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steve0discusses · 3 years

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Yugioh S5 Ep 20: Pharaoh’s Cool New Trick

Digging my way through quite a pile of commission work (funny how these things only come all at once or not at all), nearing the light at the end of the tunnel, was looking forward to some free time to catch up on my many little side projects when I was asked to take off for a weekend to do some cat-sitting to which I would NEVER say no to a cat, so like...Rip this blog I guess, we only update like once a week nowadays, but what do you do?

That’s right, play Puzzles and Dragons! The only phone game worth paying any attention to! Where they just released Pegasus on their Yugioh Collab and he looks pretty great!

So I’m just gonna take a second for some art appreciation, because the Puzzles and Dragons art team is just A++++ honestly, and yes, I did pull 13 times to get a Pegasus in my monster box, and yes, he is a completely insane team leader that is absolutely broken when paired with Yugi (the numbers are so satisfying) but...look at him. He looks so good!

(also I finally got Joey Wheeler, and so now my gatcha cravings are settled. And, don’t worry, I play this game so much that I was there during Christmas when they offered like a bajillion stones for free so I didn’t actually use real money on this.)

Now PAD also released a Weevil and Rex, and I don’t know why, and neither does the art team because they still look pretty good but in comparison to all the mains, they sure do looks like just some shorty guys in some casuals.

though I gotta admit, I want to learn how the hell this art team does swooshy effects, because man, that would make my art so much better to just have flames violently exploding out of all my art. Why am I not doing that more often? I have the technology.

anyway, I didn’t bother trying to pull them. Maybe I’ll accidentally pull them when they eventually release a Duke Devlin. (also, RIP to the fact that Roland will probably never be in Puzzles and Dragons but like...I can only send them so many polite letters covered in stickers pretending I’m some 10 year old child and writing in my broken Hiragana “Roland in PAD?”. Thems the breaks. (They also might not remember who Roland is.))

Shoutouts to the card that Weevil is holding that is censoring this nipple on the booby spider, PS.

So because this is not actually a Puzzles and Dragons blog, and it’s been ten eons since I regularly updated so I could remember episode to episode...where the hell were we?

That’s right, we’re on an island now. This show’s wonderful obsession with evil islands (and spoiler, this is one of the few Yugioh Islands that doesn’t explode at the end. Mostly because Kaiba isn’t here to do it or this place would be cinder)

(read more island stuff under the cut)

Anyway, after announcing “hey guys! Screw islands!” Yugi immediately collapses and without any warning.

Apparently the armor is a big ol parasite, which is something that Yugi is so used to at this point that he refuses to admit that this is a problem. Just normal Muto stuff, refusing to tell anyone that he has a serious illness going on underneath that giant mass of hair.

(the sailor moon vibes coming off this weird orb energy)

Sort of feels like a call back to S1 when Yugi was clearly possessed and everyone else was like “He acting weird to you?” except it’s S5 and everyone has learned to never trust Yugi when he says he’s fine and they are responding like he is about to die. Which is correct.

Outside of the cave falls this scroll that is...glowing, I guess. So they open it up and get a bunch of hieroglyphs that give them the “riddle of light” and like youknow...it’s riddle stuff.

They’re doing this riddle for “wings.” And it’s like...everyone’s monster here has a set of wings or an ability to fly. Every single monster except for I dunno, flaming swordsman? Hell, Yugi himself had two sets of wings when he fused with Dark Magician (which was weird, and I still don’t like to think about what technically was going on there.) But we have to go and get ourselves even more wings.

Weirdly, Joey turns to Tea and does something that in any other show would be completely normal. He was like “you want to stay here with Yugi, don’t you?” and it was the first time Joey has ever actually addressed the fact that Tea and Yugi are close. Uncharted territory. I was amazed at the amount of casual shipping that is happening here. It’s almost like a normal ass relationship.

So the boys decide to go off, and be boys and tackle this themselves. And they shouldn’t have, because Tea is smart for this group, and also has the only healing spell.

Like if you’re playing D+D you wouldn’t typically leave your only healer behind. Just saying.

Also like...Grandpa Muto went with them? I guess he’d have to since he’s the translator but also...kind of weird to leave your grandson dying in a cave, but maybe that’s just the Muto lifestyle.

Do not be fooled by my caps, no one has addressed the Bakura in the puzzle for 3 seasons. I’m starting to think this show will never address the Bakura in the puzzle. Which honestly, that would be hilarious if they made a big deal out of that plot point and then couldn’t use it in the end.

And speaking of plot points that kind of come out of nowhere and don’t make full sense with the continuity of the show--Joey has regressed back to the 4th grade.

Hey show? What?

So like if you love Joey, this is not the arc for you, because this arc he is reduced to a Himbo and nothing else. Straight up didn’t know what an echo is, but is very strong and pretty, I guess.

This inevitably happens with any TV show becuase different people make different parts, and I’ve brought up before that sometimes it feels like some teams only have loose post-it notes of what any character should be like at any given point (ESPECIALLY with Seto Kaiba’s timeline) but like...

...Personally I’m mot so fond of this interpretation of Joey, kind of ignores Joey’s best traits, and makes Tristan look way too smart in comparison (and like I always pinned Tristan to be the Himbo of the group, but maybe it’s because they give Tristan so little else to do?)

And like don’t get me wrong, Joey’s a dumbass a lot of the time and needs to get corrected by his pals...but...to the point he doesn’t know what an echo is? He’s a dumbass in a High School student sort of way, youknow?

Anyway, they get down to this big ravine, and they have to destroy this stone while the light passes over it. Kind of feels like a Breath of the Wild shrine quest, actually. In fact, I think Breath of the Wild recycled the shadow/sunlight pathing quest like 4 or 5 times. (I love Breath of the Wild to death but boy did they run out of ideas at the end there.)

They have to fight a glass monster and it’s kind of like...do you know the game Balls 3D? probably not, but it looked like a bunch of random shapes stuck together like a 90′s animation. They basically went to war with shapes.

Pure Himbo energy, has several pokemon, but punches for his pokemon instead of using them. A power move if I ever saw one.

Youknow that would make pokemon a lot more interesting if you could like throw out your pikachu, and then choose to just physically run up to your opponents Eevee and sock it in the jaw. Raise of hands--I know you all would love a version of pokemon like that. Let Ash Ketchum punch a Ratata.

Bro has informed me that Ash does do something like this in the anime. But I’m not talking about the anime, I’m talking about the video game. Give me the option to physically combat my rival. This is what I want, Pokemon.

They discover a way to break the monolith, and the show thinks we’re like actually 7 years old (because the show is Y7, although I forget because it deals with so many dark themes) so the show is going to hold on to this puzzle for a while...just to fill time. And it’s fine because we gotta switch over to Pharaoh anyway.

Yami has this dream again. He attempts to fuse with Dark magician to overcome the dream, but alas, he is still not strong enough.

Yugi wakes up in this murky cave while Tea is out washing out like...some rag? (he’s also still got a rag, so I guess multiple rags were required for how sweaty Yugi is.)

Yugi says “I feel like I’m a new man!” a lot in this episode, and every time he calls himself a man like he’s some sort of adult it’s very funny to me.

And then this plot lore dropped.

I mean I guess inevitably it had to happen...

But man, end of an era. It was freakin hilarious while it lasted: that Pharaoh refused to read ancient Egyptian because it’s like 2002 and he is a High Schooler living in Japan and he actually doesn’t WANT to resolve the mystery of the puzzle. Maybe the people who made this arc don’t know about how in S2 and S3, the fact Pharaoh couldn’t read Marik’s back tatt was like...a really big issue. He couldn’t read the God card, he couldn’t even read that massive tablet that read “HEY PHARAOH THIS IS LITERALLY YOU”. KAIBA had to tell him how to read the God card for him. Freakin Seto “Magic is a lie” Kaiba had to tell him how to use the God Card because Pharaoh couldn’t read it.

But like...Pharaoh finally gave in at some point after the world was devoured by the Leviathan, and before Kaiba finished building Kaibaland (which was already built in S1 but wtv)

The timelines on this show have always been a mishmash...but this one is just like...

...show are you trying to convince me that at any point in this show after season Zero, Pharaoh had any idea what he was doing? Did he sap that brain energy straight out of Joey Wheeler so he could do this?

Wow.

(secretly hoping he forgets how to read Egyptian after this arc is over and the show goes back to the other development team)

Pharaohs reasoning is that, if this is the riddle of the light.....

....then where is the riddle of darkness????????????

and when Tea was like “Pharaoh that is not even remotely logic. Omg it’s so bright outside, lets go back to gross cave.” and Pharaoh was like “Tea! You got it!” and she was like “What the hell are you talking about?”

Not gonna lie, I saw the Orichalcos green, and I got concerned.

Anyway, Yugi gets very frustrated and was like “ugh, lets go save em. They’re gonna die (again.)” and marches down there as if he didn’t pass out an hour ago.

And he fuses with Dark Magician again while everyone else (including his grandpa) was like “Yugi are you freakin kidding me? The suit freakin kills you omg! Tea you had one freakin job!”

And then we get the plot twist that...I mean it makes sense but it was choreographed in a confusing way.

And out of no where this guy shows up again:

So this mysterious man shows up and says “If you don’t succeed you have to live here forever” which...nice...that would probably save the world a lot of problems if Yami got locked away and took his OP puzzle with him. And then this man also says “if you do succeed you become VERY POWERFUL” and Yami was like. “...”

This whole episode had a theme to it, where Tristan and Joey were trying to prove that they could do things on their own and without Yugi’s help. And honestly...felt a little bit misplaced. Yami’s the same guy who murdered Yugi last season with the Orichalcos so like...

...I mean he is probably more reliable than Tristan who once died and turned into a robot monkey for 10ish episodes.

and then they flew into a glowing door.

Folks, this was wild to look at.

This is wild.

And at this point I closed Photoshop and thought I was done. But then I looked at my timeline on the video and was like...wait...there’s more?

and I’m really glad I kept watching because it went back to Alex, who...is apparently just still at those steps in this haunted ass Pyramid.

Now we’re watching Yugioh.

I forgot for a second when they turned Joey into a Himbo and made Pharaoh literate, but we’re back. I mean...

...look at the liner art on this adult man.

So...I posit the question...has Alex spent the last 2-3 episodes doing nothing but applying eyeliner to his face in the dark? Because he absolutely has. And honestly, the vibe of being in a spooky haunted pyramid with barely any light, just applying eyeliner down the edge of your face...that’s a Yugioh vibe, if I ever saw one.

This arc is wild. Anyway, next episode we do even more fetch quests and riddles? Just going to guess now that we probably will.

(and for those new here, this is a link so you can read them from the top. Which, since we’re in S5, means you got like...hours of Yugioh content to read through. Enjoy the rewards of my weird hobby.)

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

#Yugioh #Yu-Gi-Oh #yami yugi #S5 #Ep20 #It's actually Ep 20 now I was wrong last time #Yugi muto #Grandpa Muto #Alexander the Great #Joey Wheeler #Tristan Taylor #Tea Gardner #TeaxYugi #never thought I would ever use that tag #in this show where they are canonically dating but sometimes it happens #Puzzles and Dragons #Because yes I had to talk about it. This collab is great

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atlas-the-worldbuilder · 4 years

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Final thoughts on Pokemon Sword/Shield

So in case you weren’t aware (which is most of you, I’m sure), a few months ago I started a Pokemon Shield blind Nuzlocke Run. And recently, I completed the main portion of the Nuzlocke by defeating the Champion. Having played through the game, though, I thought I’d give my final thoughts on it as a Pokemon fan, a gamer, and as a storyteller.

The Story & Characters

In all honesty, I rather enjoyed the main story of this game. The Pokemon League has always been presented like a professional sport (at least in the anime/cartoon), so it’s fun to see the games taking that perspective and rolling with it. It felt like an actual tournament/championship, to compete for the title in an officially organized manner, rather than just running a gauntlet of preset combatants.

In addition, I liked how they incorporated both the gym leaders and our rivals into the league story as not only combatants, but also as individuals with their own lives and aspirations. Marnie and Team Yell are adorable, Hop is... mostly tolerable, thus far, but by far my favorite rival character has been Bede, the Psychic/Fairy trainer. His haughty and prideful demeanor make him a delight to defeat, and his arc is a wonderful story to see unfold. I’m really curious to see what he gets up to in the after-story! The Gym Leaders are also fun to meet and battle; the Pokemon games as a whole have been gradually attempting to give more and more character to each of the Gym Leaders you meet, beyond just trials to overcome on your journey to victory. And while I always have a soft spot for the Hoenn & Sinnoh gyms, I like that they opted to have the Gym Leaders return in place of having more Elite Four members to fight I only wish I could get more opportunities to get to know them better, cuz there’s some standout leaders from this batch which I truly enjoy!

My biggest complaint with Sword/Shield’s story, though, has been the “Heroic Quest” plotline which has become increasingly common these days. I like the character of Sonia the researcher, and Oleana is satisfying to watch lose, my biggest complaint has been the pacing of the plot; the first 2/3rd’s of the story are us teaming with Sonia to gradually get the backstory revealed to us, and then in the last half hour, right as the Tournament’s getting underway, all the villains suddenly crawl from beneath the floorboards and run amok while you have to chase them down! There didn’t feel like there was a proper buildup explaining why the villain wanted to summon the legendary Pokémon, especially one which we heard next to nothing about! This brings about an interesting idea, however... what if instead, they had completely forgone any Legendary-Summoning stories until after the league? Honestly, I was way more invested challenging the gyms and fighting the champion than I was stopping the literal POKEMON APOCALYPSE from happening... so what if for future games, they saved those for after you became champion? As a sort of test of your skills, to prove your worth to bear the mantle you have taken! Maybe it wouldn’t have meshed well, maybe they needed to show of the game mascot more, I dunno... it’s just my thoughts.

The GamePlay

THEY FINALLY LET US TURN OF THE GODS-FORSAKENED TUTORIALS!!! PRAISE THE ALL-FATHER!!!

Ahem... In all honesty, I think I’d grown a bit too used to the 2nd screen of the DS-series games, but after a couple days of getting used to the mono-screen style again, I am pleased to say I found it very easy to settle back into. Though there are still some features I wish would make a return (the HM moves as opposed to public transportation, poison’s effect while walking, wild double battles, etc.), there are alot of fun mechanics introduced and remedies to older problems that have been introduced!

I think one feature which hasn’t had much said about it is the introduction of the Poke-Jobs system; this system allows you to send your Pokémon out on timed “away missions” to gain both experience and items. In the old days, if you wanted to passively level your pokemon, the only real option you had without introducing a second player was the Daycare center, and they could only raise two pokemon at once... and you had to pay for it. With Poke-Jobs, though, I can send anywhere from 5-10 teammates out for whatever amount of time I want them to be out for, and then come back later to see them lively and with goodies to show for their work! At first, I didn’t think I’d get much use out of this system; I, like many players out there I’m sure, prefer to guide my pokemon’s training personally, honing their movesets and guiding their levelling and points the way I want from them. But as I progressed further in my Nuzlocke, and as my daily life became busier and busier, I found myself sending my backup teammates out on jobs to keep them on par with my main team. Given that the Move Deleter/Tutor and Name Rater are now services that have been rolled into the Pokemon Center, yet another good thing this series has done, I found it much easier to keep my reserve Pokemon prepared in case I needed a substitution. Some Nuzlocke “Purists” may call that taking the easy way out, but... frankly, I don’t have the willpower to do that much grinding. I’m here to play a game and have fun doing it, dammit.

The Wild Area is another thing I’ve wanted to see from Pokemon for a long time - taking more steps to make the regions seem like an open world, with vast sprawling environments full of pokemon and secrets to uncover. I’ll admit, though, the execution is... not entirely perfect. While open expanses are fun to explore, the Wild Area did seem a bit... flat to traverse. And while the weather mechanics translating into battle are fun to deal with, the same sets of wild pokemon appearing did start to wear me down. I think what the Wild Area really needed, in the long run, was a system similar to how Black/White/Black2/White2 did - having seasonal progression ingame, where different pokemon would show up during different seasons, making the different places unique and novel all over again throughout the year. And for the record, many of my gripes with the Wild Area were addressed in the Isle of Armor’s expansion island. VASTLY superior, and much more fun to navigate and traverse.

...I’ll openly admit this: I was not a fan of Mega Evolution when it was first introduced in X/Y. I felt it was fine enough to see Pokemon battling without power boosts or “digi-volving” or whatever you wanna call it. When Sun/Moon Introduced Z-Moves, it felt like a step in the right direction, but at the same time, I ended up not using it very often. If I had to have a power boost to my pokemon, I would want it something that couldn’t be used as a crutch when the going gets tough - something that has a limited usability, and offers benefits specific to the time it’s being used. I say this because I initially approached Dynamax the same way: as just another power boost to level the playing field and shake up the battle meta which I don’t keep track of. However, after barely surviving all 8 gym leaders without using a single dynamax pokemon, I decided to give it a chance: after having completed the Isle of Armor’s subplot and gaining access to the Max Soup, I fed it to my Toxtricity Spike, and started running dynamax raids. As I started using it more and more, I started gaining a certain appreciation for it that I hadn’t before; this was something written in to being a unique cultural effect! This literally is imagining Pokemon as Kaiju! And for the most part, it works! While I still feel mega-lvl-power-boosts in pokemon are a huge waste, at the very least I can say Dynamax didn’t leave me with too bad a taste in my mouth. I do hope, however, that Dynamax stays a Sword/Shield exclusive power; given it’s cultural importance in Galar, and how Mega-Evolution was in the previous generation, I think having power boosts specific to regions works better than having the same stuff used across the board for every meta onwards,

What Do I hope for the Future?

I can’t say for sure if they’ll release a sequel game for Sword/Shield, but if they do... I would want them to make these minor changes:

Hold off the Heroic plot for after the League plot; devote the main first half of the game to just the gyms and league story like was done here, and then save meeting uber-god-tier Pokémon for after you’ve claimed the title of Champion.

Having said that, fix the pacing of how the Eternatus/Darkest Day subplot feels as it’s being played out. Offer us more insight into Rose and Oleana’s mindsets as they go about their business, and give us more coherent exposition from our field trips with Prof. Sonia.

Fix how the Wild Area looks - give it more variations for each sub-region and offer more varieties of habitats, like in the Isle of Armor. Or, alternatively, try to implement a seasonal mechanic to make the same areas change over the year, opening new paths and new avenues to explore!

Let Bede defeat Oleana. Give my boy some closure.

Allow us to see and interact with the Gym Leaders outside of the gyms more. I had, like, barely 2 lines of dialogue with Nessa, and even less for Milo. Not asking for a whole lot, just a bit more to tie us into who they are as people. Piers is best big brother. <3

That’s all I had written for now. If y’all want a biography of my champion team for my Shield Nuzlocke, let me know, and I’ll scrap a post together! <3

#Pokemon #Pokemon Sword Shield #Demotivated Review #Video Game #Atlas the Worldbuilder #nobody's gonna care about this #but that's ok

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ghostmartyr · 5 years

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Pokémon FireRed Nuzlocke [Part 11]

The quest continues to beat this game using standard Nuzlocke rules and the added rule of no battling outside of Trainers. Grinding is strictly forbidden. In round I-don’t-even-know of this adventure, we head to Nugget Bridge!

Yee. haw.

-many minutes later-

Well, that’s done with. Now time to go beat up on all the Trainers hanging out near Bill’s house. Also I guess time to free Bill from the Detective Pikachu nonsense he done did to himself.

This is all going to be things we’ve done before, with me nonchalantly hoping Acorn (Pikachu) makes it up to a usable level by the end.

In the spirit of mixing it up a little, I’m going to see if Acorn can handle some of the pre-Misty trainers in her Gym. Totally not because there’s a level 17 Slowpoke up there that I want him to be able to knock flat.

First trainer beat without a fuss, Acorn grows to level 16, blah blah blah, ah. The second trainer has a Goldeen, so we’ll just come back later once we’re done with the Route 24 people. ...25?

Hell, I don’t know. I barely care at this point.

It’s 25. I do not care.

I CARE A LITTLE ACORN DON’T DIE.

Acorn does not die.

I think a piece of me does.

I’m gonna take a break from battles and catch my 24/25 stuff.

Oddish for 25 ftw!

Caught it!

Its name is Oak.

Route 24 wants us to have Weedle. As penance for missing one in Viridian Forest, I assume.

...

Acorn killed it.

Am I ever going to get both a Route 24 and a Route 25 pokemon?

[doubt]

Note how the Clefairy just disappears. Detective Pikachu’s take on this is much less dark.

Alrighty. All trainers up by Bill have been dealt with, meaning that it’s time to go forth and deal with the rest of Misty’s Gym. Acorn is level 17, Oak is level 25. Oak will take on the Goldeen the remaining trainer has. Then Acorn will have a chance against Staryu, but Oak will take on Starmie.

Acorn gets an Oran Berry, Oak gets a Persim. That Starmie’s confusion rate is the worst thing about this entire Gym.

My policy is that I have four sacrificial token pokemon in my party to spare my real team members pain. I think I’m canonically a monster.

Oki doki. The Staryu is level 18, so I think Acorn should be okay against it.

Yes! Acorn survives without a scratch.

But you are not fighting the Starmie. We do not gamble with Gym battles.

-flashbacks to Brock-

...We do not gamble with. most. Gym battles.

Oak, now level 26, against a level 21 Starmie. AKA An Abomination.

Wow.

Heeeeeeeeey, second badge get!

Time to wander down to Route 5 and catch a thing.

The thing is going to be a Meowth. Its name is Oak.

This is so much easier to do when you’re not typing down every single little thing you’re doing. I’m incredibly grateful for my past self’s logs, but I’m even more grateful that they did them so I don’t have to. Going through and not bothering with anything except the highlights is a lot more pleasant.

Not replaying Route 1 is, too.

This Butterfree Supersonicing everything in sight is less fun. The Stun Spore isn’t great either. But like everything eventually, it dies.

Step 1 of figuring out what to do about Celadon.

Step 2.

Step 3.

Wow, I’m not sure I’ve ever read this entry properly before. This is incredibly mean.

(Its name is Oak.)

And with that, we have our Vermilion City catch, and no longer have to worry about Magikarp belonging to any other route. Awesome. This is much nicer than the first time we caught a thing in this city.

Route 6 is taking too long to catch things in. We’re abandoning the attempt for now.

What we are not abandoning.

Is this insanity.

The reason I bought Repels during Left’s run, and then again during this one.

I think you can catch Diglett up to level 29 here. Oak is level 27. If I put on a Repel, things stronger than him will spawn. That should mean. I can get a ridiculously overleveled Ground pokemon for free. If true, that will help immensely.

Let’s watch as whatever happens is not that.

THERE WE GO!

The risk now is that we won’t catch it, or it will kill Oak.

Bite or Water Gun. Bite or Water Gun.

Bite for first bit.

Okay, Bite does little enough that Water Gun should be safe.

This thing knows Sand Tomb. My other fear about this arrangement is that it will have abandoned Magnitude as a move. I’m hoping I’m wrong, but even if I’m not. Level 29 Dugtrio. That’s not bad, given my options.

One more Bite, then I’ll try to catch.

It also knows Mud Slap.

-worry intensifies-

It uses Dig.

What’s the last move, Dugtrio.

FUCK YEAH.

This is probably the best thing I can currently do for this run. I would very much like for nothing bad to happen, but the fact that I can make this work is already really swell.

Her name is Bark.

Bark, you will replace Oak in the party. Now let’s see.

She’s Serious, and... yeah. No Magnitude. Because Mud Slap and Sand Tomb are so much better.

It’s okay, though. We’ll get through this by being superbly overleveled. Squee. We also now have something to eat Attack IVs up for breakfast, so this is just. There is nothing bad about this.

Route 11, what’ve you got for me?

Drowzee.

It’s caught. Its name is Oak.

Now to beat up the many, many trainers on this route. In hopes of getting Acorn to know Thunderbolt. That’s at level 26. He’s at level 20 right now.

Post-Route 11?

Level 22.

Bike Voucher to drown my sorrows.

Followed by boat ride.

-many minutes later-

Acorn is level 25. Soon. Soon, the day will come. The day of reckoning. Thunderbolt is waiting. Somehow I’m always surprised by how difficult it can be to get an Electric pokemon with Thunderbolt. I think that, more than anything else, has single-handedly killed my general interest in raising Electric pokemon. It’s kind of sad. They were by far my favorite when I was a kid.

Side note unrelated to anything going on right now that might be scaring me.

Rattata with Hyper Fang is scary.

Those tiny things aren’t supposed to be dangerous.

Then.

Suddenly.

Danger.

And just in time for the Rival battle!

They’re going to have a real awkward wedding one day.

This fight is a lot simpler when my lowest level pokemon is level 26. Take notes, future self.

The Ivysaur is very, very annoying, though. Bark turns out to be my best choice for dealing with it. Not what I would call a comfort. ...Heero. I still miss you. So much.

Cut get.

Super happy fun boat trip over now.

We teach Cut to Oak, and go about our business entering the Gym and throwing all the Trainers to the ground. Acorn, Bark. I put my faith in you.

Pokemon fans, what is your least favorite Gym setup, and why is it Surge’s?

Let’s goooooooo.

Acorn will (hopefully) handle the Voltorb and Pikachu, and then leave the Raichu to Bark’s capable. whatevers.

Success on Acorn’s side.

Bark...?

Right.

Yeah, so Double Team?

Do Not Like.

Except when I use it. It’s like Sturdy, in that way.

This fight takes around ten turns for Dig to actually hit and knock the Raichu out in one blow.

Surge’s Gym: The Actual Worst.

We made it to needing Flash! Miracles do exist!

...Wait, what do I have that can learn Flash?

None of the Oaks present. :(

And this time!

This time!

I made it through the damn Diglett cave without needing to kill any for illicit exp.

Back at Cerulean, I’m gonna get my bike, but first I’m going to put Oak in the box so that Oak can come in and learn Cut and Flash.

Heading off to Rock Tunnel like a boss.

Huh, there’s an Aerial Ace TM around these here parts. I’m going to get rid of Sand Tomb on Bark (I hate Sand Tomb and everything remotely like Sand Tomb, so I can’t see myself using it) and teach her Aerial Ace. She is going to be violently fighting Fighting pokemon at some point, and the next Gym coming up is one I have nothing naturally super effective against.

Meanwhile, back in things happening, Route 9 option is a Spearow!

...tfw you don’t know how not to kill something and throwing a poke ball doesn’t work.

But we persevere and catch it!

Its name is Oak.

Route 10 shows us... Voltorb!

.zaft. ;-;

Oh whoops.

Um.

I was spamming the A-button equivalent.

Bye Voltorb, nice not knowing you. Uh. Sorry. +117 illicit exp to Bark and Acorn.

Oops.

Let’s go hide in a cave now and not examine all of that too closely.

Rock Tunnel gives us a Geodude to try not to kill! We are going to answer that call with utmost seriousness, and do whatever possible to not kill the Geodude.

Success!

Its name is Oak.

Now we undertake the long. long. long. journey through the tunnel. It’s exactly like that scene in Lord of the Rings. Just with less fire. And wizards.

This Clefairy near the end of the tunnel is trying my patience. Minimize is the worst. Letting pokemon become immobilized by love is the worst. All of this is the worst. I miss being able to set things on fire so much.

As romantic as it is that love as a status appears to be unending, fucking stop.

Cool. Nice. Great.

Playing this is sapping my struggling will to live, good grief.

Okaay.

So here’s how this plays. I think, if I were given the choice of having everything handed to me, I would go with catching one of the Snorlaxes, and catching a very high level Grimer in Celadon. That would put me at five pokemon. Six would be if I wanted to take the Hitmonlee or Hitmonchan.

I don’t know if I have the resources to make that work.

Truth be told, I still think it was possible for me to beat the Elite Four with my original team. I was overly paranoid about the wrong things, as it turned out, and made a few bad calls. But I don’t think that team was doomed to failure.

Leveling things up so they’re invincible works as a strategy, but I’m also undoubtedly handicapped with Typing. I could drag this current team through the game with no additions, and the leveling could make up for a lot. Maybe even enough to surpass my original team.

Or I could pick some more stuff up.

It’s a hard call. I do really think that throughout the entire game, I only have three realistic options for team additions, and I’m very close to having my hands on any of them. Everywhere else, the leveling is just too much of a negative. A level 25 Lapras was cool and all, but if you look at how much time went into leveling it, I’m not sure I would call having it my best option. Buying a Scyther has already been ruled out here, because it would be level 20. It would resist Fighting and make all Psychic things easier, but it would take too many resources to train.

Grimer, Snorlax, Fighting Gift.

Those are the things I can get that I feel could be a worthwhile investment.

What do I want my final team to look like? What things do I already know are going to cause problems, and how do I want to adjust for them?

Questions I get to ask after three badges. Hell. Why did I think this was a good idea?

I think what I’ll do. Ugh.

See, I think the problem is that the Fighting thing is closest to being gotten, but the Snorlax is what determines if I use it or not. If I can’t have Snorlax, the Fighting thing would be good. But I don’t find out if I’ll get the Snorlax until a bit later and argh.

For now, let’s keep things simple. We’ll go through the tower now, so Acorn and Oak are more experienced as we hit the other sections of the plot. I can’t remember if I get the Super Rod now or later, so we’ll also go down and mess with the fisher people briefly.

Tower and Rival-san first.

...Oh wait. I guess the first thing I want to do is dodge as many trainers as possible and run to Celadon for a Thunderstone for Acorn. Let’s do that.

But if we can get the Super Rod already, it would be best to do that now so we could nab a Grimer when we got there... Sigh.

No Super Rod just yet, sorry me.

Route.... uh. One we’re on while we head towards Celadon gives us a Growlithe to try and catch. ...Bark kills it. More sighing. +195 illicit exp.

Celadon reached, Tea gotten. And...

Yay!

Now to buy a ton of Lemonade.

Then we deal with the tower.

The nicest thing about Heero (that is a lie, all things about Heero were the nicest) was that we didn’t have to deal with this monstrosity.

Ivysaur is still difficult. I don’t have an actual answer to that, yet. It has perfect accuracy with its Sleep Powder so far, adding to the extreme difficulty. We get through it, though, and Oak handles the Kadabra.

Now for the rest of the tower to be taken by Acorn and Oak.

Right. We can’t yet see these, so no catching just yet.

So I lied. Acorn killed everything. Oak did not help. Sorry, Oak. Now I guess we go do the Celadon side of this. So we can then come back to the tower. So we can then figure out if we’re doing a Snorlax or a thingamajig. So we then can get a Grimer.

On and on it goes.

“I don’t sound remotely suspicious at all!”

Sigh. I hate how Levitate is a thing with certain Poison pokemon. Not naming names or anything. I’m just pointing out that my life would be much, much easier if Bark could Dig every single Poison thing in existence.

Look Ma, I made it.

Thanks in advance for giving Oak some exp, Giovanni.

Though Bark is taking the Kangaskhan. Love you Oak, but Dig is better than Water Gun. ...and it still manages to do nothing. That’s mildly scary. I have never missed Allenby so deeply.

Bark finishes it off while still in the green, though. Proving once again that leveling beats everything.

Silph Scope get, so now we can go and finish up the tower.

...I don’t think I actually have any moves that won’t kill this, so if throwing a Poke Ball doesn’t work, we’re running away.

Hm.

It used Curse. Fine, we’ll make an honest try of catching it.

...Why does every sleep-inducing move hit every single fucking time. Why. Why why why.

...

I don’t know how it’s still alive, and I feel like it shouldn’t be.

Whatever.

It’s caught.

Its name is Oak.

Hey, my past self screwed up and didn’t note if I could run away from the Marowak or not. If I can, I have to do that instead of winning extra exp.

Ah. Running away lets me leave the battle, but when I walk back forward the Marowak respawns. Fair. Guess you’ve gotta die, sad ghost.

That done with, time to rescue flute guy. He has a name, but that name is less important than that he has a flute and will determine what our final team will look like once we make use of it.

...I can’t believe I just realized that this is basically Kurt’s plot from gen 2.

We now begin the most difficult trial of the run.

The Snorlax wars.

If catching one looks like it will kill someone, I’m running from it. That goes for both of them. This is a mission of pure luck. Snorlax can kill whatever it wants. The mission is to avoid it killing my team. Accidentally killing it is cool, but if the choices are something dying or running to escape, we are running.

Pictured: Stress.

Let’s get this done with.

...This is not going to work. One Headbutt puts Bark in the orange. If it decides to make a concentrated attack instead of just sleeping, I’m in trouble. Plus, without an Allenby, all I have barely puts a dent in it.

THEN AS I AM TYPING THIS

What the actual fuck.

Welcome to the team, Trunk?

Uh.

Things I did not expect.

Oak, you’re going in the box to make room for Trunk.

Then I guess we’ll. Go get the Super Rod. Fetch Grimer. Then deal with the actual plot of the game. Huh.

Trunk is Quirky, and has Immunity, which as we learned last time, is great for Koga. So uh. What I guess I’m saying is. Nice. This puts us dangerously close to being in a pretty good place.

Lowest level thing that I’m using is level 30. That’s really, really good. So now we’re going to feed all the trainers we didn’t beat on Route 8 to Trunk, and giggle about it as we go.

Righty then, Trunk hits level 32, and we’re going to storm Erika’s Gym now.

...Why does everything put all of my stuff to sleep this round.

I also should find a more workable solution to fighting Grass pokemon at some point. I have an inkling that being overleveled isn’t going to last forever, and it’s my only real defense at the moment.

And I need to stop having Oak in up front. I’m trying to get some Sp. Atk from the Oddishes and things, but really it’s just meaning I forget and have to switch out on things like Bellsprout. EV training fails everywhere.

Seriously though, I’m using Acorn to deal with Grass things. That is not a solution. That is an abomination.

Lesgo.

Including blatant the blatant stupidity of having Acorn fight the Vileplume.

I just want my team to be its best self. Don’t judge.

VINDICATION.

Badge 4, get!

And now we fish for our Grimer. Which. tbh I don’t even know if it’ll make sense to use, but in any case, we will have it. Having things is nice.

According to Serebii, there’s a 1% chance of Grimer here. Mostly this pond just has Magikarp.

We’re going to be here a while. Especially since getting a pokemon on the hook at all is proving mighty difficult. Until a few seconds ago, I was averaging five tries per Magikarp.

-6. hours. later.-

Presenting.

The lowest level Grimer you can catch in this here pond.

Are you fucking kidding me.

-cries in the corner for six more hours-

(Sadly, only one of those descriptions of my actions is fake. Now that really wants to make me cry for six hours.)

Its name.

is.

Sap.

It joins the party. Tree goes in the box.

It is Brave.

Good for it.

Let’s call this a stopping point, shall we?

#Pokemon #Nuzlocke #Nuzlocke Challenge

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iturbide · 6 years

Note

Also please publish a list of your aus to whip up the rest of your fans into a frenzy 😉

pfffff okay to try and keep this at least marginally reasonable I’m going to limit descriptions to one/two lines

Crown of Shadows/Shrouded Throne: A split-path narrative where, to stop the civil war raging in Plegia, Robin comes to Ylisse to beg aid from Exalt Emmeryn. After getting drafted by accident into the Shepherds, the Plegian and the Ylissean prince become fast friends – and very soon, something more.

Cursed Fate: Following Robin’s death, Chrom takes his body back to Plegia for burial; when a disembodied whisper confirms that there may be a chance to restore Robin’s life, Chrom goes on a quest through the Grimleal nation to bring together Grima’s remains.

Affectionately Yours: Accepting Plegia’s invitation to visit in his sister’s stead, Chrom rapidly comes to realize that everything he thought he knew about the halidom’s neighbor is at best a wild exaggeration thanks to the guidance of Plegia’s sovereign, Robin.

Accursed Divine: Robin is trapped in a curse that transforms her by day into a fell beast. Once the curse is broken, the ensuing political drama follows Robin and Chrom uniting their countries after Robin’s ascension to the Plegian throne.

Sigh No More: Arranged marriage AU where Chrom is married to Robin, who due to Validar’s ritual in her early life bears several Grima-esque features (including wings, tail, horns, etc).

The Future Built Upon the Past: A look at the events of the doomed timeline and how it led to the course of events that eventually led Lucina to alter the course of fate.

Butterfly: A split-path narrative where, after ascending to the Plegian throne, Robin reaches out to Emmeryn in an attempt to forge diplomatic ties that have long been neglected. Initially distrustful of the Plegian emissary, Chrom is forced to come to terms with his own prejudices (and eventually his deeper feelings).

Beyond Twilight’s Veil: When Risen begin appearing in Ylisse, Chrom ventures into Plegia on Emmeryn’s behalf to try to find a joint solution, meeting and readily befriending Robin along the way. When things go wrong, leaving Robin half-transformed and Validar dead, the Shepherds are forced to flee Gangrel’s pursuit; two years later, Robin claims the Plegian throne and reaches out to Ylisse in an attempt to rebuild lost friendships.

Pride and Joy: Raised in Plegia under Mustafa’s care, Robin is drafted into Validar’s assassination attempt on Emmeryn – but decides that the orders should not be fulfilled and defects, saving the Exalt’s life. In the trials to follow, Robin tries to keep the Ylisseans safe from Gangrel’s forces without exposing her own wavering loyalties.

Speaker for the Dead: Raised under Validar’s cruel abuse, Robin exists as little more than a hollow shell, surviving each day on the battlefield. When Chrom reaches out to him on the battlefield and offers a glimpse of something better than the threat of death, Robin cautiously accepts and gradually begins to recover from the traumas of Validar’s upbringing.

Prisoner of War: The Exalt’s war has left Plegia in ruins, its citizens scattered and the remnants of the army using guerrilla tactics to oppose the crusade. When his father calls him to the front, Chrom is captured by the Plegian resistance, and rapidly discovers that everything he thought he knew about Plegia (and the Heart of Grima who took him captive) is wrong.

Twist of Fate: A role reversal AU where Chrom awakens in Plegia with no memory and Robin finds him. With the Exalt mounting a new push in his crusade, Chrom struggles with the questions about who he might have been before – and with his growing feelings for the Plegian who took him in.

Manwearer: After becoming separated from his mother, Robin is raised by the taguel of Panne’s warren. On hearing about a threat to the Exalt’s life, the warren mobilizes to her aid, and Robin and Panne ally with the Shepherds to uncover the deeper mystery behind the attack.

As You Are: Robin comes to Ylisse on a diplomatic mission, hoping to warn the Exalt of a potential threat. When an attack leaves the Plegian blind, Chrom confesses his feelings – only to be rebuffed as Robin believes that the feelings are born of guilt, leaving Chrom to grapple with what he fears are unrequited feelings.

Hard Reset: A bad-end Heroes AU where Muspell invades Askr and wipes out the Order of Heroes – but before Surtr can kill Kiran, they fire Breidablik, which somehow transports them to another Zenith. Taken in by the Emblians, Kiran sets about trying to prevent the ruin that befell the world they were first summoned to.

Kintsugi: A Golden Deer-based Three Houses fix-it AU, where Claude decides from the outset of his reunion with Byleth they’re going to save as many lives as possible.

BONUS

Smoke and Mirrors: Pokemon AU where Robin and her Zoroark Reflet (who prefers a human guise that passes for her brother) join with Chrom, a Pokemon Ranger branching out into competitive training; and his sister Lissa, an aspiring pokemon medic. This brings them into conflict with the Grimleal who are hunting for the Legendary Pokemon Giratina – a pokemon that Robin and Reflet have a very curious connection to.

Design Defect: A modern AU where Robin is the son of the head of the Grimleal mafia who enters Ylisstol University and meets Chrom, son of Exalt Corp’s CEO and the heir to the family company. While Robin might have some ulterior motives for getting close to Chrom at first, he quickly gets in over his head.

Second Chances: After Chrom is summoned to Askr and finds the tactician he lost in the conflict with Grima, the two are finally free to have the relationship they were so long denied during their life in Ylisse.

A House Divided: A speculative AU exploring what might have been had Alm and Celica not attacked Grima in the Thabes Labyrinth and instead took the dragon in. He eventually befriends Tiki, and the two eventually come into conflict with Naga, who wants to destroy the abomination she fears is corrupting her daughter (and in so doing destroys her relationship with Tiki).

Heroes Canon: The constantly evolving situation in Zenith, which includes the dragon creche and the curious cases of villains truly going Hero.

Pre-Timeskip Fix-It: A Black Eagles-based Three Houses fix-it AU where Byleth gets to shut down Edelgard’s alarming rhetoric every time she opens her mouth, and the Imperial princess stumbles her way through the process of becoming a better person.

Spire Project: A Three Houses canon-divergent AU where the question of “what would have happened if Edelgard had hired Miklan to kill Claude and Dimitri at the start of the year?” snowballs into madness (when the summary is 17.5k words and 30 pages long, you know it’s gonna be a monster).

Daycare AU (collab with AcquaSole): When single father Chrom switches his young daughter into Robin’s daycare center, he quickly finds himself getting close to the soft-spoken Plegian that Lucina has gotten so attached to.

Feles Regem Aspeciat (collab with citadelity): Naga has possessed Chrom and taken over rule in the halidom. Robin volunteers to become the inside man for the resistance in the hopes of finding a means to free Chrom from the divine’s control.

War Crimes (collab with anankos): The Exalt of Ylisse becomes willing host to Naga’s power in a bid to wipe Plegia off the map, but the Fell Dragon’s return puts the war in a deadlock. Chrom is kidnapped and brought to Plegia in a desperate bid to open diplomatic channels, but when that fails he ends up as as a guest and becomes unlikely friends with Robin, the son of a Plegian tactician (who has more than a few secrets).

Assassin’s Creed: Awakening: The result of me playing too much Assassin’s Creed. When Emmeryn is kidnapped and slated to become a Grimleal sacrifice, Chrom and the Shepherds rush to save her – only her rescue comes at Plegian hands, instead. Defying his crusading father, Chrom chooses to stand by Robin and ends up embroiled in a millennia-old conflict between secret forces.

Sibling AU: Grima as Robin’s protective older sibling. When Emmeryn invites the recently-crowned king of Plegia to Ylisse for diplomatic discussions, Grima sneaks his younger brother along to show him the world he’s been missing, and both unexpectedly find new friends in what they long believed were enemy lands. (Also woe betide poor Chrom when it comes to dating.)

Promare AU: I saw Promare. It was great! So much so that my brain folded Awakening’s setting and characters up all nice and neat and shoved them into Promare’s narrative arc. And also it’s Chrobin because that’s who I am as a person.

Cardcaptor Lissa: Rewatching Cardcaptor Sakura blindsided me with the realization that Lissa would make a perfect Cardcaptor and things spiraled from there.

Vampire AU: Robin is a charming young man hired on to be Chrom’s manservant and bodyguard; unbeknownst to anyone, he hides a secret (vampiric) affliction.

Mermaid AU: Everyone’s mermaids what else do you want from me

Life Goes On: My friend wrote a thing and it made me want to write things for the thing it’s all anankos’ fault i’m writing promare stuff now

#answered #2goldensnitches #fire emblem: awakening #fire emblem: heroes #chrobin #i'm pretty sure i'm missing a few aus but honestly this is already outrageous #au list

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ladywhaiyvern · 4 years

Text

Musings of An Otaku #8- On Pokemon Photographs & 25 years

The 25th Anniversary of Pokemon is upon us! 25 years! I remember watching the phenomenon unfold as it came state-side. I saw a simple advertisement in the late Disney Adventures magazine or it could have been a Nintendo Power. I had subscriptions to both back in the day and lord knows my memory is not as good as it used to be. It was for the release of the anime on American television. Or thinking back on it, it could have been for the games. It really did not decipher much. Plain white page with a giant Pokemon logo on top. The slogan “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” printed under the logo and images of various generation 1 Pokemon sprawled under that. That was the entire advertisement. Nothing else. No start date, no coming soon, no channel, no information, no synopsis, no console. I remember looking at it with a raised eyebrow and was like, “What is this?” With no other information, I flipped the page and moved on.

Then all the news reports started piling in and commercials started playing over the television. It became more predominant in Nintendo Power- with story revealed, games confirmed for English release and yada yada yada. The entire seizure issue went on and of course the American media jumped on that hype like white on rice. Because of course the anime was being released shortly after on American television.

Watched the series and watched it pretty religiously. Hated that they edited out small things here and there because god forbid Team Rocket pulls out a gun or James cross-dresses in a bikini and has inflatable boobs! NOT INFLATABLE BOOBS! AND OMG YOU CAN NOT FORGET ABOUT THE JELLY FILLED DOUGHNUTS! *face palm* Being into Japanese anime, tokusatsu and manga- even I knew that those were rice balls. WHAT IS WRONG WITH RICE BALLS?!? Silly Americans. It’s as bad as saying that sake is medicine in Power Rangers Samurai but we shall not go into THAT one- even with a 10-foot pole. IMHO, Saban totally shat on Samurai Sentai Shinkenger and walked away laughing.

Back to Pokemon. I ended up watching the anime till the Orange Islands. Basically when Brock left and Tracy came in- I stopped. The anime was repetitive. Every episode featured the same premises- Ash travels to a location, Ash finds a Pokemon, Ash tries to catch Pokemon and fails, Team Rocket has some crazy-ass scheme to try and catch Pikachu and fails, Ash tries to beat Gym Leader but Gym Leader feels sorry for Ash and just gives him said badge and repeat process over and over again for however many said episodes. I moved on to other anime series.

Game wise- yes, I started with Pokemon Red for the original Game Boy. I didn’t play it on the brick sized system- no, I had a Game Boy Color. However, the game was not in color. It was the same pea-green pixelated game as other Game Boy game releases at the time. It was not till the release of Pokemon Yellow- Pikachu edition that I was able to see the Pokemon game world in color. Since I started with Red I went with Charmander as my starter. I enjoyed the game. Loved being able to traverse all over the Kanto region, catch different Pokemon, evolve them, unlock the mysterious behind certain areas and try to collect all the gym badges. I had all 3 Legendary birds and Mewtwo as well.

With the games and anime series out on American shores, of course the trading card game was next. I was not big into playing card games (and to this day- still not a big fan). Only card games I play are either Cards Against Humanity or UNO. I collected the Pokemon cards to just collect them. I still have them- somewhere. In a closet, in a box...somewhere.

Promotions were also a big thing. In honor of the series in general- Pokemon teamed up with KFC here in the states. Oh yeah, Pokemon and fried chicken. Odd combination but whatever. Needless to say, I had an entire set of the KFC plushies. Still do, found them not too long ago! For the first movie release, Burger King had kids meals and 23K Gold plated Pokemon Cards in collectable Pokeballs. Still have all of those and the infamous Pokeballs that the toys came in. The same Pokeballs that were recalled because some stupid parent was not watching their toddler and the toddler ended up suffocating itself with it. WATCH YOUR DAMN KIDS PEOPLE! The damn toy wasn’t even for that age group. I sure as HELL was not surrendering all those hard earned Pokeballs just to have them thrown away. Nope. Nope. Nope. Plus, I wasn’t stupid enough to stick things in my mouth that shouldn’t have been in my mouth. Needless to say, all the Burger King kids meal toys are still inside those plastic Pokeballs.

This was around the time of the first movie release- which I already went into quite a long musing about already. In fact that was the very first musing of an otaku that I posted. I will not go into it again. I am moving on.

In fact I am jumping forward to the N64 era and the release of the Pokemon Snap N64 game. My sister and I got the N64 bundle that game with an Atomic Purple controller and the Pokemon Snap game. Yes, we were a little late to the N64 party. I believe we spent an entire week playing that game and then never picked it up again. The concept was awesome. Take photographs of various Pokemon in different environments. Valleys, forests, rivers, caves, etc. Simple enough. Use food to lure Pokemon out of hiding and snap pictures. The best pictures were sent off to the Professor. Okay, sure. It sounded like it was going to be an awesome game. Not so much. It was a rail-shooter. I absolutely HATE rail-shooters. I HATE being stuck on a predetermined path. I like to explore! I like going into every single nook and cranny of an area. This is why the game only kept my attention for a week.

The newest trailer for the New Pokemon Snap for the Nintendo Switch was just revealed. I had so much hope and hype for this new version. I wanted it to be an open-world environment. I wanted to be able to walk around, maybe sneak up on Pokemon and snap pictures of them in the wild. Kinda like, how you would have to take pictures of animals and birds in the wild in real life. Being able to hide in grass or behind a tree or even in a tree to snap some pictures. You could crawl around in the environment and try hard not to make any noise at all to scare off the Pokemon. Weather patterns could play a role and could change with each play through. Different weather could trigger different Pokemon. What about seasons? I’m sure you would see different Pokemon during the fall then you would the spring. You could still use food to lure Pokemon out. Maybe have a town or village to go back to and have side-quests where people ask you to collect photographs of a certain Pokemon they are looking for or sell photographs to newspapers or whatever. Well, after watching the trailer- that dream and hope got shot in the ass. I saw the vehicle and got disappointed. Once again it will be a rail-shooter. Same concept as the original N64 version. Not an open world. *sighs* I understand having an open world environment can be a resource hog, but I think it would make the game even better. Kinda put a new spin on things. Make people want to stay interested in the game and play it longer then say...a week.

Granted, I am just basing this judgement on what can be seen throughout the trailer. I was not impressed with this trailer at all. The game isn’t even out yet. It will not be out until March of this year. In a couple months. Will my thoughts and opinions stay the same after it is released? Will it change? Who knows. I enjoyed the Resident Evil Village Showcase preview trailer 100x more than I did this Pokemon Snap trailer. In fact, it is also the 25th Anniversary for this series as well. Possible muse coming later (maybe after the RE8 showcase on the 21st).

With Pokemon still going strong, it will be safe to say that it will be around for another 25 years! Stay strong Pokemon fans and trainers!

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tumblunni · 7 years

Text

its weird how like my fave genre of games could be vaguely categorized as ‘nurturing things’ yet i fuckin hated every single thing of that kind that was pushed on me as a child

like hell yes i love pet games and games where you get customization and a sense of progress on building your character, and like even i like ‘parent games’ when they’re that sort of thing instead of just weird shoddy gross baby diaper changing bullshit. Like wtf who on earth even wants a game about raising a kid where you don’t get to see them grow up and graduate high school and make you proud in one of 63 careers?? seriously i am still so salty that this is such an underutilzed genre and i still have to play creepy anime fanservice dos games from the 90s cos thats ALL I HAVE. Why u showing my perfect sweet videogame child in creepy fanservice costumes I JUST WANT TO SUPPORT HER ACADEMIC LIFE

but anyway lol WHAT I MEAN IS

even though i LOVE that stuff i fuckin hate all that cliche ‘girl toy’ bullshit I love character customization but I hate it when its framed as ~lol girls just inherantly love fashion oo catty girl time~ and you only have this one stupid sexist creepy giant boobs doll and no customization except costumes and the only costume options are either sexualized or really stereotypically ‘girly’ and also you have to be rich as fuck to buy all these stupidly overpriced individual outfit packs and then you cant even DO anything with your barbie! at least in a videogame you can have the novelty of replaying the same cool fantasy adventure with your different characters, and like.. it has actual substance BEYOND just the customization! And I mean you can see your customization in action in a 3D environment and having a Story and Cool Powers and a voice and animations and all that jazz! And interacting with canon characters without having to buy all those separately too, and then do terrible impressions of the voiceacting from the show on your own... cos man that’s what i used to actually do with any ‘girl toys’ i was given, i saw absolutely ZERO appeal in having fifty ordinary houses where you can do nothing but sit barbie on a damn chair and gossip about husbands or whatever. Like fuck that’s already lazy and awful cos you’re telling the kid to make up their own reasons to find any enjoyment from the damn toy, but at least cliche ‘boy toys’ got like... a story template. And one that;s actually interesting and involves fighting n shit, and their accessories actually GIVE THE TOY NEW FEATURES but yeah like even making up a whole new story about barbie being a superhero got boring quick, cos she wasn’t remotely relateable or interesting. Like I’m glad that nowadays they do more with the character but even if they’ve fixed some of the predjudiced shit she’;s still.. not interesting?? just gone from cliche fashion boring to absolutely personalityless ‘good role model’ with no defining traits whatsoever. So I used to just destroy barbies or make her the villain in everything, and had a big box of naked barbies with missing legs and stuff while i gave all their accessories to all the pokemon and digimon. Still really pissed at how few of the outfits would fit on Impmon! Seriously it sucks that also all the good ‘boy toys’ were really stereotypically macho in one way or another so i was barely ever allowed to have them and i felt like they hated me even when i did get to play with them. And the only tv shows at the time that I liked that weren’t ‘for girls’ or ‘for boys’ were pokemon and digimon, which were still kinda treated as ‘for boys’ but didn’t even get the ‘boys style’ of merchandise. like barely ever poseable dolls that i could use in more creative play, they were just like collectables you put on the mantlepiece. I WOULD HAVE KILLED FOR CYNTHIA NENDOROID BACK THEN!!! i used to break all my damn digimon trying to fit them into lil outfits or throw them around doing battles, and then i made myself hella sad. I’m sad I don’t still have that super broken but extremely loved patamon transformer doll, that thing was THE BEST! like man why did they stop doing those after the first season?? actually digivolving your digimon was the best damn idea! did they get sued by transformers or something...??? and I mean GEEZ its not like I didn’t like cute stuff or hugging stuff or being nurturing or friendly or whatever people claim is the ‘wholesome value’ that female stereotypes teach kids. but man all that shit just ruined the stuff i loved! its so alienating! and why is it always super low quality and limited?? fuckin Baby Alive Really Pees And Poops,And Does Nothing Else Ever And Has No Personality. yeah girls you sure wanna see only the bad sides of nurturing and be told over and over that your life is gonna be nothing but this as soon as you inevitably start wanting to marry boys, which is totally gonna happen according to every damn adult, and will feel like a death sentence to any kid with any other sexuality. like I fuckin got my Official Digimon Tamagotchi and it was like the whole world opened up to me, like wow Pets Can Actually Do Things Other Than Shit. And i mean at least in an lcd game thing the pet shitting actually serves some damn purpose and provides resource management gameplay to decide what evolutions you get, instead of just Somehow You Should Enjoy Changing Diapers, You Little Fuck. I loved that tamagotchi so much i fuckin broke it too, like WHY WAS KID BUNNI KRYPTONITE TO TOYS?? the battery crapped out cos like i held it too tightly and the case on the back got loose?? so it’d short circuit whenever it went into sleep mode and wipe all my save data. and i still kept playing even though i could never digivolve anyone beyond their first stage before it glitched out. And then I got THE PLAYSTATION VERSION WITH ALL THE GRAPHICS and just AAAAAA it was like the best fuckin thing ever. and Monster Rancher!! and Princess Maker!! kid me could spend 60 straight hours looking after nonexistant babies and talking dinosaurs and cry like a damn bitch when they died so DONT TELL ME I’m lacking in healthy nurturing skills just because i don’t wanna be mr marketing guy’s fucked up idea of a straight woman...

...man sorry this post turned into a really weird rant why did i think about this at 1am

also like even flash game internet dollmakers are better than the cliche stereotype dolls they were based on god I’m perfectly fine with collecting a bunch of things if they’re not forcing some offensive message down my throat! i still remember how confused and pissed off i was when i figured out that my little pony was supposed to be A Gender Thing too, like geez they’re fuckin horses. and the show was actually like THE ONLY THING i was allowed to watch that had actual adventures and fighting monsters and stuff! its so bad and minimal now that i look back on it, but like man it was all I had. No wonder i got so into pokemon when it came out, look here’s a thing to collect that’s all ABOUT fighting monsters! i always wanted figurines of the monsters from those dumb girly shows, it was so annoying that MLP g1 had that episode about ‘oh the Crabnasties are people too, they’re not evil just because they look gross’ and then WHERE IS MY COLLECTABLE CRABNASTIES THEN?? WHY CANT I PUT CUTE ACCESSORIES ON THEM?? fuck u that was the most memorable episode also actually why did i have to wait so many pokemonn generations for a crab that appealed to me? krabby is so boring, its just a crab with weird human eyes. and i’m inexplicably creeped out by that one from gen 3 cos its like an optical illusion, i thought the markings were its face! thank the gods for crabominable and also damn the gods for it being hated by 90% of the fandom for reasons I will never understand :( ...BUT STILL WHERE IS MY CRABOMINABLE BEAUTY PARLOR PLAYSET YO

fuck its 1am why am i still awake why can’t i stop thinking about dragon quest 9 but you play as crabs THAT WAS THE BEST FASHION SIMULATOR EVER, DAMMIT

#blunni thoughts #also yo like it was awful for me as a trans person #but i also feel super sad for straight cis girls who had to put up with that shit too #cos its not like these are actual realities of what all straight cis girls like during childhood!#man i feel bad sometimes like i'm upholding stereotypes for being someone who wasnt feminine and then ended up trans #i support all of you butch cis women out there too!!#or just feminine women who still don't agree with dumb stereotypes!!#or just people in general who want actual quality children's products!!

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afriendlyirin · 4 years

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Yo-Kai Watch 1 review

Reposting this because I ran afoul of the link bug. @staff Fix your website.

Tumblr is a hellsite and I do not respond to comments here. Go to the blog post at Dragon Quill dot net if you want to comment.

I recently tried out the first Yo-Kai Watch game, out of curiosity for what the rest of the mons scene is doing.

My most important takeaway is that anyone who says Yo-Kai Watch is trying to copy or replace Pokemon has clearly not only never played the game but never played any other mons game either and probably thinks Pokemon has a copyright on the genre. The two franchises share a target audience, but otherwise they could not be more different. Yokai talk and are presented as distinct characters, yokai cannot be commanded, and most shockingly of all, the protagonist isn't silent!

As for the game itself, it is a godawful grindy mess that can barely be called a game. But it has some interesting ideas, and I enjoyed the creature designs.

There is basically no gameplay in this game. Yokai fight automatically according to a basic AI with no input from you, so you can quite literally win battles by doing nothing. (There is even a speed-up button to facilitate this.) The only actions you can take are to use items, cure their status ailments through an action-command minigame, activate their supermoves, and swap out your active and reserve yokai. However, the game is so easy that you'll rarely have to do any of that outside of boss fights. Supermoves can basically clear a regular encounter in one use, but regular attacks will usually hand you victory pretty quick too.

The befriending mechanics are even worse. I did not think they could make Pokemon's mechanics worse, but wow, after playing this I am amazed at how much I took for granted.

So, because yokai get to be treated like people, you don't recruit them by shoving them in capsules until they're too tired to break out. Instead, they have a random chance of approaching you after a battle and saying they like the cut of your jib, so they'll agree to be summoned by you any time you need them. This is very cute and raises far fewer questions than Pokemon's version. It is also absolutely terrible as a gameplay mechanic. You can do exactly three things to improve your chances: Throw food at them during the battle, use a yokai with a special ability that makes befriending more likely, and, very rarely, if the battle drags out long enough, you might get a befriending bonus as one of many possible random drops from an event that occurs in the middle of battle. You can only feed a yokai once per battle, you will only know if you've befriended them after the battle is over, and you can only befriend one yokai per battle (out of a possible three). There is absolutely nothing you can do to actively pursue befriending; there is no action you can take in battle that makes it easier like Pokemon's status effects, you cannot keep burning items to increase your chances, you can't even drag the battle out because yokai will attack automatically. To make this even worse, you can't even easily farm encounters like you can in Pokemon, as yokai only appear in specific spots and only one can appear there at a time (if one appears at all!). If you fail to befriend one yokai, you may not encounter it again for some time. (This was the case for me with Happierre, who the game seems to expect you to get quite early, but I never could because he only appears in one very tiny location and if you whiff it, good luck finding him again. Ugh.)

The yokaidex also has really baffling organization. Instead of being numbered by order of encounter like in Pokemon, each type of yokai has its own separate section of the list, and they're ordered seemingly arbitrarily. Your starting yokai is smack dab in the middle of the list, and I don't believe it's possible to encounter entry #1 until the second area. Yokai are also grouped by "family" like in Pokemon, except that the evolution mechanics here are extremely bizarre and inconsistent; usually you have to fuse two specific yokai (or sometimes, a yokai and an extremely rare item you may never even know exists cuz random drops lol), except very rarely you can just level them, not that the game tells you which is which. The game in fact encourages you to constantly replace your team because yokai all have tiered power levels like in Shin Megami Tensei, so you have no reason to keep an outdated yokai in your party long enough for them to evolve through level in the first place. It's just an absolute mess. What was the logic behind this, seriously?

To add insult to injury, they apparently looked at event pokemon and said, "You know what our mons game needs? More of those." There are an absurd number of yokai who can only be obtained through extremely rare in-game events and gacha machine results, and an even larger number who can only be encountered in the postgame. Seriously, I finished the game without even seeing more than half the total yokai. Why??? I genuinely could not believe the final boss was really the end of the game, just because I had barely scratched the surface of the dex.

So yeah. As an RPG, this was a huge disappointment, and as a collection game, it was a constant exercise in frustration and futility. I know Pokemon has lots of room for improvement, but wow, it's like they surgically removed everything it managed to do right.

As for the plot, it's more involved than most Pokemon games, but only just. Every quest is: Something happens that is obviously yokai mischief. "I know this is crazy, but hear me out: Could this incredibly weird and abnormal thing happening in a game called Yo-Kai Watch be happening... because of yokai???" says Exposition Fairy. You walk five steps/talk to someone who is very obviously possessed. "Aha, my Yokai Senses are tingling! A yokai is doing a bad thing!" says Exposition Fairy. "Oh, no, that's bad, we need to stop them!" says Generic Video Game Protagonist. And then you beat the yokai until they stop doing bad things. Repeat times 100.

Seriously, every single freaking time the protagonists are COMPLETELY SHOCKED that a yokai is once again the reason this NPC is literally covered in evil purple smoke because what is subtlety. Why do fantasy stories do this. Why. Stop wasting my time.

And yes, there is an uncomfortable undercurrent of "the spooky goblin man made me do it". Literally the tutorial quest is the protagonist's parents having a fight, and you solve it by beating up the "makes couples fight" yokai that's taken up residence in your living room. It's... okay for a simple kids' story, I guess, and maybe it comes across differently in a Japanese context, but yikes.

Then all of a sudden at the very end you learn that the Yokai Evil Chancellor, who evilly took over after the Good and Noble Yokai King died, is responsible for all the yokai acting up, so you go into the yokai world and beat him up to the tune of a Power of Friendship Speech™ and I could not care less because I was introduced to the guy five minutes ago. So we can't even expect RPGs to have moderately better writing than action games anymore.

They also make the very confusing decision to have a voiced protagonist, despite not giving the protagonist any personality or backstory or agency or anything that would justify giving him a voice in the first place. He is a completely ordinary kid with a completely generic protagonist personality. He either says exactly what I was thinking, in which case I'm just annoyed I have to read through redundant dialogue, or he says something very slightly different, in which case I'm jarred out of the experience because SCREW YOU GAME YOU DON'T SPEAK FOR ME. They don't even have a practical reason for it, because they have an exposition fairy! I thought the entire point of exposition fairies is to provide information a silent protagonist can't, but instead it just means every cutscene takes twice as long because I have to sit through my avatar metalgearing everything the exposition fairy says.

I wonder if they originally were intending to go with a silent protagonist, but changed it at some point for... some reason?

The silver lining here is the yokai themselves. It is... really the only redeeming feature. The yokai all have absolutely delightful designs, and because they don't have to be ostensibly bound by real ecology, they can go completely wild without it feeling out of place. Thanks to the fact they talk and are treated like real characters, I'm not at all bothered by how many of them are human-like, and nor do we have to ask the question of where they're getting their tools and accessories. But the animal yokai are wonderful as well, and despite how varied the designs are they all felt like they had a clear, consistent aesthetic. I really enjoyed discovering new yokai and analyzing all the little details in them.

And yes, I thought the punny names were hilarious. Because the overall tone is less serious than Pokemon, they can have so much more fun with them without it feeling like breaking character. I particularly got a chuckle out of "Heeheel" and "Fishpicable" -- the fish yokai in general were on-point.

Additionally, though the actual plots of the quests are deep as puddles, I did enjoy how many of them used yokai in such varied ways. In addition to stopping yokai who are influencing people to behave badly, there are also quests where you need to bring in a yokai to influence someone positively, such as giving someone the motivation to do something they're apprehensive about or discouraging someone from an unhealthy obsession. Several quests even involve using a yokai you had to stop in another quest. There's even one where you use a yokai to influence someone, only for them to take it too far, requiring you to stop the yokai you summoned in order to put things back to normal. It certainly raises some interesting ethical questions that the game could have acknowledged a bit more than just in that one quest, but overall I thought it was a clever use of the concept and did an excellent job of reinforcing that yokai aren't just a purely negative force, but a part of nature we can coexist with.

So many of the mechanics I complained about really do make sense from a lore perspective -- the game completely avoids the ethical quandaries raised by Pokemon, and I never at any point felt like I was exploiting my yokai partners or doing anything selfish, even despite the same "gotta catch 'em all" element. Yokai explicitly consent to joining your team; you recruit them by paying attention to what foods they like and showing you are willing to make a real sacrifice to provide for them; and there's none of that stasis capsule nonsense either, yokai friends basically give you the equivalent of a calling card and are only summoned when you need them. (You can actually talk to several recruitable yokai who have fixed hangout spots in the city, which I liked.) Similarly, it makes sense that you shouldn't be able to control their every action. These things just happen to be really unfun game mechanics. But it does make me think that Pokemon could stand to take some lessons from this franchise... just not the ones they actually did. Stop trying to steal their aesthetic, Pokemon, your distinct brand is what makes you strong.

#yo kai watch #pokemon #video games #my posts #mons

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