#...i need to finish my second playthrough of omega ruby

[leavingautumn13]

delta episode blues

[i have commissions open now]

[smashy-headcanons]

I'm curious what games that have (playable) characters in Smash you've played. Have you considered having a list in your carrd for that?

I do keep lists for my own personal use but I haven't thought about adding a page to the carrd. I'm starting to consider it now that you've suggested it to me, but I haven't decided for certain.

But I can give you a summary of the list I made for myself.

Mario: I've played the series extensively enough to know most of the characters like the back of my hand (I don't know the Koopalings as well as the others); the specific list of which Mario games I've played is long enough that it would clutter this post so it might be better to just ask for that specifically.

Donkey Kong: Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2 (I haven't gotten around to playing 3 yet and I don't have DK64 or any of the newer DKC games)

Zelda: Of the games with the playable Links, I've played Ocarina of Time 3D, Majora's Mask 3D, Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass, and Breath of the Wild. I'm currently playing through Wind Waker (I've just entered the Wind Temple), and I've also played Skyward Sword. I have not played either Hyrule Warriors game.

Yoshi: Yoshi's Island is the only one I've finished, but I've played a bit of Yoshi's Story (a childhood fav despite never beating it) and a small bit of Wooly World

Kirby : I've layed Kirby's Dream Land 1-3, Kirby's Adventure, Super Star Ultra, Canvas Curse, Epic Yarn, Return to Dreamland, Triple Deluxe. I've watched a playthrough of Kirby and the Amazing Mirror and Kirby Fighters 2 but not played them; aside from the rest of the main platformers I'm drawing a blank on what else I need to play because almost all of the sub-games/"au" games are all interconnected somehow but I don't know which ones are skippable.

Star Fox: I've played Star Fox 64 3D and since I don't have a Wii U I just watched a playthrough of Star Fox Zero; not ideal but better than nothing

Pokemon: At least one version of the mainline games from gen 4 onwards (Diamond, Platinum (my first), HeartGold, Black, White 2, X & Y, Omega Ruby, Sun, Ultra Sun, Shield, and I'm currently playing through Brilliant Diamond), I've played a few of the side/spinoff games but not very many (PMD Explorers of Time (only partly), Pokemon Ranger Guardian Signs (I own all 3 but I've only played GS), PokePark Pikachu's Adventure, the original Pokemon Rumble, and Battle Revolution (a fav but I've never beaten it)). I haven't played either of Red/Leaf's games, though (I haven't decided whether I wanna buy RBY for my 2ds or emulate FRLG).

Fire Emblem: I've played Awakening and am partway through a second playthrough, and I'm currently working on Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light

Game & Watch: Game & Watch Gallery 1-3, couldn't find anything on 4 that was neither included in the other 3 or relevant to Mr. Game & Watch

Kid Icarus: I've played Uprising and I've played a little bit of the original

Wario: I've played a little bit of Wario Land: Shake It (I think anyways) and I played WarioWare when I was little

Metal Gear Solid: I watched a friend play MGS2 and he's currently playing through MGS3; ironically I only got a brief glimpse of MGS1 (i.e. the game that the actual Solid Snake is the main character of)

Pikmin series: I played Pikmin 3 Deluxe (including the two Olimar side games) and I've watched the TRG playthrough of Pikmin 1 and part of chuggaaconroy's playthrough of 2

Mii/Wii series: Wii Fit, Wii Sports, Wii Play, Nintendo Land, and I've played a tiny bit of the demo for Miitopia (I made Luigi in the game and I've seen the intro)

Pac-Man: A little bit of the original Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man

1 game only: I've played Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed, Metroid NES, a small bit of F-Zero SNES, Ice Climber, part of Mega Man 1 on the legacy collection (got past yellow devil and then dropped it), Little League of Punch-Out NES, Banjo-Kazooie, one low-level classic mode run of Arms, Minecraft, and I have vague memories of one of the Kingdom Hearts games. Right now I'm playing through Earthbound, Final Fantasy 7, and Dragon Quest 11 S.

[featherlinneasart]

Forgot to upload.

English:So years ago I started and pretty much canceled/put it in a long hiatus, nuzlocke comics.I am not in the mood to work on PMD stuff, so I'll just switch around the nuzlocke saga with the pmd saga, depending on my mood.Anyway I hunted the starters a few years ago, I haven't really been actively doing the nuzlockes.I did decide on it being shiny nuzlockes now about uff 2 years ago now?Well anyway new rule set for the shiny nuzlocke.

1.Only 1 shiny per route, 

2 shinies max-> only via gift in one town each.    1.1 Regular pokemon can't be caught or used. (Exception for hm slave if the need arises)    

1.2 all possible shiny hunting methods within the game are allowed    1.3 Method and encounters must be written down/counted 2.If a Pokemon faints it dies.  

��2.1 Very specific exception: One freebie only during a shiny hunt, if it is before the first gym badge and not the shiny encounter itself. (Basically it doesn't count for one time. My nuzlocke my rules ey? And it is specific enough to not ruin it all.)    2.2 Box all dead pokemon    

2.3 if poisoned 1hp also equals death

3. All Pokemon must be nicknamed

4. The use of revivers and X-items is forbidden. Those will be sold upon attaining them.

5. You are not allowed to purchase healing items, all healing items are gifted or found.

6. Trade evolutions are allowed. Trading with NPCs is not. (Considering I'd never trade a shiny anyway)

(7. Dubes are allowed. Also if a second shiny appears on the same route it is boxed. Unlike 1 those are not gift hunts )

8. No one-shot kill moves, self harming moves(like recoil moves like take down) or suicide moves allowed. Metronome for example would not be allowed. (exception for struggle)

9. Team swipes are allowed. If the entired team is swiped out, all of them die. Run continues with shinies that have been waiting in box one. (Restarting shiny nuzlockes is apain, so team swipes don't equal game over here, unless I really only had my team and nothing in the box) -For platinum I might not allow status moves, but I am still debating it. So why is it all taking so long? Eh no motivation etc. working a bit on it more. Anyway, switching between pmd and nuzlockes is nice.Soul Silver Nuzlocke will take ages anyway. Togepi hunt without slugma(no regular pokemon can be used) and a bike is hideous. It takes about 5 min for each egg to hatch or more I don't know. And with these odds even with my luck it takes forever, I barely hunt it because it sucks to hunt it.Though I really want Togepi on the team. If I have to restart the nuzlocke because of a fail, certainly won't hunt it again.Platinum? Haven't hunted the starter really.Omega ruby? Getting the shiny female ralts was pretty awesome. Not my initial target, but ey I ain't complaining. I panicked a lot while training it, that thing is useful, it dying not so much. If any Nuzlocke gets done, it is the Omega Ruby one. The odds are the best and no stupid egg hunts. Not doing level caps with these, but normally I don't overlevel anyway.Nuzlocke concepts are being overworked and adjusted, but before writing anything, I have to have a succesfull playthrough anyway. Well hopefully I can finish a playthrough at some point haha. Though I'll probably just draw a couple of the shinies I obtain. Edit: Alright I don't have the patients to spent an entire year on a togepi hunt. I am skipping togepi and just trade it for a primo egg or similar, depending if I actually need anything. But yeah, no togepi for this run. I'll continue my playthrough and just focus on Random Encounters. Egg hunts, are not fun.

[1863-project]

I’m at the end of my first-ever Omega Ruby run, and I’ve honestly had a great time getting to know Hoenn. I just have to evolve some Pokemon and catch the Regis and Deoxys before I move along (I’m waiting to trade with folks to finish the Dex properly, but I can do that at any point), but I think it’s worth doing a retrospective on the characters and Pokemon I met along the way.

As a region, Hoenn is unique in that it has a LOT of water routes. You spend a large portion of the second half of the game traveling via Surf. The Azumarill in my party, Pikablue, ended the game knowing Waterfall, Surf, and Dive (it also carries Play Rough), and it was one of the most crucial members of my party for transport purposes.

When I won the Hoenn League, the team May (named ‘Hatshepsut’ in my playthrough because we love cool historical figures in this house) had with her was her evolved starter, a Blaziken named Cluck You, along with Pikablue the Azumarill, Pangaea the Groudon, Charles II the Shiftry, Friendo the Latios, and the team anchor, Bastet the overleveled Skitty. I beat Steven because Bastet dodged a Zen Headbutt from Metagross and gave me the time I needed to revive both Blaziken and Groudon in the back, and their fire moves handled the rest. Bastet went on to become the first party member to reach level 100, way ahead of everyone else. She was absolutely incredible and I love her. Her final moveset: Heal Bell (surprisingly useful, especially in Doubles), Thunder, Ice Beam, and Play Rough. She’s a Dragon Slayer.

As soon as I got my hands on the Eon Flute I started running around to check every Mirage location that came up in the hopes that it would be a Mirage Cave. I knew that was where Tynamo was, and I needed Eelektross to complete the Submas team I was building (the other nine members are in SwSh at the moment; Eelektross will hopefully someday join them). On November 30th, my persistence paid off, and I went and caught three Tynamos so I could have the entire evolutionary line in my National Dex in Pokemon HOME. As it turns out, Eelektross still hasn’t been added to HOME because Third Rail has become a vital member of my party in postgame and I love him and he loves me. (I’m just Emmet, really.) The Eon Flute is also really nice in that using it allows you to literally fly in real time over the entire region, and I prefer doing that to using Fly because it’s just so aesthetically nice. Friendo just swoops down and picks me up, and we have a nice time exploring together. It’s especially pretty at night when everything is all lit up. It’s a lovely little feature exclusive to Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, and it’s so great.

Character-wise, Hoenn has produced some notables. Magma and Aqua are two of the most beloved villain teams in the entire franchise, and the reboots gave them so much more personality and gave the leaders and admins some excellent updated designs. (Years ago, when the remakes were first released, my dash was filled to the brim with Hardenshipping.) I had OR, so I had Magma to contend with, and one of the single most entertaining things in the entire game is Maxie’s losing animation. It’s perfect, it suits his character so well, and it’s just really funny. Also, shout-out to the Team Magma grunt that I met in the Extremely Obvious Hideout who told me how proud he was of kicking his soda habit whilst standing next to the vending machines. I love that guy. In terms of reformation, Magma and Aqua come around very easily when they realize that they’ve had a very bad idea - they ultimately were well-intentioned but made a really horrible mistake and set out to set things right (with the player’s help, of course). It ultimately makes both teams very likeable.

In terms of other characters, not every Gym Leader from Hoenn is a complete standout, but a few are very, very popular. Flannery is a perfect time capsule of 2003 fashion and I love that so much, and I don’t think I need to say much about Wallace. He’s just Wallace. He’s so freaking entertaining. Steven is also a very popular Champion, and he plays a pretty big role in the plot, so you see a lot of him throughout the game. (He and Wallace are also a very popular ship, with Originshipping - named for the Cave of Origin which Wallace has to grant you access to - actually being referenced in Pokemon Masters on, of all days, Valentine’s Day. Make of this what you will, but I’m here for it.) The Gym Leaders all received redesigns as well, with a lot of them benefiting greatly from it - I like Roxanne’s new school uniform so much better than her old one, for example, and once again, Wallace outshines everyone with an ensemble that would go wonderfully at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. I wish we got to know the Gym Leaders a bit more as people, because they don’t get to stand out as characters as much. Galar actually did this very well by allowing us a lot of interactions with the Leaders outside the Gyms and as teammates and rivals in the Galarian Star Tournament. A big part of the reason Wallace is so popular as a Gym Leader here is that you see him outside the Gym multiple times and can even compete with him in Contests. You get to know him as a person more and not just as the eighth Gym Leader, and it makes him a much more interesting character.

In short, here’s how the League stacks up for me:

Roxanne: Benefited massively from her character redesign, which gives her a lot more personality. Would like to see her and Steven interact since they’re apparently friends, which I imagine revolves around going out and licking rocks together or whatever geologists do with their geologist friends.

Brawly: He still isn’t very distinct. He’s a surfer who trains Fighting-types, which is a bit of a subversion since you’d expect Water-types from someone like that, but nothing about him really pops for me.

Wattson: Gives off Grandpa Vibes. Wattson actually gets a lot of expository development via his work on New Mauville and Sea Mauville, where you find out he halted the projects to protect the Pokemon ecosystems in both locations. A lot of employees were angry about this and he was even investigated briefly for stopping the projects, even being called a traitor to the company (which appeared to overwork its employees and prevent them from unionizing), but it was apparently evidently clear that he did things out of environmental concerns, and the employees were able to find work on other projects elsewhere. This actually slots nicely into the themes of the game involving environmentalism and how to ensure the livelihoods of people and nature both.

Flannery: Time capsule from 2003! I was, of course, around in 2003 (I turned 14), and Flannery was at the peak of fashion back then. Flares were in, and I miss that trend so much. For that alone, she’s one of my favorite Gym Leaders in this generation, but I also appreciate that she’s shown trying to find her footing and figure out who she is instead of pretending to be someone else. There’s a certain performative aspect to being a Gym Leader, but it needs to come naturally from them and be an extension of their own personality, not be artificial. I would, however, love to know who her grandfather is. It’s still never been confirmed. (As a side note, a lot of people headcanon her to be Kabu’s niece, since he’s from Hoenn, which is cute.)

Norman: A Dad. More specifically, the player character’s dad. There’s really nothing that stands out about him except for that damn Slaking, which gives a lot of people trouble. I did, however, appreciate the conversation he had with Wally’s father as Wally and the player character departed together, because I’m actually pretty close to my own father (who I’m very similar to in many aspects). I’m 31 years old and I still get emotional every time my parents tell me they’re proud of me. Notably, Norman is the only player character father we have ever seen in Pokemon, though, which is odd.

Winona: In-game, she doesn’t feel like she has much of a personality, although she goes off on aesthetics pretty well. It just weirds me out that that’s her hair coming out from under the helmet and not wings attached to it. She could have been really cool but she gets the short end of the development stick.

Tate and Liza: The two of them intentionally playing up the ‘weird twins’ angle by completing each other’s sentences actually comes across really cutely because they’re kids. You can also run into them in the Lilycove Department Store being children and buying toys, a good reminder that they’re still very young and evidently very skilled for their ages. Battle-wise, my Azumarill knew Surf by this point so I ended things quickly because I’m into Doubles as it is and like using spread moves when I can.

Wallace: I’ve discussed him a lot above, so I don’t need to say much else, but he really is the most notable Gym Leader in the region, and not just because he’s the last one you face. He has a lot of personality and development, you meet him outside the Gym several times, his niece Lisia is also out and about in the game and the family resemblance is notable, and you find an old magazine in Sea Mauville featuring a woman on the cover who looks like Lisia - likely Wallace’s older sister, Lisia’s mother. The entire family gets more development than a lot of the other Gym Leaders in this region.

Sidney: The first member of the Elite Four you face...I’d actually like to know more about him. He seems like an interesting person, and I personally enjoy Dark-types myself so I always appreciate seeing Dark-type users not being portrayed as evil. His upbeat nature is nice, and it’s a pleasant surprise to run into him at the Battle Resort, even if he was only there to track down Steven.

Phoebe: I love how much her appearance contrasts with her Pokemon typing. She’s a Ghost-type trainer and you’d never guess that from her outfit! Her grandmother is the old woman on Mt. Pyre, which is why Phoebe has an affinity for Ghost-Types, and I’d love to see more interactions involving them together. You can run into Phoebe on Mt. Pyre after you beat the League and talk to her briefly - she was likely visiting her grandmother - but sadly she doesn’t get much development outside of that.

Glacia: An Ice-type trainer who we learn next to nothing about. Glacia is mentioned outside of the context of the Elite Four by an NPC in the Mauville Food Court who says she was slurping down ramen so intensely that she broke a sweat, but that’s all we know about her aside from that she’s originally from a different region, and she tells us that herself. Not very memorable.

Drake: Yet another Dragon trainer late in the game, and not one of the more notable ones. Lance and Clair are remembered for being cousins and for being the first Dragon trainers you really come across in the series, and later Dragon-type trainers like Iris (who becomes Champion of Unova in B2W2) and Raihan are carried by their personalities and distinct looks. Drake is just an old sea captain with Dragon-types, and he doesn’t really jump out at me much either.

Steven: A major player in the plot - one of the most active Champions we’ve had in the franchise - and a perpetually popular character. I never minded running into Steven out and about in Hoenn, even if it meant I’d have to listen to an infodump about rocks, and his Champion battle was actually fairly difficult for the team I brought in despite having two team members with Fire-type attacks to handle the Steel. As I mentioned above, it was my Skitty that made the decisive dodge to allow me to bring in the team member I needed to deliver the final blow, meaning this is now the second time in my life I’ve beaten the Champion with an unevolved house cat. (Rick Pratt the Purrloin is a vital member of my beloved Young Ones Galar Championship Team.) Overall, Steven’s a very likeable Champion, and I did enjoy the little detail of the rocks on display in his home - he has them labeled so you can see where he found them, and they’re from every region featured in the games up to that point.

Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire also have the Delta Episode, which features Rayquaza (which you’re forced to catch) and a character named Zinnia, who isn’t in RSE at all and is new to ORAS. Besides being named after my favorite flower, Zinnia’s personality is actually very interesting because although she comes across as cheery it’s clear she feels the weight of a massive responsibility and that the cheeriness is covering a lot of pain. Her Whismur named Aster is evidently named after someone important to her who is no longer around, and it’s never revealed in-game who the original Aster was. Whoever Aster was, though, Zinnia misses her deeply. In a 2015 interview, Ohmori Shigeru stated that the original Aster was the person who held the position of Lorekeeper before Zinnia, but we don’t know anything more than that - a shame, really, because that makes for some interesting backstory.

Overall, I had a lovely time in Hoenn, and I’ll be moving on to Kalos in the next few weeks once I finish up this Dex business first. I just wish I got to get to know so many of the characters I’ve met a little better, but I adore the team I put together and I’m super proud of them and all they’ve accomplished.