Glen-i

There's actually only one thing I'm gonna cover when it comes to Gen 2 spin-off's and it's a bit of a different tack, but let's just go for it. Who's that console? Iiiiiit's Pokémon Mini! Released in 2001 and manufactured by Nintendo, it was a pretty short lived console and had 10 games released for it (America only got 4 of those while Europe got 5). For the sake of mine and your sanity, I'm not gonna go into too much detail on each individual game. The console came in 3 different colours. Wooper Blue, Chikorita Green and Smoochum Purple. Features of the console include a real-time clock, an infrared port, a reed switch and a motor. Along with it's 96 X 64 screen and incredibly tiny buttons. (And some people complain about the Joycon... bloody lightweights) A weird quirk of the Pokemon Mini was that save files were stored on the console. And seeing as it could only hold data for 5 games, it became a bit of an issue if you had the Japanese only games. Now, I normally poke fun at myself for being a bit of a Pokénerd, but if you want actual proof of that, here it is. I owned one of these. I had the game that you see in the picture above. (Pokémon Party Mini) It was pretty decent, although you probably don't need to rush out and get one immediately. Anyway, the actual most interesting thing about the Mini is that people even nerdier than I am reverse engineered the bloody thing! You can get homebrew on this! No, I have no idea why anyone would bother, but here's a particularly well known one. So that's Pokémon Mini, a weird little oddity as far as Ninty consoles go. It was... OK. We probably won't see Nintendo try something like this again. It's not really what they do these days. BTW, that also ends Gen 2. Told you it was short. Don't worry though, there's more in Gen 3. Which I'll probably start next Saturday.

I won't be available then, unfortunately. Could someone else help BowserBasher out with that? Failing that, I guess 7:30 on Thursday could work.

It's funny how Miyamoto was talking about what could be possible with larger cartridges, only for them to be ditched on the next console in favour of discs.

Yeah, it's the main reason I really dislike open-world games. The size of the world seems to take precedent and the combat tends to suffer as a result of trying to avoid many glitches occurring. The first time I played L.A. Noire, I was floored by how awful any combat scene was. I enjoyed that game otherwise, but it got me apprehensive of the whole open-world thing. I mean, not even Zelda was immune to that issue.

Ironically enough, it was mainly the Playstation 2 that got Nintendo to change that ethos. It demolished the Gamecube, despite being a technically weaker console. I don't care what anyone says. The Wii was absolutely the correct route to take at the time. Going for high graphic fidelity was starting to get pretty expensive and Nintendo capitalized on that to provide an appealing alternative to the average gamer. I don't believe a Gamecube HD would have performed even a quarter as well as the Wii did.

Pokémon Puzzle League is an action puzzle game developed by Nintendo Software Technology (NST) and Intelligent Systems. Released for the N64 in 2000, it marks two oddities when it comes to Pokémon spin-offs. The first is pretty obvious from the boxart in that the game features Ash Ketchum for the first (but not the only) time. The second being the game never came out in Japan. Mega Loser Ash is chilling out at a resort instead of training his Pokémon like he should be doing when he receives a call from Professor Oak. Prof. Oak informs him that he's been invited to the Official Puzzle League Tournament. Ash accepts and that's how the game starts. The object of the game is to manipulate a series of blocks to match 3 of the same colour to make them disappear, you can get more points from clearing more than 3 at a time (Called a "Combo") or having one set of blocks cause a chain reaction and clear another set of blocks straight after (called a "Chain"). The blocks steadily rise as you play and if your stack reaches the top, you lose. There's a variety of modes that have different rules. There's the normal marathon mode where you go for a high score, Time Zone gives you 2 minutes to get a high score, Puzzle University gives you a set amount of moves to clear every block on screen and there's my personal favourite, Spa Service, where you have to get your stack below a certain point to progress through levels. There's also some tutorials for beginners to get to grips with the game. But the main meat of Puzzle League are the Stadium modes. 1P Stadium could be considered the story mode where you help Ash beat a series of CPU characters in order to be dubbed the Puzzle Master. With 5 levels of difficulty, there's enough to test your skills. There's also the 2P Stadium which is a 2 player mode (Duh). Here you can pick almost any of the characters that feature in the game (Except Ash, I mean he's there, but who would willingly choose to play as Ash!?) and face off against each other. One key difference between this and the previous Tetris Attack is the 3D mode. The usual 2D mode has a rectangular playing field. 3D mode changes this to a cylindrical playing field with the blocks wrapping around the cylinder. This gives the player more room to work with and more blocks to keep track of. Another thing to note is that this game actually has FMV cutscenes, which was a selling point the Playstation tended to use back then. It's strange for an N64 game. This probably ate up on the memory limitations of the cartridge and I bet it's the main reason why the soundtrack sounds like cheap MIDI rip-offs of the anime soundtrack. Puzzle League is a series of games that are known as Panel de Pon in Japan. Generally, those games star a bunch of fairies, but Nintendo decided that the west would never warm to them because of their more feminine nature. So when it came to releasing these games over here in the 90's, the fairies would be replaced with more popular IP's. We saw this with the game Tetris Attack, which used characters from Yoshi's Island. The reason why Pokémon Puzzle League never came out in Japan could be because there was a planned Panel de Pon 64 which ended up getting cancelled for whatever reason. Can't confirm that mind, but I can see that happening. Pokémon Puzzle League sold 0.45 million copies. Not releasing in Japan definitely hurt its chances, not to mention it releasing quite late in the N64's life. And yet... Pokémon Puzzle Challenge released in Japan 4 days before Pokémon Puzzle League on the Game Boy Color. Developed by Intelligent Systems, this is a portable version of Puzzle League that instead of being based on the anime, was based on Pokemon Gold/Silver. Playing as Ethan, the male protagonist of the Gen 2 games, you had to beat the 8 Gym Leaders of the Johto region using your team of Chikorita, Cyndaquil and the correct choice, Totodile. Along with the modes in Puzzle League this game had a garbage mode, not because it sucked, but because it was similar to Marathon, but you had to deal with periodic garbage blocks dropping on you. There was also no 3D option for obvious reasons. During the main story mode, meeting certain requirements would give you the chance to unlock a new Pokémon to play as, considering that each Pokemon basically acts as a life to save you from the dreaded Game Over screen, this is pretty helpful. As for how this sold? Ehhhh, I dunno. I can't find anything on it. Puzzle League as a series still shows up now and again, but not as a Pokémon title, so I wouldn't say it was dead, but you probably won't see a Pokémon version any time soon. So what did you lot think of these games? I certainly like them, even if I'm pretty eh at them myself. I never have beaten the hardest difficulty on both of these games. However, @Dcubed and @Ugh first aid are blooming Puzzle League Ninjas! When they boot it up, they go on forever. I basically only ever win when one of them makes a mistake. My favourite character was Giovanni. His music was pretty good. And that pretty much ends the spin-offs that originated in Generation 1. We'll be moving on to Gen 2 next, which is nowhere near as long as the first one. It's mostly because most of the games were sequels that I've already covered.

That's a shame. Well, I'll be happy to help again tomorrow. Hey @RedShell This might be of interest to you. Nothing special seems to have happened. No award or anything like that... I hope 99999 isn't actually the last step...

Unfortunate disconnect there, @Mokong But it was a fun night of hunting. Thanks in particular for helping me knock off a few arena quests with your axe skillz. I'm done for now, but I'm available tomorrow if you still need gems of which I got a second in that last quest.

OK, give me 10 minutes.

Not pointer. Gyro Controls. Different thing. The Resi Evil Revelation games support it.

I can only hope that Gen 8 will pull a Milotic and change that method.

Tales of Symphonia is a great game to co-op through though. The problem is finding people who would be committed to such a big game.

I've literally used Glen-i since Flipnote Studio, it'd be strange to change it now. Also, that name sucks.

Yes, that's how it normally works. But I saw some people with custom ones and was just wondering how it was done. @Hero-of-Time explained it nicely though. Thanks!

Today I learned that there was a third Super Monkey Ball game on the Gamecube. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is my best Gamecube game for sure! EDIT: Woah, hold up @Hero-of-Time you don't have Monkey Ball 2 but have the other 2 games? You failure!

I've been meaning to ask this for bloody ages, but I kept bloody forgetting. Bloody Hell! You know that thing underneath someone's username? Where "N-Europe Forum Aficionado" is on mine. Is that something that you can actually change? I'm a tad confused about that.

Pokémon Pinball was released in 1999 for the Game Boy Colour. A pinball game with a Pokémon twist. It was developed by Jupiter and HAL Laboratory. One of the selling points was that the cartridge had a special rumble compatibility. While the object of the game was to rack up a high score like a traditional pinball game, there was also a secondary objective to capture all 151 Pokémon. They could be found across two different tables, Red and Blue. You had to play both of them in order to find all 151 Pokémon. Thankfully, any Pokémon you got was saved to a Pokédex, so you didn't have to do it all in one go. Successfully capturing and evolving lots of Pokémon gave you access to special bonus games for lots of beautiful points! There's also plenty of traditional pinball aspects such as multipliers and extra balls to help the player get that elusive high score. You could also use a Game Boy Printer to print out your high scores. The game sold 5.31 million copies worldwide, making it the 3rd most successful Pokemon spin-off. So, like most successful spin-offs, it was only a matter of time before it got a sequel. CHEEKY EDIT: @Dcubed has just informed me that the soundtrack actually has some songs based off of music from the Japanese anime. Neat! Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2003. Made once again by Jupiter, (Not HAL though) this game featured 205 Pokemon to capture (Every Pokemon available in Ruby/Sapphire, the three Gen 2 Starters and their respective evolutions and Aerodactyl for some reason) across another 2 boards titled Ruby and Sapphire, more realistic ball physics and general visual improvements. It plays very similarly to Pokémon Pinball though. I mean, why fix what isn't broken? So there isn't much to talk about here that I haven't already covered. While this game didn't have a native rumble feature, playing it on the Gamecube's Game Boy Player allowed you to use the Gamecube controller's rumble feature instead. Out of all the spin-off sequels I will cover, this is the one that saw the sharpest decline in sales compared to it's original. It didn't do too bad, mind. But at 1.37 million sold, that's just over 20% of the original's sales and while there's no way to confirm it, this game probably killed off the Pokémon Pinball series. And it's a shame too, I think both of these games are great pick up and play titles. Given the choice, I prefer the sequel. I completed both of these games and the Pokemon mechanics are a great fit for the pinball game genre, it's just really obvious in hindsight. But could it come back? I'm gonna go with "It's possible, but probably won't happen" I say this because there's been a kind of resurgence with pinball games recently, especially if you look at the cheaper digital only titles. Maybe The Pokémon Company could get one of those companies to make a new pinball game. That'd be a great idea. Anyway, I'll leave you with a crazy fact. @Dcubed has managed to max out the score of Pokémon Pinball: R&S. I'm not too sure, but he might have that particular game still going on his cartridge, never to end.

Please let 4 use gyro controls, please let 4 use gyro controls, please let 4 use gyro controls!

Go to Low rank J.Frontier. Area 5. Look in the supply boxes on the floor. You might have to repeat it a few times. Don't forget to bring what you need to combine with it. Thankfully, you only need to do the combinations you could do in the 3DS version to get the award. EDIT: Oh, BTW @Mokong. If you do decide to go online, give me a shout. Gotta get in some N-E hunting while I have the free time.

Mystery American Dennis' scores are discounted and the GP's will be treated as 6-player races. Bonus points are depicted in green. No-one is this week's Player who made no Bloody Difference. I've managed to overtake @RedShell in the amount of GP's won, but he still has the higher average. That's Mario Kart! Next League Night: 1st November 8pm Room 1: @BowserBasher is host @BowserBasher @viceview51 @martinist @RedShell @Gourmetsalt The Character Choice is restricted to whoever is playable in Super Mario Party. @BowserBasher, am I right in remembering that the host has free reign over who is on what team on Team Games? If you can't remember, I can help you do a test run tonight or tomorrow if you want. If you do have free choice, I'll let you know before the night starts how to divvy up the teams.

Highlights from me.

Before I post this week's results, here's the results of last week. I'll put it in a spoiler to avoid any confusion.

Oh, don't worry. The majority of them are utter crap posted by someone just looking for attention. This one I mentioned earlier just hasn't been debunked yet, which is not what normally happens. So it still could be legit. Anyway, back to stuff that is definitely in Smash.

That's from Pokémon Stadium 1.

OK, gonna open a room, but I'm eating a meal at the mo, so won't be playing quite yet. So you two do some stuff while that's happening.