#they do in the main... but instead of swords its pokemon

[wistrea]

woe, pokemon kira be upon ye

[quillpokebiology]

You mentioned a couple of times Bisharp and Gallade pair well, do you have any facts or pic on this crossbreed? :0

Yup! Here is one with a Bisharp father!

Pokemon Crossbreeds: Knight

Knight is the name for members of the Gardevoir line whose father's were members of the Bisharp line. The breed was named after their more armored and knight-like appearance. They've been bred by humans for a long time, as both Bisharp and Gardevoir have been by humans for centuries.

Ralts

Knight Ralts gain larger and sharper horns, a split-colored head that has a slightly metallic texture, and a mark on their chest that resembles a chest-plate. Due to the larger and sharper horn, these ralts are able to pick up on emotions easier, which can be overwhelming for them. These ralts are more defensive and aggressive than standard ralts.

Kirlia

Knight Kirlia no longer have flaps of skin resembling a skirt, instead, having fat wrap around their legs which look like pants. They have broader shoulders, sharper horns, and a darker stomach resembling a chestplate. It still follows the defensiveness and aggression of Bisharp, and they are often seen leading packs of Knight Ralts.

Gardevoir

My personal favorite of this line. Knight Gardevoir gain a sharp horn on their head, a green top, green gloves, and a bit longer hair. Knight Gardevoir have been loved for centuries for their mastery over battle and their more serious and knowing disposition. They lead groups of Knight Ralts and Kirlia. Some ancient kings in Galar had a Knight Gardevoir. Mega Knight Gardevoir gain long hair and longer ears, resembling Kingambit more than regular Knight Gardevoir.

Gallade

Knight Gallade gain the crest of Bisharp, border shoulders, extra blades on their arms, and larger hips. Not much changes behaviour wise, as Gallade are already aggressive and noble pokemon, but many battlers love this breed for their extra blades and extra defense. Mega Knight Gallade gain longer ears and a black cape, resembling the hair of Kingambit.

//My designs can be used by anyone if you credit me! Talking about designs under the cut

I had the idea for this crossbreed but I put it in the back of my mind bcuz there was always something new ig.

Ralts was pretty easy to design. It's hair already looks like a helmet, so I just made it look more like Pawniard's helmet. Was gonna leave the helmet primary colored, but then I went hack and gave it two color to match Pawniard's more.

Kirlia was more difficult bcuz it and Bisharp don't have much in common, so I instead just made it more serious looking and gave it the traits I could; like feet, hands, shoulders, and a chestplate.

I traced an old Gardevoir crossbreed I made bcuz I prefer the one I made over the canon one (for tracing at least. Also, its called Chantelaines Gardevoir!). But my main goal was to make it look a bit like those Warrior queens you see. For both Gardevoir and Gallade, I primarily used Bisharp as inspo because it felt right, but I did put Kingambit in there top (the sword mustache becoming long ears, the triangle shaped shoulders, and the markings on the shoulders).

I gave Mega Gardevoir longer hair to match Kingambit's. I also traced an older piece, which was traced from canon, but I just used it for the small edits I made when I made it.

Gallade was nice, and lowkey inspired by Roman Gladiators. Random fact, but did you know gladiators rarely ever killed? It was like wrestling back then, so it would be expensive to have them die, and extreme violence in Gladiator fights was frowned on. There were some cases where murder in gladiator fights were encouraged, but not as many as you'd think. Anyways! I was so happy to fix Gallade's hip wheel bcuz while Gallade may be one of my fav pokemon and I think the hip wheel is a furled up dress, I can still find it weird.

Not much changes with mega gallade, and I kept the OG color scheme. Though, the cap was hard to color since I kept swapping from blue to green to black. Eventually I decided on black to match with Kingambit's hair since it already didn't have a lot of Kingambit traits.

[pokemon-card-of-the-day]

Pokemon Card of the Day #3197: Eevee & Snorlax-GX (Team Up)

Eevee and Snorlax-GX, while a somewhat odd combination of Pokemon that would become rather typical of the era, had some interesting attacks. It was good at punishing anything that evolved and had a GX attack that could get a huge hand refreshment. These attacks required a ton of Energy, so you had to accelerate to it. The nature of this meant that you had to pair this with something that was going to have said acceleration quickly, had a Pokemon that could attack well on its own but would like the backup, and something that could sometimes run lower on cards to maximize a potential draw at the right time. This typically meant running this in a Fire deck, and only in SUM-On because that was where a good amount of Evolved Pokemon at under 240 HP were still common.

270 HP was where you'd want a Tag Team to be at, and that was a lot of bulk to get through. Its main job was to be a huge pain to things like Zoroark-GX, which couldn't even KO it in 2 hits without some help. The Fighting Weakness could potentially come into play a little, as while the type had fallen off quite a bit, Lycanroc-GX was a Stage 1 that could actually hit really hard. The Retreat Cost here was 4, meaning you did have to be careful here. Getting ahead on Prizes meant an unprepared Eevee & Snorlax-GX was easy bait for anything like a Counter Catcher, or at any point a Custom Catcher.

Cheer Up was an attack that did no damage for a Colorless Energy, but it did let you attach an Energy card from your hand to 1 of your Pokemon. You could use this if you didn't have anything better to do, but you'd normally want something else up front if you didn't get stuck starting with this. It was, at least, better than nothing on turn 1 if you were going second.

Dump Truck Press started at 120 damage, but it cost 4 Energy. The price was too steep unless you had the second effect. That effect involved doing 120 more damage if the opponent's Active Pokemon was an Evolution Pokemon. This meant a KO on the top choices out of those in the SUM-On format, including Zoroark-GX and Persian-GX. The issue was that any Basic Pokemon, including Tag Teams, were taking a lot less, so it was a huge match-up play. In the right match-up, it was great, but it was kind of stuck in one format.

Megaton Friends GX had some good moments. It was costly, as 4 Colorless Energy meant you were still leaning on Welder a lot here, and it was your one GX attack. That being said, you did 210 damage which was usually enough for the role being played here, and you also drew cards until you had 10 in your hand. This set you up nicely for your next turn as well as long as you didn't immediately get hit by a Judge. Usually you'd be okay though, and even if not it tended to force that play instead of a different Supporter.

Eevee & Snorlax-GX was a backup option in Reshiram & Charizard decks for the most part. Reshiram & Charizard-GX performed rather well against a lot of things, but Eevee & Snorlax-GX cleaned up Stage 1 Pokemon so well that it was often brought along too. Having a copy or two was reasonably common until the game shifted almost entirely to Tag Teams, and while a few Evolved Pokemon came back later in the Sword & Shield era it never found a great home partly due to higher HP numbers. It sure had a few good months, though, at least in that one deck.

[starabsol]

contestshipping shinies

i am a mad contestshipping fanatic, i am sure i've mentioned so before. and one of my main hobbies is shiny hunting. since last year when i got my switch i've been shiny hunting left n right! and since i love contestshipping as much as i do, i went ahead and caught quite a few shinies who are contestshipping related!! ^^ i like showing stuff so heres a whole dump of shinies who r contestshipping related hehe. i dont have them all yet, im also busy w other stuff so

MAY'S POKEMON

blaziken (violet/sword)

and here some funny backstory on how i got these two!

violet blaziken i actually found on accident. since the scvi dlc came out i really wanted to get torchic so i could evolve it into blaziken. however i saw they didnt spawn in the location they were supposed to, so i popped an encounter power lvl 2 sandwich, and, crazily, a shiny torchic appeared right there. i named her ikaika! :3

sword blaziken i purposefully hatched out of an egg. surprisingly it was within 100 eggs or so, so I was very lucky there x3

2. glaceon (violet/sword)

and here some info on how i got them:

in violet i really wanted some shiny eeveelutions, since i was an eevee kid back in the day, so i got to a mass outbreak of it and managed to get like three shiny eevees within 30 minutes of a sandwich! which i evolved into leafeon, glaceon, and left the last eevee as it was. i named glaceon lazuli, based on lazuli from the eeveelution squad!

in sword i again, purposefully masuda hunted it. though it was much longer and more dreadful than the torchic hunt i did XD

3. venasaur (violet)

how i got it:

how i got this guy was surprisingly similar to how i found my shiny torchic in violet. i originally wanted to get a regular bulbasaur, but when i found four or five bulbasaur covered in some tall grass, and noticed one was different from the others, i knew i'd found a shiny! XD

4. beautifly (shining pearl)

how i got it:

let me tell you, getting this thing was painful; in the bdsp games you ARE able to find silcoon and cascoon; except there's a problem. i have shining pearl, and silcoon was exclusive to brilliant diamond (as cascoon is exclusive to shining pearl, which i had). so, i had to chainhunt wurmple. and it's very painful considering my chain broke several times. but that isn't even the main issue! wurmple can evolve into cascoon, too, which means i also had a big chance of getting cascoon instead of silcoon. and that's what happened when i got my first wurmple.. it evolved into a cascoon. i evolved it into a dustox anyway, and after more fighting i managed to get the shiny wurmple that evolved into beautifly. <3

DREW'S POKEMON:

roselia & roserade (shining pearl)

i know you see a roselia/roserade in sword there, but i actually caught it in shining pearl! since its in bdsp and i was able to chainhunt it, i actually managed to get three shiny budews within that chain without it breaking. one i kept as a budew, the other two i evolved into roselia, and eventually one of them into roserade! so i have the entire line, basically. however i like the shaders n lining in swsh a lot more so i decided to transfer them to sword <3

2. masquerain (violet/ultra sun)

how i got them:

in violet masquerain was a shiny i obtained really early as soon as i got my shiny charm! considering it's drews only pokemon that (before the dlc came) was in the games i wanted to hunt masquerain. and i know a lot of people shit on green shinies, but i love shiny masquerain.

in ultra sun i got it through the SOS method, and it went surprisingly fast. i dont think i spent that much time on it at all XD

3. flygon (violet/usum/shining pearl)

im not gonna explain what's going on here...

how i got them:

in violet as soon as the dlc came out and i had completed it i immediately rushed to shiny hunt it (trapinch) in the dlc. and i got it relatively fast, i got two even. not long after i bumped into a shiny flygon in the wild, and... like that, it continued... the first shiny i got though was named sapphire!

just like roselia/roserades case, the shiny i got was originally from shining pearl n transferred it over to sword. however, how i found this thing is WEIRD. so fucking WEIRD until this day i still dont get it. basically i was shiny hunting vibrava in the desert area of shining pearl as soon as i got the national dex. i was chainhunting, as usual. thing is, you just normally encounter pokemon, so if it's a shiny you should be able to see that it's shiny and the little sparkle effect, right? well, in this case not, apparently. because i was casually catching vibravas to keep the chain going. when you catch a pokemon you temporarily she the sprite of the pokemon you caught; but when i thought i'd caught a regular vibrava (i didnt see it to be shiny, and i saw no sparkle effect) i see a quick flash of the shiny sprite. at first i thought i was hallucinating, so i went to go check, but it was a shiny. i still dont get it. HELP. (ill put a video below LOL)

on usum i got it by doing the SOS method! that one i also found surprisingly fast.

4. absol (ultra sun/shining pearl)

shining pearl absol has, just like roselia and flygon, the same origin. it's from shining pearl. however, i instead shiny hunted absol via the mesuda method, considering the shiny charm is fucked up in bdsp and getting a shiny via the grand underground (the only spot where u can find absol in the games) is pretty much impossible. named him sol!

usum absol which i got via the mesuda method also. i originally wanted to SOS hunt it, but absol rarely ever calls for help, even on 1HP+adrenaline orb. it took awhile to get it, but when i got it i was filled with joy lol.

5. butterfree (usum)

i got this baby from the SOS method. and let me tell you, it was fucking fast. like.. like literally so fast i got it within an hour or so, maybe even less! i named him andrew >;3

HARLEY'S POKEMON

cacturne (violet)

i just got this guy from a mass outbreak! it's really cute because one of cacneas idle animations is them waving, so when i found the shiny cacnea it was just waving at me >o< i named her mayley, by the way!

2. banette (violet)

this one i also got out of a mass outbreak ^o^ if anything i managed to get two shiny shuppet, so one i evolved into banette n the other remained a shuppet! i named shuppet spooks and banette shooks! :3

3. ariados (violet)

this dude was SUCH a pain to get. first i had tried to catch it via spinarak mass outbreaks, but after 2-3 hours of running around i was fed up and decided to try an ariados outbreak instead. eventually i got it, though in my opinion, it took way too long. i named him kumo, which means spider in japanese!

and last but not least, arcanine. he's connected to contestshipping in a way, you know? so i had to hunt it >:D

how i got this baby was via mass outbreaks. i actually caught two shiny growlithe, so i evolved one and kept the other as is. arcanine i named summer, and growlithe i called lente, which means spring in dutch!! i love these babies!!

thanks for listening to me ramble. XD also, if you're a (crazy) contestshipper, PLEASE be my friend. I'm desperate. if u guys wanna see some screenshots of may n drews pkmn interacting let me know!

[rassicas]

Hey, tried to reach you on CuriousCat but didn't hear back. Saw your work on the wiki with regards to Splatoon alphabets - we're dealing with a very similar problem with the uppercase 'Galarian' alphabet in Pokemon Sword/Shield/Scarlet Violet. Lots of gibberish, no 'valid' translations that we can see, lots of letter inconsistency (the F of GAME FREAK is an R for GALAR, fun stuff like that). Any advice on getting the 'true' alphabet out of this mess? Tried a bunch of stuff, but it doesn't seem to be working. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tz06e1q9dnXo29q9SpxELO_eDGEd6S08iA3NbkNHb8g/edit?usp=sharing https://www.pokemonaaah.net/research/galarian/galarwords/ ^our work so far, plus a decent chunk of the in-game body of text

Yeah my curiouscat is just about abandoned, this is a better place to contact me. Funny thing, I am aware with your guy's deciphering work of the Galarian (on the second website linked)! I remember it coming up in conversation some time ago while working on the deciphering of Splatoon's scripts. But the doc is new for me, and looking through that...i mean this with as much praise and respect as possible, you guys are insane. in the trenches over here. my god. I see some the progress on the lowercase, we used similar methods in solving some parts of the inkling languages too. for the uppercase...Going through and seeing real world decoding techniques applied... for a fictional script that likely was implemented for the sake of design rather than as a thing with secret meaning/consistency, you guys already figured it out, but it doesn't work. My two cents is that Galarian could be something like Splatoon's "Bold Script". this script has many letters that kind of look like latin script, and is often used to write things in game that look like real english words. when trying to decipher it however, there was a similar problem to Galarian: same symbols would be used to mimic different letters, just too much inconsistency. For years, it and the Inkling language as a whole was assumed to be totally indecipherable.

(TOWER RECORDS HICOLOR) But then the "true" alphabet that the splatoon team was using internally was solved for, and...

most of these don't resemble their latin letter counterparts at all, and then a few seemingly random repeats. There's also some glyphs we've found that looked like they'd be part of the deciphered form of the script, but only appeared in limited contexts and ended up not being a part of the alphabet. I think those extra letters were arbitrarily assigned to symbol keys, but its kind of impossible to know which. (those rare letters, like the G in game freak/galar could fall under that category of being an "extra" letter in the font and not part of the main alphabet?)

The "true" alphabet of Galarian may be something like this: comprised of many letters that resemble the latin alphabet that in font form, are assigned seemingly arbitrarily across the alphabet. And then to make something readable to the viewers, those letters are hand picked or modified to mimic words. Why go through all the effort to do that instead of doing a simpler decode-able thing? no idea other than "looks cool" "don't want people to solve it too easily" or "conveys information to the player". The splatoon team does both in the same games in the same writing systems. One key difference between Galarian and Splatoon's scripts is that splatoon has multiple scripts used within the same game, vs SWSH sticking with the one script. a lot of the deciphering work for Splatoon has involved comparing matching lines of text between a solved and unsolved script. If you're interested in the history of the deciphering of the Inkling language... there's a video for that ;) Without such points of comparison, and if the only way the script is used is to mimic words and doesn't exist in large bodies of text, the "true" alphabet of uppercase Galarian may be just about impossible to solve. (this is the case for a couple Splatoon scripts, like the Deepsea scripts)

ofc i'm not the one that's combed through Galarian so i'm not gonna claim to be an expert on it, but that's my two cents as someone who has extensively rotted their brain deciphering fake video game writing.

[thetabbybadger]

So even though I’m in the height of my mtg mood right now, my brain has starting thinking about pokemon again (not that it ever really stops, it’s always there…. lurking….)

ANYWAY, I’m just thinking about whatever the new main-gen game will be and what would be my ideal version. (I feel like I made a post like this once but I couldn’t find it so HA I get to make it again >:3c (or for the first time who knows, not be and certainly not tumblr))

So I do really love the open world we’ve been getting, but I do miss the classic pokemon feel of set paths etc. I think I’d like to see a return to what sword/shield did but just a bit…. better 😅 I’d love to see much of the game be set paths like old pokemon games. I really like the bike in swsh and how it upgraded to have your “HMs”. I wanna go back to needing like Cut and Surf and Strength, but I do NOT want to go back to needing an HM work-horse. I think a mixture of bike upgrades, and Pokédex upgrades that can be used to power up your pokemon to perform feats would be my favorite. The system in Sun/Moon wasn’t bad, but I like the self-sufficiency and plus, in obscure places or weird times it feels weird flavorfully that ride pokemon would just be available at your constant beck and call (it’s a game mechanic, not meant to be looked into too much but I am Looking).

Anyway, with this we could bring back exploring random out of the way spots that maybe you almost miss cause you didn’t cut a little tree and explore. We could get back strength puzzles. I wouldn’t mind bringing back gen 3 bike mechanics as well (although I think we should be able to just switch gears and not have to swap out the whole-ass bike). Bring back flash and defog for certain areas.

Speaking of puzzles, I think caves having weird layouts and things like rock puzzles and ice floor puzzles would be neat to have back. I was so mad at them at the time, but there is something classic about them. Maybe even buildings with good ol’fashioned teleport puzzles.

Back to my original point, yes set paths BUT I do like the open areas. I like how swsh had The Wild Area. I would like a new game to do a similar thing with set paths but also a similar concept to a wild area, ideally at least a few. Along with that, flavor-wise I liked camping better than just picnics. Though I think you should be able to switch pov, I liked that in camps you could play with pokemon and talk with them individually. But I liked in picnics being able to run around and pose with my pokemon and also bath them. Keep the baths! I would also like the return of individual playing and some kind of Pokemon Amie equivalent.

I also want each town to be on its own, um load screen I guess? I think the fact that there weren’t barriers in scarvi was one of it’s biggest stability issues. It also I think contributed to the different cities/towns not really feeling different from each other (some were really unique, but, to me at least, a lot felt like they just blended together because i could just run in and out and it wasn’t too different from their surroundings. Which is a shame because i think a lot had neat potential. I love the snow town, that one felt unique with spooky candles and ice, and the town with the fountain by the desert and the elevator was kinda cool. But nothing hits quite like that mushroom fairy town in swsh. Or even the cool steam-punk big city! Also being on their own loading screen lets them have passive pokemon doing cute things in the city instead of random wild ones that you can maybe encounter or maybe not or maybe they’ll just despawn if they take 2 steps in the wrong direction.

Also not having to go into a store for the poke center was convenient but I miss going inside. Maybe road-side ones can be like the ones in scarvi but I want full pokemon centers in the cities/towns. Same with other stores. Ultimately it doesn’t reeeeeally matter, but it felt more immersive to go into shops and buildings. I don’t mind some stands here and there, but LEMME IN LEMME IN!

ALSO! Just make all the clothing/accessories in one store pleeeeease. Each town can have its own store that sells different stuff, but I don’t want to have hunt down like the sock store and the glasses store separately.

I would love to see contests come back and they also make a bigger plot point. In fact it would be kinda cool if at the start of the game you could pick which route you’re more interested in and maybe whichever you pick is what your main plot is based on. Or barring that, just at least having its own relevant story plot, even if you do it after the main gym story.

Also just leaning more into the rpg aspect. Maybe some more side-quests. I loved the school system and like bonding with the teachers in scarvi, that was so cool. I’d love to see it go further and get cutscenes or plot points if you befriend people. I also loved how fleshed out the rivals(?) were and how they were full characters. I would love to see your dialogue options having even slight impact on the game, even if it’s just how other characters react to you. (I would super love a full pokemon rpg but I could settle on at least being able to treat my character as a character and it affect interactions at least a little bit).

Speaking of side-quests more just little things. I liked working with the photographer lady in the DLC. Also, maybe making photography another side-quest-plot thing you can do. Maybe a part-time job working for like a magazine and they want certain pictures. Idk I just like the idea.

I’d love to bring back the old way of breeding. Or maybe just make both ways available.

I love the exp. share but I know some people don’t so I think it would be nice if it was toggle-able.

I want to be able to have a room/home base that I can CUSTOMIZE AND DECORATE!!! We had dorms in scarvi, why couldn’t we at least hang up a poster or pick our bedding color?? Dx Heck, even if it’s the room in our house or something.

I looooved that they added custom ball-throwing animations. I think they should start with a few you can choose from at the beginning and add more as you go. It should also be free and something you can do at any point. Maybe see the animation when you pick it.

Also I loooooove that customizing your appearance was free and available at any time, keep that. Also make more hair work with more hats. That was the biggest bummer for me. Lots of cool hair options, lots of cool hats, no way to have them both T-T

I am mixed on how I want wild pokemon. Overworld is soooooo much more convenient, but there’s something classic about tall grass. I think I wouldn’t mind if it was a mix like swsh did but I would change it up a bit. More like scarvi where they don’t despawn if you move away from the area (unless you go to new loading screen). Unlike swsh though I wouldn’t want any pokemon to be exclusive to tall grass, maybe more common, but not exclusive. That was very frustrating to me.

Ahhhh I probably have more but I’m getting sleepy. Maybe I’ll add more tomorrow, but it was just on my mind. I can already think of a coupple tidings I wanna add 👀

[koffing-time]

I will gladly interact with you! Send an ask! @ me! I would love to RP with you. I will do an (IC) promo if you ask (assuming i'm popular enough for that lmao)!

Hello Hello ~

My name is Tix (they/them, occasionally it/its), and welcome to my rotomblr blog! I'm 23, I'm from Unova and i have a small café on Route 3 right outside Striaton City. If you don't find it, just look for the Daycare on the hill, walk up that hill and look for the building at the foot of the hill! And now come in and get a cupcake, you earned it!

Don't be alarmed by the poison types around here! Most of them are registered to me and are completely harmless unless you touch them. They are also friendly, so if you wanna pet them, ask me! I'll gladly provide handling advice.

I also have an employee, Olivia. I might occasionally mention him. Maybe she'll also make a few post here and there.

There is also Brandy, my Rotom. Let's hope they can behave!

As for my Pokémon, there are a few! [Complete list of Pokémon including retcons at the end in the ooc section]

My Koffing, Coffee! The shop's named after him! Look at his FABULOUS moustache!

Bienenstich the Scolipede, she's very good with kids. If you need someone to look after your toddler, she's the gal! (i am so not kidding)

Cream the Haunter. No, your drink isn't haunted, she just helps me out a bit.

Muffin the Roselia, he's the primary gardener. I would do more around there but he doesn't let me.

Poppy the Toxicroak, he's a cool guy. He also makes music with me.

Basil the Toxtricity. Best bassist i've ever met (sorry Roxie).

Carrot Cake the Clodsire. He doesn't do much, but that's okay.

Rhubarb the Ekans. Little rascal. Don't trip over him.

Eggplant the Skorupi. He's new, still getting to know him myself!

Soup the Grimer is also quite new. I hatched him from a strange egg.

Also here's three pics of me. (//i forgor what the picrew were. if anyone knows, let me know)

//Pelipper Mail is on

//I will draw your OCs badly

OOC below the cut:

// Hi, hello. I run this blog as a side blog, so I'll like and follow from my main @fire-water-grass-core. If you need to address me (the player/mun), I'm okay with any pronouns, and if you need a name you can call me Kama, Nox or Cheese. I also run:

@zekrom-sword where i explore some darker themes (ig?) regarding pokémon hunting. This blog is less focused on blogging though and goes more into headcanon/fanfic territory. I'm happy to RP with Felix (muse over there) though!

@fire-water-grass-core is the main, as mentioned. Originally it was planned for that one to be a personal blog for Olivia, Tix' employee, but i didn't really get into it. I mostly use it for OOC stuff regarding rotomblr ig?

@kamataros is my general, non-pkmn-irl blog. idk what you would want there? but feel free to check it out. I post a lot of shit and a lot of it is untagged.

NOW for the rules ig?

ZERO: don't be a dick. easy, right? right. This is the important part :)

First: blanket #unreality warning. I will tag posts usually as pokemon irl, #pkmn irl or #pokeblogging. The actual unreality tag is reserved that genuinely blends reality and fiction (such as talking about animals in the context of the pokemon world.)

Second: i went on a BIG hiatus for like 6 months. I've retconned a few things, but i didn't want to actually go through the blog and delete stuff. Instead, i tagged all old posts as #Koffing-Time-1.0. Everything with this tag is not neccesarily canon anymore. case-to-case basis i guess.

Third: If anything comes up, I'll try to put a warning tag. I'll keep it to one format: #cw [trigger]. I will probably still use them sparingly, since i'm personally okay with most things. Please tell me if i should tag something.

Fourth: I won't participate in high stakes a lot and probably never in ultra stakes. Everything will be appropriately tagged #high stakes pokereality on the off chance that i do join. I don't think i will be getting into details like "low stakes" and "medium stakes" for tagging.

Fifth: Regarding sentient/sapient pokémon: they are allowed. I might ignore them if i ever do any story-arcs or so, but go ahead! (this was different for 1.0)

Sixth: Ask games will be tagged with #ask game. Once i reblog them, they are open indefinitely, including old ones from #Koffing-Time-1.0. The tag will be for the initial meme only, not the answers to make it possible to find them. Generally, please put the question for the meme into your ask, especially if it's an older ask game. (Feel free to ask Brandy or Olivia as well, but if not specified it will be Tix answering)

Seventh: DMs are an OOC zone :)

OTHER TAGS:

I'm trying to use a funny tagging system for blogs i "frequently" interact with (as in.. i am not chronically on tumblr so "frequently" is a bit much to say)

Out of Character posts will be tagged with #ooc . This goes only for posts where a significant portion is ooc.

Out of Character answers to asks will be tagged #cheesy answers

Out of Character notes will be marked as // or //ooc (including tags)

I might reblog art or even posts that tix isn't involved in. these will be tagged #//reblog

Posts involving details about certain headcanons will be tagged #headcanon

Image descriptions or Video description will be in [brackets] .

Also here is a (not complete) list of a few headcanons that i use.

I'll update and edit this post as well as reblog it if something changes.

Lastly

I, Cheese, Mun will use pink coloured text in addition to the //

Tix will be writing/talking in colourless text

Olivia will be writing/talking in blue text

Brandy will be writing/talking in red text

otherwise, i won't use much colours in posts. this intro blog stuff will be the exception to make it easier to read (i hope)

That being said: feel free to interact, feel free to send a DM, feel free to send asks, I'm happy to do offscreen posts and RP and whatnot, I won't bite and i won't poison you. Probably.

PS: little thing about reblog chains (i guess?)

Now, that was a long one. If you read it all, congratulations, have a cookie. Or a coffee. And most importantly: have fun!

PPS: Here's a list of Tix'Pokémon:

Coffee the Koffing

Muffin the Roselia

Bienenstich the Scolipede

Cream the Haunter

Poppy the Toxicroak

Basil the Toxtricity

Cracker the Murkrow (retconned) [it hurt me to do this but there are so many already] (never fucking mind i love them too much i can't delete them)

Cheese the (shiny) Crobat (retconned) [it hurt me to do this but there are so many already] (never fucking mind i love them too much i can't delete them)

Rhubarb the Ekans

Chocco the Salandit (retconned)

Carrot Cake the Clodsire

Pumpkin the Bellsprout (retconned)

Loaf the Trubbish (retconned)

Yoghurt the Yveltal (retconned)

Bun the (ultra domesticated) Trubbish (retconned)

Roll the (ultra domesticated) Tubbish (retconned)

Appleslice the (ultra domesticated) Mareanie (reconned)

Bacon the (ultra domesticated) Mareanie (retconned)

Lettuce the (ultra domesticated) Mareanie (retconned)

Tomato the (ultra domesticated) Mareanie (retconned)

Caramel the Beedrill (retconned)

Tofu the Sliggoo (retconned)

Annie Stonefruit the (albino) Cranidos (retconned)

Jack the Pumpkaboo (retconned)

Brandy the Rotom

Eggplant the Skorupi

Leonard the bed-sized Clodsire Plush

Soup the Baby-Grimer

If all of Tix team appear in a post (i doubt) it'll be tagged with #tix band

Also a list of Olivias Pokémon

Hans the Lotad

Grill the Darmanitan

Marbles the Alolan Exeggutor (tagged with just #marbles the exeggutor )

The Kalosian the Escavalier (tagged with just #kalosian the escavalier)

Beach Ball the Gible

Gregor the Gimmighoul

If all of Olivias Team appear in a post, it'll be tagged #olivias gang

[pokemonconsequencesmybeloved]

Pokemon Consequences Progress Update

Post No. 2: Rival(?) Battle and Early Route Encounters

Hello! I've been working on the project for a bit now and since my last post I've gotten two major things done.

1) I've created the first iteration of the first battle against Kieran! Kieran isn't technically a rival to the player character but you will battle him multiple times as the story progresses, so he fills that role. I say first iteration because I am not much of a teambuilder as evidenced by the fact someone reblogged my previous Dokukieran team and made it much better, so this team will most likely be reworked multiple times.

2) I created the encounter table for the early routes of the game. I have an encounter table for two reasons, a) it's much easier to create on Google Sheets, and b) the game is going to be 2d because I cannot create a 3d one.

Kieran Battle:

(remember, everything is subject to change!)

Firstly, I read through the first two chapters of the Toxic Consequences AU fanfic again and determined that the player would have their first battle with Kieran as he leaves Loyalty Plaza after losing to Florian and Juliana, so it takes place after he meets Dokutaro but before he gets chained. This means I had to create a worse version of the team he uses at Loyalty Plaza. I based my version of the team off of the one you would fight if you hadn't beaten the story of main SV because even if you had access to a couple routes by now and had beaten a couple trainers, this is still an early game boss fight.

The first step to do that was to get rid of his Cramorant. I think the fight would be easier and better if he only had four Pokemon, and as far as I'm aware he only uses the Cramorant in this fight and no others.

Another thing you may notice about his team is that all of their natures are neutral. I'm not naturing or IV-ing or EV-ing a fight this early in the game because, once again, it's an early-game boss fight.

First up, his Gligar. It has Arial Ace and Sand Tomb for S.T.A.B. (yes I know Sand Tomb is a bad move but that's the point!), and Swords Dance to get some attack boosts. That coupled with its ability Hyper Cutter, which prevents you from lowering its attack, means that if you leave it alone for long enough it can become a real threat (even if that is unlikely to happen). It has no held item (in fact, Dipplin is the only pokemon to have one) because, again, this is an early-game fight and I don't want the game to be too difficult... yet. :)

Next, Poliwhirl. I gave it Low Kick for coverage, and for it's water move I chose to give it Weather Ball. Okay hear me out on this one- the attack uses Poliwhirl's special attack stat which is pretty bad in comparison to it's physical attack. The point of this move, though, is that it pairs well with Rain Dance. When rain is active, Weather Ball becomes a water-type move and doubles to 100 base power. Because of the rain, water-type attacks get boosted AND Poliwhirl gets water S.T.A.B., which when combined with Poliwhirl's ability Swift Swim doubling its speed in rain should make it output decent damage for this point in the game... hopefully.

Then, Yanma. As opposed to Kieran's first two Pokemon which have three moves, Yanma and Dipplin both get four. I first gave it Struggle Bug and Air Cutter for S.T.A.B., and I then gave it U-Turn as a pivot. You may be thinking, "What's the point if Yanma is sent out second-to-last?" The point is that Yanma won't always be sent second to last. How this game will work is that trainers will ALWAYS send out their lead first and ALWAYS send out their ace last, but what comes in-between is determined by which Pokemon is best against your current Pokemon, and U-turn allows Yanma to switch into Poliwhirl to take an attack that Yanma could not. Finally, I gave it Tailwind to make the team faster, which it kind of needs, especially Dipplin.

Speaking of Dipplin, that's the last member of his team! I decided to make Dipplin Kieran's ace instead of Poliwhirl because it's always bothered me that it's not his ace in a couple of battles despite Hydrapple becoming his ace in the Indigo Disk. (I don't know, I just like things to be consistent.) First off, I gave it Syrup Bomb and Dragon Breath for S.T.A.B., then Bug Bite for coverage. Finally, I gave it Recover. The interesting part is Dipplin's ability. Kieran's Dipplin usually has Supersweet Syrup, but I decided to give it Gluttony. This is because of Dipplin's item, the Pataya berry, which normally increases your special attack upon reaching 1/4 health. With Gluttony, however, this special attack boost instead occurs at 1/2 health, meaning if you don't take it out quickly because of Dipplin's high defense (did anyone else think the line's special defense would be higher? just me? okay), it gets a special attack boost and becomes the only real threat on the team.

Speaking of, should this game be double battles or single battles? Either way there will be a couple of the other option but which should be the prominent encounter type? I'm leaning towards double because I prefer it over singles and it gives me the opportunity to create more devious strategies, but what do you think? As always, your choice WILL influence the game.

Encounters:

The important thing I considered when creating the encounters here is getting through the harder members of Kieran's team, notably Poliwhirl and Dipplin. That being said, here are the encounters:

I've created the encounter tables for Kitakami Road, Apple Hills, and Reveler's Road. I've decided to do this because for progression reasons Kitakami hall will be the furthest in the game you can reach before defeating Kieran.

Kitakami Road

Just like in real SV, the only three encounters here are Wooper, Yanma, and Spinarak at night. (yes I know this has some differences to regular SV because Spinarak can be found during the day and other mons can spawn here rarely but for the first point it adds variety and for the second it makes it easier for me, okay?)

Apple Hills

This is where the encounter tables get interesting. Just like regular SV, you can find Applin here all the time and Starly during the day. (I know Starly only spawns during the day because I tried to shiny hunt it and it was a pain :[ ) You can also find Spinarak here at nighttime and Volbeat and Illumise rarely. Fun fact: Volbeat and Illumise can spawn in both versions, but Volbeat spawns more commonly in Scarlet and Illumise in Violet. They're like pseudo-version exclusives, which is what gave me the idea for the day-night exclusivity. The notable encounter here is Psyduck, whose Cloud Nine ability makes it a great counter to Poliwhirl. (I know Psyduck is not in the Kitakami dex but I'm adding it and multiple others because a) variety and b) Sneasler and Runerigus were both in the Dokukieran team so it's not off-limits.)

Reveler's Road

Firstly, Vulpix and Growlithe spawn here as day-night exclusives. Apparnently Growlithe doesn't actually spawn here but it's in the dex and I could have sworn it did so I'm keeping it. Toedscool and Poltchageist also spawn here just as they do in game, with Poltchageist appearing both at day and night because in regular SV Poltchageist does spawn at all times of day but more commonly at sunset and night. Noibat also appears as a rare spawn at night only because a) It has to be rare because Noivern is really good, and b) the Noibat line's whole thing is using echolocation to fly around in the dark so it's fitting as a night-only encounter. The notable encounter here, however, is Sneasel. It's a fast and decently-hard-hitting ice types making it practically the only good counter to Dipplin while also not being too good for this point in the game due to its BST. (I wanted the fight to be decently hard if you're not prepared but have good counters because I also want the game to be a hard nuzlocke because that's the only way I'm good at romhacking/making fangames /hj.)

Conclusion:

Wow, that was a long progress update. Everything here is subject to change, so expect me to come back to this later, but for now, I'm pretty happy with how both of today's topics came out. These updates are probably going to be daily but I might miss a couple of days because I want to actually get something done inbetween updates. For now though,

Smoliv out.

[crystalelemental]

Pokemon Team Characterization - Janine

Ninja Dad is done, but now it is time for Ninja Daughter.  Janine’s cool, I like Janine.  Her whole thing is being new and relatively uncertain and is trying her best, which is exactly what Flannery does, but I’m cutting off this rant before I piss off the Flannery fans.

Janine’s intro team is really funny, because it sucks.  Confuse Ray and Supersonic on the same Pokemon?  Two Ariados with the same offensive overlap?  Her team is riddled with small oddities that suggest someone new who doesn’t quite know what she’s doing.  The only thing she has on lock is her Weezing.  She definitely learned her dad’s trade.

But that’s not what we’re interested in.

Janine’s Gen 4 rematch is where she establishes an identity.  It’s where she starts to really craft a careful team, but where she also starts to seriously break away from her dad’s style as a ninja and develops her own.

The Lead (Crobat) Crobat as a lead suggests a cautious approach on two levels.  The first is the clear “Avoid Ground.”  Poison has few weaknesses, and full immunity to one of them is a strong opener.  The other is U-Turn.  This is a similar “know when to fold em” mentality as her father, but she’s less...absolute.  More of a “put it down and come back later” compared to Explosion signifying abandonment of the plan.  I’d also note Confuse Ray, which has a lot less confidence than her father’s Swagger.  In the opening plays, she’s still uncertain and playing a bit closer to the vest.  She’s someone who takes an immediately cautious approach, and isn’t afraid to back down in a moment to regroup.

The Ace (Venomoth) Highest level.  Her ace is where we start to see a serious departure from her father’s tactics.  Sleep Powder.  Koga spams Toxic.  That’s his whole thing.  But Janine aims instead for Sleep, into Double Team for evasion.  It’s a more measured approach.  But this is then backed by Tinted Lens, which powers up her not very effective moves.  Psychic over a poison-type STAB is also interesting, and there’s more to it but that’ll come later.

The main thing to take away is that Janine likes consistency.  Koga’s willing to play fast and loose with evasion, then completely drop the plan if it starts going off the rails.  Janine doesn’t.  Janine likes to sustain, and likes to make sure what she’s doing will work.  Again, cautious and uncertain of success.

Tried and True (Weezing) Weezing keeps to Koga’s tactics.  Toxic, explode when needed.  What’s interesting is it doesn’t know Smokescreen.  Janine won’t play evasion games without some level of certainty, like Venomoth’s Sleep Powder.  She opts instead for Thunderbolt.  Odd coverage, but something she finds more consistent than the evasion.

Mind Games (Toxicroak, Ariados, Drapion) All three of her remaining Pokemon apply disruption in the form of confuse or attraction.  All three also have fall-back plans.  Toxicroak packs Substitute, Ariados has Bounce, and Drapion is just excellent defensive typing.  Ariados’ Night Shade is against a good indicator of her appreciation for consistency, given its flat damage, while Drapion’s Swords Dance indicates much the same, needing to ensure her damage is enough before swinging.  But Swords Dance is also taking calculated risk.  She only buffs on a defensive Pokemon, or something with good disruption in sleep.  In every other instance, she doesn’t try, and plays more cautiously.

Of particular note is how this differs from her father.  Koga’s approach is wholly Toxic.  It is his calling card, and the technique he applies in most situations.  Given its effects on the body, Koga is someone who operates on the physical level.  He’s surgical in his approach, and breaks the person down on that physical level.  By contrast, Janine’s psychological.  Confusion and attraction have little direct impact on breaking down the opponent, but they do have an effect that disrupts their ability to fight.  Koga aims to overwhelm.  Janine aims to disrupt.  Janine’s approach is overall cautious, but insidious.  She’s less likely to reveal up front what she’s doing, playing a bit more toward subtlety before a finishing strike.

I also like that it’s Ariados who has Swagger.  She’s not confident in the opener, but once she’s in the swing of things she starts to feel more confident.  I interpret this as an initial shyness, or lack of confidence.  She’ll go into something expecting little, but once she’s started eases into the process of something new.

Summation Janine is the psychological counterpart to her father’s physical approach.  While her father applies a direct Toxic and is very up front about his intent, Janine is more covert, able to get inside another person’s head.  She’s likely to more intuitively understand someone than her father, but is less likely to immediately jump into something.  She can, and she will, but she likes having a plan.  She’s also got a bit more stamina for things.  While her father drops a failed plan immediately in a “know when to fold ‘em” approach, Janine saves plans for later and never truly abandons a possible avenue.  Koga reacts, Janine plans.  She’ll start out uncertain and reserved, but opens up once she’s in the swing of a new situation.

If you have an alternate read on the teams, I’d love to hear it.  I do like Janine after all.  I admit, I know she’s Kantonian, but because she only shows in Gen 2 she’s like an honorary Johto character so I can appreciate her more.  And I think she nails the less confident newbie leader better than-[for legal reasons, the remainder of this rant has been removed]

[hamofjustice]

So, Tera Raids, huh? Those 4v1 big boss fights in Pokemon Scarlet/Violet against various mons Tera'd into other types? Hitting the random button on those, getting dropped into random lobbies, and getting three minutes to figure out what to counter whatever combination of opponent and new typing I rolled while fitting in with the teamcomp I found myself in… has somehow the main thing I'm hooked on doing in the game now. They're supposed to just be for resource farming, but I'm more interested in them than actually battling against people. Whoops! There's a lot of nuances about them that you are just straight up not told about because, y'know, game was forced out a year before it should've been, etc etc. Thankfully, most of those nuances are now documented on Bulbapedia, unlike the wild west days of months past:

I'm gonna skip pointing out the most useful information that's already on there, I don't really need to reinvent the wheel here. Instead, I'm gonna focus on how this mode encourages a different way of analyzing, choosing, and building your Pokemon, and recontextualized a bunch of stuff that was once irrelevant, and I'm gonna talk about it here on Tumblr, because Pokemon forums scare me! Here we go:

You choose your opponent (more or less), so you can specialize your builds as hard as you want. You're free to run a moveset of only Grass moves if you're up against something weak to Grass, just like being a character in Pokemon Masters. Having broad coverage doesn't really matter, unless you're on a budget and using the same Pokemon to take on a wide variety of stuff. You can also totally max out one defensive stat and ignore the other one if you only go up against physical or special attackers with that particular Pokemon. Overspecialized builds especially tend to come out for dealing with the 7-star raids, and it's fun to see the community eventually figure out and share a "solution" to the particularly hard ones. You could also just use Rage Fist Annihilape against everything, but that's not as fun.

Because the boss can't switch out, debuffs are better than buffs. When you lower the boss's stats, everyone benefits from it, including yourself (as long as you're not against something with Defiant or Competitive, oops). One Screech doubles EVERYONE's physical damage, providing far more value to your team than Swords Dance only doing that for yourself… IF the shield isn't up. Screech and Metal Sound can even be used for phase-skipping OHKO builds if your team all understands not to attack. Still, that big "if" leads into the next point:

Attacks with added effects can inflict them through shields, use them. You'll arguably get more mileage overall out of, say, Chilling Water instead of Charm, or Thunderous Kick instead of Screech, because even though it's only -1 instead of -2, you can keep doing it through the shield, and easily reapply it after the boss cleanses its debuffs rather than a tool being removed from your kit for most of the battle. Added effect attacks even count toward the attacks you need to hit the boss with before you can Terastallize, so you can deal big damage WHILE supporting your team, instead of having to choose between supporting OR Tera-ing like you do if you're just using Cheers or status moves to do everything.

Specific moves are really, really good. Or at least it's cute how much better they are than usual. Combining points 2 and 3, I basically decide what Pokemon I'm going to make a raid build for next based on if it learns the following:

Belly Drum, almost everybody has a Drain Punch Iron Hands or Shell Bell Azumarill as their first "raid mon," turns out quadrupling your Attack and using it to sustain yourself forever is pretty good actually

Attack moves guaranteed to lower a relevant stat or do something else useful (ACID SPRAY, Chilling Water, Snarl, Mud Slap, Nuzzle, etc, even Throat Chop sometimes) (bosses can't flinch though)

Life Dew, 25% heal for everyone and not limited to 3 times like the green healing Cheer, lets you save that for curing status, or use the red and blue Cheers more often, or just stick it out through a reallllly long one

Howl, +1 Attack for everyone, is mostly better than Helping Hand for physical attackers. Belly Drum users would rather have Helping Hand, defense drops, or a red offensive Cheer though, since their Attack is already maxed

Reflect and Light Screen halve damage for the whole team, they don't get cleansed when the boss removes your buffs either

Heal Pulse and Pollen Puff, unlimited single target 50% heal if someone's dying or needs to Belly Drum again. Can't self target though. Pollen Puff can heal through Good as Gold's status move immunity because it's technically an attack

Taunt, even though it's a bit hard to time and doesn't go through shield, can prevent a ton of big impact scripted moves from going off, like weather or stat buffs, or help with Yawn spammers

And then, y'know, other field effects like Safeguard, terrains, weather, etc can be good situationally

Abilities that protect the whole team like Sweet Veil can be strong counterpicks here also

In my next post, because this one's long enough already, I'm going to actually list some of the sets I run or would like to run soon.

[approximateknowledge]

An only vaguely coherent rant/lamentation about an isekai from the mid-2010s

So, context: little egg me got into anime within the context of the isekai-boom of the first half of the 2010s, and the first anime I actually watched (that wasn't something like the Dutch tv dubs of beyblade and pokemon) was, in fact, an isekai; SAO, to be precise, and the reason was litterally just gender envy towards femme Kirito in the second series. This rant is not about SAO.

It's about No Game No Life. NGNL has, to put it lightly, issues. The biggest one by far being the creepy and very uncomfortable, uhmm, situation the 2 main characters have going on. It gets bad to the point of being unwatchable on multiple occasions and it's completely undefendable. I hate it.

The thing is, if it was just a crappy creepy isekai, I wouldn't care. But the issue is, the worldbuilding and concepts in this story are genuinely inspired. The fact the 10 Pledges are equivalent to Laws of physics in-context is such a great concept, expecially in how it interacts with all the different sentient species.

The weird symbiosis of the dhampir and sirens in a world where non-consensual violence is physically impossible, the double-edged sword of magic as a method of cheating, the way structural violence, all the way up to inheritable slavery, can still exist despite the pledges.

And my personal brainworm, the flügel. Immortal beings made for eternal war stuck in a world where war has become ontologically impossible. Living forces of destruction in a universe where all of that became meaningless. They're teleologically made to go apeshit and the fundamentally can't anymore. Beings without purpose, and with an eternity ahead of them. So what do they do? They gather knowledge and stories and whatever else just to not be bored. They become archivists and collectors and they learn all there is to lear nto fill the unfillable hole in their existence. They're escapists.

My younger self was positively obsessed with them. I unironically made a flügel-sona (her name was Ëzisheill). I still think the flügel are fascinating as a concept. Living weapons of a god long-rendered powerless, in a world were the concept of a weapon has been refuted by the very laws of physics. They deserved better. Most of the concepts did.

Even after almost a decade, I'm still so frustrated at how this thing manages to be so fascinating on a conceptual level and so utterly garbage in most aspects of its execution.

I don't recommend ngnl to anyone; it's creepy and horny in way too many places and all the wrong ways.

But I wish I could. I wish it was actually good instead of "like that".

Alas

(the Zero movie is actually good, but because it takes place *before* the Pledges it doesn't have the most interesting worldbuilding dynamics. I do recommend the movie though. Mainly because it isn't isekai at all and mainly just a somewhat post-apocalyptic dark fantasy/cosmic horror story for the most part. And the anime mcs aren't there, thank fuck, and the main couple of the movie actually works without being horrendously uncomfortable and disgusting.)

[tigressaofkanjis]

Pokemon Legends: The Next Exploration Title

In my opinion, I honestly think the Legends series (if it becomes that) has potential and it was quite a good change of mechanics for such a game instead of a ring of gyms and defeating certain bad groups. Catching freely and seeing what the Pokemon world was like before modernization was one of the best routes and a lot of its mechanics actually make sense for its time.

Shiny hunting? Easier. Why? Because there's more abundance of them and the critters aren't forced to hide in grass to be hunted like we do in the normal game series. It makes perfect sense why it wouldn't be a grind in comparison to a regular game. Alpha specimens? Makes sense because there was nothing hindering a larger growth ratio and since it's implied multiple times that a lot of Pokemon were modified or bred out of many traits in the regular games, it makes perfect sense why they would exist in the first place.

I think the next regions to explore in order in the Legends series should be:

Black and White - Let's face it, we can all agree we want to know how Kyurem, Reshiram, and Zekrom are able to fuse and form. That's a given top spot for sure.

Sun and Moon - Ultra Beasts are the main reason for this to be a top contender because it makes you wonder just what the wormholes lead to and if they arrived in the past, did they appear like distortions and there's completely alternate variants of Pokemon (or what they would be called there) in the other dimesions we never get to see?

X and Y - Mega Evolutions are the main drive for this because I do want to know how they began because we all know there was no way they were automatically perfect marbles a Pokemon could absorb to do so. There had to be another past method.

Sword and Shield - The story we got was through tapestries and although vague, we obviously knew what happened...but this is higher than Gen 2 and Gen 3 because I really want to see the whole knights and dragons tone it has going on in medieval times Galar. That would be awesome.

Gold and Silver - Exploring Ho-Oh and Lugia's relationship is key here but not as interesting as the later series in terms of plot. Still, I do want to see how these two were in the old days.

Ruby and Sapphire - The reason this is so low on the list isn't because of anything bad. I think it was explained already that there wasn't really any people in Hoenn dealing with Kyogre and Groudon's rule because they formed the land in that area so there isn't much to explore in terms of seeing the old times. It would be more like you being Tarzan in the midst of a lava/ground barren area and the ocean which would get you killed pretty fast.

Red and Blue - This one is probably the least interesting generation mainly because one legendary would rather just not be around humanity, one was created by humanity, and there's just three birds that do fuck all. Don't get me wrong, I love the original game and all its characters but in terms of exploring the past, there's definitely not much to know because the birds don't do anything other than appear and unless the plot revolves around Mew (which it would honestly have to to work) it's not as interesting.

I could be off but that's my understanding of the games and what I would like to see the order of which games gets a Legends treatment if at all. Let me know if you disagree with my list (nicely please) and make your own adjustments. I will listen.

[beastenraged]

Kalos Pokemon thoughts

Pokemon Arceus has reawakened my desire to sketch out the possible history/cultures of ancient Kalos, the region of X+Y, and whose plot is heavily involved with that history, thus prompting my interest in putting something together on it. 

My original thought was that the events in the Kalos legend happened a thousand years ago, due to Yvetal’s and Xerneas’ thousand year cycles. Looked it up properly and it’s instead three thousand years. 

Holy crap, that is a long time. Really long. That’s some prehistory stuff right there, when it comes to situations in Western Europe and so on. Is AZ still sane after living that long? ...probably not. 

I’m using Western European history as my main reference due to Kalos apparently being based on northern France, but honestly this is Pokemon land so I can probably toss in other cultural elements that get referenced in other aspects. 

In France specifically, we don’t have written history for that time frame. Three thousand years ago, as corresponding to 2013 (when X+Y came out), would be around 1000 BCE. In 1000 BCE, we had the Zhou Dynasty in China, the building of the Solomon Temple in Israel,  and the Greek Dark Ages, among other Iron Age/late Bronze Age cultures. 

In France specifically, there was the Urnfield culture (among others). Pre-Celtic and named after the burial rites of urns buried with human ashes being commonly dated back to this time. And the fact we don’t really know that much about outside of that. 

Despite that time period being all Pre-Celtic, I think putting in more Celtic vibes for Past Kalos would be cool. Especially since Yveltal gives me some Morrigan vibes and Xerneas gives me the Celtic tree of life knot vibes. 

In real world history, this time frame is when the Naue II sword shows up. The Naue II sword is a short leaf-shaped bronze blade that influenced later sword forging and styles in Europe. Pokemon-wise, I’m thinking that if swords similar to Naue IIs showed up in Kalos around this time, those might be the root of proto-Honoedges. Exciting!

Some individuals might argue it’s ridiculous to think that the inhabitants of Kalos might have had stronger relations with their pokemon compared to the Hisui residents, since I’m looking at them 3000 years ago when in Hisui they were deeply afraid of pokemon only a mere 200 years or so before modern Pokemon era. 

To me, this looks like real life history. History is full of what some might call renaissances and recessions, where information is learned and lost and relearned by different peoples/cultures. How to properly care/friendship pokemon can fall under that category, of knowledge that can be lost and regained.

Plus Hisui and Kalos are different regions. That might contribute. 

I know bog bodies haven’t really been found in France, but I’m fascinated in the idea of there being a Ghost-type pokemon based on bog bodies appearing in Kalos and other similar European based regions in this time frame. 

Maybe a regional variant on an already existing Ghost-type Pokemon? Thoughts on that: maybe a Phantump or Sandygast would do the best reworked for that idea. 

I’m curious to what role AZ may have played those 3000 years ago outside of the entire ancient machine and immortality thing. 

He can’t have been a king the entire time, otherwise he wouldn’t have lost his Floette to war recruitment like he says he did. Or a king with any power, perhaps. 

There may have been multiple kings and kingdoms as common to similar times in reality, and AZ (alongside his brother) may have been a lesser king before he gained enough influence and power to start conquering the rest of Kalos to become known as its one and only king in later legend.  

Honestly, with how far back these events occur, how the fuck can Lysander even claim direct lineage from AZ’s brother? Seriously. 

AZ’s Floette, the Eternal Floette, might have a different coloring due to the influence of the ancient machine that gave it immortality. Not sure if canon claims that or not. But I’m also fond of the idea that its coloring might be signs of a different now-extinct variant or shiny coloring in the Floette species, since Pokemon Arceus has introduced the idea of extinct region variants into Pokemon worldbuilding. 

[celepeace]

A monster-taming game recommendation list for fans of Pokemon

Whether you're a pokemon fanatic obsessed with all things pokemon past and present, or a veteran fan disillusioned with GameFreak's recent adoption of monetary philosophies and strategies reminiscent of other major game publishers, or looking for a monster-taming fix as you await new Pokemon content...

I'm compiling here a post of little-known games in the genre that Pokemon fans are likely to enjoy!

Under readmore cause long, but some of these games really don’t get the attention they deserve, so if you have the time, please read!

(I am also likely to keep updating and editing this post)

First up is Temtem!

Temtem is a game made by and for Pokemon fans, from the spanish indie developer Crema. Temtem is currently in early access on Steam and PS5, and is likely to remain in early access until sometime late next year. Full launch will include a Nintendo Switch release, too. Despite this, it has plenty of content to explore before full release. The developers are active, release new content on a semi-regular basis, and are responsive to the community as a whole and individuals if you happen to come across a bug you want to report.

Temtem boasts a wide variety of monsters to collect and train. It takes place in the Airborne Archipelago, a system of floating islands that orbit their star, the Pansun. The monsters inhabiting the archipelago are called Temtem, or tem(s), for short.

As far as game mechanics go, it has many similarities to Pokemon, but also many important distinctions. The biggest one, in my opinion, is that the element of chance has been removed from battle entirely. Moves cannot miss, have the same power constantly, and status afflictions have an obviously displayed countdown to when they will wear off (for instance, sleep lasts as long as it says it will last. Not 2-4 turns). PP does not exist, either. Your tems can battle for as long as their HP holds out. In place of PP, a new system called Stamina exists. Stamina is an individual stat, like HP and Attack. Each move costs a certain amount of stamina. If you go over the amount of stamina your tem has, the deficit is detracted from your health instead, and that tem cannot move next turn. Stamina passively regenerates a certain amount each turn, and items and moves exist that can heal stamina. All battles are also double-battles, you and your opponent will typically have two tems on the field at a time. This is just a few of the differences Temtem has from Pokemon, but they're some of the biggest ones.

Temtem is also a massively multiplayer game. You complete the storyline independently (or with a friend through co-op!), but in the overworld you can see other, real players moving around and interacting with the world. There is also public and area-specific chat you can talk to other players through. Despite this, all multiplayer functions are (currently) completely optional. You do not need to interact with others to complete the game.

Overall, Temtem is suitable for the Pokemon fan who is looking for a more challenging experience. Temtem is not a walk in the park you can blaze through with a single super-strong monster. For one, individual tem strength is more well-balanced than it is in Pokemon. There are very few (if any!) completely useless tems. Even some unevolved tems have their niche in the competitive scene! Aside from that, enemy tamers are scaled quite high, and you typically cannot beat them just from the exp you get from other enemy tamers. You have to do some wild-encounter grinding if you want to progress.

Temtem is a very fun game and I've already gotten over 100 hours out of it, despite only 3/5-ish of the planned content being released!

However, I do feel obligated to warn any prospective players of one thing: the current endgame is quite inaccessible. After you complete what is currently implemented of the main storyline, there is still quite a lot left to explore and do, but much of it is locked behind putting a lot of hours into the game. You kind of have to get perfect temtem to do the current PVE (and this is also somewhat true for the PVP too). By perfect I mean you have to breed a good tem and then train it to get the preferable EVs (called TVs in temtem). This takes... well, for a whole team... tens of hours. Of boring grinding. Some people enjoy it! But I don't. Regardless, the game was still worth buying because the non-endgame content is expansive and fun.

So overall, pros & cons:

Pros

Battle system is more friendly towards a competitive scene

Cute monsters

Lots of gay characters, also you can choose pronouns (including they/them) independently from body type and voice

Less difference between the objectively bad tems and good tems than there is in Pokemon

Lots of stuff to do even in early access

Most conversations with dialog choices have the option to be a complete ass for no reason other than it’s fun

Having less type variety in your team is less punishing than in Pokemon due to the synergy system and types overall having less weaknesses and resistances

At least one major character is nonbinary

Cons

Falls prey to the issue of MMOs having in-game economies that are only accessible to diehard no-life players

Related to the above point, cosmetics are prohibitively expensive

Endgame CURRENTLY is inaccessible to most players unless you buy good monsters from other players or spend tens of hours making your own. However I must add that the grind is great if you like that kind of thing and is quite easy and painless to do while watching a show or something.

Here is their Steam page and here is their official website.

Next is Monster Hunter: Stories!

This is a spinoff game of the Monster Hunter franchise released for the 3DS in 2018. If you're anything like me, and you've played the core Monster Hunter games, you've often thought "Man, I wish I could befriend and ride these cool dragon creatures instead of killing or maiming them!"

Well now you can! In Stories, as I will be calling it, you play as a rider rather than a hunter. Riders steal monster eggs from wild nests to raise them among humans as companions and guardians. And yes, egg stealing is a whole mechanic in of itself in this game.

This game works pretty differently from most monster-collecting games. You do battle (usually) against one or two wild monsters using your own, except you fight alongside your monsters too. With swords and stuff. There's armor and weapons you can smelt to make yourself stronger. Type match-ups also kind of don't exist in this game? Except they do? But not in a way you'd expect?

The vast majority of attacking moves you and your monster use fall into categories reminiscent of rock-paper-scissors. Moves can be categorized as power, speed, or technical. Speed beats power, technical beats speed, and power beats technical. The matchup of your move vs your opponent's determines how a turn will go down. If one move beats the other in matchup, then the winner's move will get to go and the loser doesn't get to do anything. If you tie, you both get hit, but for reduced damage. There's also abilities and basic attacks, with abilities basically being the same as pokemon moves, and basic attacks just being "I hit you for normal damage within this category". Also, you don't control what your monster does all the time in battle. You can tell it to use abilities, but what kind basic attacks it carries out is determined by its species' preference. Velicidrome, for instance, prefers speed attacks, but Yian Garuga prefers technical. Stamina also exists in this game in a very similar manner to Temtem.

Overall this game carries over a lot of mechanics Monster Hunter fans will find familiar (how items and statuses work for instance). You don't have to have played a core Monster Hunter game to enjoy Stories though! It's fine and is easy to understand as a stand-alone.

The story has some likable characters and is rather long (it was actually adapted into an anime!), for those of you who enjoy a good story.

I'd really recommend this one especially. If it sounds fun to you and you can drop $30, just do it. I bought it on a whim and I got a few weeks' worth of playing almost nonstop out of it, and I didn't even get to do everything! (I got distracted by Hades, oops)

Stories is also getting a sequel later next year on the nintendo switch! How exciting!

And yes, you do ride the monsters.

Pros & cons:

Pros

Large variety of cool monsters to befriend and raise

Pretty lengthy story

Every tamable monster is also rideable

Deceptively simple combat mechanics, easy to be okay at, hard to master

Incorporates some mechanics from early turn-based party rpgs like Final Fantasy for a nice twist on the monster collecting genre

Cons

Many monsters are objectively outclassed by other ones, making what can be in an actually good team more limited than you’d expect

3DS graphics inherently means the game looks like it was made 7 years before its time

Here is the Monster Hunter Stories official 3DS product page.

And here is Monster Sanctuary!

Monster sanctuary is a game that just had its 1.0 launch- meaning it was in early access and no longer is! Although the devs say they still plan to implement a few more things into the game in future updates. It is available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PS4.

Monster sanctuary is a metroidvania twist on the typical monster collecting game, meaning it is also a sidescrolling platformer in which you use abilities you gain throughout the game to explore the world around you. The abilities in this case are the monsters you get! Every monster has an ability that helps you traverse the sanctuary.

Speaking of the sanctuary, the game is set in one. The monster sanctuary is a magically shielded area, cut off from the rest of the world, created by an order of monster keepers, people who befriend and protect the mystical monsters inhabiting the world. Humankind encroached too far on the natural habitat of monsters and were hostile to the native wildlife, so the keepers created an area of varied environments to safely protect and preserve the remaining monsters of the world.

Unlike many other monster collecting games, this game only has 5 types: fire, water, earth, air, and neutral. However, the types themselves do not possess resistances and weaknesses. Instead, each monster has its own assigned weaknesses and resistances. And yes, this can include things like debuffs, physical vs special attacks, and the typical elemental types.

All battles are also 3 vs 3! And unlike in pokemon, where you can only hit the enemies nearest, all monsters have the ability to hit any opponent they want. Turns also work a little differently in that speed doesn't exist, you just use 1 move per monster in your turn and then it goes to your opponent's turn. Your monsters hit in whatever order you want them to.

There is also a quite important combo system in this game, where every hit builds a damage multiplier for the next. Moves often hit multiple times per turn. Healing and buffing actions also build this combo counter. So what monsters you have move in what order really counts!

But the main mechanical difference between this and other games in the genre is how it handles levels and skills. Instead of learning a set move at a certain level, this game incorporates a skill tree, and you get to allocate points into different skills as you grow stronger. And jeez, these skill trees are really extensive. Monster sanctuary is a theorycrafter's dream. Each monster has a unique, specially tailored skill tree, making every monster truly able to have its own niche. You can make use of whatever monster you want if you just put thought into it!

And like Temtem, this game is not made to be beatable by children. I'm sure a child could beat it, but it's not made to be inherently child-friendly like pokemon. It's honestly quite difficult.

On top of that, you are actively encouraged to not just be scraping by each battle. Your performance in battle is rated by an automated system that scores your usage of various mechanics like buffs and debuffs applied, type matchups, and effective usage of combos. The rating system directly influences the rewards you get from each battle, including your likelihood of obtaining an egg from one of the wild monsters you battled (no, you don't catch wild monsters in this game, you get eggs and hatch them). If you're not paying attention to how the game works and making good, effective use of your monsters, you'll have a hard time expanding your team!

The music is also really good, it's made by nature to be able to play over and over and not get old as you explore each area, and the composer(s) really did a good job with this. Some area songs, namely the beach one, I especially enjoy, so much so I've actually played it in the background while I do work.

This is a game I would really recommend. If I made it sound intimidating, it is by no means unbeatable, you're just gonna have to put some thought into how you play. At no point did I actually feel frustrated or like something was impossible. When I hit a wall, I was able to recognize what I did wrong and how I could improve, or I could at least realize something wasn't working and experiment until I found a solution. It's challenging in a genuinely fun, rewarding way.

Pros & cons:

Pros

Extremely in-depth combat system

I genuinely don’t know if there’s an objectively bad monster in this game

Evolution exists but is completely optional, as even un-evolved monsters can be great

Entire soundtrack is full of bangers

Large and diverse variety of monsters to tame

Cons

Story is a little lackluster, but passable

That’s the only con I can think of

Here’s a link to their Steam page and the game’s website.

A kind of unorthodox recommendation is the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series!

Likelihood is that everyone reading this has heard of this series already, but just in case anyone hasn't, I thought I'd include it! I would categorize this as a hybrid between the mystery dungeon genre and the monster collecting genre, because you recruit pokemon as you play and can use those pokemon on your team!

If you're unaware, the mystery dungeon genre is a small subset of dungeon crawler games where you progress through randomly generated levels called mystery dungeons. Throughout the dungeons, there will be enemies to fight and items to collect. The challenge of these games is mostly due to the stamina aspect of them, in that you have to manage your resources as you progress through the level. If you go all out in each fight, you will inevitably lose quite quickly. You have to learn to win against enemies while balancing your use of items and PP, so you have enough for the next fight, and the fight after that.

Pokemon mystery dungeon in particular is famous for its stories, the likes of which isn't seen often in Pokemon games. They are hugely story-driven games and are notable for the emotional depth they possess. It's pretty normal for the average player to cry at least once in the span of the game. There's lots of memes about that specifically.

This entry in my list is also unique for being a series. So, which one should you play first? It actually doesn't matter! Each storyline is entirely self-contained and requires no knowledge of prior entries. The quality of each entry varies and is a point of contention among fans. I say you should play all of them, because they all have their merits (though some more than others.... coughgatestoinfinitycough). They're mostly distinct for the generation of Pokemon they take place in. Rescue team is gen 3, Explorers is gen 4, Gates to Infinity is gen 5, Super Mystery Dungeon is gen 6, and Rescue Team DX is a remake of a gen 3 game but has the mechanics and moves of a gen 8 game.

My only real caution is that you play Explorers of Sky, not Darkness or Time. Sky is basically a combination of the two games with added items and content. It's an objective upgrade over its predecessors, and I honestly wouldn't waste money on the other two. 

I’m not going to include a pros and cons list for the PMD series because I’m incredibly biased and it wouldn’t be an honest review.

Next is Monster Crown!

Monster Crown is a monster collecting game that seems to take heavy inspiration from early-gen Pokemon games in particular. It is currently in early access on Steam and is not expensive. I learned about it through the developers of Monster Sanctuary, when they recommended it on their official Discord.

The game has lots of charm and interesting creature designs, and an entirely new take on monster typings as well. Instead of monster types being based off of natural elements like fire, water, electricity, etc. Monster Crown uses typings that seem to be influenced by the personalities of the monsters. For instance, Brutal, Relentless, and Will are all monster types!

It also captures a lot of the charm many of us look fondly upon in early GameBoy-era games. The music is mostly chiptune, with some more modern backing instruments at times, and the visuals are very reminiscent of games like Pokemon Crystal in particular. Monster Crown is definitely the monster collecting game for fans of the 8-bit era!

The thing that stands out the most to me about this game is the breeding system. Instead of one parent monster passing down its species to its offspring, you can create true hybrids in this game.

However, it is very early access. I would consider the current build as an alpha, not even a beta yet! So temper your expectations here. I have not encountered any major bugs, but visual glitches here and there are quite common. The game also could definitely use some polish and streamlining, and is quite limited in content currently. But the dev(s) seem quite active, so I fully expect these kinks to be worked out in time!

The reviews are rather positive, especially for being in early access. I'm all for expanding the monster collecting genre, so if you're looking to expand your horizons in that sense, I would recommend you at least give this one a look! I personally had quite a bit of fun playing Monster Crown and am going to keep an eye out for updates.

Pros & cons:

Pros

Charming artstyle, appealing monster designs

Faithful callback to a bygone era of gaming

Controls are fairly simple and easy to get the hang of (and are completely customizable!)

Cool breeding and hybridization mechanics

There's a starter for each monster type!

You can choose your pronouns, including they/them!

Cons

Inherent nature of being very early access means can be clunky and unpolished at times

Also not much content as of right now, see above

User interface could use some redesign in places

Here’s their Steam page and the official website!

Here’s an oldie but a goodie, Azure Dreams!

This is one I actually haven’t played, mostly because it’s really old and therefore only practically accessible if you play it on an emulator, unless you're one of those old game collectors. Azure Dreams was developed by Konami and released for the PS1 in 1997. My impression of it was that it either didn’t sell well or only took off in Japan, because it’s actually really hard to find any comprehensive information about it on the internet.

Azure Dreams is a monster collecting - dating sim hybrid. You can build relationships with various characters and can pursue some of them romantically, although that isn’t the main draw of the game. There is also a stripped-down version that exists for the GameBoy Color, which forgoes the dating portion of the game entirely.

Azure Dreams is kind of like a mystery dungeon game in that you progress through a randomly generated, ever-changing tower using the help of the familiars you have accrued throughout your adventure. Similarly to Monster Hunter: Stories, you yourself also take part in the fighting alongside your monsters. Each time you enter the tower, your character’s level is lowered to 1, but your familiars keep their experience. Thus, progression is made through strengthening your monsters. To obtain monsters, you collect their eggs, just like in Monster Sanctuary (which, turns out, was at least partially inspired by this game!)

Due to this game being very old and on the PS1, the visuals leave a lot to be desired... but if you can get past that, Azure Dreams has lots of replayability and customization to how you play the game. To this day, it appears it has a somewhat active speedrunning community!

If you don’t mind the effort of using an emulator, and like old games, Azure Dreams just might be that timesink you were looking for in quarantine.

Honorable mentions:

Pokemon Insurgence (or any Pokemon fangame/ROMhack, really!) is a Pokemon fangame that introduces Delta Pokemon, which are really cool type-swapped versions of existing Pokemon. It’s sufficiently challenging and has a lot of variety in what you can catch in the wild, so you can pretty much add whatever you want to your team! The story is quite good, and the main campaign is multiple times longer than a typical Pokemon game’s campaign. Download it here!

ARK: Survival Evolved is NOT a monster collecting game BUT you do get to tame and fight alongside a lot of really cool extinct species, including but not limited to the dinosaurs we all know and love. This game is genuinely fun as hell, especially with friends, but I must warn you: never play on official servers. I highly recommend singleplayer, playing on a casual private server, or making your own server. Here’s the Steam page.

[themattress]

Pokemon Adventures - 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26

3. No, I have not. That's generally not something I do, with only rare exceptions.

4. I’m not sure how popular it is, but one of my big all-time NoTPs is Silver/Green. They’re siblings, people. Yes, not by blood, but siblings all the same. Also, Blue/Green is fairly popular and I get the appeal, but I just can’t get into it. I don’t feel as though the chemistry is there, especially when compared to Red/Blue (also, Green just....doesn’t strike me as straight.)

5. Nope. Canon kind of ruined Ruby/Sapphire for me, though!

6. Can’t say that it has; shipping isn’t that big a deal to me with this series.

7. Faba. I liked him when he first showed up and it looked like being the one who cheated Sun’s grandfather out of his island was the farthest he was going to go in terms of plot relevancy. But then Kusaka dumbfoundingly made him single-handedly responsible for the Aether family tragedy and had him usurp Lusamine’s rightful position as the arc’s main human villain. As far as I’m concerned, he can stay in Ultra Deep Sea; I don’t want him back!

9. On a moral level, Ghetsis and Lysandre. But on a character level: Emerald, Norman, Courtney (the original one), OG!Archie and Maxie, the aforementioned Faba, and Carr. Professors Juniper and Sycamore were also pretty bad until the last stretch of their arcs.

10. I’m perpetually torn between the Ruby/Sapphire arc or the Emerald arc. The former because it was going fairly well despite the inherently flawed set-up but then all went to absolute shit, and the latter because it, like its title character, just wasn’t very interesting.

11. Blake doesn’t seem all that well-liked from what I’ve seen, but I really appreciated his character. To have a straight-up sociopath as one of the lead characters and not in a villainous capacity is a unique creative choice that I can’t help but admire Kusaka for.

12. I’ve seen a lot of division in the fandom over the Sword/Shield arc, primarily due to Schilly seldom getting to battle on-panel due to her handicap of missing Pokemon and Soudo being considered not that interesting (at least, until that happened), but I really like it. To me, this is what the games’ story and depiction of the characters and setting should have been like.

15. The Ruby/Sapphire arc wasn’t good (a particularly unpopular opinion in Japan!)

16. I could change many things, but if I had to choose one, I’d change the whole Faba thing. Although if Kusaka doesn’t damn well rectify the lack of Moon/Lillie interactions in the volume releases, then I’d begrudgingly let Faba slide and choose more Moon/Lillie as my answer.

17. Instead of the infamous Celebi Ex Machina happening, I’d have Norman, Courtney and Steven remain dead, with only Steven later being resurrected via Infinity Energy in OR/AS.

19. I guess how much many of them take this manga for granted. It’s not perfect by any means, but for it to run for as long as it has and usually be of high quality is no easy feat.

22. I don’t hate Ruby, but I’ve never fully warmed up to him either.

23. Isn’t this just 11 all over again? But I’ll answer differently this time and say that Soudo is a good character and shouldn’t be shit on just because Schilly is understandably more popular.

25. Instead of Sird’s Darkrai clashing with Mewtwo causing five Dex Holders to become petrified, I’d....not do that. Then we could move on to a self-contained Emerald arc focusing on the Battle Frontier with Wally as the main character and no Guile Hideout shenanigans.

26. Green and Crystal, they both lend themselves well to a lot of different ships.

[guerilla935]

My Favorite Fishing in Video Games Where Fishing is Not Core Game Play

A really awesome surprise for me is always to boot up a game that is full of action and suspense to be introduced to a fishing side activity. I have toiled away at fishing in games for hundreds of hours at least. It has gotten so bad in some instances that my friends have asked me why I haven’t just taken the plunge into real fishing. It’s definitely because that is a lot of work and in real life I don’t catch a fish every 30 seconds. They have also wondered why I don’t just play a fishing simulator like Planet Fishing (Shout out to Planet Fishing that’s a great game). And that’s where I have to think for a while. Fishing while you have better things to do like save the world is very special. You aren’t fishing because it’s the objective of the game or because that’s why you are there, you are fishing because it’s fun and maybe you need a break to swing a fishing rod instead of a sword. And then you can stop, and get back to fighting or whatever the rest of the game entails. Below are games that have fishing in them for mostly no reason at all. I have shamelessly spent way to long with my bait in these waters and absolutely loved every second of it and I hope that you (the reader) can find a lot of relaxation in these waters as well.

Pokemon Series

Since the very first Pokemon game there has been fishing. You get the old rod from some guy and then you are free to fish up as many goldfishes that you want hoping that one of them will grow up to be a 21 foot tall dragon. Pokemon has combined their fishing with their main game play and makes you at least start a battle with the fish you drag onto shore. Now fishing in Pokemon is pretty subpar mainly because a single Pokemon game hasn’t really been known to have more than a handful of Pokemon that you can fish for. Also if you are looking for a strong water type Pokemon you could do a lot better than fishing for it. Typically a Pokemon player will fish about 5-10 times total. And although fishing for Pokemon isn’t all that great it has been in every game for over 20 years and that is pretty impressive. It’s a small detail that makes the world of Pokemon feel like a real world of wild creatures.

Sonic Adventure DX

In Sonic Adventure DX you are given the choice to play as a lot of different characters, one of which is named Big the Cat. Most of the characters are combat characters that rely on speed and attacks to get through levels, some even wielding rocket launchers and extremely oversized hammers. However when you start the story of Big the Cat you are thrown in a completely opposite direction. Big the Cat is a giant purple cat who lives in the jungle with his best friend Froggy. Froggy accidentally swallows one of the most powerful objects in the Sonic universe and Big the Cat must chase him all over the world trying to fish him out of where he is hiding so that he can eject the Chaos Emerald out of him and they can return to their life in the jungle. The fishing mechanics in this game actually are really good and this is probably because Sega had just put out a series of mildly successful Bass fishing games before releasing this game. Either way its absolutely hilarious that Big the Cat gets to defeat Chaos 6 right before Super Sonic has his showdown with Chaos Perfect.

Final Fantasy XV

In Final Fantasy XV you play as Noctis and his favorite hobby is fishing. When I first played this game I sped through it and never fished once and reached the end of the game never indulging Noctis in his hobby. When I replayed Final Fantasy XV I fished for 50 hours and then ejected the disc from my console. The fishing in Final Fantasy XV is surprisingly deep with a lot of the vendors supporting what you could call a fishing road trip. In the game it is extremely dangerous to be out at night so I would plan day trips to lakes to maximize the amount of fishing I would get to do. I would prepare days in advance to make sure I could afford the trip and that I had enough supplies to both protect myself at the lake and have enough supplies to last the whole day. Final Fantasy XV really is a game about getting really distracted and fishing is probably its best distraction. My days on the lake were the perfect balance of peaceful and rewarding, this game offers an awesome reward of well planned trips and a good haul of fish.

Final Fantasy XIV Online

Final Fantasy XIV is the only game I have ever played where the fishing played exactly like its combat. When you are fighting enemies in a dungeon in FFXIV you are constantly adding buffs, landing hits, using consumables, and managing resource bars. When you are fishing in FFXIV you are constantly adding buffs, landing hits, using consumables, and managing resource bars. Note you are doing so at a much more leisurely and less life threatening pace but you are still doing it. I never maxed out the fisher class but I got it into the expansion content which was a really long and relaxing experience. Yet another Final Fantasy title where the real meat of the game is in getting distracted. When you fish you also sell on a player market that fluctuates based on market price just like real fish. You get the relaxing fishing side of the game and also an aggressive economic number crunching side as well. I spent way too long with a real pen and paper deciding how much I should sell for on any particular day and bossing around my two cat girl employees.The MMO aspect of the game adds so much to what you would expect to be a very solitary experience.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Have you ever gone fishing for hours to receive an empty bottle? That is exactly what kick started my addiction to fishing in Twilight Princess. An empty bottle in Twilight Princess means another way to heal yourself, another way to add oil to a lantern, another way to carry useless water around. The only way to get the 4th bottle in the game is to go to a dedicated fishing spot and fish until you pulled it out of the pond. The actual fishing is pretty weird, it involves motion controls which I still am not entirely sure what they do or how to properly use them but it is really fun to hold the pole in gyroscope and set the lure in the water waiting for fish to come get a nibble. Although the physics with the water make it difficult to see if you have actually gotten a bite or not it still is enjoyable the other 85% of the time it works.

Stardew Valley

So this one is at the top of every other “fishing in games” list and there is a big reason for that. It’s really good. I think in my first Stardew Valley farm I gave up farming entirely and fished all day every day and stopped to buy food to replenish my energy and go back at it. I really didn’t care about getting rich or making enough money to expand the farm or get to know everyone I actually spent about 50 hours just fishing. The fishing takes some skill and a pretty keen eye but the random jerks of the fish and the rhythm of the game play are so fun to try to master. It’s a part of Stardew Valley that I felt like I was continuously improving on as time went on and it was really fun. I mean I don’t recommend it because you’ll end up moderately poor but it was really fun.

Fantasy Life

Fantasy Life offers you 12 potential jobs, you could be a brilliant blacksmith or a devious potions maker, a lumberjack or a knight, a hunter or a seamstress. However your inner dad is calling and you decide you want to play through a fantasy RPG as a fisherman, hell yeah. the story is relatively short so you can quickly unlock a lot of locales to fish at and there is a manageable economy system that lets you deal in fish in advantageous ways. You can even pick up cooking on the side and make fancy dinners and sell the fish for higher you can do that as well. Fantasy Life is like a clever mix between Animal Crossing and Final Fantasy XIV and it kind of succeeds and falls short of it. The fishing also takes a good amount of skill and rhythmic approach to master so it doesn’t get boring almost at all until you have cleared the game.

Maple Story 2

Maple Story 2 is one of the most expressive and cutest games that I have ever played. And the fishing is no different, its all about style. The fishing in Maple Story 2 is monotonous and can get old but you do it for the chibi clout. Because much like the rest of the game you can look however you want and do whatever you want and sometimes you just feel like kicking back and throwing lure in the water at the beach. I never got super into the fishing in this game but it won me over with its adorable design and stylish atmosphere.

Animal Crossing Series

Of course I had to include the most popular game right now. Animal Crossing has become something of a connection between people when we can’t leave the house. A thing we all have in common on social media and with our friends. My first experience with Animal Crossing really starts with New Horizons and I was completely blown away. The fishing isn’t super complex or difficult but the range of what you can pull out of the water and what you can do with it is absolutely breathtaking. For a game about cartoon people living with humanoid cartoon animals the fish looking photo realistic. And the museum where they can be kept is stunning. The museum looks like it was designed to capture the feel of being in a museum and matches the design of all the great real life aquariums and observatories. Although it is a bit frustrating when your rod breaks it is easy enough to make one (or worst case buy one) to get your bait back in the water.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Tell me I’m wrong, you can’t. Isabelle getting added to Smash brought a very powerful fishing move that isn’t practical all the time but is really funny. Wouldn’t recommend this game if you are looking to relax and fish but I do recommend hooking your friend with a fish hook and send them flying off screen if you had to.

Minecraft

I have a very special role in Minecraft when I join a friends server. A role that I assign to myself. While everyone is off getting awesome swords, spelunking for diamonds, and exploring the infinite landscape, I build a small wooden shack and I set up a farm with an irrigation canal and start fishing. A steady supply of food is necessary and while I’m hanging out with my friends in a server I’m happy to be the one to provide it. The fishing in this game is probably the slowest of all the ones on this list but is the most useful. just throwing the fish in the oven creates food that can help keep you and your companions alive for a long time. I think I definitely have my limits with Minecraft fishing and I couldn’t do it for hours on end it is rewarding to set up shop and find a nice place to settle down for a few hours to fish.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

This is the only Tactical RPG in this post. Fire Emblem: Three Houses has sections between combat where you can go and talk to your students and do other activities. We aren’t here to discuss other activities though we are here for the fishing. The fishing allows you to catch fish for some reason that I’m sure is good but never intrigued me enough to learn. All I know about the fishing in Fire Emblem: Three Houses is that it’s fun. I started to bust through combat just so that I could get back to fishing. The funniest part about this one is that the fish has a health bar. Pressing the A button at the exact moment finds a way to become easier and still find ways to mess you up. Either way, I’m not that interested in tactical RPGs but I heard there was fishing in this game so I had to play it and it was worth it.

Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

In Jak & Daxter, Daxter gets turned into a small animal by dark eco while exploring a dangerous island off the shore of his home with his best friend Jak. To get back to the island to investigate, the pair have to borrow a boat owned by a fisherman who is troubled by an invasive species of poisonous eel that is ruining his haul. He asks Jak to catch fish for him without catching any eels. This fishing mini game can only be done once but it is going to either be something you think is very unique or a huge waste of time. All I’ll say is that the sound that the fish makes when it goes into the net is absolutely a reward in itself it is so satisfying. But anyways, more intense than some other options here but get it done so you can get back to absorbing eco powers and jumping on stuff.

Shovel Knight

Shovel Knight is a 2D action platformer but you can also fish. And you fish for the best kind of fish, money. You can get some other stuff too like health pickups and magic replenishers but we know what you want. You see that little glint and you pop out the fishing rod and pull out those money bags. If you are devoted enough you can even get a surprise from the Troupple King (long live his highness) if you fish out the right stuff. I don’t even know if I fished all that much when I played Shovel Knight but it’s hilarious that you can.

NieR: Automata

I did not play a lot of NieR and that’s because I was fishing. I don’t know why all I did was fish but you throw your little robot in the pond and you lean on a magical stool so honestly it was good enough for me.

Club Penguin

If you know then you know. In hind sight there really wasn’t a whole lot to do in Club Penguin but this mini game really messed me up. You basically get to move up and down, catching fish and avoiding trash and other hazards. Basically trying to do this and catch as much fish as possible to avoid having to ask your parents for real money to pay for snacks to feed a virtual ball of fluff with eyeballs. I don’t really remember how challenging it really was but I remember getting decently high scores to about like 100 fish per round so I guess it was pretty easy if I could do that at age 10.

Rune Factory 4

I’m gonna be very honest about this one and say that the fishing in Rune Factory 4 is basically just Animal Crossing fishing but more anime. The fish react to the pole the same, the fish almost look the same, and the buttons to respond are the same. What makes this one special is where you can take it. You can fish in the little moat in town, in the lake, in a dungeon full of monsters, in a lake that is eternally the season fall, anywhere. You are constricted by the boundaries of Stardew Valley and that is how much energy you have and how much time you have in the day. It’s still fun to fish but I wish that they had used their fun fantasy setting to give the ability to fish up some cool made up fish instead of strictly things that exist in real life.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Ok, diving, fishing, same thing. Diving in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is just fishing with your whole body. It works a lot in the same way as Pokemon where you fish up monsters to fight and get the rewards from them. It is a completely optional activity however if you decide to undertake the grind of scavenging in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 then you will never hurt for money ever again. It makes my wonder why Rex stopped being a salvager to do odd jobs because this was PROFITABLE. The main incentive is that there are spots that spawn a certain enemy that drop cores. Cores are like gacha or loot boxes that contain new anime girl partners that deal huge damage in fights. They even have their own side quests and story lines. I spent maybe 30 hours grinding before giving up on this game and while it does become tiresome I really enjoyed the random rewards of possibly getting a new companion or a really cool weapon.

It’s been tossed around that every great RPG has fishing in it. I won’t argue that point but a lot of great RPGs certainly do have fishing in them. Everyone needs a break sometimes and fishing is the perfect activity to remind us to stop and take that break. Even games can get long and without these distractions it might be so much harder to complete these harrowing tasks. Don’t forget to take breaks and just enjoy the sound of the water every once in a while because there’s no rush playing video games.

Honorable Mentions:

Kingdom Hearts: Sora fishing with his bare hands on Destiny Island

Persona 4: Weird aqueduct fishing

Persona 5: Marina fishing life

Sea of Thieves: A pirates life for me