Glen-i

Guarantee that none of the Pokémon games will be there. Ever. No way in hell TPC will let that slip by without making money from it.

As if I needed any more reason to like the Scraggy evolution line. Pinnacle of Gen 5, those two. But yeah, Pokémon Evolutions is one I'll definitely have to check out, if only because it decided to have Inteleon as the Gen 8 starter the playable character has. The correct choice.

If there's one thing you can count on me for, it's to do an exorbitant amount of research for totally important matters such as this! It also helped that I actually watched that episode since I was made aware that Vector was in it and actually ended up looking cooler then usual.

Yes, but that was the theme night. So it'll be 3 minutes with no restrictions and the normal launch rate tonight. Simply put, I rotate between Time > Stock > Stamina > Theme.

Time format tonight at 8pm.

My evaluation is that Vector has raised his fees since signing the contract to appear in video games. Sonic Boom literally couldn't afford him for more than one episode. He was also smart enough to agree a condition that his proportions are kept in check. He's got an image to maintain! You see, before Vector signed the deal to appear in Knuckles Chaotix, he was just a random member of Sonic's band. Sonic 1 was gonna be his big break into gaming stardom. But Sonic, being the utter diva he is, demanded that game be a solo venture for himself. Poor Vector lost his chance. Anyway, he naturally jumped at a supporting role in Chaotix, but that game ended up being a bit crap, so when the time came that Sega hit him up for a more permanent role in the franchise, he negotiated a clause where he's allowed to veto his own appearances if the game turns out to be crummy. That's why his appearances are quite sporadic. Anyway, since then, Vector has cemented himself as the coolest character in the franchise (Don't argue, it's true). This means he has a lot more value, so when Sonic Boom asked him to appear, he flat out declined to appear in the game. As for the TV series, well, a new contract had to be made, which means Vector charged his more up-to-date pricing. Hence, only one episode. Sonic Boom's staff agreed, because who doesn't want Vector in their TV show? I'm telling you, he's the smartest character in the series!

Yeah, I was thinking a similar thing. I'm thinking that those 6 will be the characters available from the start (and thus, used in the artwork), and if there's any more, it'll be through unlockables or DLC. BTW, meaning to ask, why is this thread in Other Consoles when we know a Switch version is coming?

The difference is that the franchise has banked on having these wide variety of Pokémon available for the player to choose from. You'd be hard pressed to find two players who ended up using the same team setup in their playthrough. It also helps with repeat playthroughs because you can try a different lot. You see, my question is, "Why cut it so drastically?" 150 feels like a bit of a waste, considering that there's a lot of Pokémon already designed. The large amount of well designed monsters are what elevate Pokémon games above any competition it might get. I played Nexomon Extinction a while back. It's a solid Pokémon clone, but no amount of hilarious, yet strangely cool, Krookodile knock-offs are going to stand up to the long history Pokémon has. And once again, Pokémon continues to bring out great concepts for monsters. The quality of the Pokémon themselves really haven't decreased over time, which is why it continues to attract new players to this day. For every person who decries that Pokémon aren't as good as the Charizard they used on their copy of Red/Blue, there's likely 5 people who have Sword/Shield as their first game and think "Wow, it's a secret agent chameleon that shoots water from it's finger, that's so cool!" Anyway, how I see it, is that Game Freak are already starting to experiment with a smaller roster of Pokémon each game after what happened with Sword/Shield. I'd be amazed if the upcoming Diamond/Pearl remakes have any Pokémon that weren't in the original games. (Except Sylveon, because it evolves from Eevee) And I would be astonished if Legends: Arceus breaks 300, what with the open-world requiring more time that they don't have. Sword/Shield may have had a reduced availability of Pokémon out of necessity, but I think it will become more of the standard in future generations. A new generation will have around 300-400 Pokémon, and more will become available via DLC updates. I think that could work, as long as the old Pokémon are rotated around frequently enough so that you don't go too long without being able to transfer your bloody shiny Greninja that you spent months trying to get and is still stuck on a 3DS game!

Oh no, I know what you meant. It's just 99% of the time, that argument is followed up by "it needs to be the original lot" and I can't take the point seriously after that. It's mostly used to veil the actual thing they want, which is to cut the Pokémon they don't care about.

This idea gets thrown around a lot. And it's always someone saying they need to go back to the original 150. Which is a terrible idea. The original 150 are balanced horribly. No Dark Pokémon at all there, which means Psychic Pokémon go unchecked. You want to reboot Pokémon with a small amount of Pokémon? The Gen 5 lot are the answer. Much better balance. But Black/White sold the least of all the mainline games, partly because it was the closest to a reboot the series had. That defo discouraged that idea in the future. It also led to the great Gen 1 pandering of the next 2 generations. No matter how Gen 1 biased people our age are, every generation is someone's first. So no matter what Pokémon get the chop, someone's favourite is there. I also think it'd be a bit of a shame to drop so many Pokémon when there's some really great designs throughout all of the games. It'd suck if I couldn't catch the likes of Krookodile, Scrafty or Toxtricity.

Because Metroid is pretty niche as far as Nintendo IP's go. I guarantee they desperately want this to sell well so they're showing a lot of their hand.

Credit to Sonic Heroes though, it's OK enough that Vector isn't too embarrassed to appear in it. Vector's frequency is a pretty decent barometer for how good or bad a post-Chaotix Sonic game is. That's how I know that Sonic Chronicles (Where he delivers one line at the start and is never seen again afterwards) is worse then Shadow the Hedgehog (Where he mostly fobs off helper roles to Espio and Charmy, electing only to show up in one of the harder to get to final levels and endings. He actually manages to make that ending more interesting then the other 9, because he delivers a line, changing the tripe ending format that game repeats all the time. Master of improv, that croc!)

Wow, yellow jumpsuit April is having one hell of a week, huh? The more I see of Nick All-Star Brawl, the more promising it looks. The roster's top notch (Still can't get over Reptar being in it), the movesets look nice and weird, and the stages look like they have a decent amount of carnage going on. Now obviously, it won't hold up to the sheer polish of Smash Ultimate, but that's a miracle game. It wouldn't be fair to compare the two directly. This could make a great side game to it though!

@darksnowman Celeste is in my town if you wanna visit. But more importantly, you can see my completed Crocodile Isle with Boots here now.

@markderoos, there's a No More Heroes 3 Spirit Event coming this weekend.

I love how the night started with Diddy VS Banjo and then ended with the three Rareware characters. Perfection. Good matches, @BowserBasher, @RedShell and @Vileplume2000. Man, people are really thirsty for a Diddy Kong Racing stage aren't they? Makes me sad Banjo didn't come with a couple of songs from it, being his debut and all. Yours was the most hilarious though, Red, as expected.

OK, it's time for the next themed night. It's time for a night based around... It's everyone's favourite racing game that Sega Racing Transformed ripped off! Now, don't ask how, but I pulled some strings and managed to convince the rest of the playable cast to join Diddy and Banjo in Smash for one night only. I'll tell you, I'm very excited to be... Wait, hold on, getting a phone call. Yeah, what is it? Uh-huh... What!? How many can't make it? All of them!? But wait, even Conker? He was literally on his way! What do you mean he got drunk and ended up in a Smash 64 mod instead? No, it's too late to cancel! It's happening tonight! It's fine, I'll make it work! So, uhhh... This is awkward. Gonna have to change the plans. I'll just have to bring in some substitutes that are just as good, no, they're better then good, who actually wants to play as Bumper anyway? For obvious reasons, Miis aren't allowed. And Random is also not allowed. Custom Stages - Yes, but limited. I've discussed it with @RedShell and he knows what's allowed. The stages are based on one of the following criteria: DK stages where Diddy exists, Stages based on racing games, stages specifically from N64 games, and Pilotwings because PLANES! Like every themed night, please select random as your stage choice and my settings will handle it. And I'll trust Red to use his own judgement for when to take a break with selecting custom stages and switch to random. Format - Time, 2 minutes. FS Meter - On Launch Rate - 1.5x Most races in DKR last around 2 minutes, hence the format. But to make things more interesting, the launch rate has been increased by 50%. So don't be too surprised if you get KO'd more than you'd expect. (I don't actually know if Launch Rate applies to Online games, so we'll have to find out tonight)

Technically speaking, it's a very good looking game. The particle effects in particular are really amazing! That art style? Not so much. It smacks of uncanny valley. The photorealism of the area meshes badly with the plastic-y look of the characters. Also, the frame rate is all over the place. It'd never be able to run on the Switch, which is fine, because I doubt it's ever being considered for it. Anyway, I looked into the developer, Pearl Abyss, a tad. Apparently, their projects tend to become vapourware, and their last game was really heavy on the grinding and the monetisation. Considering this is pitched as F2P, I'd expect this to be a similar deal. I wouldn't get too hyped about this.

Goddamn it! I literally just posted that in the thread for the game, @Helmsly! Great minds, eh?

Playable April confirmed, complete with hilarious mic drop! Pleasantly surprised, wasn't expecting more then the Turtles. Splinter's totally gonna be in.

Then outsource the animations. Loads of companies do it. But they already outsource the animations. It's not just that, the animation of Pokémon moving and doing attacks often looks basic or awkward, like not much work has actually been put into it. Pokémon turning on the spot (which happens on the field) seems to be a big issue, it doesn't look natural at all. The problem with going with more elaborate animations is that it prevents the brisk pace at which battles go at. You can see this in the Gamecube Pokémon RPG's. Battles in Pokémon Colosseum move at a snail's pace compared to the portable titles. Turning on the field does look weird though, I give you that. Probably down to having to do yet another animation for every Pokémon if they decided to do an animation for that action.

They do reuse the Pokémon models. But they still have to make sure they all work as intended. Do any of those indie games above have 450 character models that have to be quality tested to make sure they don't do things like fall through floors and such? I very much doubt it. (No offense meant to indie developers, but they can't realistically do something as packed as a Pokémon game) The asset reuse is the only way Pokémon games come out as often as they do. But everything else still has to be developed relatively fresh, especially with an open-world format like this. Now every Pokémon that shows up in this game will have to be able to function properly in this possibly massive world. BTW, after Sword/Shield was done, there were still around 300 Pokémon models that Creatures have to redo to make the jump from 3DS to Switch. If any of those are returning for this game, then that's more work to outsource to Creatures. Yes, more money would help, more money helps any project, but a delay would do a lot more. But that's not gonna happen. I wish it would though.

No, not really embarrassed. Already mentioned that graphics don't matter much to me. Pokémon makes up for it with the massive amount of Pokémon in each game and the deep mechanics behind the gameplay. Again, the main problem Game Freak have is time. They desperately need to be able to dictate their own release dates.

By that logic, the likes of Spike Chunsoft and Genius Sonority should be just as minted. You don't actually believe Game Freak get the lion's share of the profits from their games, do you? They already outsource the Pokémon models to Creatures. Nintendo also get a share of the profits, as well as The Pokémon Company itself. I'd be surprised if TPC didn't get the largest cut. Yes, there are issues with Pokémon games. There's definitely room for improvement outside of the Pokémon and the battles, but it's not anything Game Freak can really do about it. The point I'm trying to make is if blame has to go somewhere, it should go to the Pokémon Company. They set strict deadlines which never get delayed, even if the company they commission have to recreate 450 models from scratch due to unforeseen issues. But they get off relatively scot-free while Game Freak get lumped with all the blame and labeled incompetent because necessary compromises had to be made to make release date. As of today, Sword/Shield is not even 2 years old, and yet we're getting Pokemon's first foray into open-world in January! That's completely insane! So forgive me, if I think people who exaggerate it's flaws by comparing it to non-HD games on a 21 year old console as a tad unfair.

That's an odd impression you have of me, considering I'm not planning on buying this game because it looks as empty and boring as all the other open-world games out there, not to mention I'm the kind of person who would happily complain about many of the things in Pokémon I don't like. I just don't think graphics are one of them. I would love for the games to look as good as the best Switch has to offer, but until Game Freak are in a similar position to the likes of Nintendo and Sony Studios, that's just wishful thinking, and people will only get themselves pointlessly riled up if they keep comparing them to such.