Glen-i

That's because it's so much better, it's not even funny. Can't wait for this to get on NSO! Online on this will be great. Especially Two Player Adventure! Show me someone who insists Plane is the the best, and I'll show you someone who loses to me in a car!

It's nonsensical, and I won't be swayed on that! Anyway, that's so 2 generations ago! We're living in the here and now! And by "Here and now", I mean 2002. Generation 3, otherwise known as Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, takes place in Hoenn. It's more of a tropical locale then the first two, but you wouldn't be able to really tell from the starter Pokémon. Being a GBA game, this is the first time a mainline Pokémon game was made with full colour in mind from the start. Treecko (TREE-ko) is the Grass starter. And it couldn't be any more different to the first two Grass starters. It's bipedal for a start, but more importantly, instead of being a slower, defensive battler, Treecko and it's evolutions are very much glass cannons. They hit hard, they hit fast. Treecko does well against the first gym, which is as good as it'll get in the early game for any starter here, actually. And then there's Grovyle (GROW-vile). Behold! This is the second of the starter middle evolutions to not be overshadowed by the other two! In fact, Grovyle may be the most popular of these three. @Julius and @Dcubed already knows why, but for everyone else... The primary antagonist of the second Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games is a Grovyle. The general Pokémon community refers to him as "Grovyle the Thief". I'm not gonna go into the details on it, because that would be spoilers for a game that has a legitmately good story. And seeing as the first PMD game got remade recently, it's not out of the realm of possibility for this game to get a remake. It is the most fondly remembered entry for a damn good reason! I defy you to find someone who prefers Treecko or Sceptile, and if they do, they clearly haven't played this game. The final evolution is Sceptile (SEP-tile). And I can only assume Game Freak felt sorry for Grass starter fans, because it's a truly excellent Pokémon on paper. It's stats are highly specialised towards Special Attack and Speed, and it's the first starter to get a signature move. Leaf Blade has 70 power, 100% accuracy, and has a high critical rate. Basically Razor Leaf, but not crap. On top of that, it can utilise TM's to learn a wide variety of moves. But it's that last part where it kinda falls apart for Sceptile. All the good moves it can learn through TM are physical based. So only Leaf Blade uses the Special Attack stat. The other moves use Sceptile's mediocre Attack stat. Despite that, Sceptile still does pretty well in playthroughs. But it desperately needs some support for Grass resistant types. The Physical-Special split in Gen 4 doesn't do it a huge favour, as it makes Leaf Blade a physical attack, but Energy Ball is a better alternative, and it can learn some good special moves through TM's. It also gets the hidden ability "Unburden" in Gen 5, which would make it a surprisingly effective Double Battler once terrain effects roll around The Gen 3 remakes, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, were released in Generation 6, and thus added a number of Mega Evolutions, including these starters. Mega Sceptile is Grass/Dragon, so dear lord, keep it away from Ice attacks! It's Speed and Special Attack are an eye-watering base 145! For comparison's sake, that's only 5 less then Deoxys! This is one scary Mega Evolution! Anyway, Mr. Christmas Tree here gets Lightning Rod (Absorbs Electric attacks, and then raises it's Sp. Atk one stage), which sounds strange, because Electric attacks only do a quarter of the damage against it. But throw this in a double battle, and it starts to make a lot more sense. Sceptile was in Pokkén. Actually, it was my favourite character in that game. But I'm rubbish at Pokkén, so don't take that as proof that it's any good or anything. I wouldn't know. You know, in most other generations, Sceptile would have been far and away the best choice for a starter. But no, it's in Gen 3, which means it's competition is... Torchic (TOR-chick) is the only Gen 3 starter to struggle with the first Gym in Hoenn. It's not the best of starts, but Torchic's surprisingly high Special Attack (Higher then Charmander's) might just carry you through it anyway if you have a good nature. Worst comes to worst though, you can always just evolve it. Combusken's (com-BUS-ken) only notable feature is that it becomes Fire/Fighting. This is an amazing type combination! If only more Fire starters had it... Other than that? Eh, it's a middle evolution. Blaziken (BLAZE-uh-ken) is the final evolution and has... EXCUSE ME!? That's pretty much the dream stat spread for casual Gen 3 playthroughs! Doesn't matter what kinds of moves you teach it. Blaziken can do it all! The Physical-Special split of the first three generations is the main reason Pokémon are quite limited in what they are able to do. But because Blaziken has amazing stats in both Attack and Sp. Atk, it can easily use Flamethrower, Brick Break, and Earthquake to full effect. Blaziken isn't good against any of the Hoenn gyms, but with those stats? Who the hell cares!? And well, things wouldn't go very well in Gen 4, as a certain other Pokémon would steal it's thunder. But then Gen 5 came along... Bit of a tangent before I explain Blaziken in Gen 5. So for some reason I can only assume was a fit of madness. Blaziken's Hidden Ability is "Speed Boost". Speed Boost is an astonishingly good ability that raises the Pokémon's Speed stat at the end of every turn! After just one turn, Blaziken becomes as fast as Sceptile, and only snowballs from there! Because of this, Blaziken became the first, and only, starter to be banned to Ubers in Smogon! Sorry to spoil that for all future starters, but Gen 5 Blaziken is the best starter ever. Competitively speaking, anyway. Oh, but it only gets better for our fiery chicken. Mega Blaziken is concrete proof that if a Pokémon is horribly broken, don't fix it! It's the only Mega Evolution that barely changes anything about the actual Pokémon. It's still Fire/Fighting, and it still has Speed Boost as an ability. The only thing that changes is it's stats, which are naturally a lot higher. Dear lord, don't let this thing get momentum, because you will lose the battle if you do! Anyway, on to the next starter... Huh? What's the matter? Oh! That... So, yes. I censored the Blaziken image. I had no choice. I didn't want parents to give my post a bad review. Yes, there is an actual reason I did that. Blaziken's in Pokkén. And when the WiiU version came out, a certain review on Amazon picked up some noteriety. Boy, it's a good thing they didn't see Reshiram... Anyway, here's the actual image. Mudkip (MUD-kip) is the water starter. What even is it anyway? I look at the Pokédex classification and it's the "Mud Fish" Pokémon... ...OK, sure. Anyway, much like Treecko, Mudkip is great against the first gym. I was hoping to avoid this, but someone mentioned it earlier. So I guess I have to talk about that meme. In case someone here somehow doesn't know of it. The meme @Ashley is referring to is "I Herd U Liek Mudkips". A glorified catchphrase that gained traction in the mid-2000's because the internet is a very silly place. The origins of that meme come from DeviantArt (Hey, the only other site I'm on!), when someone who made a Mudkip based group would go around looking for fanart of the Mudkip family, and inviting those artists to join their group like so. That's pretty much it. It caught on and everyone started posting that phrase everywhere. Geez, that meme is almost 20 years old now. Marshtomp (MARSH-stomp) is another middle evolution that has nothing much to mention. It does become Water/Ground, which is great because it becomes immune to Electric, which happens to be the third gym. Unfortunately, it's double weak to Grass now... But Grass isn't a gym in Hoenn, so it's not a huge deal. Swampert (SWAM-pert) is the final evolution here. Unfortunately, it's very much a physical based attacker, which means that half of it's movepool can't be used to the fullest potential. Still, it gets some solid attack options in Water, Ground, Ice, and Fighting. It's quite effective against a lot of gyms, but it's literally half as fast as Sceptile, and doesn't have the insane utility that Blaziken has, so it ends up being the big loser in Gen 3 (It's not much better in the Gen 6 remakes either). It's not terrible, but the competition is that fierce! Doesn't help that the hidden ability it gets in Gen 5 is utter crap. Mega Swampert has clearly been on the roids. It's got an eye-watering base 150 attack! And it gets Swift Swim as an ability! Swift Swim doubles Swampert's speed in rain, which is very much appreciated for such a slow Pokémon. Mega Sceptile is still faster then Mega Swampert, even with Swift Swim, so you need to watch out for that. And that wraps up Generation 3. What's your favourite? I'm a Mystery Dungeon fan, so Grovyle is my favourite. That's, like, the law. Even before Mystery Dungeon though, Grovyle evolving into Sceptile was the first time I was disappointed in an evolution. Sceptile just loses a bit of that sleekness Grovyle has. I still like it though. Actually, I think all the Gen 3 starters are cool designs. Solid Pokémon all round. Swampert's cooler then Blaziken, though.

For what it's worth, I also think it's the best of the SNES games. Even if it does have Rocket Rush...

This is the rub. If it was for the next Switch, then I'd be very much "Eh, whatever", but it's the fact that people who bought the original don't get any option to upgrade other then paying full price and starting from scratch, even though it's on the same console.

Pokemon stopped doing this last generation. And before the 3DS, doing it via DLC wasn't possible. It's not a good sign when Pokémon is ahead of you in this regard. It also differs because SMT hasn't really set it as a precedent to expect. This is Atlus pulling shenanigans because Persona players eat this stuff up.

And yet, that didn't happen for SMT IV, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, or Radiant Historia. I don't think I'm to blame for thinking it would be more of a Persona thing. Granted, the other two did get updated ports, but at least they were on different consoles. Anyway, I'm not paying for the "privilege" of starting a fresh file of a game I already have on my Switch. Atlus can get stuffed with that nonsense.

Player's Choice tonight at 8pm.

With Pocket Card Jockey coming to Switch, I feel this is a great time to post this! It's just solitaire! Why's it so hype!? Also convinced you can hear Electivire at around 45 seconds.

All I know was that Mother 3 was made available on Japanese WiiU, and nothing came of it. Gonna assume it's not happening. History has said as much. But hey, you can easily play it now. You have the Japanese GBA app.

Isn't that exactly what happened on the WiiU though?

I was expecting it to be more then that, to be honest...

That mini-series was very good. Then again, I'm a sucker for stop-motion animation. I also don't trust that hypothetical game to not end up being a microtransactions labeled mess...

Yeah, you get it! I was mostly joking, I would never buy another Legends game, but I'm not budging on the battle system in Legends being utter crap. Because it is, it's awful! And also, I don't like Legends, Let's Go, or the direction the mainline games is taking, so what am I gonna do? Get stuffed, I guess? EDIT: Anyway word of general warning. Pokémon Presents is about the entire franchise, not just the mainline games. Expect a whole load of mobile game tat, and certainly no guarantee of a mainline game.

Oh no, that's a deal-breaker for me. I thought they would've left the levels untouched, especially as they added an easier difficulty mode.

Every Fire Emblem game is in depth. The series thrives on it! There's a crapton of things going on behind the scenes.

I disagree. They didn't haphazardly set the second DLC of Scarlet/Violet in "Unova" for giggles. Unova's next. You know what though? I'd be willing to give a Legends style game another chance. They'd have to tweak a few things though. - Get rid of of the open areas nonsense. Don't need it now that the mainline games are open world. - Make me catch Pokémon through battling them. Give my Pokémon some reason to contribute! It's not remotely satisfying just chucking a ball at them and moving on. Make me work for it! If I want to catch thousands of Shinx, I'll play Pokémon Go, which I won't. Because it's crap. - No-one likes gathering hundreds of crap to craft stuff. Boring busywork. And while we're getting rid of boring busywork, have the corresponding Pokédex entry fill in completely once I catch a Pokémon. Don't make me use Tackle 40 times to get halfway there. - Use the old battle system. It's not broken, don't try to fix it. They can keep those action segments where you have to dodge a boss's attacks in real time before using an opening to switch to turn based and dealing loads of damage. Those were legit great!

Actually, there is a physical version of that. But it only goes to Wave 5 for stupid reasons.

Chained Echoes is a turn based RPG mostly developed by Matthias Linda. Yes, that's not a company name, that's a person's. It's not a complete solo effort, but over a long 7 years, I can only imagine a painstaking amount of effort went into it. It was released on all modern platforms on December 2022. I played the Switch version. The game is set on the continent of Valandis, and doesn't have a true central protagonist for most of the game, but the main focus is on five characters. Glenn, the mercenary with an incorrectly spelled name. Lenne, a princess who is undercover to better understand her country. Sienna, a thief known as the "Red Succubus". Victor, a famous playwright, and his friend, Ba'thraz, a blacksmith, who's my favourite character. Why is he my favourite? Who knows? Couldn't possibly be because he's a lizard. Nah, don't be silly. (Real talk, his backstory hit the hardest, so yeah. My lizard bias at first. But after that? Genuine favourite) A year ago, Valandis was in the midst of a war. It had been going on for 150 years, but then it suddenly ended when a humongous explosion killed thousands of people and scared everyone into signing a peace treaty. This explosion was caused by something called the Grand Grimoire, and Glenn may have been tricked into setting it off. He's feeling a bit guilty about it, but bigger issues may be arising as rumblings of someone trying to restart the war are starting to circulate. The 5 main characters all have their own reasons for stopping this war, but explaining that would be spoilers. The plot is very excellent. Easily the strongest aspect of the game. The characters are all great, Sienna was another fave of mine. She's very sarcastic, and may be a little self-aware. I mean, she's not wrong. The battle system is the other strong aspect of Chained Echoes. It's pretty unique. Best to explain this with a picture. There are two main mechanics to battles. The first one is the tag team system. If you look at the bottom right, you'll notice the red haired guy at the very bottom has another person next to him on the HUD. That means those two characters can swap between each other. The key thing is that they can only swap with each other. So you need to think about who can compliment each other well. You don't want to leave yourself without some way of healing, for example. The other main system is the Overdrive bar, on the top left. That arrow moves towards the right whenever anyone performs an action. When the arrow is in the yellow section, then everything is normal. If it goes into the green section, then you're in Overdrive mode, which means you take less damage, deal more damage, and skills cost half the TP. However, if you let the arrow travel to the red section, then you take wayyyy more damage. That's bad. Some things can make the arrow go back to the left, swapping characters does it a little, as does defending, but when you're in Overdrive, a random type of skill will be shown on the top left, where that padlock symbol is. If you use a skill with the same symbol, then the arrow jumps to the left a considerable distance. Using an Ultra Move (Basically, a limit break, but any character using theirs will deplete the bar entirely, and each character has a different one.) also makes the arrow go to the left. So the flow of battle revolves around balancing that arrow in the green area. Each character has skills unique to them, but you can find "Class Emblems" which basically function as a rudimentary job system. It's a very basic implementation of a job system, but hey, it's some level of customisation, and that's no bad thing. I wish I could say the same for how you get stronger though... For some stupid reason, this has a similar method of leveling up as Chrono Cross. Levels are tied to how many bosses you've beaten, which means grinding won't do much. You do get SP for winning fights, which upgrade the skills you have equipped, but don't expect it to help much. Each level you get has to be manually spent on either a usable attack, a passive skill, or extra stat boosts. I don't like the kind of system that arbitrarily limits the player, especially if the game happens to be really quite difficult. Chained Echoes doesn't mess around, I honestly found standard enemies more difficult then the majority of bosses. The game autosaves all the time, which is good, because it's very easy to end up dead suddenly. The balance is all wack. After the midway point, when you get at least 8 characters to use, it gets a lot more manageable. It is handled better then Chrono Cross, mind you, as there's a number of optional level ups, normally tied to sidequests or the achievement board. The descriptions are pretty great though. Honestly, the game has a lot of cool mechanics that I haven't mentioned, but it would take too long to go through them. Anyway, the visuals are fine, probably didn't help that I played Sea of Stars right before this game. Kinda unfair, really. But now that I know that most of it is done by one person, I can be a bit more lenient now. The music's decent too. Not a massive masterpiece, but very nice. So yeah, the game's solid, and quite an impressive product with how small the team was.

A little annoyed, because I just played through that 4 times recently. Secretly hoping it's more in the vein of SMT IV: Apocalypse with that kind of title. I would totally be up for for a Majora's Mask style seperate game with recycled assets!

The problem is that the majority of dedicated customers won't settle for anything less. They've been conditioned as much. It's why indies get snubbed in general discourse because of their relatively low budgets. Probably why they tend to do so well on Switch, the average Nintendo user doesn't give a toss about how pretty a game looks. So without that barrier, those games have more room to showcase what makes them worth purchasing.

I was legit surprised by this mini-game. Because I really don't like the PS1 version (Luckily, you can throw it and still get the huge materia with a standard boss battle), and I was dreading it when I saw it was a thing here, but Remake's interpretation of it is solid! In fact, that applies to most mini games. The minigames in the PS1 games and X are pretty janky, and not very fun, but Remake has nailed them, even if the more difficult pull-up sessions were difficult to deal with because I use Nintendo Switch button layouts.

This is almost correct. The actual best thing is some of the songs that came from it. Excuse me? Oh no! Not from the actual game, don't be ridiculous! I'm talking about the banging remixes we got in Smash Ultimate and Age of Calamity!

You got two of them right, at least. Not gonna tell you which until I get to them though.

Actually, you reminded me of something I wanted to ask. Now, I'm fully aware that not everyone will have played every generation of Pokémon (@BowserBasher being the main example), but despite that, I still want those people to tell us their favourite starter Pokémon of each generation. I'm interested in what those people would gravitate to, even if it's skin deep.

That's, uh, wait, what? You monster! Now, hang on! Croconaw, sure. But Feraligatr is a rugged, handsome bugger! Well, these days. NO! DON'T LOOK AT THE GOLD SPRITE! Where's it's neck? Actually, speaking of weird Feraligatr sprites. Here's the back sprite from the Gen 3 games. I swear, this is not edited! That's the actual sprite in-game! After that, Game Freak finally settled on a more consistent design for it. Good memory! I take it, this is what you mean? Typhlosion has one too! Where's Meganium's? That's cute, you think Meganium's popular enough for that? I'm not wrong. Meganium is really unpopular! Nah, only joking. Still unpopular though. See, now this is amusing. Because in Explorers of Darkness, I got assigned Charmander through the quiz, and went with Totodile as the partner. And now every time I replay the Explorers games, I can't bring myself to deviate from that initial selection. Charizard and Feraligatr just feel like a weirdly natural duo, despite being completely different types. Probably helps that they're both reptiles. And yes, the nicknames my Charizard and Feraligatr have are the same nicknames from my Explorers file.