Glen-i

Oh, that's definitely do-able. HOME lets you actually edit a Pokemon's moves in the app itself. It even lets you use TM moves if you already taught it said move in the game it came from. Again, the stats would have to be recalculated, but if it's going straight to Stadium, I don't see it as unreasonable to just max out the EV's for use in that. Again though, depends on how easy it is to edit the NSO app with data from HOME.

It's not the movesets that are the problem, Pokémon HOME actually keeps track of every moveset your Pokémon has between each Switch game. So if you transfer something from, say, Scarlet to Sword, then HOME will change the movesets to match what it is in Sword, and if you transfer it back, it reverts to the Scarlet moveset. It's pretty slick! Theoretically, it would be no problem for it to save another moveset for a hypothetical NSO version of Red/Blue. The actual problem is the stats. Effort Values, or EV's, function completely differently to all the other games. That's why getting Pokémon from the 3DS Virtual Console games to the other 3DS games was a bit of a faff. They needed a program to recalculate it all. Now, they did do it, so having it be able to transfer Pokémon back to the Game Boy should be do-able. But it all depends on how difficult it is to edit a game on the NSO via a third party app (HOME). And as you mentioned, whether GF sees it as worth the effort.

I find the option to filter by Title only helps a bunch.

The cheek of them! Only releasing half of a soundtrack!

Oh man, Se Jun Park's Pachirisu was glorious. That Pokémon unfortunately won't be showing up here, because it can't do nearly as well in Singles. You know what though? Just last year, he brought it back for VGC! Seriously, the crowd went berserk when he sent it out! Didn't clinch him the win this time, Gen 9 is a brutal scene. Which goes to prove why Doubles is so much more interesting. The sheer amount of options and strategies it opens up means that some genius player can discover something that everyone else has discounted, and use it to utterly bewilder their opponents. Se Jun leveraged an advantage in 2014, because his opponent had no clue how to deal with it

Right, I wanted to ask everyone here something about how we handle this going forward. Originally, I was under the impression that @Ike was floating the idea of turning the FS Meter off in all formats, which is why I suggested toggling it Off/On every time we cycle back to Time format. But now that I know he only meant Stock format, I'm gonna suggest two ways of doing this: The original plan of toggling off/on the FS Meter every time we cycle back to Time Format. This will mean that the FS Meter will be off for all formats for 4 weeks, and then on for the next 4 weeks. FS Meter will be turned off permanently for Stock Format, but left on for Time and Stamina. This will also apply for theme nights, unless I determine it'd be more fitting to change that to fit the theme. So, I'll leave it to a vote. Which option do you guys want?

It's the German name for Koffing. Originally, it was group of enthusiasts on a forum board organising battles with each other (2004, I believe, that was), but as more people started taking part, the people who started it decided that they should branch out and make a dedicated site for that kind of battling. They wanted a mascot Pokémon, so they went with some kind of edgy in-joke about taking the mick out of Nazis. They've gone on record saying that they find that kind of embarrassing at this point, but the name has been grandfathered in at this point.

I guess it's an extension of my needle phobia, but absolutely the same for me there. Not super common in London, thankfully.

I mean, that and the writers have to provide drama, and let other Pokémon get the spotlight now and again. Part of the point of the anime is that it's advertising the new games.

Nope, not even close! Although it is above 50%. Of all things, his Mankey from the first series has the only perfect win rate. And he ditched it!

There's a key difference between Pokémon that are banned to Ubers, and Pokémon that have viable strategies for Ubers. So Gen 2 Snorlax has a use for that tier, but it's not so powerful that it can't be used in a lower tier. (In this case, Snorlax can be used in the next lower tier, OU, or OverUsed, but none of the lower ones then that) Can't be certain if you're serious here, because through possible sheer coincidence, you nailed it. RU stands for RarelyUsed. EDIT: Wait, hang on, reading comprehension fail. You typed "where that tier is", not "what that tier is". You totally typed rarely on purpose. But yeah, if I overlook a term, and you, or anyone else need clarification, do ask me.

Awwww yeah! Nerdy Pokémon thread time! The mainline Pokémon games have a thriving competitive scene. The official one, the VGC (Video Game Championships) is the one you likely have heard of. It uses Doubles format (Each player brings 6 Pokémon, they choose 4, and send them out 2 at a time) and doesn't really have restrictions for most Pokémon. Legendaries are sometimes banned, but not always. You can make the argument for a few Pokémon being really overpowered there, but there's no official consensus on what those Pokémon are. For the sake of this thread, I'm going to Smogon. What the hell is Smogon? Fair question. Smogon is the de facto unofficial competitive Pokémon scene. Unlike VGC, they focus primarily on Singles format where each player uses all 6 Pokémon. They dabble in Doubles, but Singles is what they usually focus on. These days, the attempted balancing of Pokémon that Game Freak does is focused on the Doubles format. It's weird to think about because the casual player won't see many Double battles in-game. If you ever thought a Pokémon game is too easy, that's probably why. Doubles format is a lot more complex, it's my preferred format. However, this has had the side effect of inflicting Smogon with various Pokémon over the years that are way too good for Singles. Whenever this happens, the Smogon community get together and debate on whether that Pokémon should be banned to the "Ubers" tier. What the hell is Ubers? Another fair question. Smogon has numerous tiers that Pokémon are sorted into. The Ubers tier is the tier that allows almost all Pokémon in them. If a Pokémon is banned to Ubers, it's because they're such a dominating force in lower tiers that they make almost every other Pokémon non-viable. The majority of Pokémon that can only be used in Ubers are Legendary Pokémon, like Mewtwo. But those Pokémon aren't very interesting to look at because legendary Pokémon are designed to be overpowered. What I'm doing is looking at the much rarer case when a more common Pokémon, for whatever reason, is or was overpowered at some point. Some of these are quite unexpected, some are hilarious, and some were definitely a mistake. Our first example is all three! Oh no! It's Wobbuffet! And also Wynaut. Wobbuffet is most well known for being one of the Pokémon Team Rocket had in the anime. Funnily enough, it barely ever battled, it just kept escaping it's Poké Ball to shout its name at people. That's a far cry from it's competitive career. This thing is scary! I mean, even the unevolved form of Wobbuffet was so broken that it had to be banned. Here are their base stats: Those stats on paper are absolutely dreadful, but these two Pokémon are weird in that they have no way of doing direct damage to the opponent. Instead, Wobbuffet and Wynaut primarily use Counter and Mirror Coat to inflict double the damage of the attack they just took back on the opponent. When Wobbuffet was first introduced in Gen 2 (Gold/Silver), it was not a threat. It's easy to predict, just switch something else in and start using stat boosting moves like Swords Dance, and knock it out in one shot. Instead, these two Pokémon are banned to Ubers specifically in Gen 3 (Ruby/Sapphire), and Gen 4 (Diamond/Pearl), and that's because of the introduction of Abilities. Abilities are passive effects every Pokémon has, and these two have the Shadow Tag ability. Shadow Tag: The opponent cannot run nor switch while this Pokémon is in play. The opponent may still switch by using Baton Pass. That ability make these two Pokémon amazing trappers. Send them in against an offensive threat, and use basic knowledge of what the opposing Pokémon will do to force them to effectively knock themselves out. There's nothing the opponent can do against a decent player sending this out at the opportune time, and with that monstrous HP stat, you won't be knocking out Wobbuffet in one turn. Wobbuffet is basically a delete button. Hell, it's more likely then not that it'll KO two Pokemon before finally fainting. So why bother with Wynaut? Well, you're not allowed to use two Pokémon with the same Pokédex number on the same team. Discount Wobbuffet is still a great trapper Pokémon, so you can effectively have two of the buggers! By the way, in Gen 4, if you give Wobbuffet or Wynaut the Leftovers item (At the end of every turn, the holder regains 1/16th of their maximum HP), and send it out against another Wobbuffet/Wynaut with Leftovers, the match will never end because the recoil damage from the eventual Struggle (An attack a Pokémon that runs out of PP will use) attacks is less then the recovered health from Leftovers. For this reason, you're not allowed to give these Pokémon Leftovers in Smogon. So why aren't these Pokémon in Ubers anymore? General power creep, really. They haven't changed much from Gen 5 onwards, but there are a lot more options to switch out, even with Shadow Tag. Pivoting moves like U-Turn, the Shed Tail item, or the change so that Ghost types aren't affected by trapping strategies make Wobbuffet less universally effective. It can still blindside an unprepared player, but there are better options these days. At the end of these sections, I'm gonna talk about whether these ridiculous competitive strategies can be applied to the kind of gameplay most of you normies will see in Pokémon games; a normal playthrough of the games. Does that mean it's good in casual play? Nah, not really. CPU trainers are a lot harder to predict, so you can't really use knowledge to make reliable plays with Wobbuffet. Don't use Wobbuffet.

Stock format tonight at 8pm. Custom stages from 7:30. Now this time, the FS Meter will be off for the Stock session. Smash Balls will still be around.

See? Now I'm not even certain if Bob is joking now. We need a signal. OK, everyone who is joking, raise your hand above your head and declare "I'm doney with the funny!"

It's a travesty that this gets a Tetris 99 theme but not Tropical Freeze with it's top-tier soundtrack.

"The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero" is the DLC for Pokémon Scarlet/Violet. It was released in 2023. Yes, Pokémon Scarlet is the Pokémon game I absolutely despise. But I was craving some Pokémon, and one part of the DLC is very battle focused, which this game desperately needs (Could still use a basic Battle Tower, mind you). More on that in a bit. The first part is "The Teal Mask" and involves our typical Pokémon protagonist going on a field trip to Kitakami. A rural town with a legend about an evil ogre. There, they meet Carmine, a Kitakami resident with serious temper issues, and her brother, Kieran. The second part is "The Indigo Disk" where Mr. Protagonist is chosen to be an exchange student to the Blueberry Academy, a school in "Unova" that focuses on teaching kids how to battle well. Carmine and Kieran go there, conveniently, and a certain character is taking the events at Kitakami very well! The DLC is still insisting that big empty vistas are actually interesting to explore, so my big issues with the base game still apply. Thankfully, the areas are a lot smaller here, so it's not nearly as obnoxious and boring. It's not good, but it isn't as terrible as it is in the base game. I never was any good at catch... Credit where credit is due, the characters and plot here are a lot of fun. It's one of the few good things about Scarlet, and it's great here. Carmine and Kieran are great NPC's. Some of the best the series has to offer. Because spoiler tags are still borked, I'll leave my thoughts about that until the end of the post. The Teal Mask is pretty much the same as the base game, but in a smaller area. The indigo Disk, on the other hand, is actually excellent. It's the battle-heavy part of the DLC. All battles are Double battles and a lot of the stronger trainers use really good Pokémon. I'm talking the kinds of Pokémon and strategies you'd see in the World Championships. It's legit hard, and it gave my competitive Lv 80-ish Pokémon a real run for their money. One particular point was noteworthy. I had nothing. I had to resort to a ragtag team of stuff like Ninetales and Beartic. Ninetales, for Christ's sake! That was proper hard. The final battle is easily the hardest non Battle Tower fight in the history of Pokémon. Cynthia is positively quaint in comparison, and it was so much fun. I wish the whole game was like this. Pokémon's battle system is the best thing about the series, and this DLC proves it. Of course, people only care about big open fields... So I doubt actual good gameplay will never be more then a niche side thing reserved for DLC in future games, if that. The game still doesn't have a Battle Tower, so there's still nothing for me to faff about with now that I've completed the Pokédex. Also, I mentioned that it takes place in Unova, but it really doesn't. They say it does, but there are no areas from the DS classics. All you get is some songs, a few characters who are the kids of Unova Gym Leaders, and one reference to Mecha Tyranitar. That's it. It's a massive fob off considering that they're skipping Gen 5 remakes and going to straight to Kalos for Legends Z-A. It's insulting, really. The game also still runs like crap. Some massive game-breaking glitches have been fixed since the initial release, but everything else is still as poorly optimised as you probably remember. I enjoyed this DLC in spite of the many, many flaws. Does Koraidon even understand anything other then the word "Sandwich"? On the plus side, my Groudon (officially the cutest Pokémon, he's got the ribbon to prove it), the heaviest Pokémon in history, can now learn Heat Crash, a Fire move (so boosted by Groudon's natural sun) that does 140 base damage if Groudon is double the weight of it's target. That's actually insane! I love it! Now for actual plot spoilers.

Don't forget the time limits! Super Hard's escape sequences are actually insane!

Well overdue. It's mad to think we got Red Rescue Team of all things before this. My advice is that each of the bosses has a specific weakness to one of the expensive items in the shop, if you want all the treasure chests, I highly recommend finding out which one.

Been a while since this GIF was warranted.

Oh, good shout. Yeah, I'll allow the W 25 Silver Arrow with GLA wheels as an alternative option. No mix and matching, mind. Glider stays the same though.

Theme time! Circuits! Circuits everywhere! And circuit adjacent tracks because there's only 8 of them. Remember, the vehicle suggestion is just that, a suggestion. You don't have to use it. There's no one character that truly fits, so use whoever, although I suggest someone that actually has a circuit. See you at 8pm tonight.

See, this is where I stand. It's one of the best looking games on the Gamecube, and that console needed all the selling points it could get its hands on. Much like @Dcubed said, if it came out on the N64, it would have been utterly ignored. At least on the Gamecube, it sold a few copies. And it's been fascinating to see that no, pulling a "hijacked by Gan- uh, Andross" wouldn't have made a difference, General Scales was originally meant to be killed in a cutscene, so he actually got a better deal on the final product. I've got a soft spot for SFA, and not just because it's my favourite game with "StarFox" in the title. Then again, I'm a button masher extradornaire, and I've played so much THPS, I can keep a balance bar going for ages, so the more notorious parts of this game never really gave me trouble. It's had one board recreated. It kinda got the short straw in Superstars, and doesn't get anything in Jamboree. 3 is only my second favourite Mario Party, but it's better then 2, and miles better then 1. The new items and the ability to have three items is such a monumental change, and opens up a lot of strategy (Also stops the Plunder Chest from being too OP). Like most Mario Parties, single player is miserable, but get three friends around, and laughs a-plenty! If anyone with N64 NSO wants a game, I'm always up for it! That said, the Reverse Mushroom is kind of insane, there's a reason it never came back.

I hate that I didn't think of this first!

Man, you sure do know how to pick some weird entry points. First Castlevania, now this!

Usually, getting Ganondorf in Time format is a real lucky break. Unless the stars align and puts you on a small stage with some cheeky scamp and a hard counter to him. Also, @S.C.G your link above seems to link to a timestamp from last week's games, not sure if that's a "me" problem, though.