mysmashplaythroughs

[mysmashplaythroughs]

He's the leader of the bunch.

Well, I didn't post for a few days after the Direct. Part of it was I wanted to see all the Treehouse stuff before going over my thoughts, and then I just got busy with other stuff. I'm on holiday from work currently so I've spent a fair bit of time digesting everything. I guess to take on the elephant in the room, it sucks how expensive it is. I'm still planning on buying it (pre-ordered the console already, waiting to see whether there's some special edition or something available before pre-ordering Mario Kart, if I'm paying extra might as well go for something with extras alongside it.) and really that's all I want to say on it besides if you're angry and want to complain about it, complain to Nintendo. I personally found the 'protest' just obnoxious and not likely to achieve anything, but people are free to do as they want with that on Nintendo's livestream, what I don't like are people going after others who are excited for it, like seeing a channel with someone reacting to the Direct and barely any views with someone in the comments shouting 'DROP THE PRICE' as if this random youtuber with just over 200 views has anything to do with that, if you want to turn people off your whole thing that's the best way to do it. Anyway, that's my thoughts on the price situation, I was going to say something about the American pre-order situation, but honestly that's a whole can of worms I'd rather not touch on this blog. That's all I want to talk about with pricing in this post, this blog isn't something I made to discuss business decisions beyond trivia so everything from now on will barely touch upon the cost of things. Ok, with that out of the way, I want to go over my thoughts on what was shown.

So my predictions were pretty much off for everything. No new Zelda, no new Mario, no WWHD or other remakes/ports/remasters in the sense I was talking about. I don't believe that's it of course, in fact I believe there's probably a fair bit we know nothing of that will be announced at a Direct likely around June, July or August. For my list there sort of were and weren't some big reveals. The biggest of course for me was Gamecube for Switch online. So far it seems like this won't require a third tier of Switch Online so that's something I'm pleased with and it gives me a way of accessing some games I really didn't know if I'd be able to get around to like Chibi Robo as well as of course a way of getting screenshots for Gamecube games at last. Just for me personally as well, I was so pleased to see Soul Calibur 2 with Link there, I'm really going to look forward to playing that. Since I have no particular order I'm going over this and as it relates to a Gamecube game on my list that I also figured I was going to find very hard to track down, Kirby Air Riders is potentially very good for me. I say potentially because this all depends on what's in the game, I had the original Kirby Air Ride on my list for a couple of things such as the Dragoon as well as some alt colours for King Dedede and Meta Knight. It really depends therefore if these elements will return for this game or not, so far there's very little info to go off of. Next up for my list is probably a game I anticipated but didn't mention in my last post and at the same time didn't want and wasn't particularly excited for, which makes it ironic it's probably the only new game shown that provided something all new for my list, Hyrule Warriors Age of Imprisoning. I don't know how to feel about this game, I really wanted to see a new 'fanservice' type Warriors game rather than one that's trying to be canon or an AU version of a game, but at the same time Rauru being playable means I can represent the Spirit Battle now. I am still going to check the game out, I'm curious to see what they do with it and even if I have BoTW fatigue currently, I would enjoy this as a send-off I think. My hopes for it are firstly, we see the Sages get to be actual characters, in Tears of the Kingdom they were literally generic placeholders, a real downgrade from the champions in Breath of the Wild, so having them playable is nowhere near as interesting as having Daruk, Mipha, Ravali and Urbosa, hell they didn't even get names. Of course, this does mean they have a blank slate to work with here, afterall I only just learnt today they had faces modelled under their masks, although I do wonder if they'll be radically redesigned for this game as they look like generic NPCs (or in the Goron's case have no head at all). Secondly I am looking forward to seeing what's done with Ganondorf and I really hope he's playable. It'd be interesting as he supposedly pledges loyalty to Hyrule at one point in the flashbacks if you'd actually get to fight as him alongside others before he makes his betrayal clear. There's also the aspect of seeing more of Ganondorf's interactions with the Gerudo, something we honestly have never actually seen before, with him only ever really having them in the background in scenes he's in or in other games having Gerudo speak about him but never appear in his presence. Honestly, the only other thing I wish for and something that would actually really interest me, is to have the option to create your own character for the game. The idea of being able to make your own Goron, Zora, Rito, Gerudo, Hylian or Zonai would be awesome and make me a lot more excited for this.

Other stuff shown I'll go over briefly, I have no interest in From Software stuff but it's cool for those who like it and interesting they've done an exclusive game apparently for Switch 2. The Switch 2 Tutorial game looked interesting like an interactive instruction manual till I saw it was actually something you pay for which I think was a really dumb move and I have no interest in. The wheelchair basketball game looked possibly fun as a minigame but honestly it looked way too barebones and the style looked so boring for something as an actual standalone game. I've seen people compare it to ARMS and I couldn't disagree more, ARMS had style, interesting characters, a unique world, this looked like if ARMS was done with generic robots fighting each other, sure the gameplay might be as good as before but there'd not be anything I'd find appealing at all about it. The community feature is something I have no idea about as I rarely get to play with anyone else, even now I have friends online I don't know how many will get a Switch 2 and even if they do who'd be willing to play online. I do find complaints about the frame-rate on other players screens kinda ridiculous though, I mean it's pretty clear it's an alternative to them literally being their avatar on the bottom. The camera I have no interest in, I've not really used the camera gimmicks on previous consoles like 3DS beyond once or twice and buying a whole camera to use is definitely not something I want to do. Switch 2 editions of Switch 1 games is way better than my worries of them just rereleasing Breath of the Wild again for example, again won't go on about the price for the Switch 2 editions in themselves, but I think the upgrade for those who already have Switch 1 versions seems fine, we're not being asked to buy the game all over again at least. Third party stuff was neat, I don't like the Game Key system, but at the same time as long as Nintendo themselves aren't using it it's not something I'm going to get mad over from them, granted I hope it won't be used for too many future third party games, not that I buy many anyway honestly. Deltarune Chapters 3 + 4 was a pleasant surprise though and before we saw the games here was probably my most anticipated game for this year other than Dragon Quest 1+2.

Now onto the final two things I want to cover, although they might have a paragraph each depending on how much I go into with them. Mario Kart World looks fantastic. I admit when it comes to Mario Kart I always felt like it's simply the same game but better, and with Mario Kart 8 I felt like following all the additions to it they really did need to do something new for the next one, well this looks to be the most different game in the series since Double Dash I'd say. The world looks amazing and I really can't wait to explore it, the character roster is exciting with what seems to be so many weird choices as well as a lot of longtime Mario enemies becoming playable for the first time (was shocked to find out Goomba wasn't in Mario Kart Tour, this really is it's debut.) I am hoping there's still characters we haven't seen, for one thing as much as people have come to hate them in recent years, I really feel like with so many racers the Koopalings should return. There's also the matter of the Kongs, I really really hope we see them but I do believe they might be holding off because of the last thing I want to cover, so I'll go on about it more there. Then there's the costumes, they look great and some are really surprising, granted there's some I really want to see that I don't know if we will, for example Wario seems to have a biker outfit, but I'd have loved if he got his Warioware outfit. Honestly, probably my biggest hope for this Mario Kart is something I've wanted a long time, lets see actual vehicles that have appeared in other games. I still can't believe after all these years we've not seen DK have a Minecart, Wario's not had his car from Wario Land 4 since Double Dash and his Warioware Bike since Wii. I've been even more shocked Bowser never got his car from 3D World, I mean I thought that was the most obvious choice for a Kart out there for him. Honestly, I feel fine with the Karts not being as customizable as before, but please Nintendo make up for that by giving us a lot of them. I guess at any rate, at least the Pipe-Kart returns once again, it's always been my Kart of choice. We also have the Mario Kart Direct coming up on the 17th, I'm convinced we'll see a lot more there and I really hope with Free-Roam we'll have missions all over the world, it would make this game the closest Mario Kart's gotten to doing a Diddy Kong Racing game I feel like, and if they brought back things like Bosses from previous Mario Karts this game could be something truly special.

And now, the finale of this whole thing. He's back, Donkey Kong is finally back and in a 3D platformer (well, I don't know if the genre is definitely that). I'm so excited for this, I've gone over before on here numerous times about how much DK means to me and this looks to have the potential to have everything I've ever wanted. First of all, in a follow up to my last post, I'm fine with his look now. I'll always have a love for the stuff from the Rare games, but the main deal with me is rather than wanting a rigid 'timeline' for the Mario series or DK ect, I want to see respect of what's come before, so far this seems to do that. We didn't see any returning characters besides DK in the trailer, however footage after has revealed Cranky is returning, I'm therefore fairly confident we'll see some other Kongs, at the very least Diddy turn up in the next trailer (and no, I don't believe a Japanese company cares about the exploits of a certain rapper to the point they'd delete Diddy.) I could be wrong about this of course, I really hope I'm not though, and I believe the Odyssey team (who it's obvious are working on this) have respect for the DK franchise from everything I've seen. I think the bigger question is will the Kremlings return? My initial thoughts were no, absolutely not. I will admit though, recently I've been convinced from just how much crocodile imagery there's been in the game (enemies who are skeleton crocs hidden beneath stone armour that has artwork on them that look like crocs, as well as a skeleton of a croc seen in footage that doesn't look like a realistic crocodile skeleton, more like a bipedal one with long arms) there's a possibility, Nintendo surely saw how pleased a lot of fans were with K Rool's return in Smash Bros. I'm not that confident but I don't completely discount it now like I had before. There's also the 'Odd Rock' who seems to be DK's partner character, 'exposition Fairy' if you prefer for the game. Honestly, I didn't have much interest in this character from what I saw in the trailers and footage... Next up is the final big thing for the game, however it's something that was likely unintentially leaked, but it's just too big for me to not mention. Still if you want to avoid possible spoilers, I suggest finishing reading here, I'm fairly confident what was leaked will be in a future trailer however.

DONKEY KONG BANANZA AND MARIO KART WORLD POSSIBLE LEAKS FOLLOW. STOP READING NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT.

So, Nintendo Korea really seems to have leaked a fair bit lately, first there was something that I'd barely consider a real spoiler, there'll be a Rainbow Road in Mario Kart World. Still it wasn't shown anywhere else so it likely wasn't intended to be revealed yet. Secondly, here comes the big one, so that Odd Rock I mentioned who's with DK in the game, they appear on the games boxart where DK's punching down at the ground and they're floating nearby, seemingly thrown off DK's shoulder by the impact. Then Nintendo Korea put out the same artwork, but instead of the Odd Rock, there's what appears to be a young girl hanging onto DK's shoulder, a young human girl who looks very reminiscent of Pauline, the character from the original Donkey Kong arcade game. Needless to say, this is probably the most surprising and mysterious thing that's been shown of the game so far and honestly has me so excited and admittedly a little nervous. Firstly, the thing that has me nervous that I've seen people speculating, I don't believe this is actually Pauline as a child. This character definitely is meant to bring Pauline to mind to be sure, however I don't believe this is a prequel to the Donkey Kong series. I've seen certain people arguing 'there's no 'canon timeline' Nintendo doesn't care about that sort of stuff' and that's relatively true, but again this goes back to what I said before, respect for the franchise, and I'm not just talking about the Donkey Kong Country series here, this is talking about gaming as a whole. I mentioned Cranky appeared earlier, in his dialogue he clearly references different things, firstly that he rode Rambi from their 'home island' to get to where they now are, which means Rambi's an established character and they live on an island. Secondly and more importantly however, Cranky refers to how he had a rival 'in overalls' which, unless they're completely trolling has to be a reference to Mario from the arcade game. If Pauline's a child here, is that meant to imply she was a child in the original Arcade game? If that's the case we're not just 'rewriting the timeline', this is outright rewriting gaming history, the first game ever to have Donkey Kong and Mario in it.

It's due to this I personally want to believe and am really hoping that this girl is a new character altogether, perhaps a relative of Pauline. Honestly, I think this could be the best option, it doesn't make this game into some needless retcon, it still links DK back to his arcade roots, and it simply could make for a very interesting and unique storyline in the franchise. I think from what we've seen with this character having a bracelet that looks the same as Odd Rock as well as some sort of decoration in her hair that looks like Odd Rock's eyes, this girl somehow has been transformed into Odd Rock. It makes sense when you notice Odd Rock has the Void 'tape' around it which seems to suggest it's being constricted somehow. I also found it interesting when thinking this rock is actually a child who's been transformed and stuck in this strange underground world, the dialogue they have in the footage that's been shown actually does to me sound like it could be from a scared curious child. I believe personally, as with many big Nintendo games, the second trailer will be a blowout that will show us all sorts of stuff, and amongst that will be who this character is, so hopefully we can end this speculation of this game being a 'prequel' or whatever. I also believe the next trailer will very likely show some returning Kongs, and due to this I also believe once we've seen them it's then possible they could be revealed for Mario Kart World, perhaps even alongside this new Pauline looking character? Honestly, give me a game with DK the third taking care of Pauline's kid or niece, working with the other Kongs such as Diddy, Dixie, Cranky, Funky... maybe even Candy and Swanky Kong, lets get them all in here, riding Rambi and other animal buddies and fighting against King K Rool who for some reason wants to take away the Pauline kid and this could become one of my new favourite games of all time. Of course, I'm getting way too carried away here, but this is one of the most exciting games for me personally I could get, and to top it off it comes out just a couple of days after my birthday. I can't wait for this.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

I see em up ahead. Let's Rock and Roll!

Another post so once again I'm doing an off-topic one. Admittedly making this post was partially my motivation to finally finish that previous post. The reason being of course tomorrow we'll finally get official details of the Switch 2. As I said before, whilst I am interested in the console itself, what interests me far more is seeing what games are coming up. The Direct tomorrow wasn't the only news however since we got a Direct last week for the original Switch as likely the final Switch 1 exclusive Direct. I'll admit it wasn't one of my favourites, but as is often the case with Directs I feel for some people if there's something specific there it'll be 'one of the best ever' and I know plenty of people who love Tomodachi Life. I was pleased to see it myself, it's just not a franchise I get particularly excited for. Perhaps the bigger thing to me is despite the Direct we still haven't really had anything new added to the specific release calender, what with a lot of games in the Direct still being a vague '2025' and '2026'. There was that new Nintendo Today app on mobile which I feel is such a Nintendo move, I think it's pretty cool but making it so you can't simply look at an archive of articles for things you missed and they disappear if you haven't looked at them that day is such a crappy choice I can't really defend. I love the idea of getting new artwork such as small comics as well as profiles of characters there so it's a real shame they have to make it so needlessly limited. Anyway, I guess the main thing for this blog is so far there wasn't really anything announced at the previous Direct that will change anything on my list, no games that made a character playable for the first time, brought in some specific outfit from Smash or simply made one of the games on my list more accessible. Still, of course I consider it all a starter before the main meal tomorrow, and at an hour long with two Treehouse Live sessions following it, I'm excited to see what's coming.

My life situation has changed since I posted last, I mentioned getting a job and so far it's been going very well. I do realise however I've gotten lucky with my placement and I could be moved to a position I'll find far worse, still currently things are good. Also, despite now having less time I've actually managed to achieve a lot when it comes to my list. So far I've got almost as long a list of games I've beaten this year as last year, and since we're only in April I'd consider that a big achievement. I guess it's best to mention that of those games a lot of them were shorter ones, I still haven't played through Tales of Symphonia yet for example, however I did got back and play through some games I'd skipped over before such as Princess Peach Showtime and Kirby and the Forgotten Land. I won't review every game I've gone through, but Peach Showtime was I thought a lot of fun with my only issue with the game being how if you miss a Sparkle Gem in a stage you most likely will have to replay the whole stage from scratch, which wouldn't be as bad if it weren't for the stages often having unskippable text you have to wait for. It honestly was the only thing that I really found awful in the game with the rest of it being a lot of fun. Kirby and the Forgotten Land on the other hand was a great game, I'd heard good things and it was definitely one of the best Kirby games out there. I didn't initially have it on my list, however I came to realise it's actually the only game in the franchise where Kirby can wear a mask of Meta Knight (the only other he wears a small version on the side of his head instead of the full mask like in Smash) which made me put it on my list for Kirby's hats. Besides those games, I also made some progress on my list of games for Mii costumes. I skipped over a couple of really long ones for now such as Tales of Symphonia, Persona 3/4 and Monster Hunter, but I played through a fair few difficult games such as Cuphead and Undertale's genocide run. When I reached Fallout Tactics I realised that was going to be a tough game to play which was when I decided to go back to games I skipped.

Following this however I decided to do something different with my list, what I'm sort of thinking of as "The Great Replay". In this case I am returning to every game I've beaten so far on my list to have a bit of a play around with them. In cases where the game's somewhat open I'm revisiting various areas in the game just to wander around and possibly fight an enemy or two, in other games such as F-Zero I've been playing through a Grand Prix and in ones like Star Fox I've played through a couple of levels again. However, one aspect of this I've decided to do is where possible, if a game is now on Switch Online and I originally played it on Wii U or something I've been trying to complete them on Switch. I don't plan to do this for everything as games like Fire Emblem would take ages, but I have beaten a couple of games such as Earthbound, Ocarina of Time (which I'd already played halfway through so decided to finish) and Metroid Zero Mission. It's been a lot of fun and allowed me to get screenshots I was lacking for games I already beat. I must admit, playing some again there are things I realised were way bigger of a deal for me than I remembered when writing my posts for them, the Water Temple for example in OOT I always tended to say 'wasn't that bad' but this time I honestly found it really frustrating, I can't remember why right now but I remembered looking back at my post and wondering how I forgot how irritating various factors were in it, and it wasn't even just having to swap on the Metal Boots. There are some games I'm also holding off of since I'm hoping they might get an actual rerelease sometime soon.

Given this is the first new console launch since I started this blog, I might make a follow up post to this tomorrow when we've seen what's shown. My biggest hope personally is there'll be stuff I can add to my list shown, games that make characters playable for the first time (still holding out for Dark Samus to somehow be playable in Prime 4, maybe in a multiplayer or side-mode) as well as rereleases of games that are almost impossible to track down or I just simply want to see remade such as Kid Icarus Uprising. I want to finalize my wishlist here for tomorrow's Direct I suppose, some of this is based off of rumours and other stuff is based off of simply what I want to see. Firstly I want to see the next main series Mario game and the next Zelda. I think both are possible, whilst Zelda I doubt will be anywhere close to ready, I could see them do a teaser like they did for Breath of the Wild originally. I'm not someone who's against Breath of the Wild and the games related to it, but I do want to see something all new from Zelda now, so far every new main Zelda game has been a pretty drastic change from the previous one, Ocarina to Wind Waker, WW to Twilight Princess, TP to Skyward Sword and then SS to Breath of the Wild. I'm very interested to see what visual style we see this time. Next up are remasters/remakes, I've said on here before but I would love to see Kid Icarus Uprising in a form that finally makes the controls not so convoluted. Fire Emblem Echoes Holy War, I just want to see this finally happen, maybe all the rumours about it were completely wrong and it's not happening, but sort of like in the lead up to a Pokemon remake there are just so many things pointing to it happening, from how much the cast have been shown in Fire Emblem Heroes to Sigurd being somewhat prominent in Fire Emblem Engage, I think it's time to see it. I've said before my dream is to see it with a remake of Thracia also part of the game or possibly DLC later down the line. There's games I'd be happy to see just get ported such as Prime 2 and 3 as well as Twilight Princess HD and Wind Waker HD. My wildcard hope for ports would be Punch-out finally being brought over, it's one of my favourite games and the idea of being able to just throw it on whenever is really appealing to me, especially if they finally made Doc Louis's fight available worldwide. Finally one I don't expect here is some sort of Pokemon Classics pack, I think I went over this before so I won't go on too much about it, but yeah I really want to see them make the older games available on Switch, however I can't see it here since it'd likely be at a Pokemon Presents if it's possible at all. I could see it maybe next year as I believe it's a big anniversary date for the series.

I always find it hard to think of stuff completely new that I hope for, I've said in the past about something they could be really creative with like an Ice Climber game which expands a ton on the really limited concept of climbing a mountain to add all sorts of off the wall events and locations as well as bizarre characters. Star Fox I want to see something done by someone like Next Level Games, I feel like they'd be a good fit to do something new and interesting with the series, it's one I feel has so much untouched potential as a big fan of the old Star Wars Rogue Squadron games, I'd love to see a game that has all sorts of ships you can fly and all sorts of planets to visit. F-Zero I feel it's finally the right time to see something new from especially after how well received I believe 99 was. Personally I'd love to see something that leans into a lot of the more comic book style I remember with F-Zero X, where the character portraits looked right out of a comic book. Some smaller games I'd like to see are perhaps since Mages did in my opinion a great job with Famicom Detective Club, I'd love to see them tackle some of the other obscure 'Adventure titles' from the Famicom, something like Shin Onigashima or Yūyūki which are on my list but I have no idea how I'm going to approach when I get to them would be of a great help to me. I suppose I should also mention some things I personally don't want to see, one which is heavily rumoured is Breath of the Wild getting an enhanced port/remake. I feel it really is time to move on from Breath of the Wild now and the idea of playing through the game again really doesn't appeal to me, especially with Tears of the Kingdom taking place in the same world, it just is too much at this point to me. I'm not particularly fond of the idea of an Ocarina of Time remake either that I've seen rumoured. We do have the only seemingly confirmed game so far (maybe it's a tech demo but I really doubt it) Mario Kart (9?). Honestly the only hope I have for this game is that there'll be skins, mostly because, yes I admit I'm not too happy about Donkey Kong's redesign. As a huge fan of the Rareware games, it really does feel like a distancing from everything I loved about the Donkey Kong Country games, and admittedly it makes me concerned for an actual new Donkey Kong game. I do find it slightly bizarre as well they've chosen to do this despite opening the new Donkey Kong theme park using his original design. I'd be absolutely fine with it if it's a skin for DK and he also has his Rareware look, but yeah we'll have to wait and see. I admit it also makes me a bit concerned about the next Smash Bros, I've always loved how the series feels like you're seeing the original games translated into Smash, so if DK for example suddenly has this new design as the only option, it'll make him stick out when put into stages based on the Rareware games for example. With that said again I'd be fine with it being just an optional look for him, even if it was the main one having the option makes things fine for me. I won't go too much into the next Smash Bros beyond that, at this point I feel it best to just wait and see what happens.

Finally, this is going off of some rumour that didn't build much traction and sounded way too good to be true, so I definitely don't expect it, but I would love to see a game like Project X Zone focused on Nintendo characters. I think so many have dreamed since Smash of a story based Nintendo crossover game that it's probably one of the biggest 'dream come true' type things they could do. Of course how it plays and other stuff will be very important to it, but just the idea of it is such a dream to me it might honestly make me reconsider my whole list as to whether to incorporate it into the whole 'Smash series' I'm covering since it would be doing essentially the same idea. If it was worked on by some Monolith staff similar to the original Project X Zone games I'd also be really interested to see things like Xenoblade crossing over with Zelda for example. Anyway, that's it for now, I'm planning to put the stream on my PC early tomorrow, close everything else (Discord, other browsers) and hopefully get home from work (where I'll be when it's live) and be able to watch the Direct without seeing any spoilers for it. Might make a post tomorrow or over the next couple of days, but it's very exciting times ahead for Nintendo stuff. I'll also go more into what I have actually planned for this blog in the next post as I realise I've barely mentioned it. Anyway, see you all on the other side of the Direct.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door (Switch) Playthrough.

Fighter: Mario (Wario Colours)

Game: Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door, Nintendo Switch (Gamecube). First Released on July 22nd 2004.

Costume History.

I was surprised to find that there doesn’t seem to be a very long history for this costume. Despite being what seems like an obvious alternate colour for Mario to use, the only appearances I can find of this look are in Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door where using the W Emblem Badge changes Mario’s colours to match Wario and Super Mario Odyssey where the Wario Cap and Suit are available in Crazy Cap after reaching 340 and 360 Moons respectively. These costumes do differ slightly however, the main difference being that its version in Odyssey is more directly Wario’s clothes with his gloves having W on them in Purple and the hat having a W which contrasts with the palette swap in Paper Mario simply giving Mario a blue M on his hat and keeping his gloves the same. There is one final very debatable appearance of this outfit in Super Mario 64 DS, in this game caps for Mario, Luigi and Wario will appear in levels (depending on who you are currently playing as) and finding the cap lets you transform into that character in order to use their unique abilities, getting hit results in losing the hat and transforming back into the character you’re currently playing as. Going by this logic, technically this involves Mario wearing Wario’s cap, however since he completely transforms into Wario (only retaining his own voice) I don’t think it really counts as Mario wearing this outfit. As a late addition to this section I have become aware of one other possible appearance, however for now I haven’t seen any direct proof of it. I had considered the possibility that the GBA version of the Mario Bros arcade game, which was included in many GBA Mario games as a multiplayer mode such as the Super Mario Advance series and Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga had Mario in this outfit. However when looking it up there was Mario in a yellow outfit, but in it he had seemingly white overalls which I thought meant it wouldn’t count. Just now however I had a look on the Spriters Resource at the spritesheet for the game and noticed the spriter had put that on the Wii U Virtual Console version of the game, apparently Yellow Mario has purple overalls. I have seen no other evidence this is the case and even if it was I wouldn’t choose that version to represent this outfit, still I thought it worth mentioning since I said I could find no other appearances of this outfit for Mario.

Special Features: There does not seem to be any sort of special bonus or ability this outfit grants Mario, the only exception is as previously mentioned the case in Super Mario 64 DS with Wario’s Cap, but that is not really an example of the outfit itself so therefore I feel doesn’t count.

Why this game?

When it comes to the only two appearances of this outfit in games outside of Smash Bros, I had a choice between Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door where it first appeared and Super Mario Odyssey. Normally simply being the first appearance doesn’t mean I’ll choose that game to represent something, however in this case the design of the outfit in Odyssey has the hat with a W as well as W on his gloves whereas in Paper Mario Mario still has his regular M on his hat just in a blue colour instead of his usual red. With the costume in Smash Bros Mario does not have W on his gloves and the M on his hat seems to be a dark green (similar to his shoes in this costume). Therefore of the two I felt the appearance in Paper Mario was much closer to Smash than the one in Odyssey.

My history with this game.

So this is it, my joint second favourite game of all time (The other being the original Paper Mario, both being just behind Diddy’s Kong Quest). I won’t go too much into my history with the original Paper Mario as I will cover that in another post, however to give a little context, outside of Pokemon, Paper Mario was the second RPG I believe I ever played. I was a huge fan of the original game by the time I’d beaten it and when I first saw screenshots of Thousand Year Door in an old Nintendo Magazine I remembered thinking about how it looked like the next evolution of the game and I was really excited for it. Probably the biggest contrast and the most prominent part of most previews I saw was Hooktail the dragon boss, there were some fairly big bosses in the original Paper Mario, but with Hooktail they were showing this game will have bosses you fight who can’t even fit entirely into the battle screen, which really helped push the idea this was doing things the original game could only dream of. Another feature I remember being pushed fairly heavily in the advertising was how there were parts in the game where the screen would become swarmed with enemies or crowds of NPCs which again helped show it was capable of things that definitely couldn’t be done in the original game. Beyond this, I don’t have many other memories of the lead up to the game coming out, I’m sure I read more about it and got excited, but really Hooktail and the crowds are the main thing I remembered from the previews.

Naturally, being a huge fan of the original Paper Mario, as well as a Mario fan in general who’d been looking at all the screenshots excitedly in the lead up to the game releasing, I didn’t get the game myself. This was back in my childhood afterall and so I’d only get games when my parents would get them as gifts for me. I did get to play the game however, as I believe this might have been the final time where my cousins had a game I wanted and so I had to go over to theirs to play it. Due to this, I got to see bits of the first 4 chapters, and at a later time I believe I managed to borrow the game to play through those chapters and perhaps chapter 5 myself. It’s interesting as now that I think of it, this game might have been around the time I began to see the massive shift amongst people my age away from Nintendo. A fair few who had been playing on the N64 I knew of moved on to the Gamecube, but it was about halfway through that system I’d hear more and more of the people I knew at school calling Nintendo ‘kiddy shit’ and a lot of my friends would mostly drop Nintendo for Playstation and Xbox. It’s also at this time I believe looking at the dates, I started my time in Upper School. Middle School had been hell for me where I had the most bullying of my life, in contrast Upper School was where I managed to get by somewhat better and gradually my life got happier. I’d still have the odd run-in for sure (that hasn’t even stopped in my adulthood honestly) but either way, I suppose when this game came out, it was during a pretty transformative part of my life. It’s due to this, I suppose this game has always felt like a personal favourite of mine, not something a lot of other people I knew of had played, but a game I found so impressive for just how many small details there were in it and just how well thought out the world was. My Cousins did enjoy the game a fair bit too, in fact I remember one of them once describing something from one of the His Dark Materials books to me as being ‘like that town with the huge moon in Paper Mario where it’s always twilight’, so I know it left an impact on them for sure.

I suppose when it comes to the rest of the series, I will detail more of my thoughts and feelings on later entries and what happened to the series in posts for those games. I think the main point I want to make is, to me this was the pinnacle of the series, but the original Paper Mario will always be my personal favourite. It was therefore interesting to me when many years later the unthinkable happened, a whole remake of this game, with redone graphics and all sorts of additions was announced to be coming to the Switch. I couldn’t have been happier because not only was it a remake of something so important to me that looked amazing, but it gave me hope for the series I have loved so much before going forward. I was so excited for this remake I looked up everything I could about it, constantly, I was counting down the days to its release. Then something I’d not dreamed of at the start of the year happened, my Dad and I were going to Canada for two weeks, right around the time the game was due out, with the pre-ordered copy I had due to come to my home in the UK on that date. I decided not to cancel it because I was getting a special buildable battle stage with the game which was in limited quantities, but even so I wished the dates had worked out just a little differently. To be clear, I’m making this sound more of a big deal here than I really treated it, I had a great time in Canada, still it’s important to mention this because admittedly I wanted answers on certain things about the remake when it came out, so this led to me reading anything I could find on places like Reddit or Youtube about the game. Normally I tend to avoid fan discourse in general for things, especially stuff I like, but in this case I was so desperate for information I was scouring sites, and due to this of course I ended up reading through the sort of discourse and whining I tend to ignore. I’ll admit, not being able to play my joint second favourite game of all time’s remake whilst reading people who could play it whining about such things as ‘Goombella’s voice is the most horrific thing I’ve ever had the misfortune to hear’ etc did dampen my enthusiasm a bit. Still, eventually after we got home from Canada I was ready to play the game, in fact I was so excited to do so I created two save files, one in which I would play through the game the way I wanted to, and the other in a way specifically for my Smash Playthrough.

My Smash Playthrough.

So as I said before, I had two save files I was playing through this game on, the first was for me to play the game my way, choosing options I wanted for my playthrough and the second was a playthrough where I tried to do everything as accurately as possible to their depictions in Smash Bros. Before I go over my playthrough of the game as such, I want to comment on a few things done with this remake and how I felt on them, I’ve said before I’m notoriously easy to please so if you’re looking for complaints feel free to delve into various other people I’ve seen whining about stuff. First of all there’s FPS, I bring this up because it was one of the things people never stopped going on about when the game was coming out, I’m someone who rarely notices frame rate in games and despite knowing about the complaints (because honestly you couldn’t not hear about it when looking for info on the game leading up to release) playing the game I barely thought about it. There are games where I definitely notice frame-rate issues and to me this wasn’t one of them, that’s all I really have to say on it personally. Next up are the audio changes, firstly I feel complaints about the music are always irrelevant when the original soundtrack in a game is available to be swapped to, and due to that I don’t really prefer either soundtrack more than the other, I feel like the new remixes added a lot, especially just how many variations there are but there are one or two tracks that I felt weren’t as good as the originals, and others that really were great alternatives to the originals. I really loved how often they added new tracks also such as every partner character having a unique new music track that plays at some point, usually when meeting them. Also audio related are the sounds, for one thing I loved the ‘voices’ added to the game, especially hearing what sounds from other games they use for various species such as Goombas as well as for characters and species unique to this game. I have seen complaints as I mentioned earlier about the voices, and whilst I didn’t find any time they annoyed me, having an option to change things such as turn them off is always better than not having one, although I disagreed with someone suggesting it should be tied to having the original music, mostly as that would limit you to one or the other. The new content is great, I won’t spoil it as this is a new game and admittedly I would have loved to see one or two other things (I was really hoping for them to implement unused cameos of the partners from the original Paper Mario that were in the files of the original somehow) but can’t complain about them, also having stuff like unlockable concept art is always great. I suppose I should make mention of the odd text change in the game, this is getting into a subject honestly I would rather not go into so all I have to say on it is, there’s things that I find egregious and things I find so insignificant when it comes to changes my only thought is I’d have preferred them not to change anything but it doesn’t particularly bother me in this case. When it comes to the remake of Mario & Luigi Super Star Saga, where they outright changed the designs of characters and enemies that were interesting into looking far more like the standard Mario art-style, or outright making a character who had a unique design now have the same generic design of other NPCs, I find that a bad change that really dents my enthusiasm for the game. The changes Thousand Year Door has do not do that, so overall I don’t really care. The game is amazing and I’m really glad to have it available again on a recent console (not to mention not going for hundreds of pounds online). I dislike them changing End of Chapter to ‘Cleared’ though, that text change sucks and I have nothing good to say about it, even if it’s closer to the original Japanese version, End of Chapter was just so much better.

So playing through the game again was great, it lived up to all my memories and expectations and with how different it was visually (better in my opinion but I’ve seen people who don’t like it) it helped make it feel much more fresh than when I played through the Gamecube original again for my list back in 2018 (which I might go over more for future entries relating to this game, not sure yet). Every chapter I got to had me excited to see how it looked, how characters now sounded and what additions might have been made. I don’t want to list every chapter in detail but I will briefly go over some of them. First of all there’s the introduction where you meet Goombella, the first partner to join you in the game and explore Rogueport a bit. Rogueport for the whole Mario series has always been one of my favourite locations for just how much ‘grittier’ it is than most, they really play up how seedy and dangerous the place is what with a gang war taking place in the background whilst Goombella’s speaking with Mario, you getting mugged and a guy blocking off part of town demanding a toll to pass. The place also looks much more detailed in this remake which I liked seeing. The plot revolves around Mario having a map he was sent by Princess Peach (who’s gone missing of course) and him gradually learning that the map shows the way to the seven Crystal Stars which are required to open the Thousand Year Door, a giant doorway deep below Rogueport that’s said to contain an amazing treasure. The game being an RPG works differently to the main Mario series with battles being turn based. This is unique from other RPGs however in that attacks often require some sort of timed button press in order to do decent damage, such as hitting A just when Mario lands a jump attack to bounce and do a second follow up attack, or holding the control stick and releasing it when you have charged enough power with a Hammer attack to do the most damage.

The next part of the story is the first chapter of the game which features Hooktail who as I said was a prominent part of the advertising for the original game I remember. For the chapter Hooktail is definitely a highlight with the boss battle, despite being the first real boss of the game so not really challenging, it's exciting. The rest of the chapter is fine but fairly standard, in fact honestly it’s probably one of the very few chapters in the game that doesn’t really have a gimmick to it with you visiting a town, going through some ruins and then taking on the castle after gaining a partner in town. Chapter 2 is somewhat similar although it’s always stuck with me due to how striking it is visually. Boggly Woods is a woodland, but what stands out the most is everything in the environment is either black or white, the wood of the trees are made up of shades of black and grey whereas the leaves are white for example. The ground is black but with grass patterns that are a shifting neon rainbow colour (the only environmental parts that aren’t black or white). It gives the place such an iconic and striking look that really helps elevate the chapter to me. A lot of the enemies that are native to the area similarly are either black, white or a shade of grey which helps make it feel like such a unique environment, and other characters not native to there (such as Mario) stand out. The gimmick of this chapter are the main friendly inhabitants of the land which are the Punis. These small creatures are likely inspired by Pikmin and similarly to them Mario ends up gradually picking up an army of them who follow him as he travels through their home in the Great Tree looking for the Crystal Star. Chapter 3 is where things in the game get controversial, by which I mean some people love it and others feel it exemplifies the issues with the game. This chapter takes place in Glitzville, a floating city above the clouds where there is an arena. Mario must enter the arena as a new fighter and make his way up the ranks whilst also dealing with mysterious happenings. I personally loved this chapter and still do, I like how you get to know a fair few of the other fighters through events that take place in the minor league which also builds up the mystery behind things such as fighters disappearing as well as a ‘man-eating toilet’ amongst other rumours. The main issue I see people take with it however is that it can get repetitive, with the whole setup meaning you have 20 fights to go through which some find monotonous. Either way, this chapter is the first one where it really deviates from the simple adventure through an area style which is common in a lot of other Mario RPGs, with you mostly going from event to event within Glitzville rather than making your way through the area like in the previous two chapters. I don’t want to go through every following chapter so I’ll just say highlights to me are the chapter that takes place in Twilight Town, a location that’s got a gloomy but still visually interesting style to it and the Excess Express, a train where the majority of Chapter 6 takes place in which might just be my favourite but I could see very easily being someone else’s least favourite. There were definitely issues, although the remake does help soften them a bit since there’s some added warp pipes that help deal with some of the backtracking this game is infamous for (especially in Chapter 4.) Still, for me the atmosphere of the game is why I absolutely love it, and therefore I enjoy the time spent in these locations so I never found the backtracking particularly draining.

So why I love this game and I feel personally it is superior to the original game, despite me personally preferring the original is just how detailed everything is. Every single character and enemy has a tattle for example, an ability used by Goombella that tells you something about them even for unnamed NPCs who there’s not much to say about you’ll get at least some comment. Tons of characters will get new dialogue in later chapters if you revisit them, there’s all sorts of sidequests (which are mostly taken on from a place called the Trouble Centre in Rogueport) that make new things happen in previous locations. All this can be a double edged sword of course, depending on whether you’re fine with reading a lot of text or not, but due to this there is so much content here, for example Luigi will appear around Rogueport after you complete every chapter with a unique partner with him similar to Mario and will tell you all about his adventures in the Waffle Kingdom that he’s been on whilst Mario’s been adventuring. These are often humorous parodies of Mario’s adventure essentially where most of the time he got through them due to sheer dumb luck and most of his partners are only following him because he owes them money or they feel he’s too dangerous to be left on his own. Not only does Luigi have all this to tell you, but then later in the game there’s a book series you can buy from the store in Rogueport that is written about his adventures that sheds further light on it all whilst also deviating from things Luigi told you were the case often playing them up to make Luigi sound more heroic. This isn’t the only example of the sort of background detail that doesn’t really serve a purpose but can to me be so fun to find out with there also being lore stories about the Thousand Year Door and other things about this specific game, as well as one character who travels to a location from the previous game and will tell you about his adventures there including various cameos. This is something the Mario series would not really do again, even in the next game that goes even further with story there’s not as much background lore (granted it’s still there in that game too) and with Sticker Star anything like that was ripped out of the series pretty much. I also find the world just such an interesting place and one I love to revisit, for one thing after you beat a chapter it’s still often worth revisiting locations because now you’ll get to see them in their new ‘peaceful’ form, for example the train chapter I mentioned earlier, you can take the journey the way it was intended to be rather than the events that took place during Chapter 6, with there being a whole load of new NPCs who will appear at random on board (including the only fully grown Yoshi in the game who will sometimes appear depending on how lucky you are.)

There’s lots more I could go on about but I think the other key thing to this game and sadly one which ended with this game are the partner characters, to me one of the best things about this game and the previous one. There’s some spoilers related to certain ones and some I will likely cover for their own posts down the line due to spirits etc, so I’ll mostly just talk about partners as a whole with maybe one or two examples who won’t be getting their own posts. Partners in the Paper Mario series are basically other party members who join Mario on his journey and can fight alongside him in battle as well as perform actions on the overworld that will help Mario to progress. An early example is Koops, a Koopa Troopa who joins Mario and can be kicked in his shell as a sort of boomerang to hit switches too far to reach or grab items too far to reach and bring them back to Mario. He also in Battle can use his shell attacks on enemies on the ground as well as help boost Mario’s defence. This is somewhat unique to a lot of other RPGs as Mario is always the most important character in the party who will do the majority of damage, this is mostly as you can’t ever swap Mario out. Due to this Partners aren’t just useful for how much damage they can inflict but also how well they can support Mario, helping protect him from powerful attacks or boost his attack power for example. Of these my personal favourites are the Yoshi Kid and Admiral Bobbery. Bobbery has a surprisingly dark and mature backstory for a Mario character and honestly was a surprise to me when he joined back when I first played the game, mostly as he seemed more of a key player in the story of the chapter he first appeared in rather than a obvious party member, that might just be me however. As you might have guessed from his name, Bobbery is a Bob-omb, another thing I loved about the Paper Mario series as you’d get characters that were from various species of enemies in the Mario series, but with their own unique designs that make them stand out as their own characters, something the Mario series seems very determined not to do anymore that I just cannot personally agree with. The partners in the original Paper Mario were all Mario enemy species and in a lot of cases this was the first time they’d ever been shown as friendly in any way. I loved this because it helped make Mario’s world feel like a much more interesting place, where random people on the street could be a talking bomb or a Koopa Troopa rather than Toads being the only friendly NPCs you’d come across. There would be plenty of evil characters from those species still so it’s not like it took away from the variety of enemies you face in the games. In this game the partners do include a lot of Mario enemies, but also a couple of unique species who join you as well as a small Yoshi Kid as I mentioned earlier (who will have his own post later). The final thing I want to touch upon is something I definitely used in my playthroughs but I know is what the more hardcore gamers who enjoy this game and the original tend to like the most, the badge system. This system is what allows you to customize the party to be played in so many different ways, for example you can get a badge that boosts Mario’s attack hugely, but only when he’s at 5 or below HP, this means that you’re playing in a way where you want to destroy enemies as fast as you can because you can’t risk taking a hit at that low HP. Other badges are simply good with no drawbacks such as the ability to swap between partners in battle without it taking up a turn, it’s due to this badges cost BP (Badge Power of course) so you can’t just equip every amazing badge and have god powers. Again, this is something I’m definitely not an expert on, but from what I’ve seen, it’s the original N64 game that people prefer when it comes to badge customization with you being able to do really crazy stuff in it, but this game definitely still has a robust and interesting selection. Needless to say, that’s another feature that was dropped in all future Paper Mario games.

When it comes to my specific playthrough I admittedly don’t have a lot to really go over, it was mostly a fairly standard playthrough of the game. I’ve played through the game probably about 6 times in my life fully and this time didn’t really stand out for being particularly difficult or anything. There was one thing I remember which was when playing Chapter 3 the game crashed. I don’t know why, but I do remember vaguely things seemed to be going slower than usual before it happened. It was annoying because it was after I’d done a fair few battles and things, still it didn’t take that long to get back to where I was and I made a point of saving repeatedly in case it happened again, which it luckily didn’t. I said before I did two playthroughs, first a personal one where I made a point of tattling every NPC possible with Goombella and didn’t worry with certain variables and then my Smash playthrough where I tried to make sure I got specific variables and made a point of using a specific partner for every chapter (granted still swapping out Goombella to tattle every enemy I could). This did actually prove a problem for this post as I realised one of the screenshots I wanted to use included a secret party member that’s a spoiler in every screenshot I had, so I had to go with a different one in the end which was a shame. I thought I’d be really burnt out playing this way but I think I just love this game too much for that as I never felt irritated replaying it. It could be because I would listen to stuff on my computer as I played so I wasn’t solely focused on the replay.

In conclusion, I love this game, I always will and I loved this remake, it looks gorgeous, it retains the atmosphere I loved and there’s nothing in particular I personally felt was missing from it that would make me want to return specifically to the original. The Paper Mario series to me has been doing the best it can with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, I haven’t played Origami King, I’ve heard some very good things but also that they clearly had no intention to return to how the original two games were. To me that just won’t bring me back, when I look at the villains of Origami King and see things like a literal box of pencils compared to a boss like Cortez or Rawk Hawk, I just can’t get excited or accept it personally. Until they undergo surgery to remove this self-inflicted bullet and allow the series to heal, it just all feels like missed potential to me. With this remake, I do have hope they might finally start looking back at how the series used to be, even if it doesn’t return to exactly that, I hope they will at least loosen up on these restrictions they seem to have put upon the series. Of course that could easily be proven wrong, afterall from what I’ve read I believe this remake didn’t sell anywhere near as well as Origami King did. There are various factors I believe in those sales figures, still I hope at the very least they try to find some new happy medium with the next Paper Mario if they’re not willing to return to the style of the first two games. As I always try to think with these things, I’m still glad at the end of the day that this game exists regardless of whether the series ever returns to what I loved about it.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Mario’s Wario Outfit in Smash.

Honestly I don’t think there’s much more I can add here, I said earlier about this outfit being closer to Mario’s in Smash than the Wario Outfit in Odyssey and in Thousand Year Door Mario doesn’t really have equipment or attacks that are similar to how Mario fights in Smash. I guess the main thing is keeping the W emblem (which is a badge) active to keep this colour on Mario, although I didn't do so for my whole playthrough, but I did have it for a fair few chapters.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to Super Mario Wiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me on Switch and Wii U.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

All Aircraft Report.

Here we are at the end of another year. I realise in my last off-topic post I talked about planning on releasing various posts, so as always I've only gotten one done and uploaded in the last couple of days, still I wanted to get something up before the end of the year. I do have another post I'm writing but I realised I wouldn't get it finished today so decided to just go ahead and write this off-topic post instead. Anyway, 2024's been a mixed year for me, for things I enjoy watching it's been a dramatic year full of all sorts of miserable situations and 'revelations' that grow tiring. The less said about world events the better, but in my personal life I've actually had a fair few great things happen this year, including going to Canada to meet family for the second time in my life, travelling to another country to meet someone special to me for the first time in years and then them visiting me just before Christmas in return. I've been unemployed which has caused money issues, but that's turned around now and I have a job lined up for next January (granted that has it's... issues, but the way things have turned out all I can do is see how it goes really). My progress on my list this year has been odd, I've actually beaten a lot of games on my list, completing more games than I did in 2023 and 2022 respectively (however falling short of all years before those where I raced through a lot of games it seems). In a fair few cases however, these games I've beaten this year have been games I've already beaten but were released in a more accessible (or in some cases, imo superior) form so I decided to play through them again. With all of that said though, it is 2025 (almost) and I still have not beaten Tales of Symphonia, the game I ended 2022 saying I hoped I would finish in the next year. Saying this makes me realise, I've messed around for too long now, it's time for me to finally play through and finish that game so I can actually proceed with my list rather than keep going back to games I skipped over before/got updated rereleases. One thing that is going for me in this respect is that the line-up of games coming up is nowhere near as many as there have been the last couple of years...

I guess that's a nice segue into what's coming up this year that I'm interested in or has implications for my list, however this time in fact there are almost no real big releases coming up which will influence my list. That's not to say there's nothing at all, there's Donkey Kong Country Returns HD which, sadly seems to not be having too good of a showing so far from what I've seen, there's also Virtua Fighter 5 Revo, a game on my list I beat before but as it was on PS3 I could get no screenshots, so this is going to be a chance to actually get things for the game, plus I'd just prefer to have it on Steam. Xenoblade Chronicles X is a case of it having been on my list for a while, however it wasn't a game I was due to play for a fair bit (being in the spirits part of my list) so other than possibly making me bring it forward by playing it on release, it won't make a big change to my list. There's also Dragon Quest 1+2 HD 2D Remake which I'm actually really excited for, I really enjoyed playing through DQ3 HD 2D Remake, however in that case it felt like it was updating a game that was decent enough on it's own, whereas with 1+2 it's taking games that had a fair few flaws and limitations, so I'm hoping they might make additions to make the worlds bigger in those games, without going into spoilers certain locations return in those games from other games but in a smaller form, so it'd be really cool to see them actually return at the scale they are meant to be. Anyway, the only game we know is happening which I have a question mark over for my list is Metroid Prime 4. Since we know very little of what will be in the game, whether there'll be any new suits or even something like being able to play as Dark Samus (or even Ridley perhaps) there's always the possibility it could provide something new for my list.

There's rumoured games as well, Metroid Prime 2+3 and Fire Emblem Echoes Holy War Remake have been rumoured it feels like for the past year or two. If they do get announced they'll definitely help with my list since I couldn't get screenshots for my original Metroid Prime 2 playthrough, and being able to play FE Holy War officially would be a great thing in itself to me. Of course, there's the elephant in the room here, the thing people have been waiting for all last year and never happened, but that, unless Nintendo completely reverses course we have to hear about by March, the Switch 2. For me, consoles have never been hugely exciting, I mean I enjoy seeing them, seeing what's changed and the idea of having something that plays games better than the current console is cool of course, but the bigger deal to me are the games. We have no real knowledge of what's coming, there's been the odd rumour but they're often so vague and nondescript (not to mention I don't feel like I've heard anything particularly trustworthy) that I really feel like we could see anything coming up, a new 3D Mario, 3D Donkey Kong, Mario Kart 9 (or 10?). That's not even getting onto possible games that might come to Switch still but have special features on Switch 2, like hypothetically if there was a Kid Icarus Uprising HD. Then there's the biggest question for my list and this blog itself, will we be seeing a new Smash Bros? Or perhaps, we might even get Smash Ultimate massively expanded to add more characters and maybe an adventure mode or something. At this point though, I'll admit I'm just throwing ideas out there, but equally that's because we really know so little of what's coming from Nintendo this year, not to mention third parties such as SEGA, Capcom and Level 5 and what they have in store.

So, finally then, I guess I should go over the games I played through this year. It was an interesting year to me, I think it's fair to say it didn't reach the heights of previous years and the releases were more low-key than before, but also personally I felt people seemed really down on a fair few of the releases this year, despite them really being perfectly fine games. There was the Thousand Year Door remake which I loved, but definitely seemed to have backlash due to the long running war in the fanbase over Modern Paper Mario and how overboard some fans of the older games tend to be, not to mention I saw it was just generally divisive with some people really not liking how much text etc was in the game (I can't agree there but I can see why people would feel like that.) Princess Peach Showtime I haven't played but mostly seems to be agreed upon to be fairly average but not bad, which is about what I expected given Yoshi's Crafted World. Luigi's Mansion 2 HD I feel conflicted on, on the one hand the first Luigi's Mansion is the far superior game and probably deserved a remake more, on the other hand I feel like 2 was a case where if it didn't get a remaster like it did I doubt it'd really get any attention, so personally I prefer even the most mediocre games in series at least getting an updated rerelease rather than just being skipped over entirely. Emio the Smiling Man was definitely high up on my list of favourites this year, it's definitely not a game for everyone (not just for how graphic and dark it gets) but I am so glad Nintendo actually put out a game like this, despite it of course being ignored by the various people who go on about how Nintendo never try anything new etc (because it's not F-Zero or Metroid). Echoes of Wisdom is the most marmite Zelda I've seen in a while, by which I mean I've seen people absolutely love it and others who seem to passionately hate it. Personally, I enjoyed it. It's definitely not amongst my favourite ever Zelda games, but I had a lot of fun playing it and I'm glad it was made. There is a big undercurrent currently with the Zelda 'fanbase' that I feel is too toxic for me to really want to delve into it too much, so I'll just say to me, it feels like with Breath of the Wild the usual 'Zelda Cycle' didn't take place as normal, and due to that since Tears of the Kingdom, the Cycle's wheel has now come loose from the mud and gone into overdrive. Following this was Super Mario Party Jamboree, a game I haven't gotten or played yet so I can't really comment on but seems very good and a return to form for the series. What I did play was Mario & Luigi Brothership and all I can say is, I really do not get how over the top people have been about the game. There's IGN's infamous review which having played through the game I feel justified in saying is a bs score to give the game even if you didn't like it. I really enjoyed the game and I'd put it probably just behind Bowser's Inside Story and Superstar Saga on my own personal list for the series, so I just cannot get why there's so many people making out it's the worst there's been. There's definitely annoyances and the music, whilst there's definitely some nice tracks (I love the credits music) to me does feels lacking without Yoko Shimomora's involvement, but the game had such an interesting world and nice characters to me I just can't really understand some of the backlash it's gotten.

Finally just to mention a few third party games, Sonic X Shadow Generations I personally believe is the best 3D Sonic game ever, to me that shouldn't be controversial but... well I think it's best I don't go too much into my thoughts on a lot of general Sonic opinions I tend to see online, perhaps when I get to those games on my list I'll delve into it more, I have a lot to say. Beyond that, I've said about Dragon Quest 3 HD 2D Remake which I finished this week, I really enjoyed it and it was nice having a game I could turn my brain off a bit with in order to just grind at times etc. Finally, an addition made for my list was Vampire Survivors since it got Castlevania DLC. I'd definitely heard of the game before and had a rough idea of how it works, but playing it was a very fun experience and seeing so much put in the Castlevania DLC was a huge deal to me as a Castlevania fan, even seeing many characters playable for the first time in the series due to this game. I guess with that it's time to bring this post to an end, I went on a lot more than I thought I would, honestly I'm hopeful for next year even if there's stuff I'm definitely worried about, but most of all I'm just looking forward to seeing what Nintendo might bring after a fairly low-key 2024. Oh, also the new Sonic movie was cool.

To everyone who reads this blog, thank you and here's to a Happy 2025!

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Andross Playthrough (Star Fox aka Starwing)

Fighter: Andross (SNES Timeline)

Game: Star Fox (Starwing), Nintendo Switch Online (SNES). First Released on February 21st 1993.

ENTRY WARNING: Since this is the final boss of the game I don't hold back on anything really considered a spoiler here. The story's not exactly got any twists and turns anyway but just as it is the final part of the game I thought I'd give a heads up.

Character Bio.

Doctor Andross was considered a genius far beyond his peers from an early age and in his adulthood he worked at an advanced lab on Planet Corneria, Fourth Planet in the Lylat System. Andross began developing an engine based on Hyper-Spatial Energy which although revolutionary and showing promise was considered far too dangerous for a laboratory based in Corneria’s most highly populated city. Following numerous warnings which he did not heed due to his arrogant ambitions, Dr Andross found himself banished from the planet and for a time seemingly disappeared from the Lylat System. Years later however strange activity was detected from the planet Venom, first planet of the Lylat System with unidentified flying objects in the planet’s orbit. Dr Andross had fled to this planet and continued his experiments completely transforming the planet into a military base with an army the likes of which the galaxy had not seen before. Andross declared himself Emperor and began an invasion of Corneria along with other planets in the Lylat System conquering them with great speed and ferocity.

It was this unprecedented situation that led General Pepper the commander of Corneria’s Defense Force to decide to authorize the use of a new super-high-performance combat ship known as the Arwing, despite it still being in the prototype stage. Due to the lack of time needed to train new pilots to use these craft General Pepper instead called in Team Star Fox, a group of adventurers known to have outstanding combat skills to pilot the Arwings into battle. General Pepper’s belief in this team was vindicated when they proved themselves capable of almost single-handedly defeating Andross’s forces even reaching the Planet Venom and defeating the tyrant himself who appeared before Fox as a seemingly polygonal metallic giant face that would spit out tiles. Fox destroyed Andross by firing upon his eyes which would then reveal a cube that was the core of this strange machine. Destroying the core destroyed Andross bringing peace to the Lylat System, however the strange nature of Andross’s appearance left some ambiguity regarding whether Andross himself was within this face or this was simply something controlled by him.

Years later Andross would return revealing himself to have survived his previous encounter with Fox McCloud, however in the process he seems to have been injured to the point he required cybernetic parts with the upper left side of his face replaced with machinery. He begins a new assault on the Lylat System from a new base, Astropolis a space fortress and this time hade hired a rival mercenary force known as the Star Wolf wing specifically to combat the Star Fox Team. Andross also involves himself much more directly in his forces campaign ordering missile launches and dispatching powerful boss ships to take on the Star Fox Team. Eventually however he finds his forces and the Star Wolf wing are defeated by Star Fox and he must face them once again himself. This time he uses a similar mechanical form but has developed one that looks far closer to his true self with his head and two hands he uses to fight with. He is defeated by Star Fox once again and in the process this time he loses his life.

Andross is arrogant, selfish and ruthless but also a brilliant scientist who manages to transform the whole of Planet Venom from a lush green planet into a military base capable of bringing the whole Lylat System to its knees. His brilliance sadly is used in his petty revenge scheme against those he believed wronged him with his banishment and his lack of empathy led to some horrific acts such as enslaving the more primitive native inhabitants of Venom into acting as a slave army for him and performing dangerous experiments creating areas such as the Black Hole which is believed to have swallowed Fox McCloud’s Father. Despite Andross relying on his army he has little respect for them seeing them simply as tools for his ambitions and reacting with anger at their failures.

Friends: Andross does not have friends simply seeing others as either tools or obstacles in his plans. His forces are made up of the primitive natives of Planet Venom that he has enslaved along with mercenaries he hires to keep them in line. Andross hires the Star Wolf wing to take on Star Fox but when they lose he is enraged calling them worthless.

Enemies/Rivals: Andross began life on Corneria, but after being banished for his dangerous experiments he considered the whole population his enemies, making a home for himself on Planet Venom. Facing the Star Fox Team Andross is angered by their ability to take down the majority of his forces and even more enraged when they initially defeat him, going into hiding once again to build up his forces and return for revenge.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: Andross has not appeared outside of the Star Fox series or Smash Bros series.

Why this game?

Simply this version of Andross only ever appeared in this game, arguably there have been homages to this appearance in later versions such as Star Fox Zero, however this made the most sense to choose for the game.

My past with this character.

It’s a bit hard to write about my history with ‘this’ character this time around because when it comes to this specific version, they’re not one I have a lot of history with. I had Starwing (the name for Star Fox on SNES in Europe) and played it a fair bit when I was young, however it would be a long time till I finally got anywhere in the game, I believe reaching Fortuna the Dinosaur Planet in my best run back then but never getting further. I have a fair bit to say about later versions of Andross but as I’ll get to him later down the line I think it’s best I focus on this version and honestly, everything I knew about this version was just because I knew the version from Lylat Wars (Star Fox 64 elsewhere) and assumed they were the same character. I’ve gone over before how I believed for a time that Starwing was actually a prequel to Lylat Wars and you actually played as Fox’s father James McCloud in this game, due to this I believed the game ended with Pigma betraying you and fighting Andross but ultimately losing. I had seen this version of Andross before, I believe it was most likely in a Nintendo Magazine at the time I first saw him but I didn’t really get that Lylat Wars was a remake essentially of Starwing so I thought this was simply how Andross originally looked canonically.

There isn’t a lot to add, I did learn the difference as time went on and eventually through the internet I learnt of the situation with Star Fox 2 and how Andross would have returned in it, which I had no idea then would ever actually see an official release years later. The only other notable thing regarding this version of Andross I remember is something that’s not really canon to him, but was from a somewhat official source and therefore is at least worth mentioning, which was a comic made as a supplement to the original game. This comic is more its own version of events from Starwing rather than meant to be the canon version of the games events but it added a lot more to Andross’s character. I didn’t read it myself only having seen a few summaries but I am aware there were a lot of odd things involving Andross in the comic including him having a rivalry with Fox’s Father, him having a clone of himself, him being in love with Fox’s Mother and him actually murdering her by mistake with a bomb he planned to use to kill the rest of her family so they wouldn’t get in his way. This comic despite not really fitting with what little story there was in the actual game (and especially later continuities) still had a few things that make it worth acknowledging, for one thing Benimaru Itoh who was involved in some artwork for the original game was behind the story and I believe some of the artwork for the comic, also there were one or two elements that were either planned to be in Star Fox 2 such as Fara Phoenix, a character who appeared in the comic and had a sprite in a very early version of Star Fox 2 and the planet Papetoon which was said to be Fox’s homeworld and was later made canon in Star Fox 64 (only in the Japanese version) as well as being mentioned in Star Fox Command and Starlink: Battle for Atlas.

My Smash Playthrough.

Since I will cover my run through the game overall for another post, in this post I will just go over the part relevant to Andross, that being in this case the final battle with him. There are three different routes through the game and I admit for my run I did the easiest one. From what I’ve seen the battle with Andross only differs with the hard run where he has a second form but I could be wrong as I don’t know if the required amount of hits on his health differs or his attacks are slightly higher in one of the other two routes, either way since his second form has never been represented in Smash I decided I didn’t need to play through the hardest route in this case. I’ll also admit part of it is simply, whilst I somewhat enjoy the game it’s far harder to control than other Star Fox games and finding the ‘easy’ route still fairly difficult I didn’t want to play through the others unless I really needed to.

Anyway, as for the battle itself, honestly I’d say it’s not too hard but it can be a bit irritating more than anything, the first real difficulty is simply reaching Andross as you have to fly through a tunnel where barriers will keep moving in front of you that you have to avoid. I went back to replay this boss fight before writing this post just to remind myself of things so I might simply have been stale having not played through the game from the start again, but given how difficult it can be to control the Arwing in this game (which is fair as this was one of the first of its kind) I have difficulty getting through the tunnel without hitting anything, this then results in your health often being lowered before the battle with Andross begins. As for the battle with Andross, you must shoot at his eyes when they are blue which eventually will explode and when both are taken out his core will appear which you must fire upon until the head reforms around it, then you repeat the attacks on his eyes till you finally destroy the core. Andross’s main attack is firing tiles at you which you can somewhat destroy with your shots although I believe this will cause them to multiply (I’ll admit with the graphics it can sometimes be hard to tell if something is destroyed as there’s often so many tiles already flying at you that can blend together a bit.) The main issue with this is the tiles will block your shots at Andross’s eyes which means you have to be moving constantly to try and shoot around the tiles. Another thing is Andross will often stop in order to inhale, which requires you to fly to the side to escape, as he does this however his eyes will be invulnerable, which is still the case when after inhaling he then blows a lot of tiles at you, with it taking a couple of seconds before his eyes become vulnerable again. This whole situation results in you needing a bit of patience as there’ll often be periods where all you can do is dodge. Usually provided you have decent lasers and fairly decent aim it will take two rounds of firing on the core when it’s exposed to defeat Andross for good.

Overall it’s a good battle I’d say, the music is decent enough (although definitely not amongst the best of the soundtrack for the game) and for the time I feel like it probably was a pretty novel concept firing upon a giant floating face, although I think there were probably a couple of other games that had a similar sort of boss before this game (I can’t think of specific games but I feel like it’d been done in at least one or two arcade games before) but for a home console at the time this was definitely impressive, and stands out in the SNES library as probably one of the most memorable Final Bosses on the system.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Andross in Smash.

Since this is a boss battle there’s not an awful lot that needs to be ‘prepared’ for this fight to match Andross’s appearance in Smash Bros as an Assist Trophy. Since this is the first Assist Trophy I’ve covered it also means this character is different to the fighters since it cannot be controlled and has a specific pattern it follows. In the case of Andross his appearance in Smash is essentially a copy of his boss battle with him appearing in the background and blowing out tiles that come towards the foreground damaging anyone they hit. The main difference when it comes down to it is in Smash Andross always shoots his tiles from his mouth, whereas in the original boss battle he will seemingly release some tiles from his eyes and only after taking a long inhale will he then blow out a large amount of tiles. As mentioned earlier in the Hardest path in Starwing Andross will have a second form where he gains a bull-like head which uses similar attacks, however since he does not use this form in Smash I felt the Easy or Medium routes where he stays in the more humanoid face form were the best representation of Andross in Smash overall.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to Arwingpedia.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using Nintendo Switch’s screenshot feature.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

A Dededetour?

So I just uploaded a new post and this time it's actually not a fighter. I decided since I've reached a milestone with having finished all the fighters for Melee, it might be fun to write some posts up for other subjects such as Alt Costumes, Enemies, Bosses and in this case Stages. I don't have a specific amount of these things I've set as a goal, but I want to at least do a few of them before returning to the fighters, mostly as I realise at the speed I'm going at it will be probably years before I reach them otherwise. Since these are different subjects I have had to think more about what sections to have, for example in the latest post for Dream Land I realised a History of the Location rather than Bio worked better and as obviously relationships aren't a thing usually with a landmass (granted not always) going over the inhabitants and the greater location was a better section to do. I have already written up another post for another category and I'm currently working on others, however so as to not leave too big a gap between them I will probably stagger the release of these a bit.

Since I posted off-topic last (well, besides the post gloating about my prediction for Emio which I'm pretty excited for) I have actually beaten a few games, not Tales of Symphonia yet but I played through Pikmin 1-3, Kirby Return to Dream Land Deluxe and Luigi's Mansion 2 HD. With this as I predicted before I've surpassed the number of games I beat in 2023 already. I've also added some more games to the list including one I never expected to do until I saw the recent news, Dead by Daylight. The reason for this is it was recently announced that Dracula from Castlevania was going to be playable as DLC and it made me realise, Dracula's never been playable in his SoTN look. The only games that had him playable are Castlevania Judgement (I know the artist is well respected but I really hate the designs in that game) where he looks pretty different and Lords of Shadow which is really it's own continuity and Dracula is very different in without getting into spoilers. It's due to this I decided Dead by Daylight was actually the best choice for this and luckily I have a fair few friends for once willing to play online with me for it so I won't have to deal with random people online which is great. Also, similarly to adding games from the Codec Conversations in my last post, I scraped even further down into the bottom of the barrel and realised there was something else left to mine, in this case being Event Matches. There wasn't an awful lot in there to really draw from, but I was surprised to find one or two references that were worth noting, including something that lets me add of all things the game Yoshi on NES.

Also, if you're looking at the blog itself, you might have noticed I've changed how it looks a little. I always meant to come up with a better theme and look for the blog but hadn't really decided on what yet, this definitely isn't what I had planned, more me just trying out a different style to see how it looks, I plan on getting a better picture for the header of the blog and deciding on a more fitting look to match up with it, still for now this is the new placeholder I'm going with. I feel like I have a lot more I want to say but can't think of currently, but luckily as it probably won't be that long until I make my next post if I remember in the meantime I should feel justified in making another off-topic post soon to go over it.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Kirby's Dream Land 3 Playthrough.

Stage: Dream Land.

Game: Kirby’s Dream Land 3, Nintendo Switch Online (SNES). First Released on November 27th 1997.

ENTRY WARNING: This post will contain spoilers for Kirby's Dream Land 3, even if the game hasn't got some huge indepth plot I do spoil some events later in the game, so if you want to avoid spoilers for the game I suggest avoiding the 'My Smash Playthrough' section as that's the main section where I detail some stuff about the final levels of the game.

Location History.

The most notable region of Planet Popstar, Dream Land is known for its lush green meadows, leafy forests as well as an ocean, caverns, bubbly clouds and a few old castles. Dream Land’s exact size has never been specified and it has been shown there are a few other climates within the region such as deserts and snowy areas, however on the whole Dream Land is known for its greenery. The scenery in Dream Land is also made up of unusual sights such as literal rolling hills, colourful fence posts, decorative stars and other strange features like spiral clouds. The region normally is very peaceful to the point its inhabitants are often considered lazy, spending their days eating and dreaming in their sleep, however the land does also seem to attract quite a lot of trouble from time to time. These events have varied wildly from something as simple as the greedy king stealing all the food in the land to the people being cursed with bad dreams, a giant beanstalk Kingdom growing from the ground one day, invasions from other worlds leading to citizens being possessed or even the land itself being fully mechanized by an evil interplanetary corporation. Despite this however, Dream Land almost always is returned to its peaceful state once these events have concluded, sometimes even with a new positive addition such as the Dream Stalk following Kirby purging it of the evil influence that had infested it allowing it to bloom.

Rulers: King Dedede is the self-proclaimed king of Dreamland, living in Castle Dedede on Mt Dedede. It seems this is the case simply because the other residents are too lazy to be particularly bothered about his claims unless it directly effects them, which has only happened on a few occasions such as one time when King Dedede stole all the food in the land for himself and Kirby had to fight him to bring it back to the people. King Dedede despite his greed does still care about Dream Land and will often fight to defend it, even when it appears he is acting purely out of self-interest. There are various powerful figures that serve King Dedede who seem to govern certain areas such as Lololo and Lalala having their own castle, Kracko seeming to rule over the skies (although not always loyal to Dedede specifically) and Whispy Woods being often described as an ancient guardian of the forest who although often defeated is often shown explicitly surviving battles with him (usually with a tear in his eye after being defeated). Given the history of Dream Land, many of these rulers have been controlled by others through possession or mind control at certain points such as King Dedede and Whispy Woods, however they will usually return to normal following these incidents and resume their usual position.  

Inhabitants: The inhabitants of Dream Land are very peaceful most of the time, to the point of being considered lazy with their days mostly filled with eating and dreaming. Of the famous residents of Dream Land many are Kirby’s friends and rivals such as King Dedede, Bandana Waddle Dee, Kirby’s Animal Friends, Gooey and Kirby himself who is often considered the hero of Dream Land and the wider planet as a whole. There are others who appear in Dream Land but seem to be from other parts of Planet Popstar such as Meta Knight, Marx and the Squeaks. Of the creatures living within Dream Land Waddle Dees and Waddle Doos seem to make up the vast majority with many of them being loyal to King Dedede serving as his main forces. There are many other creatures who also serve King Dedede that are far too numerous to list, often with them specializing in a specific element such as fire, electricity or specific weapons like swords, whips or throwing blades. Probably the rarest species in Dream Land and planet Popstar as a whole are humans with only one regularly appearing, Adeleine who is said to be a visitor from another world in Dream Land just to study art. There have been occasional other appearances by humans however in most cases they are often characters from other universes altogether and therefore it’s easy to infer they are simply visitors rather than natives.

Wider Location: Dream Land is on Planet Popstar which is a giant yellow star-shaped rock with cosmic rings surrounding it. With Dream Land being the main grassy area of the planet, many other parts of the world seem to have different climates with volcanic areas, desert areas, snowy areas and oceans often containing smaller islands. There are sometimes regions outside of Dream Land that also have grassy terrain, however these locations tend to differ somewhat from Dream Land with a different colour palette often having a more yellow look to the green grass of Dream Land. Planet Popstar also seems to have a fair few strange features such as many locations having terrain that matches with types of food such as cakes, sweets and biscuits, this is often referenced in the naming of areas such as Grape Garden, Cookie Country and White Wafers amongst many others. Planet Popstar in the grand scheme of things is but a small planet in the overall universe and sometimes gets dragged into galactic scale events which put the whole universe at threat, Popstar’s idyllic features however often make it the top of the list of would-be conquerors with them often only being stopped due to Kirby.

Why this game?

This stage in Smash Bros is very similar to another one introduced later, it has some very obvious features that appear in a fair few Kirby games such as Whispy Woods being in the centre of the stage and the grassland terrain. I felt like in contrast to Green Greens which appeared in Super Smash Bros Melee and is very similar, this stage had more of a pastel look to it. There is also the matter of the appearance in the background of King Dedede as a cameo who uses sprites taken directly from Kirby’s Dreamland 3 which I felt combined with that game having the same pastel coloured look made it the best choice to represent the stage, especially as I would need something similar for Green Greens later down the line.

My past with this game.

This game was always a bit of an oddball to me, part of it is the look of the game being pretty different to everything else I’d seen of Kirby at the time (although definitely not in a bad way) and the other was there were just a lot of strange small details to it. There were two main things I always heard about relating to this game, although how I forget, whether it was from trivia I’d read on wikis/random old websites or looking through the Spriters Resource. The first of these was the cameos, every stage would have a character who has a specific thing you have to do for them in order to get a Heart Star for that stage, with every Heart Star being required for the true ending. Some of these characters were completely original such as a Tulip or a creature with a spring in it’s middle called Muchimuchi, others are related to the animal friends who help Kirby in the game such as Pitch’s Mother or Rick’s girlfriend Pick, others were previously enemies in other games such as Chef Kawasaki or Elieel and then finally there were characters who were cameos from other Nintendo games such as Samus Aran, Donbe & Hikari (from Shin Onigashima), Chao & Goku (from Yuyuki) and R.O.B. & Professor Hector. Naturally me being a huge Nintendo fanboy and loving easter eggs this interested me quite a bit, still admittedly not enough to play through the game myself as I’d heard more good things about other Kirby games that I focused on first.

The second thing was a lot smaller than this but related to a somewhat big mystery of the whole Kirby series which is the Batamon. These creatures look almost exactly like Kirby, although their faces are different and they don’t share any of his abilities. They almost always appear out of bounds meaning other than on some occasions with a ranged attack Kirby usually cannot interact with them, defeating them provides no bonus to Kirby and on the only occasion where one can be interacted with it acts just like a Waddle Dee, wandering forwards and backwards and damaging Kirby if it collides with him. I have very little knowledge of Japanese so I am simply going by what I’ve read, but apparently the name Batamon is derived from a Japanese slang term relating to counterfeit products, so this implies these creatures are some sort of knock-off of Kirby rather than meant to be others of Kirby’s mysterious species, either way I found these creatures interesting and next to the cameos probably the other thing that made the game stick out in my mind.

Beyond this I don’t have much history with this game, I think I vaguely remember seeing it mentioned in passing in the Magazines I’d read growing up, however it was always more forgotten than games like Kirby Super Star or Kirby’s Dreamland. It also helps that this game actually didn’t come out in Europe, similar to some other big name games like Super Mario RPG and Earthbound back in the SNES era (something which makes me laugh when I see Americans going on about ‘how good Europe gets it’ as if we don’t deserve it for missing out on so many good games back then, but I don’t want to tangent too much on that topic.) I believe other than the stuff about the cameos and Batamon, the only other experience I really had was watching someone do a Lets Play of the game back on YouTube. This was in the ‘classic’ era of Lets Plays before facecam and such things were what became associated with the term, however of this game I remember it just being fairly average to watch a Lets Play of. It was only years later when playing it I learnt what makes this game much more unique in the series than I expected.

My Smash Playthrough.

When the time came to play this game I remember being pretty excited, not specifically because of the game but because I was starting a new section of my list I had been looking forward to, covering the stages in Smash Bros. I love locations almost more than characters in games and so getting to specifically explore these worlds to try and find a location that resembles the stage adaptation for Smash Bros was a really exciting prospect for me, one which now I’ve covered (almost) every stage on my list I will say I really enjoyed and was a definite highlight. A huge part of this is when the world in a game has something that really makes it feel unique and the world of Kirby is definitely that, however on top of this the atmosphere for this journey across Dream Land is one of my favourites in the series. I think a part of it is that this atmosphere is probably the closest in the series to the one in Kirby 64, another game which has an atmosphere unique from the rest of the Kirby series, it makes sense as they’re both part of what’s sometimes called the ‘Dark Matter Trilogy’ which covers Kirby’s Dream Land 2 and 3 as well as Kirby 64. Still on top of that, in my research into it I’ve found that these games were directed by Shinichi Shimomura rather than Masahiro Sakurai, and he was not involved in any of the games since 64 (barring Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland on GBA but that was a remake of Kirby’s Adventure). Normally I try not to say too much on these behind the scenes things as it requires a lot of research and I don’t want to spread misinformation when I can avoid it, which is why I tried not to delve too much into it when covering the Fire Emblem series, still I did feel it’s something that makes a lot of sense given how both 3 and 64 have a specific atmosphere to me not in the rest of the series (2 I haven’t played through yet but from what I’ve seen is different mostly because it’s a Game Boy game and therefore has more limitations.)

So as for the game itself, if you’ve only really played the more well-known games in the series it feels like a somewhat different beast despite being another side-scrolling platformer. For one thing there are only 6 copy abilities in the game with many of the well-known ones missing such as Beam or Sword. On the surface this is much more limited than many other games in the series, however where it differs is in the other major part of the game, that being Kirby’s Animal Friends. Rick the Hamster, Kine the Sunfish and Coo the Owl return from Kirby’s Dreamland 2, they are joined by Nago the Cat, ChuChu the Octopus and Pitch the Bird. These characters are not explicitly said to be these species but resemble them very closely. Kirby can ‘ride’ these creatures in various ways (in some cases Kirby will sit on them and in others they will ride on top of Kirby or in Kine’s case actually keep Kirby in his mouth) and more importantly each one will be able to use Kirby’s 6 copy abilities in their own unique way. This means when Kirby has the Burning ability for example he can use it to use ChuChu the Octopus like a hot air balloon, Coo the Owl allows him to divebomb enemies with flames, Kine the Sunfish can shoot a fire blast from his mouth, Nago the Cat will make Kirby spit out a towering flame that travels across the ground, Pitch the Bird will turn into a fireball and fly ahead before returning back to Kirby and finally Rick the Hamster will breath fire in front of him. This whole system makes the game require a bit more thought than some of the other games where it’s simply enough to have the right ability to solve a puzzle as the combination with the partner you have will give you a unique result. Whilst this sounds like it could get very overcomplicated, each stage will have a choice between two Animal Friends (often found in a specific room in the level) and usually one of the two will be the one needed to solve a puzzle, therefore it isn’t a matter of having to decide between all 6 on top of the right ability for every puzzle. Speaking of puzzles, this brings me onto probably the most frustrating part of the game I found when playing, which funnily enough is related to the thing I was looking forward to relating to the game.

I mentioned in my previous section about my past with this game that one of the things that always interested me regarding it was the cameo characters who appear as part of the Heart Star objectives in the game. All these characters require you to do different things for them such as sometimes reuniting one character with another (such as with Goku who has to be reunited with Chao), avoiding things such as with the Tulip in the very first stage needing you to avoid trampling other tulips as you go through the level, specific challenges such as Elieel requiring you to guess which pot it’s in, the characters related to your Animal Friends requiring you to bring that friend to the end of the stage to meet them and with Samus a case where you have to defeat Metroids that are hidden away in the stage she appears in. These can vary in how irritating they are and provide the vast amount of the challenge in the game, simply playing through the levels and stages themselves usually isn’t too taxing but making a mistake with the requirements for these characters (such as accidentally stepping on a flower) means you’ve failed and have to play through the whole level again if you want the Heart Star. Ones that stick out in my mind, although I can’t remember which one specifically are some of the minigame ones, there’s one for example where you have to listen to the sounds 5 Gordos make then after a final 6th one makes a sound that’s the same as one of the first 5 you have to point out the one it matches, if you fail this you have to complete the stage and play through the whole stage again to get another chance which can be irritating. There is also how the objectives are not always clear, there’s no real guide to it and sometimes you can reach the end of a stage and see a character waiting there who gives you no idea of what you wanted. I will admit I used a guide once or twice for when it was pretty irritating to work out, for example one stage has flowers and mushrooms throughout it and at the end of the stage sits a mushroom. Based on previous stages you think that simply avoiding the mushrooms is what’s needed, but actually in this case you are meant to stomp on all the flowers but leave the mushrooms intact.

That was pretty much my biggest issue with the game and when it comes down to it, it really was more of a mild annoyance than anything truly awful. As for what I really enjoyed about the game, this game is somewhat infamous for bringing a more dark tone to the Kirby series despite being on the whole a very bright cheerful game. One of the most infamous aspects of this is the final boss Zero who is revealed to have been the bigger villain over Dark Matter, the final boss of Kirby’s Dream Land 2. The main thing always referenced when it comes to Zero in this game is the seeming graphic nature of the fight with it, Zero is a giant white ball with a red eyeball, however when it reaches its second form, the eyeball rips out of the white ball and seems to actually spurt blood from it which it uses in its attacks. Zero has managed to have a big impact on the series as a whole, despite this being it’s only appearance (barring the possibility of Zero2 being the same being in Kirby 64, but that is unconfirmed) it seems to have influenced a fair few final bosses who appear later in the series with them sometimes having a form that seems to reference the single giant eye Zero is known for. Another dark part of the game is the battle with King Dedede, at first he fights you the same way he always has using the same moves as usual, although noticeably his eyes are closed the whole time during the fight. Once he reaches his second phase however his body appears to be puppeted by Dark Matter and he begins floating in the air, he then has attacks where his belly has a mouth form on it which opens up and attempts to eat Kirby, or it turns into an eyeball and fires dark energy at him. Defeating King Dedede frees him from this and having all the Heart Stars allows Kirby to proceed to the true ending taking on Zero. This is a jarring fight following all the previous bosses (who when you have gotten all the Heart Stars in their world are also freed from possession by Dark Matter) where besides Whispy Woods most of them simply change their attack pattern in their second phase rather than becoming something more monstrous. Of the bosses in the game, they’re mostly not difficult but not boring either in my opinion, there’s Whispy Wood who gets a nice twist where he will in his second phase uproot himself and start chasing Kirby, Acro who is a killer whale that is battled underwater, Pon Con which are a pair that run around with their children and try to run into Kirby and finally Ado who has a lot of mysteries surrounding them mostly because it’s hotly debated if they are related to or even the same character as Adeleine who appears in Kirby 64, both are dressed similarly, look human and are artists who serve as bosses that paint enemies that come to life which Kirby has to fight, before in the end just charging at Kirby with their paintbrush and being beaten in a single hit.

Overall the game stands out in the series and I enjoyed it despite a few irritating aspects. The game looks great with its pastel style, the music is another huge part of the atmosphere I’ve mentioned multiple times (it goes well with the soundtrack to Kirby 64 also) and the Animal Friends are a very cool way of differentiating the game from a lot of other Kirby sidescrollers. There is also another thing I haven’t really gone over mostly because it’s not one I really used in my playthrough, which is Gooey. This is not Gooey’s debut as he appeared in Kirby’s Dreamland 2, but this was the first time he was actually playable being available for player 2 to use and if only playing single player he can appear as a CPU controlled companion, similar to the copy partners in Kirby Super Star. Summoning Gooey takes a little bit of Kirby’s health and he can eat Gooey to restore his health, due to this I mostly didn’t really bother with Gooey only using him by accident when pressing the wrong button in my playthrough, however he is a neat addition and would likely be fun for use in a 2 player playthrough. Also interesting about Gooey is that he’s said to be ‘made of the same stuff as Dark Matter’ but he lacks the evil intent shown by all other Dark Matter, showing a somewhat detached happy personality that helps Kirby more to just be friendly rather than caring much what happens. So yeah, in conclusion I’d definitely recommend giving Dream Land 3 a try if you’re interested in the Kirby series, Super Star’s probably the better game but this one’s definitely not bad and has some unique aspects to offer for the series.

The closest location to the stage in Smash.

As this is the first post I’m writing for the stages, I’m glad this one is fairly straightforward. Given Whispy Woods is the main focal point of the stage, the area Whispy Woods is fought in is the most obvious choice. Of course this is not a perfect option, for one thing as seen in the screenshot this area is not a floating platform, also another thing I didn’t realise is that if you have gotten all the Heart Stars in the world before fighting Whispy Woods, then after you defeat Whispy you can no longer fight him since he will now be purged of Dark Matter resulting in him becoming friendly. This only really matters as I like to have a version of the stage saved that reflects the stage in Smash, but it's solved simply enough by playing up to his boss battle without getting all the heart stars.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to Wikirby the Kirby Wiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using the Nintendo Switch’s screenshot feature.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Called it!

Normally I wouldn't make a post like this, but given in my last off-topic post I guessed it when all I saw elsewhere was talk of it being a horror game, I have to gloat the one time I can.

I've always had an interest in the series since seeing Ayumi's trophy in Melee so seeing not only the original games get remakes outside of Japan but now in 2024 a brand new game in the series is somewhat surreal. The games aren't amazing but I still find them an overlooked thing when people complain about Nintendo 'never trying anything with their forgotten franchises' etc. Love the music from the first two games at any rate so looking forward to seeing what this has and glad to see it once again going with the darker 'urban legends' aspect that I liked so much with the Girl who Stands Behind.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Itsa me, Emio!

Thought I had to make that joke whilst it's still relevant given we don't know what that surprising unusual for Nintendo teaser is about. My personal guess that I doubt is right but differs from everyone thinking it's a horror game is it's actually a new Famicom Detective game. Given an age rating from New Zealand mentions a fair few mature themes it's possible for it to be horror of course, but I equally feel like an argument could still be made for FDC, especially given the whole 'Who is Emio' thing. We'll have to wait and see. Anyway, beyond that the biggest news for this blog is THE MELEE ROSTER IS FINALLY COMPLETE! Yes over a year after I said I hoped to have it finished soon I've finally written Roy and Mr Game & Watch's entries. I have no idea how soon I'll either start on Meta Knight, perhaps do another Pokemon entry (for Gen 2) or maybe even try something totally new and start writing posts about stages, Assist Trophies or Background Characters.

When it comes to the list, I don't believe anyone out there actually checks it constantly but if you did you might notice oddly that there's a few games I've had in the 'completed' section for ages now at the top of the list. If you see which ones they are you also might have picked up on there having been ports/remakes of these games that have come out on Switch so yeah, I decided since these are often better versions with new content and I got them I might as well put them back on the list in order to play them, not to mention in a lot of cases they'll allow me to easily get screenshots I couldn't before (such as with Metroid Prime HD). Also if you remember my last off-topic post you might notice that Tales of Symphonia is still on the list, yes I didn't finish it yet, but I promise I've made a lot of progress. Without going into spoilers I feel confident in saying I've definitely reached the halfway point of the game. I had two big things which brought that playthrough to a halt, the first was I went away to another country for a few weeks and the second was Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door came out, and of all games as much as I love doing this whole thing, I wasn't going to overlook a remake of my joint second favourite game of all time, the same thing would be the case if I got the last few of my top 10 that aren't on Switch released, such as Punch-out Wii, Kid Icarus Uprising or possibly Pokemon Gen 2. I have been able to get new screenshots with Paper Mario Thousand Year Door so it wasn't completely unconnected to my list anyway.

There've also been some new additions to my list, I'm always coming up with really stupid reasons that barely count to add things to my list and I realised something a while ago that I hadn't really gone into, that being the codec and Palutena's Guidance easter eggs. Looking through these I really wasn't expecting much, mostly looking for an excuse to do something with one or two characters, but I realised one of the codecs very specifically had a character from Metal Gear Solid 2 referenced and perhaps the biggest thing, Palutena's Guidance for Ryu makes references to a lot of the Marvel vs Capcom series. I decided to add these games to my list although I realised they were going to be very difficult to do, so you can probably guess my surprise and joy with the latest Direct announcing a collection of the series coming to Switch (not to mention I was just really pleased to see it as I know the series has not had many rereleases at all including I believe one or two games that never left arcades) so that really worked out well. Speaking of the Direct there was a lot of really great looking stuff announced there. Of what was shown the only game I felt was for sure going on my list was the Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom. The reason is fairly simple for this, not that Zelda is playable as actually I don't think the Zelda in this game really matches any specifically from Smash Bros, but the ability to create Echoes of enemies is the closest to having Zelda enemies playable there's ever been, so that worked out pretty well. Oh and of course, Dragon Quest 1-3 HD is fantastic news for me, I've played through 3 before but the fact this version will actually have the characters appear in battle (no idea how many animations they'll have) is already huge news to me, also from what I've heard 1-2 really didn't age well so having updated versions of them is pretty exciting to me, they both interest me for different reasons (especially 1 being one of the very few RPGs where you don't have any other party members).

So what's next then? Well, when it comes to the games I've moved up my list to play again like Pikmin I think I'll most likely do some of them first, Pikmin is a pretty short game and I've been looking for something I can play whilst listening to other stuff so games I've already beaten would I think be a good choice. However, I want to get at least 3 Mii Costume games finally beaten this year, so I do plan on returning to Tales of Symphonia soon, after that would be Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate, which I have a feeling would also be a long game although it's one where I believe there's a 'final story boss' so to speak outside of the many other Monsters you can hunt in the game etc, so it probably isn't as 'endless' as I feared. Following that would be Tower of Druaga which being an arcade game I believe is a case of it being short but very difficult, luckily also being an arcade game on consoles I believe I'll have unlimited continues so it probably won't take long. In the middle of this some of the other games I mentioned such as Zelda Echoes of Wisdom and Dragon Quest 3 will likely be out so I'm sure I'll play them pretty much on release, the same goes for others not on my list such as Mario & Luigi Brothership (Another huge reveal that I have no reason to put on my list but it's a series I love and thought was dead so I'll definitely be checking out). Between all this of course I have my actual life to live etc, but either way I hope to make more progress than last year, I believe looking at the list I've made of the games I've beaten each year I've already almost beaten 2023's amount so I'm sure I'll manage that. Anyway, here's looking forward to seeing who Emio is and hopefully a good year going forward.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Game & Watch Gallery 4 Playthrough.

Fighter: Mr Game & Watch.

Game: Game & Watch Gallery 4, Wii U Virtual Console (Nintendo GBA). First Released on October 28th 2002.

Fighter Bio.

A true enigma, Mr Game & Watch is both everyone and no one within his world. His roles have varied so much as to put even Mario to shame with such examples being a juggler, flag bearer, exterminator, fireman, judge, sewer worker, workman, lion tamer, parachuter, deep sea diver and many more. Mr Game & Watch however has at the same time had none of these roles because as an entity he does not exist. The Game & Watch games were often self-contained LCD consoles that had a single game which ran on technology similar to calculators (I believe). In the games there is a pale beige colourless background which often has some coloured decorations that remain on the screen at all times such as trees or waves from the ocean, there are then multiple pre-drawn LCD segments usually in black that when playing will in turn light up in order to simulate movement, so for example a character will have faded out pictures of them walking along a road and when pressing right the next picture to the right of the one currently prominent would light up and the one next to it will fade out making it seem like the character has moved. A good example of this is the screenshot in this post which shows multiple pictures of characters falling out of a burning building along with the Firemen carrying a trampoline, you can see how specific ones are lit up whilst the others are not as visible. The Watch part of Game & Watch comes from many of them having a digital clock also which can have an alarm set which often involves a character of some kind (such as a cat) appearing and ringing a bell for the time the alarm is set to.

The characters in many of these games did not have names and were simply random civilians or professionals such as Firemen or deep sea divers. Mr Game & Watch as a character first appeared in Super Smash Bros Melee where he represented these numerous nameless characters. What’s interesting is alongside this with the amount of Game & Watch games produced including ones based on already existing properties, Mr Game & Watch has technically taken on the identity of other characters including Mario himself. Since his first appearance in Super Smash Bros Melee, Mr Game & Watch has made a few appearances in other games, although considering anything ‘canon’ to his story is not really possible. Honestly this probably is the best thing for Mr Game & Watch as it makes him feel like this being from a whole other dimension compared to everyone else in Smash Bros.

Friends: Since he is not really a character there aren’t any real relationships Mr Game & Watch has. Any of his in-game interactions are with others who are essentially other versions of himself. The only arguable exception is possibly Mario as in Game & Watch Gallery 4 he shares a small appearance alongside Mario where they host the Gift Mode.

Enemies/Rivals: Unlike with friends, there is a candidate for Mr Game & Watch’s ‘enemy’ which is most likely the Octopus that seems to be the most prominent other Game & Watch character having a whole minigame dedicated to it in Nintendo Land. In the original game the Divers (aka Mr Game & Watch) have to grab as much sunken treasure as they can before going back to the surface and avoiding the Octopus, if the Octopus grabs them then they are taken away and when the whole crew are gone it’s game over.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: As I stated earlier Mr Game & Watch is unique when it comes to this topic as he has actually been other characters in the Smash series, specifically in the game Mario Bros he takes on the roles of Mario and Luigi. He also takes on Mario’s role in Donkey Kong which is a crossover therefore with Donkey Kong based on the original arcade game. Other games feature Mario but his design is more like Mario in those cases so I don’t feel it counts as much. As stated earlier Mario appears alongside Mr Game & Watch in Game & Watch Gallery 4 on GBA, he does not appear in such a role in the previous Game & Watch Gallery games however since the concept of him as a character himself only began with Super Smash Bros Melee in 2001 and Game & Watch Gallery 3 came out in 1999. Mr Game & Watch did make a couple of other appearances, most of them I don’t feel it’s worth noting as they were more small cameos such as in Warioware Micro Games and as part of a Minigame icon in Super Mario Odyssey, however probably the most notable is that he appears in Donkey Kong Country Returns in the background of Foggy Fumes, a level where everything is in silhouette due to the fog and he appears as a cameo in the background hammering at a pipe. The only other debatable cameo is in Wario Land 4 where there is a character who runs the shops in the games that definitely is inspired by Mr Game & Watch, however that character is actually someone else so even if Mr Game & Watch is not really a character in the first place I wouldn’t count that as a direct appearance by him.

Why this game?

The reason I decided on Game & Watch Gallery 4 specifically is that it was the easiest way to play multiple Game & Watch games, get screenshots of them and it looked the closest to the original being on GBA as opposed to the other games on Game Boy which were a lot more downgraded. The vast majority of the games I needed are covered in this game which is why I felt it was the best one to represent the character of Mr Game & Watch.

My past with this game.

I have a bit more of an interesting history with this game than I expected when looking into it and remembering various things in the past. I suppose the best place to start is with the whole world of LCD games as a whole. Tiger LCD games were probably the first examples of these things I remember since I grew up in the 90s and these things were everywhere as some cheap 'stocking filler' type things. Remembering any specific games is something I can’t do which I think probably demonstrates even back then these were hardly things that brought much enjoyment beyond a couple of minutes at most. Probably the LCD game I remember most was one my neighbour had when I used to go there playing with her kids when I was really young, I remember she had this one that had multiple games in one and I think the one I remember most was a simplistic driving game where you had to avoid the cars that would appear in front of you and see how long you could keep going before you crash. I think the next big LCD game I remember (and I’m not sure if this really was an LCD game but it definitely looked like it) were during the Tamagotchi craze when I was young. I don’t remember if I ever had an actual Tamagotchi since I think it was used here as the name for anything like them rather than the specific brand, but I do remember winning one on holiday at an arcade, it was one of the very few times I actually managed to collect enough tickets to get a prize. This one stuck out to me particularly as I thought it looked like Yoshi on the box although that wasn't the case in-game. All these years later I discovered it is called Ganbare Ryuta Kun, anyway it was the main one I remember and even if it was a ripoff of Tamagotchi I can’t help having some nostalgia for it.

When it came to Game & Watch itself, I believe the first one I ever got was part of a line called Nintendo Mini Classics and was Mario’s Cement Factory. If I remember right, it was back when my parents decided to follow what my Aunt did and get a small caravan to stay at this caravan park (that despite how it sounds was really like a nice holiday place than some rundown parking lot or something) rather than go away on holiday each year. We did it for a short while before ultimately deciding we weren’t as into it as my Aunt’s family was but I still remember a fair few things there, such as playing through probably the worst game I’ve ever played (The Fellowship of the Ring on GBA) there as well as how my Cousins found a copy of Rayman on GBA underneath their Caravan one year. Anyway, I do vaguely remember playing this game a bit when I was bored but I think eventually the novelty ran out for me with it. The game was still to me an interesting thing I’d never heard of before so I was glad I got it though even if it wasn't that exciting to play. Sometime later I remember when I was really into Donkey Kong 96 on the Game Boy being interested in if there were any other games with Mario facing the original Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr and reading in the games magazine I had about Game & Watch Gallery (possibly 3 but it might have been 2). I was interested in it because DK Jr actually appeared, however I remember when I finally had a chance to buy it in the store the GBA was coming out and I decided I wanted that more, which in hindsight I think was probably the best choice. When the Gamecube came out I first saw Mr Game & Watch and I don’t know honestly what I thought of him beyond he was meant to replicate arcade games or something. I do remember the music from his stage did pique my curiosity with how mysterious it was but I think it took me a fair bit of time to realise his relation to that Mario’s Cement Factory game I had. It didn’t help that the physical Game & Watch in Smash Bros (where the stage takes place) didn’t look anything like the Nintendo Mini Classics version I had, which was more like a tiny version of a Game Boy.

I did vaguely remember hearing of Game & Watch Gallery 4 in magazines but I think I’d lost interest at this point beyond finding it neat. The Spriters Resource did pique my curiosity a bit with how many of the games had unusual characters like Luigi boxing a Wiggler, however it was only when I decided to do my Smash playthrough I actually got the game and only in that case because I learnt the game had the Modern versions (where the games star various Mario characters) and Classic versions which recreate the original Game & Watch, which was far easier than tracking down the actual individual consoles.

My Smash Playthrough.

I believe looking back at posts I’ve made so far this is the second game that doesn’t really have a clear ‘ending’ after Dr. Mario that I’ve played so far. This was what I believed in any case when playing the game so therefore I decided to have a specific goal to work towards which is what I’ve done with ‘endless’ games on my list such as getting some specific item or unlocking something specific. In this case the game I aimed to unlock was Octopus since it made sense as a ‘final boss’ of sorts. Octopus required 50 points to unlock, in the game points are represented by stars you get for each game which you are awarded for every 200 you get in the score in a game. Honestly, this was fairly irritating with some games giving points away fairly easily but having a limit on 5 stars I believe, this means you have to try and build up the points on other games that can be a lot slower and more difficult, not to mention getting a game over means you’ll have to start from a score of 0 again. It was due to this in order to maintain my sanity I went with unlocking Octopus rather than getting the 220 points required to unlock everything in the game. I have learnt also that credits are unlocked with 170 points and cast credits with 220 so technically there is an ‘ending’ to this game.

 Of the games available my favourites were probably Donkey Kong Jr which is a recreation of the original arcade game, I definitely preferred the Modern version of this as it was fun seeing DK Jr dealing with Mario enemies such as Goombas and Bullet Bills. Chef I remember could be somewhat addicting in both versions with you having to keep catching food items in a frying pan and throwing them in the air trying to avoid any of them landing on the floor. Fire is a fairly classic Game & Watch title although I feel like I’ll probably go over that more when it comes to the Game & Watch stage down the line. I also found Rain Shower surprisingly fun mostly because I always liked how old arcade games took such mundane activities and made a game out of them. In this case in the classic version you have clothes on a clothesline with raindrops falling down and you have to pull the clothes along the line to avoid the drops of rain. Since it was the one I wanted to unlock as my last, Octopus is a pretty fun game and fitting for a ‘final boss’, this game involves you taking treasure from below an Octopus and having to avoid its tentacles. I enjoyed both the Modern and Classic versions of this game and I felt the Modern version was easier and if I was willing to put the time in would likely have let me get a lot of points. The final game I want to mention is probably my favourite being Boxing, granted this isn’t due to the original Game & Watch version which was fairly bland but the Modern version which involves Luigi boxing against a Wiggler (which is funny to see with boxing gloves), Big Boo who seems to use a smaller Boo as its glove and finally Waluigi. It’s funny to me seeing Luigi of all characters being chosen for this game.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Mr Game & Watch in Smash.

What makes Mr Game & Watch particularly difficult is that every single one of his moves references a specific game. Due to this I decided for a specific game to represent him I had to choose one which covers his main moves, in this case Game & Watch Gallery 4. The games represented in G&WG4 that are also in his moveset in Smash are Manhole, Fire Attack (Which has a bit of history to it as earlier versions had the attackers as Native Americans with a feather on their head which was initially in Super Smash Bros Ultimate but removed before release and in Game & Watch Gallery 4 the feather is also removed so this version matches Smash better than the original versions), Octopus (both for the Final Smash with the Octopus itself and the Up Smash which has Mr Game & Watch doing a headbutt with a diving helmet from the game), Parachute and Fire (interestingly originally this move referenced just Parachute with Mr Game & Watch using a parachute as an attack, but in later games his up special had him get trampolined up by Firemen which references Fire before using the parachute when falling from it), Mario’s Cement Factory (although the object he uses in this looks more similar to one from Mario Bros than Mario’s Cement Factory), Donkey Kong Jr, Alarm (he uses a bell which matches with the Alarms on each game which have a character ring a bell when the timer goes off), Chef, Tropical Fish, and finally Mario’s Bombs Away (a bizarre game that has a lot more colour than other Game & Watch games, has Mario very clearly defined but also is a game that seems to be set during the Vietnam War with Mario as a soldier, meaning yes, Mario is a Vietnam veteran.)

This is definitely not every single game Mr Game & Watch references and through writing this post I’ve realised that I should probably look into some of the other games as Game & Watch as a whole is a bit of a blind spot on my list that I haven’t represented as well as I could have. I think for some of Mr Game & Watch’s alternate costumes I might look into finding the other games represented in his moveset to add to my list now.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to the Super Mario Wiki and the Nintendo Wiki for additional information.

Screenshots were taken by me using Miiverse.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Fire Emblem Binding Blade Playthrough

Fighter: Roy.

Game: Fire Emblem The Binding Blade, Game Boy Advance. First Released on March 29th 2002.

ENTRY WARNING: This post will contain spoilers for Fire Emblem 6, I do my best to avoid spoiling plot elements of Fire Emblem 7 but it is possible to infer things from the details I give since that game is a prequel to 6. I will also use read-more as most of the screenshots for this game are from the late-game so more spoilery than the usual pictures I use.

Fighter Bio.

In the continent of Elibe, Roy was born to the Marquess of Pherae, Eliwood in the Lycian League. Roy knew little of his Mother who died shortly after his birth, he was brought up alongside Wolt who is considered his ‘milk-brother’. At the age of Ten he travelled with his Father to meet Eliwood’s best friend Hector the marquess of Ostia, the most powerful state of the Lycian League where Roy met and became close friends with Hector’s daughter Lilina. Five years later Roy was studying in Ostia when he was summoned home following news that Eliwood had fallen ill. Lilina was visiting Pherea at the time but soon found she had to barricade herself and Eliwood in the castle following a siege by a large bandit mob. Roy returned home and with his small band of knights that had accompanied him fought off the bandits. Meeting with his Father he was asked to lead the forces of Pherea to join the armies of the rest of the Lycian League as Eliwood was too sick to fight and another country, Bern was preparing for war. Eliwood also asked Lilina to return to Ostia so she could take command there whilst her father Hector was rallying the Lycian League’s forces. On his journey to Araphen where the leaders of each part of the Lycian League planned to band together their armies, Roy is asked by a priest called Elen to save her Mistress who is being held hostage by some Bern forces. After saving the noblewoman she reveals herself to be Guinivere the Princess of Bern and younger sister of its King Zephiel. Guinivere sought to negotiate peace with the Lycian League to avoid a bloody war from breaking out and asked Roy to help her meet with the leaders in Araphen which he agreed to.

Roy arrived at Araphen however to find the armies of Lycia had been decimated and most of the leaders killed by an army of dragon riders. Hector met Roy and in his last moments warned him that Bern was in control of powerful dragons as well as entrusting him with the leadership of the remaining Lycian forces in his stead. Roy travelled next to Ostia which had been taken over by traitors who sought an alliance with Bern and had taken over Castle Ostia with Lilina held hostage. Roy lead the first ever successful siege of the castle in Ostia’s history and saved the forces trapped within as well as Lilina. Lilina in return joined with Roy and revealed to him Durandal, a sword once wielded by Eliwood and one of the eight Legendary weapons said to have defeated the Dragons during the war between humans and dragons known as the Scouring over a thousand years earlier. Following this battle Roy faces many more hardships and gradually gains more allies in his fight against Bern and its allies, discovering the other Legendary weapons as he goes as well as the Binding Blade, a sword said to be stronger than any of the Legendary weapons possessing mysterious powers based upon the wielder such as reacting to their desires, healing them and having fire elemental properties. Roy is the only one who has been deemed worthy to wield the blade since it was used in the Scouring a thousand years earlier. Roy also finds himself in command of the army of Etruria, a country that had almost fallen to a traitorous rebellion of those who sought to ally themselves with Bern until Roy’s forces managed to take them down.

Roy learnt from Guinivere how Zephiel’s childhood where his Father had attempted to murder him had led to him losing all faith in humanity and seeking to awaken the Dark Dragon sealed away in the Scouring as well as plunging the continent into a war that would allow Dragonkind to return and wipe humanity away to become the dominant species. With this new knowledge Roy invaded Bern Palace and attempted to reason with Zephiel but could not convince him to change course, leading to Roy having to defeat the King once and for all. Following his defeat, Zephiel’s greatsword Eckesachs reacted to the other Legendary weapons Roy had gathered and revealed to him the way to the Dragon Sanctuary, which contained the final remains of Bern’s army as well as the Dark Dragon Idunn. During his earlier travels Roy had found and helped protect a hidden village in the desert of Nabata called Arcadia. This hidden village was home to the few surviving descendants of the dragons that did not take part in the Scouring war and lived peacefully with humans. Fae, the only pure dragon remaining in Arcadia is a young manakete who eventually joins Eliwoods forces. She along with the rest of Roy’s forces meets Jahn, the only remaining natural dragon in Elibe at Dragon Sanctuary. Jahn informs the group of how the Dark Dragon Idunn was originally a Divine Dragon similar to Fae who was captured by the Dragons warring with humans during the Scouring. They were finding it hard to replenish their forces due to low birth rates in their species and came up with a plan, they turned Idunn into a Demon Dragon in order for her to produce War Dragons, Dragons created only for War that know nothing other than bloodshed. Even after this Idunn refused to do so and ultimately it took her heart being completely destroyed turning her into a mindless husk for the Dragons to finally begin their plan. It was too late by then however and when Hartmut the Champion who wielded the Binding Blade during the Scouring confronted Idunn and learnt of her history he took pity on her, through this the Binding Blade instead of killing her in their confrontation merely put her to sleep and sealed her away for a thousand years, until she was unsealed by King Zephiel.

Having heard all of this, Fae feared she could end up sharing the same fate as Idunn and become a monster too. Roy reassures Fae that he believes both she and Idunn can avoid that fate and realises he cannot kill Idunn but instead wishes to save her soul. With his will and the power of the Binding Blade he fights through Jahn’s War Dragons as well as Jahn himself before facing Idunn. Defeating her Roy manages to restore her soul with the power of the Binding Blade and helps her along with Fae to disappear to Arcadia where she can begin a new life with Fae’s help and friendship. Eventually Fae makes her laugh for the first time in thousands of years suggesting she is finally beginning to regain her true self. Following the war, Roy first attends the crowning of Guinivere as the new Queen of Bern before he returns home and eventually becomes the new Marquess of Pherae. Lilina also returns to Ostia and manages to unite all of Lycia becoming its Queen. Roy marries Lilina becoming the King Consort with the continent finding peace.

Despite his young age of 15 Roy is a capable leader who manages to build a large loyal army during his journey. His youth does make him often doubt himself and whether he should be in the position he is but his sense of duty and commitment to his allies and loved ones results in him not backing down. It is also this occasional lack of confidence that gives him the compassion and ability to hear his enemies out that helps him save possible allies as well as some of his enemies. He can be fairly cunning, managing to see through a couple of characters who are allies or enemies in their attempts to trick him. Roy is very loyal to his friends not caring about their social standing, he also is not particularly good at dealing with romantic feelings others have for him, for example not picking up on Lilina’s obvious fondness for him until after his journey has ended. Roy begins as a lord with the ability to use Rapiers exclusive to him, this means he has an advantage against cavalry and armoured units. In the early game this is fairly effective however later in the game many cavalry and armoured enemies have lances which are strong against swords in the weapons triangle which results in Roy having a disadvantage with him being unable to use any other weapon but swords. Roy also struggles as he is unable to promote until very late in the game, due to this he falls behind other units in his army being essentially a weaker Hero unit with low movement and only able to use swords, as well as maxing his stats fairly early since he cannot promote until a set point in the game, meaning he will not gain anything from defeating enemies and is really just stealing exp other units could use. Being a lord Roy is also required to seize thrones on the maps to achieve victory, which means he must go with the rest of the group across the map and therefore be escorted by stronger units. Following him gaining the Binding Blade Roy is able to promote into a Great Lord and becomes a lot stronger. The Binding Blade allows Roy to attack with fire and from two spaces away as well as being strong against dragons. Roy still in his promoted form isn’t as strong as other units who are able to wield the other Legendary weapons and therefore also are good against Dragons, but he is definitely more capable than he was earlier in the game. Roy also benefits from having high supports with other characters that give him some stat boosts that help make him stronger.

Friends: Roy has a loyal following who join his army during his fight against Bern, Wolt and Lilina are close friends from his childhood and he also is close with Cecilia who was his teacher in the past as well as Marcus who is an old knight in service of Pherae and Merlinus, a vassal of Eliwoods who serves as an advisor to Roy. Roy relies on both Merlinus and Marcus’s experience when approaching the situations he faces and trusts them both in their judgement. Roy takes care of Fae as he realises not letting her join his army will likely result in her being captured or worse by enemies and therefore he allows her to help fight, Roy also reassures Fae when she voices her fears of one day becoming an enemy of humanity. Roy helps Princess Guinivere and shares her belief in peace which makes him loyal to her and trust her despite being the Princess of Bern, the enemy nation he is fighting against. Also since I feel it is an important addition that Shadow Dragon did not have in the series and relates to relationships, I’d like to add this game is the first on my list that has the support system. With this system certain characters who spend a lot of time close to each other on the battlefield build up affinity and when able to can have support conversations where they build their bonds with each other. Roy is able to support with the joint most characters in the game alongside Lilina. There are various female characters who depending on how high a level of support Roy builds with him can marry him in the ending of the game with them being Lilina, Cecilia, Sue, Sophia, Shanna and Larum or alternately he can end the game not marrying any of them. It is generally accepted Lilina is the closest to a canon partner for Roy which is why in his bio I put the ending involving him marrying her.

Enemies/Rivals: Roy is willing to have compassion and try to understand his enemies, but he is also strong in his ideals and willing to fight against those who can be stopped no other way as well as those who hurt innocent people. When it comes to enemies Roy has there are not many who have directly wronged him, his Father is sick but alive and his Mother died of natural causes when he was young, some bandits attempt to attack Pherae early on but are stopped before they harm Eliwood or Lilina. Roy deals with many traitors to Lycia with one of the most notable being Leygance who takes control of Ostia castle and attempts to kill Lilina, however the main instigator of the war and therefore Roy’s main enemy is the country of Bern. The majority of Bern’s highest generals such as Murdock, Brunnya and Galle are all more loyal to their King and country rather than sadistic or evil, Roy still battles them however as he understands the alternative would lead to the destruction of Lycia and as he eventually learns all of humanity. Narcian is probably the worst of the high level generals of Bern but Roy although he definitely has to deal with Narcian’s traps and attacks doesn’t interact with him much. Zephiel is the closest Roy has to an arch-enemy in his quest, Roy learns of Zephiel’s past and attempts to reason with him, however when Zephiel will not accept this claiming all of humanity to be evil, Roy strongly rebukes him with his belief that ultimately mankind is good and calls Zephiel out on losing his faith in not just humanity but by extension himself, fighting and eventually killing the King. Roy’s final enemies are the dragons in the Dragon Sanctuary, the War Dragons are just mindless beasts created for war that Roy takes down, he tries to talk sense to Jahn the Fire Dragon telling him of Arcadia where dragons and humans live in peace. Jahn is surprised by this but ultimately rejects the idea that Dragons and Humans can ever live in peace which results in Roy having to slay him before taking on Idunn. Idunn despite being the ultimate Dark Dragon Roy realises is not his enemy, finding out she was once a Divine Dragon who was twisted until she was left heartless as simply a weapon for other dragons. Roy uses his compassion with the power of the Binding Blade to save Idunn rather than killing her and brings an end to the war.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: Elibe was the first location in the Fire Emblem series to be set on an entirely new unconnected world to the previous Fire Emblem games, due to this despite later crossovers Roy’s story did not intersect or connect with the other characters from the series who appear in Smash Bros. Roy has appeared in spinoff crossovers however appearing as an Einherjar in the land of Ylisse which are cards that form into spirits, these are not the actual characters however so this does not mean Roy himself experienced these events, however the real Chrom, Lucina and Robin met with and fought alongside the Einherjar version of Roy. This also meant that Roy appeared alongside the other Einherjar such as Marth and Ike who similarly weren’t the actual characters. Roy also appeared alongside Marth, Lucina, Robin and Ike as illusions in Fire Emblem Echoes Shadows of Valentia where they would fight alongside Alm and Celica the Lords of that game. Roy also appeared alongside Marth, Ike, Lucina, Robin, Chrom, Corrin and Byleth as an Emblem, spirits contained within special rings that lend their power to those who wear them. These Emblems are explicitly not the original characters but essentially echoes of them with their personalities and memories, this does bring together every Fire Emblem character who has appeared as a fighter in Smash Bros however. Finally there’s Fire Emblem Heroes which has versions of the vast majority of Fire Emblem characters from throughout the series including every Lord from the series. These all are recreations once again rather than the actual canon characters being similar to Einherjars and summoned by the Summoner and other characters.

Why this game?

It’s once again a very simple case of this is the only game with Roy in it. Given how this game is not freely available in English however I would definitely have gone for a remake version if it was available and if one does come out one day I will return to it to do another playthrough and possibly write a second post up based on that specifically.

My past with this game.

I went over the story in my entry for Marth but as I said there, Fire Emblem was a series that was first introduced to me through Super Smash Bros. When the first Fire Emblem game left Japan as I said before I believed that Eliwood was Roy with simply a different name and I did not play far enough into the game at the time to see Roy’s actual appearance towards the end of that game. Due to this for a long time I didn’t realise that Roy’s game was actually one that hadn’t left Japan until years later, however when I learnt this I became really interested in the game because I really liked the characters in Eliwood’s game (released here as simply Fire Emblem but in regards to the series referred to as ‘The Blazing Blade’ often) and learning that that game was actually a prequel to Roy’s game made me really interested in seeing what this future version of Elibe would be like. I believe around the time I learnt about this the concept of prequels was something new to me which I had mostly heard of due to the Star Wars prequels, so I was interested in seeing what happened to Hector, Lyn and Eliwood in Binding Blade. I did remember reading Roy's trophy entry in Melee however unlike Marths it didn't stand out particularly to me.

I would spoil myself later down the line on what did happen and I realised it wasn’t really nice with Lyn not being directly mentioned (and the implication she’d died between games), Hector dying and Eliwood spending the game too ill to fight. I think when I finally got my head around it all however, I found this all really interesting, I had heard that Binding Blade was considered essentially a copy of Marth’s games to the point I’d seen lots of pictures floating around online which point out all the similar characters like how Wolt the archer is essentially Gordin from Shadow Dragon, Marcus is the Jagen and many other similarities. I also remembered hearing a lot about how Roy was possibly the weakest Lord in the series. I did find it cool however in that they took what was in the original game some fairly minor characters with Hector and Eliwood, whose role in the game was just as the sick Father (which was honestly a rarity in a series where Father figures rarely live beyond the prologue) and made them into the main heroes of the next game, not to mention with this being the first game to come outside of Japan they became fairly fondly remembered by fans in the West (Eliwood probably the least out of the three but he’s my personal favourite Lord in the series). I waited a long time similarly to other games such as Mother 3 for an official release, but sadly to this day we still haven’t seen one, with the closest being that on the Switch online if you download the Japanese GBA Online you can play the game in Japanese.

Of course, due to this eventually I decided to try an alternative just to play the game for myself. Admittedly despite this however I did not get far into the game I think reaching Chapter 4 before I ended up playing other games. I think probably the thing that interested me the most with this game was something a bit ridiculous, but having scoured the Fire Emblem wikis as well as sites like Serenes Forest a lot and looking at all the units, classes and characters, honestly the most interesting thing for me in the game was Zephiel, specifically because his class is a King. Due to the whole basic description for someone really unfamiliar with videogames of saying Strategy RPGs are like Chess, I found it interesting in the whole series there was only ever one character whose class was just King with said class being like the third final promotion of a General. Add to that the unique sprites and animations for the King class which didn’t appear in the other GBA games and how I loved the sprites and animations for the Knight and General classes already before and I wanted to play through the game just to see it for myself (even if I’d seen it long before playing myself through youtube videos and things.) Beyond this, it’s hard to really say much more relating to my past with this game without simply talking about its prequel which I plan on going over in a later post, so that’s all I have to say really on this part.

My Smash Playthrough.

For this playthrough as stated earlier I had to use a translation hack in order to play. I only do this when I have no other choice in order to play the game and luckily in recent years a lot of other games I have been able to play officially which back when I started this were not available. I believe sadly as this game is definitely not one of the most fondly remembered ones in the series it will likely be a while before it gets an official release outside of Japan which is a shame, especially given Roy being part of the reason Fire Emblem was first introduced to the West. (It’s been said a few times before on various sites as trivia but Roy technically first appeared in Super Smash Bros Melee before his game released so in a sense that was his ‘original game’.) The version I played was using a pretty old translation by Dark Twilkitri in 2005 going by the notes I have. Given just how long ago now I found this game and how little I tend to take part in the scene I want to make it clear I would have no idea where to look if you wish to play the game yourself, you’ll have to look for yourselves into the matter if you wish to play it, the Fire Emblem Wiki does seem to have a fair bit of information from what I’ve seen so I’d suggest checking there first.

Now, onto the actual playthrough, I’m lucky sometimes that I’ve talked to friends over Discord often about my progress in the various games I played for my list so I’m able to check some of the stuff I said at the time to remind myself. Given this playthrough was in 2017 (which feels like a whole other age at this point) I was glad to be able to remind myself of some things I said back then, starting with how because there was an optional tutorial you could play through, the game just drops you in with little explanation of things. The tutorial is interesting in itself as it involves Roy battling against some friendly soldiers including Bors who is part of your group in the main game whilst being taught the basics by Cecilia. Honestly I wish this sort of thing was done more often with games, I do understand with the sequel as it was the first game released outside of Japan them having the tutorial be part of the story, but I think having tutorials be essentially an optional view into the characters during peaceful times can be a nice little thing to help build up the characters slightly, and helps it being optional in making future playthroughs feel less of a drag at the start. I also commented when playing through about how little damage your units seem to be able to do to the bosses of the first few chapters with me having to hope I’d get a hit with a 20% accuracy hammer just to take the boss down to lower health and gang up with my whole group on them. Again a lot of this is going off of my memory of something around 7 years ago so I can’t remember specifics, but I believe the hit rates in this game are considered somewhat infamously low.

I also realise looking back I went straight from playing Shadow Dragon to this game, that might be why I found it quite a jump in how that game took a lot of the more modern additions to the series compared to Binding Blade which at the time was a lot more simplified in its features compared to FE1-5 being a soft reboot of the series as well as the first handheld game. Similarly to my playthrough of Shadow Dragon and something I have carried on in future Fire Emblem games, when deciding on who to use for my team, I decided to base the team off of the Spotpass characters who appear in Fire Emblem Awakening to represent the game, trying to keep their equipment close to what they had there. For this playthrough I focused on Roy, Lilina, Wolt, Shanna the Pegasus Knight, Lugh the Mage, Raigh the Dark Mage, Celicia a Valkyrie, Sophia a Sorceror and Perceval a Paladin. Of them all Sophia was easily the most difficult character to train up and use on my team, she joins in what I remember being one of the most irritating chapters in the game with really low stats, the chapter requires being completed in a set number of turns with her still alive in order to progress to the gaiden chapter (side chapters which often have the Legendary weapons in them required to get the best ending) and I read this was the best place to level her up which required her getting the final hit on most enemies encountered. Add to that this map being a desert (Which hugely limits most units movement) fog of war which makes it impossible to see much of the map and where enemies are as well as many enemy wyvern riders who can move much faster and further than you and it was an absolute nightmare that I somehow managed to overcome.

My favourite chapter as you can likely guess based on what I said earlier about my interest in the game mostly revolving around Zephiel was the chapter where you storm Bern Castle taking on Zephiel’s forces before battling the King himself. There were some irritating parts such as various mages who will cast beserk on your army causing them to start attacking your other units, however with the right equipment you can overcome this. This chapter also involves Roy having the Binding Blade (called in the translation I used the Sealed Sword) which is his ultimate weapon, so it’s fun finally getting to have Roy use this sword on all the enemy troops and eventually use it in his final battle against Zephiel’s Eckesachs sword. The chapters following this that can only be played if you got all the Legendary weapons are still fun but this chapter was probably the highlight for me personally. Idunn (called Idoun in the translation I used) is often cited as one of the easiest (if not the easiest) final bosses in the series, I can’t honestly remember the battle with her, but given how difficult I’ve remembered others being that might be telling of how easy it was, I did still enjoy it from what I remember though. Honestly as a final boss I’ve grown to quite like Idunn as a concept being essentially a corrupted Divine Dragon in contrast to the other (at this point in the series) final boss Dragons being often Dark Dragons that went against the Light Dragon. Zephiel similar to Garnef in a way was definitely the main driving force of the story overall with Idunn being more a victim than anything which is why I like the final battle involves Roy not trying to kill her but save her from what was done to her.

One final notable thing in the game is there’s a point where you have two different paths you can take, one will result in you fighting in the icy land of Ilia, home to many of the Pegasus Knights in the Elibe games and the other will take place in Sacae, grasslands home to many tribes and in the prequel Lyn. I decided to go with the Ilia route, I’m not really sure why now but I know because I have the exclusive character from that path on my team, I don’t remember there being any real reason for my playthrough however that I picked that route over the Sacae one as I don’t think there’s any additional item or weapon I needed there. The music for the game is pretty nice, probably my favourite tracks are Beyond Distant Skies, Battle for whose sake, Shaman in the Dark and Far from Arcadia, there’s some pretty nice fan remixes as well as official remixes of some of these tracks in later games that are worth listening to. Probably my absolute favourite thing in these games are the battle sprites. It feels a bit hard to talk about them regarding this game specifically as by the time I played it I had already seen them in Blazing Blade and Sacred Stones which was the final GBA Fire Emblem and had even more new sprites leaving this game feeling lacking, however I still have to give credit to Binding Blade as it was the first game to introduce these sprites with all the awesome animations I love. I said before Zephiel’s sprites are unique to this game however and are a highlight along with Roy’s animations which definitely are best when he’s finally wielding the Binding Blade with the fire effects. Honestly probably the only regret I have when it comes to this game getting a remake is it’ll likely be in 3D and therefore lacking this great sprite-work.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Roy in Smash.

Similar to Marth, this was probably the easiest aspect of the game for me because it’s not possible to finish the game without Roy having the Binding Blade and it’s foolish to use anything else with him once he has it (I believe, there may be some well known tactic I’m unaware of like a Light Brand being somehow superior to it, still for me a casual player the Binding Blade was great to have Roy use). It’s irritating that the sword has a limited number of uses, but luckily because you get it so late in the game that likely won’t be an issue, still it is best to not waste it on particularly weak enemies. Roy’s class promotes into a Great Lord when he gets the Binding Blade, but the only difference really is the battle sprite he uses and in that case it’s not very easy to see the difference, his armour is mostly a bit better defined from what I can tell, the main difference being he has unique animations when using the Binding Blade which often involves it using fire elements in the attacks Roy uses.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to the Fire Emblem Wiki and Serenes Forest for additional information such as Spotpass Teams in Awakening, for the translation used I would like to thank Dark Twilkitri for their work.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Waiting with high spirits.

I figured I'd do an off-topic post once I finished all the entries for Gen1 (well I figured I might after doing Gens1-7 but now I realise how long that probably will be.) I've managed to get every single Pokemon on my list now with a lot of help from various people. I plan on crediting each person who's helped me in the entries for the Pokemon they helped me with so for now I'll just say if you happen to see this thank you once again. As for me, since I last posted off-topic, well firstly I spent a long time focusing on getting all the Pokemon I needed, to the point the only games I was playing for about three or four months were Pokemon. I enjoyed it quite a bit gathering every Pokemon I needed although I got very lucky finding help for the final three or so I needed. 2023 was probably the year I completed the least games and my backlog has grown a fair bit with games such as Pikmin 4 and Warioware Get it Together. This whole Pokemon thing however did finally make me focus more on my list again after mostly playing new releases. I will say now I have all the Pokemon I need and after also playing through all the DLC of Pokemon Violet I am already making a lot more progress with my list having played through more than half the amount of games I completed in 2023 already this year.

Speaking of games like Pokemon Violet, I definitely wasn't expecting to be adding new games to my list but in a surprise move four new spirit events have been announced. The first event was what I was hoping for with various recent Nintendo games represented which I want to play/have played anyway so I'm glad I can implement them directly into my list now, however the second was a big surprise with Hades, 13 Sentinels and WBSC eBaseball being added to my list. I'll admit the third was a bit disappointing, I was fine with Pokemon SV getting represented (especially as I've just played through it so was eager to add a couple of new things relevant to my list) but I wish it had been alongside other games such as Fire Emblem Engage and Kirby and the Forgotten Land. I'm curious at this point what the fourth and final one will be, especially as they seem to be putting it off a lot longer than the previous 3 were (which seemed to be biweekly).

I've also made a few changes recently, one thing is I'm currently between jobs which, is something I really need to sort out, I don't want to go on too much about it but I've left a field I've been in for 10 years so I have a lot to think about with regards to what to do next. In more positive news I've finally gotten a new PC, my old one which I'd had for maybe 11 years or so at this point was getting unusable with various issues it kept having so I decided to finally get a new one, it seems this new PC runs a lot better and allows me to possibly play some games I wouldn't dream of playing on my previous one, so it's definitely been a good investment so far. I've managed to transfer everything important over I believe to this new PC although until I'm certain on that I'm still keeping the previous one around, still eventually I'm hoping to give that one to my Mother as she's needed a new one for a while and hopefully the issues I had won't be as much of an issue for her.

That's mostly it, as you may have seen I've just finished every post for Gen 1 of the Pokemon on my list, I'm debating currently whether I want to go straight into Gen 2 or try doing another Fighter post next, if anyone actually reads this blog and has a preference feel free to say so in the comments. As for games, I'm planning on finally after all this time getting back to Tales of Symphonia, I have a bit more of a drive now to play through it following all my time playing Pokemon so I'm hoping this will be like Dragon Quest 6 was for me where my second attempt I get really into it. For games coming up, there's not a lot on the horizon I'm particularly excited for, Peach's Showtime is something I'm looking forward to and I'm sure will be interesting, Fantasy Life i is a pleasant surprise I'm hopeful for but admittedly have a couple of concerns about. I am however very very excited for Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door getting a remake, not only is it joint my second favourite game of all time alongside the original Paper Mario, but after how the series has gone I am so glad to see it getting another release, especially as this means I'll be able to far more easily get screenshots for this blog as I had a fair few things from that game for my list (including things such as the Putrid Pirahna and Mario's Wario and Waluigi colour options.) I'm also looking forward to seeing if there's going to be any additions given a Toad in the trailer who looks unique from any characters in the original game.

Really though, beyond that I'm mostly just hoping for various games, despite what people keep saying about 'too many remasters/ports', honestly some of my most wanted things are ports and remasters, I'm hoping for a remake of Fire Emblem Geneology of the Holy War (along with Thracia possibly as DLC), a port/remaster of Punch-out Wii with Doc Louis's Punch-out included (another of my favourite games of all time and something if it was on Switch I'd be throwing on whenever I want something to just mindlessly play) and finally I want to see Kid Icarus Uprising get a full on remaster with improved controls. I realise I'm asking a lot here, but I'd be ecstatic to just get one of these happen.

Finally, I suppose this will be the last month of the Wii U and 3DS online before it shuts down. Pokemon was the only thing I felt I really needed to get done before the shutdown, however I think I should have a look into anything else, I can play Federation Force and Triforce Heroes in single player, however if I can play online with others before the shutdown I would like to so I'll have to see if I can organise something.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Pokemon Gen 1 Semi-Playthrough (Part 5)

Pokemon: Weepinbell.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Melee Opening.

Moves: None.

My feelings on it: Earlier in Arbok’s entry I said it was the last of Team Rocket’s Kanto Pokemon. When posting that entry on the blog I realised I’d made a mistake in saying that, Team Rocket did have two other Pokemon during the Indigo League, however they appeared so rarely initially that I almost forgot this was the case. When looking up about it to remind myself, I realised James Weepinbell or rather Victreebel had such a bizarre story I felt I had to go over it. It appeared after a flashback referencing James catching it off-screen and taking it to Butch and Cassidy (Team Rocket’s Rivals) who were pretending to run a daycare but actually planning on stealing all the Pokemon left with them for Team Rocket. They evolved Weepinbell into Victreebel to make it stronger and when James found it again it affectionately let out a high-pitched scream and bit onto the top half of his body. This became a running gag and Victreebel didn’t do too much for a bit before becoming more commonly used in the Orange Islands and Johto. Then Jessie and Meowth forced James to trade Victreebel for a Weepinbell that knew Sweet Scent for one of their schemes. At first James was heartbroken however he soon grew to love his new Weepinbell that actually did well against Ash for once. It did so well in fact that it evolved without a leaf stone (required to evolve Weepinbell into Victreebel) after it’s victory. After doing so however it made a huge mistake and bit Jessie, in her anger she outright kicked it off the team. At the same time the Magikarp Salesman (yes the one I mentioned in my Gyarados entry from the games) who James had traded his original Victreebel to similarly got angry at it keep biting him and kicked it away as well, the two smashed into each other in the sky, landed and fell in love leaving together. I guess I’m just recounting the anime here but still that was such a wild ride I’d forgotten about (or might have actually missed although I have vague memories of it) that I just felt the need to mention it, plus it’s more than anything else I could think to say about for Weepinbell overall. I think I might have used it on a team once but I don’t remember it being too great.

How I caught it: From what I remember I believe I caught Bellsprout on Route 15 as well as Oddish. It is possible I came across a Weepinbell but Bellsprout is more the one I seem to remember catching.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Nothing beyond in a Pokeball.

Pokemon: Slowpoke.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Master Spirit.

Moves: Confusion.

My feelings on it: I’d be surprised if there were many people who disliked Slowpoke, I’m a fairly big fan of it. The anime helped with it’s depiction of Slowpoke but it’s also one of those Pokemon where even back in the Gen 1 games it was easy to ‘get’ what it’s like. Even better it was a psychic type back in Gen 1 which made it a very worthwhile Pokemon to add to your team. Slowpoke saw a slightly bigger role in Gen 2 with their appearance in Azalea Town, Slowpoke Well being a landmark of the town. This game also was the first time mention was made of Slowpoke tails being considered a delicacy and it underwent an interesting evolution in the series going from something seen as cruel and evil with Team Rocket doing it in Johto, yet it became something seemingly legally used as food in other regions such as Kalos, Alola and Smoke-Poke Tails (assumedly smoked Slowpoke Tails) are an ingredient that can be used in curries in the Galar region. Honestly I think this is a fairly cool bit of world-building for the series where some regions see this as a terrible practice whilst for others it’s common practice, it’s often mentioned that Slowpoke’s tails can fall off on their own and grow back very quickly. The worst thing about Slowpoke, which is obviously in the name is it’s speed where there are very few Pokemon I believe it will be faster than (barring level differences), but beyond this it's a Pokemon I’ve always liked and used a couple of times.

How I caught it: I believe I caught Slowpoke on the Seafoam Islands, it was fairly easy to encounter so didn’t take long, I caught it in a Pokeball as always.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Slowpoke has a unique role amongst all the other Pokemon in Smash as a Master Spirit. I’ve not really decided yet how I’m going to approach Master Spirits, most likely depending on their role such as shopkeeper spirits requiring me to reference their shops, explorer spirits referencing exploration in their original games etc. For Slowpoke its role is a Dojo spirit who can teach a spirit a ‘style’. Honestly… I’m not that up on the styles and things in World of Light, from what I gather they alter stats so in basic terms a ‘defensive style’ will boost defensive stats over offensive stats. Slowpoke seems somewhat unique as it grants ‘Forgetful style’ which in effect from what I’ve seen restores a spirits stats back to their original levels. I did initially plan to just say that was all there was to say on this, but I realised this actually does match something in the Pokemon games somewhat, the Move Deleter who in earlier games would allow your Pokemon to forget a move, handy for getting rid of HM moves they couldn’t forget otherwise. I don’t know if this was a reference to that or just simply Slowpoke being forgetful, but it’s the closest I can think of for a reference to the series. Beyond this I gave Slowpoke Confusion as a move which I believe is being referenced in it’s spirit battle as your controls will suddenly reverse during the battle.

Pokemon: Slowbro.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Melee Opening.

Moves: None.

My feelings on it: So like Slowpoke I like Slowbro. Honestly, Slowbro’s always been an enigma to me, it’s a combination of two Pokemon as it has a Shellder on its tail, the two seemingly both evolve as the Shellder looks different both to it’s regular form as well as its own evolved form Cloyster. The second odd thing about this is it’s said often in Pokedex entries that Slowbro can devolve if the Shellder fell off of it’s tail, this is a mechanic however that has never been used in any of the games for any Pokemon. This whole idea is very interesting and cool to me however, I like Shellder biting into a Slowpoke’s tail and releasing venom into the Slowbro allows it to have more immunity to pain as well as stand on two feet and inspires it slightly beyond its usual temperament as a Slowpoke. I will also mention there’s another evolution for Slowpoke not mentioned in Smash that is fairly different known as Slowking, in this case the Shellder bites onto Slowpoke’s head instead of its tail and its venom releases actually make it far more intelligent to the point it supposedly attempts to solve the mysteries of the world. It’s said this vast intellect however will completely disappear along with all memory of it if the Shellder falls off of Slowking which is a somewhat scary thought honestly. I suppose as I’m going over other forms, I’ll briefly mention that Galarian Slowbro and Slowking are somewhat darker versions of them both with Galarian Slowbro having Shellder biting on its hand which can cause Slowbro a lot of irritation causing it to lash out at anything nearby, Galarian Slowking has Shellder covering most of its head with the Shellder being a lot more dominant and actually controlling the Slowpoke as well as apparently making various chants that are undecipherable.

How I caught it: Similarly to Slowpoke I believe I caught another Slowpoke in the Seafoam Islands and then evolved it later.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Nothing beyond in a Pokeball.

Pokemon: Drowzee.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Melee Opening.

Moves: None.

My feelings on it: Drowzee’s an odd Pokemon, it’s actually fairly accurate to what its based on being a tapir, also I didn’t know before but assumed it had some mythological reference which it turns out is the case with baku in Japanese myth being a creature (commonly depicted as a tapir) that eats bad dreams. What’s interesting is Drowzee’s often depicted as somewhat sinister (especially in the anime) in it’s ability to eat dreams, however it seems like in mythology it’s actually somewhat more friendly being something children call on to help take away bad dreams, there is a risk however in calling upon it too often as this can build its hunger to the point that it might also eat a person’s hopes and desires. In a way this has been the most interesting I’ve found Drowzee ever after learning this, it’s a shame this more pleasant side of Drowzee seems less emphasized however with it apparently preferring to eat nice dreams over bad dreams and it’s somewhat creepy aspects such as finding children’s dreams tastier as well as apparently your nose itching during the night meaning you’ve likely had a Drowzee eating your dreams through it. There is a nice aspect in that it apparently shares it’s favourite dreams with those it trusts but it’s definitely not as friendly sounding as the baku seems to be. I suppose I should briefly mention it’s more notorious evolved form, if Drowzee’s somewhat creepy Hypno is undoubtedly so, it’s said to hide away from humans and lie in wait for victims who it puts to sleep and steals their dreams. It’s also said that Hypnos have been known to kidnap people who’s dreams it likes and there apparently was even a case of one taking a child away with hypnosis. I mentioned in Cubone’s entry about it from what I’ve seen not being too involved in the creepypasta Lavender Town sorts of things, Hypno is front and centre in these sorts of stories however and honestly it’s not that far from how creepy stories about them in canon are. I realise here I’ve mentioned more about the mythology behind Drowzee and Hypnos whole… thing, but really this is the most interesting thing I have to say about Drowzee and way more than I was expecting to cover.

How I caught it: It’s funny, I had one route in mind when it came to Drowzee similar to a couple of other Pokemon I associate certain routes with, but then I realised after looking it up this route is the only one Drowzee is found in Gen 1 being Route 11. Naturally this means I caught Drowzee here with a Pokeball as always.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Nothing beyond in a Pokeball.

Pokemon: Krabby.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Melee Opening.

Moves: None.

My feelings on it: This is a Pokemon that it’s only due to the anime I have affection for, but in this case it’s a lot of affection. Ash’s Krabby was his first Pokemon in the anime to be transferred as he already had 6 on him, this showed off the mechanic from the games as well as implying that Pokemon in the PC are, at least in the anime transferred somewhere else where they’re looked after rather than being stuck forevermore in a PC. Due to this Krabby didn’t look like it would have much to do but this changed with the Indigo League at the end of the Kanto season where Ash decided to use Krabby in battle. It did surprisingly well and fairly quickly evolved into Kingler. Ash’s Kingler was pretty cool managing to do well in a few battles and the voices for Krabby and Kingler I think stuck with a lot of people who grew up with those episodes with me hearing a few people imitate it even years later. It’s due to this I grew a fondness for Krabby and especially Kingler having one on my team in the past. There isn’t much more I have to add beyond this however.

How I caught it: I can’t remember for sure but I believe rather than fishing for one I found a Krabby on the Seafoam Islands. Since I decided on the Pokemon from the Melee intro later I think in this case I specifically went there for Krabby alongside others such as Slowpoke.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Nothing beyond in a Pokeball.

Pokemon: Rhydon.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Melee Opening.

Moves: None.

My feelings on it: Two things come to mind for me when it comes to Rhydon, firstly that it was apparently said by Ken Sugimori to have been one of the first Pokemon ever created, secondly an infamous moment in the anime where Pikachu managed to defeat Blaine’s Rhydon by hitting it’s horn with an electric attack, despite Rhydon even in Gen 1 being immune to electric attacks. It’s interesting on that second point that Rhydon later gained the ability Lightning Rod which attracts electric attacks towards it which it will be unaffected by, whether this was inspired by the infamous moment in the anime I don’t think has ever been mentioned. Honestly Rhydon’s never been a Pokemon I’ve had many thoughts on which is somewhat surprising really now I think about it as I quite like Rhinos, mostly related to my love of Donkey Kong Country and Rambi, it surprises me therefore that I didn’t try to get a Rhyhorn to name Rambi but I don’t remember ever doing so. It did make for a good Pokemon for Giovanni however, although along with others back then it’s quad weakness to water and grass definitely didn’t help it feel intimidating. It was one of those Pokemon that gained another evolution in Gen 4 which I think made it even more fearsome, but I admit I don’t have much knowledge of how good it made it, mostly as it was another trade evolution.

How I caught it: From what I remember I believe I caught Rhydon in Cerulean Cave rather than catching a Rhyhorn and evolving it. I believe I would have caught it simply on the journey to find Mewtwo there rather than searching it out specifically as it wasn’t too uncommon I believe, it did require a little bit of tracking down however.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Nothing beyond in a Pokeball.

Pokemon: Electabuzz.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Melee Opening.

Moves: None.

My feelings on it: Electabuzz is one of those Pokemon I always think of as strong and would try out but I’ve usually gotten something else I prefer by the point they become available so I don’t bother. It doesn’t help that it was originally in Pokemon Red and therefore the version I didn’t have as a kid. My main exposure to it beyond toys was in the anime, it had some pretty odd appearances there. The episode I probably remember most with it in it was where there were two gangs fighting in this town over which would be appointed as an official Pokemon gym. One group had Scyther and the other group had Electabuzz. I remember this episode also introducing this thing that was ignored I think ever since of both Scyther and Electabuzz being sent into a rage when seeing the colour red. Other than this, probably the thing I remember most of Electabuzz is its voice in the anime, I’d advise looking it up if you’ve not heard it before, it’s really something. Electabuzz similar to Rhydon and also Magmar who’s the next entry gained a new evolution in Gen 4. Electivire will actually have an entry later down the line so I won’t comment much more on it, but it definitely is another reason I’ve always seen Electabuzz and Magmar as being more like rivals (with them both also gaining a pre-evolution in Gen 2) and why even back in the early days I was always surprised they went for Scyther rather than Magmar for that anime episode.

How I caught it: As you can see, similarly to Arbok Electabuzz was one of the few Pokemon entirely exclusive to Pokemon Red not appearing in Yellow or Blue. Due to this I realised the only option I really had was to catch Electabuzz in Pokemon Crystal. I caught it on Route 10 in Kanto which makes sense as in Pokemon Red it was found only in the Power Plant which was on Route 10, however as in Pokemon Crystal the building no longer has wild Pokemon it instead appears in the grass outside on Route 10.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Nothing beyond in a Pokeball.

Pokemon: Magmar.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Melee Opening.

Moves: None.

My feelings on it: Magmar is a Pokemon I always thought was meant to be some amazing uber powerful monster. The reason for this was the episode of the anime where it first appeared (I believe) as Blaine’s main Pokemon. I remember how instead of coming out of a Pokeball like most other Pokemon it rose up from the lava surrounding the battlefield and managed to defeat Ash’s Pikachu. Then in the following episode for the first time Ash’s Charizard actually decided to fight for him as it felt like Magmar was a worthy opponent with it being easily one of the best fights in the original series. Magmar was again another Pokemon I wanted to try but rarely had on my team because of how late it appeared. It always felt odd though that Blaine didn’t have a Magmar on his team until Gen 2 not even having one in Pokemon Yellow which changed a lot of gym leader’s teams to be closer to the anime. Apparently this was because the games development happened before Blaine appeared in the anime, however even so I still felt like in Gen 1 Magmar was an obvious choice to go for as part of the fire gym leader’s team that late in the game, especially when instead he has Ponyta and Growlithe along with their evolved forms. Given Magmar only appears in Pokemon Mansion on Cinnabar Island where Blaine’s gym is it feels like an obvious choice. Beyond that Magmar as I said in the last couple of entries had a fair few similarities to Electabuzz only as a fire type, it gained a pre-evolution in Gen 2 with Magby and in Gen 4 an evolution with Magmortar. Unlike Electivire, Magmortar doesn’t appear in the Smash series so I guess I’ll just say it’s a design that’s grown on me, I used to find it too over the top and I felt it destroyed my image of Magmar being so cool etc, but now I realise how goofy Magmar looks really (although I definitely still like it a lot) especially with it’s weird butt forehead (I realised writing this sometime I have to have an Electabuzz and Magmar and call them Beavis and Butthead one day…) Magmortar does have the cool handcannon arms so that also helps.

How I caught it: As I decided to cover the Pokemon in the Melee opening movie later down the line I didn’t run into the problem I did with Weezing of having restarted my Virtual Console copy of Blue before getting the exclusive Pokemon I needed. Due to this I simply had to track down Magmar in Pokemon Mansion, however I do remember after looking it up realising I had the best chance of finding one on the third floor. As I wanted to get it fairly quickly however I ended up going to the very small room you can access easily, so therefore I spent a lot of time just going back and forward in this small room, still eventually I found Magmar and I remember catching it fairly easily in a Pokeball.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Nothing beyond in a Pokeball.

Pokemon: Seel.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokefloat.

Moves: None.

My feelings on it: Seel is often put forward as an example of one of the most unoriginal of early Pokemon, partially just because its name is outright Seal but with two es. Honestly, I can agree, there are other Pokemon that are just versions of animals like Rattata but even then I feel they have a bit more to their design than just being a rat. I still think Seel is fine however, it’s definitely not one of my favourites by a long stretch, but I don’t think every single Pokemon has to be weird or deviate a lot from a real life animal, it does have the horn and tusks afterall. Also, when it comes to seals, I’ve realised after watching videos of them and sea lions in the past how much they can remind me of dogs and Seel specifically has a very ‘doggish’ face, honestly it’s the type of Pokemon that if they were real I would probably like as a pet. Beyond this I really don’t have much to say about Seel.

How I caught it: From what I remember I encountered Seel fairly easily in the Seafoam Islands so there wasn’t much of note with regards to it.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: This is the first of only two Pokemon in Gen 1 who appeared exclusively in the Pokefloats stage. I debated whether to cover them but given I have just so little else to say about Pokefloats to begin with (when it comes to it being based on anything from the games, not what it’s like as a stage) I felt it was worth it to just include the Pokemon that exclusively appear on it. Beyond this, as it’s just a floating platform there’s nothing more to add other than catching it in a Pokeball.

Pokemon: Lickitung.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokefloat.

Moves: Lick.

My feelings on it: I mentioned in Weepinbell’s entry how I forgot there were two other Pokemon in the Indigo League anime that belonged to Team Rocket, this is the second one which belonged to Jessie. I won’t go over it’s whole history like I did with Weepinbell as it’s not that interesting, but I did find it interesting that it’s the only Team Rocket Pokemon that seemingly got to have a happy ending with another trainer, being accidentally traded for a Wobuffet and the trainer seeming fairly happy with Licktung who seemed happy with him. I remember as a kid getting Lickitung and immediately thinking of Yoshi which I would have nicknamed it if it wasn’t for the fact that in Red and Blue it is a Pokemon only available through an in-game trade (similar to Farfetch’d) which means you can’t change its name. I like to look at descriptions of each Pokemon when writing these posts just to remind me of some lore facts relating to them, but honestly reading Lickitung’s is just disgusting with constant comments about how it’s tongue is not only sticky but stinks, this might be one of the rare times hearing more about a Pokemon has put me off it more than I was before.

How I caught it: Despite being an in-game trade Lickitung is available in Pokemon Yellow in Cerulean Cave. I believe I ran into one during my journey through there and caught it then rather than bothering to go back to Blue and do the trade for it.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Initially I thought there would be nothing to add as this is another Pokefloats Pokemon, however I realised somewhat uniquely Lickitung will extend it’s tongue for fighters to fight on as the stage progresses. Due to this I figured the move Lick was worth noting which is already known by Lickitung anyway. I caught it in a Pokeball like everything else.

Credits.

For information on this game I used to research relating to attributes such as movesets etc for Pokemon I must give credit to Bulbapedia, Serebii and SmashWiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using the Photo Club feature in Pokemon Ultra Moon, screenshots using Nintendo Switch in Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Trophy Images taken from SmashWiki. Spirit Images were taken from The Spriters Resource submitted by Random Talking Bush.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Pokemon Gen 1 Semi-Playthrough (Part 4)

Pokemon: Rapidash.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit.

Moves: Flamethrower, Agility.

My feelings on it: Another Pokemon I’m fond of, this is one where the anime episode it was in is always in my mind, in the episode Ash entered a race in place of the character of the day who was injured and could not ride her Ponyta. I remember the race being pretty enjoyable and thinking about it, I’m surprised there’s not really been that many Pokemon race events, especially in the games. I will say I’m a fan of the occasional race in media that’s usually focused on other things, as a kid I loved the podrace in Star Wars (helped by the videogame which I think I likely mentioned in my F-Zero post) and I feel for a filler type event it can be a lot of fun, especially when it gives a chance for characters who are part of the main cast but not the main character to perhaps get a chance to win or something. I bring this up because I liked the race having Misty and Brock also get involved although in this case they both ended up not finishing. You can probably guess as I mentioned Ash entered what happens, he rides Ponyta, looks like he’s going to lose but through determination Ponyta evolves into Rapidash just winning the race. Sure it’s cliché but again for essentially a filler episode it’s one that sticks in my mind and Rapidash is a big part of that. Beyond this, I guess Rapidash and Ponyta are just cool to me in a similar way to Moltres in that they’re horses (or I guess a unicorn) that have flames for a mane and tail which is a nice design. Honestly it’s sort of surprising but also not so that there are so few horse Pokemon. I suppose it makes sense as Ponyta and Rapidash managed to be exactly what you’d expect of a ‘horse Pokemon’ with them being clearly of a certain element whilst fitting both the horse and pony look. I am glad Alola added a new horse with Mudsdale who represents the much heavier more imposing types of horses, plus Ponyta and Rapidash got Galarian forms that definitely bring My Little Pony to mind, although that’s a subject I don’t know if I want to touch. Anyway, main point is I like Ponyta and Rapidash and I’m glad if Let’s Go did anything right it was it let you finally ride one in a game.

How I caught it: So in my mind Ponyta is always found in Pokemon Mansion, therefore when it came to catching one I looked there whilst looking for other Pokemon. As it turned out I realised in Pokemon Yellow Ponyta was in fact specifically only on Route 17 where I ended up catching one. Beyond that there’s not really anything of note to add other than I evolved Ponyta later in Ultra Moon when grinding.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Caught in a Pokeball, for Rapidash I taught it Flamethrower due to the spirit battle involving a Charizard who has the Spicy Curry flame breath (plus Charizard uses Flamethrower anyway) Due to the Charizard in the spirit battle also being a lot faster than usual I decided to represent this with Agility, although I realise it’s more a reference to Rapidash’s base speed being very fast, I still thought it made sense as a move.

Pokemon: Tauros.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit.

Moves: Take Down.

My feelings on it: Tauros is one of those Pokemon where I somewhat like it but have never seen much reason to use it. I believe I possibly used one once on my team in a really old playthrough but I don’t have many memories of it beyond that. It did stand out to me in the anime, perhaps in part because it was infamous for Ash catching a whole herd of them in the Safari Zone episode. That episode was banned outside of Japan due to a character pointing a gun at Ash I believe and never dubbed so with no explanation Ash just suddenly had 30 or so Tauros (I think, don’t remember the exact amount.) I did enjoy its appearances in the Indigo League but yeah beyond that it’s not a Pokemon I have many thoughts on. I guess one final thing I’ll mention where it did stand out actually is in Scarlet and Violet where it is probably one of the scarier wild Pokemon with it charging at you at really fast speeds compared to a lot of other Pokemon.

How I caught it: So I mentioned earlier how other Pokemon in the safari zone were difficult but didn't give me too much trouble, however this is one of the two that were a nightmare to catch. The only thing I had going for me was Tauros having a 10% chance of appearing in Yellow compared to the 4% max chance in the other Gen 1 games. Even with that however it took ages for me to catch Tauros. I can’t remember now whether it was Tauros or the other Pokemon I’ll get to later I got last but either way it was definitely the first ‘wall’ I ran into in my attempt to catch every Pokemon for my list. I managed it in the end but it along with the other Pokemon might have been the most frustrating for me in Gen 1.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Tauros spirit battle involves Bowser charging at high speed and having difficulty stopping which is an obvious reference to Tauros being a bull as well as it’s Pokedex description. The ability to cause damage when running into enemies made Take Down an obvious choice for me to represent this. It was caught in a Safari Ball but as stated in other entries, luckily that became a Pokeball when transferred.

Pokemon: Farfetch’d.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit Battle.

Moves: Cut, Fury Attack, Leek.

My feelings on it: Farfetch’d is the Pokemon I think of when it comes to in-game trades. After Gen 1 I don’t believe there was ever another case in the series where a new Pokemon (as in introduced in that game) was only available as an in-game trade. I definitely am pleased about this because to me the whole fun of Pokemon is having these unique party members you found and raised as well as named yourself. As for Farfetch’d as a Pokemon, it’s one that I feel has benefited from later games, again I’ve never been knowledgeable about the competitive side of the series but Galarian Farfetch’d getting a unique evolution definitely helped make it more interesting to me at any rate. With that said I do like it and how it walks around with its leek-sword as well the ingame explanation behind why there’s so few as being it’s been over hunted. There is another Pokemon on this list later that was in a similar position of being only available as an in-game trade (and I will detail in how I caught Farfetch’d my mistake on this) however as Farfetch’d is the main one I think of when it comes to this, I will mention a little of my thoughts on them here. Personally my favourite form of ingame trades in the series so far actually came from Let’s Go Pikachu and Let’s Go Eevee. I thought the idea of having NPCs who will trade you Alolan variants of Kanto Pokemon was a pretty good idea, it helped make sense in-universe for why you couldn’t just find them in Kanto (I much prefer it to them adding some new island that just happens to have regional variants on it imported in from abroad etc) and beat having actual Pokemon ‘native’ to the region not locked behind in-game trades. I guess also being the die-hard Raichu fan I am, I just want to mention the infamous in-game trade on Cinnabar Island where you trade a Raichu for an Electrode. The old man you traded Raichu to says he was shocked when it evolved despite Raichu not having an evolution. In more recent years it’s been revealed I believe that there was a planned evolution for Raichu which was dropped called Gorochu which was more fearsome looking than Raichu. Some people believe this was a reference to that, however it seems the more likely explanation based on what I read on Serebii was that in the original Japanese release (Pokemon Green and Blue) the in-game trades were different and the NPC would trade his Graveler for a Kadabra, both of which would evolve due to trading which would make his line make more sense.

How I caught it: Since it always stood out as an in-game trade to me I thought this was the best way to go about getting Farfetch’d in Kanto. I later found out when looking into it that Farfetch’d actually appears in the wild in Pokemon Yellow, something I’d never known until doing my playthrough. I still decided to go with DUX the traded Farfectch’d for nostalgia’s sake and just as something different.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: As a trade Pokemon DUX was most likely in a Pokeball, however being from Gen 1 regardless of what ball it might have meant to be in, it was in a Pokeball when transferred. Beyond this, in Farfetch’ds spirit battle it’s represented by Falco with the Lips Stick item, obviously referencing it being a bird and having vegetation as a weapon. Due to the attacks Falco uses with the Lips Stick I felt it best to represent this with attacks such as Cut and Fury Cutter. I was originally unsure about giving Farfetch’d a Leek to hold due to the item only being available in Sword and Shield, but I have just learnt I was mistaken and apparently it first appeared all the way back in Gen 2. I seem to be having a bit of trouble here as somehow I’ve gotten the Leek in the game without realising and yet I can’t find it anywhere, there’s no wild Farfetch’d in Ultra Moon either so I can’t steal one from a wild one, I’ll have to look more into this later I guess.

Pokemon: Gengar.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit Battle.

Moves: Hypnosis, Dream Eater.

My feelings on it: Another Pokemon I rarely had back during Gen 1 because it required a trade to evolve it. I think I did have Gengar maybe once or twice but never as an active member of a team I was using in a playthrough. Gengar’s just a cool Pokemon, it’s not one of my favourites but it’s definitely fairly iconic and would have been useful I’d imagine back in the old days. The only other thing I can think to say, beyond that my Sister had one of those reversible Pokeball plushes I mentioned in Koffing’s entry of Gengar and eventually I ended up with it, is unlike a lot of people it was only in recent years due to the internet I really saw about how people think Gengar looks like Clefable. I don’t think there’s much real meaning to it and it’s most likely just a coincidence, still it’s an interesting theory at any rate and I can see them as being opposites of each other to be sure (especially with the introduction of Fairy types which Clefable became.)

How I caught it: Basically the same way as I caught the Gastly earlier on my list, I caught a second Gastly (didn’t see the point in hunting down a Haunter) and transferred it evolving it in Ultra Moon. The main issue came from the trade evolution, I do have plans to get a second 3DS (or rather a 2DS) sometime just as a backup for if my 3DS ever has any major problems (a constant worry I have) but for now I had to rely on friends online in order to evolve Haunter into Gengar. Since this is the very first entry I’ve gone over which involved help from someone else, I plan on giving full credit and a link to the blogs of those who’ve helped me at the end of posts where I had them. In this case a friend of mine Chips helped me by trading over and trading back a group of Pokemon I needed to evolve with Haunter being amongst them. Since I didn’t want to bother her with having to do so multiple times I decided to get all the Pokemon I needed to trade to evolve (including items they needed) together first before we did so.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Once again I caught Gastly in a Pokeball and as stated before evolved it twice into Gengar. For Gengar’s spirit battle it’s represented by a Blue DK with the floor causing you to fall asleep. This is an obvious reference to Gengar’s hypnosis attack and since it always goes with it I decided Dream Eater was best to give Gengar as well.

Pokemon: Gyarados.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit, Trophy.

Moves: Intimidate.

My feelings on it: Gyarados is an example of a Pokemon that my thoughts have changed a lot on over time. Originally I saw it as this amazing Pokemon who was meant to demonstrate how a weak Magikarp can become one of the greatest Pokemon ever, the anime helped this with how often Gyarados would appear as a huge threat in the older episodes often as a result of someone mistreating a Magikarp. In Gen 2 it was I believe the only Pokemon you encounter during the main story in the whole series that will always be a shiny that you can catch, which helped make it feel even more special and amazing. As time went on however and I never had any luck running into a shiny despite my numerous runs through the series, I began to lose much interest in Gyarados. The fact the shiny one was almost meant to be caught like Snorlax (where it had to be defeated or caught to progress the story and beating it meant you couldn’t catch it so it was intended for you to catch it) just made it feel boring to me, honestly thinking about it now, with the online shutdown coming maybe I should make sure to bring the shiny Gyarados forwards. Anyway, as well as that, with more and more Pokemon and more dragons being added in each new generation, Gyarados whilst definitely still a good Pokemon (very good if my skim read of people’s opinions is right) doesn’t have the same impact it did when there were just 151 and only Dragonites line had the dragon typing.

How I caught it: Similar to Dux the Farfetch’d, I decided to make it feel more like a Pokemon linked to the story rather than catching a random Magikarp. I decided to buy the Magikarp from the guy in the Pokemon Centre at Mount Moon who sells you one rather than just catch one with the Old Rod.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: After buying Magikarp I transferred it and trained it up in Ultra Moon in order to evolve it into Gyarados. It has the ability intimidate which references your attack power being lowered in the spirit battle for Gyarados.

Pokemon: Psyduck.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit.

Moves: Confusion.

My feelings on it: Psyduck is another fairly iconic Pokemon thanks mostly to the anime with Misty having an infamous one. Due to this a lot of people tend to think all Psyduck act like Misty’s Psyduck who was often fairly useless but when it got a particularly bad headache could perform huge psychic attacks, on some occasions even winning Misty a battle due to this. I believe similar to Meowth there were Psyducks in the anime who appeared and specifically contrasted Misty’s because they battled like a regular Pokemon, so to be fair it was shown Misty’s was just particularly difficult. The only other thing I guess I can add personally is I suffer from a fair few headaches, I think related to my sinuses but I don’t know for sure, just they can be miserable so honestly I have a huge amount of sympathy for this poor creature that’s apparently constantly suffering from them. Of all Pokemon, I feel this is the one it’s most humane to evolve since Golduck doesn’t seem to suffer any such things. I do admittedly just like Golduck a lot also.

How I caught it: At first I wasn’t really sure and couldn’t even remember where I might have caught Psyduck, however after looking at the places it can be found in Kanto I was surprised to realise that in Pokemon Yellow it can only be caught on Route 6 by surfing on the water. Beyond that I caught it in a Pokeball and don’t really remember any issues with doing so.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Caught in a Pokeball, Psyduck already knew Confusion which I chose in reference to it’s spirit battle where the screen gets flipped upside down as you fight, I felt whilst not really a specific reference it made the most sense in general for Psyduck.

Pokemon: Machamp.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit.

Moves: Dynamic Punch, Submission.

My feelings on it: Machamp’s whole line are Pokemon I like a lot. Machop always felt a little odd how in older artwork it always seemed to have such long arms for how short it was, especially in it’s original Pokemon card artwork I remember. Machoke has always felt like the definitive fighting type to me and similar to Kadabra, due to its trade evolution is one I’ve used on teams in the past despite not evolving it. Machamp similarly is a Pokemon I haven’t used often because of it being a trade evolution, it’s a shame because it’s really cool. The only other thing I really have to add when it comes to Machamp specifically is I think its one of the coolest fighters available in Pokken Tournament and I really enjoyed playing as it in the game (although it wasn’t my main).

How I caught it: I caught a Machop on my trip through Rock Tunnel, I didn’t have to look hard although it did take facing a fair few Zubats first.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Caught in a Pokeball, I taught Machoke two attacks I felt best represented the spirit battle for Machamp which involved Captain Falcon with strengthened elbow and punching attacks as well as him using Falcon Punch a lot. I chose Dynamic Punch to represent the Falcon Punch attack and Submission I chose at first to represent the elbow attacks. I’ve come to realise however Submission is more like a body slam so doesn’t really fit, it’s just in my mind I always associated Machoke’s old Gen 1 sprites with it looking like it’s doing some sort of shoulder barge and it using the Submission attack often as being linked. Since there’s not really an attack specifically involving an elbow and Machamp’s line is known for Submission I decided this was the best option to go with. My friend Chips helped with evolving Machoke into Machamp alongside the others I mentioned earlier.

Pokemon: Metapod.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit.

Moves: String Shot, Harden.

My feelings on it: I feel like this really is a case where everything I could have said about this Pokemon’s line I covered in Butterfree’s entry. I will say Metapod was the first time I really saw a representation of a caterpillar’s cocoon in media and seeing some in real life in years following I thought it was cool how it looked like leaves, but beyond that yeah, the battle between Ash’s Metapod and the Samurai kid’s Metapod in the anime was funny I guess.

How I caught it: So my initial thought was to catch a Metapod since it’s hardly difficult, however I realised this wouldn’t work for what I wanted so I actually caught a Caterpie instead.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: The reason catching a Metapod in the wild wouldn’t work for me was because in the wild they only know Harden for a move. When evolving a Metapod from a Caterpie however it has access to the previous moves Tackle and String Shot. Metapod’s spirit battle has the Yoshi representing it gain defence and keep using it’s shield in order to reference it’s Harden move, however the stage also has the sticky floor hazard which represents String Shot. Fairly simple beyond that.

Pokemon: Pinsir.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit.

Moves: Vice Grip, Guillotine.

My feelings on it: Pinsir is a Pokemon I feel like I see a lot of people like but it just has never particularly interested me. I believe it’s been discovered due to information that’s come out over the past few years that Pinsir was likely intended to get an evolution that was scrapped, and interestingly it seems like possibly Heracross might have instead gotten some aspects of that planned evolution such as having one Rhino-beetle like horn. Pinsir did get a Mega Evolution that was cool, although I’ll admit it was still one of those that never particularly interested me. I feel bad running down Pinsir as much as I am, I know a lot of people seem to quite like it, I just personally always preferred Scyther in Gen 1 and then Heracross to either of them in Gen 2, I definitely wouldn’t pass up a Pinsir when I came across it in the Bug Hunt in Gen 2 however.

How I caught it: So here it is, the final of the difficult Pokemon for me to get in the Safari Zone. Unlike with a couple of others I had no luck with Pinsir, I vaguely remember it even showing up a lot whilst I was searching for others specifically but I just would not have any luck with it. I remember looking up guides and forum discussions, all sorts relating to the best way to catch it. In the end I just got lucky after countless encounters and always just using a safari ball every chance I got rather than bothering with bait or the rocks. It was frustrating but very satisfying when I finally got it.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Honestly, the way I approached Pinsir was silly. Unlike with other Pokemon, I decided to use a move it learnt at level 50 to represent its pincer attacks alongside Vice Grip which honestly was all I really needed. I guess it was because the spirit battle for Pinsir involved the Beetle item which can cause a fast KO if you’re lucky using it’s own pincers to pick up enemies, so I felt like Guillotine was a nice reference, but yeah it took a long time to level it up to learn it. What’s worse is I realise now it would have learnt this at level 30 in Gen 1, granted I’d rather grind in Ultra Moon, but still, honestly Pinsir might have been one of the most frustrating Pokemon I’ve written about so far.

Pokemon: Sandshrew.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit.

Moves: Dig, Rollout.

My feelings on it: So from a Pokemon I get is popular but I’ve never felt much interest in to one I like quite a bit but don’t think is particularly popular (although it’s not unpopular either). I just like Sandshrew and Sandslash, I don’t think they’re considered particularly good Pokemon but I’ve used them a couple of times even in later games. They’re not ones I’d put on my personal team but yeah I always found it a cute Pokemon who’s not useless by any means with it’s ground attacks and Slash attack. I suppose other than that the main memory I have of Sandshrew is the one in the anime with the guy who planned on beating 100 trainers before he actually set out on his journey and had a rough training regime. What’s cool to me is in Pokemon Yellow specifically there were a couple of NPC trainers who seemed to be changed to match certain characters from the anime and it seems like this character was referenced with a Youngster who has just a Sandshrew that knows Fissure (similar to the Sandshrew in the anime) and references restarting his 100 win streak after you beat him.

How I caught it: I believe I caught Sandshrew on Route 4, returning there after reaching Cerulean City specifically to find one. It didn’t take long nor was it difficult to catch so I don’t really remember much about it beyond that.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Sandshrew’s spirit battle has a small yellow Bowser using the Pitfall item most likely in reference to Sandshrew’s dig attack. Beyond this the spirit grants you a Screw Attack item in battle which I believe references Sandshrew’s ability to roll into a ball, due to this I felt Rollout was an obvious choice and taught Sandshrew it along with Dig.

Pokemon: Arcanine.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit.

Moves: Extreme Speed, Flamethrower.

My feelings on it: Arcanine was a Pokemon I was always hugely jealous of others regarding. Most of the Pokemon exclusive to Blue I preferred but Arcanine always seemed like a really cool Pokemon I wanted and as a young kid Vulpix wasn’t the best option. Over the years I’ve come to like Vulpix a lot more but even so I’ve always been somewhat jealous of not having Growlithe back then, sure I could get one easily now but it wouldn’t mean as much as having the only dog Pokemon there was back in Gen 1. On top of this, Arcanine was even more unusual back in Gen 1 because it was always described as a ‘legendary’ Pokemon, despite not being an actual legendary Pokemon, so that always made me even more curious about it thinking it was amazing. The anime didn’t help either with there being this odd engraving in the second ever episode which had four Pokemon on it, the three Legendary Birds and Arcanine for some reason. I suppose with both it and Growlithe gaining new variants in Legends Arceus, it makes a little more sense now the idea of it being seen as a legendary Pokemon, granted it’s far from the only one that has an older Hisuian form. Nowadays I think it’s a cool Pokemon still but I’m not that eager to use one at all and actually I have more fondness as I mentioned for Vulpix and Ninetails of the two.

How I caught it: Since I had Pokemon Blue and Yellow, the only way I could get Growlithe was in the Pokemon Mansion. I remember it being surprisingly irritating, despite having a 20% encounter rate I remember running into more Muks with 4% encounter rates as well as even the odd Koffing (long after I’d finally found the Koffing I needed of course). I did eventually find a Growlithe and caught it in a Pokeball.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Arcanine didn’t have any particular attacks in the spirit battle I felt really worked, the increased running speed for the giant Duck Hunt Dog who represented it would probably have fitted Agility, but I decided as it’s the only move it could learn after evolving that Extreme Speed would be more fitting. The spirit equips you with Spicy Curry Fire Breath which I felt was easy to represent with a Flamethrower attack.

Pokemon: Poliwhirl.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Trophy.

Moves: Hypnosis.

My feelings on it: The first Pokemon on this list who’s exclusively appeared as a trophy only in the Smash series, due to this in most cases I don’t have as much to work with as even if the Spirit Battle doesn’t have any sort of move represented, I can usually infer something based on things such as which character represents them in the fight. In this case there’s a little more to work with which I’ll detail when it comes to its aspects from Smash. Poliwhirl on a whole however is another favourite of mine from Gen 1 and is a part of my personal Gen 1 team. I have a slightly complicated history with frogs, as a young kid I remember we had tadpoles for a bit which we kept in a tank as they grew up and when they became frogs I believe we set them free in someone’s pond or something (this was a long time ago now and I don’t remember specifics of what my parents etc did just that we had them for a time) so I was really fascinated seeing these things go from ‘fish’ into becoming frogs. When I first saw evolution in Pokemon it reminded me of that whole process and so when I saw there was a frog Pokemon I thought it was really cool. The reason this is slightly complicated for me is also because I somewhat have a bit of a fear of frogs, they’re interesting creatures to see but I can’t stand the thought of them jumping at me nor having them touch me, so when I have to go out to deal with something late at night and a frog just happens to be sitting in my way I admit even now I kind of tend to hesitate to go past them, especially if it starts hopping when I get closer. Regardless of that whole situation, I always really liked Poliwag for the whole tadpole aspect and Poliwrath is a Pokemon I think is cool as this fighting frog. Poliwhirl is probably the one I find least interesting but only because it’s the most basic of the three and I still like its design. Politoed is alright, it definitely stands out from the others but due to that I always felt it was sort of odd how Poliwhirl even evolved into it, Bellossum for example has a fair few differences from the others in it’s evolutionary line but it still to me doesn’t feel as radically different to them as Politoed does. It doesn’t help that being a trade evolution, Politoed is another Pokemon I hadn’t used on a team until very recently (and even then only as a member of my Kitakami team.)

How I caught it: Given just how many places Poliwag can be caught I can’t remember that clearly where I caught Poliwhirl initially, however given the Good Rod is needed to catch Poliwag and how much I like it I feel fairly confident I’d have immediately fished for one after getting the Good Rod in Fuchsia City. Given their high encounter rate I likely caught Poliwag there.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Caught in a Pokeball as always, I evolved Poliwag into Poliwhirl in Ultra Moon through a bit of grinding. I mentioned in a previous section how despite being the first Trophy only Pokemon I still had a move for Poliwhirl to learn, Hypnosis which luckily it already knew when I caught it. The reason this is the case is because similar to previous entries where I mentioned it, Poliwhirl’s trophy description mentions Hypnosis, or to be more specific Poliwhirl using the swirl on its stomach to send enemies to sleep which I feel is a close enough reference to justify it.

Pokemon: Bulbasaur.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Trophy.

Moves: None.

My feelings on it: I already mentioned in Venusaur’s entry that Bulbasaur’s my favourite Starter in Kanto (including Pikachu specifically because the starter one won’t evolve into Raichu which makes it no contest to Bulbasaur in my eyes.) so I won’t go on about that too much. Bulbasaur was a key member of Ash’s team in the original anime although it definitely wasn’t as popular as Ash’s Squirtle with the whole Squirtle Squad thing or Charizard (just because it’s Charizard and Ash’s one was probably a big part of why it became so popular). I do like it had a bit of character still being probably the most jaded of them with how many abandoned Pokemon it had lived with before meeting Ash and how in the episode where the Pokemon talk it believes Ash abandoned them. I like Bulbasaur but honestly I’m pleased Ivysaur became playable over it, firstly because I don’t like how much Smash has historically taken more from the anime than the games and secondly I like seeing an unexpected character who’s not so different as to be outright disappointing get represented, but I’ll save any more about this for Ivysaur’s actual fighter post. The only other thing I have to mention is back when I was very young I had a Pikachu plush that I’d like to walk around with in a backpack when playing and things, I’d rarely get plushes so never really got another Pokemon one (besides those reversible Pokeball plushes I mentioned in an earlier entry) however when on a school trip I remember we were at a place with a crane machine and I actually managed to win a Bulbasaur plush (probably the only time I’ve ever won on one of those things) so with this Bulbasaur solidified it’s position as one of my personal favourites and always has a place on my personal team.

How I caught it: I used the same method as mentioned in other starter’s entries to get this Bulbasaur.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: As a trophy Pokemon there are no moves or anything mentioned in it’s description. I did decide however to teach it the same moves Ivysaur has in Smash. The reason for this is simply that I always felt if we were to ever see every Smash Fighter get a full on alt costume, I feel like of all evolutions for Pokemon Bulbasaur would probably be the easiest one to have as an alt for Ivysaur.

Pokemon: Oddish.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Melee Opening.

Moves: None.

My feelings on it: So, I’d done my list, almost gotten every single Pokemon for Kanto and was feeling pretty good about it, then I made the mistake of checking the Smash wiki to see if I’d missed certain ones and was surprised to see a Pokemon appear as a suggestion in the search bar not on my list (I can’t remember which.) I searched for that Pokemon and find a page called ‘list of Pokemon’, so I scan through the list and I see it, that Pokemon with their appearance in Melee. Where did they appear in Melee? In the opening movie for the scene with a ton of Pokemon shown for a couple of seconds. The sensible part of me said ‘just leave it, you’ve gone as far as getting trophies, even Pokemon only represented in a spirit battle, you’ve done enough!’ whilst the other part of me simply said ‘gotta catch em all’. You can see which part won and that’s why Oddish is now getting an entry. Honestly, that whole spiel just now going over me choosing to cover Pokemon who only appeared in the opening movie in Melee is more than I could ever think to say about Oddish who, well it’s a cute Pokemon and whenever I see a plant bulb with leaves like it, I always think of Oddish, but beyond that I really can’t think of anything else to say on. It helps it wasn’t in Blue and I chose Bulbasaur so often it wouldn’t have made sense to add to my team anyway, yeah I don’t dislike it or anything but it’s whole line is one I feel fairly indifferent to.

How I caught it: I believe I caught it on Route 15, that route always tends to make me think of Oddish and it’d be the first one I’d have been likely to have encountered one in based on my journey through the region when playing.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Just like the trophies I have nothing to add, only this time there’s not even a Trophy description to take anything from.

Pokemon: Machop.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Melee Opening.

Moves: None.

My feelings on it: So, originally I was planning on saying a bit more on Machamp relating to its pre-evolutions, however realising Machop would come up later on the list I decided to save that for now. I like Machop along with the rest of its line as I stated in Machamp’s entry, one thing for me in particular however when it comes to Machamp’s earlier evolutions is that when I first saw them, they always made me think of certain Kremling enemies from the Donkey Kong series. I often nickname them Krusha just because of how similar I always found Machoke to the Kremling of the same name. Machop wasn’t as reminiscent but I did tend to think of a somewhat obscure Kremling from DK64 called Kosha as slightly similar (granted nowhere near as close as with Machoke and Krusha) being small (Although sometimes bigger than the Kongs despite still looking puny compared to other Kremlings) but being also strong enough to carry a giant club ten times the size of it. Beyond that, with it’s name Karate Chop is always a move I’ve associated more with Machop than it’s evolutions, but that’s all I have left to say really.

How I caught it: Similar to Machamp I believe I caught this Machop in Rock Tunnel, unlike with Machamp however, as I decided to look for Pokemon from the Melee opening movie later down the line I had to go back on myself to find this second Machop. I suppose the only thing to add is Rock Tunnel’s easily one of the most annoying places in Kanto to me, not just because you have to use Cut and then Flash to get to and through the place, but also because the Pokemon Center that’s just outside can’t be flown to (in Gen 1) which means having to go through cutting down that branch from Cerulean everytime you want to go back there.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Nothing to add here, I used a Pokeball but yeah that’s it really.

Credits.

For information on this game I used to research relating to attributes such as movesets etc for Pokemon I must give credit to Bulbapedia, Serebii and SmashWiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using the Photo Club feature in Pokemon Ultra Moon, screenshots using Nintendo Switch in Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Trophy Images taken from SmashWiki. Spirit Images were taken from The Spriters Resource submitted by Random Talking Bush.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Pokemon Gen 1 Semi-Playthrough (Part 3)

For context on what this post is about please see the first part where I detail it.

Pokemon: Pidgey.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Background Pokemon, Spirit.

Moves: Fly, Gust.

My feelings on it: The very first common flying type Pokemon in the series, I always tend to be a fan of the common flying types in each region (although definitely not all of them) and Pidgey was the first. It’s either this or Rattata that you’ll first encounter in the very first Pokemon game meaning it will likely be the very first Pokemon people who were there at the very beginning of the series ever caught. I wish I could remember which I caught first, this or Rattata but I know of the two Pidgey is definitely the one I prefer and it’s part of my personal Kanto team. Definitely not the best flying type and there’s later common bird Pokemon that I like that are definitely better, but it still holds a sentimental place in my heart. When it comes to the anime it’s interesting to me that Ash never actually caught a Pidgey despite it being the obvious choice for a trainer starting their journey when adapting Gen 1, instead Ash tries and fails to capture it and then later actually catches Pidgeotto its evolution, meaning he never has a Pidgey on his team. It’s due to this in Pokemon Yellow they likely added a small chance of encountering a wild Pidgeotto in Viridian Forest, just like Ash found and caught in the anime. I am glad despite this and how often the anime influenced Pokemon in the Smash series that Pidgey was chosen to appear in the background of the Saffron City stage, it makes more sense given how common they are in the wild of Kanto, even if Pidgeotto does appear more commonly in later locations.

How I caught it: Since they appear almost everywhere, I believe I actually caught Pidgey around Route 6, just because it was close to Saffron City. Since it’s so common and has a high catch rate there wasn’t really anything else of note.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: I caught Pidgey in a regular Pokeball. Since the only thing it does in its appearance as a background element in Smash Bros is fly past I chose to teach Pidgey Fly. In the Pidgey spirit battle, one of the stage hazards is high wind which is a fairly obvious reference to Gust, since Pidgey knew Gust already when caught there wasn’t much else I needed to do with it.

Pokemon: Fearow.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Background Pokemon.

Moves: Fly.

My feelings on it: Fearow’s another Pokemon that perhaps has been overly villainized due to the anime, often Spearow, its pre-evolution is portrayed as a lot more aggressive than Pidgey and the image of a flock of them attacking Ash and Pikachu in the very first episode has become fairly iconic. When it comes to the games Fearow’s just like any other Pokemon although it seems to be slightly more offense focused than the Pidgey line. My personal feeling on Fearow is it’s interesting but not one I tend to really go for as I prefer Pidgey.

How I caught it: I believe I caught Spearow fairly early in my journey at Route 22, I fought the rival battle there but lost and decided to just carry on through Viridian Forest rather than grind to win a rematch.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: I caught Spearow in a regular Pokeball and trained it up in Ultra Moon to evolve it. Fearow only appears as a background element in Smash Bros so due to this Fly was the only move I needed to teach it.

Pokemon: Butterfree.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Background Pokemon.

Moves: Fly.

My feelings on it: One of the biggest examples to me of a Pokemon that I really liked as a kid but now whilst I like it, I never bother really using. It’s interesting that this is somewhat similar in-universe because all the bug catchers tend to be kids who appear a lot early game but become a lot rarer later down the road. Of course I get it’s intentional, bug types tend to evolve very quickly and are good for early game but fall off later down the line and Butterfree’s somewhat of an example of that. I think unlike Beedrill the main thing going for Buttefree in Gen 1 was it learning Confusion, this helped a lot against Brock because of how high the defence of his Onix was therefore preventing a lot of the physical attacks the majority of Pokemon available before facing him used from doing much to him. Butterfree was also useful for the various status effects it could inflict with Poisonpowder, Stun Spore and Sleep Powder being very useful. I remember in the early days keeping a Butterfree on my team through the whole game, but it took me a couple of playthroughs before I finally beat the Elite 4, so chances are it was only after switching it up I really got there. Of course, the anime also played a big part in all this, Caterpie was the very first Pokemon Ash caught and when it left his team as a Butterfree to go with another wild Butterfree it was probably one of the most emotional episodes of the first series and left a big impact I think on a lot of people, thus cementing it in the memories of a lot of early fans.

How I caught it: I caught it the traditional way of catching a Caterpie on the journey through Viridian Forest. I didn’t actually evolve it until I’d transferred it over to Ultra Moon but it didn’t take long to do so.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Caught in a regular Pokeball, Butterfree’s only appearance in the Smash series is as a background character flying past on Saffron City, however unlike the other two examples and despite being a flying type, Butterfree can’t learn the move Fly. Due to this there really wasn’t any move I could teach it so I just kept it with its standard moveset.

Pokemon: Cubone.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Background Pokemon, Spirit.

Moves: Bonemerang.

My feelings on it: Cubone is a Pokemon that I think is a fan favourite but maybe not as talked about as a lot of others. I think due to it having an actual story in Gen 1 (something barely any other regular Pokemon really gets) and that story being so sad as well as despite having a skull on its head it still being cute it stuck in a lot of people’s memories. It also manages to avoid the overall ‘creepypasta’ reputation Lavender Town where its story takes place in has as a whole from what I’ve seen despite being a big part of the plot there. Cubone’s mother is also one of the very few Pokemon in the whole series to be specifically killed and I think the only one killed by one of the evil teams (not to say later teams wouldn’t do some pretty nasty stuff to Pokemon but not from what I remember outright killing them). My feelings on Cubone are that it’s a Pokemon I’ve always been curious to try but just have never had the room on my team to put in when I get the chance to actually catch one.

How I caught it: This was a fairly irritating Pokemon to catch from what I remember, despite going through the Pokemon Tower after using the Silph Scope without a repel I didn’t encounter one when travelling to the top floor for the story, so in the end I had to return here and go through many random encounters before finally finding one. Once I did catching it wasn’t really a problem.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Caught in a Pokeball, Cubone doesn’t do anything in its background appearance in Smash Bros, however in its spirit battle it is represented as a small brown Wolf fighter with a boomerang. This is obviously a reference to Cubone’s signature move Bonemerang and therefore I taught Cubone it.

Pokemon: Dugtrio.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Background Pokemon, Spirit, Trophy.

Moves: Dig, Earthquake, Sand Tomb.

My feelings on it: For the next entry of Pokemon that made me think of Mario at the time I first saw them, Diglett and Dugtrio always made me think of the hills with eyes in the Mario series which is funny as I remember in Pokemon Snap there being three rocky hills that looked like a Dugtrio. Dugtrio is a Pokemon I’ve used a few times and it’s always somewhat surprising to me, when found in Diglett’s Cave amongst the countless Diglett it is probably at a higher level than any of your Pokemon when you first encounter it and can feel like a really powerful addition to your team, especially as it’s really effective against Lt Surge, the Electric Gym Leader who’s in the town near Diglett Cave. Despite feeling like a bit of a cheap gimmick to use against the gym leader I feel like it doesn’t become completely useless later down the line, although it’s definitely not one of the strongest Pokemon available. Other than that and the obvious eternal question of what it looks like underground, the only other thing I always think of with Dugtrio and Diglett are their voices in the anime with “Diglett dig, Diglett dig, Trio Trio Trio, Diglett dig, Diglett dig, Trio Trio Trio.” slowly driving you mad.

How I caught it: I believe I encountered a Dugtrio when travelling through Diglett’s Cave to get a required HM rather than having to look for one so I got lucky not having to look around much. If I hadn’t found one I think I’d have more likely just caught a Diglett and evolved it later.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Because Dugtrio appears in the background of a stage by popping out of the ground, I figured Dig was the best move to really use for that. The spirit battle for Dugtrio has an earthquake effect so the move Earthquake was a fairly obvious choice also, although like with Venusaur I had to wait a while to get the TM for it. After reading through Dugtrio’s Trophy entries in the Smash Bros series I also realised I’d missed a move for it, being Sand Tomb which is mentioned. It was simple enough to teach this to Dugtrio so now I feel it’s complete.

Pokemon: Magnemite.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Background Pokemon.

Moves: N/A

My feelings on it: Another Pokemon I’m fond of, although not enough to choose it for my personal team over Raichu and not one I’d choose to use in Kanto games specifically. Magnemite’s interesting to me because of just how different it became. In Gen 2 it became an Electric Steel type, due to this it became a lot more defensive and can take more of a hit than expected. I’d say overall it’s a Pokemon that’s just gotten better and better as time’s gone on which is why I’ll probably have more to say about a future evolution.

How I caught it: Originally a Pokemon I thought I’d have to wait till I got to the Power Plant to get, I realised in playing Pokemon Yellow it was actually available on Route 10 and was fairly common there too, so catching it was fairly simple. I had made a mistake with my list so I didn’t catch a second one at the time for the next entry however.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: This is the first Pokemon on my list so far where I have no moves to reference whatsoever. This will be the case for some later Pokemon so this section will be more brief for them, but as this is the first I figured I’d say a little more. Magnemite appears in the background of a stage and simply floats by with a couple of others not doing anything of note, not even just sparking a little or anything. Due to this the only real thing I did to relate to Smash Bros was catch it in a regular Pokeball, but even then it doesn’t appear from a Pokeball in its appearance so there’s really nothing beyond catching it I had to do.

Pokemon: Magneton.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit Battle.

Moves: Spark.

My feelings on it: The first Pokemon on this list to be solely a spirit battle, whereas Lapras did have a model that appeared on the map in World of Light, Magneton appears only as a picture, which is why for it I decided to include that image rather than any screenshot from Smash. Despite how much I like Magnemite, Magneton is one that’s never really impressed me that much, although I will say when it’s animated, seeing them swivel around and pull away from each other before returning to formation is cool, but yeah it’s definitely one of those Pokemon where it’s evolution is just adding more of it. Unlike Dugtrio or definitely unlike Weezing however I just don’t find it as appealing, as simple as Dugtrio is at least it always was oddly frowning. All I’ll say in conclusion is I was particularly glad it gained a third evolution in a later generation.

How I caught it: So, I mentioned before I’d made a mistake with my list, and that was I’d somehow missed Magneton has a spirit battle. Due to this I had to go back and add it to my list as well as working out what I needed for it, which resulted in it being a Pokemon I caught after many of the others on my Kanto list. I managed to catch it as a Magneton at the Power Plant which I found when looking for Electabuzz, so it wasn’t that big of a deal to find.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Unlike Magnemite, as it had a spirit battle I had a little more to work with for Magneton, although the only aspect that it had is that it boosts Electric attack. Due to this I simply levelled it up a little until it learnt an electric attack which in Ultra Moon was Spark, it made sense for just a general electric attack which is why I settled for it, also it was caught in a regular Pokeball once again.

Pokemon: Dragonite.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Background Pokemon, Spirit Battle.

Moves: Hurricane.

My feelings on it: Dragonite was one of those Pokemon as a kid I always wanted but could never get, not only because to me getting a Dratini was really tough (even though I realise this isn’t the case at all now) but raising it enough to evolve it felt like an impossible task to me at the time, not helped by me being stuck not able to take on the Elite 4 but not really having decent trainers left to get exp from meaning if I wanted to grind I’d be fighting countless wild Pokemon. Of course, when it comes to the anime Dragonite was made somewhat of a big deal of, probably what stuck out most to me was its appearance (although never identified) as a giant in shadow that appeared when the group met Bill in his only anime appearance. This appearance is what always made me see it as this huge powerful mysterious Pokemon. To be clear I know it’s a fairly decent Pokemon, especially in Gen 1, but nowadays it does look a little goofy to me compared to how I used to think of it. It’s definitely not got a bad design, and as a Pokemon it feels friendly enough to be a Pokemon I’d probably enjoy having (I’ve never had one on a team during a playthrough) however honestly I think Dragonair at least in appearance looks a lot more mysterious and ‘legendary’ so to speak.

How I caught it: I remember catching one after going through a lot of difficulty getting other much rarer Pokemon as well as the Strength HM in the Safari Zone. I considered it a bit of a reward for going through all that as I knew it’d be a lot easier, especially as fishing doesn’t make your time go down as you’re not taking any steps. I do remember having a couple of encounters where it ran but compared to other Pokemon in the Safari Zone it was nowhere near as frustrating.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Despite being a background Pokemon, Dragonite does appear from a Pokeball thrown onto the stage, due to this I wanted to make sure I had one in a regular Pokeball and as I previously stated, luckily Safari Balls in the Virtual Console release appear as regular Pokeballs when transferred. In the Dragonite Spirit battle there’s a heavy wind effect which seems to be a reference to Hurricane, so due to this I taught Dragonite that move.

Pokemon: Arbok.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit.

Moves: Poison Sting, Glare, Intimidate.

My feelings on it: The final of the Team Rocket Trio’s 'main' Pokemon from Gen 1, Arbok is another Pokemon similarly often seen as a ‘villain’, however I must admit it’s not one that’s ever interested me. I remember the main thing I tended to think about with Ekans and Arbok was simply they were usually Pokemon I couldn’t get as I had Blue and Yellow, however I never really felt a want to have them either. I guess the only thing I have to say I even thought about it was how it’s Kobra backwards.

How I caught it: You may notice in the screenshot for this entry, Arbok is not in the Indigo Plateau, the reason for this is once again it was in the only version I didn’t have on Virtual Console, being exclusive to Red. Even if the online store hadn’t shut down by then, I have my limits and I wasn’t going to buy a whole other version for two Pokemon. I did want to try and at least get as close as I could to catching it in the region it first appeared in, so due to this I caught an Ekans in Kanto specifically in Pokemon Crystal, however that doesn’t matter for the background which is why it has the Johto background when I took the picture.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Caught in a regular Pokeball, I chose to teach this Arbok Poison Sting in reference to the poison floor in its spirit battle, but also because Arbok is represented by Ridley who has a lot of attacks that use his tail which I felt matched Poison Sting. Intimidate relates to your attack power being lowered during the battle similar to Arbok’s Intimidate ability. For Glare I honestly can’t remember why I decided to teach it to Arbok as it doesn’t seem to have any relevance to it’s battle, still I had it on my notes so there you go.

Pokemon: Geodude.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit.

Moves: Rock Throw.

My feelings on it: Geodude’s a Pokemon where probably my favourite form of it is its base form, mostly as I just think it’s neat. Graveller’s a little dull and Golem despite being better is another case of it being a trade evolution so a Pokemon I never really had growing up. Also just due to the shape of Geodude’s arms I can’t help but think of Popeye which is definitely a plus. I suppose as they won’t have their own entry the only other thing I want to add personally is that I always remember Golem because I’d been into Pokemon for a bit before the very first Lord of the Rings came out and so when I heard the name Gollum all I could think of was Golem. You can probably think related to this what might come up in a later entry but I guess I’ll hold off that for now. Other than that, it’s a shame Geodude and its evolutions are Ground and Rock as it means they have two major quad-weaknesses, on the other hand it means facing them especially with the amount of them Hikers tend to have is handy exp for Bulbasaur or Squirtle.

How I caught it: Unlike Onix where I couldn’t remember for sure when it’s first encountered, Geodude I knew was Mount Moon because I always remember an NPC outside mentioning tripping over a rock that turned out to be a Geodude. That’s probably the most noteworthy thing about me catching it so yeah.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: So, despite having a spirit battle which usually provides at least one sort of attribute I can use for this, in this case there wasn’t really a clear cut reference other than weakness to water and high defence. The four grey Kirbys representing Geodude use Kirby’s Rock ability but that isn’t really similar to any attack Geodude has. I was debating using Rollout but I figured as it’s essentially dropping a rock on enemies Rock Throw was the better choice to go with. Geodude was captured in a regular Pokeball.

Pokemon: Kangaskhan.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit, Trophy.

Moves: Flamethrower,Mega Evolution.

My feelings on it: Another Pokemon where I never really used it but always found it interesting. Of course the reason behind that is fairly obvious being the baby in its pouch. With many other Pokemon starting small then growing bigger each time they evolved, Kangaskhan was always odd in how it only ever could be found as a mother with a baby in its pouch. It gets to an absurd level where Kangaskhan will hatch out of an egg with a baby in its pouch which raises all sorts of questions. Honestly I wish over all these years they’d have done something more with Kangaskhan, it was a prime candidate for a baby Pokemon in Gold and Silver yet didn’t get one and the only development it’s ever really gotten is the Mega Form where the baby finally leaves the pouch to fight alongside the Mother. Just a very odd Pokemon overall but that’s what I like about it.

How I caught it: A bit of a pain but nowhere near as difficult as the other two Safari Zone Pokemon on my list, mostly because I got lucky and ran into a couple whilst searching for the other two, one of which I managed to catch.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: In the Spirit battle for Kangaskhan the main attribute that seems to be referenced is its Mega form with Bowser representing the Mother and Larry Koopa representing the baby form. Due to this I decided to go this time with something Bowser can do that Kangaskhan also can just for the sake of having a move at all which is teach it Flamethrower. Beyond this being a Safari Zone Pokemon it was caught in a Safari Ball which luckily when transferred becomes a regular Pokeball.

Credits.

For information on this game I used to research relating to attributes such as movesets etc for Pokemon I must give credit to Bulbapedia, Serebii and SmashWiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using the Photo Club feature in Pokemon Ultra Moon, screenshots using Nintendo Switch in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Trophy Images are taken from the SmashWiki and Spirit Images were taken from The Spriters Resource submitted by Random Talking Bush.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Pokemon Gen 1 Semi-Playthrough (Part 2)

For context on what this post is about please see the first part where I detail it.

Pokemon: Charmander.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Stage Hazard.

Moves: Flamethrower.

My feelings on it: When it comes to Charmander specifically, the only real strong feeling I have towards it is related to its appearance in the anime, with it being abandoned by a trainer who promised he’d return for it and it almost dying due to the fire on its tail going out. Due to this episode I tend to think a lot more about its tail fire than for its two evolutions, probably because it’s often portrayed as lot more mellow than them both. Beyond this I don’t have many more thoughts, it’s probably my least favourite of the three starters but it still has a distinctive look and isn’t one I dislike by any means.

How I caught it: Same method for the Kanto starters as I mentioned before, starting a game of Pokemon Blue on Virtual Console, getting to Viridian City and boxing it before using Pokemon Bank to transfer it to Ultra Moon.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: This is the first Pokemon on this list who appears only as a stage hazard. Technically I wouldn’t need to catch it in a Pokeball however for this challenge as I stated in another entry I stuck with Pokeballs and Masterballs for almost everything so unless I mention it, every background, stage hazard and spirit Pokemon on this list I still will go for in a regular Pokeball. Since Charmander’s a starter it doesn’t really matter anyway as it would have been more difficult not to have it in a regular Pokeball. The only other thing to note is the move I taught it of Flamethrower which I did through a TM once I’d transferred it to Ultra Moon, to match its attack as a stage hazard in Smash Bros.

Pokemon: Porygon.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Stage Hazard.

Moves: Tackle.

My feelings on it: Porygon is such an odd Pokemon, a man-made Pokemon created entirely out of programming code, I really like how it looks like an attempt using early 3D to create a simple bird or something. It’s a shame given its whole theme of being a Pokemon that can live in cyberspace there’s not been much done with it, often it appears in games as a gift or prize rather than being found in the wild. I really like the idea later Pokedex entries have of it being used to detect suspicious data in cyberspace, personally I feel like it would be really cool to see a game where interacting with a suspicious PC in some lab or powerplant has you encounter Porygon, similar to some of Rotom’s appearances. Of course, it’s impossible to talk about Porygon without at least referencing its infamous status where the only episode it appeared in of the anime was one which led to apparent hospitalizations in Japan due to flashing strobe effects causing seizure-like symptoms. Due to this the episode was banned and never released outside of Japan in any form, but as well as that Porygon seems to have also been denied any future appearance in any form of Pokemon animation aside from a couple of very brief cameos. I would say this reputation may be why it’s not been really available besides as a gift or prize in a fair few games, however it’s had two evolutions that appeared in later generations which were long after the controversy with the anime episode so if anything it’s had more attention than a few other Pokemon.

How I caught it: So, as I mentioned Porygon is often either a gift in games or a prize, in this case it was a prize, one which I’ve never gotten before because you have to raise 6500 Game Corner coins to get it and although I did enjoy playing the Game Corner slots as a kid, I never gave it much real focus. I looked up various tricks to help with winning money on the slots including the ‘luck factor’ (or something like that) which apparently can happen to certain specific machines. I did manage to get a couple of lucky machines and raised maybe 300 coins, but I soon realized if that was the results of getting a lucky machine in the game just how long this would take. In the end I caved in and did what most people I think do, I waited till I’d beaten the game and used the money I had to buy as many coins as I could. Because of my earlier win I believe it helped me manage to buy the amount I needed first time without having to rebattle the Elite 4 for more money so it wasn’t as irritating as I was anticipating.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: As a prize Pokemon Porygon is already in a regular Pokeball and Tackle was a move it already knew, so overall a very simple Pokemon for me once I got over actually getting the money needed for it.

Pokemon: Chansey.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Stage Hazard, Pokeball Pokemon, Trophy.

Moves: Soft-Boiled, Lucky Egg.

My feelings on it: Another cute Pokemon I like quite a bit. I’ve never had a Chansey in my party but it’s one I always want to try raising, especially in games where it’s not as hard to find (often as a result of its pre evolution being available) I’m not very knowledgeable about a lot of the stats but I know this Pokemon always has had a lot of HP. In a lot of games taking one down can be satisfying watching that HP slowly keep going down. I always find it interesting how when the other two pink cute Pokemon of Kanto (Jigglypuff and Clefairy) got pre evolutions in Gen 2, Chansey instead got an evolution with Blissey, and then in Gen 4 Chansey got its own pre evolution. Chansey was also the only one of the three to remain a Normal type with the other two either gaining a Fairy Type or becoming solely Fairy type.

How I caught it: I got very lucky, this is the very first Pokemon from the Safari Zone on this list and I happened to come across two of them when looking for another Pokemon, with I believe me managing to catch the second one. To explain the Safari Zone, it works differently to every other Pokemon encounter in Kanto, you have a limited amount of time to explore the Safari Zone and you cannot battle the Pokemon you come across. Pokemon in the Safari Zone can run away from you and your options are either using bait which makes them less likely to escape but also makes them harder to catch, throw a rock that makes them angry and more likely to flee but also makes them easier to catch and then there’s simply throwing a Safari Ball to attempt to catch them. As I said my first attempt failed but the second encounter ended in success for me, which is lucky because Chansey is one of the many rare Pokemon found in the Safari Zone and I had already been having a hard time with the others, so having to then find Chansey after spending so long on the others would have been even more draining.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Lucky for me, Safari Balls appear as regular Pokeballs in later games, due to this I didn’t have to worry about the Pokemon I caught not being in a regular Pokeball. Chansey only uses Soft-boiled in Smash Bros, a move it knew already when I caught it so beyond the actual difficulty to catch it, I didn’t have too much else to worry about. I later found out after reading through Chansey’s Trophy descriptions that the Lucky Egg is mentioned as a possible hold item for it, it wasn’t really needed but I felt giving Chansey one was a simple enough addition.

Pokemon: Gastly.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Enemy.

Moves: Night Shade/Toxic?

My feelings on it: The only ghost type Pokemon in Gen 1 (along with its evolutions), probably the biggest memory I have of Gastly is its original Pokemon Card. I remember how it was an early 3D style image with the very simple ball form Gastly has in front of an urban looking wall. Everytime I looked at that card it would always make me think of Wet Dry World from Super Mario 64 with the colour of the sky and that grey wall. It probably helped that Gastly reminded me of the ‘Flame Thrower’ which were just simple black spheres that shot fire in Super Mario 64 that also appeared in Wet Dry World. Beyond that out of the three of them, I felt Gastly was probably the least intimidating looking of its evolutionary line with a sort of happier and goofier feel to it, especially with what I remember of its English voice.

How I caught it: Gastly was fairly simple to catch with the only real issue being how I had to wait before being able to do so. You encounter Gastly fairly early in Lavender Town, however it will only appear disguised as a restless spirit. It’s only through getting the Silph Scope that requires you defeating Team Rocket’s boss for the first time you can actually identify them as Gastly which lets you finally battle and capture them. Once I did that I caught one pretty quickly.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: So once again I caught Gastly in a regular Pokeball, where things get complicated is deciding on what Gastly’s actual moveset should be. Despite appearing as an enemy in Smash Run on 3DS which you’d think would mean it’d use couple of moves, Gastly only ‘attacks’ by making you take damage when coming near it. From its trophy description it makes it sound like this is due to its poisons which to me implies the gas around it is Poison Gas. The problem with this however is despite Gastly being part Poison, it cannot ever learn Poison Gas. Due to this I decided to go with Night Shade which is an attack Gastly’s known for. Night Shade doesn’t really work for the way Gastly damages enemies in Smash Run as it is something that uses a mirage to damage foes rather than being anything to do with its gas. The only alternative I can think of that Gastly can learn is Toxic although it’s not as fitting as Poison Gas would have been. In Smash Run Gastly is not affected by physical attacks and can only be hurt by ranged attacks or items, this is in reference to Ghost types in Pokemon not being affected by Normal type moves so it was not anything I really needed to teach Gastly as it’s a natural ability it has.

Pokemon: Snorlax.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Spirit.

Moves: Bodyslam, Leftovers, Rest, Snore.

My feelings on it: Snorlax is probably one of the most famous Pokemon with it often being referenced in memes and things in the modern day. For my own personal history with it I’ve used Snorlax a fair few times, in the past because when you find it it’s a fairly good level for that stage in the game and when I got older because I realised it was still a good Pokemon to use without really falling off later. It might be due to this I feel I’ve used Snorlax too often at this point and so even if it’s reliable I’m probably a bit tired of it. Snorlax gained a pre-evolution which might have made it a little more interesting to me in later games (I always enjoy having Pokemon that will evolve just for the thrill of feeling I’m watching my team members grow as the journey goes on) but I will detail in Munchlax’s entry later down the line why that never really panned out.

How I caught it: Snorlax is fairly infamous for its role as a roadblock, sleeping on a road in order to prevent you from skipping ahead. It’s only with the Pokeflute you’re able to awaken Snorlax and battle it in order to catch it. There are only two that can be found in Kanto and due to this I always try to catch both regardless of whether I plan on using it or not. In this case I managed to catch both of them and one I’d use often for HM moves later in the game.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: So being a Pokeball Pokemon, I caught it in a regular Pokeball. Snorlax uses the attack Body Slam which from what I remember it learnt fairly easily if it didn’t know it from when I first caught it. The main issue I had with Snorlax was relating to its spirit battle. The spirit battle references its appearance sleeping on a bridge in Kanto with it being a giant King K Rool who stands still on a bridge. This wasn’t something I really had to consider when deciding on attributes for the Snorlax, however what I did have to take into account was K Rool will slowly regain health which is a reference to Leftovers, an item Snorlax in the wild tends to carry where it will slowly heal itself a little each turn using these Leftovers. This item is not in Gen 1 and can be found in Ultra Moon carried by wild Snorlax and Munchlax. Due to this I had to track down a Munchlax then use Thief with my Weavile to hope to steal the item, still it wasn’t too difficult and I soon had Leftovers for Snorlax. I thought that was the end of what I needed to do, however after reading through Snorlax’s Trophy descriptions, I came across mention of it using Rest and Snore, so I had to use a Heart Scale to teach it Snore whilst luckily Snorlax already knew Rest.

Pokemon: Mew.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Trophy.

Moves: Fly, Transform.

My feelings on it: The first Pokemon that wasn’t obtainable in-game and had to be gotten from a special event in the series. Mew has a lot of notable history with it being related to the iconic and fan-favourite Mewtwo, being prominent in the very first movie and being the subject of an infamous playground rumour relating to a inaccessible truck at the port of the SS Anne which was rumoured to have Mew underneath it. Mew was also obtainable through the use of glitches in Gen 1, of which there are far too many and have a lot of steps to achieve to the point I don’t really want to go through them all here. I do vaguely remember going to the house of someone I knew from school in order to get a clone (another glitch) of his Mew, so I did have it back in the original game, however I don’t remember really using it for much and I’m sure I’ve lost that specific Mew now.

How I caught it: You may notice in the picture above unlike the others so far, the background isn’t Indigo Plateau but in fact Lumiose City. This is because this Mew is from a mystery gift event in Pokemon X and Y I did years ago. I cannot remember the details of this Mew but as it was the only option I had for Mew in any form I had to make do with it. There was a way to get Mew for a period in the Virtual Console release of the Gen 1 games, but I missed the date for that so could not get it unfortunately.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Due to this Pokemon being a Mystery Gift one, it is in a Cherish Ball specifically rather than a regular Pokeball. This is irritating for me because Mew is specifically a Pokemon found either in a Pokeball or Masterball in Smash, however I had no real other option so I just had to settle for what I could get. Luckily the only move it uses, Fly (which is just because it simply flies off when appearing in Smash) was simple to teach it. What wasn’t as simple however and was something I forgot it could actually learn is what was mentioned in one of its Trophy descriptions, that being the move Transform. Luckily this was solved with a simple Heart Scale.

Pokemon: Vulpix.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon.

Moves: Ember.

My feelings on it: One of my favourite Pokemon and on what I consider my main personal Kanto team. For Ninetails I always loved how mysterious it felt as a kid before I knew more of what it was based on etc. I always vividly remember the episode of the anime where a really old one appeared using illusions on Brock because he reminded her of her old Master. Speaking of Brock, Vulpix was probably one of the oddest of his Pokemon joining him for a long time on their journey to the point it felt like it was Brock’s main Pokemon, yet after having it a long time he returned it to the breeder who first asked him to travel with it saying he knew he was only ever borrowing it. It’s due to this I found it interesting how twice Brock seemed to have something to do with the Vulpix line in the early anime. One final note I want to make as it probably relates to Vulpix the most of all the Pokemon on my list, is I will cover Alolan counterparts when I get to Gen 7 Pokemon. I am glad however they decided to give both Alolan Vulpix and the original Vulpix appearances as Pokeball Pokemon in Smash.

How I caught it: Because I like Vulpix and often catch one for my team I always remember the route it’s on. This time I remember deciding to hunt for it in a patch of grass that required cut to access rather than the grass just outside of Celadon City. Tracking one down didn’t take too long and it was fairly easy to capture.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Being a Pokeball Pokemon I caught it in a regular Pokeball and Ember’s a move it already knew from what I remember so overall it was another fairly simple Pokemon.

Pokemon: Goldeen.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Trophy.

Moves: Splash? Horn Drill, Megahorn.

My feelings on it: Oh boy, so for my thoughts on Goldeen, I think it has a nice design and I always remember Seaking because of old memes, beyond that though it’s one of many forgettable water types to me in all honesty. With that said, this is probably the biggest example of Smash Bros taking inspiration from the anime rather than the games with Goldeen acting exactly how Magikarp is meant to. This decision seems to be based on Misty’s Goldeen in the anime often being useless when used on land but it still being the case even in Smash Ultimate I feel must be some sort of inside joke at this point. I always remembered wondering if Goldeen landed in water when swimming was first added in the Smash series whether it would gain any ability like suddenly being able to use Megahorn or something (a rumour it seems possibly came from Megahorn and Horn Drill being mentioned in some Trophy entries) but when I finally managed to get one in the water I realised it was just as useless. It’s a shame as I feel like it would have been neat with it being in the series for so long if they added some secret to it, but as it is it’s the Smash Bros version of the Dud.

How I caught it: It’s fairly simple to catch when you get the Good Rod and in some cases with the Super Rod too, I’m fairly sure I caught one shortly after getting one of the two but it definitely wasn’t one I remember.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Caught in a Pokeball, the problem is however, similarly to what I said about how Goldeen is essentially in Magikarps role in Smash Bros, the ‘attack’ Goldeen uses of Splash is an attack Magikarp also uses, however it is one Goldeen simply cannot learn in any Pokemon game. Due to this, I have a situation where I simply cannot teach Goldeen this move so honestly that’s all I can really do for it. The worst part is Goldeen got a spirit battle in Ultimate, but the only thing this battle references is Goldeen being able to swim and splash attack again. Goldeen’s never been some amazing Pokemon but the only character I think really gets it anywhere near as bad in the Smash series as a whole is Starfy, and at least he can attack. One final thing I’d like to add which I’ve only just learnt myself thanks to the Smash Bros Wiki, which apparently came from the Japanese official Smash Bros website Smabura-Ken is that Sakurai chose Goldeen over Magikarp because he wanted to use Goldeen’s voice from the anime rather than Magikarps. It’s funny to me hearing this given how much there seems to be a focus on keeping stuff in later Smash Bros faithful to their source. I definitely prefer keeping it closer to the source (I mean, it’d ruin the point of this whole thing I’m doing if they completely disregarded the source material) but it’s still a funny thing to hear as being the reason behind Goldeen’s long running role. Now after saying all that, I have to take a little bit of it back because after reading through the Trophy entries for Goldeen I found Horn Drill and Megahorn actually mentioned. Due to this I taught Goldeen both these attacks which at least gives it something, although this still doesn’t really change how it’s always been in gameplay in the Smash Bros series.

Pokemon: Ditto.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon.

Moves: Transform.

My feelings on it: My feelings in the past on Ditto, it’s an odd Pokemon, it has a really cool ability to Transform that makes it unique even amongst Pokemon now with only the exception of Mew, however I’ve always felt that ability is way too risky to be something I’d actually want to use on my team. My feelings now when doing this whole thing are that Ditto is one of the most essential Pokemon of all time because it has helped me breed so many Pokemon I need for my list. It is thanks to this Pokemon here I’ve gotten as far as I have with my list, so I must say thank you Ditto for your service. Also it’s funny to me the anime episode where a Ditto couldn’t transform properly because it always ended up keeping the same face seems to be a thing a lot of spinoffs like to make be a regular part of Ditto transformations, to the point I believe there’s a plush line of Pokemon with a Ditto face.

How I caught it: From what I remember, because I was playing Pokemon Yellow, Ditto was available in fewer places than in other games and therefore I decided to wait till I was in Cerulean Cave to get it. I believe I managed to catch one on the way to Mewtwo so luckily I didn’t have to hunt it down later.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Caught in a Pokeball, Ditto can only learn Transform so I had nothing else to really worry about.

Pokemon: Eevee (Flareon, Jolteon and Vaporeon)

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Spirit Battle.

Moves: Take Down. (Flamethrower, Wild Charge, Water Gun)

My feelings on it: Eevee is such an interesting Pokemon, not just because of its main gimmick of being able to evolve into multiple different Pokemon (with more added in later generations) but also because it’s managed to go from an interesting unique Pokemon to rivalling Pikachu when it comes to popular Gen 1 Pokemon with the versions of Pokemon Let’s Go that came out having Pikachu as the starter in one and Eevee as the starter in the other. Probably the biggest reason I see cited for this is that Eevee is cute and unlike with Pikachu’s evolution Raichu (I feel really bad putting down my favourite here) all the Eeveelutions feel more like Eevee as a different type rather than a bigger stronger Eevee like most evolutions. When it comes to the three Eeveelutions from Gen 1, I think Jolteon’s probably my favourite, however because I almost always go for Raichu when I play through the Kanto games I usually don’t go for Jolteon. Vaporeon is probably the Eeveelution I go for most often because it’s a decent choice for a water type. Flareon from what I gather has had a tough time in a lot of games due to its somewhat limited movepool not really playing to its strengths, granted this is me going by what I’ve heard listening to various youtube videos and again I’m really not up on a lot of the stats for Pokemon etc. Either way, I’d probably go for Vulpix or Growlithe over Flareon everytime.

How I caught it: In order to do this list I required Four Eevees from Kanto, in the Kanto games the only way to get an Eevee is the one you find in Celadon City. Due to this and knowing this problem would come up for my list I made sure everytime I played through a Kanto game, whether Blue or Yellow to transfer the Eevee to Ultra Moon. With this I can tell by the names Vaporeon was from my own personal playthrough of Blue a few years ago with the others being ones I’ve gotten when playing through the games again for my Smash playthroughs. Luckily, I’ve managed to work things out to the point I’ve never had to specifically restart and play through the game for any of them.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: So firstly regarding Eevee, it will always be in a Pokeball as it can only be gotten as a Pokeball found in Celadon City. Take Down just required a bit of training to level 25 which didn’t take long. This entry is different from others for a very specific reason, Jolteon, Flareon and Vaporeon don’t actually appear themselves in the Smash Bros series, however in Eevee’s spirit battle, alongside the Pokeball Pokemon Eevee is a Red Yoshi, a Blue Yoshi and a Yellow Yoshi. The Blue Yoshi doesn’t have any weapon but the Yellow Yoshi has a Screw Attack item and the Red Yoshi starts off with the Curry effect breathing fire. These three are obvious references to Vaporeon, Jolteon and Flareon respectively and therefore I chose to count them for my list. Jolteon I taught Wild Charge to match the close range attribute of the Screw Attack, Flareon I taught Flamethrower for obvious reasons and for Vaporeon, despite not really having any sort of water attack represented I chose to teach it Water Gun to match the obvious theming.

Pokemon: Abra.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon.

Moves: Teleport.

My feelings on it: Abra is another one of the Pokemon I have on my personal Kanto team, it can cause some issues due to Kadabra requiring a trade to evolve but I’ve still managed to finish the game with Kadabra on my team unevolved. Abra alone however isn’t the easiest to raise, it can be taught other moves through TMs but in my opinion especially when TMs are single use in Gen 1 it’s not worth teaching Abra anything before it evolves. Due to this Abra requires being used first then switched out to get exp so can feel a bit of a burden, Kadabra however makes it all worth it. I’m a fan of the whole line and I do like the design of Abra a lot but it’s definitely the one you have to put up with to get to the good stuff. Probably the most notable aspect of Abra specifically is that it only knows Teleport, so when you track one down in the wild, unless you can freeze it or put it to sleep your best bet is to just throw a Pokeball first move, if it gets a chance it will escape immediately otherwise.

How I caught it: I was anticipating Abra being a real pain to catch, but beyond taking a bit of time to track down, I actually caught the second one I found fairly easily.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Abra’s a Pokeball Pokemon so I managed to catch it in a regular Pokeball. Teleport is it’s only move in the wild so similarly to Ditto I didn’t have anything else I really needed to do.

Pokemon: Lapras.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Spirit.

Moves: Surf.

My feelings on it: Lapras is a pretty memorable Pokemon, it’s often associated with the move Surf, specifically it’s use outside of battle for allowing humans to ride on it over water. Due to how it’s found in the Kanto games it’s one of those Pokemon that are assumed to be found by everyone and likely owned similar to Snorlax, although unlike with Snorlax it’s a gift Pokemon. It’s likely due to this that Red as an NPC trainer in later games was given a Lapras replacing his Espeon that only appeared in his battle in the original Gen 2 games. Lapras also benefited somewhat from its anime appearance as it fulfilled a unique role in the anime only arc set in the Orange Islands where Ash caught it and would ride with his friends on its back from island to island. Despite having such a prominent role as a Pokemon on Ash’s team it was one he ended up releasing, so beyond the odd cameo it didn’t really appear again. I believe because of it appearing during the height of the anime’s popularity that it helped keep Lapras prominent and likely is why it was chosen as the Pokemon spirit that could travel across the ocean in Smash Ultimate (besides it being the most famous Pokemon for that role.) As for my own memories of Lapras, it’s always something very specific which is the first time I saw it, all I could think about was Dorrie from Super Mario 64. I doubt I’d have thought that with Dorrie’s modern design but it’s original design definitely felt closer to Lapras and it takes me back to when I used to make up games as a kid inside the games I was playing, in this case I used to ride around on Dorrie in SM64 pretending it was Lapras and I was a trainer. I don’t want to make this entry even longer and I forget if I’ve mentioned this sort of ‘role-playing’ I used to do in previous posts now, but I will almost certainly end up going over this stuff in a later post.

How I caught it: As I said in the last section, Lapras is a Pokemon it’s hard to miss as it’s given to you by a Silph Co Employee just after beating your rival and before you take on Giovanni, so unless you avoid talking to the only other person in the room at the time you’re not going to miss Lapras.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: As a gift Pokemon Lapras is always in a Pokeball when you get it in Gen 1 as well as Fire Red and Leaf Green. Teaching Lapras Surf is simple enough so there’s only one other attribute really that Lapras has in Smash Bros due to its spirit battle is a weapon resist which according to the Smash Wiki references Shell Armour. Naturally I’ve found the Lapras I have has Hydration which is it’s hidden ability instead after checking. If I wanted to change that I can use an Ability Capsule which costs more than the megastones do in BP, however as Lapras has its Hidden Ability I don’t really want to change that so I’ll leave it as it is.

Credits.

For information on this game I used to research relating to attributes such as movesets etc for Pokemon I must give credit to Bulbapedia, Serebii and SmashWiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using the Photo Club feature in Pokemon Ultra Moon, screenshots using Nintendo Switch in Super Smash Bros Ultimate and screenshots in Smash Run on Super Smash Bros 3DS.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Pokemon Gen 1 Semi-Playthrough (Part 1)

Overview.

So this post is going to be different from my usual layout for the site, the reason is because I felt given just how many Pokemon there are and how they make up almost their own category when it comes to items, it’d be best to do a big post going over each generation. The reason I’ve skipped ahead to now when it comes to this rather than carrying on with the Fighter posts is because with the upcoming shutdown of the Wii U and 3DS online I wanted to make sure I got all the Pokemon I need sorted out in advance, there’s no other series that will particularly suffer from the shutdown on my list so I felt it was best to get this one done now. I would like to preface this thing by saying I am a casual Pokemon fan, I’ve never been into the competitive scene although I’m more aware of things like EV training etc than I was in the past, but I am just going over my opinions in this and various memories I have of each Pokemon etc, this isn’t a walkthrough or guide of any kind. This post has ended up being a lot longer than I expected and for Gen 1 specifically I realise it will have the largest amount of Pokemon, so due to this I will be splitting this post into multiple parts as mentioned in the title.

For what Pokemon will appear in these posts, it will be a mixture of every Pokemon to get represented in the Smash Bros series except the Fighters who will continue to get their own posts when I reach them. (This goes for cases where a Pokeball Pokemon became a fighter later in the series also.) In this post there will be Pokemon who appear from the Pokeball Item in various entries in the series, Pokemon who physically appear in the background of stages, Pokemon who are represented by Spirits, Pokemon who are represented by Trophies and even Pokemon who only appeared in the intro movie for Super Smash Bros Melee or as a background in Pokefloats. I’ve drawn the line finally at Pokemon who are simply mentioned, when looking through Trophy descriptions throughout the series many Pokemon will get evolutions mentioned such as Totodile’s Trophy mentioning Croconaw. I have gotten screenshots of every Pokemon I have ingame, but for pictures from Smash Bros I haven't managed to get pictures of every Pokemon ingame yet. When it comes to certain ones (for example ones from Smash 64) I am going to see if later I can either get a screenshot somehow (Smash 64 on Switch would be handy...) or if not look into getting the original sprites just to have an image of some kind. I credit the sources of the images as usual at the end of this post.

I have two things I have attempted to do with this, the first is to make the Pokemon as close to their Smash Bros appearances as possible, which means teaching them moves used in Smash, catching them in regular Pokeballs (with the occasional Masterball) and making sure they have the same appearance. The second is because of the feature in Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon to take photos of Pokemon with unique backgrounds depending on the region they’re from, I’ve attempted to catch every Pokemon in its native region. This took a very long time and I was not entirely successful. At the time of writing this, I am still trying to get the final 6 Pokemon I’m missing with friends help and I’ve been doing this since October 2023 now. I won’t talk about the games themselves too much in these posts as I want to save them for my Fighter posts or later stage posts etc, however I will go over my thoughts and experience catching each Pokemon in their entries below. I will admit, there’s a few times I struggled to find stuff to say so I don’t know how entertaining this will all be, still it’s something I wanted to do so yeah, hope you enjoy. One final note, when it comes to a Pokemon’s “Role in Smash Bros” I am only mentioning things I have taken into account in what moves I’ve given them etc, so for example if a Pokeball Pokemon appeared as a trophy but it didn’t really add anything new I’ll just stick to its role being ‘Pokeball Pokemon’ whereas if the trophy description added a new move or something I’ll mention Trophy as part of it, same as for Spirit Battles.

Pokemon 1st Generation.

Pokemon: Blastoise.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Background Pokemon, Trophy (Mega Blastoise)

Moves: Hydro Pump.

My feelings on it: So to start off is the final evolution of Squirtle, one of the three starters of Kanto and a Pokemon who would become a fighter itself later in the Smash series. The Squirtle line as a whole is probably my second favourite of the three, although I haven’t used it as often in playthroughs as the other two. Despite my like for it I find it hard to really say much more on it. I suppose one thing that comes to mind with it was when I was young, me and my cousins each were lucky enough when the cardgame was big to get a shiny card of each starter and one of my cousins got Blastoise. Despite it not being my one I feel like I remember how Blastoise’s card looked the clearest from memory compared to the other two. Beyond that, I was glad it became playable in Pokken Tournament, but now I’m really grasping for things to say I guess.

How I caught it: So no exciting story here, simply put I used my Virtual Console version of Pokemon Blue, picked Squirtle and got to Viridian City at a point where I could put it in the PC and then used Pokemon Bank to transfer it before starting a new game. In Ultra Moon after transferring the Squirtle I grinded a bit to evolve it and made sure to teach it the moves I needed. Since this is the very first Pokemon entry I’ve written and other starters will use the same method, I won’t keep repeating about using Pokemon Bank and I’ll only detail things I did in Ultra Moon if they were notable like evolving them.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: So, for Blastoise despite its long history in the Smash Bros series, there was only one move I needed to teach it which was Hydro Pump, the same move it used in its appearance as a Pokeball Pokemon in Super Smash Bros and Melee. Starters are always in regular Pokeballs so that was fairly simple to keep it with the standard red Pokeball to match Smash Bros. The only element currently missing with my Blastoise is giving it Blastoisinite due to it having a Mega Evolution as a trophy. I will eventually get the Mega stones for the Pokemon I need it for, but they require a fair bit of BP so I thought it best to leave that for later, I believe I will do a post later down the line going over Mega evolutions for the Pokemon that have had them in the Smash series rather than show them here.

Pokemon: Clefairy.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon.

Moves: Metronome, Sing.

My feelings on it: So I have a fair bit of history when it comes to Clefairy. The biggest thing relating to it is that I had an incident when I was younger regarding a Clefairy card where I was really happy to have gotten one. I was going on to my Mum about it and how rare it was etc and then sometime later at school I traded it with this older kid for a load of other cards. I can’t remember how I really felt about the trade but my Mum asked me later where it had gone and I told her I traded it for a load of them. I remember she thought it was silly for me to have given away something I’d been going on about being such a big deal and told me I should ask the kid to trade back for it. I went and asked him to do so which he refused so then I dumbly told him that my Mum had told me to do so which got him and his friends all to laugh and me calling me a Mummy’s boy etc. I don’t really remember clearly now what happened, if he ended up trading it back or it was the other thing that happened that caused it, which was eventually I ended up in a fight with him. The part of me that wants to sound sympathetic makes me think it was because since then him and his group would always point and laugh calling me Mummy’s boy whenever they saw me that made me end up getting into a fight with him whereas the less sympathetic more realist part of me says it was more likely I got into a fight after not much prodding from him over him not trading it back, it’s too long ago to really remember for sure now and it was a fairly miserable part of my life anyway where I ended up in a lot of fights and (to me) being bullied a lot back then. Either way I remember the ‘head of bullying’ at the school had us talk it over or something and maybe it was as a result of that he ended up having to trade the card back to me. It’s not a great memory either way but it’s definitely the biggest thing I associate Clefairy with now so I figured it was worth going over.

Anyway, regarding Clefairy itself, it’s a Pokemon I still like regardless of that memory. Somehow years later I lost that card, it might be hidden away somewhere in a cupboard of mine but it’s not with all the other old cards I had, I do have a Clefable one from a little after that so there’s that at least. In the games I’ve used Clefairy a few times, although I don’t think I’ve had it on my team since it became a Fairy type. One thing I always find interesting with it is it’s a Pokemon I know is rare but I feel like almost everytime I replay Kanto games I’ll end up running into one just during a regular journey through Mount Moon. I always think of it as Jigglypuff’s rival thanks to the anime episodes and of the two it’s definitely my favourite.

How I caught it: As I hinted at above, once again this time I found Clefairy simply during my trip through Mt Moon in Pokemon Yellow. I managed to catch it fairly easily in a Pokeball, I think thanks to Pikachu paralyzing it.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: The most obvious things to do when it came to Clefairy’s appearance in Smash Bros, besides catching it in a regular Pokeball was it learning Metronome. Another less obvious addition however and something I also have taken into account with Pokemon I’ve got for my list is any additional factors from spirit battles involving them. Blastoise’s spirit battle didn’t really give it any additional factors which is why I didn’t mention that one, but for Clefairy it’s represented by Jigglypuff in Magicant. Due to this I felt it was also fitting for my Clefairy to know Sing as well in reference to the Spirit Battle.

Pokemon: Hitmonlee.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon.

Moves: Jump Kick.

My feelings on it: Honestly, when it comes to Hitmonlee, it’s one of those Pokemon I don’t think much about but the more I look at it now the more I think how odd it looks. Obviously it’s whole thing is kicking so the legs are the main thing that sticks out about it, but that very basic design the rest of it has helps make it feel a lot closer to a ‘Monster’ than a lot of the other more humanoid designs in the series. I will say I always liked how Tyrogue’s addition in Gen 2 linked it and Hitmonchan, to the best of my knowledge this was the only time in the series two Pokemon that weren’t connected became so due to a later addition, as well as adding a third form with Hitmontop. Since Hitmonlee is the only one featured in Smash Bros I figured this’d be the best place to really say anything about them, either way that’s all I can really think of for Hitmonlee, it’s an interesting Pokemon.

How I caught it: Since Hitmonlee’s in Smash Bros but Hitmonchan’s never been represented, when it came to the choice after defeating the Fighting Dojo in Saffron City of which of the two to choose it was a pretty obvious answer.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Ok, so this is the first time this has happened and I hope the last, when writing this post I actually realised that I’d been wrong in the notes I made. I had Hitmonlee’s move it uses in its appearance in Super Smash Bros (64) as Hi Jump Kick. I had no idea ‘Jump Kick’ was a whole separate move and explicitly the one used in Smash Bros. It seems it’s slightly more accurate than Hi Jump Kick but not as powerful. As soon as I realised this I just used one of my many spare heart scales to teach my Hitmonlee it. Beyond this that’s pretty much it with its Spirit Battle not really having any attribute I feel I need to represent, still I’m hoping this will be the last time I’ve made a mistake like this.

Pokemon: Onix.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon.

Moves: Rock Throw.

My feelings on it: I think my feeling regarding Onix is similar to a lot of peoples in that for such a huge Pokemon it tends to feel very underwhelming. Under Brock’s command and depending on your team it definitely helps feel like the first real roadblock you meet in the game due to its defence and its resistances (not to mention in Pokemon Yellow Brock’s Onix having one of the most irritating moves of Gen 1 being Bind) It soon however becomes a very common Pokemon to see being used by other trainers and with its 4x weakness to Water and Grass honestly becomes a somewhat welcome sight for easy exp. It’s a shame as I really like its design and if Pokemon were actually real it’s one I’d probably love to have, but as one of the 151 in the game it’s just not worth training to me.

How I caught it: I came across it during my journey through Rock Tunnel, it wasn’t particularly difficult as it’s a fairly common Pokemon in there.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: I was worried for a moment right after the last entry I’d just run into the exact same problem as for some reason I have on my notes that it uses Rock Slide in its appearance in Super Smash Bros. The actual move as it turns out is Rock Throw, however in this case that’s not an issue as I had the Onix I caught able to use both so there was no addition I needed to make. Since it’s a Pokeball Pokemon once again I used a regular Pokeball to catch it.

Pokemon: Starmie.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon

Moves: Swift.

My feelings on it: I’ve always loved this Pokemon, it’s one that’s so simple but still manages to feel cool to me, especially with its Psychic typing that helped differentiate it from other water Pokemon. Honestly to this day it’s still one of my favourite water types despite the many additions there have been over the years and I feel like it’s a Pokemon that’s managed to stand the test of time. I think when it comes to Starmie specifically, since I’m sure it appeared in Smash due to the anime it was a fairly odd case being an evolved form of a Pokemon one of the main protagonists also had, with Misty having both it and Staryu. Since Staryu was the Pokemon Misty used more often however Starmie didn’t get many appearances which is a shame, especially as in the actual games Starmie often was a fairly tough Pokemon in her gym battle.

How I caught it: It’s hard for me to remember really especially which was which so I’ll just say the same for Starmie as I will for Staryu, I fished them both up with a Super Rod, I believe doing so around the Seafoam Islands where they were a higher level. I believe also with Starmie specifically I evolved it in Pokemon Yellow before transferring it through Bank as I couldn’t remember how easy it was to get a Water Stone in Ultra Moon and didn’t want to make more work for myself later if it wasn’t needed, although I later realised, I’d made an error with this.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: I thought this would be a fairly simple case, I caught it in a Pokeball, evolved it from Staryu to Starmie in Pokemon Yellow and transferred it, my mistake however was forgetting it wouldn’t learn Swift as a Starmie, luckily this was fairly easily remedied with a heart scale which would pay for the move reminder to help Starmie learn Swift, it’s attack in Smash Bros. Since 64 was the only appearance Starmie specifically made in the series there wasn’t anything else really needed.

Pokemon: Koffing.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Enemy in Smash Run, Event in Smash Run.

Moves: Smog, Poison Gas and Smokescreen.

My feelings on it: I love Koffing, firstly I’ve come to appreciate poison types more as the years have gone on but secondly it’s just such an odd interesting to design to me, it’s just a ball but all those er, funnels or craters or whatever you call them makes it look a bit more interesting. Add to that how cheerful it always seems and it helps make it one of my favourites. Despite this however, if anything it’s one of those cases where I don’t appreciate it being in the anime as much, mostly as due to it being James most famous Pokemon (even if it wasn’t with him for most of the anime’s run) it’s one of those that’s always associated with villains which is a shame, something I’ll get to with a couple of other Pokemon down the line. Still I suppose it’s thanks to the anime it appeared in Smash and is on my list so for that part I am thankful. The final thing I always think of with Koffing is one of my favourite real-life collectables, reversible Pokemon plushes. I’m not someone who has ever collected plushes really, however I was a huge fan of these reversible Pokemon plushes they used to do where you could unzip the Pokemon and turn it inside out to become a Pokeball plush. I have collected a few over the years and Koffing being a ball already is probably one of my favourites just because it’s so easy to reverse (unlike a couple of others that can be a pain) and doesn’t look as misshapen as some of the others tend to. I realise this is an odd thing to bring up but really Koffing’s the one that makes me always remember them the most.

How I caught it: This is the first Pokemon I’ve gone over in this post so far that was an absolute pain to find, the main reason for this being (and another reason I’m not that happy about it’s role in the anime) due to it being a prominent member of Team Rocket’s team, it wasn’t available in Pokemon Yellow, which I’d forgotten when playing so I spent ages looking for it in the Pokemon Mansion just to realise after looking it up it wasn’t in Yellow at all (just like the rest of Team Rocket’s Pokemon) Luckily I had a virtual console copy of Pokemon Blue also that I was at the end of the game on, so I was able to track down Koffing in that, but with that it still was a pain to find with its 5% appearance rate, especially as I needed to catch two so I could get Weezing as well (who I’ll detail later in this post). I did eventually catch both and I was done with Pokemon Mansion… at least I thought so until I realised a terrible mistake I’d made, but that’s for a later entry.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: So here we go again, I’ve realised after double checking when writing this post that I’ve once again made a mistake, although this time it’s not having the wrong move as the move I had was right, Koffing uses Smog in its appearance as a Pokeball Pokemon, which I’ve taught it as well as having it in a regular Pokeball. My mistake is that I believed Koffing just used Smog in its appearance in Smash Run as well, but now I’ve come realise it also has Poison Gas attack and on top of that, something I haven’t even considered before that might mean I’ll have to have another look at every other Pokemon (and maybe even other characters on my overall list) is Smash Tour. Apparently in Smash Tour there’s an event where Koffing will use Smokescreen. I have now taught Koffing both these moves, still this has made me realise I should probably just stay saved by the move reminder for when I get to later entries as I’m fairly sure this won’t be the last time I’ll need to do this.

Pokemon:  Meowth.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Trophy (Meowth’s Party)

Moves: Payday.

My feelings on it: Speaking of Pokemon whose anime appearances I have mixed feelings on... I love Meowth, I really like how it looks and I’ve had them on my team a couple of times. I’m not as fond of Persian but I’ve never held off evolving it either and I do like it still. I also really like Meowth in the anime with him having some great moments through the series. So why am I mixed on his appearance then? Well the reason is that Meowth in the anime is so prominent he sort of tends to be all anyone thinks of when it comes to the species. With that said, this has changed in later years, Sun and Moon seemed to be a renaissance of Meowth with not just the Alolan variant but the Kanto version also being an NPC who belongs to your Mum in the game. Also with Meowth getting a Galarian version who I actually really like despite how ridiculous it looks, Meowth has gotten a lot more attention in recent years even gaining a separate evolution in its Galarian form into Perrserker who’s more like a bigger tougher Meowth than Persian.

How I caught it: I don’t really remember much of note when it came to catching Meowth, it could be because I’ve done it plenty of times before, but I simply caught one from the Route north of Vermillion City as I usually do.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Fairly simple, I caught Meowth in a regular Pokeball and taught it Payday. There is one thing I suppose I should mention however, a Pokemon I don’t think I’ll be able to get even with a certain method I’ll detail in a later generation, but there was a trophy in Super Smash Bros Melee called Meowth’s Party based on a tech demo made to showoff what the Nintendo Gamecube could do. In this short Meowth sang a song for other Pokemon whilst playing a guitar. I believe this later was used as an ending theme for the anime in Japan and therefore this version of Meowth playing a guitar and singing is explicitly the Team Rocket Meowth. This version of Meowth has appeared in the games, specifically in Pokemon Yellow and Pokemon Lets Go Eevee and Pikachu where Jessie and James of Team Rocket battle with a team based on the anime. There was actually an event where Team Rocket’s Meowth could be downloaded in Japan and a couple of other countries in Pokemon Black and White 2, however it seems even with a method I’ll detail later it’s not possible to get that Meowth now. What makes this even more ironic for me is that this Meowth knew the move sing, I believe more likely in reference to Team Rocket’s Meowth being able to talk but it would have been ideal as a reference to Meowth’s Party. Still, I can only get so much and I’d rather at least have a Meowth at all at any rate.

Pokemon: Weezing.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Spirit.

Moves: Smog, Explosion.

My feelings on it: So similarly to Koffing I like Weezing, although of the two I definitely prefer the more happy looking Koffing. I will give Weezing credit though in how gross it is in how it’s sort of a tumour growing off of a Koffing in a sense. Not much more to add, similarly to Koffing and Meowth it has that same factor of often being seen as a villain Pokemon due to Team Rocket in the anime.

How I caught it: So as I explained in Koffing’s entry, I made a mistake and had to return to Pokemon Blue to find two Koffings which was difficult as they were a 5% encounter rate. I did eventually catch two (although if I remember right one of them when I finally found it used self-destruct which was pretty infuriating). All that was left then was to evolve Weezing which I did with a little grinding in Ultra Moon.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: So, similarly to Koffing, Weezing uses Smog in its appearance as a Pokeball Pokemon, and of course coming from a Pokeball means I caught it in a regular Pokeball to match that. The only other factor of note is Weezing’s spirit in Ultimate which raises Fire and Explosion attacks, this is likely a reference to them being able to self-destruct as I said about regarding catching the Koffing, but with the name being Explosion I figured the move to teach would be Explosion.

Pokemon: Beedrill.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon.

Moves: Take Down.

My feelings on it: Honestly the only thing of interest I find with Beedrill is that it starts off as Weedle who always reminded me of Wiggler from the Mario series. With that said it was one of the two bug type Pokemon you’d encounter at the very start of the Kanto games (before you reached the first gym) and like a lot of bug types evolves at a fairly low level meaning it’s useful if you want a fully evolved Pokemon early in the game. With that said I never really bother with early bug types now when I replay the games, but when I did I still always tended to pick Butterfree over Beedrill. Once again, the anime seems to have influenced its appearance in Smash Bros as Beedrill would often appear as a horde to chase characters which is similar to how it works in Smash 64.

How I caught it: From what I remember, in Pokemon Yellow of the two Weedle was less common than Caterpie, so whilst I was searching for a Pikachu (who was rare in Viridian Forest) and I came across a Weedle I realised it was best to catch that now as I’d rather not have to look for it later. There was one other notable aspect for Beedrill that I’ll detail in the next section.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: So Beedrill should have been fairly simple, evolves at a low level and only has one move it needed to learn as well as being an easy Bug type from the early game with a low catch rate meaning using a regular Pokeball was simple for it. Where it caused a bit of a problem is it was the first Pokemon on this list so far who could only learn it’s one move from Smash in Gen 1. Luckily this wasn’t due to levelling up but using a TM and it was a TM that was purchasable in the Celedon Department Store so was fairly easy to get. The move being Take Down wasn’t really what I expected given Beedrill’s known for its poison sting or pin missile attack, but that’s part of why I enjoy doing this because it’s a unique weirdness I wouldn’t really have bothered with otherwise.

Pokemon: Articuno.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Spirit, Trophy.

Moves: Icy Wind, Reflect, Ice Beam.

My feelings on it: Of the three Legendary Birds I suppose Articuno always felt a little more special to me, although I wouldn’t call it my favourite either, still it’s probably of the three the most ‘majestic’ and its location in the Seafoam Isles probably felt the most fitting of a ‘legendary creature’ of the three. Beyond that I don’t particularly have many more thoughts on it, it does have a nice design though.

How I caught it: Being the first legendary Pokemon entry I’ve written, it has a more specific way to catch it than just tracking it down through random encounters. Seafoam Isles was something I always remembered being really annoying but replaying it now makes me realise it’s far more simple than I used to think. Being able to save right before battling it also is somewhat of a series tradition when it comes to Legendaries which makes it honestly easier in some ways than regular Pokemon that are just difficult to find (as we’ll get to regarding a certain Safari Zone in a later entry). The only real irritating part of this battle is something unique to Gen 1 which is Pokeballs missing. This doesn’t happen too often in most of the game but is definitely apparent when battling the Legendary Birds or Mewtwo. With that said, honestly despite worrying it’s some additional mechanic in reality it’s just another way of the game demonstrating there’s a low catch rate and from what I’ve read (I’m definitely not a Pokemon expert) is just the equivalent in later games of the Pokeball not shaking at all, so it’s nothing to really be concerned about. Another thing I’ll add is of the two I far prefer this method of capturing Pokemon to the Roaming Legendaries, but I’ll get more into them when it comes to Gen 2. My final note to make is, for this whole challenge because the only Pokeballs that appear in Super Smash Bros are regular Pokeballs or Masterballs, I limited myself to only using them for this challenge. Due to this I believed I had to catch everything in Gen 1 in a regular Pokeball, which definitely is part of the reason why I saw so many ‘miss’ Articuno during the fight. What’s irritating is something I later learned after catching every Pokemon for my list in Gen 1 and 2, which really would have helped me a lot is actually in the Game Boy (or in my case Virtual Console) versions of the game don’t record what Pokeball you use as they’ll always appear in later games as a regular Pokeball. Of course I didn’t learn this through wasting my time with regular Pokeballs in these games, but in fact through spending a long time in Gen 2 trying to catch Pokemon with special Apricorn balls only to learn when transferring them from the Virtual Console version of Crystal they would only appear in Pokeballs, thus wasting all that time I spent getting them. Anyway, this is probably the longest ‘capture’ section I’ve done so far in an entry so I won’t repeat all this later I think.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: I had to capture Articuno in a regular Pokeball due to it being a Pokeball Pokemon in Smash Bros which as I stated in the last section was irritating and actually not needed. Beyond this, in its appearance in Super Smash Bros Melee, Articuno uses the attack Icy Wind which was simple enough to teach it. In Articuno’s spirit battle, or more specifically the Spirit Battle it shares with Moltress and Zapdos, they are all represented by Lucas with a Franklin Badge. This reflects (haha) the Legendary Bird’s defensive moves they all learn at Level 10 which for Articuno is Reflect, therefore I taught Articuno that also. Now to add something since finishing this entry and coming back, I decided to go one extra step and look through the bios of every Pokemon trophy in the Smash Bros series, and I discovered in doing so a fair few moves mentioned in Pokemon’s bios they don’t use in the Smash series at all, so the loser that I am, I decided to teach as many Pokemon as I could these moves. Ice Beam is mentioned in Articuno’s trophy so I taught it, luckily this was a fairly simple TM move so didn’t take one of the many heart scales I’ve had to use for a lot of other Pokemon.

Pokemon: Electrode.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Stage Hazard, Pokeball Pokemon, Trophy.

Moves: Explosion, Self-Destruct.

My feelings on it: Electrode is probably the biggest example of a functional but boring Pokemon to me. It along with its pre-evolved form Voltorb is known for being disguised as a Pokeball you find on the ground, then attacking you when you go to pick it up, using its very high speed to often use either Self-Destruct or use Explosion which takes it out and often can be very damaging to your Pokemon. I’ve always felt like it’s lacking beyond that but I also haven’t used it enough to really say much on it in regards to that, either way that’s my thoughts on it really, it definitely has an iconic role in the series but there’s not that much that appeals to me regarding it personally.

How I caught it: I believe I caught this Pokemon as a Voltorb in the Power Plant, possibly as one of the ones that was disguised as an item but it might have been a random encounter also. I believe I had one self-destruct on me for the first attempt which was annoying but caught it on the second.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Fairly simple here, it was caught in a regular Pokeball and I taught it explosion after it evolved.Of course, this turned out to be too simple as Electrode had to have a mention in its trophy entry of Self-Destruct, still it was simple enough to teach this also and I consider it now complete.

Pokemon: Moltres.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Background Pokemon, Pokeball Pokemon, Spirit, Trophy.

Moves: Fly, Safeguard, Ember, Sky Attack.

My feelings on it: Of the three Moltres is probably my favourite Legendary Bird. Simply put despite not being as ‘majestic’ as Articuno it just has such a cool look with its flaming wings. It was probably the most prominent of the three in the original series of the anime too being the only one that actually appeared during the Indigo League and its flame being used as a torch for the Pokemon League similar to the Olympic Flame. There’s also of course James in the anime dressing up as Moltres but I don’t want to go on about the anime too much here. Probably the worst aspect of Moltres in Gen 1 was of the three Legendary Birds it probably had the least interesting appearance being in a section of Victory Road. As a result it was entirely possible to just run into Moltress when trying to get to the Pokemon League rather than it being in a location that was more optional and out of the way. This was fixed later in Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green where instead it appears more fittingly at the top of Mt. Ember on one of the Sevii Islands.

How I caught it: As stated in the previous section I tracked Moltres down in Victory Road. I believe I actually ran into it before the Pokemon League but as I wanted to focus on beating the story at that point rather than catching the Legendaries I held off and came back for it later. When I did return to it later it was difficult but nothing majorly so to the point I can’t really remember much about it now.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: So once again I caught Moltres in a Pokeball. Despite the variety of fire attacks at its disposal and the main danger element it had when coming out of a Pokeball in Smash Bros being the fire surrounding it, the actual attack it uses is simply fly with it damaging anyone who comes into contact with it. It’s the spirit battle that it shares with Articuno and Zapdos which really provides any other moves for it with one of them being Lucas who represents it having a Franklin Badge that reflects attacks. This references each bird’s defensive move which in Moltres’s case is Safeguard. The Lucas who represents Moltres also uses PK Fire often which just represents Moltres’s fire type really, but the closest I thought it was to a Pokemon move really is Ember therefore I also taught it that. That would have been the end of it… but of course I decided to read Moltres’s trophy descriptions, and to my surprise it seems like repeatedly Moltres would always have Sky Attack mentioned. Sky Attack’s always been an attack I forget was in the series ever since Gen 1, still it was simple enough with a Heart Scale to teach it to Moltres.

Pokemon: Staryu.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Spirit Battle, Trophy.

Moves: Swift, Recover, Camouflage.

My feelings on it: Just like Starmie I like Staryu a lot. I went over most of my thoughts in Starmie’s entry so I guess the only other thing to add is it’s interesting how Starmie only appeared once in the Smash series and then Staryu replaced it, actually to the point Starmie gets no representation whatsoever beyond Smash 64. Staryu does lack the Psychic typing Starmie has so that definitely loses it a few points, but I must admit of the two Staryu’s easier to make look more expressive with its smaller form and fewer… limbs?

How I caught it: So as I stated in Starmie’s entry, I simply caught two Staryus (most likely at Seafoam Isles but I can’t remember for sure) and kept one as Staryu whilst evolving the second into Starmie.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Fairly simple, I caught it in a Pokeball and taught it Swift. The only other aspect related to it in Smash was that in its spirit battle it would gradually heal over time, this was definitely in reference to Staryu’s recover move which is something often associated with its evolutionary line specifically, so I simply taught it Recover also. This was not the end of things however because after reading Staryu’s trophy description I realised it mentioned its Camouflage move, so I also had to teach it that before it was complete.

Pokemon: Venusaur.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Stage Hazard, Pokeball Pokemon, Trophy.

Moves: Earthquake, Razor Leaf, Poison Powder, Solar Beam.

My feelings on it: My favourite of the three Kanto starters, I often tend to gravitate towards the grass type starters and that all started with Bulbasaur. I do remember when I was younger however, of the three final evolutions of the starters I always tended to not like Venusaur too much, often feeling the other two were cooler and more interesting and how they fit more into things like Smash Bros. I eventually changed this opinion however when I realised just what a tank Venusaur was like (I’m talking just as a Pokemon not gameplay-wise) with it being almost like a swiss-army-knife of a Pokemon with vines, razor leaves, a massive laser and being able to cause earthquakes. Of course this is hardly something unique to it and the other two starters can learn various moves beyond just the obvious like breathing fire or shooting water, still it was something I just started to like Venusaur for specifically and helped improve my initial lower opinion of it.  Related to my earlier story for Blastoise, of the three of us I ended up getting the Venusaur card, although sadly I eventually lost it, or it’s been put away somewhere and I just haven’t found it to this day.

How I caught it: The same as I said in my entry for Blastoise, I simply transferred over a Bulbasaur before restarting the game to pick another starter.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: Venusaur has had a fairly varied history in Smash Bros, and due to this it has had a few moves over the years. The first appearance was as a stage hazard in Saffron City in the original Smash Bros. For this appearance Venusaur would appear from a door on the rooftop and fire razor leaves, meaning this was the obvious attack to teach it. Venusaur’s appearance as a Pokeball Pokemon was different with it appearing and causing an earthquake, this would have been fairly simple but as it was, when I transferred and raised Venusaur in Ultra Moon I realised the TM to teach it Earthquake was in an area only accessible in the post-game. Due to this I held off for a long time until I was ready to play through the Rainbow Rocket storyline before finally being able to teach it Earthquake. Finally in the spirit battle with Venusaur one of the conditions is a poisoned floor. This is mostly a reference to Venusaur’s poison typing, however I decided it was simple enough to represent this with Poison Powder since it was something that would instantly poison an opponent and a fairly standard move the Bulbasaur line can learn. Being a starter Venusaur was already in a regular Pokeball. The only other thing which I forgot at first was that Mega Venusaur appears as a trophy in Smash, so due to this I need to get my Venusaur a Venusaurite Mega Stone similarly to Blastoise, however as I cannot take a screenshot of Mega Venusaur I thought similarly to Mega Blastoise there was no need to rush into getting that. Of course, after saying that there was one other thing I forgot which was if Venusaur’s Trophy Description mentioned any other moves and it did, Solar Beam. Luckily Venusaur already knew that so I didn’t need to teach it anything more.

Pokemon: Zapdos.

Region: Kanto.

Role in Smash Bros series: Pokeball Pokemon, Background Pokemon, Spirit Battle, Trophy.

Moves: Thundershock, Light Screen, Thunder, Drill Peck.

My feelings on it: Zapdos is probably my second favourite of the legendary birds. Part of that is partially because I tend to like electric types and therefore prefer it to the other birds typings, however it’s also helped by its design which is odd but also stands out. Probably the most prominent thing I always think about with Zapdos, besides its spiky feathers is its beak. The beak always makes me think of Drill Peck, probably more than the actual electric attacks it can use, it just looks like something you really wouldn’t want to have swooping at you. It’s appearance in the Power Plant is definitely better than Moltres location, but I feel it’s not as ‘mysterious’ as Articuno’s location, if anything it makes me think more of looking in some old shed and having some old bird that’s been nesting there attack you than tracking down a legendary creature.

How I caught it: The same as the other two birds I caught it with a regular Pokeball which was annoying. I vaguely remember it being a bit more dangerous than the other two to face and with its electric typing it wouldn’t take as much damage from my Pikachu as those two would.

Specific aspects from Smash Bros: I caught it in a Pokeball and it knew Thundershock when caught which was fairly simple. Like with the other two Legendary Birds it shares a spirit battle with, it too has a defensive move represented with the Franklin Badge, in Zapdos’s case Light Screen which I therefore also taught it. I originally had Fly for its moveset due to its appearance in the background of Lumiose City flying around, however, when reading its Trophy descriptions I came to realise there were two attacks mentioned I had not taught Zapdos, the first was Thunder and the second was Drill Peck. Luckily Zapdos knew Drill Peck already and Thunder was a simple enough TM to use so it did not need too much more work.

Credits.

For information on this game I used to research relating to attributes such as movesets etc for Pokemon I must give credit to Bulbapedia, Serebii and SmashWiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using the Photo Club feature in Pokemon Ultra Moon, screenshots using Nintendo Switch in Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Trophy Images taken from SmashWiki.