Glen-i

Shame it went all downhill from there, and not in the way you'd want it to.

Game Freak definitely knew what they were doing here

Ha-de-ha-ha Poncle! You got me!

OK, I'm sure I've said this before, but who's the weirdo at Square Enix who keeps getting Romancing SaGa to show up everywhere lately!?

Uhhhh... Excuse me!? Didn't have Romancing Saga on my list. Comes out today! Also includes the co-op update, and two new adventures. 1 for the base game, and one for the Tides of the Foscari DLC. EDIT: The Romancing SaGa part is a seperate download on eShop, but it is free. So get on that now.

Generation 6 (X/Y) was a pretty tumultuous time for competitive Pokémon. Mega Evolution hit here, catapulting a lot of Pokémon into relevancy again. However, some Pokémon overshot there and became far too much for the Single Battle format to deal with. Whether that was due to an unforseen effect of the various buffs Mega Evolution gives, or because Mega Evolution was stupidly given to a Pokémon that really didn't need it. But we're gonna kick this off with a legendary Pokémon that was deemed too powerful for Ubers and banned to the Anything Goes tier. In fact, this Pokémon is the one that made Smogon create the Anything Goes tier. This monstrosity is the OG AG. Mega Rayquaza (Dragon/Flying) is the best argument against the Mega Evolution mechanic. Rayquaza was already very powerful, but because the Gen 3 remakes, Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, were released, this Pokémon, alongside the other box legendaries, were given Mega Evolutions (Technically, Groudon and Kyogre don't have Megas, but they have powered-up forms which work the same, basically). When your worst stats are on par with Mew's best stats, you might be a bit overpowered... Mega Rayquaza has an eye-watering 780 BST. The highest amount of any Pokémon ever! Mega Mewtwo is the only other one with 780, as far as I'm aware. But Mega Mewtwo is still allowed in Ubers, so what makes Rayquaza so special? So most Pokémon that have a powered-up form normally have to dedicate some kind of resource to get there. For example, Arceus has to dedicate it's ability and it's item slot in order to switch types. And every Mega Evolution needs an item. Except Rayquaza. Rayquaza doesn't need an item to Mega evolve, it's ability doesn't do it either. No, Rayquaza needs to know a specific move instead. What's the move? Oh, only the strongest Flying type move in the game! Dragon Ascent is a physical Flying type (That's a confusing name...) attack with 120 power and 100% accuracy. The downside is that it lowers Rayquaza's Defense and Special Defense by 1 stage afterwards. So it's basically a Flying version of Close Combat. So even without the benefit of Mega Evolution, you'll still want to teach every Rayquaza this. So we've got a Pokémon that can Mega Evolve with no real downside, stats that are obscenely high, and an excellent signature move, alongside a smorgasbord of great moves, such as Dragon Dance, Earthquake, and Extreme Speed. In fact, there was even an online event Rayquaza that had the move V-Create. That's usually Victini's signature move. It's a Fire physical attack with 95% accuracy, and 180 power! Still, at least it doesn't have a broken ability to go alongside all this. Delta Stream: Creates the Strong Winds weather. This lasts until the Pokémon exits battle, and weakens moves used on Flying-type Pokémon that would be Super Effective. Oh wait, no. It's only one of the best abilities ever! Strong Winds overrides all other weather effects, and halves damage to Rayquaza if it's a type that the Flying type is weak to. All the benefits of the Flying type (Ground immunity, any resistances, and not being affected by ground based traps, such as Spikes), with none of the downsides! So as far as Gen 6 goes. Mega Rayquaza is the best Pokémon in the game. It's not even a contest. Not using Mega Rayquaza was actively making your team worse. Didn't matter what kind of team you had, Mega Rayquaza made it better. Mega Rayquaza. Hell, because Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre aren't Mega Evolutions, you can use all three! Despite this overcentralisation, it would take Smogon over a year to decide that "Yeah, this is too powerful". Granted, there wasn't a tier above Ubers at the time, so I have to imagine the concept of creating a higher tier required a lot of debate. Does that mean it's good in casual play? No. In almost every game where you can catch a Rayquaza, you can't get it until after the credits. The only game where you can use one in a playthrough is in Emerald, and that's only before the eight gym. It's Level 70 though, so if you're willing to chuck a Master Ball, it'll likely carry you through the rest of the game! Emerald is a Gen 3 game though, so you can't Mega Evolve there.

Just bumping this as a reminder. The theme is above.

I mean, it is Baseball.

OK, is Adam Robinson-Yu paying you all to flog his game? Because I want in!

Helmsly there, accidentally showing us that Smart Steering is back.

Excellent advertising, your cheque will be posted to you in 5 working days.

Interesting development in regards to Upgrade Packs. Note the small print at the bottom Why is it different to all the other boxes? That weirds me out. So it seems that it may be possible to have the Upgrade Pack on cart. Backed up by the Rune Factory Twitter account.

Nah, you could see their names on the Gamechat demonstrations. Probably did it because of DK.

To be fair, the first three games listed are all great! But with Banana Mania being a thing, I don't expect it to happen for NSO. Would be a pleasant surprise!

I think there's one key difference between the N64 Wave Race and this. And it's the product placement. The N64 game got a revised version that changed the sponsor boards, and I believe that's the one that's on the N64 app? I don't believe Blue Storm ever got a second version, and something tells me McDonald's would be a hell of a lot more expensive to get these days. That's the biggest hurdle. Of course, if NERD go in and edit those to be more Nintendo focused, then it can happen, but that does mean more effort, for a very niche game.

5 times! 5 times in a row @BowserBasher and I got the same character from random! That has to be a record!

I hope you get more then 200 quid for that.

This seemed pretty clear to me, going by the (also ugly) small print at the bottom.

Weirdly enough, this might actually be an improvement over the situation on Switch. At least with Switch 2's method you can resell it. On Switch, it was just a download code. Quite a few third parties used those. I don't believe Nintendo ever used them, though. Hopefully, the same will hold true here.

I was more shocked that Konami themselves developed this collection, instead of outsourcing it like they usually do. They did hire another team to handle the art side of it, mind. I might be wrong, but i think the last time Konami themselves did a game was Super Bomberman R?

Remains to be seen. But the Mii Maker is on the Switch 2 menu, so it's not impossible. You know what? Sure. If Mii is in, we'll go with that. The actual character distribution will be determined on whether you have to unlock the Mii before hand. I for sure would unlock them in less then a week, but most people aren't as mad as me.

But that's the best thing about him! "The Turbo is wasted on you..."

Stock format tonight, Custom stages from 7:30pm.

It begins... Suikoden I&II HD Remaster has been found listed on Play-asia as getting a "Physical" release for 35 US Dollars at the console's launch. Now I say physical, but there's no mention on whether that's an actual physical release or one of those Game Key Cards. I'd be shocked if it's the former. It's also only on Play-Asia right now, so err on the side of caution there. There's also this. No release date or price for this one. Neither of these games makes any mention on whether it'll be a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition (Like BotW), a free update for anyone who owns the Switch 1 version (Like Pokémon Scarlet), or a completely seperate release altogether.

Oh, I don't plan on skipping anything, the game makes it very clear that the other three characters are off-screen, doing stuff that you can't see. I would be very dissappointed if the cutscenes didn't depict that when you choose one of them.