#its also why i didnt like legends arceus as much as i wanted to. you were catching. so many pokemon in that game.

[quietwingsinthesky]

to be transparent, my ideal pokemon game would easily give up the larger roster for a more interactive experience with the pokemon we keep. stuff like having them follow you/be rideable or pokemon amie where you can pet them? that’s as important to me as the battling, honestly. you’re here to build a bond with these little guys!!

[bainhardt]

Marchcember 2024 SPRING do - Part 2

I suppose it's fortunate this isn't a proper December To-Do, because next game off the list isn't even really backlog, although it is a similar enough scenario to Mega Serval which also got a post... We'll just say this one's more of a "March Playing a Video Game." I bought Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen earlier this month on sale and even finished it in time for this name scheme to still make sense! With my track record, it's practically a miracle this was done with such fast turnaround.

I had my feelings on the game already figured out during my playthrough at about exactly "half-fun." If I didnt like anything about it I wouldn't have bothered finishing, as should be pretty obvious. But there was no shortage of griping along the way. I'm already reminded of a couple other games, saying that...

I absolutely hated traveling. Dunno exactly why but the stamina running out on me all the time made it not fun in the least to explore. It was doubly cruel for the game to give infinite stamina inside Gran Soren, suggesting they did realize that idea had merit. Why not only have limited stamina during combat? The thought had me desperate for Elden Ring's design. At the same time, blaming this whole issue on stamina alone would feel wrong when I know I enjoyed similar games like Skyrim in their day.

I guess to hit on all my scattered thoughts on the subject - movement reminded me of Legends Arceus; the control didn't feel properly snappy and responsive and "fun." Clunky is the descriptor here. Also, the swarms of enemies in the wilderness are entirely pointless. This is maybe the only action game I remember playing that had random encounters. There wasn't much in the way of exp or loot to be gained from fighting my five-hundredth wolf or bandit, and it certainly wasn't fun to do for its own sake, so I employed the age-old technique from RPGs: I ran the fuck away constantly. And finally, the lack of any kind of quick travel was initially a huge turn-off for me, but as I progressed and discovered the portcrystals, I can give them, again, about half credit for this one. I think giving the player a limited number of warp points is a fairly unique compromise... but I would really prefer the warps themself be infinite. I can say with confidence that without the Dark Arisen infinite ferrystone, I wouldn't have played this one for very long.

As for the other side of our basic foundation mechanics, combat gets a "fine" from me. The third-person action approach is cool, but I feel it may have ended up a little too simple. This part reminded me, strangely, of Tactics Ogre (not a good sign); I never once felt like I had to change or reevaluate anything I was doing for the entire game. I learned three Thief skills right at the beginning and mashing the same buttons over and over always worked, so I had no reason to broaden my horizons. Trip enemy with rope, hit enemy with flurry attack. Dunno if that's typical because I haven't played many games like this. And I can imagine what you're thinking: you're supposed to branch out because you want to experience the other possibilities! ...Well, I think it's important to say I didn't really find combat so fun that I wanted to do it any more than necessary, or as said earlier, for its own sake.

Which establishes the main idea here: if the core gameplay loops the game spends most of its time asking you do to are not particularly fun for you, playing it can feel more like a chore. The proportion is so important, too. How much do you like and how much do you wish you could skip? It feels so stupid to talk about it like it's not obvious, but I think it's a huge underlying element of the games that lose me somewhere or other. I just want it to be all good.

So I'll take that as the turning point to talk about stuff that was good! I really love the Arisen/Pawn system of the game, both mechanically and narratively. It made for a fascinating world setting. I initially wanted to know the story because of this, though I don't know for sure I got all of it because I was averse to doing anything other than what was strictly necessary (sorry). The Pawn AI was also fairly reliable. They didn't always do what I'd hope, but they never did anything I actively preferred they wouldn't, either. As I've mentioned, I haven't played other games like Dragon Age or whatever, but this feels like it might be the ideal version of your pseudo-D&D RPG experience in a game. You get all the fun of a full party while only needing to fuss over two of the members' finer details. Actually, to that point, I think I would have enjoyed more details to fuss over. Getting to decide more out-of-combat things my Pawn and I should be good and bad at would make outfitting the party even more fun.

Another plus - one of my own making - is that my characters never stopped making me laugh when they were on screen. This game let me create any character I wanted and I was so unsure of what to do I ended up a hulking, dykey Bart Simpson in a Princess Zelda cosplay. But the true star of the show was Tom Scott, who served as my rock and guide throughout Gransys. I don't know what I'd have done without him.

Quest and dungeon design seemed pretty good overall. While perhaps not many, all of the quests I remember felt unique and had me tracking down more interesting objectives than your usual slay monsters X times bullshit (while also cleverly including that through the bulletins). But it warrants repeating that I avoided even considering certain quests because I knew they'd require I carve halfway across the map through mobs of dull enemies feeling no sense of reward or satisfaction, only to do one cool dungeon and then immediately turn around and drudge my way back. Where I did journey, that ferrystone was always pulling a lot of weight.

And to make an important distinction here about the combat: boss fights were great. I enjoyed every boss that I recall - even when these encounters occasionally slowed down to a bit of a slog, I still preferred their far grander-scale slog to trash mobs at their best. Bespoke monster fights should've been like, the only fights in the game... or maybe that would've crossed too far into Capcom's Monster Hunter (though it's still nice for it all to be building towards a conclusion). But yeah, climbing on guys was fun, learning their moves and options, having your Pawns caught in the crossfire and calling out advice and stuff. Loved all that. This is where the game's systems actually engage the player on a proper level. I was chuggin' through items, reading about the myriad status effects I was suffering, smacking my forehead as That Same Pawn went down for the umpteenth time at the least opportune moment. To return to my point about proportions from before, boss fights felt like the only reward the rest of the drudgery in the game kept me wanting after, and they're easily the best memories from it. I specifically chose to fight the dragon at the end because I wanted to beat ass one last time! Polish up the combat a little and give me further ways to customize my characters around unique challenges and threats posed by these monsters, and I'd be begging for more.

Damn this got longer than I intended. To conclude, I'm glad that I got this game done and relatively quickly, but I am definitely not begging for more. I didn't even buy it because I wanted to play DD2... I just thought the Monster Factory episode was funny.

[zorubark]

so uumm, I was DEADLY WRONG GYAHAHAHAHA THANK GOD FOR POKEMON Z REAL GOD BLESS KALOS

God Bless Kalos.......

But now I have new predictions slash ideas for pokemon legends entries, I think that the legends entries will be about stuff that didnt get release, didnt get its spotlight, that was limited, like how Arceus only had an event outside of Sinnoh, Arceus was limited and for a while it was illegal to try to get him after that, and Arceus never got their own game

Zygarde was also in a limbo, it was supposed to be like Giratina, in Diamond & Pearl, Giratina was there but had no relevence in the story, they were just in a cave, just like our buddy Zygarde! But fate had that Zygarde would not get it's game, so just like Arceus, he got a sidequest in a different region, Alola

So I think Legends games will help fill loose ends, show how important pokemon things came to be, make many old things acessible, and continue what was discontinued, or what just never came to be.

SO MY PREDICTIONS NOW ARE:

Pokemon Legends Gray

Some people want a legends game set in the future, that's a cool idea and all but it's too time fucky for me, it would create a bunch of problems for the writers, a big Great Tusk in the room, the paradoxes(I said the thing!).

I hope a Unova legends game is medieval, but I want us to get the full dragon and I can't think of how we could see it in the past and keep it too, because it obviously split, so paradox again, or maybe not, it depends. In PLA we can catch all the legendaries and then Dawn and Lucas still get to catch them, I just assume that the PLA protagonists live a long happy life and the legendaries just get released, so maybe it could be like that, but it would imply that after splitting, at some point in history, they fused again, but it's never implied that, right now it seems like the two dragons never made ammends and stayed as separate entities

I think a Legends Gray could be not in the far future, but after black and white 2, where Truth and Ideals finally come together.

I actually have an idea for the protagonists, they would be two twins, if you choose to be a boy both the twins are boys, one resembles Hilbert and the other Nate, and the same if you choose to be a girl. But instead of being direct counterparts, these twins would be distant relatives, since Hildabert's mom says Rosa/Nate look so much like their child, I thought "wouldnt it be fun if they were somewhat related", but this idea was for an ancestor of Hilda, Hilbert, Rosa and Nate, but I just elaborated why essentially a continuation of BW2 would be good, so I can only imagine them as distant cousins

Pokemon Legends Eclipse

So, check out this bit of history on Alola:

"Necrozma, arrives in Alola through an Ultra Wormhole, stealing all of the light in the region and shrouding it in darkness. During the events it gets a hold of SolgaleoUS/LunalaUM and turns into Dusk Mane NecrozmaUS/Dawn Wings NecrozmaUM. Under the commands of Alola's royalty, the four tapu battled the now dubbed "pillager of light" to retrieve the region's light. With the help of a youth using a Sparkling Stone and Z-Power, the group had managed to defeat and banish Necrozma, restoring the region's light and freeing SolgaleoUS/LunalaUM from it. This had created Alola's tradition of the island challenge. All books related to Necrozma were burned."

I imagine the game could take place exactly there, it has a lot of important things that PLA had:

Showing the origin of things of Pokémon or the region(PLA: origin of pokebals and the pokedex, origin of sinnoh, etc | Eclipse: Origin of island challenge, could be used for the origin of z moves and sparkling stones, and much more)

It's also said that most historical books with necrozma were burned, a Legends Eclipse has a lot of room for new stories about Necrozma, and room for the writers to get creative.

thats all for today folks

I think what many Pokemon Legends game ideas get wrong, i think at least, is using a legendary for the name of the game, like "Legends kyurem" or "Legends Zygarde". Many times people use the third legendary of the main three for the title, but Giratina wasn't the one to get a Legends game, in fact it would have made more sense to have a Legends Giratina as a parallel to platinum, since it released with the Sinnoh remakes.

The one who got the spotlight was another important, but not heavily featured pokemon, Arceus, a mythical pokemon. So I think there's a higher chance for the next Legends game to feature a mythical with predominance. In Legends Arceus there was also many mythicals that we could catch without needing special events, making them more acessible, so maybe the Legends series will in general make mythicals more acessible?

I was thinking of a Kalos Legends game and I think Pokemon Legends Hoopa would be the best choice, it can teleport you back in time with it's rings, without the need for Arceus intervention. In ORAS because of Hoopa's rings we can catch legendaries from other regions and their themes aren't updated because they're supposed to be from the older games' timelines, this happens in USUM too, so I believe Hoopa is too interesting to not use.

Diancie and Volcanion should also appear, Volcanion has so little lore, the most interesting thing it has is the fact that in the southern part of the Kalos region, Volcanion is revered, people believe that a steam explosion caused by Volcanion created the plain where they live. This probably references the region of Occitania, the mountainous region that covers most of southern France and whose regional flag Volcanion takes its design from, which is really cool.

Diancie could also be integrated in the plot, maybe instead of her needing to make a new Diamond Heart for the Diamond Domain, the very first Diamond Heart could be made, or Diancie can be born, either works. Diancie is said to have been born from a Carbink that had undergone a mysterious mutation, the mutation could be related to the main story somehow.

In fact, I thought about a villain that wants to make everyone immortal, thinking it will create a Utopia, their plan will fail but create consequences in the region. Since Xerneas/Yveltal wake up every thousand years, I imagined the story would take place one thousand years before the events of X and Y, and the region would be medieval themed.

For Unova, it has no mythical with reality bending abilities and I sadly can't imagine anything except a Legends Kyurem, how is Victini, Meloetta or Keldeo going to hold an entire game like Arceus did? Genesect wasn't even created until recent events in the Pokemon world.

Because each mythical of Unova has a piece of history, it's hard to choose just one, they complete each other in a way

Some people speculutate on Johto remakes because of the many hints towards johto relevancy, and I think the Mythical main pokemon theory fits for Johto! Legends Celebi could work

I hope someone sees this theory and uses it for imagining new pokemon stuff or coming up with a Unova Legends game since I couldn't. I think a medieval, victorian, or early to middle 20th century Unova game would be really good, specially because if it were to be medieval, it could make kinda what Arceus made with Team Galactic and make Team Plasma into real knights, the Unova region has lots of medieval stuff and I think it's even better than Kalos for a medieval game