#the only series ive played more games for is pokemon & its spinoffs

[bother-blame]

so kuwana got to walk away in the end, but it looks like yagami did manage to change his mind a little bit

[gefdreamsofthesea]

Spot the lie: Shin Megami Tensei edition

Note: I'm including everything under the SMT label in English except the Persona games. No I don't care if they're technically part of another subseries in Japan. Also, these apply to the original releases. I know some have been updated but I haven't played them.

I especially want to hear from people who haven't played them because this feels too easy for a veteran.

Poll results are in and I'm very disappointed that only 3.7% of you got it right.

I will now reveal the correct answers:

1. TRUE - The first major boss in Devil Survivor, Beldr, can only be killed by mistletoe, a mistletoe-shaped cellphone strap is just as effective.

2. TRUE - Yggdrasil is sapient and steals time warping powers from the Disir. The protagonist has to go back in time to save themselves with the help of the Norns (who have evolved from the Disir who gave him the quest, you know like Pokemon)

3. TRUE - Dante made a guest appearance in the original release of SMT Nocturne. Later versions replaced him with Raidou Kuzunoha, the protagonist of two games in the Devil Summoner spinoff series

4. TRUE - It's ordinary literature, there's nothing wrong with it the citizens of the Eastern Kingdom of Mikado are just that brainwashed

5. TRUE - The entry is in Strange Journey. "Originally, he looked like an abominable snowman, but perhaps he changed form to more efficiently freeze people."

6. TRUE - The bondage angel design debuted in SMT 2. Here's a screenshot of SMT 1 showing its original design.

7. TRUE - A lot of people voted for this one but it's actually true. Cerberus' single head is a reference to the original novel the series is based on (Digital Devil Story). He is depicted with three heads in SMT: IMAGINE, Soul Hackers, and Digital Devil Saga.

8. TRUE - I did not know the origin of David's name myself so I looked it up. His design is possibly a reference to the poem Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens.

9. FALSE (ish) - It's actually the reverse: Astaroth wishes to become the goddess Ishtar (technically to return to being Ishtar but in game terms Ishtar is treated as his "evolution"). He is usually required in order to fuse her. In some games, the two don't appear to be connected at all.

10. TRUE - As the accuser, Satan is part of the Law alignment (and therefore on YHVH's side) against Lucifer, who (usually) represents the Chaos alignment. His role in SMT IV Apocalypse is more complicated.

Anyways good job everyone. Everyone gets a cookie.

[zaptap]

ive made a few of these bingo sheets and theyre fun so i decided to make one not just for e3 but also JUST for splatoon 3 (not just for e3 but for like the whole lifetime of the game). also heres my updated list of characters id like to see in smash, ordered generally by which id like more and/or think are the most realistic

since min min got in i took out helix, and since i couldnt decide whether to add in waluigi or madeline i added another row (realistically i dont think any indies are getting in but i threw some in anyway). also i was like “oh yeah maybe theyd put in a gen viii pokemon” so i threw in hatterene since thats one of my favorites.

also as for waluigi (and shovel knight for that matter) i think it would be nice to see an assist trophy get in just to break that rule. also i remember being super surprised he wasnt in brawl (back then i thought he and wario were equally important) and even though that was based on a wrong impression ive still felt like he should be in there ever since

notes about the bingos under the cut

really is about time for those n64 games, especially now that mario is dead so theyre free to release sm64 on it. game boy games would be nice sometime too

would also make sense to include banjo-kazooie in that, nintendos had a good relationship with microsoft lately and the total absence of anything banjo-kazooie on the switch is odd since it’s a dlc character (every other one has a game on switch they can use for cross-marketing, even if joker’s took a while) and i think the best explanation for that would be that theyre holding off for the nso n64 app (this is easiest from a technical standpoint because all they have to do is make a deal to use the roms)

when are they putting octolings in mk8d

xenoblade chronicles x is one of the only wii u games left that they could port (aside from ones that wouldnt make much sense like splatoon and ssb4) so i guess that might as well happen sometime. also monolith soft might be doing something else besides helping with splatoon 3

im not ready for metroid prime 4 (im over halfway through mp2 and therefore the trilogy as a whole) but it’s been a while, they might show it and it could even come out this year

hal apparently recently hinted at a new kirby game or something

the upgraded switch is obviously going to be called the Nintendo Switch ͥ  since they already did the ds lite so theyre clearly naming everything in the family after the ds family, theres absolutely no flaw in this logic. idk if theyre showing it, but unlike 2019 they didnt say they werent showing new hardware (just that they were showing software, which could be taken as denying rumors, but they sometimes specify when certain things arent being shown)

metroid prime trilogy also might come this year. would make sense to release it before mp4 since not everyone is going to buy a wii u to get it (and at this point that doesnt get nintendo any money since they stopped making them)

where is detective pikachu 2. i hope it has the blue pikachu from that first tease they gave us in like 2014 (2013? that was a loooong time ago idk)

they said this was MOSTLY 2021 so i am absolutely getting my hopes up for splatoon 2

the two sinnoh games could likely be there

would be super cool if oddity came to switch. and almost as ironic as megalovania getting into smash

we havent seen the botw sequel for a couple years so we’re kind of due for an update on that

it’s ace attorney’s 20th anniversary this year so maybe theyre doing something. theyre already porting those games though so idk. maybe he’s getting in smash

whats with that watermelon mario render

i held off on watching a playthrough for ndrv3 on the off chance it came to switch and i could play a dangan ronpa game for real for once but it’s now been 4 years and we just passed the 10th anniversary of the series (albeit during a pandemic when i wouldnt expect them to have done anything) so it would be cool to see the series come to switch. i think if it still doesnt after this though i’ll just watch the playthrough, 4 years is long enough. amazed ive avoided spoilers this long, i still know next to nothing about the game

im about done with acnh but im still waiting on those splatoon items. and i ran out of storage in february so i need more of that too

nintendo did stuff for zelda’s 30th anniversary so i doubt theyre forgetting the 35th. maybe wwhd/tphd ports, idk

been a couple years since fire emblem, intelligent systems is probably up to something besides planning yet another paper mario spinoff

miyamoto forgot pikmin 4 in the oven 6 years ago and it got burnt to a crisp and thats why it hasnt come out yet because he had to start over

and splatoon

the inklings scared daft punk into quitting so now that theres no competition in the robot musician scene they should have a daft punk style group

i waited and waited and neither of my top two splatoon stages (flounder and d’alfonsino) came back in splatoon 2 so i hope just because splatoon 3 isnt in inkopolis doesnt mean they still wont return

would be sick as hell if there was a real hide and seek mode instead of just sticking to your own rules in private battles. havent played that since 2015 but it was super fun

show us the effects of the chaos world

i wanted mc craig to have a song in octo expansion and they didnt deliver. heres another chance

splatnet 3 baby

cant wait for nogami to do a funny 3 pose

abxy came back for splatoon 2.... am i gonna be that lucky again...?

salmon run doesnt make sense if youre friends with a smallfry but they could either change the story context (you just fight “evil” salmonids?) or replace it with an equally fun co-op mode

amiibo!!! i think i said this before but they should label them by weapons if these cephalopods dont have genders, would make more sense (the gendered ones had different weapons anyway)

returning characters!!!! would like to see everyone have a role of some kind

maybe #GearForAll wasnt successful in getting the emperor/spy/mecha gear, but perhaps theyll at least consider not making that stuff exclusive this time around

squid girl gear should be back. and they should call it a dress instead of a tunic because its a dress. and theres no gender now anyway

as ive said before... TRIPLIES!! you hold one in each hand and another in your mouth. and you can spin around like the tasmanian devil

remove splatfest tee annoyances: you should have a prompt at the end of a splatfest to pay to scrub your tee (to make sure you get the chunks) also it should be on a neutral brand so you dont end up with an overabundance of ink resistance up (or whatever else)

better online and cloud saves would certainly justify having a second splatoon game on the same console, as much as im loving that it exists

hopefully theres a global testfire again

sooner or later the workers will rise up and kill mr grizz

remember in splatoon 1 where if you had squid beatz (via the amiibo) you could “play” it in the lobby and change the music? then you were stuck listening to only bubble bath in splatoon 2? why did they take that option away they should bring it back

looking at those apartment buildings in the trailer i think it would be cool if you had your own room and could decorate it

an octavio redemption arc would be fun to see. in the manga he stole the zapfish because the octarians had an energy crisis, and in the end they worked out a deal to share the electricity

[clownkiwi]

now that im on this pokemon hyperfixation, i really shouldve just kept up the pokemon streams & start streaming pokemon uranium but i havent. because 1) while theres interests for new series, as ive noticed, consistent viewership starts decreasing the longer i play a game on my channel

& 2) i dont. wanna stream like long games ever again. i think pokemon white is currently the longest game ive ever streamed, but i wanna stop there and make that. the only game ive ever played for that long, because i wanna move on and play other games on the channel that im more excited for,

and dont get me wrong, while i was initially excited to get back in pokemon white for stream, my childhood game, for its 10th anniversary, that excitement quickly faded as i spent like. about 5 streams entirely focused on training. which continued to be a consistent thing and why it took so long for me to actually complete the game for stream

so for pokemon games i wanna stream, im only limiting them to like. the Newest games that are out that i wanna play + people are interested in watching me play & weird obscure spinoffs that arent nearly as talked about (colosseum, xd gale of darkness, pokemon picross for the GAMEBOY, fangames, etc etc)

idk if. i'll continue my plan of playing older pokemon games from the late 2000s-mid 2010s for stream since pokemon white took so long and pokemon bw are considered the "easier" pokemon games

[vaugarde]

19, 20, 43!

19. favorite pokemon game

of all time? pokemon mystery dungeon explorers of sky. it was my first pokemon game and is a massive comfort game to me. it's extremely dear to me and its aged very well for me. i know i rib on it sometimes for darkrai or how often flashback cutscenes happen, but thats because i love this game and love thinking about ways it could be even better. it's fun and has my favorite ranking/mission system in the whole series, it has my favorite plotline in the whole series, i love the world its in and all the environments, i love the partner and grovyle, holy shit its so good and i dont think i will ever get tired of it. maybe im overhyping it, i dont care. it means so much to me.

favorite mainline game though would definitely be pokemon white. i have so much love and nostalgia for that game, and its honestly soooo hard to pick a favorite gen 5 pokemon bc ive played it over and over and over again with a ton of pokemon in the game that it's easier to pick out the ones i DONT like. its nostalgic and i love everything gen 5 has to offer, its just so fun.

20. least favorite pokemon game

oh boy. im sorry but its either gen I and II games or swsh.

i mean my least favorite of all time is probably detective pikachu actually. i actually got a few headaches playing that game bc the music was so dull and the animations and voice acting (and often lack thereof) were so distracting. its probably the game that i regret having the most. but at least i can just say that its a tedious spinoff game with not a lot of effort put into it, and the movie is leaps and bounds better (altho im not sure why THAT was the game they made a movie off of? the movie literally overhauled everything bc the game was so boring)

but for main series its a little more "aww MAN" to me because yknow, that's the main output with the mechanics i know and love. gen I and II were definitely good for their time, but i was very disappointed by them when i finally played them. i dont really get why people hold them up as the definitive pokemon experience, they're very boring and i dont like the general pokemon you find in those games enough to get an engaging team that i like. doesnt help that i find kanto to be a very boring region in my opinion.

and swsh. i mean we all know the issues with swsh. the natdex thing isnt really an issue for me personally because ive never used pokemon bank or home because they cost money, and i can get gliscor in other games and be just fine, but i get why other people hate that aspect. swsh by itself just kinda made me realize "wow. maybe i am too old for this series" like i didnt get a grand scale of wonder and adventure like i did with gen 7, which only came out a few years earlier. it felt like it was put together by tape and threads, the battles are boring and the presentation, while mostly being pretty with towns like ballonlea, was terribly stale. dont get me started on isle of armor, that was actually more offensively boring than detective pikachu and i think i wouldve felt that way even as part of the target audience. crown tundra and the wild area are pretty much the only reason i revisit it.

idk. i just dont have fun with those games like i do with gens 4-7. (im neutral towards gen 3)

43. favorite electric type

EMOLGA. just a little girl :)

[slakingismydad]

ok final thoughts

1) i dont care about unite and honestly do not think it will be relevant at all past this year

2) cafe remix is cool though i dont feel it was entirely necessary to rebrand like that like just update the game

3) leon my beloved (i also dont care about mastersex but shout out 2 him)

4) go update hoenstly interets me just bc ive been looking to go walk more so i think the hoopa event will be fun (though i feel like it may be just a cover for the criticisms from rolling back the pandemic stuff they did to make it easier to play at home)

5) remakes still look like playmobils which i still dislike severely, and i dont really like the idea of the underground parts it just feels like its trying to rip off of swshs underground raid thing but who knows it might b fun. also i REALLY hope they release that lite design as a real switch (maybe an oled kind since those r comin out? would b a good idea imo) or st least a skin or case or smth bc i would LOVE to have that design since i had the original DS (which was my intro to pkmn and gaming in general so it is very dear 2 my heart) but im not buying a whole new switch esp not a lite lol

6) apparently its called legends: arceus and not legends of arceus which 1) im an idiot and 2)seems like it might not be the ONLY 'pokemon legends' game if theyre subtitling it? maybe in the future theyre planning on this like a new spinoff series like ranger or smth. im rlly excited to see like all the Pre-sinnoh lore n shit esp w references to shit like jubilife and the galaxy exploration team so we may see more indepth worldbuilding!! also i am like. a bit tired of regional forms and evos but i think the ines here r cool except i am MOST excited to see how tf they explain why they disappear when hisui becomes sinnoh. im assuming its something like (real life) evolution over time where probably due to like. chsnging environment or interactions w the people (ESP w more relations btwn humans and pokemon) some evolutions and forms just ceased to exist? which opens up a HUGE can of worms. or they were forgotten by time, which is a slightly smaller but still fairly large can. also the shinx pokedez entry that daid "forms encountered" interested the FUCK out of me. like what r u implying. r we gonna see more diversity within pkmn breeds?? that would be cool as s hit. also i love how the pkmn can literally just beat the fuck out of you on sight LOL

anyways legends: arceus was DEFINITELY the trophy winner of the presentation. now if you excuse me i have to cry about my poor hemorrhaging wallet as i preorder so much stuff

[jackfrostfigurine]

okay hw done, time for me being sad over fictional creatures:

like.....as much as i hate that part of me, im autistic, and pokemon was literally my very first special interest (starting when i was about 6), and its always been my absolute biggest interest and genuinely means the world to me, this is a franchise that has helped me come to terms with stuff about myself that i hate, and has helped me thru some of the toughest and worst parts of my life. ive played at least one main series game for each gen, ive played a good chunk of spinoffs, ive put so much of my life and energy into it and i dont know where id be without it

yet.....i genuinely havent been able to stand it starting with oras. even with my minor nitpicking (stuff like the music sounding too generic and boring, cutscenes down the throat to the point where you cant take 2 steps without one, animations being bad), its just...like theres so many quality drops its annoying. gamefreak doesnt care about its fans, it doesnt care about its employees, they KNOW everyone will just look at something like pikachu or mew and go absolutely apeshit over it and immediately buy it. a lot of stuff from gen 7(and everything ive seen of gen 8 so far) feels like the 50millionth cash grab and its disheartening to say the least

the games arent fun anymore, theres no challenges to be had (even if you nuzlocke them or restrict yourself in other ways, it always feels too easy), the characters all blend in with each other(to the point where i can only remember the names of like 10 characters past gen 5), i literally cannot stand the music anymore(i refuse to listen to anything from gen 8 bc bedes theme gave me a sensory overload really quickly bc of how extremely overwhelming it is, and from what ive heard some other themes are like that too), the pokemon themself are very lacking design-wise, and theres so much gen 1 pandering that i cant stand gen 1 at all anymore outside of a few of my favorite mons (just about the only bad thing everyone is focusing on that i dont care is the graphics(bc im actually extremely fond of bad quality graphics), but me being upset about everything else...). and this is only the tip of it! its not even getting into how much i cant stand the stories and characters!

im just.... im fucking tired dude. ive had more fun with romhacks than i have with any new pokemon games in the past 5 years. im tired, im upset, and i may or may not be crying over how one of the most important aspects in my life has slowly gone to hell. mock me for it all you want, but it kinda really hurts

[the-pandering-fool]

Pokemon is the best TBRPG.

The Pokemon series is one that many people look at fondly, it brings back memories of childhood for some and for others it’s one of the games they’re playing right now. Whether young or old it’s hard to deny that Pokemon not only has the charm to enthrall audiences but the mechanics to make long time gamers come back again and again to challenge themselves in the iconic rock, paper, scissors combat. And it’s those very reasons that make Pokemon one of - if not the - greatest Turn-based Role-playing Game (TBRPG) of all time.

To prove this to you, first we have to go over what makes any RPG good and to clarify we are focusing on only the core games not the spinoffs. The three factors that go into this are story, replayability, and style.

When the first Pokemon games released in Japan back in February of 1996 story, wasn’t a very big part of gaming especially not for handheld gaming. Even so the original games Pokemon Red, Blue and Green had an element of story to them that may have been simple yes, but people still latched onto nonetheless. In the Pokemon games you play the role of a Trainer, someone who captures and trains creatures called Pokemon to battle one another in contests of strength. During your quest to become the strongest trainer you come across an organization called Team Rocket, they’re basically the Pokemon equivalent to the mafia, who are trying to take over the world, and it becomes your job to stop them.

Next we look at replayability, in Pokemon you go around and build your team of 6 from a roster of now 809 different Pokemon, each capable of using 4 different moves in combat from a pool of 728 total moves, and even though no one Pokemon has access to every move in the pool we still have a whopping total of 390,807,439,998,444 different teams you can go through the game with, and that’s without factoring in movesets! Therefore unless you choose the exact same team of 6, with the exact same set of 4 moves you will practically never have the same experience when playing.

Pokemon - compared to most other TBRPG’s where you have a set cast of characters with set skills or skill trees - is superior in the way of team building and strategy. There are some exceptions such as the Fire Emblem series, which I highly recommend by the way, where you have complete control over each individual characters progression.

Finally we have the aspect of style, for this we’ll be focusing on both artistic style and gameplay because the majority of TBRPG’s play relatively the same and though Pokemon is no exception to that it was the series that defined the TBRPG style.

The cute and awesome characters from the Pokemon series are pop-culture icons in this day and age. In fact there are countless web pages dedicated to replicating, or giving a personal spin on, the different Pokemon designs. Just recently the movie Detective Pikachu was released putting a fresh and more realistic spin on some of the classic characters, such as one of the series mascots, Pikachu the adorable little fuzzball himself. It’s hard not to recognize Pikachu in his many redesigns because the art and style of the Pokemon games are everywhere. Both children and adults worldwide can recognize Pikachu by seeing his zig-zag tail and red cheeks. In the same way we recognize Pikachu’s red cheeks, we recognize characters such as Superman by S the symbol on his chest and Batman from his iconic batarangs. 

Gameplay wise it was Pokemon that popularized the rock,paper,scissors style of combat. fire burns grass, grass beats water, and water puts out fire. Those are only 3 of the total 18 separate types in Pokemon each of which have their own strengths and weaknesses to be accounted for when building a team. It was this mechanic that drew in the crowds of gamers that liked the more technical side of gaming - the min/maxers. And that’s just scratching the surface of the rather complex gameplay of Pokemon. There are also EV’s and IV’s as well as different natures to account for when entering the competitive scene of Pokemon. Speaking of the competitive side of Pokemon did you know that you could win a scholarship for playing Pokemon? It’s true, top placing competitors in the  U.S. national and World championships can win scholarships for playing Pokemon!

In conclusion Pokemon is not only an amazing game series but also a genre defining one that took the world by storm over 20 years ago. Much like the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling and the cinematic wonders of the recent Marvel’s Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, Pokemon broke standards and paved the way for the rest of its genre to rise in its wake. Pokemon has influenced entire cultures and built communities and if that isn’t a sign of greatness then what is?