#no more exp unless you get candies

[moonpaw]

Are you playing Pokemon Rejuvenation Story or Classic mode? Asking because I'm interested in playing but don't know if classic means "slightly harder than average Pokemon game" or "Pokemon Kaizo"

i'm playing story mode, from what i hear classic is a lot more challenging jllkf

not sure by how much it is, but take into account that you get level locked every. badge.

[darkpetal16]

So we've got mafiafell wingding and papyrus headcanons, but what about mafiafell sans? Even a crumb would be very appreciated

Oh man. I put these HC undercut for 1.) T/W for toxic relationship and 2.) Spoilers for one of his bad endings in the game.

Mafiafell!Sans is a hot mess and puts the yan in yandere.

Ooooo boy. He’s a walking, talking red flag.

He’s a Judge: a monster born with the Judgment ability. His magic is toxic to anyone with EXP or LVL (including himself, although he has built up resistance) and he can see the truth of anyone’s SOUL.

His ability awakened at a young age in an unexpected outburst that resulted in the death of one of Asgore’s Royal Guards. By consequence, in order to avoid execution, he had to become the newest Judge.

He, essentially, became a glorified hitman for the Dreemur family at a young age, with the added bonus of each of his kills causing magic whiplash and damaging himself in the process.

He’s seen a lot of awful things, and done a lot worse things.

It. . . Doesn’t sit well with him.

He never wanted to take a life. He never wanted to hurt anyone.

But he had that choice taken away from him, and now he’s in too deep. The EXP, in conjunction with his Judgment ability, has warped him in a deeply disturbing way.

He’s volatile, violent, and viscous. And bitter. So, very, very bitter.

He’s got a short temper, but how he acts on it depends on the severity of his rage. For “smaller” issues, it’s an instantaneous reaction of violence. For the big issues, it’s something he’ll stew over and take his time to seek retribution. Basically: If he gets loud fast, the person will probably make it out alive. If he gets quiet though? They’re dead. And they’re not dying easily.

His volatility is a big reason why he always has Papyrus or Wingding nearby for important events.

This does mean that early in the relationship, when none of them know how well he can control himself around you, all of your dates will be secretly chaperoned by either Wings or Pap. You’ll likely never see them, but they’re there for your (physical) wellbeing and Sans’ (mental) wellbeing.

After a lifetime of absolute garbage thrown his way, you are a desperately needed breath of fresh air. He was drowning in misery and you’re the lifeline thrown to him. He will latch on with a zealous fervor.

Any bit of happiness and affection you give him, he’ll greedily devour. The more you give, the more he’ll come to need you until he literally will not tolerate you out of his life.

So do not commit, do not engage, do not give this man any type of hope for a relationship unless you’re ready for that level of emotional dependency. Breaking it off once it’s too late won’t end well for either of you. Because he’s type who can love a doll as much as the real deal.

But if that’s your thing too? If this is what you need too. . . ?

He’s your guy. Loyal. Ferociously loyal. Would fight an army for you. Would go to war for you. Would break any law for you. He supports your wrongs and your rights equally, as long as he gets to be by your side in the process.

He didn’t have money growing up (all money earned had to go into paying back his “debt” to the Dreemur family), so now that he has it he likes to spend it. Especially on loved ones (you & his brothers). Shopping trips are a bi weekly thing, and they always end in a fancy dinner date.

He wants to travel the world, and he’ll gleefully take you with him. He wants to visit a place that’s always dark, and someplace where the sun never sets. He wants to see the auroras, and an endless sea of sand.

He’s always wanted to go to school to learn. Always wanted to learn physics, mechanical engineering, and astronomy. Never could, and he thinks it’s too late now. He’ll always brush it off if you try to encourage him.

But if you take him to college lectures on the stuff, he’s like a kid in a candy shop. You’ll see a glimpse of what he was like before he became a Judge; a childlike level of sincere happiness, and a small smile on his face.

Dates are extravagant. He knows he’s fucked in the head so he’s hoping to keep your attention by impressing you. Maybe if you’re wowed enough you’ll forgive his cracks.

Speaking of cracks, he’s got the most broken bones in the family. Most of the time, Wings or Toriel can heal such injuries but ones caused by his Judge ability don’t heal.

If you ask about them he’ll give you increasingly crazier stories. Anything is better than the truth.

Speaking of stories, he loves to tell them and loves to listen. If you’d like to read, he would genuinely love it if you read him. It doesn’t matter the genre, he just enjoys them with a pure sincerity.

And if you want him to read to you? That’s fine by him. Although you’ll probably have to pick out the books… And forgive him when he stumbles on words. He didn’t have a proper education growing up. What he knows is what Wings has been able to teach him in their very limited free time. 

He can sing! Specifically lullabies, because that was the only thing that could sue Papyrus when he was a toddler. It’s not something he likes others to know, however, he’ll make the exception for you.

He can also cook. Very well. He learned along side Papyrus as something for the two of them to do together. He didn’t have a lot of free time and he didn’t want Papyrus to feel lonely, so he would learn how to cook with him. 

Very good at reading people. Even without his judge ability, he’s an expert at reading, micro expressions, understanding someone’s tone, and interpreting body language. His intuition is above reproach, even Asgore trusts it. 

He learned sign language when Wings lost his voice for a few months. Sans thought it would be come permanently so he stayed up late to learn it and be ready to teach it to Wings. Thankfully, Wings recovered so it’s been a rarely used skill.

Quality time is important to him. If you have something important in your life that you want him to attend, absolutely nothing will stop him from being there. 

Don’t try to get him jealous. Not only will your suitor be killed, but if he thinks you’re doing it on purpose, he won’t let it go. He won’t lay a hand on you. . . he doesn’t have to to discourage you from ever thinking about doing that again.

He’s a hot mess. There’s no getting around this. There is no therapy in his time, and the toxic masculinity expected of him will prevent him from ever admitting his emotional vulnerabilities in any way that matters.

He’ll be tender for you. He’ll be soft for you. He’ll be kinder around you. He won’t raise his voice. He won’t lay a hand on you. He’ll support your dreams, financially and emotionally. He’ll start with you if you want.

But that’s the extent of what he can do for now, and for a long times

And that’s the best he can do.

PLAY IF - MAFIAFELL HERE FOR HIS ROUTE

HC MASTERLIST HERE

[fishyhomohomo1234]

Fop Oc Characters Description

Tw:bad English, horrible grammar

- Starlight Z. Wells

Personality :

- Starlight is an hyperactive,friendly, talkative,energetic,Supportive fairy

He would always rarely take things seriously unless if it really matters to him, and he leads this into jokes/pranks

Some Fairys may call him childish and dumb because how he act

His always with his friends and cousins

Mostly with indigo, he always do pranks on him

If his not with his friends he may try going to others and try to be friends with them

Despite being childish and not taking things srsly, his a great friend to talk to and try his best to comfort you

He is rarely seen to be sad or angry

His eyes changes pupils depending on his emotions

Exp:

Love - heart

Happy - stars

Sad - teardrops

Sexuality:

Asexual,Bisexual

Family:

val and vin - cousins

Indigo and mocha - Cousins

Leon and Goldiluck - parents

Friends:

Carrot Sunny T willow

Fall U Flames

Honey C comb

Autism and ADHD

- Indigo W. dumbbell

Personality :

- Indigo is a cynical,angst ridden,short tempered goth fairy

Indigo is a introverted person who only hangout with few of his friends and mostly with his cousins

He have a lot of past relationships he try to bury in his minds but fail, this makes him very anxious and very upset

His very arrogant and quiet when talking, some would say his a huge covert narcissist

Having a lot signs of it

He tends to fish for sympathy and always act like a victim when hurt (verbally) by an individual

His sometimes can be immature whatever he gets moody, sometimes lashing out of anger and get defensive if that person slightly disagree with them

Despite all his problems, his a chill guy to hangout with

if your friends with him he will treat you like a brother to him

If he hates you he may avoid you or glares at you

His a lazy, depressed individual and have no motivation in his life, he always ask his friends for some advice to cope this

He may have once have a crush to his best friend (Carrot Sunny T willow) but try to forget about it, he always hang out with him and carrot would always make him smile with joy

Sexuality:

Bisexual

Family:

Van and vil - cousins

Starlight - cousin

Mocha - sister

Jack and snow - parents

Friends:

Carrot Sunny T. Willow

Honey C comb (ex gf)

- Mocha W. Dumbell

Personality :

- mocha is an energetic,fun, friendly,enthusiastic and care-free fairy

Mocha is an extroverted person, who will try to be friends with anybody she encounter, she mostly hangout with her 2 (unknown) fairy bff and her cousins

She rarely get along or even talk her brother (indigo w. Dumbell) who always avoid her and grunts at her for some unknown reason, this makes her pretty upset because his the only one she can't never hangout with, despite all that, she still Respect him and his boundaries

She's a very understanding person and who will comfort you at anytime, bc mentality matters more to her

She's artful and creative, she would occasionally make gifts for her friends and cousins with glittery cards and toys

She is a sporty girl who's active always

Sexuality: bisexual

- Friends

2 unknown fairys

Candy B. Sugar

- Family

Vin and val - cousins

Starlight - cousin

Indigo - brother

- Carrot Sunny T. Willow

Personality :

Carrot is a heroic,selfless,nice, friendly and playful fairy

Carrot is a friendly guy

He always prioritize others safety and always protect them from any harm

He is a police/sherrif in the fairy world,he keeps off anti,pixie, ect off the place

He have a special gun that would paralyzed someone for 5 hours

Jorgen von strangle assigned hundred of fairies to do this duty (that includes carrot himself)

When wandering around, he rarely fly's but he use a fairy horse/pony to travel to places

His a friendly guy but mostly his not very intelligent, his thinking is maybe slow but he can maybe understand you

His athletic and kinda bulky strong, he have a large appetite on vegetables and mostly when day offs he spend those time working out or spending time his friends

He grew up in a farm, his a surrogate baby and have only 1 parent, this may not matter to him because he himself already have a lot of friends and cousins to fill that hole

He have a farm boy accent

He would call others by "sir","mam","pal" and "buddy"

His always around with indigo, honey and starlight

He consider them as there best of best friends

Sexuality: bisexual

Friends:

Indigo

Starlight

Honey comb

- Amaranth R. Ruby

Personality :

- Amaranth is an self-centered,sassy,mean, sarcastic and a manipulative fairy

Amaranth is a very unpleasant man, he only care for himself and have no mercy to others

He think the world revolve around him, when interacting with others, he try to assert this mindset making him kinda hated by the fairies

He have a British accent

He owns a company somewhere in the fairyworld and a actor for drama shows

His a huge covert narcissist

Despite this he may have some kindness in him (only if your friends with him or nice to him)

Sometimes he would feel sorry for himself and wandering how did he end up being himself

He would always explore in the human world and disguise himself as a human too

He go to places would be parks and forest

He found this places peaceful and naturally clean.

His a perfectionist, he always found something disgusting if it he found it ugly and may try to change it or avoid

He have a sharp sword disguise as a crane

This can slash a fairy and tear off there fairy wings

He rarely uses it

Sexuality: bisexual

- Fall U. Flames

Personality:

- Fall is a loud,short tempered,hyperactive and maybe oversensitive

They a very talkative individual, who wouldn't shut up himself

Despite being angry all the time, his extremely friendly to others and his childish personality makes him pretty likeable

He enjoys drama acting and metal music, he would use a electric guitar when doing it

He have some history on dating, one of this is (indigo w. Dumbbell) his first partner

He have some complications when it comes to relationship, he can't stop himself arguing and is very loud, and some passionate activities he can't do because it's uncomfortable to him,that reasons why indigo broke up with him and left

Friends:

Starlight

Olive

Gender:

Non Binary

Sexuality:

Gay, Asexual

- Violet S. Berry

Personality

- Violet is a very chronically online, fashion,fandom,happy and maybe in between smart and stupid

She spends most of her time on the internet

This is might be the reason the lack of friends

She's very hyperactive when it comes to talking about her media interest

Others would say she's weird and some would say she's misunderstood and just a friendly talkative girl

This statements is true

According to violet herself

Her hobby is drawing "yaoi" fanarts,cosplaying and reading a lot of anime mangas, she would indicate herself as a

"Fujoshi"

She have bad history on relationship

This example is with (indigo) she's maybe an loud and annoying to him

This is the reason indigo would ghost her and leave her

Sexuality: Bisexual

- Candy B. Sugar

Personality

Candy is a snarky,mean,bossy,gossip,loud and sassy fairy

She spends most of the time chilling and talking alot to her friends

Also being on the internet alot

She's a talkative person, and not really good at keeping secrets

She only shows kindness only to her most trustable friends

She's a fashion designer, it's a hobby of her to sketch a lot of dresses in her sketchbook

Sexuality: bisexual

- Honey C. Comb

Personality

She's very sarcastic, serious and very truthful to everyone

She have a mean attitude, and would usually say a lot of mean words to everyone, that's how she Expresses her honesty

She's like a big sister to her friends,mostly always being in charge and disciplining them

She's a chill person and despite her traits she's very deeply care about her friends

Her hobby is to ride motorcycles and break stuff, that's how she relief her stresses

Gender:trans woman

Sexuality: demisexual, pansexual

- Olive Spinach G. Greens

Personality

His very quiet,timid,chill,Sensitive and a lazy person

He usually don't do much and spend most time sleeping

He hardly can't take insults and very sensitive to them

His hobby is playing with a skateboard, his sadly not a expert on it

He cant help himself and mostly relays to others for advice and leadership

Sexuality:Gay

-Cherry U. Flames

Personality:

She's friendly and a talkative person

She usually just hang around with her friends most of the time

She's a happy and a huge extrovert

She's very easily annoyed

She always take care of her sibling (fall U flames) and acts more like a big sister to they (even tho she's younger than they)

Sexuality: bisexual

- Cabbage Wasabi

Personality:

His a energetic,loud,brave and a slacker

He was once in the fairy military but unfortunately, he got kicked out for not following the rules

He spends most of his time in workout and get aggressive when tired

Despite that, his a friendly chill guy, some Fairys would see him as a friendly guy or some annoying muscular guy

Sexuality: bisexual

Unfortunately I can't put the png to the last oc

But they show up here in the voiceclaims video

(red girl) cherry and (green one) cabbage

Also redesign to some oc and new pngs hooray!

[a-tale-of-legends]

On one end, the exp all is generally very good for cutting out grinding. Before the switch games, it could be turned on and off, which I feel is the best way to go about it, so you can choose how you want to play.

On the other end, the exp share can lead to over leveling. Not everyone cares about this, obviously, but if XY has taught us anything, is that the exp share can make the game much less difficult. Like. It's still a pokemon game. It's not the most intense game in the world. And XY's team comps aren't the greatest imo. But you get what I'm saying, right? This is mostly coming from my own experiences, but in recent years I don't want to over level my pokemon, so in the games where I can turn my exp share on and off, I would switch between the two, trying to keep things as balanced as possible. It's usually fine, but admittedly a bit tedious, especially when you are raising significantly weaker pokemon compared to the rest of your team.

So where does that lead us? Some potential ideas that could "fix" the problem.

1) Forgoing my own personal experience, I just think bringing back the option to turn off the exp all would be very beneficial. As fun as it was to switch around pokemon in my SV runs, I know not everyone is like that. Not everyone plays the way I do, so simply giving the players an actual choice would be good.

2) Bring back both the exp share ( the ones in, I think, gen 3-5) and the exp share all. With the option to turn the exp all on and off. The old exp share only really worked for one pokemon when equipped. I think, if a player feels like they are getting too high leveled, but wants to raise levels for a newer member, then just slap on the old exp share on it and call it a day. Of course there risk of over leveling, but I think it's cut down significantly by the old exp share.

3) The option to have hard level caps. I cannot stress enough that not everyone wants the same thing lol. Forcing a level cap for all will go. Poorly I think! Every player has their own way of playing, and this whole post is just from my perspective and experiences. Okay? Okay. This idea actually came from the fangames I could play! In them, there's a hard level cap for each particular milestone, usually involving the gyms. If you want to bypass the level cap, use a rare candy! But at the risk of your pokemon not listening to you. I think a hard level cap could be a decent way to train up newer pokemon as well, since the older ones aren't gaining levels past the level cap unless you use a rare candy.

The biggest drawback to this is linearity. If Gamefreak continues the open world (ish) route with future pokemon games, a hard level cap would be miserable. It only really works in a more linear format, bc you're going from a to b. Yeah, SV wasn't completely open world, but imagine having a hard level cap when you're trying to explore. It would be miserable and just doesn't fit the open world experience. This idea is honestly better with linearity + better scaling lmao.

Aaaand yeah. I'm not trying to say these ideas are perfect, and I am no way a professional in game design . In fact I can see some backfiring lol. Heck giving too many options could also back fire lol. Truthfully, giving back the option to turn off exp all would be the best thing here, but I still like my other two ideas :)

[melonthesprigatito]

A while ago I came to the realisation that I've never actually beaten Pokémon Emerald before. My go to Gen 3 game is Sapphire because I played Alpha Sapphire first so Sapphire is familiar, cosy territory for me. I've played Sapphire so many times over the years, it's the very first Pokémon game I've ever emulated.

Earlier this year I decided, you know the what, I'm gonna play Emerald. Why not? Sure, it's basically the same as Sapphire but with more stuff, right?

Im just gonna preface that I absolutely HATE grinding with a passion. I think it's the most tedious, unfun thing you can do in a Pokémon game. I sing my praises to the Lucky Egg, Audino, Blissey and the introduction of EXP Candies for taking the sting off of it. This becomes very relevant in a second.

So, I play through Emerald like I normally would play through Sapphire. Slight team difference, I picked Treecko to match Emerald when I normally pick Torchic. I get to Mauville City. I have an under levelled Plusle and I want to catch a Marill. Marill are Level 14, I need to grind it to Level 24 to match the rest of my team as well.

Normally in Sapphire, I immediately head to Route 117. It is THE prime grinding location. All because of Roselia. Roselia may not be Audino, but it does give out a lot of EXP. Approximately 300/400 exp compared to the rest of the Pokémon on that Route which give out maybe around 100.

I use it as my main grinding opponent for the entire Mauville to Fortree City part of the game where I can move on to the 1000 EXP Pokémon like Tropius. Roselia takes the sting off of grinding in Sapphire. It's just that reliable.

So I run back and forth in the grass to try find one. Nothing. I run back and forth in the grass to try find one. Nada. I spend maybe 15 minutes trying to find one, to the point it becomes obvious that Roselia isn't gonna show. So I thought "Huh, maybe Roselia just has a lower encounter rate in Emerald."

So I go to google it

I swear to god my heart dropped faster than a lead balloon.

Turns out ROSELIA ISN'T EVEN IN EMERALD AT ALL.

I'm sorry, but the second I found out that information my motivation to continue just plummeted. I just can't spend a large chunk of my playthrough getting miniscule EXP from grinding, it's just too much of a slog, I hate it.

"BUT MELON, YOU CAN REMATCH TRAINERS IN EMERALD! WHY NOT JUST USE THAT FOR EXP INSTEAD?!"

I have some very bad news, random hypothetical question asker.

This does not solve my problem at all. "After Norman" is when I move on to battling 1000 EXP Tropius. And Absol.

It's just not worth it, man. I just can't be stuck with no reliable EXP source between before Badge 3 and before Badge 6. And I ain't no impatient sucker either, look at what I got on my Team in Sapphire.

FEEBAS. Famously the second most tedious and hardest to catch and evolve Pokémon in the entire franchise behind Honey Tree Munchlax. Only available on six river tiles in the entire game. Needs a very specific blue berry (which takes anything from real life hours to DAYS to grow) to make a strong enough blue Pokéblock to evolve it.

Unless there's some other good Pokémon to focus grinding between Mauville and Fortree, I'm probably just gonna continue playing Sapphire and just watch the Rayquaza cutscene on YouTube. I've never been into competitive battles anyway so Sapphire not having the Battle Frontier is no big loss anyway. Oh yeah, I also hate that they replaced the Contest Buildings with more battle facilities….. That's another reason why I prefer Sapphire.

[skullndaisy]

Pokemon Nuzlocke Roguelike Concept

Ok, so I've kinda had this concept stuck in my head ever since I finished Pokemon Scarlet because I think the newer games have just gotten too easy (unless they always were and kid brain is tricking me) and I believe that Gamefreak should make games for the demographic that grew up with them too~

<Long Post Ahead>

(and art lol)

ALRIGHT SO, I've already rambled about this shit to two different people (love u @donuts4evry1) because I think it would be so fun.

It would have to be the first adult-oriented pokemon game, thus the adult trainers, since I doubt kids would have a good time seeing Pikachu die (we are going to ignore the movies rq).

The Roguelike aspect is kind of like a battle tower in concept- with its nonstop battles, getting more difficult as it continues. The setting as I imagined it would be a hostile island with aggressive pokemon and even more aggressive stranded trainers after a plane crash.

I haven't named the two protagonists yet! Since this roguelike is also story-based regardless of each reset (kinda like Hades) I feel like they should have their own identities and be less constructed by the player (which feels blasphemous but I like having protags with personality, even if they are silent the whole time.)

They were on a plane headed to the Kanto region until their plane crashed on an isolated island in the middle of nowhere. All the people inside survived, but it quickly turned to chaos when they realized help would not be coming as fast as they hoped. V Lord of the Flies. The protagonists weren't initially pokemon trainers, for their own tragic reasons I guess lol, but they realized the only way they could survive was to become one. Their goal and sole purpose are to find any means of escape. I have yet to decide by what means they can escape.

As for gameplay concepts....

Each room the player enters has one of three:

Encounter room which is filled with wild pokemon, loot, and areas without tall grass so you can heal up/bond with your pokemon (which I will get into later).

The battle rooms where you have to clear out a certain amount of trainers without losing your pokemon (Also double battles, where the other protagonists joins your battles for a temporary amount of rooms.).

And then ofc boss rooms with high-level strong asf pokemon that you could battle for EXP or catch- or just a particularly difficult trainer battle, kinda like a gym leader. Once you encounter these, you are headed to the next part of the map. The end goal is to find

When it comes to getting attached to pokemon, you have to name each one you catch, typical Nuzlocke rules. You also have to find medical equipment in each room since Nurse Joy ain't on the island- which leads to a heal-up minigame!! You can also feed them and pet them!! Because fuck you Gamefreak!! The more you care for the pokemon you catch the more EXP it could potentially gain with each battle, also all the friendship perks regular pokemon games have.

Encounter rooms are tailored to have similarly leveled pokemon to your team, and a very limited amount spawn, and it's completely randomized. You have the choice to either grind up your current team or catch more. You also have to release pokemon you no longer want since you don't have a box system, which ofc will be emotional and 100% should have a sad pokemon staring at you as you release it. (like Nintendogs when ur puppy stares at you dejectedly as you delete its existence, shit was traumatic.)

As for the elephant in the room; yeah pokemon will die to mirror the Nuzlocke concept. Oh, also each dead pokemon has a cutscene for more insult to injury, gotta make it hurt. Once you lose your last pokemon you have to start at the very beginning. Each run starts with giving you 5-10 pokeballs, randomized effectiveness. Loot can be found in every room and ranges from pokeballs, to healing items, to exp candy, and so on.

SO yeah! This is what I've come up with so far! I have no intention of actually making this game, I don't know the first thing when it comes to being a game dev (haha hi again Donut) but I thought this would be neat to share with y'all. Maybe someone else can give this concept a try? Just let me know if you do!!

Also if you wanna add to the lore or whatever feel free to~

[darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght]

Chapter 11- Part 1

So, this is where we left off- everything looks perfectly normal right now, yeah? Well, random little tangent here, let’s just take a look at the Trainer card, for no particular reason-

Oh? What is that I see? A different name for the player avatar? No longer my name, but the name I gave to the character?

Yeah, so- as alluded to in the last chapter, I was really itching to change the in-game name to…well, Xera’s name. And with some information given to me by a reader (information that I was able to confirm for myself with a quick Google search), I was able to figure out a way to do exactly that! Xera’s name is now real, and will remain that way for the rest of the game! How did I do this?

…I don’t think I’m legally allowed to say, just look it up for yourselves.

There is one caveat to this, though. Apparently, changing the name in this way doesn’t change the OT tags on the Pokémon that were caught beforehand. For example, Riptide:

But I think the name change will apply to all Pokémon caught after the change? Not that it matters much to me either way- I don’t typically pay attention to the OT tags unless they’re specifically something different in an interesting way (like whatever Bloom’s deal with Sweet Co. is).

Anyways, now let’s get into my plan for this session. This part is going to be mostly housekeeping things- wrapping up some sidequests and events in Obsidia and Coral Wards before we head into Onyx Ward. You know all that stuff I did in Peridot Ward before challenging Julia? Same situation here- and just like last time, I did some looking-into with the events and such, but once again, only enough to have a basic understanding of what to do. Besides, some of them I was already well aware of- for example, the Egg!

As you can see, I’ve put Prong in the Box for the time being to have the Egg in the party. Without a Pokémon with Flame Body (or other such Abilities that can speed up the hatching process), we’ll be going the full Egg cycle for this- and since I don’t know what Pokémon this will be, I don’t know how many steps this will take, so it’s better to be safe than sorry and have it in the party while we walk around.

So now, the most obvious quests to take care of are the two trades- the Nosepass and the “tablecloth.” And that means we need Sentret/Furret and Patrat/Watchog!

Hello again, Obsidia Park. A newly-opened area with some newly-available Pokémon- including one we need right now!

Boom, Sentret! This’ll be easy enough with Whiskers- Disarming Voice to lower its health, put to sleep, then profit.

“Scout” seemed too obvious, so “Watcher” felt like a fitting alternative.

Next up, Patrat, and like I said in the past, I already know where to find one.

Welcome back to Opal Ward! C’MERE-

It’s an early-game rodent Pokémon, only Lv. 4, and with Sleep- I don’t even think we need to lower its HP for this to work.

Huh- I never noticed that Sentret and Patrat have the same category. Well, now I definitely can’t name this guy “Scout” either.

There we go, “Vigil” works just as nicely!

So now, the party looks like this:

And now, since we still have a surplus of Exp. Candies, we can speedrun leveling these two up to evolution!

Long girl!!

And tall bo- actually, I thought Watchog was taller than that, hm.

Well, regardless, let’s get to trading! First, let’s go back to the one house to trade Watcher-

Oh, it was a Castform! I knew it! …Wait, Castform still doesn’t look like a tablecloth in any of its form, it always has like a…cloud-like appearance to it.

No worries, Xera will appreciate it more than you ever did- but at least she and her dad gave it a good name, “Meteo.”

And of course, PokéDex entry, for the fun of it-

Next

[mars1040]

Part 2

Next up, we get to the Wild Area, populated with Pokemon who are bold enough to sit out in the open and chase you halfway across the map if you look at them funny.

The first thing we do is shake a tree in the Rolling Fields, surely nothing will jump out and attack us.

No, it's just a Bonsly who fell from the tree and in all likelihood, landed on on our heads. And a Bonsly is 33lbs (15kg for metric-users)! It's safe to say, we are concussed.

We catch the little guy and call him Woodrow.

Now, raids aren't randomized and I will only be using them as a means to get exp candy since wild Pokemon aren't scaling with the trainer Pokemon. That being said, I will not be catching raid Pokemon.

It was shortly after this that I realized that I forgot to grab the free Pikachu and Eevee from these people in the station.

They of course get randomized to a Sandaconda and Kingler, both able to be Gigantamaxed. We name them Kaa and Daryard.

After running around and getting into fights, we're a little warn down so I make camp and curry. And let me tell you...I think the camp and curry mechanic is a little cheap. It's like having a Pokemon Center in your bag. I won't rely too much on healing via camp because camping increases affection and I don't wanna coast through this run with the affection mechanics in battle.

After closing up camp, we go to the Dappled Grove and get ourselves a Croagunk named Britney.

Because, you know, Toxic?

...

What do you mean Salazzle would make a better "Britney?"

Now, the with the nature of this randomizer, we're bound to see some strange overworld behavior. Like this Gible floating in midair!

...It was too strong to catch.

No, our West Lake Axewell encounter is a Popplio.

...Yeah, it's been at least a week since I played this, I don't know why the only screenshot I have of this battle is so far away.

But we catch her and name her Aquaria.

Most encounters in the Watchtower Ruins are too overlevelled to catch so we'll be skipping it for now.

And our final encounter for now is a Dreepy from East Lake Axewell. We catch him and name him Slingback.

To recap, here are our Pokemon:

Gabe the Aron Marluxia the Fomantis Slateford the Larvitar Woodrow the Bonsly Kaa the Sandaconda Daryard the Kingler Britney the Croagunk Aquaria the Popplio Slingback the Dreepy

That's eight Pokemon, but only six slots. As I said before, it's hard to decide between Gabe and Slateford so they're both on the party. Marluxia has been a hard hitter so far, so he's in too. Popplio is my favorite Alola starter so that guarantees Aquaria a spot in the party, unless I encounter a Water-type I like better. While two fully-evolved Pokemon are tempting, I wasn't impressed with the few battles I used Kaa for, but Kingler is a formidable Pokemon and Daryard has access to Hammer Arm; that's going to come in useful in a sec. And the last slot will go to Slingback because a pseudo-legendary is too good to pass up.

We go through the story and meet up with Team Yell.

While the first fight goes off without a hitch...

We get to the second fight and...

...I wanna say this won't become a pattern, but...

After the second battle, we get into the tag battle with Hop. How is the hotel allowing all this to happen?

When the battle begins, we find out that Hop is using a Cottonee against a Hoothoot and a Venipede.

What makes matters worse is that they have Reflect and 5/6 of our party members are physical attackers. That's not good.

But these two Team Yell members go down without much more trouble. While this isn't the end of Motostoke, I've reached the image limit for Tumblr. Join us next time when we finish Motostoke and move onto Route 3!

Mars' Pokemon Randomized Generationlocke (Pokemon Shield)

So I was thinking of doing a Generationlocke, but instead of going Gen 1 -> Gen 2 -> Gen 3 etc. I wanted to randomize not only the Pokemon in the game, but the order I play the games in. I was planning on making a video series on this, but I wanted to do a sort of test run and chronicling it here through screenshots and text. Since this is a test run, I'll be following the "one Pokemon per route rule," but I won't be following "if a Pokemon faints, it's dead," at least not until the endgame, where the surviving party will move onto the next game. I do have a bunch of rules like what to do if the Pokemon in your party isn't in the next game, but I won't boggle down this post with a lot of rules; I'm going for a light and casual feel to this run.

I'll be starting with Pokemon Shield. Please note that I'll be skipping over most story beats for these posts. See you under the cut!

So for the Starters, my choices are Sandile, Pumpkaboo and Aron. All solid choices.

But I have to go with Aron and I name him Gabe. Also, I think when I took this screenshot, I wanted to catch him smiling, but it looks like he has no eyes.

The fight with Hop goes off without a hitch, especially with one of his Pokemon being a Rockruff and Aron already knows Metal Claw. I gotta say, early movesets in Gen 8 are jacked.

Route 1, we catch a Fomantis, who we name Marluxia.

In Wedgehurst, we spend our hard-earned money on the one thing that matters: clothes! ...Yeah, if there's customization, I spend most of my money on clothes.

On Route 2, we catch a Larvitar and we name her Slateford. I gotta say, it's gonna be really difficult for me to decide between Gabe and Slateford if I need to make room in my party.

The first trainer in the game, Youngster Jake has a Snom. I feel like I'm about to commit a horrible atrocity here.

ALSO: You might have noticed that this Snom is a higher level than Jake's Skwovet in the vanilla game. That is because the tool I used to randomize the game, pkNX has an option to increase trainer levels when randomizing. I chose to increase trainer levels by 1.5x. The reasoning for this is that the games with total party Exp. Share turned on like Sword and Shield can get boring. I wanted to combat this by raising trainer levels. Wild Pokemon levels remain the same, though; Gen 8 imposed a stricter catching system on higher-level Pokemon and I don't wanna make catching already harder than it is.

Moving on, we make quick work of Hop thanks to Marluxia and Gabe. You know, I can't help but feel bad for Hop, it feels like we stole the role of protagonist from him.

That's all for now. Next up will be the Wild Area and Motostoke!

[teruterusky]

The problems with the EXP system in Pokémon Legends

Pokémon Legends: Arceus is a great game, and I am still enjoying playing it. However, it’s not without its share of problems, one of the biggest of which is, IMO, how EXP is handled in this game. While I’ve personally never liked mandatory EXP All, Legends has taken the problems associated with it a step further by only rewarding EXP at the end of a battle. While in a 1v1 battle this doesn’t change much, the problem becomes more apparent when you battle groups of strong wild Pokémon or some of the game’s stronger trainers. As I begin to train up a wider variety of Pokémon, both for fun and to complete the Pokédex, the problems are becoming much more apparent.

1. Pokémon aren’t rewarded for their efforts in battle

In battles with more than one opponent (both wild and trainer), you might have one Pokémon that does the heavy lifting and takes out the majority of the opponents before succumbing to an attack. In prior games, this Pokémon would gain well-deserved EXP each time it KOed a foe. However, with EXP now being rewarded at the end of a battle, the Pokémon that was the MVP will get none of the EXP if it was knocked out. You want to see your Pokémon rewarded for doing well in a tough situation, but instead those rewards go to your other Pokémon, who may not even need the EXP.

2. The rich get richer

Knocked-out Pokémon not receiving EXP effectively means that your strongest Pokémon, which are the least likely to be KOed, are also the ones receiving EXP from the most battles. In teams with a level disparity, the EXP system reinforces this disparity. The corollary to this also means that your lowest level Pokémon, the ones who need EXP the most, are likely going to be receiving the least EXP if you want to use them in battle.

3. The worst way to train a Pokémon is to actually use it

Pokémon is a game whose strongest point is its variety; it’s a game where you are encouraged to try out a wide selection of Pokémon on your team and use whichever ones you like. In Legends, this variety is promoted even more with research tasks encouraging you to use nearly every Pokémon in battle to observe their moves. However, the EXP system undermines the variety promoted by the rest of the game. As mentioned above, your weaker Pokémon are more likely to be KOed, and typically the Pokémon you just caught and want to try out is going to be your weakest (unless it’s an alpha). By experimenting with a new Pokémon in battle, that Pokémon’s EXP gain will likely be hindered, while the rest of your team keeps growing due to the combination of EXP All and EXP being given out after the battle. This effectively means that the best way to get this new Pokémon to a state where you can use it somewhat reliably is to have it sit in your party not battling, or to use EXP candy, neither of which are as fun or rewarding as actually using your new Pokémon in battle.

On the whole, the combination of EXP All and receiving EXP after battle is a system which works against Pokémon Legends in the long run. While Pokémon Legends is probably the best game in the series for exploring battling with new Pokémon, its undermined by the EXP system encouraging playing it safe over exploration. EXP All certainly has its uses, but the way its used in Legends is flawed.

[bakersstreetirregulars]

Eclair’s Guide to Snow on the Black Wall: Part VI

📚 Well now… time to make that detour, shall we? But before we do, I should point out some crucial notes that were realized. The numbers you see here on this blog’s postings are the coin rewards from a stage AFTER being multiplied by the effects of the Star Candy Observatory landmark at level 7 (which is +14% to any Coins you receive from winning a battle). Case in point, the actual number of coins awarded for a win without any multipliers or percentages is a just a tad lower than what is typed here. Also, I should mention that an informant* has told the Editor that due to the passively freezing conditions of the Dark Cacao Kingdom, every enemy in the region has a passive immunity to Freeze, which is currently exclusive as an ability-activated debuff to Frost Queen Cookie.

*and by informant I meant I just pulled her. One test in the chapter and nothing froze over.

Stage 13-16

Stage Power: 425,344 (No increase)

Frost Spirits: Cotton Cookie, whatever you do, don’t get distracted. None of them even RESEMBLE Sherbet Cookie! Instead, these chaotic little sprites cast a crippling spell at (once again) the Cookie with the highest ATK to Silence them. While Silenced, the target cannot use their special abilities. Think about what Latte does, except all that damage is being pointed at one target and the damage is dealt all at once. They can be knocked back and even stunned, but they won’t advance forward towards you. Instead, they hunker back and let whatever’s in front of them take the heat for them! Unlike the Mountain Ents, their target can still attack normally and will not get thrown into a stunlock, but keep your eyes open for anything else that CAN stunlock your party, and always have a healer ready.

Wave 1: 3 Licorice Cake Hounds, 2 Frost Spirits

Wave 2: 3 Frost Spirits, 2 Sprouted Mountain Ents

Wave 3: 3 Licorice Cake Hounds, 2 Sprouted Mountain Ents

Final Wave: Sprinkled Yeti, 2 Frost Spirits, Boss Frost Spirit

📚 If you know how to conquer the 3x2 formation intended to eliminate your team’s main attacker ever-so-present in practically this entire region, then this should be a bit more of a breeze. Since the Sprouted Mountain Ents aren’t constantly pinning them down every two seconds, there’s less of a hazard of losing your DPS for a lousy gimmick. The main difference between the two is that if a Cookie gets silenced by a Frost Spirit while using their special ability, they will still be silenced, but their ability will go through in full unless the attack knocks them out. You still need the healers and defensive options just in case the target’s hitpoint pool isn’t up to snuff. The range of a Frost Spirit is also much longer than that of a Mountain Ent, so don’t let your guard down when you try to lure an unsuspecting Yeti towards the end.

13-16 Rewards

⭐️ 438 Kingdom EXP

🪙 5,803 Coins

🍬 6 EXP Star Jellies (Level 4)

Small Searing Raspberries and Hearty Hazelnuts

Medium Bouncy Caramels and Solid Almonds

2 Topping Pieces

🗡 1 Ambush Skill Powder

Editor’s Party: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

⚙️ Strawberry Crepe (Level 52 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️, two Walnuts and three Almonds, all +12)

🌊 Sea Fairy (Level 51, all Raspberries +12)

📚 Eclair (Level 51 ⭐️⭐️⭐️, all Raspberries, one +12)

🍨 Pure Vanilla (Level 49, all Raspberries +12)

🐑 Cotton (Level 58 ⭐️⭐️, all Chocolates +12, level 56 ability)

🪶 Sugar Swan’s Shining Feather (Level 5)

🕰 Squishy Jelly Watch (Level 12)

🪄 Blind Healer’s Staff (Level 3)

Stage 13-17

Stage Power: 435,693 (Increased 10,349)

Wave 1: 2 Licorice Cake Hounds, 2 Choco Chip Mountain Scarabs

Wave 2: Sprinkled Yeti, 3 Frost Spirits

Wave 3: 2 Sprouted Mountain Ents, 2 Frost Spirits (pay close attention to them, they’re overlapping!)

Final Wave: 2 Mountain Scarabs, 2 Frost Spirits, Boss Frost Spirit

📚 Apply everything you’ve learned from this region against these groups without living in fear of being bound down by a shackle gimmick to bolster the front while defending the central attacker. While it sounds simple on paper, the power increase says otherwise. Any Cookie that isn’t bound to one of those two target groups should be placed to fend off damage for everyone else, either by lowering the enemies’ ATK, healing and protecting where it’s needed, or by stunning and defeating them in seconds.

13-17 Rewards

⭐️ 444 Kingdom EXP

🪙 5,618 Coins

🍬 6 EXP Star Jellies (Level 4)

Small Hard Walnuts and Swift Chocolates

Medium Bouncy Caramels and Solid Almonds

2 Topping Pieces

1 Healing Skill Powder

Editor’s Party: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

⚙️ Strawberry Crepe (Level 52 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️, two Walnuts and three Almonds, all +12)

🌊 Sea Fairy (Level 51, all Raspberries +12)

🌩 Dark Cacao (Level 49, two Raspberries and three Almonds, all un-upgraded)

🍨 Pure Vanilla (Level 49, all Raspberries +12)

🐑 Cotton (Level 58 ⭐️⭐️, all Chocolates +12, level 56 ability)

🪶 Sugar Swan’s Shining Feather (Level 5)

🕰 Squishy Jelly Watch (Level 12)

📜 Old Pilgrim’s Scroll (Level 3)

📚 Complete 13-17 the first time to get 4.1 million Kingdom EXP ⭐️, 50 thousand coins 🪙, and 50 Pristine Healing Skill Powders ➕.

Post-Completion Conversation: Bolstering the Fortifications

Feat. Workers 1️⃣ and 2️⃣

🌩 These fortifications were ordered to be bolstered weeks ago, but it is proceeding at a sugar snail’s pace. Quarry more cocoa and bring more syrup! Coat the walls in thick layers of chocolate to reinforce them!

1️⃣ By your command, my king!

🌩 Bring more chocolate bricks and cauldrons for boiling water. Ensure that there are enough arrows to hold off a siege! All towers and stations must be supplied!

2️⃣ Yes, Your Majesty!

🪔 Pardon my curiosity, my Liege. We’ve already a sturdy wall protecting us. Why must the citadel be bolstered with such fervor? Our kingdom’s coffers cannot sustain these efforts. May I advise caution, for soon even our citadel’s kitchens will have to switch from Rainbow Jellies to… plain Jellies.

🌩 Silence! There will be no meals at all if our kingdom is to fall.

🪔 A hundred pardons, Your Majesty. Though I humbly stand by my word, observe: the soldiers are growing weary. As are you, my king. My Lord, as King of the Dark Cacao Kingdom, you must pace yourself. Your subjects need your strength…

🌩 My health matters not at this time. Do not let up! Proceed with the construction! There is no room for regret or blame if we are ill-prepared when disaster strikes. All of you, double your efforts!

[icharchivist]

So is there a more effective way of grinding EMP than just killing slimes? I haven't set out to focus on it yet but it feels like raising EMP level takes forever

arf, unfortunately there's only just, massive grindings. EMP is especially a reward from grinding hard everywhere else than something i've seen people grind for - but yeah if you want to maximize your EMP it's with slime blasting

though, when you kill slimes there's just a few tips that can help

1) Activate the Boost to EXP Earned in the Journey Drop's shop

2) put this weapon from Rise of the Beasts in your grid (better if uncapped but even one copy gives you a boost)

Also if you want to double your efficiency while doing so grab also those weapon in RotB:

Especially Neptune's Trident, since Septian Burner is more recommanded for like, Angel Halo or other similar quests to look for mats (like the various trials) - basically when you know your grid won't take a power hit from it

NOTE that all of those weapons are available from getting them from the badges, so you don't have to spend pendant in the shop for them unless you are in dire need to.

Similarly, not for EMP but still in optimizing, use this weapon in your slime blasting grid:

you should have got it from doing the Halloween Quests. The "Chance to get candy" are basically EXP boosts that can be used to level up a character who hasn't been maxed yet

3) if your grid can allow it/if you have good summons to carry you and everything, don't hesitate to take the summons with EXP drop+ in the "Other" tab like Nobiyo or the Black/White Rabbit (Nobiyois an event summon, the Rabbits are both available to get in the Arcarum's shop, if you want to optimize yourself with them)

EMP raising IS meant to take forever and you'll only really get more by just keep blasting and usually it's better to not focus on it much. For the levels they're shared between various units so if you have multiple version of one character the level will go up faster, but for the points, it's per unit and it's just, using it a lot.

Personally for instance i have a very specific Slime Blasting team that takes into account all i said (though i use Bahamut rather than a EXP+ Summon bc i prefer to do quick multiple times than long for a little bit more rewards), and i keep underleveled characters in my team EXCEPT for Percival that never leaves my team. So when i blast slimes to level up the others chara Percival always get EMPs.

that's all i can really say ^^"

good luck with your EMP grinding!!

[kicksnscribs]

{{Just spent like ten minutes writing this only to have tumblr eat it so now i’m rewriting this shit out of spite}}

Pokemon SWSH Dynamax Edition Project [at least the ideas i have of it so far]

Expand the Wild Area and redesign it so that it encourages players to actively explore new areas/make certain Pokemon more difficult to obtain unless they go out to explore

Additionally the Galar Region will be updated as a whole to try and completely lean into the fantasy/steampunk aspect that I wish they would have embraced [seriously Ballonlea/Glimwood Tangle was the only really good area and they wasted the potential of  Turffield and Stow-On-Side with the ruins plot line.

Break down Galar into three sections based off of England, Scotland, and Wales and build up the wild areas based off of local areas. [Seriously they passed up on designing a spot based on Fingal’s Cave and I am UPSET]

Swing away the focus of online battling and competitive play in the hopes of making a more interesting plot. i feel like Pokemon has become too focused on battling/trading online rather than the whole "making friends and exploring/collecting with your Pokemon. It's become more a bragging right thing more than anything imho.

In fact, I would probably lock the online battling/trading gimmick until like halfway through the game or even post game if I'm being completely honest rn.

Get rid of the exp share until online battling is unlocked.  Make stat enhancing items the rarest items in the game [Like ethers in FF level rare].

Additionally, I would probably change it so that Rare Candies boost ALL of a Pkmns stats including it's level to really give them a more important role. Make those things hard af to get too.

Bring back the poison in the over world that sent us into a panic every   time we went into the grass. Make the world fear Weedles again lmao.

Get rid of the Alcremie forms [or at least reduce it to like a handful of forms; THIS was the only thing that pissed me off about SWSH tbh]

Add Gigantamax designs for most of the final stage/single stage evos but make getting them based on the individual Pkmn's stats [like you have to have specific IV parameters for the Pokemon you want to Gigantamax] additionally the pkmn needs be at the max dynamax level. [I only add this bc thats what i thought would give me the Gigantamax forms in the OG game lol]

Maybe add Gallifreyan Unknown to ref Doctor Who? [I’ve never seen more than three eps of that show but i like the way Gallifreyan looks lol]

Add Queen as a hidden trainer battle bc that would be funny as shit tbh

Bring back the mining minigame from D/P to replace whatever it is they have in SWSH. [I just like that game ok?]

[harusha]

Deposit Pokemon

Gen VI: Zigzagoon

Gen VII: Meowth

Gen VIII/SWSH: lv. 51-60 Zigzagoon (Hoenn or Galar) or lv. 1-10 Nickit

Lv. 60 Zigzagoon can be found by the Wild Area Daycare after the player has become Champion. You can also manually use Exp. Candies to reach the level requirement.

Link to Active Giveaways (Check here periodically)

If you see a link code, it’s a giveaway for SWSH and requires Nintendo Online; for these types of giveaways, trade me something you won’t miss.

If you see “GTS,” it’s for the GTS on Pokemon HOME. I don’t take alternate deposit Pokemon for these types of giveaways.

Don’t take more than one unless the post specifies you can. Please do not trade me eggs.

If it’s a breedable Pokemon, it will have egg moves unless otherwise stated. All Pokemon will have all their TRs learned if applicable (unless otherwise stated).

No shinies or legendaries please. I really don’t need or want them. I do appreciate the thought though.

Every giveaway also gets rerun eventually.

Proof of Trade (Assorted):

[artesesarthouse]

My Pokemon Shield team!

Decided to use my Friends OC as the character I play in Shield because she's british and well this IS the british region so it fits.

So I've beaten pokemon Shield, finished about 90% of the Dex, and have gotten about a third of the way through Sword, and for the most part, I'm having fun with it. I say, despite the bad news that kept pouring over the last few weeks, it has enough good things to keep it fun and fresh. That said, there are some issues because not everything is perfect, and I'll detail the pros and cons I find with most of the important things about the game. Keep in mind I'm not a professional in the industry. I'm a casual fan who likes to collect Pokemon and a fan of the creature design. That said, let's get into it.

TLDR: Pokemon SWSH is good; its good on the things it improves on and adds to make the game more helpful to the grind, but it has many short cuts that make certain features tedious and time-consuming. Buy the game for the new mons and quality of life improvements. Don't buy if you expect everything to carry over from previous titles.

The Dex:

Of course, I have to talk about this as it was the biggest thing that started to change people's minds about SWSH and is a controversy that continued till release. For me, when I heard it, I didn't care because, for me, the only Pokemon I care about are the new ones. My team for each game is only the new Pokemon (including the alola and galar forms). But I do understand why people are upset because once pokemon home comes around, no doubt pokemon bank will close and you'll HAVE to switch them over and thus not be able to use Pokemon you've had for a while until they get added in future games. Which could be years. But let's switch gears and talk about what was added. Then just over 80 new pokemon, not including galarian forms. Now, this isn't the smallest amount of new mons we've had. XY had the least, but it still disappointing that there aren't that many new ones. BUT the new mons we got are fun and creative. I have many new favs, and GOD do I love that they brought back regional forms and made them better! obstagoon isn't the only one that got a region-based evolution, and I LOVE that they brought more. I think one of the unique things about Pokemon from most other monster catcher type shows and games is evolution and a big disappointment for me is whenever there is a pokemon with no evolutions because it feels like there's no potential and it's boring, and yes there is no-evolution pokemon among the new mons. My final note, though, is that there are more new evolution gimmicks, and I am not a fan, stones? Okay, friendship? Annoying but with berries, it can help. Trade? It can be annoying if you don't have friends, but you can use the GTS (OH WAIT :( ILL GET INTO THAT LATER), but making it, so yanmask needs 49+ damage AND can only evolve in a specific spot? FOR SHAME.

Wild area and Dynamax dens:

The one thing that was advertised the most, the thing that was in basically every trailer and hammered to death, the wild are. SO how is it after all this hyper? It's okay.

Pros:

It's big, way bigger then I thought, I thought it was just that beginning area in front of motorstroke but nope! Way bigger.

The wild area is split up into sections that each has their spawns and weather separate from the rest. This allows you to build a variety of teams early on; you don't have to wait till the end of the game to get an Ice-type or Dragon-type. If it's snowing in one section, there will be plenty of Ice-type mons.

The Dynamax dens are a great way to help the grind that pokemon games tend to have. Not only do you have a chance to get rare mons, but you get EXP candies which help level up your mons from 100 exp to 100,000 exp, so you can use those to level up mons you don't plan to use but need the evolutions for their Pokedex entries! It helps simplify the grind and tediousness of the grind.

Cons:

It's very tiresome to travel around, there are many hills and slopes you can't move through and have to take the path around it, which gets annoying very quickly, especially if you are trying to get into the water, but you can only access it from a lower level, what would've been nice is a rock climbing upgrade for the bike so you can traverse up the cliffs and cut downtime.

Overworld pokemon aggro too much and get in the way. They are a lot of Pokemon that can only be caught in grass, and the way you have to trigger a grass pokemon is by moving in the tall grass, the problem is the Pokemon that some pokemon that wander around will notice and charge at you, stopping your progress until you end the fight. It gets in the way, and from I've seen, there's no item to make them ignore you.

Weather spawns, one worry I had when I heard about the changing weather feature was that some pokemon are locked into only appearing during particular weather, and sadly I was right, but it's even worse! Not only is that true, BUT some mons can only be gotten in individual sections too! So there's an even smaller chance at getting them! Weather also is daily, and every section can get nearly every single weather effect, so it could be literal weeks until you get the one weather effect you need in that one section for your damn Pokedex.

GMAX raids are too infrequent, one of the big things that made people get on the side of Dynamaxing was the introduction of Gigantamaxing, which is just mega evolution with extra steps, but you can only get them from raids. Except for Charizard, Eevee, Pikachu, and Meowth. And they are a very low chance even with the event going on that increases some of the spawns.

The Wild area is a good idea which they will hopefully explore and improve in future games, but only time will tell.

Pokemon Camp:

The new substitute after Pokemon refresh. And it's okay, leaning towards Tedious.

Pros:

It's fun to see the Pokemon interact and run along and even play fetch with them, Cute and fun,

Cooking curry increases their EXP, friendship, and restores their health. So it's very convenient if you don't want to use potions or don't even have them.

Cons:

No way to level up affection quickly, in Pokemon Amie, you had those special cupcakes, and in Refresh, you had the rainbow beans. Not in this one, though, it's all involves the two toys you get. And it's slow and tedious after the 500th stick wiggle.

Getting berries for curry is tedious; this is part of the wild area problem, but there is no way to farm berries you need for specific curry, or in general, SM and USUM had the poke pelago which was a great addition especially the berry farm. But there is nothing to help with that in this game, so you have to resort to being lucky to get the berry you need from a tree and not be attacked by the squirrel.

No clear way of how to get the best rating for curry. It warns you about speed before your first curry session, but there are nothings to indicate how fast or slow you need to be for each section, additionally if you are using a controller, you can't stir as quickly as using each Switch controller separately.

Pokemon camp feels like a simplified pokemon refresh with a few improvements but not enough to streamline the process.

The starters:

Now about a week or so before the release, the whole Pokedex was leaked, including the starters, which stirred up controversy due to how they look compared to most other gens. I think they're fine. Each has its positives and negatives like every other gen. For me, Rillaboom is the best because it has a freaking drum set and is a big hunky boy. Then why did I not choose it as my starter for the pic above? Because of my complaint about the starters. They aren't dual-type, So they had no guarantee they could learn other move types from their base type, which for the most part, is true unless you use TMS or TRS. So it was either Intelleon or Cinderace because grass-type has so many weaknesses. I went with Intelleon because Cinderace just looked the most boring to me? It looks like a rabbit wearing pants, not that I don't get the theme, which is Cinderace as a soccer player, but still, it was engaging to me. Intelleon stirred up controversy due to its smug look and big hands, but I saw someone explain why he might be like that which helped warm me up to him, It's based on a lizard that is long and lean with big hands, and most likely is based on a spy theme. Especially with that official art of it doing a dodge with a finger gun attack (which it has in the game), so that made him more interesting to me. I think the biggest problem with Intelleon was that is has nothing to do with sobble's gimmick. Scorbunny kicks? Turns into a soccer player. Grookey using a stick to hit things? Turns into a drummer. Sobble cries a lot? Turns...into...a spy? Like the crying thing doesn't play into his final form at all, and that is probably why people were so off-put by the idea. Honestly, I say some of Drizzles design should've been for sobble. That way, it could help learn into the edgy lizard design. But I think the BIGGEST problem with the starters is that WE DIDN'T GET TO SEE THEM BEFORE RELEASE. I'm okay with not showing all Pokemon, but the starters are NEEDED. It's the first Pokemon we get and will spend hours leveling up. I honestly think the leaks helped save the game because if we didn't know the final evolves before the release and found out after, many more people would have been upset. The leaks helped give people a week to process and get used to them.

That's enough about the Pokemon, let's get into the story elements.

Rivals:

This game has three Rivals, and each represents the arch-type of Rival we have gotten over the years. Hop represents the friendly Rival who fights to get to know you and become strong with his Pokemon. Marnie represents the Rivals who are kind and respectful to you but also battle to be competitive and prove themselves. Bede represents the asshole Rivals, the ones who, no matter how much you beat them, they think they're better than you and won't shut up about it, but they might have a tragic past that makes up for them being jerks. My favorite is Hop, mostly because he gets the most development and because I like the friendly Rivals. It started for me in XY actually, when you got that group of friends it was nice because ironically in a game about companionship with pocket monsters, you're very alone. You only see your Mons when you fight or use Amie, Refresh, and Camp. So having a friend come around every once in a while feels nice and helps that feeling of loneliness. Anyways Bede and Marnie are nice but don't get enough time, but they serve their purpose.

Gym battles:

I love what they've done with the gyms; they are spectacles thanks to the crowd, the music (by toby fox C:), and Dynamxing makes each gym battle feel as epic as it should be. The pre-gym fight challenges and activities range from okay too annoying (looking at you pinball and collapsing trap puzzles), but they serve their purpose for getting more EXP before the final fight.

There is no Elite four, which makes sense since the game builds up Lee as the champion. Even without the Elite four, I do like the tournament aspect, it makes sense for the region, and you still fight four powerful trainers.

The antagonists:

Spoilers alert, if most of what I said isn't already a spoiler. Team yell felt disappointing; they weren't involved that much unless to block off an area until you beat a gym or something. But I did like Piers and Marnie's relationship that developed from around the team. Rose and Oleanna were great because Rose had charisma and was generally kind, so you can see why he gained the respect of the region. And his plan makes sense, but he went about it the wrong way by rushing and imprisoning a pokemon that caused a significant problem years ago. Oleanna was a treat because of how dedicated and stone-cold she was, and when she battled you, her expressions were priceless. Sordward and Shielbert were total jerks, and it was satisfying enough to beat them. The antagonists are alright, I say the plan from Rose came in a bit last minute, but it was still a good threat.

The story:

Now Pokemon stories aren't complicated; You want to become champion, you get a Rival, the evil team gets in your way, so you get dragged into a major conspiracy, you beat them along your journey and then become champion. There can be things to read into, and development for some characters that make them exciting and put simply, SWSH follows the same formula. I think the best part is Hop's journey, and seeing Sonia grow as well, most of the other major players don't change all that much till the end of the game. So it's not a bad story, just the same formula as before. It IS a kid's game so that I wouldn't expect anything complicated anyway.

The end game story:

This is where Sordward and Shielbert are introduced, and they fill the role of villains who only care about themselves if you didn't like what they did with Rose. Sadly they weren't introduced or even mentioned throughout the game, so it's not as fulfilling to beat them due to them just appearing out of nowhere. My only problem is that we have to go to every gym to fight dynamaxed Pokemon, but we don't get to capture them, and its a long road till we get to catch the game legendary finally.

The story offers new aspects, but for the most part, follows a formula, so don't expect something complicated or nuanced. Now on to the technicals.

Improvements:

They have made quite a few quality of life improvements that have helped make things tighter and more comfortable to access.

In battle, they made it so you can press X to go to pokeballs quickly for easy catching.

The PC link box. You no longer have to travel back and forth between poke centers to get Pokemon from the box so you can level and evolve them, now you can access it on your person anywhere which is convenient and handy.

The name rater, move reminder, and deleter is all the same person and in every poke-center at no additional cost too!

From SM-Lets go, there were ride Pokemon that took up the task of the bike and the Hm moves, which was great! No more annoying Hm moves you couldn't get rid of and had to have to move around the world. Now it's improved further with the bike being able to slip between land and seas without any menus, you get the ability to fly very early, AND there's nothing for strength, cut or flash. Less tediousness and more easy-to-access features, thank you.

You can organize the menus to your preferred order. The bag is easier to understand, and you can favorite things and organize it by favorites so you'll always be able to see them. There are more options in the settings to help skip through dialogue-heavy parts and make the game more accessible to get through if you want.

Bad advertising:

I think one of the things that hurt the game pre-release is that the advertising was crap, barely any of the improvements were shown outside of the wild area and Dynamaxing. I mentioned before how stupid it was that we didn't get to see the evolutions for the damn starters. I don't mind that we didn't get to see all the new Pokemon, I like the surprise, but we should've seen at least the other exclusives, so help people decided what to buy. I do say you shouldn't show everything, but the starters and exclusives are necessary for people to decided what to buy and who they are going to choose.

The worst thing about the game:

Now I can see the problem with Dexit, and I can see the problem with the battle animations, BUT I believe the worst part about the game is the Ycomm feature. It's the replacement for the multiplayer menu from the DS games, and it brought over the worst feature from let's go. No Global trade System. So if you're looking for exclusives or low percentage chance pokemon well you're on your own, there's nothing to help you find the Pokemon you need. There's link trade and surprise trade and no way to specify what you want if you have a friend who got the other game, then your lucky. If you don't have any friends? Well, your fucked, sucks for you, you friendless loser lol lol. That's not it, though, and there's no friends list either. You have to use a four-digit link code, which by the way a random can also use it as well. But you know what they do have? League card trading section, League cards are fun and cute but a section to getting them from randoms when it means nothing? Pointless, that slow should've been for the GTS or at least a friend list section. They do have a way to search through stamps so you can find battles or trades and even Dynamax dens, though! Oh wait... the list barely updates frequently enough until the person searching for a raid team has either quit or started anyway, but the game won't tell you that until you attempt to join!

Pokemon Sword and Shield is a good game with shortcuts and flaws that are tedious and frustrating, but the improvements and good things that were added make up for its shortcomings. Heres hoping next year's game will carry over the good changes and improve on SWSH faults.

[laureviewer]

Dragons Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age—A Review

WARNING: (not full) spoilers below.

‘We did it darliiiings!’

That’s what I cried, a-la the Great Sylvando, once I finished this game. 112 hours in, and all the way through it showed no signs of slowing. Which, for a shameless JRPG-lover like myself, is exactly what I want in a game. Hours and hours of combat, exploration through stunning scenery, empathetic and deep characters and, most importantly, a completely immersive and entertaining story that I can’t wait to see the climax—but, crucially, I can.

The Chosen One

The story begins in Erdrea, where monsters have invaded the fantastical world—why, we’re not quite sure. All we know, as the infant protagonist, is that we are found washed up on the riverbank by a kindly old man named Chalky, who takes us to his village and gives us to our adoptive mother, Amber.

And, guess what? He’s the Chosen One—the Luminary. You’d have thought our hero would have realised something was different about him with the presence of a very specific birthmark tattooed on the back of his hand, but he and his childhood friend Gemma do come from a sheltered town with very little knowledge of the outside world, after all. True to form for a lot of adventure games, he’s the only one who can save the world. After finding this out in a coming-of-age ceremony a few years later, Amber tells him to go to King Carnelian of Heliodor, who is sure to help him understand what all this means. Right?

If our silent protagonist could talk, this is where he would be screaming, ‘I’m not the Darkspawn!’ as King Carnelian throws him in the dungeon. But thank Yggdrasil he did, or we wouldn’t meet our first companion in our band of loveable misfits.

The Power of Friendship

I’m still unsure why, after so many hours of gameplay, why Erik endears himself the most to me, but he does. Sure, he’s the first one you meet, and you team up to escape the dungeon (running from a giant dragon along the way!), but he’s also a dishonest thief. Throughout the game, you never quite know if he’s in it for himself or to help you save the world. I’ve concluded that he’s actually doing it for you, and your budding bromance…or, at least, that’s my own head cannon. He’s misunderstood. His cutting sarcasm is welcome in a story of overly keen optimists (see: Sylvando). And he’s who the hero seems to look at whenever there’s a sweet, sentimental moment in the story, cementing their true friendship.

Or, maybe it’s because Akira Toriyama drew these characters, and his colourful hair and spunky attitude remind me of my childhood DBZ crush, Trunks. Either way, I’m Team Erik, with his knife-wielding, quick-thinking style of fighting, all the way. My only gripe is that his damage wasn’t that great for me until endgame, unfortunately.

Even though we don’t meet Sylvando until later, it seems that my mind demands he be the next to discuss—much like Sylvando demands much of the attention within the game. We first meet him at the circus, where he is a beloved performer. His quest is to make the people of the world smile—a noble endeavour in a world where the Dark One is coming to rid the world of happiness for good. He is the absolute epitome of flamboyance: he calls your band of companions ‘darlings’; he has a half-naked ship captain with bulging muscles and a pink face mask called Dave, of all things; and he even leads a peacock-feathered parade at a certain point in the game, which the hero must cheerily join in, feathers and sassy sway absolutely necessary.

And yet, he doesn’t simply function as comic relief. He is brave, charming, sympathetic, and quite often the heart of the group. He is always the one to ask if a character is okay, or if they need help, and has conviction that only Henrik, our resident knight in shining armour, would rival. Plus, he’s fantastic with a whip (because of course he is) and has some fabulous healing moves that have saved me more than once in a tough fight. The group would be nothing without Sylvando—and he absolutely knows it!

Veronica & Serena serve as our other characters who are bound by destiny. They are Keepers, born to protect aid the Luminary on his quest. As twins, you’d expect them to look the same…but, after an encounter with monsters, Veronica was turned into a child, and is stuck that way. As an offensive mage who hates being treated like a child, she serves as the brash one of the group, quick to anger, much like her fiery spells.

Serena, on the other hand, serves as the yin to Veronica’s yang. She is temperate and always willing to help, if somewhat hapless. The primary healer of the group, she excels in restorative and defensive magic, and has a harp to while away the less hopeful days. As a pair, these two are steadfast, loyal, and…to be honest, aren’t much more interesting than that, unless Veronica is being goaded into an argument.

Until the later game, anyway. I won’t spoil that here, but will just say I underestimated both their spell casting abilities and their importance in the story. 

You know how the hero is the Chosen One, the Luminary and the absolute saviour of the world? Well, he also happens to be a Prince of Dundrasil. Had the fates been kinder, he might have been brought up in a huge castle, with loving royal family around to raise and guide him.

Rab, a fierce, playful and wise old man (with a banging Scottish accent) is ready to heal, attack with offensive magic, and guide our hero around the expansive world. And, as we find out after defeating him and his sexy companion in a battle competition in Octagonia (see: Jade), he is also grandfather to our hero, and thus a Lord of Dundrasil himself. He may seem old, but not only does he have royal blood, but he is a capable spell-caster and martial artist, making it apparent that he is one of the most capable companions in the game. If I were to ask anyone for advice, knowing that he would neither mince his words nor omit anything important, I would go to Rab.

You know what any game directed at kids needs? That’s right, a sexy warrior princess that you can stick in a bunny costume for most of the game. Even if you choose not to do that, her combat outfit doesn’t leave much to the imagination.

Thankfully, Jade isn’t just eye-candy. She has far more going for her. She’s a Princess of Heliodor, the hero’s childhood companion who lost him as a baby. She just wants to find him, her younger brother figure (sadly), and help him fulfil his destiny. Plus, as a battle and spear fighter, she has some of the strongest moves in the game—albeit mostly from her sexy, love-based moves such as ‘Hip Thrust’ and ‘Sexy Beam’, only comparable with Sylvando’s equally as sexy and flamboyant ‘Lashings of Love’ and ‘That’s Amore’ moves. She’s a badass bitch who takes no crap from lovestruck men or monsters.

Though, she has her very own Princess Leia moment, where she is captured by a horrific, giant, evil and ugly monster and made to wear a sexy outfit (hey, there’s that bunny girl outfit again). It is heavily implied she has been under his mind control, and that he’s been having his ‘wicked way’ with her. Good thing she comes out of it with sexy vampire powers, isn’t it?

HEAVY SPOILERS NOW. I warn you, don’t go any further if you care about that kind of thing.

Our final companion is one who doesn’t show up until late game. Sir Henrik, a Knight of Heliodor, is the hero we all need. He defends his ruler to the last (which, spoiler alert, nearly ended up being his fatal flaw), is willing to sacrifice himself for the good of all, and defends the weak: a true knight, with chivalry, bravery, and total care for all others. It’s a shame he hated the hero for the first half of the game, really.

But do I care about that? No, I care that his greatsword abilities make him an absolute tank. On a one-on-one fight, I needed him front and centre of every battle just for his incredible damage output. Against multiple enemies, he is less useful, but with his supplementary healing and defence skills, he isn’t just an attacker, but a true defender of the people to the last.  

Calm it with the Combat

My god, this game has a lot of battles. While that’s expected for a turn-based JRPG, and there were a lot, unlike others such as Pokémon, you can choose which battles to avoid as the figures traverse the overworld. This is useful in such a slow-burning game, and also helps you find the monsters you want—again, a definite improvement on the way Pokémon works, as it saves you having to fight hundreds of creatures you don’t want to find the ones with the best EXP.

A notable exception to this is when you have to find and defeat a rare monster for a quest, which don’t traverse the overworld. This means you have to fight potentially hundreds of more common monsters to find the one you want, which can be frustrating, especially as it is all done on chance and not on how many you have defeated. While you can increase your chances with various items or equipment, it still adds a frustrating amount of time to an already long game.

Another vague annoyance is how much harder the game gets post-game. I actually did not have an issue with this, as a friend told me how to farm the elusive and high-EXP metal slimes using a particular Hero-Erik-Jade Pep Power and so I could use this ability throughout post-game. However, for those not in the know, the potentially grinding at the end of the game may put some people off finishing an already saturated game.

What I loved about the combat was how it kept getting harder and harder. I never worried about over-levelling (as said above, I was more worried about being under levelled) and that meant I could do what I do best: do all side-quests before the end of the main story. In other JRPGs, the completionist in me has always made me want to do all side-quests, but this has meant the final boss has been underwhelming and easier than it should be.

The variation of powers and attacks was also really interesting. You can spec into different forms of fighting for each character—I went for Swords with the hero, Whips for Sylvando, Boomerangs with Erik (after using Daggers for most of the game), Heavy Wands for Rab and Veronica, Wands for Serena, Spears for Jade, and Greatswords for Henrik—and this makes all the combinations of them in the party very cool. I normally just controlled the hero during the fights and let the others fight wisely, unless there was a specific quest to fulfil or a particularly hard boss. Not only did this speed up combat, but it also helped me to learn which of their moves were the most effective against which monsters automatically and quickly, which was easier than picking moves and trying them out myself. It’s easy, with enough gold, to respec if you like, and this I’m sure could make the game fee different every time if you wanted to play with different specs.

Pep powers were also a lot of fun. While it was sometimes annoying waiting for some or all of the characters to pep up and therefore use these moves that combine different characters’ moves for ‘Ultimate’ attacks, they provided fun cutscenes and made the battles more interesting. Plus, they reminded me a lot of DBZ moves, especially the epic ones with the hero and Rab!

Top tip: you can swap out characters and they will keep their pepped-up status. I wish I’d known about that a lot earlier!

The monster designs are great, as per usual Akira Toriyama style. There are lots of different kinds, from slimes, to mechs, to really weird ones like the kissy lip monster and the Bongo Drongos. The bosses are also amazing. Just all the character designs, from human to monster, to anything else. I see a lot of DBZ in all of them, which is fantastic.

You know what? Here’s some pictures. You’re welcome.

Mini Games & Challenges: Hey, I actually want to do these!

I often have issues with mini games, as sometimes they are so different from the main game that I just don’t want to spend time playing them. Gwent in another of my favourite games, The Witcher 3 is a good example: I never really learnt the rules, which I’m sure would have helped, but it was so detached from the main game I just didn’t care. Plus, it had no effect on the story or game at large, so what was the point?

In DQ11, sure, you don’t need to rack up 500,000 casino tokens in poker or the slots to buy better gear. You don’t have to finish first in all five Gallopolis horse races. Forging items isn’t totally needed to advance the game. It’s not necessary to win all five rounds of the Wheel of Harma in a certain number of moves (though this is much more like the rest of the game than the other mini games). But I did all of these, and it was great fun. It’s what’s helped make the game such a time suck (especially the casino) but I never felt like they were a chore.

Apart from the crossbow bullseyes. I did none of them as apparently I only noticed about three out of however many there are. They can suck my Sword of Light.  

 What’s a good JRPG without me questioning the point of life after it’s over?

JRPGs do it best—fight me.

The story of DQ11 is immersive, interesting, intricate and, at times, incredibly heart-breaking. Following the hero and his friends for over 100 hours really means you get to dive into their adventure, and more so, their relationships. You truly believe why they have chosen to follow each other into danger, to protect each other as well as the world. Sure, he’s the Luminary, so Serena & Veronica, the Luminary’s guides, at least have a reason to follow him to the end. The fact he’s the Luminary at may mean the characters have more faith in him than they would anyone else without lightning powers. But, even without that, you get the impression that they trust him for his innocent and yet resolute determination to do the right thing, whatever the cost.

The NPCs in the game also provide variety and are a lot of fun. There’s a lovesick mermaid, a brilliantly incompetent prince, two brothers in Laguna di Gondolia who are trying to sell the same things to you for different prices, and Silvando’s Smile Brigade, to name just a few. Their backstories, personalities and current stories all bring life to a game already chock full of it, and makes even simple fetch quests interesting and well worth doing, if you value a good story like I do. These little touches explain why the game clocks in at well over 100+ hours, but at the same time gives true justification to why that is. It’s the difference between a boring game, and one I loved to turn on and just relax of an evening. I might not have done all that much in three hours, but I still enjoyed every minute.

With everything considered, I will remember DQ11 fondly as one of my favourite JRPGs to date. The storyline, characters, combat and score are all fantastic and makes me wish I played the older games. Thank you, Dragon Quest, for giving me 112 hours of fun. 

[fluffyotters]

Trials of Mana

I absolutely love this game and am obsessed with it. I love all the characters and it really is one of the greatest games of all time for me to play. I think I’ve played it at least 17 times or something now (I wish I didn’t have to overwrite files so I can’t say for sure after the 12 max) both first obsessed with testing all the classes and now getting all the unifomrs in a playthrough chain with the uniform update patch that now you can (gloriously) wear any outfit you have unlocked in a previous playthrough after the update. Being able to finally wear class 4 uniforms (after you get to the windstone) pre-end game is fun and I love being able to mix and match the aesthetic outfits without being class locked. And lol this was a personal minor nitpick but I also really like I am not locked into Gladiator outfit (which isn’t bad and I like it) when choosing Eldeferi just because the Eldeferi outfit just looks bad on Duran lol. 

In short yes give me the eye candy for Duran and Kevin’s outfits lol because all of them (except Elderferi) are just mmh. The duelist outfit (which I think should have been called barbarian or gladiator better or something and the Eldeferi looks more like a duelist?) is uh...hot. And I have never thirsted so much over someone’s legs before but I am uh...well Duran’s legs in the Duelist outfit and barbarian aesthetic. I also love the tribal berseker which on one hand covers them but bare chest tattoo dark berserker awesomeness. And then their is the Liege Golden Knight (I’m surprised that wasn’t the class 4 outfit given the appeal which is Saint Seiya golden armor. Just wow. 

Anyways on gameplay. Its incredible. Expert mode is definitely a challenge and fun but also really difficult. It seems to be balanced around access to the broken abilities so once you get to chapter 2, the difficulty level SPIKES severly on expert mode from then on that even enemies 20+ levels lower than you can still trash you and your teammates if you play poorly. IT is absolutely not a walk in the park and you really do need to use all previously Op new game + and broken abilities. EXP boost 300%+ is essential (I mean I’ve always used it as I enjoyed turning hard mode into super easy cake walk mode) but you really need that overleving from Harcypete onwards where everything suddenly becomes a even many levels lower enemies will beat your face. Especially your party team members meaning you’ll either run out of items a lot or you have to use the Infinite Item Mana Miracle ability. I HAVE ZERO guilt abusing the beep out of it because that is what the ability is for and what ordinarily would break the system in other modes....is absolutely essential to surviving in Expert mode. In fact, Expert mode is really balanced with Mana Miracle infinite items and its just a godsend. I can’t imagine playing it without it given how stupid the AI can be in getting hit and having to worry about them. Especially some of the benevedons and onwards, Fire/Wood/Wind/Dark/Moon especially. (The moon benevedon is an utter atrocity in Expert mode unlike all the other modes. Having no elemental weakness makes that battle LONG and the repeated shock wave attacks kiiiiiiiiilllll!!! The wood and Wind benevedons as well). 

I don’t think Expert mode would be possible (unless you really love seeing the game over screen and grinding and solo running and a god teir dodger) without Mana Miracle especially start from the Benevedons (and also a couple battles like Harcypete and the wall if you don’t hit hard fast enough with water claws) when everything just becomes super defensive buffed. I’ve already seen the game over screen plenty of times for battles with the Mana miracle attached and some battles impossible (the Dark benevedon especially) for certain team configurations in expert. Especially since Angela got NERFED HARD in Expert. Angela solos in Easy/Normal/Hard mode are not a thing in Expert. Everything’s magic defense got super buffed and ironically the Dark benevedon was curb stomping me multiple times in Expert even with Angela lucent beam spamming just because I wasn’t doing enough damage while it blasted me!!  (The only team I think that I actually beat Dark benevedon on Expert setting was I think a Duran, Riesz with permanaent debuffs, and Kevin team using Mana Miracle and spamming party wide light elements and Duran tanking and spamming healing and cups of wishes repeatedly). 

That is how much Angela’s damage got nerfed in Expert that her repeated Lucent beam spamming on the Dark Benevedon was barely even scratching him with a weakness while he destroyed my party that i was screw it an switched to hard and toasted his three heads in hard with Angela super fast. I didn’t even touch Crimson Wizard in Expert mode other than a brief try before realizing....I am not a masochist to the extent of wanting to do a LOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGG drawn out battle on any of my expert runs with him as he hits hard and never ever ever ever ever ever ever stops moving that I just put it on Hard and be like bye. I couldn’t beat any of the end game bosses originally on expert mode preclass 4 even at level 90 (Dark Lich came close before I got unlucky and after what was like 30+mintues of fighting wasted to only get killed unluckily I was not in the mood to try again and wanted the nightmare over as I was spamming Cups of wishes NON-STOP because Mana Miracle is a life saver and it would be legitimately impossible without it) but I just recently beat Mondragon on Expert thanks to ironically Angela Lucent beam spamming which was the only thing I could use to consistently hit him other than the occasional Duran tornado when I wasn’t having him heal and stat buff spam and very occasionally attacking. It was a long nasty battle that absolutely used more than 9 cups of Wishes (MANA MIRACLE IS ESSENTIAL FOR EXPERT I CAN NOT REPEAT MYSELF ENOUGH LOL).and waay longer than I would have wanted but I did...finally beat him even though it took a long time with Lucent beam spamming compared to just switching to hard and Lucent beam spamming utterly destroying him in hard like I did in my first expert Run. 

I’m also doing No Future (the easy baby No Future method team) with Kevin, Riesz, and Hawkeye. It’s...interesting as some battles are made ridiculously easy in no future mode that were utter monstrosities like the robot battles, the Wall, and the Moon and Wood and Light benevedons were made super easy thanks to the Guiding Sword No future ability that keeps your party members immortal. While on the other hand....THE ******* Harcypete is an atrocity and words can not say how much I hated the Harcypete and Wind benevedon battles. Especially since Harcypete is only class 2 and you don’t have access to Crystalline and Wall yet but Harcypete’s tornados or her enrfy field thing were horrible. Just...ugh. The amount of gameovers. I never want to face that beep again. And the wind benevedon is a cheap bastard praying to the gaming rpg and rng gods to not get too many thunder balls or wind gusts that aim in your direction while near its attacking head as there is literally nowhere to dodge on Flammie. The wind gusts will always pretty much hit you and its hard to tell where they’re going unless youre really up close and sometimes even then or if he instea launches energy ball. (The wind benevedon is an utter atrocity in every mode too. Expert is also incredibly vicious and most files I literally just had to switch to hard mode as it is literally impossible for my team configuration or just survive in Expert mode though I have managed to scrape wins in some runs with three miminum Wind rings, Duran with further wind shield in light class and spamming healing items and cures and Duelist class items for the party wide Stone saber alternative) But yeah the wind benevedon so many game overs in No Future right along with the harpy. I’m finally at the last 2 benevedons Fire and Dark on No Future and...wow I can’t believe this is what might break me after the harpy and wind benevedon but the fire benenvedons magama rock shield that swirls around it I have to my horror learned does massive damage to you if you get hit and continues to contrinute a lot to hitting me. I finally figured out the best strategy i can do is Crystalline and wall spam so Kevin can roll through the shields so I can attack him and then hpefully have a shield up when I’m forced to roll out when he throws a lava wave at me and melts the ground that causes damage when I accidentally touch it which has neen also killing me. But its so hard.