. Finally, he stops at what seems like nothing. He drops down to his knees, his voice becomes choked.

He tells Gordie what happened to Marnie. Someone took her from him, sold her to the Legion. He chased them here, he hadn’t even realized it was the same place until after it was over. He had nothing, but as he watched from his vantage point, through his scope… He had only one way to save his sister from the horrible life she’d be subject to. He didn’t have enough bullets or resolve to go charging in to save her. He had only one option.

Two weeks later, if Gordie is not traveling with Piers, the broadcaster- the narrator- will speak to him through a radio station. Someone’s requested he come, alone, to pick someone up and escort her to her brother. She hasn’t spoken, but they think she will once she sees her brother. Gordie arrives at a refugee camp, a little ways from where the incident took place. Quite a few miles, really. Across the lake. He arrives to see another doctor with a Bronzor tending to a young woman. She’s sitting up, but her eyes look dull. She has a similar scar on her forehead to Gordie.

The doctor helps the girl stand and tells her that Gordie is going to take her to her brother. Her eyes get a light brighter. As Gordie walks her to Wyndon, he can talk with her about how she’s been doing. Weeks pass before they arrive. He leads her up the tower and calls Piers over. He looks… And the girl pushes past him. Excitedly running, light returned to her eyes. At the sight of her, Piers is shocked silent… But she runs into his arms. He drops to hug her immediately.

This quest gains a massive amount of affinity for Piers, and whenever he’s not traveling with Gordie, he’s much happier. He’s happier in general and fights harder. He has someone to protect now. He’s not just fighting because he has to. Because he wants to.

That is one of the examples of how Gordie effects the world around him… Though this quest can take a dark turn if Gordie sides with the Legion after… But we’ll leave that alone for now.

Gordie can save or ruin the lives of everyone in the wasteland. It’s all up to the player.

[askmerriauthor]

Pokemon SwSh Thoughts - Post Game

So I’ve finished Pokemon Sword’s primary content.  All that’s left is to finish up the PokeDex and drive myself insane trying to whip up all the variations of Alcremie.  That, and delaying buying an online subscription for as long as possible before I bother with trading to get the other game’s exclusives.  Here’s some thoughts on the game after the fact:

Pokemon SwSh really needed to come out in late 2020, period.  I’ve enjoyed the game so far, but I’ve played it for about a week without putting in too much time/effort grinding and I’ve already done pretty much everything there is to do.  I had my Starter leveled up to 100 before I even left the Wild Area for the very first time.  The pacing and content depth of this game are pretty much non-existent, whereas the majority of the effort has clearly been put toward refining the competitive combat development.  That’s great for those players who really like the battle system, but not so much for those of us who like story and broader gameplay elements.

Pro - Streamlined Gameplay One thing I’ve wanted in Pokemon for ages has been the ability to skip tutorials.  I understand the necessity of having them, as every game that comes out is going to be some player’s first and their presence is for that player.  But at least having the option to skip them for us old hats would be nice.  SwSh does that!  I was delighted to discover that the game allows you to bypass tutorials with a simple yes/no prompt when a new element is introduced.  How to catch Pokemon, type match-ups, how to heal at Pokemon Centers, and so forth - all the stuff previous games led us through by the nose has been made optional this time around.

I’ve seen some people saying that this game holds the player’s hand too much as it leads us from one gameplay element to the next and doesn’t let us progress at our own leisure.  To some degree this is true, but it’s far less egregious than in previous games, such as SuMo.  There’s yet to be a good balance between giving the player free reign and giving them enough guidance to ensure we never feel lost, but this has been an inoffensive example as far as I’m concerned.  The game does end up feeling rather railroaded, but I don’t necessarily consider that a fault of hand-holding. I’ll get to this matter later on.

Pro - The Style Galar is a very pretty region and the game makes good use of the Switch’s higher capacity to produce excellent backdrops for the player to explore.  Many of the Pokemon have charming animations (Falinks is my favorite on this respect).  The towns are all really well-designed in terms of visuals, especially compared to the bare-bones looks of older generations.  I feel like there could have been more, but what we got is still great.

Pro - Implications in Lore Those of you who know me know how much I love lore and world building.  Pokemon, as a franchise, is ripe with opportunity to examine its lore to the most tiny and obscure detail, so any new addition to the franchise is welcome on that front.  Galar has some pretty fascinating nuggets to contribute.

I love that the League in Galar, as well as competitive Pokemon Training in general, is treated like a career sport.  In specific, I love that this view and practice is exclusive to Galar - I wouldn’t like it at all if the entire franchise shifted to this angle, but it works great for a one-off region.  I like that Kabu specifically relocated himself from Hoenn to join the sports league as it doesn’t exist in his home region.  The Champion being a sort of major celebrity/superhero, the way Gym Leaders can recruit proteges or even inheritors of their rank from among contenders, the sort of clique all the Gym Leaders have with one another - it’s a really neat dynamic.  I also like the notion that actually completing the Gym Challenge isn’t something common and most Trainers who try rarely make it even halfway through.  That’s an interesting contrast to other regions where collecting Gym Badges seems almost as a given and the League itself is considered the real challenge, or where the whole endeavor is designed to be finished as a matter of course, like in Alola.

There’s also some really neat additions to the overall lore brought in from the Pokemon Masters mobile game.  While its place in canon is questionable, it does specifically mention Galar in a few places.  The idea that Pokemon who do not appear in the current Dex are banned from Galar by customs (perhaps identified as potentially dangerous/invasive species) is an interesting one.  So is the claim that Iris - the Champion of Unova in BW2 - is a cousin of Leon and Hop.  I love it when there are connections amid titles like that as it really helps build a more unified setting.

-Edit-: Darn, apparently those screenshots were fakes.  Strike that positive from the list, I suppose.

Mixed Pro/Con - The Availability of Pokemon and the Wild Area I’m not talking about Dexit - I have my own thoughts on that explained elsewhere and frankly don’t think it’s going to end up as bad as everyone is fretting over in the long run.  No, in this particular case I’m focused on the availability of Pokemon that are in the game itself.

To put it simply... it’s too easy.  I know that filling out the PokeDex isn’t supposed to be a huge challenge, but I’ve gotten the majority of it done - evolved forms, item-reliant forms, gender/size/color variations included - with pretty much no effort whatsoever.  I like the idea of the Wild Area in principle but what it ends up being in practice is lacking.  It’s too easy to just hoover up Pokemon at a breakneck pace, which leads to other zones and the Wild Area itself becoming pretty much immediately obsolete.  I have no need to return to them once I’ve gotten everything I need and there’s not enough general content to urge me to visit again.

The Wild Area itself is a big open sandbox that you can roam around in, which is nice compared to more linear zones in past games.  Galar has its railroad routes, but they’re brief (aside from the obligatory overlong water route, which even then is still quite a lot smaller than other regions’ have been).  However, it’s just that - a big open sandbox.  You can wander through it very easily and even traipse into the “high level” zones without fear because you can see all the Pokemon coming and give them a wide berth to avoid them.  There aren’t any obstacles or challenges within the Wild Area itself, and the game makes it supremely easy to find Pokemon even under specific weather/time conditions, which I feel is a missed opportunity.  I would have rather the Wild Area been MUCH bigger and more involved, full of places to explore and puzzles to solve.  Similarly, I would rather that Pokemon were more difficult to come by as well - that a greater deal of effort would have been put toward tracking and discovering certain harder-to-find Pokemon, with more in-game detective work to find your prize.

Mixed Pro/Con - The Characters The ensemble cast of new Gym Leaders are great - I enjoy the majority of them and frankly want more interactions, more encounters, just more in general.  That’s sort of the problem though - I want more.  The game itself criminally under-utilizes these characters, especially compared to how much more involved and explored Gym Leaders have been in recent games.  There is precious little content using the Gym Leaders here in Galar as it stands and I constantly found myself wanting them to hang out longer and have the chance to learn more about them.  Their League Cards are a neat little addition full of interesting tidbits about their histories, natures, and relationships with each other, but I would MUCH rather have gotten to see all that play out in the game itself rather than read it as a flavor blurb.

On the con side of this, however, is the fact that all of the characters are extremely one-dimensional.  We’ve been seeing a steady increase in the depth and development of supporting characters in the games since BW onward, with SuMo arguably having the most to date.  The overall characterization in SwSh is incredibly lacking by comparison as we don’t get nearly enough time to be with the cast, nor is the cast given the chance to present more than one note per.  Nobody has any sort of emotional growth or development.  The closest thing to a character arc in the game is Hop’s acceptance of the idea that he’s not going to be the Champion, but it doesn’t have anywhere near as much punch as it could and is over in the blink of an eye compared to how he spends THE ENTIRE GAME repeating the same “I’m gonna be the Champion/Hokage/Pirate King!” spiel every time he’s on screen.

Con - Dynamaxing and Max Raid Battles I’m not really on board with the whole “Mega-Evolution is best! No more gimmicks!” train because that’s just silly to me.  Every game has its gimmick and the way Pokemon gradually picks up tricks and traits from its past versions to consolidate into newer titles is one of its strengths.  That said, Dynamaxing is worthless and a pointless addition to the game, both in presentation and practice.

The visual of a Pokemon going kaiju is a neat concept and one I was initially intrigued by, but in practice it falls flat because it’s as thin as cardboard.  It’s just Mega-Evolution and Z-Moves smooshed together with an additional 3 round time limit tacked on.  All it functionally does is buff your Pokemon’s HP pool and add additional weather/status effects to certain attacks, but in some cases the Dynamax versions of attacks are actually weaker/less useful than their base form.  In Gym Battles all the way through the final League fight with Leon, I didn’t bother with Dynamaxing because my Pokemon were strong enough to not need it.  I could one-shot Dynamaxed Pokemon with ease using a non-Dynamaxed Pokemon and that really shows a flaw in the design if ever there was one.  Dynamaxing doesn’t add or improve anything vital to gameplay - it’s just fluff.

Max Raid Battles as found in the Wild Area are even worse.  For those of you who don’t know, these are instanced battles against a Dynamaxed/Gigantamaxed wild Pokemon where you team up with three other players/NPCs.  If you win, you get a bunch of useful items and have the chance to catch the wild Pokemon as well, which is the only way you can get certain Gigantamax-capable Pokemon reliably.

The issue with these Max Raid Battles is that they’re an absolute slog.  In the early stages of the game they’re all super easy to the point that I could solo them and thus gathered mountains of EXP-boosting candies, which let me overlevel my Pokemon beyond reason.  Since the whole “your Pokemon is too high level and won’t listen to you” thing apparently doesn’t apply to Starters and special Event Pokemon, I was able to max-level and run rampant across all opposition with my Starter and my special “thanks for buying early” Meowth.  HOWEVER.  The difficulty scale of the Max Raid Battles increases with your game progress, so by the time I finished the game and went back into the Wild Area, the Max Raid Battles’ difficulty had ramped up.  That’s an okay compromise on its face, but the manner in which the difficulty has increased is poor game design.  The battles aren’t any harder, they just take longer - the wild Pokemon has more HP,  tosses up a few rounds of shields to soak damage at the start and again halfway through the fight, and purges stat boosts from the player and party throughout the battle.  It just makes the fights a pain in the ass to get through rather than making them more challenging or fun, and it’s gotten to the point that I don’t even bother with them anymore.  They’re just not worth the trouble, not even for the sake of trying to farm EXP candies because, at this point in the game, all Pokemon in the Wild Area scale up to level 60+ and thus are perfectly serviceable as EXP farming fodder themselves.

On a lore side of things, Dynamaxing is really confusing.  There’s the whole visual aspect of the Pokemon growing to giant sizes and sometimes changing their appearances, and there’s these massive arenas built to facilitate the whole thing.  But the game itself goes out of its way to impress the fact that the Pokemon aren’t actually getting bigger.  They just appear to grow in size and haven’t actually physically changed themselves so Dynamaxing is more like a giant hard light holographic projection than anything else?  It’s just a really weird design choice to have made and I don’t understand why it was included.

Con - The Writing So, writing is very important to me.  It’s literally been my job for the past decade with various game studios.  I don’t consider myself any sort of literary snob as I feel there’s a place for schlock right alongside masterpieces - they all serve a specific purpose and fulfill a particular hunger the reader would like satisfied.

That said, SwSh’s writing is abysmal.

Right on the face, there’s not enough of it.  The game is criminally short and light on content, which directly impacts its pacing.  Remember earlier when I mentioned that things felt railroaded?  That’s because there’s not enough story to rest on - it all flies by as fast as can be, forcing the player along a very narrow and brief chain of events that don’t feel consequential at all.  Further, the player has no agency in events whatsoever.  It’s not the player’s story - it’s Hop’s story.  We’re the supporting role to his journey, shallow as that arc may be.  Hop is the one who initiates the events of the game without our input as a character and then we spend the entire game following him around, or being pushed into the next event by other characters who are facilitating Hop.  At no point is the player ever given the chance to express their own characterization, motivation, or even opinions.  Nearly every two-choice dialogue option that appears boils down to “Yes” or “Slightly More/Less Enthusiastic Yes”, which is a huge downgrade from the genuine negative responses and NPC reactions that were present in SuMo.

In terms of overall plot, SwSh has pretty much the same level of depth and complexity as the original Red/Blue titles, and that is as scathing a criticism in this modern age as I can possibly imagine.  The whole story is “run in a circle, collect badges, fight vaguely present villainous threat, fight league.”  We are actively forced from one gym fight to the next with no time to breathe, no story-focused events in between, and not even any chance to appreciate the gym, its leader, or even the towns they take place in.  It’s one and done - once you’ve got the badge there’s no reason to hang around and the story shuffles us along quickly as can be.  I mean that literally in some cases - there are hints of a greater plot at hand with Sonia investigating the history of Galar’s legends and the potential machinations of mega-corporate mogul Chairman Rose.  But each time those are broached in game play, the game pushes the player off-screen and says “Well, that’s not something you need to worry about.  Go get another badge!”  I mean, LITERALLY!  There’s a point where The Plot begins to kick in where Pokemon begin to spontaneously Dynamax and cause havoc, which is the narrative queue for the player to become involved and for the story to reveal a new facet.  But when that happens, Leon LITERALLY says “leave this to the adults, you just focus on your Gym Challenge” and runs off-screen to handle it himself.  It would be a good narrative subversion if it led up to things eventually getting out of hand and the player getting roped into things, or the player having the ability to defy such warnings and interject themselves into danger.  But that doesn’t happen - the game just forces us to focus on the Gym Challenge alone and keeps all the actual plot of the game off-screen away from us.  This is very poor narrative design and game design alike, and it all comes to nothing because we’re forced to clean up everything in the end anyway by battling the villain and legendaries as per usual.

Though I should also point out that there’s no villain in this game.

But what about Team Yell and Chairman Rose, I hear you ask?  They’re not villains, both literally and figuratively respectively.  Team Yell never really does anything other than act as brief gate locking elements throughout the game until you finish the Gym you’re at, then they bounce off to the next part of the route they’re set to block.  They don’t do anything bad and, as it’s later revealed, they’re actually just a bunch of Spikemuth Gym staffers who are posing as hooligans to support Marnie.  They’re literally not villains and, once you beat the Spikemuth Gym, they actually become supporting characters who cheer for the player character and help out against the actual supposed villain of the game.

The actual “villain” of the game is Chairman Rose and his assistant Oleana.  However, they’re only villains because the script says they are.  They don’t actually do anything bad throughout the entire game nor is there any indication that they have some sort of grand master plan.  The most we get is some unusual happenings like small quakes and explosions in the distance, but the game never allows us any chance to investigate - we’re just shoved off toward the next Gym each time.  So when Chairman Rose is finally revealed to be the Big Bad, it comes completely out of left field and seems to happen for no reason whatsoever.  Further, IT IS FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.  Chairman Rose’s plan and goal is never explained in depth - all we get is the vague indication that he believes that Galar isn’t sustainable and there will be an inevitable energy crisis in about 1,000 years, and somehow his EVIL SCHEME will fix it.  But, like, even Leon flat-out says “I understand your concern but you’re being hasty, this doesn’t need to be rushed, chill out for five seconds and let’s figure this out reasonably”.  Instead Rose interrupts the Champion match and announces his EVIL SCHEME on global broadcast for literally no good reason.  There was no dire immediacy that required him to do it right then and there, or in that manner, but the plot needed to move us along so that’s how it goes.

It really doesn’t help that, prior to all this, there’s absolutely no indication at all that Rose nor Oleana are bad guys.  They’re just business folk who appear to have nothing but good intentions and support for Leon, with the other adults of the cast all happily trusting them.  There is nothing to make them seem suspicious in practice and they offer no reason to doubt them at all, so them suddenly being the bad guys is just confusing.  Further, how the player is first introduced to the concept of them being antagonists is easily the most ridiculous logic jump and overreaction I’ve seen since the old Adam West Batman television show.  So get this: after a battle, Leon says he’ll meet Player and Hop for dinner to celebrate.  Player and Hop wait for Leon, but he never shows up.  Another NPC explains that Leon was called in for a last-minute meeting by Chairman Rose (who is his boss and has made such requests of Leon’s time throughout the game, as I feel is important to point out) and apologizes for having to miss the dinner plans.  Simple enough sort of situation, right?  The sort of thing that any reasonable person would shrug and say “Well, that sucks but okay, let’s go eat on our own then” to, right?  So what happens here instead?

The Player, Hop, Marnie, and her Gym Leader brother GATHER A SMALL MOB AND STORM CHAIRMAN ROSE’S BUSINESS HQ, FIGHTING THEIR WAY THROUGH SECURITY.

I mean, escalation much?  We all have smartphones - just send Leon a text, for goodness’ sake.  I’m playing through these events constantly going “why the hell are we doing this and why is everyone acting like it’s some sort of dire emergency?”.  And do you know what happens when we finally kick down the doors to Chairman Rose’s office?  We find Chairman Rose and Leon quietly having a peaceful chat, after which Leon apologizes for having to cancel the dinner plans and we all walk out together like nothing happened.  It was just this huge, needless overreaction that has no consequence and that neither Rose nor Leon even bat an eye at.  We, as the players, learn absolutely nothing of importance and are back on the Gym Challenge immediately with no functional changes to the narrative.

Like... what was the point of that?!  How was that the best option to try and put Chairman Rose and his underlings into the role of antagonists for us to oppose?

So what is Chairman Rose’s EVIL SCHEME anyway?  Basically he wants to provide Galar with renewable clean energy which... uh... is bad?  Somehow?  Apparently he plans to use a Legendary Pokemon called Eternatus - apparently the source of Dynamaxing - which is literally never mentioned at any point in the game except precisely when it’s time to fight/capture it, nor does fighting/capturing it have any impact on the story or setting.  You would think that the player being in control of a massive Eldritch horror that has UNLIMITED POWER at its disposal would be something of a sticking point somewhere in the story, but no.  Eternatus and Rose’s plan are never mentioned until precisely the time you need to deal with them, and once that’s done they’re both never mentioned again.  Done and done all in one.  No gradual seeding of information, no hints and clues throughout the game, no development of lore - just wham, bam, thank you ma’am and off we go.

Y’know, call me silly but in a game that has undertones referencing climate change, extinction of animal species, and criticisms against capitalism run amok, is it really a good idea to depict the guy advocating for clean energy to be bad?  That feels like a missed mark to me.

The post-game plot, should one bother to call it that, is just inane.  It basically boils down to a pair of one-shot baddies who show up and say “Ha ha! We’re rich and that means we’re better than everyone! Watch as we cause trouble for vague reasons, get hoist by our own petard, and then fuck off forever! Byeeeee~!”  The post-game is completely pointless and doesn’t add anything of value at all.  Which, again, compare to older games like ORAS’ post-game expansion content and it’s nothing but a damn shame.

SwSh’s writing is shallow and limited at best, with one-dimensional characters, no genuine conflict or resolution, terrible pacing, and repetitive elements that boomerang around over and over and over again to the point of annoyance.  Compared to what we’ve seen Pokemon achieve in earlier titles like BW, ORAS, and SuMo, it makes it all the more obvious that SwSh was not given ANYWHERE near the time and love it needed in development and is a massive downgrade in that respect.

Con - Lots of Style, No Substance To wrap all this up - I enjoyed playing SwSh as much as I did any other early Pokemon game.  I think that, as a first installment on a new system, it’s fine.  That’s all - it’s just fine.  It’s serviceable as a means of establishing the franchise onto the Switch and completing its move off purely-mobile mediums like the Gameboy and 3DS.  It’s pretty to look at and has a superficial level of engagement, but its prettiness and level of content very quickly reveal themselves to be only skin deep.  Once you get past the initial gloss there’s really nothing to this game compared to the content, involvement, and writing quality displayed in past titles on lesser-powered systems.  The towns are all pretty but there’s nothing to do in any of them aside from a Gym battle - there’s no additional fun to be had in each location, making them little more than set pieces.  The characters have initial appeal and potential for more, but the game never explores them at all.  There’s room for a bigger narrative and interesting story with the elements presented, but no opportunity to actually see them fleshed out.  The Wild Area seems big and involved at first, but as soon as you’ve gone around its loop once or twice you suddenly realize how small and compartmentalized it really is, and it lacks any reason to revisit in the end game.  The major game play function - Dynamaxing/Gigantamaxing - is little more than a novelty that is basically irrelevant to gameplay itself and, in an absolutely baffling decision by the folk behind the official competitive scene, is actually somehow banned from being used in competitions?  Like, not even “we’ve disabled the Dynamax button in online” but rather “if the competitive Pokemon you’ve spent so much time perfectly constructing has a Gigantamax form, it will not even be allowed access at all, so you better have an identical non-Gigantamax version on hand if you want to play”.  So, what exactly is the point of even having Gigantamax Pokemon then?

Everything about SwSh seems half-baked.  The ideas are there but they aren’t finished.  It should have been given much more development time and, having been in the position of the creative/dev team under demands from the shareholders, I completely sympathize with Game Freak’s devs in all this.  SwSh is ultimately a weak product but one with a lot of good ideas that weren’t given the chance to really shine.  As such, I’ve got rather high hopes for the next installment to improve on the unfortunately thin foundation SwSh has set.  Game Freak’s team has given us some amazing Pokemon games in the past and, assuming they’re given sufficient time and resources to make a title to their satisfaction, I have every confidence they’ll do so again.

[forgxtmxnot]

Anonymous has sent: Which League (or era of a League) do you think is the closest?

// Closest you mean in the sense of- trust, in good terms, loyalty and all of that stuff?

I just can’t and won’t comment on the Kalos region, simply because I haven’t played those games to form an opinion on it.

Alola also won’t be taken into consideration, since the League still is taking its babysteps in the region.

Lastly, Galar region: As of the time I write this post, the games haven’t come out yet. So there is literally nothing lmao.

LGPE isn’t a thing

With those out of the way. Read more bc of length!

If that’s the case- I would say that Unova’s League (BW era) most definetely served as some kind of refference- as to how a region’s pokemon League should be running and operating.

I like to imagine that even after those games events- with the change in the region’s leadership as well as the addition of Roxie and Marlon, things are still looking bright for them- it is just a matter of getting used to the changes.

Hoenn’s League likely comes in the second place for it (or competes with Sinnoh’s for that position), it is evident that this League in specific is used to constant changes in its formation (by the time RSE takes place Flannery is the most recent addition to the League, and Juan had recently returned to his gym leader position, Wallace was still “fresh” in his champion role [explaining why Steven was as active as he was]). Hoenn also has the luxury of having both current and previous champions, ready to jump into the action- when the situation calls for it.

You could say how this League is extremely flexible, and more fit to improvise when they are facing an unexpected situation. They can work as a team, but the gym leaders clearly need to be instructed to be more action-oriented/proactive. You don’t see a real animosity between the members.

Sinnoh is a curious case- likely due to its unique environment, weather, and landscape it is difficult to try and establish a coherent sense of union out of this League. I feel like the region is under the Winter’s mercy for basically how interactions go, and things operate there. The entire region is divided in half by a mountain, getting to certain locations can be made even more difficult due to it. And because of it- the gym leaders end up become more distant from one and the other, which ideally speaking isn’t good. Of course we see examples of close bonds between the Leaders (Maylene and Candice, Byron and Roark), but we also see how there is an apparent conflict (Need I remind about Byron offering Riley his position- before his own son? Who went on to take Oreburg’s spot far away from his father? Likely out of sheer spite and resentment, Volkner who because of his loss of interest in battles- is purposely avoiding or increasingly become hard to get in contact with by his colleagues).

Truly this League has a lot of problems, but they have a strong leadership. You could say how Cynthia is definetely carrying this League’s weight on her back. There is a lot of work to be done here- but much like how everything seems to happen in Sinnoh, it will be a very slow process. You could say that Sinnoh in their current state, isn’t in its brightest moment/highnote in its history.

Kanto and Johto may have been legally merged together into one, BUT the differences between the way the gym leaders operate and behave is night and day. I also like to think that the League- prior to RBGY/FRLG’s events, they were VERY close to going bankrupt due to how little attraction it was gathering from trainers.

Kanto is recovering from perhaps- the biggest blow, that just about any League could have ever foreseen/imagined. Having one of your gym leaders (the 8th one) outed for being the mastermind behind an organization that has been running illegal schemes, is the equivalent of shattering an entire organisation’s credibility and image. How does anyone feel safe towards the League after that? How do you sell the League ater that? It is no wonder they have to rely on someone, like Lance to try and rebuild this public image.

It is a slow process, that is starting to give signs of amending for their past mistakes. I wouldn’t say that the gym leaders are anywhere near closely knitted to one and the other, but it is evident they are all working together to try and patch things up.

Johto on the other hand...This is the perfect example of- how to not run a League. They are unable to work together, part of it being- because of their egos (they ARE the very BEST in THEIR fields- and they likely don’t like to be put on an equal ground as just about anyone else), part because they are stuck in petty drama (just see my tag on Morty- for the Dysfunctional League). A simplified way to explain their situation could be: The League employed the most competent gym leaders, their challenges and battles truly push the challenger to their utmost. But no one checked if they could work together as a team.

“Johto is Kanto’s countryside, while Kanto has its eyes set on the future. Johto is taking 20 steps towards the opposite.”

The idea of merging both Leagues, was in its theory to make administration simpler and easier for the champion and the staff. However, it is evident that Johto suffers a massive problem in its foundations forcing the champion to work double the expected amount and wihout any guarantee that there will be any positive outcome.

[pkmn-fangamer]

Pokémon Solar Light & Lunar Dark Review

Intro:

The game starts in Soltree Town in the players room. The player is sitting in front of his/her TV and is watching a battle between two Pokémon trainers. Your mother comes in and tells you that your best friend, Rodney, is waiting for you downstairs to get your first Pokemon from Prof. Pinewood. You walk to the lab with Rodney and the Professor lets you choose one of three Pokemon. After choosing your starter, Rodney runs out of the lab. The Professor tells you about a young girl named Keira, who is getting the last Pokémon, but it seems that she has forgotten it. After finding Keira in Mossy Town her mother tells you to go back to your house, because your mother has a gift for you. Back in Soltree Town you receive the PokéCom and the Running Shoes from your parents.

From then on, the player will set off on adventures through the Rikoto region. Along the way, the player, Rodney, and Keira will battle eight Gym Leaders, while trying to complete the Pokédex. After managing to obtain all eight Badges, the player will head to the Pokémon League to battle the Elite Four and the Champion.

How to Play:

Download and extract this file to the folder of your choice. If you don’t have a program to unzip files, I recommend Peazip, which is safe and works well. Once extracted, double “Game.exe” to play.

Story:

The story progresses like a main series game’s plot. It’s notably most similar to RSE/ORAS, because there are two evil teams present: Team Solar and Team Lunar. They’re racing to find specific stones to revive and control their respective legendary of interest. Unfortunately, the climax of their role in the story is pretty disappointing to me, but I won’t say any further so not to spoil you. Aside from the villains, you have your usual tree-based professor, a few rivals, and your eight gym leaders. There’s also a mega evolution specialist, who battles in her castle, and is portrayed as unofficial gym leader. I especially liked this detail.

The characters are just okay, and dialogue can be a little jumbled at time. I like that you have three rivals rather than one, but they’re not very well fleshed out. Each has a gimmick, but not much personality past that. The gym leaders were also okay, but not overly memorable. The only honorable mention is Jax of the Elite Four, who I believe should have been the champion of the game.

There are some adult themes present in the story, but I don’t mean this in an explicit sort of way. Rather, the game addresses adult issues you’d find in the real world. For example, to use the taxi service in Rustbolt City, you need to battle their boss to convince him to pay his workers more, as they’re on strike at the time. You are also asked to steal for a robber at one point during a quest, which is pretty neat.

Overall, the plot and characters weren’t too impressive, but they weren’t terrible, either. There was a good foundation for both that was lost along the way, it seems. However, the story and characters are still serviceable and fulfill their overarching role.

Score: 7/10

Pokemon:

In this game, there are Fakemon instead of Pokemon, and this can be seen as either good or a bad. While the sprite work for the Fakemon grew on me, some are heavily based on already existing Pokemon. Also, some Pokemon don’t have the highest design quality. Lastly, many of the better Fakemon don’t evolve until they’re pretty high leveled, anywhere from the high 30s to the low 50s, kind of like in Gen 5. This can be seen either as a good or a bad thing, I suppose.

Luckily, there’s a lot of good things about the Fakemon too. First is the sheer amount of them: there are 358 Fakemon to choose from, which is more original Pokemon than have ever been put into a new game at once. This gives you a huge selection to choose from, so no two people will ever have the same team. The downside of this is it’s hard to keep track of them all. However, there are some great ones to choose from, whose movepools and abilities have been handpicked with care.

The original moves made for this game are also a nice touch. One that stood out to me is Thunder Strike, which is a nice middling electric move that’s more powerful than Thunder Shock, but less powerful than Thunderbolt.

I also absolutely love that your first party Pokemon walks with you. This is a feature that really should be brought back in main series games, and the fact that they took the time to draw all 358 original Fakemon (and each shiny form!) as walking companions is very impressive.

Score: 8/10

Gameplay:

In terms of difficulty, this game is very middling. It’s not too easy or hard. If you battle all the trainers and a good portion of wild Pokemon during your journey, gym leaders won’t be overly difficult. However, grinding in this game can be difficult without the presence of the speed button, so keep this in mind when you use a repel or skipping trainer battles.

One of my favorite attributes in a fan game is a lack of HMs, and I was pleasantly surprised that this game replaced HMs with key items. This opens up a fifth slot in your party; no HM slaves needed!

The gameplay in SLLD (Solar Light & Lunar Dark) is brought to life through its attention to detail in many areas. I’d say you can spend up to two hours in almost every town and its surrounding area, just doing quests, finding hidden items, and talking to NPCs without getting bored. There are so many places to explore, each with a completely different set of Pokemon.

My biggest grip in this area is the length of space between towns. The worst example of this is the journey between Waytide City and Coralite Town. In the space between them, there is Route 9, then Goopool Swamp, then Route 10A, then Rainbow Reef, then Route 10B, then finally Coralite Town. There is one single player to heal your Pokemon in this entire stretch, and if you don’t bring a ton of healing items and repels, there’s no way you’ll make it the whole way continuously. There’s also a ton of trainers on every route, too many in my opinion, and if you don’t battle them all, you’re destined to be underleveled for gym battles.

Score: 8.5/10

Art/Music:

The overworld art is well done, mostly in Gen 5 style. I haven’t seen art like this in another fan game yet, so props for that.

Original music can be found in about 80% of the game, and is generally well-composed. I rarely found myself listening to other music while playing the game. It’s very electronic, and comparable to Gen 5, but I actually like this soundtrack better than the Unova one. This brought me to wonder: why is such a common track, the wild battle music, from Sinnoh when almost all other music is original? This also goes for the Pokemon Center and a few other themes. My best guess is that composing those tracks would have taken a lot of time.

In terms of character art, most of it is solid. However, the female player character is obviously heavily inspired by Lyra from HGSS. The sprite isn’t bad per say, but it is very obvious. On the other hand, the male player character looks very original.

There are a few visual/sound errors that I would fix. First, the selection highlight isn’t apparent enough. This may seem minor, but this can be the difference between winning a battle or losing if you accidentally switch in the wrong Pokemon. Additionally, both the sound for stat rising and falling is the same- it always sounds like your stat is going up. There are also a couple of Pokemon missing their cries when sent into battle.

Score: 8.5/10

Misc:

The fan content for this game is pretty great. There’s a very active discord channel, and a pretty up-to-date, accurate wiki.

Overall:

One stand-out quality of this game is the sheer amount of content it contains. Before I mentioned the amount of Pokemon created, and this goes for the size of the map as well. There are more towns and areas of interest in this game than any individual region, and as a result you can get in a huge amount of playtime. I ended my run-through with almost 30 hours. However, the downside to inserting a massive amount of content into anything can make the issue of quality control. While the quality of most things in this game is above average, some things did suffer a bit. For example, there are so many routes and areas, it probably was impossible to compose music for all of them. As a result, the Surf and Bike theme are both the cheesy Pokemon Essentials themes.

On the topic of glitches: unfortunately, there are a handful of them. Most aren’t game breaking, but the one that stood out to me is the fishing contest one. When you are warped to the fishing contest, you’re trapped inside the building’s roof instead of in front of the building. As a result, you have to open your menu and quit the contest, automatically putting you in last place. Another is in the Subhail Icecaps towards the end of the game. The game can barely handle surfing in this area, and constantly stalls, almost crashing whenever you surf.

Overall, I would recommend this game to almost any Pokemon lover. I’d especially recommend this one for Unova lovers, as this game is a fresh new adventure quite reminiscent of that region. If you’re looking for a traditional Pokemon game with Fakemon in it, this game should be a winner for you.

Final Score: 8.5/10

[fanfictionlive]

No, I'm not "Queerbaiting" you, why would I? (Vent/rant)

So lately I've been getting this dms on my tumblr and on fanfiction accusing me of queerbaiting. From what I can gather it comes mostly from my set of stories where I write two characters who are typically seen as romantically involved, but I write them as best of friends, bros, partners in crime and life, confidants, you know, the kind of friendship that's closer than typical friendship but with respect and boundaries, and no attraction.

I...writing this down I'm beginning to see why someone would see it as teasing romance. But i assure you there's none of that here, those relationships are wish fullfilment at their basic form, they're the kind of relationships I want to have with people and yet never have. More than that they're how I see the characters.

And sure, I know representation does matter and fanfic is a great space to find it. How many times have I looked for my particular kind of representation through ao3 and ffn? But at the same time I'm not sure I can be accused of such things. I see famous examples given, Remus/lupin for instance and, yeah I could see them getting together, but if that was not the intent then.

I believe, and write, two characters who are really close, without the intent of romance. It does happen, and yet despite that, people tell me I write them like they have a crush on one another. For instance:

"A sly grin couldn’t help but make itself known in Steven’s face, no matter how terrible he could feel at any one time, Wallace seemed to have the gift, the seemingly unheard of ability of cheering him up no matter what. It had come to a point that when Steven traveled to Rustboro and immersed himself in a new sample, having all the fancy lab equipment of Devon installed in his room, an extravagance, Mr Stone always called Wallace to push Steven back in the real world."

(...)

"“It is my understanding that Beldum are really rare as well.” - Wallace had heard enough of Steven’s rants and tirades to know that for a fact. - “I believe them to be available only in Unova?”, again, a nod. Steven had to have caught where the conversation was heading, but he said nothing. Quite clearly he was expecting Wallace to do his magic. He always seemed to be able to. Remind him of things he had forgotten in his high and mighty champion throne, or tell him he was being a fool, silly, or that he should focus on the good things. Quite often pulling him out of his work to make him have some of that “Human interaction”. Wallace knew that quite well - same as he knew that he had to say something - anything. Steven would do the same for him.

“So perhaps it is that they can’t get ahold of one. Have you tried offering one to some of those oh so promising trainers we chatted about?”, none of them has reached Wallace, but he feels that he knows them already, so much has been said about them by Steven. So much so that sometimes he wonder if the Buzznav staff only battles them to report back onto Steven. That’s quite a distinct possibility actually.

“I have not.”, Steven’s eyes are wide, almost as if he just realised something. Though the argument is flawed, and he knows it - after all how can they get Riolu, all the way from Kalos, but not Beldum, he chooses to believe it.

Wallace watches as the light in Steven’s eyes goes from being refracted light from the electrical illumination around his house, to being the same determined and confident expression Steven has on his best moments. When he isn’t doubting himself. "

(...)

"“You do have beauty.”, Steven can claim that with accuracy. It might not be the kind of mannish beauty Wallace wishes, but he does possess a certain boyish charm to himself. A sort of grace, and cute factor. Steven wonders if voicing those thoughts out loud would offend his friend and decides that maybe – just maybe, he won’t mention it. “And what of your reputation? I did not pick you for the job of Gym Leader because of your good looks.”, Steven seems to blush but he stands resolute, his eyes like steel as he talks. “Or because you almost begged me for the job upon Master Juan’s retiring, or even, in a way, because he recommended you!”

Wallace can’t help but let out a smile of his own. “Please, Steven it’s not grovelling or begging, I was simply showing my interest.”

Steven nods, not intent on contradicting his friend while he’s in this position. It’s a position of vulnerabillity. He’s well aware. As champion very few of the rumors that come out about him are true, but he does his best to distance himself of those that are.

“...Be that as it may I choose you because you were the best option for the job. Your record speaks for itself. You are the most effective Gym Leader in Hoenn. I’d actually almost advise you to lose sometime, Drake is getting restless!”, Steven smiles at that, but a quick glance shows that Wallace isn’t exactly smiling at the joke. “Point being, Wallace, you have a reputation as a contest master, and as an even greater Pokemon Trainer. And as someone who has fought you before - and only scrapped a win, I must say -” "

And the thing is, If I squint really hard I can kind of see the romantic undertones, but what they actually accomplish is making me feel guilty for how I write the characters. I'm not going to change and suddently decide "Oh yeah, they're dating", and I don't feel that I am queerbaiting anyone, but I can see the struggle for representation.

I have 50, 60 maybe even 70 other fics that are romance, though, and sure they're not THIS pairing, but they're similar. And as said, whenever these two are portrayed they're usually a pair. I hate to break the status quo (that's a lie, this is my view of them), but why not read one of the dozens other stories?

What's your opinion on it?

submitted by /u/SomecallmeMichelle [link] [comments] from FanFiction: Where Magical Ponies battle Imperial Titans http://bit.ly/2R4yYuK

[crazyyanderefangirlfan]

Skyla should be glad Paul isn’t there or it will be Maylene all over again.

In all honesty, there had to be at least one trainer that bragged online on how they won against Skyla or complained about her methods. L

Cilan: I’m the oldest of the trio. It’s only proper of me to set a good example!

Skyla: *major gym leader misconduct*

Cilan: *very deep breath* I’m going to hurt someone