Glen-i

Hey, at least I liked Yooka-Laylee.

Yep, you've got it.

That's a bit overdramatic. You ever seen Sony's Smash Bros menu attempt? It was gross.

Well, that debacle confirmed my theory that the trading method here might just be the worst online trading method ever. There were even more posts than me trying to explain Sun/Moon's weird method. Can you seriously not search for any friends looking for trades? Is that code nonsense the only way you can be specific? Because that's awful...

Seriously, no-one here knew? It's been around since Gen 6. Fine, Pokenerd to the rescue again... The different colour text determines which stats have a nature modifier. Red text determines a stat that has a 10% boost while blue shows a 10% drop.

Are you talking about Subspace Emissary? Because yes, that was an option. 5 difficulty options. If you're talking about single player modes in Smash. Then the answer is Super Yes. Ever since the first one.

Well, that only proves that Sakurai is a very supportive husband. I like the Boxy graphics. They're clear and to the point. They're better than Melee's and 64's menu.

Kinda... Because the stats are different between the two games. The IV's are generated somewhat randomly. However, the better the IV rating, the better the IV rating when it goes to Let's GO. So "Great IV's" in GO will result in Great IV's in Let's GO. Of course, this is all a moot point anyway, because you can just use S/M's awesome Hyper Training to make all of a Pokémon's IV's perfect. (That feature is in Let's GO) Not to mention the fact that there isn't actually much to do on the competitive side of things, so what are you focusing on IV's for anyway?

Setting it all up might take a while, depending on how you go about it. In about a month, I had well over 100 Bottle Caps and more than a few Gold Bottle Caps (Raises all 6 IV's at once) It does require a bit of setup, mind, (This bit is a bit time consuming, admittedly) but once you do, you get a steady stream of Bottle Caps, if you regularly check in on it. The basic gist is to go to Festival Plaza and fill it with a facility called Treasure Hunt. The more, the better. Normally, there's a chance of this whenever you rank up there. But a quicker, more certain way is to have a friend with one, and then just continuously pay them FC to build Treasure Hunts in your Plaza. Getting FC was a bit daunting, but strangely enough, taking part in monthly online competitions was a good way to get loads. As well as taking part in those Worldwide Missions that happened monthly. (I think the worldwide missions for both Sun/Moon and US/UM have stopped now though). You could also get Bottle Caps by trading shards that you found in the cave on Poke Pelago. So yeah, it takes some time to get going, but once you did, it was pretty much self generating if you took 10 minutes a day to check on it. But honestly, N-Europers have a way, WAY easier method of getting some Gold Caps, and that's me. I'm drowning in the things and I'd happily give away some Gold Bottle Caps via trade on US/UM. I mean, I've got so many, I don't have anything I want to use them on at this point.

I counted Inverse Battles as a feature in X/Y. Double Battles in Let's GO still counts.

That's not applicable anymore. Getting a perfect IV Pokémon is as simple as training to Level 100 and using an in-game service to max out IV's. Which is a feature that Let's GO still uses. And yes, hacked Pokémon are an issue, but you can only hack a Pokémon within the realms of possibility. If you try to use a Pokémon that has stats that are an impossibility online or has a move it could never learn. You'll quickly get banned. It's getting better recently.

@Dcubed Double Battles still show up in Let's GO. Team Rocket utilise it.

Back from the dead! It's time for Gen 7: Part 2. It's no secret that I'm no fan of the latest Pokémon games. But I should at least give them a fair bash and a more subjective view. So one more go around, until next year, I guess. BTW, Unmarked Spoilers Warning. I mean, it's a remake of a 20 year old game, so spoilers will be purely subjective. Just being safe. Gen 7 Part 2: Let's GO! Pikachu/Let's GO! Eevee Released 2 days ago, Let's GO! Pikachu and Let's GO! Eevee continue Generation 7 on the Nintendo Switch. They're the second remakes of a Generation 1 game, this time focusing on the third version, Pokémon Yellow. In what is probably a controversial move among long time Pokémon fans, every Pokémon from a later generation than 1 is completely unavailable in this game (With a couple of exceptions) And like everything else, I'm gonna start with what this game dropped after Sun/Moon. This one is gonna be significant. The biggest one is Random Encounters. Usually, Pokémon encounters occur randomly, but not in these games. I'll go into what it was replaced with soon. The Island Trials were annexed, but considering these are Gen 1 remakes, that shouldn't be surprising. Z-Moves, the big selling point of Gen 7, are nowhere to be seen in these games. This happened to be a side effect of the removal of... Held Items are also gone, severely reducing the amount of strategies you could utilise in battle. This was probably done to simplify the game. That reasoning is gonna be a recurring theme, so get used to it. Speaking of... Abilities were also cut, further reducing the uniqueness each Pokémon would have. In a weird first for the series, some pre-established moves were cut. The likes of Giga Drain and Rain Dance can not be learned here. Oh, speaking of Rain Dance... External Weather Conditions are gone as well, happy pleasant calmness further reduces strategies. Oh, right, that reminds me. The Day and Night cycle is no longer around. A staple for 4 generations, this game takes place during the day, all the time. No matter what. S.O.S Battles are gone, Battle Royales are gone, Poké Pelago is gone. Online Communications took a massive hit, reverting the online capabilities to the levels seen at the beginning of the DS generation. Any Battle Facility is no longer seen here. Not even Battle Tower. Severely limiting the amount of replayability after the main story is finished. As far as I can tell, Online Competitions aren't available in this, so players who enjoy playing competitively are out of luck. This also means the Pokémon Global Link is not compatible with this game. Wonder Trade is gone as well. Backwards Compatibility is not available here. You cannot transfer any Pokémon from a previous game to Let's GO! Pass Powers are also gone, which might have a negative effect on any high level training. The convenient Gadget, a feature which was introduced in Gen 2, is gone as well. I'm not entirely sure, but I can't find anything on the Vs. Recorder, so you won't be able to record battles and share them with others. The Move Deleter is gone as well, but after HM's were replaced, that particular feature is not really necessary anymore. Pokémon Breeding is gone, meaning that in order to get more of the same kind of Pokémon, you'll have less options to use. Effort Values have also been replaced. I know I try to stay impartial until the end, but this has to be said. BLOODY HELL, MAN! 23 Features that are in the Sun/Moon games are ditched in Let's GO! But now, it's time to look at what these games add to counteract that slaughtering. Wild Pokémon Encounters work very differently to previous games. Instead of sending out your own Pokémon in an attempt to weaken and catch an opponent (Or just beat it up for experience), you can only attempt to catch Pokémon in a manner similar to the mobile Pokémon GO game. Using motion controls to fling Poké Balls at Pokémon, items can be used to make it more likely to succeed. Successfully catching a Pokémon will net your team experience, but taking too long will cause the Pokémon to run away. Chaining multiple captures of the same Pokémon in a row can result in rare Pokémon or even shiny Pokémon appearing. There is an exception to this and that's with the Legendary Pokémon Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres and Mewtwo, which must be battled traditionally and beaten within a time limit before they can be captured using the Pokémon Go! method. Pokémon following you is a much celebrated feature that returns for these games. Much like it's implementation in HeartGold/SoulSilver, you can choose a Pokémon to run behind you when outside of battle. Bigger Pokémon can even be ridden, allowing for faster movement, etc. An interesting new mechanic are Variable Pokémon sizes. When you encounter Pokémon, they can actually differ in size and weight to the average one. Particularly bigger or smaller ones have a special aura around them in the overworld and give more Experience when caught. Although these varying sizes are not actually reflected in battles. Another big change is the removal of Effort Values. Instead Let's GO! introduces Awakening Values. (AV's) A variant of the first generations stat experience. It'd be easier to bullet point the differences for this, because it's significant. Instead of battling Pokémon, you gain AV's by feeding your Pokémon candy, items you can get through various methods. You are once again able to potentially max out every stat. Unlike previous games where you had to choose which stat to boost. The level of the Pokémon has no effect on how the boosted stats are distributed. That last point is a weird one. In previous games (Even Gen 1), to get the most out of EV's, you'd have to train your Pokémon to Level 100. In this game, it doesn't matter what level something is, provided you have the candy, you could get the full benefit of maxing out AV's. Leading to complete nonsense like this... That's not hacked in any way. @Serebii himself did that. Anyway... There's a slight change to how Natures can be gotten. Most of the time, they work the same as usual, but now there's a woman who, for a price, can set the nature of future Pokémon you catch to what you want. Making it easier to get the Pokémon you want with the nature you would like. Pokéride has been tweaked to work in Let's GO! Using your partner Pokémon to recreate the effects of the 5 HM's from the original game. It's now called "Secret Techniques" Pokémon Amie does make a return, but it's unfortuantely restricted to whichever Pokémon is on the cover of your game. Which diminishes a lot of the appeal. This game can communicate with Pokemon GO! to transfer Kanto Pokémon and the Meltan line to Let's GO! Which makes this a game that can perform communication with a Spin-off game. It's certainly not the first time this has happened, but it is the biggest occurence. Mega Evolution made a surprising return to this game. But with no held items, all you need is a corresponding stone that you find to utilise it. Unfortunately, with no abilities either, this transformation has less of an impact on battles than before. Pokémon with two Mega Evolutions (Charizard and Mewtwo) are free to choose whatever form they like. We also have 2 Player Co-operative Play, using another Joycon, a second person can join the player to assist them on their adventure. As well as running around on the overworld (With a second Pokémon following them), this second player can help the first to catch Pokémon by throwing two Poké Balls at once and assist in battling other trainers by controlling a second Pokémon, effectively letting you use two Pokémon to gang up on 1, which I'm astonished is allowed. I mean, that has to be cheating as far as the Pokémon League is concerned, no? Ah well... There is also a Real-Life Peripheral to go with this game. The Poké Ball Plus is an alternative controller that functions a lot like the Pokéwalker from HeartGold/SoulSilver. Allowing you to train Pokémon and collect items by walking around with it and doing stuff in Pokémon GO. Although it is a pretty expensive seperate purchase (It costs more than the actual game), early adopters could get a Mew to transfer to their Let's GO! game by buying this. Which means that Event Pokémon make a return. And that wraps that up. So it's time to give my thoughts. I mean, what can I say? You only have to look at that gargantuan list of cut mechanics to realise that this is a severely stripped-down version of Pokémon. Yes, this is meant to be a simpler, beginner-friendly version of Pokémon, but I think it's way too extreme. Pokémon isn't that hard to play through. You don't need to know stuff like Effort Values or natures and the like just to play through the game, plenty of people do just that. But this has resulted that severely limits creativity, variety and strategy. And it's for that reaon that I don't intend to buy this game. But it's not all bad. Here's some things I'd like to see in future entries. While I'm not a fan of the Wild Pokémon changes, I wouldn't mind having them all work like they do with Legendary Pokémon. Having to defeat them in a battle first before attempting capture GO! Style. Pokémon following you has always been awesome, so more of that please. That Nature Selection woman is also great and would be very welcome in Gen 8. 2 Player Co-op is also great fun, but maybe have it so that opposing trainers send out 2 Pokémon as well, just to make things not hilariously trivial. But it's not enough to save this game in my eyes. AV's are ridiculous, simple as and Mega Evolution loses a lot of the nuance it once had. And to mention it once again. 23 mechanics! That's insane. And some of them are pretty massive, especially if you are into competitive battling.

Yep, 4 minutes into that video, I stopped watching. Because I'm sold. If that comes to Switch, totally going for it.

I expect more from a mainline game. I hold them to a generally higher standard to Spin-off's. I absolutely consider Let's GO as a mainline series game. Game Freak made it, it follows the same basic structure as every mainline Pokémon game they made and that's that. So while I won't cover it here, there's a previous thread I did that I feel would be a better place to give my thoughts. So I'll probably bump that instead later on. Out of all the spin-off's, those would be the big 3. But there's quite a bit to cover still. There's one more thing that Generation 4 gave us before I move on. Generation 5 is probably the weirdest of the spin-off's. There's some proper wacky stuff in there.

Oh god, I have to talk about Pokémon Rumble now, don't I? Pokémon Rumble is an action RPG developed by Ambrella that released on WiiWare in 2009. It's an Action RPG. The game starts with a Toy Rattata sneaking into some kind of Battle Royale, where it is very quickly destroyed, because it's a Rattata. It's not even in the top percentage of Rattata. The player is then tasked with collecting a whole variety of better toys like a whiny child on Christmas Morning in order to win at the forementioned Battle Royale. Pokémon Rumble is a pretty simple game, really. You manuever your Pokémon toy through a variety of levels and beat the living snot out of other Pokémon toys along the way, each level ends with a Boss and beating it lets you progress to the next level. Whenever you beat a Pokémon though, there's a chance that you can take it for yourself to use. The game has a cycle of slowly collecting better and better Pokémon while you progress. Once you get a strong enough Pokémon, a Battle Royale will open up, which is basically a large number of Pokémon beating each other up at once to be the last one standing. All the Pokémon from Gens 1 and 4 (Except Arceus) is available in this game, giving you 257 Pokémon to get. There's also a 2 player co-op mode as well as a 4 player competitive mode that takes place in a Battle Royale. Utilising the not very often used Wii Remote storage capabilities, people could put a Pokémon Toy in their Wii Remote and take them to a friend's Wii console to compete in this mode. Weirdly enough, as far as I'm aware, Pokémon Rumble is the only WiiWare title to have an advert. That advert only just reminded me that the Trading Card Game tried to make a sort of spin-off version based around Rumble. Yeah, it kinda flopped, so no-one even acknowledges it. But the real thing you need to see is the Japanese advert, which is the most ridiculously overhype thing I've ever seen in Pokémon history. That commentator is really excited to tell you about Pokémon Scramble (Japanese title for Rumble), not to mention that hilarious, over-the-top music. It's still funny these days. Not gonna lie, that advert kinda sold me on the game. In reality, it's not that exciting. (Then again, what is?) But it's a decent enough Wiiware title, the 2 player co-op does help it, but it can get repetitive. WiiWare title means that I can't be sure on any sales figures. But for once, Ambrella had made an OK Pokémon game. In hindsight, I can't be sure it's a good thing... Super Pokémon Rumble was released for the 3DS in 2011 and was developed by Ambrella. Being a full retail game, this game featured Pokémon from all 5 generations at the time. (Except for 3 unreleased Pokémon) It plays pretty much exactly the same as the original game. It's literally a bigger version with a plot. That would be fine, but this game annoys me. Oh no, I never played it. The WiiWare one was enough for me, but this game still featured those bloody Pokemon Toys. Yes, I'm talking about them again, you can't stop me! Pokémon toys were understandable as a way of working around the memory limitations that WiiWare games were faced with, but this was a full retail title and those models are some of the most ugly abominations I've ever laid my eyes on. (Well, until recently, after all, "Realistic Pokémon: The Movie" is now a thing) Ambrella started coasting after making something not completely baffling and awful and it shows with this. It sold 1.15 million copies, which is pretty good. Wait, oh no! That means Ambrella's going to...! *sigh* Pokémon Rumble U is a WiiU digital only game developed by Ambrella and released in 2013. Ummm... I'm sorry, but there's basically nothing to say about the actual game, it's still a gen 5 game so there were only 3 Pokémon that the 3DS game didn't have. But don't panic, there is actually something else to say about this. This game was the first WiiU title to utilise the NFC reader that the Gamepad had built in. You probably know about that thanks to the prominent amiibos that it's most well known for. But this game didn't use amiibos. I can't imagine many people proudly displaying that next to their amiibo collection. Scanning those would give you the associated Pokémon and also make your WiiU secretly judge you for having such poor taste. Saleswise, dunno. Digital title, hard to find those sales. Do you care though? I don't believe it did that well. Pokémon Rumble World, another 3DS title, another action RPG made by Ambrella. It released in 2015. It's Pokémon Rumble, again. The Gen 6 Pokémon are in this one now and Mega evolution features, but it's the same kind of gameplay we've seen 3 times before. I mean, it's awfully brazen to have another full retail title that barely does anything new with the formula and expect people to... Wait, hold up. I'm just getting told something... THEY DID WHAT!? OK, so in what I can only assume is a fit of madness, this is actually a free-to-play title digital title... which then got a retail release 6 months later. Which means that we've finally reached that point in this thread where I have to remain incredibly optimistic otherwise I'm liable to punch a wall. And I'm pretty weak, so I'd probably just hurt myself if I did that. It's time to talk about... Microtransactions in Pokémon Spin-off's I'm sure you already know how this works, but just in case you don't (Lucky you), here's the gist. Free-to-play titles are absolutely notorious for being seemingly free games that then offer you the option of buying some form of in-game currency with real-life cash. The mobile market is absolutely flooded with these kind of things and they can range from relatively harmless to completely exploitative. Unfortuantely, the latter is becoming more and more prominent these days. And with it showing up in full price retail games more and more often these days, it's probably not going away anytime soon. There's also the well-known Lootbox system, which is probably even worse, but Pokémon thankfully hasn't ventured into that territory yet, so I won't be covering that particular aspect in this thread. Now, some people tend to counter-argue that Microtranscations can be largely ignored. Good for you, you can show restraint. But that means you're not the kind of person that a game that uses this is targeting really. The majority of Free-to-play titles aim to get someone who is more prone to becoming addicted to buckle and spend lots of money on this to make reasonable progress. Titles that use microtransactions tend to be incredibly grindy affairs that are difficult to progress in, unless you pay up. This has coined the term as "Pay-to-win" and some companies love this idea. EA Games comes to mind and games like FIFA practically live on the kind of revenue it brings. I don't care how microtransactions affect you, but it is absolutely not a pleasant destination for gaming to go and can cause some serious real-life ramifications for some poor bugger who could get a bit carried away. Referred to rather meanly as "Whales", It only takes a few people dropping well over hundreds of pounds to make this kind of thing profitable and it's nothing short of despicable. Quite frankly, if anyone actually has the gall to defend this kind of practice, then you're part of the problem and I will just lose respect in you. *ahem* Sorry about that, but I feel it needed to be said. As far as Pokémon Rumble World is concerned, it's not too bad. You could probably get through it without coughing up, but you might as well just a play different title in the series. The retail version sold 0.11 million, the fact that it was on the eShop for free is probably the main reason for that low number. There is one more thing for Rumble though. Pokéland is a mobile game for iOS and android. It's not actually out yet, but there was an alpha version released last year. It seems to play like Pokémon Rumble, albeit, much more simple. Not much more information on that, we'll just have to see. And that's it. Pokémon Rumble, like PMD, is still kicking these days, but unlike PMD, it is seemingly banished to the Mobile Phone format. It might do well there, who knows? But chances are it will be more of a shell of it's former self. It's awfully derivative though, not really taking any chances, just going through the motions. Kinda like Pokémon Ranger did.

Make sure the Pokè Ball is connected to the game and that you have the Pokédex. Open the menu and choose "Connectivity". Then choose "Mystery Gift" and select "Get with a Pokè Ball Plus"

Why didn't you just get the free Squirtle from Vermilion City?

So I just stumbled on something that I just had to share. Some person with way too much time and way too much awesome just made a bunch of sprites for Pokémon from Gen 2-5 to make them look like old school Gen 1 sprites. Yeah, yeah. Expected. But what sets this apart is that they went for a style the resembles the sprites from Pokémon Green, the original version of Red/Blue only released in Japan. In case you don't know, Green sprites are notorious for looking... Off... Some of them are pretty terrible and make for some easy laughs. You're welcome.

Mew can't be transferred from Go to Let's Go. The Pokè Ball Mew is also time exclusive. It won't be around for too long.

That old man hasn't been sleazy since Gen 3.

Gonna head online now if anyone wants to jump in.

In the mainline series, sure. Spin-off's liked Zangoose quite a bit. It's a quintessential "badass" Pokémon, so not too surprising.

It just uses a USB connection, so it works on both.

Well, say you're the kind of player who'd want to keep at least one kind of each Pokémon? It's not unreasonable. I imagine most people do that. But because of the large amount of Pokémon you'll inevitably catch, it's very easy to lose track of the one you might actually want to keep. So you have to go back and forth between the Box screen and the Summary screen to look at the stats. That's been a thing since X/Y. Every Pokémon has those reactions when you use Amie with them.