#rby style

[codacheetah]

Homunculus

[the-dance-of-italy]

Good news: i found nice clothes for cheap.

Bad news: i sold my soul to the devil and bought these

Wish me luck on finding yellow sneakers today :°] (and maybe get hair dye)

[morninkim]

the gang's all here!!

now we're just missing team rocket 👀

inspired by kianamai's redesigns!!

design notes and lil musings under the cut!

Ash takes a lot from Pokespe in terms of his proportions (at least how the early chapters look in my head) and some cues from the newer movie designs bc i LOVE those, especially the one from Power of Us. So ya I also wanted to give him a big poofy jacket bc of i remember seeing an interpretation of Red's original sprite as a big jacket as well and i think it suits Ash a lot. The style was kinda early One Piece inspired at first, so there's just a big of Luffy in Ash's design, but I think it ended up more Digimon Adventure in the end lmaoo. The nose bandaid's to just elevate that rookie protagonist feel a lil bit + I spent way too long figuring out a new hat symbol lmaoo. He's also 11 in this world to match Red's age in RBY.

Pikachu I just wanted to draw him like Red's Pikachu in Special and give him the lighter coloured tummy from early artwork.

Misty's the biggest departure obvs but I knew I wanted to give her a crop hoodie and take inspo from Kiana Khansmith's Misty and give her the wetsuit as an undersuit. Then the chunky shoes were carried over from Ash with big scrumpled socks bc I thought it made her look a lil more unkempt. The whole goal was the make her more scrappy looking and focus in on the whole "Tomyboyish Mermaid" thing from the games. Also combined her RBY hair with her GSC do by making it a half-up ponytail that I think is very cute. OH and her shoes are Cerulean Gym branded, bc I imagine in this world there's merch for each Gym that the leader wear, so the wet suit and hoodie would be branded too. The hoodie's just cropped above the logo and the wet suit's logo's covered by clothes. She's about 12, so a lil older than Ash and does not let him forget it.

For Psyduck, I wanted to make him a lil fluffier and ugly-duckling + incorporate the three lil sprout hairs he's got a lil more to suit the style. He also has a neck now, you just can't see it super well here. He's just a fluffy lil duck who hurt a lot. Poor lil guy :((

Brock was pretty straight forward, I kinda wanted to reference his Sygna Suit from Masters with pants and a tank top, but made the pants into cargo pants that can be unzipped into shorts (he's thinks its the coolest thing in the world. He wears hiking boots to go over rougher terrain as a Rock-type Leader and hunt for fossils bc I like that aspect of his game characterization so I carried it over here, and he wears an armband with Pewter Gym branding. His tiny lil facial hairs are all he can grow at the moment bc he's still like 15 as usual, but he thinks it makes him look ~Older, Maturer & More Sophisticated~ so refuses to shave it.

I wanted to incorporate a lil more Geode Dude into Geodude so I changed his colours a bit and added parts where the outer layers of the rock have kinda chipped away in battles to reveal the crystal underneath + added the eyebrows from Alolan Geodude. I imagine it's like, the more outer layer gets chipped away from a Geodude, the closer they get to evolution. I do not at all know what this world's Graveller or Golem would look like but I think I'd canonise the theory of Machoke and Graveller taking aspects of the other when traded and make them kinda like Karrablast and Shelmet in a way.

Broad plot strokes are just these guys would exist in a version of the indigo league w an expanded kanto dex to include all related mons + variants, so stuff like Electivire and Annihilape and Alolan Exeggcutor would exist in there without much fanfare of ~Woahhhh Newly Discovered Pokemon~. Regional variants would be found on the Sevii Islands. Maybe there'd be small type changes too idk. Like pure Rock Geodude that gain Ground on evolution bc Gravel-ler. idk who knows I'm just spitballin. Essentially just a lil more closely following the Game's story, I guess. Less wacky loose adaptation stuff from Indigo League. Not bc I don't like that stuff, just bc it's not what I'd do.

I figure like, there'd be an interlude short arc that takes place in the Sevii Islands just after the Vermillion Gym where Ash would catch a Galarian Farfetch'd and all forms of Paldean Tauros instead of like, 100 Kantonian Tauros, and be introduced to Legendary Pokemon through a quest to track down the Galarian Legendary birds (then find out others can be found back in Kanto). Naturally he'd use the PC system (maybe adapted as some kind of daycare or something, or maybe just a teleporter to Oak's lab like the main anime) and have a couple more than 6 team members to rotate out as needed. Also. Mega Evolution would be a factor bc I think it'd be cool, so Ash gets to Mega Evolve Charizard into Mega Charizard Y.

OH also just for funsies, I'd split the starters across the trio, so Ash gets Charmander, Misty gets Squirtle and Brock gets Bulbasaur.

Basically Ash would end up with more or less the same team from the original series, but with added Annihilape, Sirfetch'd, Paldean Tauros and Mega Charizard Y. I also think I'd add Dragonite from Journeys and make his Gengar the Haunter he befriended that would follow him in secret after helping him beat Sabrina and evolve in the Cinnabar Mansion + officially join his team there.

Squirtle would evolve into Wartortle with Misty and Bulbasaur would stay in the same stage with Brock like Ash's.

I'll come up with and probably draw everyone's main teams at some point later but. ya. that's my piece!

[crystalelemental]

Crystal Reads PokeSpe - RBY Arc

I have now spent money on this, even if it was for my wife's sake, so it was inevitable that I'd pick this up. I am starting to read the Pokemon manga. As of today, I have finished the RBY arc. This is the only arc I know I read once before, via fan translation, ages ago. I did not care for it at the time. But, it's a different time, and maybe I'll be more into it now. Who knows.

The Red and Blue segment (ie, the first three books), are kinda...whatever. I admit, I still don't like Red, even after he starts talking. This iteration of Red is more clear, but I also feel like he's less interesting. He's as standard shonen protagonist as you can get. Blue doesn't get a whole lot either, given that he's barely around as the rival figure. Green is more fun, because I vibe with her general personality type, but that's about as much as I can say. She doesn't get that much going for her, in truth.

I think the biggest aspect that throws off the first three manga is the general pacing. They absolutely blitz through the locations in the game, taking very little time to actually do much of anything. There are a few chapters that are just showing off a Pokemon, similar in style to the filler episodes of the anime. But more than that, things go so quickly it feels hard to keep up with sometimes. I couldn't remember who had what Pokemon most of the time. I still don't think I could tell you Red's actual team. It's not until the champion match between Red and Blue that things start to slow down a bit and you can more easily follow the action.

Fortunately, by the time the Yellow arc begins, they've realized this. The rest of the fights are actually pretty well paced, and I found the Elite Four a much more salient threat than anything Team Rocket does. Especially because it...well, it's novel. Team Rocket in the manga, despite being a bit more brutal and having Gym Leaders under their command, are kinda the same as they've ever been. Giovanni gets to be a little interesting as someone who's more directly interacted with Red, and their experiments are more complex, but their motivations and actions aren't really that different. The Elite Four's actions are significantly more interesting, mostly because it's such a new approach compared to other media formats.

I also wound up liking Yellow a lot more than the others? Like okay, Green is still the favorite because personality type vibes more, but Yellow's really interesting as someone who's pure pacifism and aims to win without hurting her opponent. They don't play with it quite as much as I wish they did, but it's an interesting approach and I like her a lot.

By other characters, I really like what they did with Erika and Blaine. They're definitely the most interesting Gym Leaders. Erika being a sort of leader figure for the justice side, while Blaine's connection to Mewtwo is really neat. I kinda love that Agatha is just kinda Like That about how Oak left under what should have been otherwise amicable circumstances, she's just that bitter. And I like that Lorelei's like this because of her literally watching her Seel friends die due to human pollution. It's got a lot of impact.

The rest of the gym leaders are kinda whatever. They don't really exude much to me. Same with Bruno and Lance, I don't really think they're all that interesting. If anything, I'm a little salty about Lance being from Viridian Forest apparently, but that's likely due to the manga setting that up before GSC released to establish Blackthorn.

As for general stuff...okay, I'm trying to calm down about "Everything should operate on the game logic," and let myself be taken by creativity in the anime and now manga when they operate on physics rather than strict move definition and numbers. Like, it's actually kinda cool for Giovanni to show off his threat level as the top Gym Leader by trying to throw Red into a pit he made in the ground, and breaking the release mechanisms on his Pokeballs to prevent switching them in. The idea of breaking the ball or incapacitating the trainer makes it more dynamic, and kinda gives more reason to the usual "I must train myself as well as my Pokemon" approach so common in Fighting specialists.

Now, this has all been relatively comparative. How it appears in contrast to the games, and I guess the anime a little bit. But on its own merits...how is it?

Again, I think the first three volumes are a bit too chaotic and hard to follow. They offer a bit of a story arc, but it doesn't have that much going on, so I don't respect it. The Yellow arc is...hmm.

I assume this is very much "product of its time," but the pollution angle for the Elite Four's motivation of eliminating humans feels kinda stock-standard. It's relatively harmless, but it feels like a background note that has very little impact on anything? We get a couple very brief glimpses at "Oh, these Mankey are rampaging because there's little food," and Lorelei's backstory involving a dying Seel population, but it all feels very distant. There's nothing that actually connects to our heroes, because as Blue expresses, Pallet Town is the only "pure" place left. None of them really feel the effects on the larger world.

What's kind of a bother is that neither do their Pokemon. Not one seems to be impacted by this alleged super-serious pollution issue across the region. The only one with an emotional connection to the evil of the world is Red's Eevee, who can shift between its evolutions almost at will due to Team Rocket's experiments, but nothing that connects to this deeper aspect. So when Lance and Co start going on about all humans being a problem, and all humanity being a problem, and everywhere being so corrupted...well, it falls a little flat.

I can't even use the "kid's media" excuse here, because again, part of the "more serious" tone is stuff like Arbok getting cut in half, and people kinda dying. Which...was missing here. I mentioned reading this before? Some scenes I remember aren't in the official translation. I assume it's the old 90's style American Censorship stuff, removing Lance blowing up a boat and actually killing people, and Green getting attacked across the chest to reveal she was hiding Pokeballs there, so like. I guess they were trying to align this more to kids, expecting them to pick this up after the games.

On the whole, I think the manga turned out alright. I will say I had a decent time. I am looking forward to where it goes from here, because my wife absolutely gushes about the Hoenn books. But up next is my beloved Johto, where I'm expecting to have a great time.

[kafus]

i have been really sick for a few days and watching so much pokemon content on youtube in the meantime to keep me entertained while i can barely sit up. this is inspiring me to give a list of pokemon youtubers i enjoy because a lot of the really big mainstream ones are not my style of content at all. if u like more chill and/or informational pokemon content you May Enjoy:

AbsolBlogsPokemon, my favorite poketuber. integrates his life and the pokemon community into most of his videos almost in a documentary-like style. very chill, has both shortform and longform content (his PLA movie is awesome)

FlygonHG, the only dedicated nuzlocker i seem to enjoy 100% of the time and never get tired of. not only is he good at the game so you hear about cool strategies but his videos have dry/flat humor that i really like

Sonikks, a full odds shiny hunter who always has nicely edited and to-the-point videos and does some interesting hunts

Scott's Thoughts, one of those RBY/GSC solo challenge poketubers in the vein of Jrose who i also really like, but even more mathematical/analytical about it. very chill narration

Johnstone, definitely a more popular one on the list but he introduced me to the ribbon master challenge 3 years ago so i have to include him. love his unique content a lot

anthmags72, a very new poketuber so he doesn't have much yet but the few videos he does have are golden. love the editing, somehow made a 32 minute video about a singular full odds shiny hunt that remained very interesting and energetic throughout. a bit louder than the other channels on this list but not overwhelmingly so

CandyEvie, makes cute and fun pokemon videos with drawn images similar to a storytime youtuber kinda. she's also a shiny hunter

Pikasprey, while not strictly a poketuber makes a lot of pokemon related content. the softlock picking series is great and something i haven't really seen anywhere else

last but not least Oliver_MKP, ayano's favorite streamer! i like him too. he's a full odds shiny hunter and does really interesting/out there hunts that make for good videos

there's definitely more but this list was getting long :^) HSDFJSFD

[pathofsephirot]

Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal Recurved

For anyone who is into Pokemon GSC, @chaoticbraves-workshop and I made a version of the game with a RBY-style level curve that was proposed at some point in development:

[mountmortar]

Out of curiosity since you've mentioned The Legend of Zelda before, are there any of those games that you would reccomend? I've never played them before. I like Pokemon, Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts if that helps

RUBBING MY HANDS TOGETHER EVILLY. OKAY. SO. i don't know anything about final fantasy or kingdom hearts unfortunately but i CAN take a wild guess and say that if you like pokémon there's a higher chance that you're a fan of 2D games because a good majority of fans are in agreement that pokémon was better when it was 2D. in which case. let me put this under a readmore so people who aren't interested in zelda don't get annoyed lmao:

first of all i have to recommend my favorite game in the legend of zelda series ever which is the minish cap. it's definitely the most polished 2D zelda game out there (aside from four swords adventures but that was on a home console not a handheld) and all the spritework is SO good and cute and filled with whimsy and does actually remind me of pokémon. and the soundtrack is an absolute banger AND it isn't a terribly long game at all so it can serve as a great little introduction for people getting into zelda. a couple other fun 2D zelda games (and these will probably appeal more to people who are fans of the original rby/gsc because of the style) are link's awakening (which does have a switch remake) and oracle of ages!!! oracle of seasons was fun to me but most people agree that oracle of ages was much More fun. if you want more of what the majority of the zelda series is about there's a link to the past, which was released in 1991 (so before pokémon) and features link, zelda, and ganon, who are all the Main Three of the games.

aside from that, if the 3D games interest you, a link between worlds (successor to alttp but you don't have to play it to understand what's going on) is REALLY good with a KILLER fucking soundtrack. spirit tracks is wonderful and you ride in a train the whole game for people who are ingo & emmet fans. ocarina of time is probably the most influential zelda game out there aside from a link to the past and in certain games (wind waker [sailing on the ocean!] and majora's mask [THE TIME LOOP GAME OF ALL TIME]) some things will go directly over your head if you don't play ocarina of time first. skyward sword is fucking AWESOME and i cried like a baby at the end of it.

and. this is just me personally but i cannot stress this enough. avoid breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom like the fucking plague. if you do play them you cannot think of them as zelda games. they're alright games for people who like them i guess but they're genuinely the worst fucking ZELDA games in the franchise. i am so serious about this. i'm trying to make my way through breath of the wild right now (previously i'd just watched a playthrough) and it is legitimately so fucking boring and the soundtrack is GODAWFUL. pokémon legends arceus did everything 100000x better than breath of the wild absolutely no argument. and even diehard breath of the wild fans were disappointed with tears of the kingdom which should tell you everything you need to know.

ANYWAY. tl;dr: play minish cap, link's awakening, or oracle of ages if you want some fun 2D games (very easily accessible on an emulator or homebrewed 3DS, or nintendo switch for link's awakening remake). play a link to the past (easily accessible on an emulator) or ocarina of time (has a 3DS remake; opens up the door to gain a better understanding of wind waker and majora's mask*) if you want the Classic Zelda Storyline to understand what's kind of going on everywhere else. play a link between worlds (3DS) or skyward sword (wii or nintendo switch) if you want a good 3D game where things are less likely to fly over your head.

*majora's mask and wind waker can very easily still be played without playing ocarina of time! there are just some things in the game that'll woosh straight over your head if you haven't played them. also okay that's a lie about wind waker being easily accessible because it's only available on the nintendo gamecube or wiiu BUT majora's mask does have a 3DS remake just like ocarina of time so if you've homebrewed a 3DS you're good to go on that end. OKAY i'm done

[entomologistologist]

they should give new pokemon games rby-style de-makes. show me pokemon scarlet and violent with lumpy sprite art and retro background music. make the gameplay unbalanced and the movepools crappy too

[errantsquam]

more dynast frames for the A70D setting... this one has very heavy handed gundam/omnimon inspiration, vs. the usual out-there bestial mech designs i go with. more lore under the cut :]

so i haven't totally fleshed out this guy's lore yet, but this is Bahamut! The design is based on how Bahamut and Leviathan got their names swapped at some point in mythology, with Bahamut originally referring to the fish and Leviathan the bull. of course i ended up going with dnd/jrpg inspired dragon!bahamut for that double dragon's gate fish -> dragon reference.

anyway bahamut is very standard hero gundam styled but the frame itself belongs to one of the antagonists... i'm thinking the frame intelligence (basically mech's personality AI) is very passionate about enacting justice, and is probably one of the friendlier frame intelligences (working with the pilot instead of trying to warp them to their standards). but their personality is excessive and uhh Things Get A Little Too Extreme.

design wise i also enjoyed trying to design around the standard gundam rby + white/black colour scheme instead of my usual insanity. while keeping the fish motifs. fun

[artikgato]

So the Pokémon company has announced a Pokémon presents for August 8th and at 35 minutes I *think* it's the longest one in history, so I made a couple of bingo cards for the occasion :)

Because I have watched many Pokémon presents over the years and have been let down by most of them, I made a realistic one and also one that has some of my (still tempered) hopes and dreams.

SOME NOTES:

I was infamously wrong about it being "too early" for Gen 9 when they announced Scarlet and Violet, but I DEFINITELY think it's too early for Gen 10 and we absolutely cannot expect it

"Patches for SV to make them playable" is a half-joke. I sank over 100 hours into SV so they are obviously playable but I also was not blind at any point while playing

Gamefreak knows we want Johto, so they aren't going to give us Johto. C'mon guys. You should know this by now.

Gamefreak knows that we all loved Legends Arceus, so that means we are never getting another game in that style

I am praying to literally any higher power that will listen that they don't do to Gen 5 what they did to BDSP. PLEASE. I would rather they just re-release the Gen 5 games as they are rather than remake them like BDSP

The fact that they didn't put RBY on the Switch in ANY capacity is still absolutely mind-blowing to me

I would love it if they tried out a new genre but just slapped Pokémon into it to make sure it sells well. Cart racer? Sure. Farming sim? Sign me the fuck up. Musou? Sure why not. Dating sim? PLEASE. Rhythm game? GAMEFREAK PLEASE.

[stepswowdsen]

KagePro x Magi: Art Idea Crossover

Ok I'm just gonna cross post my Insta notes here 👍

I don't have the time to draw it rn but ngl it'd be fun to draw Magi charas in KagePro charas' daze MV outfits.

JuAliHaku take KonoShinEne's outfits by colour coding

The idea just came to me. Judar splashes buckets of red paint at Alibaba to pester him <3

RBY OT3/Poly ❤️💙💛

C: Ohhh coool!!

Me: I hadn't thought of it before since I usually deal with my multiships in separate AUs but KonoShinEne could be an interesting poly/OT3 tbh. And KuroShinEne too tbh... Ene teases Shintaro (and gets Kuroha to join in), and Kuroha teases both of them. Shintaro gets Kuroha to fluster Ene.

Time to combine my niche interests LMFAO

This is a crossover that'd only appeal to like. Me and 10 people (my mutuals/friends) but it'd be fun~~ I'm doing it for personal enjoyment and self-indulgence most of all <3

Daze MV (Original JP Version)

Daze MV (English Subs)

Daze MV screenshots

(Mekakushi Dan members No. 6, No. 7, and No. 9)

I love Ene teasing Shintaro in the daze MV, Ene grinning (hanging upside down) while Konoha appears on screen, and Konoha looking in Ene's direction~~

As you all know...

JuAli is my main Magi ship~ I also enjoy ships like AliHaku, SinJa, KouMor and others on the side ^^

KuroEne is my main KagePro ship (cuz I'm insane) and I'm a HaruTaka/KonoEne/KuroEne main. I also like other ships and multiships on the side ^^

KuroEne is basically a rare pair that KagePro's EA/JP fandom invented cuz they big brained seeing how they could tie it to the HaruTaka and KonoEne ships, which are interconnected with each other (which is the reason for why I ship it too)

KuroEne is a very niche pair for if you're a Kuroha fan (villain enjoyer) and have Ene as your wife/one of your fave charas (which is the case for me). Kuroha is my fave KagePro chara/meow meow mf, and Ene is my KagePro wife.

Shintaro and Ene's friendship is everything to me. Their dynamic is so important to me, but I don't mind them as platonic or as a ship since they have interesting character parallels.

Me: You know the part during the 2nd chorus of daze (2:00 - 2:22) where it flashes the Mekakushi Dan members' deaths in their silhouettes (how they came into contact with the Kagerou Daze) and Kuroha/Saeru's lil Outer Science bit

OH I forgot to show the flashes during the 2nd chorus of KagePro's daze MV. Here

Daze MV: Mekakushi Dan Member (2nd Chorus) Segments

Shintaro's silhouette shows Route XX Shintaro's suicide by scissor stab wounds

Kuroha/Saeru's lil Outer Science esque bit shows flashes of him after Marry and Seto's segments

Konoha's silhouette shows Haruka surrounded by IVs in a hospital bed (Haruka's death led to the creation of Konoha)

Ene's silhouette shows Takane (her human self) trying to reach for Haruka, her classmate, friend, and the person she loved (Takane's death caused her to lose her human body and become a pseudo immortal cyber girl. In this form, she goes by the name "Ene")

C: Interesting!

The aesthetic is cool

Me: Sidu has such amazing MVs for KagePro. I love their colours, attention to detail, animations, typography and transition effects sm

These all flash by so quickly you need to pause to see all of these but I love Sidu's attention to detail 💖 It does this for all the Mekakushi Dan members.

C: Very valid yes

Ooo I see

Me: Yeah!!! I think Sidu's art style has a level of maturity for it that's perfect for darker themed arts/artworks

Their current art style has settled into using soft shading/rendering and more muted desaturated tones

(Magi: Ch. 38 - 95 - 132)

Ch. 132

Ch. 95

Ch. 38

Would be interesting to draw baby Judar in hanfu sitting on a throne, kid Alibaba playing with Cassim, and kid Hakuryuu in the fire, in their silhouettes

I love Ohtaka's inking and how sketchy Sidu's art style is… Sidu's art style is SO nice. A daze crossover would be sooo cool~

C: Interesting!

Cool :3

Me: My only dentriment is that I'm terrible at drawing kids tho

I usually draw charas who are adults or young adults so I need to learn how to draw younger teens and kids WHDHSHDSH

[ladyappletun]

Pokémon Improvements I Loved

Gold to Ruby

The MUSIC! I never thought I was the biggest fan of RSE's soundtrack (I think my favorites are DPPt, HGSS, and XY), but just hearing the improvement in the quality of the music, seeing how the composers could play with more instruments and parts to make the music more dynamic, was really cool. I was particularly fond of the Dive theme.

RUNNING SHOES!!! It is soooo nice to be able to go fast without getting on and off the bike constantly. I'm not sure running had to be associated with an item, especially these days, but just the fact that you can run at all and run so easily was wonderful.

Being able to choose your gender. It's kind of wild how, 20 years ago, having the choice between a boy and girl player avatar was a big deal, especially because games nowadays are kind of moving away from that (e.g., in Animal Crossing New Horizons, you're prompted to choose your "style" instead of your gender, and you can change it at any time). But for me at least, being able to play as a girl is nice. I could mostly ignore the fact that you have to play as a boy in RBY, but in Gold and Silver, there's quite a bit of gendered language and it just took me by surprise. My favorite is when you battle Blue; before the fight, he says "Ready, Johto boy?" P.S. I know you could play as a girl in Crystal, but since I played Gold as my Gen II game, this is the first time I'm getting the option.

The game makes it much clearer when an attack misses and when an attack doesn't affect the opponent. In Gens I and II, if an attack misses or it doesn't affect the opponent (like, using a ground move on a flying type), the game just says "It didn't affect ____!" It was really unclear to me, so I'm glad they finally changed it in Gen III.

When you're going to teach a Pokémon a new move, the game shows you a screen with all its current moves and the new one. You can see all the moves' power and accuracy, so you can make an informed choice about which moves you want your Pokémon to have.

The little pop-ups that tell you what route or town you're (again, I know this was added in Crystal, see my point on gender above).

Every city has unique houses, which really sets them apart from each other.

Dive is a really cool concept as an HM. Unfortunately, I didn't end up using it that much, because I didn't have enough patience to deal with the slow movement speed. But it's such a neat idea! Diving underwater to discover new Pokémon and hidden caves (especially as a part of the Regi Trio side quest) made me feel like I was discovering an uncharted new world. I'm looking forward to diving more in ORAS, where your character will hopefully move faster than in the originals.

Double battles! As I've said before, I'm not a huge fan of the meta game, but double battles give a lot more variety for Pokémon. It's nice to just have a different style of battling in the main game from time to time. Plus, at least in later games if not this one, you can team up with a friend in multiplayer battles, so battling with your friends can be a teamwork experience or an adversarial one.

Every Pokémon has a unique sprite in the party menu. It's nothing particularly mind-blowing, but it's a nice touch.

The PC's Pokémon storage system! God, it is so much easier to organize your Pokémon into little boxes instead of having a bunch of lists to navigate. It makes the Boxes feel much bigger, too, like you can store more Pokémon than you used to.

[rubychan228]

Last minuet Pokemon Presents predications/hopes

Minor stuff:

Obviously they'll be some new events for most/all the mobile games. Really hopping for some GALAR mons in Go.

*

My always wish is Colosseum/XD remakes or sequels.

Major stuff:

The big thing is going to be Bank. That will have to be addressed. I'm pretty sure we're losing it, so I would assume there will be an announcement to that effect.

I would be unsurprised for us to get some sort of GB/GBA game rerelease now. NSO makes the most sense, but only if you can transfer data from the games to Home. Otherwise it would need to be a Mario All-Stars type thing, with multiple games on one Home-compatible Switch game.

The reason I think this would be now is because currently, if you already have the software, you can transfer mons from the 3DS virtual counsel versions of RBY and GSC to Home via Bank. And, if you have enough games and hardware, you can move mons from RSE and FRLG (and Colosseum/XD) to Home as well. But, again, you need to use Bank. Losing Bank cuts off access to these older games, creating a need for new, compatible versions.

*

And also, it's about time for news about a new main series game.

If you conceptualize LGPE as a remake of FRLG, the next games to be remade would then be HGSS, meaning we'd be due a "Let's Go Johto" type game. Otherwise it's a return to Unova (which Indigo Disk does seem to be teasing).

So, would it be remakes (if so I'm guessing "Pitch Black/Pure White"), Black and White 3, Pokemon Legends Kyurem, or something else? Who knows. If we get a BDSP/PLA type split again I really hope we get a better remake than BDSP.

I have a lot of thoughts on things I'd like for a new Unova game, but the main thing is fixing the loss of Bank.

For example, Home has a challenge to collect every Pokemon move by depositing a mon that knows said move. But, gen 8 removed several hundred moves. So the only way to register "extinct" moves is through Bank.

* Now, Gen 5 had a mechanic called the Dream World. At the time it was a website, but I could see it now being part of the game or an app. One thing you could do was obtain Pokemon in the Dream World and send them to your game. They would always being in the newly-created Dream Ball and would always have their hidden ability (hidden abilities being a newly introduced Gen 5 mechanic). It would be very easy to have Dream World mons have one or two move slots occupied by otherwise unobtainable-on-the-Switch moves.

* There are some mons that have never been on the Switch but most are Unova Pokemon anyway. One unavailable non-Unova mon is Furfrou (from gen 6). But you could easily fit it and it's styling mechanics into a Unova game. Ideally, it's forms would be boxable like they are in Home.

* If we're getting a repeatable special ball mechanic (I hope so) then it would be really nice to have Unown and wild Carnivine.

* There are other Pokemon I would like to see in the game, just because they're only available in BDSP and I HATE breeding in BDSP. So I'm hoping for a SV like good breeding mechanic and a lot of those mons to be in this game. (Not to mention there is no repeatable special ball acquisition in BDSP.)

* The other big loss is reasonable access to Alolan evolutions. I genuinely don't understand why you can't get Alolan evos in the Coastal Biome, But even if you could, you sill wouldn't have Marowak. There has also never been meaningful Switch access to Alolan Rattata. The easiest way I can think of to fix this is the Poké Transfer Lab.

In DPP/HGSS you had an area called Pal Park that was used to move Pokemon from Gen 3 to Gen 4. In BDSP it was replaced with Ramanas Park, which was used to catch previous gen legendaries. In BW/BW2 the Poké Transfer Lab was used to transfer Pokemon from Gen 4 to Gen 5. It would make sense for a new Unova game to repurpose it as a space to access some type of old-gen mons and the lost Alola forms are a great option.

Basically, going by the mechanic theming of Gen 5, you can enter a "Dream Space" where you are in an Alola-like place. You can maybe catch Alola Pokemon there and you can definitely breed/evolve Alola forms there. Maybe this is available once you get there and in the post-game you can go others places like Galar, Hisui, and Paldea.

Other random thoughts:

* I would like to see an in-game challenge/game reminiscent of the Dream Radar 3DS app. Ideally it would reward you with the Reveal Glass and/or Enamorus.

Additionally, the original Dream Radar had a mechanic where if you played it with a Gen 4 cartridge in your 3DS you could obtain a hidden ability, Dream Ball version of that game's box art legendary. This could maybe be implemented as a save data bonus for other switch games (even if they don't give the Gen 8/9 legends HA's).

* The Abyssal Ruins are already used to obtain Arceus' plates. The other legendary items like Kubfu's scrolls and Hoopa's bottle could also be hidden there.

*Galarian Yamask will likely be in this game. That means it needs a new, hopefully not insane, evolution method. Maybe a Runestone of some sort is located in Relic Castle and interacting with it in some way triggers the evo. (And maybe Galarian Yamask spawn in the area with the stone.)

There's probably more, but that's all I can think of for now.

[crystalelemental]

Middle-Aged Opposites is gonna end up being one of those weird ones for me, because it's one of those events that completely disregards the passage of time in the actual core series (particularly Gen 4 and Black and White). It's not as jarring when it's just characters from the same general era (Kanto to Sinnoh and Unova and up), but I had a similar issue with the summer event last year. Like, Tate and Liza should canonically be Anabel's general age, right?!?

I think you're making a pretty big assumption about the series on the whole, specifically that time matters at all. This isn't really unique to anyone, it's an ongoing thing; time doesn't affect the characters nearly at all. Barring the transitions from RBY to GSC, and BW1 to BW2, no transition has mattered at all, with no actual, canon confirmation that time passed in the slightest. It's all assumption that it had. Pokemon has no interest in establishing the effects of time. It's a sort of sandbox, in the same style as something like Touhou or your average Saturday morning cartoon. The characters won't meaningfully change in that way because they're not actually meant to. It doesn't serve any purpose. Tate and Liza are kids because that's what they were introduced as. They are designed to be child characters, and there is no incentive nor reason to change that. Larry and Kabu are middle-aged men getting on in years, and that archetype defines them entirely; they wouldn't be themselves for the purpose of the games if they meaningfully changed.

"But Red and Blue in Gen 7-" were a stupid idea and I hate them. Also meaningfully prove to me that they're a continuation of the Red and Blue we know and not AU versions entirely. Gen 7, as a mega evolution timeline, exists independent of the original RBY and the remake FRLG anyway. There's actually canon non-connection there. The one instance where it could be argued that time had an effect can easily be argued against by the multiverse rules they put into effect.

[pc-9800]

working on rby-style sprites for the first time in centuries ^q^

i should really post my art backlog. i mostly stick to dA because i love being on dead sites...

[bahamutgames]

AFTERTHOUGHTS : Emerald Version

Game: Pokemon Emerald Version (September 16, 2004)

Console: Gameboy Advance (Via emulation)

Fellas! It's time for me to talk more about Pokemon! Isn't that always the best time in the world? While I'm trying to take my in-order playthroughs of these big RPG series slowly, I couldn't help myself and just HAD to play Pokemon Emerald. Seriously, I was losing my mind I seriously COULD NOT stop thinking about how bad I wanted to play it. So here we are! And now I'll tell you what I think about this game!

As always, this is NOT a review! Just me spitting up my thoughts so I can get them out of my brain and have room for more thoughts on more games! Don't take anything I say as definitive criticism, and always play ANYTHING I talk about if it seems interesting to you!

POKEMON EMERALD SPOILERS AHEAD, BE WARNED!

Opening

So, you might be surprised to learn considering how much I love Pokemon, but I've actually NEVER beaten any of the games past the first 2 generations! For a variety of reasons. Not least of all was money, I think by the time I finally got a GBA the DS may have been on its way around. And when I got it, I went for Firered cause... Charizard lol. God, I remember looking at Nintendo.com for screenshots of the GBA Pokemon games to decide which region I liked more for when my mom and brother were gonna buy me a GBA haha. Regardless, yeah! Hoenn is the region I grew up around so I have a lot of nostalgia for it. I didn't play the game and I didn't have cable to watch the anime. But this is my era of Pokemon card collecting! Delta Species! E-Reader! My first Pokemon Card ever was Spheal! ANYWAY, we're not here to talk about my Pokemon Nostalgia, we're here to talk about my brand new Pokemon Experiences! So lets get a move on and talk about Emerald!

Stuff I liked

Where to begin? As I'm sure you're aware, I'm a MASSIVE sucker for the GBA. It's an important console to me so the sprites and music from it are some of my all time favorites. And this is seriously some cream of the crop GBA content right here. Easily the best sprite work I've seen in the series in my current playthrough so far, and the music is absolutely lovely. I know the trumpets are a meme but this is great! I'm a little biased though, Firered was my childhood game so getting to see this graphic style, this soundfont, and even some straight up reused sound effects made me so nostalgic! This game just feels so safe and cozy in a way I haven't really experienced in a while.

The story and set up this game is great too! It's a bit of a departure from the previous 2. Where RBY focuses a bit on man-made monstrosities, GSC focuses on mysticism and culture, RSE focuses on prehistory and nature (which I'm obsessed with right now)! It's a great theme and I thought the idea of Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza being ancient beasts that helped shape the planet was cool. But they were particularly cool because they were SO old no one remembered what they were! People knew about Mew, but no one knew about these things? That's nuts! That's neat! Also, the evil teams, while insane, were also cool and I LOVED that there's 2 of them! Like the part where you climb up the volcano and the 2 teams are fighting was SUPER cool!

And overall the game is just filled with very unique concepts like that that really differentiate it from the first 2 games. Your dad is a Gym Leader! Cool! Double Battles (the coolest part probably) COOL! There's a town built on logs in the water, a treehouse town, a volcano town, cool cool cool! There's Pokemon that can only be caught by having a free party slot when you evolve another one. That's cool! Pokemon is always trying cool and interesting stuff with technology (the fascination with interesting technology is one of the games highlights) and I really feel like this one takes a lot of advantage of the new tech like clock based events and more storage space on the cartridge for crazier things. This game is just very different from the first 2 in all the best ways!

And where that shines the best is, no questions asked. In the Pokedex. If you'll recall, my biggest complaint about Crystal is that there are NO new Pokemon in it. Johto has one of the best Pokedex's ever imo but none of those Pokemon are actually easily available in the game. I'm happy to say Hoenn doesn't have that issue at all! There ARE Pokemon from previous generations, but they're few and far in between compared to all the wonderful new species there is to find and catch! I was encountering new things left and right! It was able to keep the excitement going just like RBY did! And likewise, the Gyms all used new Pokemon too! And Hoenn really does have a lovely Pokedex filled some REALLY stellar designs. I struggled to figure out who my final teammate should be for a long time before settling on Flygon. Tropius? Banette? Torkoal? There were SO many good ones! For anyone curious, my favorite Hoenn Pokemon is Swampert!

Stuff I didn't like

Thankfully I feel like this section isn't massive. Really there isn't much I can complain about with Emerald. But there are SOME things to point out. First off, and this isn't EXACTLY the game's fault. But not having access to time based events was a headache. Obviously that's not the game's fault cause how could they know that would become an issue later, but it is still a nitpick I had to mention lol. It does tie into a bigger problem though, held items are SO hard to get in this one. I feel like I was scraping the bottom of the barrel for some of these held items just cause so many I wanted were locked into shoal cave or whatever which you need the clock to use. Or were locked behind one dickhead dragon trainer who never wants to rematch you and you have to battle a million times to get his stupid Pokemon. But again I guess that's a nitpick.

A slightly larger issue is the water. UGH. I love that this game's region is a series of islands, that does rule. But I feel like as a consequence of that, you have to surf SO much. When IGN said there was too much water they were not lying! You surf SO MUCH which sounds cool, but it's so hard to figure out where on earth you're meant to go in those ocean sections. And then Dive just muddies the paths even more. And there are some sections where they don't even tell you where to go so you're really lost just trying to navigate massive ocean. It was a bit much.

But my biggest issue, was without a doubt. The storylines' conclusion. It all felt a little. Eh? Like it didn't live up properly to what was being built up? Before I watch the Ruby and Sapphire endings I'll write my complaints: So first off: the evil team story ending kinda sucks! The cutscenes of the beasts fighting was SO awesome but it's basically the only cool part. It's just Rayquaza showing up, and then everyone fucks off. I feel like there was a better way to handle this ending that would have made it way cooler, and I actually wrote it up back in July:

tldr, double battles are awesome and should have been more prevalent. It's a crime there's only 1 fight in the game that gives you a teammate. The evil team storyline should have ended with your team teaming up with Rayquaza to fight Groudon + Kyogre. Oh well.

Similarly, I also thought the Champion battle was oddly underwhelming. Wallace is... neat. But I was SO certain it was gonna be Steven! The whole game seems to imply as much! But then it's this dude you met for like... 2 seconds earlier rather than the bad ass you met over and over. Kinda underwhelming. But now let me watch the RS endings really quick to see how they compare.

Yeah I'm done and I gotta say, RS actually handle this way better. It feels like Groudon's power is actually contributing with the intense sunlight, you actually HAVE to battle Groudon or Kyogre to fix the problem, and I was was right, Steven is the final boss. This all makes SO much more sense and I don't really understand why they couldn't combine these elements a little nicer into emerald or why they changed the Champion at all. Regardless though, I still think Emerald was cool and I'm still happy I played the green one lol.

Final Thoughts

Yeah this game rules! I'm so glad I finally got to play the game that was around when I was a kid and really experience it for the first time! I had a blast with this one and really really enjoyed getting to see what Hoenn was all about in addition to seeing all the new and gimmicky stuff they tried and how the new technology lead to new weird things for this entry! The whole game feels so nostalgic to me even though I've never played it, and while that's a bit biased, it's the truth! The story was great, the layout was great, the game felt perfect to play, there was so much new stuff to discover and do that hadn't been done in the last 2 games. And the Pokemon distribution was GREAT! With tons of new faces to find and catch! I loved Pokemon Emerald and I totally understand why so many people speak so highly of it!

Let's roll out the tier list!

No questions asked, Emerald is my favorite of what I've played through so far! It manages to keep up the excitement of RBY with a big new world to discover that still manages to build up mystery, have new and exciting experiences, and a wonderful slew of new Pokemon that are EASY to find. While also continuing what GSC did right in terms of massively improving the last game's graphics and music and general game feel WITHOUT sacrificing good Pokemon distribution. It's the best of both worlds while still massively improving on everything! I think with a little more consideration for what made the finale of RS so good, Emerald could have been absolutely perfect. Even though this region certainly has some Pokemon designs I'm not super fond of, the ones I dislike are still cute enough and they're certainly the minority of the Pokedex. Emerald Rules!

Also, you'll notice I removed the remakes from the list. Unlike Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, whose entries I played just as early as Highschool. The Pokemon Remakes are games I played all the way back in Elementary/Middle School. AGES ago. So I don't feel like it's fair to compare them to the other games when I mostly just prefer them based on nostalgia and the benefit they have from being remakes (especially since I won't be playing any other remakes.) So going forward this tier list is just based on the original versions.

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Thanks for reading! I'm really trying to clear out my to-do list so I can just relax when my Birthday comes up. So I'm hoping to finish my write ups on thoughts of games I played recently soon. Only one game left too! So that's nice!

I'm really trying to not bumrush this series but honestly I'm really enjoying it so I'm already kinda itching to continue. But I'm not gonna play it until later in the year at the earliest. Next stop is Platinum!

If you wanna see my beautiful team you can right here! And you can get a more in depth look at their stats here!

As always you're welcome to follow me on twitter to see what I'm up to! That's all I have for you today! Go out and play something from your childhood!