Glen-i

Player's Choice tonight at 8pm.

With Pocket Card Jockey coming to Switch, I feel this is a great time to post this! It's just solitaire! Why's it so hype!? Also convinced you can hear Electivire at around 45 seconds.

All I know was that Mother 3 was made available on Japanese WiiU, and nothing came of it. Gonna assume it's not happening. History has said as much. But hey, you can easily play it now. You have the Japanese GBA app.

Isn't that exactly what happened on the WiiU though?

I was expecting it to be more then that, to be honest...

That mini-series was very good. Then again, I'm a sucker for stop-motion animation. I also don't trust that hypothetical game to not end up being a microtransactions labeled mess...

Yeah, you get it! I was mostly joking, I would never buy another Legends game, but I'm not budging on the battle system in Legends being utter crap. Because it is, it's awful! And also, I don't like Legends, Let's Go, or the direction the mainline games is taking, so what am I gonna do? Get stuffed, I guess? EDIT: Anyway word of general warning. Pokémon Presents is about the entire franchise, not just the mainline games. Expect a whole load of mobile game tat, and certainly no guarantee of a mainline game.

Oh no, that's a deal-breaker for me. I thought they would've left the levels untouched, especially as they added an easier difficulty mode.

Every Fire Emblem game is in depth. The series thrives on it! There's a crapton of things going on behind the scenes.

I disagree. They didn't haphazardly set the second DLC of Scarlet/Violet in "Unova" for giggles. Unova's next. You know what though? I'd be willing to give a Legends style game another chance. They'd have to tweak a few things though. - Get rid of of the open areas nonsense. Don't need it now that the mainline games are open world. - Make me catch Pokémon through battling them. Give my Pokémon some reason to contribute! It's not remotely satisfying just chucking a ball at them and moving on. Make me work for it! If I want to catch thousands of Shinx, I'll play Pokémon Go, which I won't. Because it's crap. - No-one likes gathering hundreds of crap to craft stuff. Boring busywork. And while we're getting rid of boring busywork, have the corresponding Pokédex entry fill in completely once I catch a Pokémon. Don't make me use Tackle 40 times to get halfway there. - Use the old battle system. It's not broken, don't try to fix it. They can keep those action segments where you have to dodge a boss's attacks in real time before using an opening to switch to turn based and dealing loads of damage. Those were legit great!

Actually, there is a physical version of that. But it only goes to Wave 5 for stupid reasons.

Chained Echoes is a turn based RPG mostly developed by Matthias Linda. Yes, that's not a company name, that's a person's. It's not a complete solo effort, but over a long 7 years, I can only imagine a painstaking amount of effort went into it. It was released on all modern platforms on December 2022. I played the Switch version. The game is set on the continent of Valandis, and doesn't have a true central protagonist for most of the game, but the main focus is on five characters. Glenn, the mercenary with an incorrectly spelled name. Lenne, a princess who is undercover to better understand her country. Sienna, a thief known as the "Red Succubus". Victor, a famous playwright, and his friend, Ba'thraz, a blacksmith, who's my favourite character. Why is he my favourite? Who knows? Couldn't possibly be because he's a lizard. Nah, don't be silly. (Real talk, his backstory hit the hardest, so yeah. My lizard bias at first. But after that? Genuine favourite) A year ago, Valandis was in the midst of a war. It had been going on for 150 years, but then it suddenly ended when a humongous explosion killed thousands of people and scared everyone into signing a peace treaty. This explosion was caused by something called the Grand Grimoire, and Glenn may have been tricked into setting it off. He's feeling a bit guilty about it, but bigger issues may be arising as rumblings of someone trying to restart the war are starting to circulate. The 5 main characters all have their own reasons for stopping this war, but explaining that would be spoilers. The plot is very excellent. Easily the strongest aspect of the game. The characters are all great, Sienna was another fave of mine. She's very sarcastic, and may be a little self-aware. I mean, she's not wrong. The battle system is the other strong aspect of Chained Echoes. It's pretty unique. Best to explain this with a picture. There are two main mechanics to battles. The first one is the tag team system. If you look at the bottom right, you'll notice the red haired guy at the very bottom has another person next to him on the HUD. That means those two characters can swap between each other. The key thing is that they can only swap with each other. So you need to think about who can compliment each other well. You don't want to leave yourself without some way of healing, for example. The other main system is the Overdrive bar, on the top left. That arrow moves towards the right whenever anyone performs an action. When the arrow is in the yellow section, then everything is normal. If it goes into the green section, then you're in Overdrive mode, which means you take less damage, deal more damage, and skills cost half the TP. However, if you let the arrow travel to the red section, then you take wayyyy more damage. That's bad. Some things can make the arrow go back to the left, swapping characters does it a little, as does defending, but when you're in Overdrive, a random type of skill will be shown on the top left, where that padlock symbol is. If you use a skill with the same symbol, then the arrow jumps to the left a considerable distance. Using an Ultra Move (Basically, a limit break, but any character using theirs will deplete the bar entirely, and each character has a different one.) also makes the arrow go to the left. So the flow of battle revolves around balancing that arrow in the green area. Each character has skills unique to them, but you can find "Class Emblems" which basically function as a rudimentary job system. It's a very basic implementation of a job system, but hey, it's some level of customisation, and that's no bad thing. I wish I could say the same for how you get stronger though... For some stupid reason, this has a similar method of leveling up as Chrono Cross. Levels are tied to how many bosses you've beaten, which means grinding won't do much. You do get SP for winning fights, which upgrade the skills you have equipped, but don't expect it to help much. Each level you get has to be manually spent on either a usable attack, a passive skill, or extra stat boosts. I don't like the kind of system that arbitrarily limits the player, especially if the game happens to be really quite difficult. Chained Echoes doesn't mess around, I honestly found standard enemies more difficult then the majority of bosses. The game autosaves all the time, which is good, because it's very easy to end up dead suddenly. The balance is all wack. After the midway point, when you get at least 8 characters to use, it gets a lot more manageable. It is handled better then Chrono Cross, mind you, as there's a number of optional level ups, normally tied to sidequests or the achievement board. The descriptions are pretty great though. Honestly, the game has a lot of cool mechanics that I haven't mentioned, but it would take too long to go through them. Anyway, the visuals are fine, probably didn't help that I played Sea of Stars right before this game. Kinda unfair, really. But now that I know that most of it is done by one person, I can be a bit more lenient now. The music's decent too. Not a massive masterpiece, but very nice. So yeah, the game's solid, and quite an impressive product with how small the team was.

A little annoyed, because I just played through that 4 times recently. Secretly hoping it's more in the vein of SMT IV: Apocalypse with that kind of title. I would totally be up for for a Majora's Mask style seperate game with recycled assets!

The problem is that the majority of dedicated customers won't settle for anything less. They've been conditioned as much. It's why indies get snubbed in general discourse because of their relatively low budgets. Probably why they tend to do so well on Switch, the average Nintendo user doesn't give a toss about how pretty a game looks. So without that barrier, those games have more room to showcase what makes them worth purchasing.

I was legit surprised by this mini-game. Because I really don't like the PS1 version (Luckily, you can throw it and still get the huge materia with a standard boss battle), and I was dreading it when I saw it was a thing here, but Remake's interpretation of it is solid! In fact, that applies to most mini games. The minigames in the PS1 games and X are pretty janky, and not very fun, but Remake has nailed them, even if the more difficult pull-up sessions were difficult to deal with because I use Nintendo Switch button layouts.

This is almost correct. The actual best thing is some of the songs that came from it. Excuse me? Oh no! Not from the actual game, don't be ridiculous! I'm talking about the banging remixes we got in Smash Ultimate and Age of Calamity!

You got two of them right, at least. Not gonna tell you which until I get to them though.

Actually, you reminded me of something I wanted to ask. Now, I'm fully aware that not everyone will have played every generation of Pokémon (@BowserBasher being the main example), but despite that, I still want those people to tell us their favourite starter Pokémon of each generation. I'm interested in what those people would gravitate to, even if it's skin deep.

That's, uh, wait, what? You monster! Now, hang on! Croconaw, sure. But Feraligatr is a rugged, handsome bugger! Well, these days. NO! DON'T LOOK AT THE GOLD SPRITE! Where's it's neck? Actually, speaking of weird Feraligatr sprites. Here's the back sprite from the Gen 3 games. I swear, this is not edited! That's the actual sprite in-game! After that, Game Freak finally settled on a more consistent design for it. Good memory! I take it, this is what you mean? Typhlosion has one too! Where's Meganium's? That's cute, you think Meganium's popular enough for that? I'm not wrong. Meganium is really unpopular! Nah, only joking. Still unpopular though. See, now this is amusing. Because in Explorers of Darkness, I got assigned Charmander through the quiz, and went with Totodile as the partner. And now every time I replay the Explorers games, I can't bring myself to deviate from that initial selection. Charizard and Feraligatr just feel like a weirdly natural duo, despite being completely different types. Probably helps that they're both reptiles. And yes, the nicknames my Charizard and Feraligatr have are the same nicknames from my Explorers file.

I knew it! Couldn't go one post without someone posting that theme tune! I knew it would happen!

He most certainly didn't. In fact, it's one of the rare times in the 90's where he borrowed a game off of me at one point! Anyway, I remember Extreme-G being thoroughly OK. Then again, I don't really like F-Zero, so this game probably never stood a chance with me.

Plausible deniability. Literally can't remember how I got it.

So now we move on to Generation 2, better known as Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal, which is set in the Johto region. Despite the box art for these games sporting the Game Boy Colour logo on it, these games were compatible with the standard Game Boy (Not Crystal, though). I don't know if that had an impact on actually designing the Pokémon, but it's worth keeping in mind. Chikorita (CHICK-oh-REE-ta) kicks off the Johto Pokédex. Unlike it's Kanto counterpart, this Pokémon doesn't have a secondary type (actually, all the Johto starters only have one type), so it serves as a far better introduction to the concept of type matchups this time. That said, don't expect an easy time at the beginning if you go with the grass starter, Johto's first two gyms are Flying and Bug, which Grass performs terribly against! Bayleef (BAY-leaf) still mostly falls in the catagory of "overshadowed middle evolution", but there is one notable time where a Bayleef features, it functions as one of the three Pokémon the player has a choice between in the Generation 3 game, "Pokémon Colosseum". No prizes for guessing what the other two choices are. But it's caught at level 30, so will quickly evolve before it makes an impression. And now we have to talk about Meganium (meg-GAY-nee-um), arguably the most cursed starter Pokémon ever. If you remember, I described Venusaur as a noob trap. In comparison, picking Meganium is the choice if you don't want to actually use your starter in Generation 2. The Johto region hates Grass types. Out of the 8 gyms there, Meganium is effective against precisely none of them. As well as that, Meganium matches up poorly against half of them. And if that wasn't enough, Meganium's movepool is awful! Ironically, if Meganium had the secondary Poison typing that Venusaur did, it could have at least learnt Sludge Bomb, which got introduced in this game. But instead it only gets Razor Leaf, and Body Slam (No, Solar Beam is forever crap). You could use TM's to give it Giga Drain, which has a mediocre 60 power in Gen 2, and Earthquake. There are many better candidates for a valuable TM like Earthquake, don't waste it on Meganium. This combination of awful movepool, and a region that is hostile to it, cements the Chikorita line as the least popular Gen 2 starter by far. And it only gets worse. A lot of early starters would get new tools over the generations that help them adapt to the ever changing mechanics, but not Meganium. Other then getting Energy Ball in Gen 4, nothing of real use was given to Meganium. Truly a forgotten Pokémon. You know it's bad when False Swipe Gaming, a channel that focuses on the competitive side of Pokémon, made no attempt whatsoever to hide how utterly rubbish it is. Still, Namco decided to put Meganium as one of the Pokémon that's on the cover of New Pokémon Snap. That's it's biggest claim to fame as far the games go, and it only appears in one stage. So yeah, if you think your favourite starter is overlooked, well, at least it's not Meganium. Unless it is, then it sucks to be you. The Fire starter is Cyndaquil (SIN-da-kwill). I keep thinking it's meant to be some kind of hedgehog, but it's Pokédex classification is "Fire Mouse". ...OK, sure. Anyway, Cyndaquil's performance in the early game of Gold and Silver is quite haphazard, it shreds the Bug gym, but then gets absolutely demolished by the Normal one. Yes, Normal is neutral against Fire, but you can tell which player chose Cyndaquil as their starter by asking how difficult Whitney's Miltank was. If their answer is "The hardest gym in the history of Pokémon", then they likely chose Cyndaquil. Whitney ain't all that, guys. Basic strategy will take you far. Quilava (kwi-LAH-va), middle evolution, not much else to say. Although, now it looks like some kind of badger. This evolution line has a real identity crisis. Typhlosion (tie-FLOW-zhun) is the final evolution, and by far the most popular of the Johto trio. It's stat spread is truly excellent for a Fire type, Special Attack and Speed are both at least base 100. This would be let down by it's natural movepool, which only has Flamethrower as a viable attack. This would be disastrous, if it wasn't for the fact that for some bizarre reason, Typhlosion can learn Thunder Punch, one of the most excellent TM's in Gen 2. Thunder Punch can be bought in Goldenrod, the town with the third gym, so there's no reason to not teach it that. Fire and Electric is excellent coverage for a special attacker in Gen 2. Yes, Thunder Punch is not a physical attack, don't question it. That said, Typhlosion would not fare well in future generations. Specifically, the Generation 4 remakes of Gold and Silver, HeartGold and SoulSilver, were not kind to it. It can't learn Thunder Punch easily anymore, and even if it could, Thunder Punch is a physical move now. Oh right, yeah. Suppose I should explain the Physical-Special Split. It's important. Typhlosion doesn't do well with Physical attacks, so it now only has Focus Blast (120 Power, 70 accuracy, which might as well be 0 accuracy) as a non-Fire option. As an aside, some Pokémon fans get really annoyed with Typhlosion's depiciton in more modern titles, they get really angsty about Typhlosion's Fire effect not being seen all the time. This is stupid, because if those people ever read Typhlosion's Pokédex entries, or even watched the anime, they'd know that Typhlosion has always been able to turn it's fire off at will. Basic Pokémon knowledge, guys. So, in conclusion, if you're playing the Game Boy versions, Typhlosion's great! If you're playing the DS remakes, you might want to consider something else, something that I'm about to talk about. (Yes, I know about Typhlosion's other form, I've decided to cover that in a future post. Because it's weird) Totodile (TOE-toe-dyle) is the Water starter of Johto, and the only Pokémon I can do a decent impression of. Is it a crocodile, or an alligator? I'll never tell. It's very bitey, according to the Pokédex, which is a problem, because biting is how it plays. I wonder how many people in the world of Pokémon have had to take a sudden trip to a hospital due to overexcited Totodile? So normally, I don't really mention the anime, but Totodile is a special case, because it's hilarious! Ash's Totodile is something I remember quite fondly as a constant source of comedy. That's pretty much how I react when a CPU tries Scary Face on me, actually. Anyway, Totodile performs perfectly average in the early game. Not much to note here. Croconaw (CROCK-oh-naw) is yet another middle evolution, and yet another Pokémon that has no interesting things to talk about here. Feraligatr (fer-AL-ee-gay-tur) is a Pokémon that has had a mispelt name throughout it's entire life. The Game Boy games have a 10 character limit on Pokémon names, and they've never bothered to fix this in later games. The letter "O" is for losers anyway. But that's not all that's weird. Croconaw is the only starter Pokémon that evolves at level 30. To this day, I have no clue why this is the case. Level 36 is the standard, but there are some that evolve at level 32, but not this line. Still, early evolution is very much a plus in Feraligatr's favour. Feraligatr is a physical juggernaut, with great Attack and Defense, it also has a diverse moveset with no less then 4 easily accessible type options for attacks (Water, Normal and Dark, through level ups, and Ice through a purchasable TM, Ice Punch). This actually sort of works against it in Gen 2, because most of those options are classified as Special attacks. Yes, even Bite is a Special attack. Feraligatr doesn't have great Special Attack, so it's bad at biting... Yes, that sounds completely ridiculous. But despite that shortcoming, Feraligatr is still an excellent starter in Gen 2. That kind of type coverage is extremely rare in the Game Boy games, and you need Surf anyway, so it can't hurt. Ice Punch is still a fantastic move because of the abundance of Dragon Pokémon at the end. Feraligatr's great Attack stat also makes it an excellent candidate for the Earthquake TM for even better coverage. It can also learn Iron Tail, but Steel is a pretty rubbish offensive type, so I don't recommend that. Unlike Typhlosion, future generations would serve Feraligatr very well. The Physical-Special split helps it massively, and makes it by far, the best choice of starter in the DS remakes. But it got even better in the fifth generation. Which means I need to talk about "Hidden abilities". Feraligatr's hidden ability is "Sheer Force". It powers up moves that have secondary effects by 33%, at the cost of removing those secondary effects. Most of Feraligatr's best moves have secondary effects, so it uses this to great effect! Sheer Force also prevents the Life Orb item from damaging Feraligatr. Anyway, that's about everything with the Gen 2 starters. What's your favourite? So, surprise, surprise. Mine's Feraligatr. All the crocodilian Pokémon are great, to be fair. Just like Charizard, I still have the Feraligatr I caught on the DS remake. It's nicknamed Dalbert. In fact, I like Totodile a lot as well. Especially the anime depiction. Little dude likes to spin. Honestly, I'm baffled at how RedShell can discount all water starters when Totodile exists!

So, flat out accusing a 7-year old of theft? That's low.

So, catching up on Sakurai's YouTube channel and couldn't help but laugh at this. We'd get along well, I'd say.