Glen-i

Ah, thanks, updated the link now.

He's just paying you back for all the times you used Greninja!

This is where they went. Cheeky bugger managed to hide behind an ink splat!

Ah, there is a thread for this! Rejoice, @drahkon, because I did play the crap out of it! I just never noticed the thread. The Switch version has finally got the DLC, Synchrony. As well as this, Hatsune Miku is added as a playable character on PC, with the PS4 and Switch version getting that at a later date. (XBox isn't getting it)

One more detour before we get to the latest generation. Pokémon Legends: Arceus (ARK-ee-us) is set in the Hisui region, a region heavily inspired by the island Hokkaido during early Japanese colonisation. Plot twist, it's actually the Sinnoh region in the far distant past. Despite this, none of the Gen 4 starters are available to pick as the starter in this game, instead, you're given these lot. Let's ignore the fact that two of these Pokémon didn't even exist when we first visited Sinnoh... For all intents and purposes, Rowlet, Cyndaquil, and Oshawott are pretty much exactly the same. Until they reach their final evolution, which means I have to explain regional variants. Hisuian Decidueye is Grass/Fighting instead of Grass/Ghost. Instead of a feathery hood, this Decidueye has something that resembles an Ayaigasa, a kind of hat that is associated with Kasagake (Hat shooting). For a long time, I thought it was supposed to be some kind of samurai. If Legends: Arceus didn't bore me to death, I might have realised that was incorrect sooner. Instead of the move Spirit Shackle, Hisuian Decidueye's signature move is "Triple Arrows". The signature moves from Legends: Arceus are weird, because of the rubbish battle system, almost all the moves function differently from every other game, and they're very boring and interchangable, so I'm only gonna talk about how they work in Generation 9. In Gen 9, Triple Arrows is a 90 Power physical Fighting move that has a high critical rate and may also lower the opponent's defense or could possibly make them flinch. That's a lot of secondary effects, and would be a fantastic attack, but it's on Decidueye, and Decidueye is just not a good Pokémon, especially in Generation 9. It's easily the big loser of the Hisuian starters. Hisuian Typhlosion is Fire/Ghost and it eats souls, apparently. That said, the Hisuian Pokédex is written in ancient times, so it's reliability is questionable at best. Still, the design inspiration is pretty obvious, with the wisps that surround it's neck being a common way for Japanese culture to depict spirits. Typhlosion and Samurott didn't have signature moves when they first debuted, but the Hisuian variants do. Typhlosion's is "Infernal Parade". In Gen 9, it's a 60 power Special Ghost attack that may leave the opponent with a burn. However, if it's used on an opponent that has a status condition, the power is doubled. It's OK, a bit too gimmicky to be very useful. Unfortunately, Typhlosion is just thoroughly outmatched these days, and while Fire/Ghost is a good offensive typing, Typhlosion still has a mediocre movepool (Normal Johtonian Typhlosion could learn a Ghost move anyway). For some reason, @Serebii's site doesn't have the artwork for this on it's page Hisuian Samurott barely differs in design from the original Unovan one. But it was based on a Samurai in the first place, so at least it actually fits the region it's in this time. It's Water/Dark now, and in Generation 9, is completely amazing! You see, Hisuian Samurott has two things it's original form lacks, and those two things make it an absolute unit of a Pokémon that's cemented itself in the competitive scene. The first thing is it's signature move, "Ceaseless Edge". It's a 65 Power, physical Dark attack with 90% accuracy, but if it hits, it sets a layer of the entry hazard, Spikes on the opponents side. Spikes hurts any grounded Pokémon that switches in, and you can layer it up to three times. Entry Hazards in general are very powerful tools, so being able to attack and set them at the same time is nothing short of overpowered! If only it was stronger then 65 power... Oh wait, Hisuian Samurott's Hidden Ability is "Sharpness", which boosts the power of any slicing move by 50%. So now, Ceaseless Edge is stronger then Crunch. Sharpness also works on moves like Aerial Ace and X-Scissor, making Samurott a dangerous Pokémon for a lot of types. An impressive climb to glory for the big loser of Gen 5! And that sums it up. I think the resdesigns here are decent enough. Samurott is a bit boring, but the others are good. We'll very likely see three other starters get similar treatment when Legends: Z-A comes out. Not Greninja though, can't be accidentally buffing Greninja now, can we?

Theme night this week. "I'll do an underwater theme!" I said, "I'd be positively spoilt for choice!" I said. There's only 10 blooming tracks where you have to go underwater!

At this rate, we'll have half the entire board on Balatro in 2 months!

It's about time! I can't wait to be prim and proper, and I will smack the daylights out of anyone who says otherwise!

To shoot water quicker, and more forcefully. Pokédex says as much. Normal Inteleon shoots at Mach 3. Gigantamax Inteleon can do it at Mach 7.

Pfft! Two shots? Weak sauce! I beat it with one casting of Toad. No, seriously, that works. In fact, Toad in FF2 works on around 95% of enemies, provided you keep up with leveling it up. Which isn't hard, because it's the best spell, by far. Unfortunately, Pixel Remaster changed the final boss so Toad heals it now, for some reason, but it still works on the rest of the game. FF2 is proper wonky, and I love it!

Look, it's OK to admit you suck at Wii Sports Resort.

This guy gets it!

The end of that level was a great comedic moment. "Alright! We found the bomb!" ... "OH NO! We found a bomb!" Got a good chuckle out of me.

Alright, @RedShell. Question. Did you mean for the P logo to start glowing Pink whenever Peach does her Final Smash?

Hell, why limit it to Persona? Atlus RPG's in general have super stylish menus! SMT, Radiant Historia, Tokyo Mirage Sessions. They're masters of that craft!

It's a sword, I'll allow it.

How this series got a movie continues to baffle me to this day and will do so for the rest of my life.

Right, now we're doing a theme. Princess Peach: Smashtime! "Princess Peach: Showtime!" came out quite recently, marking the first time Peach has been the sole protagonist in a game in 19 years! So here's a theme revolving around most of the transformations she has in that game. Yes, I had to cut down on the Swordfighters to ones that almost exclusively use their sword in Smash. Anyway, if Dillon was playable, we could've had a Cowgirl Peach representation, just saying. Daisy's not invited, no-one likes her. Peach tolerates her, and you all know it. Mii Swordfighter is allowed, but the Mii must actually be wielding a sword, so no Goemon, for example. There is one costume restriction tonight. Joker - No School Uniforms allowed The stages are either stages from games that Peach is in, or ones that sorta fit a location that is in Showtime. Items are restricted to Mario ones. Format - Stamina, 3 stock, 150 HP FS Meter - On See you at 7:30pm.

Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore is an "interactive animated adventure" game developed by Seedy Eye Software and released on all modern platforms in Feburary this year. It's a spiritual successor to the infamous Zelda games that were made for the Phillips CD-i system. The key difference here is that Arzette aims to change one major aspect about those games. That is, to not have atrocious gameplay. Everything else? Nah, Arzette embraces the crummy production values that made the Zelda CD-i games so infamous by hiring some of the original animators of those cutscenes as well as a couple of cameos from the Link and Zelda voice actors. The Kingdom of Faramore has recently sealed away the evil demon Daimur in a magic book. Afterwards, the traitourous Duke Nodelki is sentenced to scrub all the floors in Faramore. Yes, it's literally the plot of The Wand of Gamelon with character names changed, and it's really funny! However, Duke Nodelki manages to use the Jewel of Faramore to free Daimur, forcing Princess Arzette to set off on a journey to gather the shards of the Jewel of Faramore, and seal Daimur away again. The structure of the game is very similar to Shantae: Half-Genie Hero. The world is split up into selectable levels that contain a whole bunch of secrets and upgrades to find to eventually unlock more levels and find more secrets and upgrades. Progress is normally made by helping various NPC's find things they need, you're meant to be doing it because you're a good person and all that, but secretly, you're doing it to see more cutscenes. The concept of "Personal Space" doesn't exist in Faramore The aesthetic is pretty much spot on. Characters contort in that unmistakable CD-i way. It could be so easy to be mean-spirited about this, but there is a genuine feeling that the creators have a fondness for these games, and it shows in the little details. For example, there'll be a noticable pause after cutscenes, as if the game was reading from a disc quite slowly, because that's how the CD-i works. The actual gameplay is really solid, it's somewhat similar to Zelda 2, but with a focus on finding upgrades, a lot like a Metroid game. These upgrades make up a huge part on how the game avoids a lot of the irritating aspects of the CD-i Zelda games, as well as just good game design in general. The game took me 4 and a half hours to get everything, and it was an utter joy from start to finish. I hope this gets a sequel, would love to see more disturbing charming cutscenes. I mentioned this before, but Arzette's face here looks a lot like...

Also, right after we finished, I just remembered how to initiate Single-Pak play. You press minus on the Game selection screen. Something to keep in mind for when one of us unlocks more tracks on F-Zero.

Yeah, this is my biggest gripe about it. I like a good collectible, but mandating that you need all of them, and only revealing that you need all of them right before the finale is a terrible way to go about it.

BTW, if you don't want to bother with the absolutely insane reqirements for unlocking the Jet Vermilion, someone has made a handy password generator to get it straight away. Just press L, R, Plus, R, L, Minus on the car select screen in Grand Prix to get to the password screen.

I always thought Super Princess Peach was kinda middling. Anyway, cleaning up the last of the collectibles. Agreed with the consensus that Detective is the weakest Peach. It's fine the first time, but repeat playthroughs lose all of the impact when you already know what to point at.

It's an action game, of course it will be compared to FromSoftware's work. Because that's the only kind of action game that has existed ever, apparently.

I was considering doing a smaller post for the Let's GO starters, but when I started looking into them, their most interesting trait (Being obscenely powerful) is actually more due to how borked that game's stat mechanics are, so I won't bother. Generation 8, or Sword and Shield, are set in Galar, a region based on the United Kingdom. It's not the first mainline game to be in HD, but it is the first new generation to not allow the player to use every Pokémon precisely because of that High Definition. Grookey's (GROO-kee) main method of attacking enemies is to whack it with a stick. Simple, yet effective. The stick is attached to it's head, in case you're wondering. The first three gyms in Galar are, Grass, Water, and Fire. So the starters all perform about equally in the early game. Thwackey (THWAK-ee) has two sticks, so twice the beatings! Speaking of which, the Pokédex states that it can get too into clobbering it's opponent that it doesn't notice when it's knocked them out. The implications of that are a little disturbing, to be honest. If you didn't realise that this starter line has a common theme of drummers, Rillaboom (RIL-uh-boom) will make it painfully clear. You can't actually tell from the artwork, so here's the model for when it's in battle. I lowkey love the grin on it's face here No idea where it keeps that tree stump, by the way. It can drum on that stump to manipulate roots, and you see that in it's signature attack, "Drum Beating", an 80 power, physical grass attack which always lowers the opponents speed. This is good, because Rillaboom's speed is a bit mediocre. Anyway, the Galar starters have the most clear-cut theme between them in the series, they also do a good job of matching the country their region is based off of. Each of the final evolutions represent one of the three aspects of media that the UK is quite well known for. Rillaboom represents music, obviously, but I'm fairly certain that Rillaboom is also referencing the Cadbury's Gorilla. That sounds a bit too specific for a Japanese game to refer to, but one of the Pokémon designers on this game is from the UK, so it wouldn't surprise me one bit if he at least suggested the concept, if not outright designed it. Rillaboom is a pretty solid Pokémon for playthroughs. It's worst stat is one it doesn't need, and it's Attack stat is surprisingly high. But it's when you start to bring it into the competitive scene that it really starts to shine. Rillaboom's Hidden Ability is "Grassy Surge", which activates Grassy Terrain whenever Rillaboom enters battle. Combine this with "Grassy Glide" a 70 power Grass move that always goes first on Grassy Terrain, and that mediocre speed stat suddenly doesn't matter anymore. This all served to make Rillaboom the best Grass starter in the entire series... for precisely one generation. Oh well... The Gen 8 starters all have Gigantamax forms, by the way. They got them when the DLC dropped, because Charizard was just more important. So yeah, these also have a recurring theme. Where most Pokémon grow massive for Gigantamax, the three starters stay relatively the same size, at least, as far as their bodies are concerned. Instead, something else grows bloody massive. In Rillaboom's case, it gets a whole drum kit! It's still not as good as using the normal Dynamax Rillaboom though, because the mechanic is not very well balanced. Scorbunny (SKOHR-buh-nee) is a very clever name. No, that's about it. That's all I've got. It was the most popular starter Pokémon when they were revealed before the game came out. Raboot (RAB-boot) is not as clever a name as Scorbunny. Cinderace (SIN-deh-race) is an even worse name, but it is the final evolution, so there's stuff to talk about. The whole Scorbunny line represents the UK's absolute favourite waste of time, football! You know, if the footballs were set on fire and punted at the other teams face. Actually, it would be better if actual football was like that. Why isn't football like that? Anyway, Cinderace is a weird case of a starter Pokémon having two signature moves. No idea why, but it does, the first one is "Pyro Ball" a 120 power... Wait, 120 POWER!? What the actual hell!? It's also got 90% accuracy! For context, that's stronger then Fire Blast and 5% more accurate! It's not even remotely balanced, and would single handedly cement Cinderace as the best Galar starter in battle, but that ain't all this rabbit has in it's hat. It's second signature move is "Court Change". Apart from crowbarring a Tennis reference on a Football based Pokémon, it swaps the side that certain effects (Such as Light Screen or Stealth Rock) are on. So for example, if the opponent uses Stealth Rock, and then you use Court Change, well, now the Stealth Rock is on the opponent's side. The Singles meta kinda revolves around entry hazards, so this move is really good there! But wait, there's more! Cinderace has amazing Attack and Speed, and for the extra cherry on top, it has the Hidden Ability, "Libero". This ability is exactly the same as Greninja's "Protean", so Cinderace can change it's type to whatever attack it's using. For the same reason as Greninja, this is an amazing ability. Probably too amazing, actually. Because Cinderace with Libero became incredibly dominant in the competitive scene, so it got nerfed in Scarlet/Violet. Nowadays, Libero only changes Cinderace's type once per switch in. So once you choose a type, you're stuck with that type until you switch Cinderace out. This "Once per switch in" nerf also applies to Protean, by the way. So yes, Game Freak literally said "Cinderace is too powerful? Better nerf Greninja!" Greninja these days is nowhere near as useful as it used to be because of that. This also meanly nerfed Kecleon, but no-one cares because Kecleon is dreadful in the mainline games. Gigantamax Cinderace has a big massive ball to kick around. Because of Libero, this is one of the rare Pokémon whose Gigantamax form is actually worth using. All of this makes Cinderace easily the best Galar starter, both in standard playthroughs and the competitive scene. It'd be better then Blaziken if it wasn't for the nerf it got in the next generation, but it's still great, despite that. I don't think I've ever chosen a starter as quickly as I have with Sobble (SAH-bull). What can I say? Chameleons are the coolest animal! According to the Pokédex, when Sobble gets scared, it starts crying. This is bad, because it's tears have the chemical punch of 100 onions, so you'll start tearing up too. Drizzile (DRIZ-zyle) is there, being unnoteworthy. Inteleon's (in-TELL-ee-un) name in German is "Intelleon" Just an amusing thing I noticed. Unlike the other two starters, it's not obvious what the theme is here until the final evolution, but Inteleon is very obviously meant to invoke James Bond. It shoots water out of it's fingers, has a membrane on it's back that can function as a paraglider, and has a second eyelid that helps it see greater distances. Because of this, Inteleon represents the movie industry in the "British media" thing going on this generation. (Yes, I know, James Bond was originally a book thing, but no-one associates that franchise with the books, come on.) It's also my favourite starter Pokémon ever. I mean, it's a chameleon spy that literally fingerbangs it's opponents! Yes, it always reminds me of that song from South Park, Inteleon being a James Bond expy only makes that funnier! Inteleon's signature move is "Snipe Shot", an 80 power, Special Water attack that ignores any moves or abilities that redirects attacks to make sure it hits the intended target. What the game never actually tells you is that Snipe Shot has a high critical rate as well. So it's a pretty good move, even in Singles. Unfortunately, despite how much I like it, I have to accept facts and tell you that Inteleon is the big loser of the Galar starters. It's not terrible, but it pales in comparison to the other two. Mostly because it doesn't have a good Hidden Ability. "Sniper" may be thematically fitting, but Inteleon is just way too frail to rely on critical hits. Even ignoring my chameleon bias, this is still the cleverest Gigantamax form in the entire game. The only part of Gigantamax Inteleon that gets huge is it's tail, which becomes ridculously long and functions as a makeshift sniper tower. Which is helpful because Inteleon also gets a sniper rifle made out of water. See Blastoise? That's how you have a weapon and not look completely dumb! Not worth using over the normal Dynamax form, mind. So that wraps it up. And I honestly think these are the best selection of starters the series has ever had. Absolutely top tier designs, with a clear theme between them, and not a single one I dislike. Cinderace may be my least favourite of the three, but I still like it, and the other two are absolutely amazing! Obviously, Inteleon is still the best, even if it sucks in battles!