Glen-i

Yeah, it's amazing! Loads of fun! And that was only with 2 people! Imagine a full group! Hope you don't mind that I put it on Chill difficulty, just wanted to get to grips with the controls. I noticed after you left that my April was still at level 0, so I think those level up bonuses you got for April has likely stayed on your file. Nice to see there's progress even if you join someone else's game. EDIT: Worth checking out the move list on the pause menu, some special co-op moves you can do are listed there.

Wouldn't that be really confusing though?

To be fair, that part was more of a general PSA. I know you have no friends. For you, it's basically if portable is worth the extra three quid. (Bloody Switch Tax...) But it's worth considering if there's any parents thinking of having a session with their kids/their friends.

Game supports the Switch Friend Invite feature, which is nice. Not enough games take advantage of that. Worth noting the PlayStation version doesn't support 5 or 6 player local play for obvious reasons. The achievements are in the Switch version as well.

Oh no, don't get me wrong. It was defo in the right place at first, but it was after that Indie World where I started oh-so-subtlety hinting that it should be moved. Every time I went to post in this thread, I kept looking back on this board for a couple of pages before realising that it was in Other Consoles. Without fail. Anyway, killing time before 2pm. So if anyone wants to deny Shredder some soup once again this weekend, give me a shout. Legit, this is the game I'm most excited for this summer!

Another Player's Choice session tonight at 8pm.

Generally, when a multi platform game includes a Nintendo platform, it should go on the Nintendo board. Otherwise, the "N" in N-Europe might as well not be there.

I'm gonna assume you did this, so...

It's still on this board!? I literally have it preloaded on my Switch this very moment! Anyway... This is out this afternoon. I've already got it, but would anyone else getting it on Switch be up for an N-E co-op session at any time that isn't 8pm?

So what you're saying is we're getting Tokyo Mirage Sessions 2? I can see the inspiration now!

Whether it's legit or not, it was worth it purely for waking up this morning and busting a gut over breakfast because of that hair! It's so ridiculous!

Worth noting that Rise doesn't support cross saves or crossplay. So if you go for any version, you're committed.

A demo for DLC? Has that ever happened before? The only thing I think comes close is early Sephiroth in Smash Ultimate, but you still had to buy it in the first place, so... Granted, this is comparable to Generations Ultimate getting a demo, but it's still weird to think about.

Oh no, it's not just a Hate Play. Shadow the Edgehog was a Hate Play. Final Corridor XIII was a Hate Play. I didn't mind too much though, as I knew what I was subjecting myself to with those games. Legends: Arceus is more complex then that, but if I had to give it a name, I'd dub it the "Sad Play". BotW, Xenoblade X, Mario Odyssey and this game all have a similar gameplay timeline for me that went something like: The Naive Start: "You know, this has some neat ideas, there could be something good here" The Gradual Realisation: "OK, that neat stuff has lost it's appeal. The open world is looking to be bigger then I hoped" The Hate Play: "For effs sake! It's still going!? Just end already!" The Depressing Obligation: "I'm so close to the end, that I might as well finish the job..." Now, it's not exactly the same throughout every game. BotW, for example, never got to the Depressing Obligation, because I could just go kick Ganon in the face whenever, so once the Hate Play started, that's when I bailed. Meanwhile, Skyrim went through the first three phases in around 2 hours! Legit, the only cool thing there is you have the option to play as a lizard person. And nothing else. Skyrim is awful, even by open world standards.

He never asked for one. You're the instigator here! EDIT: I believed in you, @Julius! You were the chosen one!

The fact that everyone who plays this immediately batters this twerp only serves to prove my point!

It is never shorts weather!

Yeah, I'm glad it worked out nicely. Random characters and stages helps keep things from being one sided too often. I quite liked that match on the Mario Galaxy stage where each team had a projectile based character and a melee based one. Some fun plays in that. Now that I understand how things work, it dawned on me that even while we were waiting for Dcubed, we could've just gone on separate teams and done a 3 player free-for-all. Oh well, good to know for next time.

We have a couple more competitive ready Mystery Gift Pokémon giveaways. First is a Grimmsnarl used by last year's Korean Champion. The code for that is K0REACHAMP10N21 The second one is a Sableye from Japan's Champion. That code is 21JAPANCHAMP10N Act quickly though, these stop being available at 4pm (UK time) today.

Of course Double Belmont happened randomly! Luckily, the stage wasn't ideal for it, so it balanced out. Anyway, I'm just gonna post this without context.

Yes, it is. And for that reason, I'm not entirely certain on how it works. I opened a test room, but without 4 people, I wasn't able to see how the game determines team layouts. So, I'm hoping there's a random option. There's nothing in the room setup menu that let's you dictate how teams are chosen. Just hoping for the best, to be honest. Even if it's not random, I can just rotate myself in between you, Ike and Dcubed. That'll ensure a fair distribution of teams. And our favoured choice of random characters and stages can avoid blatantly advantageous teams most of the time, such as Double Belmont, which tends to ruin 2V2 matches.

In all my years of playing Pokémon games, I have never felt like I completed a Pokédex out of a sense of obligation rather then enjoyment, but I suppose I should offer some sense of congratulations Pokémon Legends: Arceus for bucking that trend at least. I don't need to explain what this game is, (I'm one of the last people to actually finish it, after all) but simply put, it's the Pokémon series testing the waters of going towards an open-world format. Because nothing shakes up a formula quite like aping what's the popular trend of the time. Apparently... Normally, I'd do a write up detailing my thoughts, but this game doesn't deserve that kind of effort, so here I am, not even on a desktop, bullet pointing what's good and bad about this game. I've already spent far too much time on it already. I'd warn you of spoilers, but I don't care. The Good - To be frank, the best thing about this game are the noble fights, moments when you confront what can only be described as action game boss fights, where you roll through attacks and lob balms at Pokémon when you get an opening. Do well enough, and you get to send a Pokémon out in turn-based battling for big damage! These are legit fun, and I would love to see this in Scarlet/Violet, but that's not really feasible. Geez, could you imagine 4 player co-op on that? It'd be sweet! - The transition between exploration and battles are nice and snappy. I hope S/V retains these. - Loading times are really good! Although Game Freak have already shown that they prioritise low loading times, and I appreciate that. - The Pokémon animations are slightly better then other mainline games. That's cool, but this is a monkey's paw if I ever saw one. More on that in a bit. - The dialogue is a lot of fun. The game likes to play on the whole "modern day trainer astounds people of the past with basic Pokémon training knowledge" - The majority of the sidequests are quite good. Most of them are based around Pokémon behaviour avid Pokémon fans would recognise. It's very good. (Ignoring some outliers like the Buizel and Spiritomb quest, those suck) - The Pokédex entries are a lot of fun to read. The context of this Professor having very little information to go on (Remember, this is set in the distant past) make for some very interesting theories on certain Pokémon. One of my favourite dexes! The Bad - You know what's coming, say it with me now: Open Worlds Suck! They suck SO much. Zelda couldn't make them interesting, so Pokémon had no hope. Yeah, yeah. It's not truly open world, but it's about as big as an average one. The fifth area is when the game finally broke me and I couldn't stomach playing anymore until the Home update happened, and I still had Enamorus to catch, so... Scarlet and Violet will be a true open world, and it will be nothing but a downside. Thankfully, your average Pokémon game has solid turn based battles to help me plod through the tedium. Speaking of battles: - Game Freak, what the hell did you do to your battle system!? You ruined it, that's what! A ridiculously truncated move list, there's 180 moves, and a lot of them have had their effects changed to be similar to other moves. Stealth Rock is basically Fire Spin here. For reference, Sword and Shield has more then triple the amount. - Abilities are gone, so a lot of Pokémon lose their uniqueness. I'd probably like Sneasel's alternate evolution's new Poison/Fighting Typing if it wasn't for the fact that Toxicroak already has that typing, meaning there's no real difference between the two in Legends. - Yep, still on that battle system. Instead of a strict turn based system, the speed stat determines how often a Pokémon attacks. This makes the Speed stat even more OP then usual, as fast Pokemon can easily get two turns at once. That is so overpowered in Pokémon games! - Yep, more battle gripes, there's no punishment for switching a Pokémon out. No agonising over whether spending a turn to switch out is a good idea. Just switch to whatever is best, there's literally no downsides! - This game uses that crap EV system that Let's Go has. This makes individual Pokémon less unique. You can't specialise a Pokémon in one stat, because there's no point. This makes a lot of late game Pokémon have really spongey defenses. Basically, there's good reasons why you can't battle other players in Legends. It'd be awful! Let's Go's competitive scene died on it's arse for a reason! - No hold items either. Strategy? Who needs that!? - Seeing as how this game has a ridiculously large world, you'd think they could fill it up with a wide variety of Pokémon? Except no, there's only 242. That's somehow less then you can catch on Gold/Silver... For the Game Boy! That's flat out unacceptable. I put this down to the monkey's paw of slightly better animations, not a good trade-off at all. - Just to make sure you never want to battle, wild Pokémon can run away in the middle of fights. Remember how no-one liked that in the Safari Zone? Well, now it's everywhere! - Shiny Pokémon are so laughably common, that any non legendary Pokémon that shows up in Legends: Arceus has now retroactively tanked the value of the shiny versions of these Pokémon. I truly realised this when I randomly hatched a Shiny Rhyhorn in Shield a few weeks ago, did a little celebratory fist pump, only to suddenly think "Oh wait, hang on. Rhyhorn is in Legends..." And now all the joy has been sucked out of that rare occasion. I like Rhyperior as well, but I'll likely never use the yellow panel version, because it doesn't feel special anymore. To really hammer it home, I don't think there's a single person on N-Europe who didn't catch a random shiny in this game! It's that easy! - To complete a Pokédex entry, you not only need to catch a Pokémon, but you have to complete enough "research tasks" to get the info. Have you ever played Xenoblade 2? Remember how you had to perform various random tasks to level up individual blades? Yeah, it's that. And it's just as tedious as it is in Xenoblade! - The item bag has limits on how much you can hold. Pokémon ditched that back in the GBA era! Why the hell is it back!? This gets even more annoying because crafting is a thing, so you have a hundred random items to make stuff with. Just a load of boring busy work. And that's all I can think of. I'd probably be able to somewhat overlook the open-world rubbish if it wasn't for the fact that the battle system is so mangled! Luckily, I doubt Game Freak are stupid enough to inflict that on the competitive scene of Pokémon, so it won't be in Scarlet/Violet. Shame the boring open-world is going there, but maybe the (hopefully) good battle system and the Dragon Quest IX style co-op will distract me. I can only hope. Because the world of Pokémon is looking pretty grim to me right now.

That's so mean. I love it!

It's Time format tonight at 8pm. @Dcubed will likely be available, so I finally have the opportunity to do this. Tonight, we... Team Battle! Why now? I'm glad you didn't ask! You see, out of the three formats, I feel like Time is the one most suited to 2v2 matches. Because there's no stock, there are much fewer times when 1 person has to fight 2 people at once, which isn't fun. Only the brief moment between KO and respawn, as well as Sudden Death, will have that situation.

...bugger... There's still hope, but... Another bullet point I forgot to mention: The framerate is better then Age of Calamity, but not as good as FE Warriors 1 on Performance Mode. Servicable, but probably drops when you play 2 player splitscreen. EDIT: Oh, and that one guy who served as Golden Deer's teacher in the prologue, Jeritza(?). He obviously has the same voice actor as the grizzly bear from Beastars and it's all I hear!