Glen-i

These guys beg to differ. Pokémon Conquest is a turn-based strategy RPG developed by Tecmo Koei. It released on the DS in 2012. It's a crossover with a certain game series called Nobunaga's Ambition. What's Nobunaga's Ambition? Good question. When this game was announced, I certainly didn't know. So, a quick lowdown on that. Nobunaga's Ambition is a series of long running SRPG's that started in 1983. It's set in the Sengoku Period of feudal Japan, and such, it's characters tend to be based on those real-life people. The same holds true for this Pokémon version, that dude with the Goatee probably didn't use a giant electric jet dragon though. The games usually focus on taking over and maintaining areas of land in the ultimate goal of taking over the entire country. Pokémon Conquest stars a random warlord (AKA, you) who has just inherited the nation of Aurora in the Ransei region. In the Ransei region, there are a number of people who can communicate with Pokémon in a sort of spiritual way, letting the two understand each other. There's a legend in Ransei, one that tells of a Pokémon that created the region. It's said that a warlord that takes over and unifies the region of Ransei under their name can meet this Pokémon. There's a bloke called Nobunaga who apparently has a Pokémon so powerful that this goal is perfectly doable for him. (Spoiler alert, it's Zekrom) So you and your Eevee have to beat him to the punch and meet the Pokémon yourself. The game has two major types of gameplay, a management mode where you command the warlords that work for you to perform certain tasks, such as develop your nations, train with their Pokémon, go mining for gold or spending your funds on items they can equip. You can also send a group of up to 6 to try and invade another nation. Doing this (Or having an enemy army invade one of your nations) results in the game switching to battle mode, where you command the 6 Pokémon your warlords use in turn based battle. Different Pokémon have different attacks, so positioning and type advantages play a key role. The invaders have a set number of turns to defeat the opposing army (Or capture a number of flags). If they succeed, the nation is theirs. Each Warlord also has a special skill that they can use once per battle that can help turn the tide in their favour. Defeating enemy Pokémon either in 3 turns, without taking damage or with a Super Effective move may result in the warlord joining your army. Warlords generally come in two varietys, generic warriors and unique Warlords. The unique warlords are the people based on historic events and each one of those has at least one Pokémon that they are utterly perfect for. Known as a "perfect link", finding these Pokémon can exponentially increase the effectiveness of your army. The cool thing about this is that you can normally deduce what a Warlord's Perfect Pokémon is by the outfit they wear. It's also depicted by the Pokémon appearing alongside them whenever they give dialogue. Yeah, I can definitely see the resemblance. Anyway, in a weird move, once you actually complete the main story, you'll quickly realise that was just a tutorial... This comic sums it up pretty well. 2023 EDIT: Well, it would, if I could actually find it... The game sends you off on a number of mini scenarios (One for each unique warlord). Although the warlords you used in the tutorial keep the Pokémon they used, their link values (Basically, levels) reset. So best not to get too attached. It does provide a really long length to the game, as completing all of them gets you a final hard mode scenario that nets you a true ending. This game sold 1.02 million, a respectable amount. Although, don't expect to see a sequel any time soon. This has "one-off weirdness" all over it. In my opinion, this is a really good game. I'm kinda of a middling opinion when it comes to Strategy RPG's, but I had loads of fun. If you don't like the genre, stay clear. Time for a theory of mine when it comes to this game and Pokémon X/Y. If you played the sixth gen games, you may recall a certain cutscene where you're told of something that happened a long time ago. Honestly, it's the best part of an admittedly bad story. I think you know where I'm going with this... In my head, the Pokémon War was Pokémon Conquest. Shut up! You know it's cooler that way, don't you dare use the word "Coincidence"! Either way, that's Gen 5, probably the strangest batch of spin-offs the series has seen (Apart from any sequels). Gen 6 next week.

I mean, if you're gonna change the game that drastically, you might as well just have a new Zelda. The game is built around the motion controls.

It absolutely cracks me up that the Conker one has a 6+ age rating while the box contains a screenshot of a humongous pile of poo.

I'm pretty sure everyone here does. When I get to the 6th generation, you'll probably start to notice a trend develop that I think is the main reason we won't see these kind of titles any time soon.

Learn with Pokémon: Typing Adventure is a DS title that released in 2011. It's developed by Genius Sonority and as the name suggests, it's an educational typing game. The game came bundled with a bluetooth-enabled keyboard. It sounds like the kind of game that I would put in with the smaller titles, but there's quite a lot of stuff that makes this particular title unlike a lot of other spin-offs. Anyway, the player is the newest member of the Elite Typists Club and tasked by Professor Quentin Werty and his assistant, Paige Down (Yeah, it's one of those games), to travel through 63 courses and research 403 Pokémon. What's that? How do you do that? Why, by typing their name really fast and really accurately, of course! Generally, each course involves typing the names of Pokémon to progress through 12 worlds (Although there are some exceptions), at the end of each world, they will encounter a boss Pokémon, generally a legendary Pokémon. Each course also has 3 medals to collect, you can get these by finishing the course quickly, finishing without errors, successfully researching certain Pokémon, keeping a combo going and so on. On the surface, this game seems like a child-friendly educational tool, and as far as the main story goes, that holds true. It's when you go for 100% completion that you realise that this game is really hard! The 63 courses each have 3 difficulty levels and the third one in particular is so incredibly harsh, I can't even beat the second boss! Of course, that video makes it look easy, but you try typing that nonsense in 6 seconds with no mistakes! 3 mistakes total and you're starting again. Anyway, the main reason I gave this game it's own post is because it's development is full of weird oddities. For starters, despite having an English release in Europe, the game never came out in America. The only Pokémon game to do so. Because of the regional differences in Pokémon names, the order in which you encounter them can change between different languages. Probably done to maintain a smooth difficulty curve, despite the version you're playing. To work with the bluetooth keyboard, the DS card has built in bluetooth support, which I believe is the only DS game that has such a feature. And for some reason that I can not find any clue of, the European version removed the Pokémon Surskit, Staravia, Ferrothorn and Heatmor from the game. They're still there in the game's code and the Japanese version. The game sold 0.29 million, so it kinda flopped. It didn't release in America, so that didn't help. Shame really, there's not a lot of typing games on consoles and I do like a good typing game. Still, I'd be remiss if I didn't share with you all the absolutely amazing boss battle music this game has! It's seriously the most hype typing music I've ever heard! IT'S JUST TYPING! CALM DOWN! If Smash Bros. didn't inexplicably hate Pokémon spin-offs, I'd be gunning for this music in that. It's better than half of the Sun/Moon soundtrack!

Don't worry, the table is correct. Forgot to put a note under the picture.

Note: @viceview51's score was actually 17. Right, time for the Random Task. This week it was... Sibling Rivalry Whenever you beat someone higher on the League Table in a GP, you get 2 points If you lose to someone lower than you, you lose 2 points. This is an interesting one. The people lower on the table have less risk of losing points while the top placers have a lot more to lose. @viceview51's placing is not considered for the 1st GP. Here are the points everyone got from it. A score of 0 or more results in Task Completed. @viceview51's score in GP1 was discounted, so he's not able to be the Player who made no Bloody Difference this week. I managed to break into 20 1st places this week, but that wasn't enough to stop the old switcheroo with @RedShell. With 3 weeks to go, it's not exactly clear who could clinch 1st place. Next League Night: 29th November 8pm Room 1: @BowserBasher is host @BowserBasher @viceview51 @RedShell @martinist I'm not 100% certain I'll be in next week, I'll get back to you once I know. It's the last Player's Choice night of the year. So I'm gonna throw in a Balloon Battle there. Sign up Now!

Oh, right. I suppose I better update the Smash Blog stuff. Boring!

I'm glad someone has some Godzilla lore knowledge. Because mine is... yeah... I'm gonna concede on the 3 Links. If Godzilla isn't evil, the Master Sword is just another toothpick. As for FE, gotta come clean here... Lucina shouldn't have been there, I kinda oopsied on that. She's meant to be with her dad. And I learned something about Roy's sword, didn't know it was a Dragonsbane effect weapon. (Can you blame me? Who actually played Binding Blade?) But yeah, Godzilla breathes fire and is a giant reptile, it's close enough to dragonkind for the Falchion, etc. to be effective. You're right about everything else FE though, with Robin being a maybe... It all depends on... So I compromised and put Robin in the tier in between. I'm gonna put this up to the others. Where should Robin go? - "Good Chance" or "Godzilla's got this"? I actually considered Godzilla's radioactive nature. But Dark Samus uses Phazon, and I really doubt Zilla can withstand that. I mean it's not exactly found on Earth... Best case scenario, Zilla gets corrupted and Dark Samus now has the best toy ever. Dr. Mario? Take it from Viridi. I agree with her. Your point about Red raises an interesting... point. I guess so, but Godzilla ain't no Pokémon, so it's not gonna work anyway. I'll put him with Yoshi and the rest. Villager is the mayor, Isabelle's the secretary. And she didn't sign up for that! She's totally legging it. Villager is so psycho, he'd probably stay behind. It's open to interpretation though so... Another vote. Should the Animal Crossing characters swap places? And we might as well cover Lucas as well. Lucas - "Totally Running Away" or "Pretty Close Matchup"? Yeah, Pit and Palutena were placed there for laughs. They could both take Godzilla, no probs though. I misplaced Dark Pit, so many characters to place... The Belmonts have literally beaten up Death. That has to stand for something! The holy water will probably do nothing, mind. I'm not budging on Donkey Kong though. DK 94 doesn't star the DK from Smash. Different Gorilla. As for the moon? Counter point, DK's punch wasn't the reason for the moon falling, it was the speed at which he hit it. I based this on the almost never seen ending to DKC Returns when you only have Diddy. Let's not question how they survived that though... And that's that. I'll update the tier list above now.

That would make your GP1 score 17 after recalculation. Your average is currently 31.3, do you want to keep that score? I take it from your other post that you managed to actually complete every race in GP3, so I can just use that score. Anyway, here's my highlights from yesterday. And I'm declaring myself this week's winner of "Ultimate skill of the week" with this banger. Nice try @RedShell

Thanks for the hunts last night, @RedShell, @S.C.G and @Dcubed It was a night where there was impeccable teamwork, I need to pay more attention, This Barroth was gunning for an Oscar and where I discovered the ultimate Monster Hunter strategy. I'll be up for some more later tonight.

It's a new Generation! My particular favourite, but would the spin-off's match up? Well, like all the other gens, let's start with the smaller titles that don't really need their own post... Don't expect much in the way of sales figures. Pokédex 3D released for the 3DS in 2011. Made by Creatures Inc. and released as a free digital only title. Pokédex 3D was essentially a database for 152 Gen 5 Pokémon. Providing information on movesets, stat spread, catching locations, abilities, etc. This title is notable as it's the first time we started seeing the official 3D Pokémon models that are still used today. You see, during the transition from 2D sprites to 3D models that the mainline games were going through, Creatures Inc. decided to make Pokémon models that were ready for the HD era that would inevitably arrive for the series. It was remarkably forward thinking, but as you can imagine, making models for well over 700 Pokémon at the time was a massive undertaking. So this was released as a way to kind of tide people over. It also utilised Augmented Reality to let you take pictures of Pokémon. Pokédex 3D Pro came out a year later for the 3DS. As the name suggests, it's a more comprehensive version of Pokédex 3D that features all 649 Pokémon from the first 5 generations. It also wasn't free. You had to pay for this one. That pretty much sums up the main upgrade, but this title also has a quiz feature that puts your knowledge of Pokémon to the test. Like, serious nerdy stuff, such as heights, weights and even egg groups. Yes, I nailed all of them. What!? Pokédex for iOS also came out in 2012 and is pretty much Pokédex 3D Pro for Mobile Phones. Not much else to say. These titles were probably made to subsidize the cost of making the absolutely huge amount of high quality models that are still used to this day. You can still see them in the Pokémon Let's GO games. They were also used in the 3DS mainline games, even if it did have the side effect of tanking the framerate when too many were on screen at once. Still, it was a smart move. It saved a lot of time in the long run. I still actually boot up Pokédex 3D Pro now and again. Not for actual Pokémon knowledge, mind, it's kinda out of date now. But those models are great and make great references for whenever I feel like drawing a Pokémon. Anyway, let's get weird. Holy Crap! It's the Pokémon Trading Card Game! ...OK, not quite... Pokémon Card Game: How To Play DS is a free tutorial game that came with the Starter Kit in Japan that was available in 2011. Developed by Creatures Inc. and Zener Works, it's a small tutorial that teaches you how to play the TCG. That's it. There's nothing more to talk about. It was a freebie, after all. Pokémon Dream Radar is an Augmented Reality Shooter for the 3DS that released in 2012. Made by Game Freak and Creatures Inc. It's the first time a spin-off was made by the actual developers of the mainline Pokémon games. The player is tasked with collecting Dream Orbs by shooting clouds using the 3DS' AR feature. But now and again, you might encounter a Pokémon. When this happens, you need to shoot it with... beams of light(?) in order to capture it. If you pulled this off, you were able to transfer those Pokémon to the Gen 5 DS games. This includes the new Therian Formes of Tornadus, Thundurus and Landorus. You could also utilise the Gen 4 games to get special versions of Legendary Pokémon with rare abilities. This game was OK, decent fun for what it's worth. I wouldn't be surprised if the AR feature used in this was reused for Pokémon GO in some way. We finish with Pokémon Tretta Lab, a Japan only 3DS digital title that came with a special bundle in 2013. You might remember me talking about Tretta back in the Gen 4 posts, so I won't repeat myself with what that is. Unfortunately, it's not a 3DS version of the original arcade title as the name would suggest. Instead, it's a utility kind of application that helps you catalogue your certainly ginormous collection of Tretta discs. You could scan them to see more details and to simulate battles. What's that? How do you scan these discs on a 3DS? Why, with this monstrosity of course! And you thought the Circle Pad Pro was bad... Unfortunately, support for this dropped almost a year later when a new set of discs was released. Which was a bit of a middle finger to anyone who bought this, really. That's it for Gen 5's weird spin-off section. Tomorrow, there'll be something that's actually weirder than all this.

That's never been the case in any Pokémon game though, even with EXP Share.

Room's open now.

@S.C.G that leaves you with Morton.

Man, I am never pulling this Hellblade quest off! Took me an hour to get a full room going, only for some jerk to come in and cart 4 BLOODY TIMES! You'd think after the third time, they'd just hang back and let the rest of us finish off the last Hellblade... I just want that armour... @Hero-of-Time I get it now. I get your frustration with Randoms.

Ah, I see. Whenever I do a tier list. I go by all of the source material. I normally actually ignore Smash, because the characters aim to be balanced there.

No. Then trust me when I say that to Kirby, Godzilla is nothing. This is what happened to just one poor villain that miffed Kirby. Kirby fights some proper eldtrich horrors in his games. Like planet-destroying levels of nightmares. And it's nothing to him.

Have you played any Kirby Final Boss?

Obligatory Link would Shadow of the Collosus it and stab it with the Master Sword. Blade of Evil's Bane is pretty effective. Naturally, Toon Link would just jump there and shove the sword into it's brain. Worked on Ganondorf. Young Link doesn't have the Master Sword or epic gravity defying skills, so he's screwed. A well placed Falcon Punch beats anything. Everyone knows this. Bayonetta has literally punched God into the sun, so Godzilla is nothing for her. Samus/Dark Samus' suits are way past modern technology. Mewtwo has crazy Psychic powers (And Ness to a lesser extent). Meanwhile Rosalina and Shulk are literal Gods. Kirby beats everything, Godzilla is another Tuesday for him. The Fire Emblem gang fight Dragons on a daily basis. Chrom and Marth in particular have the Falchion which is made specifically to kill Fire Breathing Reptiles. Fox and Falco have the Arwings. Probably just another end-stage boss to them. Mega Man has a smorgasbord of weapons, like Samus. If Sonic has the Chaos Emeralds, he'll breeze it with Super Sonic. Ridley is the closest thing to Godzilla in the Ninty Universe, except he can fly. Cloud is from Final Fantasy. Giant Fire Breathing Dragons is the norm. Mario has literally Butt stomped a 100m tall Electric Dragon to death. Meta Knight is from the Kirby universe, so I have to imagine he's crazy strong if he can give Kirby a decent fight. (Same with Dedede if he wasn't looting) Simon and Richter have struggled their way through worse. I think that covers everyone.

Mixture of both, I'd guess. You'd have to ask him yourself, but I've not seen him on this site for ages.

Yes you can, I remember @Ugh first aid spotting a Green Zubat in the middle of Mt. Moon.

The base chance of getting a shiny is the same as Sun/Moon. 1 in 4096. Why don't you lot have a look at the ways to influence this?

So who's up for some post Kart Hunts tonight?

PokéPark Wii: Pikachu's Adventure released in 2009 for the Wii. It's an action adventure game developed by Creatures Inc. You play as a Pikachu who starts the game playing with his Charmander, Chikorita and Piplup friends. A Mew suddenly shows up and leads them into a mysterious hole in the ground. This leads them to the titular PokéPark. The Mew then informs Pikachu about an ancient stone called the Sky Prism, which has been shattered into 14 pieces. So Pikachu has to explore the park and find these pieces. No, the Mew isn't going to help. The game generally involves exploring a number of areas and befriending the 193 Pokémon inside. Different Pokémon will want to play different games with Pikachu. The smaller ones will want to play chase and Hide-and-seek games while bigger Pokémon will probably want to battle. These battles are noticeable in that they're done in real-time, a first for the series. So no, Pokkén didn't do it first. In order to get the Sky Prism Shards, Pikachu will have to win at the 14 attractions of PokéPark, a selection of Mini-games. The problem is, Pikachu isn't exactly good enough to pull this off, so you have to befriend Pokémon more suited to what's needed so they can do it for you. The game is definitely aimed at younger children, so it's very easy. Despite that, it sold 1.19 million, which is decent. PokéPark 2: Wonders Beyond was released in 2011 for the Wii. Once again, it was developed by Creatures Inc. Pikachu has traveled to a different PokéPark with Piplup (Charmander and Chikorita are strangely absent from this game). There's rumours of a place called Wish Park where the fun never stops. Turns out it never stops because Pokémon who go there can never leave. Piplup gets trapped in there and Pikachu has to rescue him. The game plays similarly to the first game, but befriending Pokémon plays a bigger role than the Mini-Game Attractions (Of which there are only 4). As you can probably tell from the cover, the Gen 5 starters, Snivy, Tepig and Oshawott play a big role in this game. They're fully playable in this and are able to switch with Pikachu for exploration and battles. Each one has a special skill that makes them suitable for different situations (Except Pikachu, who has no special skills and should almost never be used). The battles in this game get a bit of a renovation. Type advantage plays a part in this and choosing the right Pokémon will make battles easier, if things are going bad, you can even call upon a Pokémon you befriended to control for a bit. You can also play the 4 attractions in Multiplayer as well. PokéPark 2 sold 0.76 million. Which is pretty average considering. And that does it for PokéPark. Which is a shame, there was potential here. These are decent games, even if they are devoid of challenge. The battling in the sequel is really fun as well. I would have liked to see where it could have gone... And that also does it for Gen 4. There weren't a lot of original ideas here and most of them were a bit "meh" PokéPark was good, but it's not a dizzying high. Next up is Gen 5, which I have mentioned before as a wacky bunch of spin-offs.