Glen-i

The people of that era, sure. But it's worth remembering that playable character is heavily implied to be from the time of modern day Pokémon, they use that fact to handwave away why they've got a knack for training Pokémon. I find it hard to believe they can't get their head around giving a berry to a Pokémon. That's basic stuff for them. Gonna be interesting how they handle Arceus in that regard. That Pokemon's entire point revolves around its ability and the various hold items designed for it. In reality, this is probably close to the answer. A lot of the things that bug me in Legends are things that I disliked about Let's Go. And playing Legends only solidifies my theory that this is more of a sequel to Let's Go than anything else. That said, the negatives are less of a deal-breaker so far. They've toned down how central nonsense like chucking Poké Balls blindly at full HP Pokémon is and the Candy system isn't quite as broken. (It still strips away any form of selective optimisation though. Every Typhlosion will be the same because you might as well max every stat) I can honestly say that I don't want to stop playing yet. More then I can say for Let's Go. Although, I have to ask. Where are all the reptiles? I'm at 50-ish Pokémon in my dex and I've not seen a single one! I want my lizards, damnit!

Oh, another thing I don't appreciate. Abilities and hold items being removed. What with the vastly reduced movepool Pokémon have, it makes a lot of Pokémon less unique. Carnivine without Levitate is just plain wrong.

Yep, got that myself. But we all know freebie shinies don't count. After all, no-one ever says that Gyarados was their first shiny.

Yep, sorry for the slight lateness, stuff came up. Very much enjoyed random setting up a "Not Marth" fight tonight.

First N-E shiny of this game!

A statement that only shows up on an European Wii. Note the nice colours on the controller in the background. It was quite the big deal when that got an European release. I was proper hyped! Anyway, it either means one of 2 things. It slipped @Julius's mind, or he needs to play Mario RPG.

Not exactly the freshest idea.

Oh good, I wasn't the only one then. Speaking of "Mystery Dungeon called, it wants its idea back" I dig the Lost and Found mechanic in this game. The SOS mail was always a cool feature, so it's nice to see Legends crib that. Also funny running to a satchel and seeing that it's at the top of a cliff. Because then you know exactly how that person blacked out.

It's an annoying trend with open-world games, the minimalistic music. It's especially egregious here because Pokémon has consistently high quality soundtracks across the series.

Time format tonight at 8pm.

Yeah, pretty much.

Oh, so it works a little like Mystery Dungeons version of Hypnosis then? In that game, using Hypnosis on a sleeping Pokémon puts them under your control for a turn. It's similar in that it has a different effect if stacked twice. Interesting.

Right, some initial thoughts after the first day. - Pokémon running away in battle sucks. It sucked in the Safari Zone, and it sucks here. Easily the worst thing about this game so far. - Areas are too big for their own good. Takes ages to get anywhere, the sooner I get to ride around on Pokémon, the better. - Yaaaayyyy... Another minimalistic soundtrack. Thank God the battle music is there, otherwise I'd write it off completely. - Text is annoyingly small. I expect better from Pokémon games in this department. - The stats of Pokémon are weirdly inflated. A Level 4 Drifloon had over 100 HP. Not bad, just odd. - Sleep and Confusion are not in this game, are they? Another odd change, but one I'm not bothered by. - The loading times are really good. Quite impressed. But Pokémon games seem to have this down pat. - Gyro controls! Well done! - I have to give them credit, the research tasks are encouraging me to use Pokémon I wouldn't normally use more. I mean, they're still getting boxed, uh, I mean, pasture'd once I finish their Pokédex page, but still. - Some of the side quests are quite interesting, well, the ones that revolve around Pokémon facts (Bidoof terrorising the village by chewing wood, a kid playing with a wild Drifloon) at least, not the Buizel one. That quest was awful! - The main character animations are a lot better, if you aim the camera at them during the battles, you'll notice them react to things (they get upset when a Pokémon flees, etc). If you stand too close to a dramatic attack, it knocks them on to the ground. - This trading animation. Pity the trading system is more pointless in this game, really. So yeah, mixed feelings. Not awful, but not amazing. So far, at least. The format could wear thin.

There's a stamina meter behind the scenes. Run too much and you'll have to wait for it to recharge.

Yep. Japanese, English, French, German, and Korean.

Well, unlike Pikachu, most of the Pokémon have different names in other languages. The sheer amount of voice clips that would be needed to cover all of those would be astronomical.

Actually, they're using the same ones from X/Y. They redid all of the Game Boy ones on the jump to 3DS. Speaking of, I'm surprised Eevee and Pikachu have reverted back to their original noises, much more consistent. I approve!

Naturally. Had a bit of a scare when I looked at the Research Tasks and saw ridiculous things like "Catch 20 Starly without them seeing you". But thankfully, you only have to do 10 Research Tasks milestones for a Pokédex entry to be considered completed. Much more reasonable. I would've dropped the game right there and then if you had to do every single one. BTW, don't forget to go to Mystery Gift and claim early purchase/save data from other games bonuses. Darkrai and Shaymin are available through that method somehow. (Maybe not straight away, mind)

Don't be ridiculous with your nonsense spewing out of your gob!

I've only just started, but I have to say this right now. That intro sequence smacks of Mystery Dungeon, I was half expecting to be given a personality test. And then you wake up with Pokémon staring at you?

For the record, 3DS. Purely because of the Gyro controls. Aiming the bow is so much fun in that game, that I can overlook some of the other changes (the bad ones, anyway).

This is a great little article. While proper localisation in a wide variety of languages is always preferable, there's something to be said about how quickly children can grasp stuff like reading when it's for the cause of something they enjoy. And a series like Pokémon, which is aimed at precisely that kind of audience, can really benefit the children that commit to reading everything there is in the pursuit of understanding the game better. I should know. You lose that if voice acting is introduced. I'm not trying to argue that this somehow excuses the lack of voice acting as a whole, but I don't think it's quite as clear cut as "More voice acting = better". Ah, I was waiting for this particular moment to show up. It's a pretty fantastic argument for voice acting. This opening cutscene, while a fun take on the whole "Welcome to the World of Pokémon" spiel, is completely undermined by the awkward silence from characters. You know why I think this particular scene (And another very awkward one late in the game) feels so dodgy? It's because the dialogue goes at a set speed that is choreographed to the cutscene. The majority of conversations in Sword/Shield do not happen like this because it's designed around the player having full control of when to press A to advance. As a result, less focus is on the character mouthing silently while most people have already read whatever is on screen, leading to less awkward pauses. That's still around. Although, these days, it's normally left to optional stuff. Opening a door to catch one of the Regis in Sword/Shield left me stumped for about half an hour trying to riddle out the solution.

If by issues, you mean the visual glitches, then the Paper Mario update fixed a visual glitch with Lylat Wars. And this recent one fixed the reflection problems in a certain room in Ocarina of Time.

No, they changed it on the XBLA version. Eurgh! It's actually worse then I remember!