Glen-i

Right, then @BowserBasher, we'll start at 8:30pm.

Right, @S.C.G wasn't around yesterday for Mario Kart, so I'll ask here. You up for Perfect Dark tonight?

It better be a completely new reincarnation of Link. I need to add another silly moniker to my list of Links.

Not 100% confirmed, but some leaks may have happened for this game. You've been warned.

To encourage people to check the app. I'm betting part of the reason for this app is the whole Twitter fallout. Nintendo would rather establish the newsfeed on their own terms, instead of risk the platform they release news on turning into a Nazi safe haven. Don't blame them.

Meh, I'd rather play "Kevin Costner's Waterworld" God, I hope these are both based on that movie, I've never watched it. Would make this post look real dumb if they aren't...

The calendar widget is pretty neat. I let the app know what games I'm interested in recieving updates on, and it gave me a heads-up that the Nobunaga's Ambition games are now on NSO, as well as some raid event starting on Pokémon Scarlet.

Huh, could've sworn I made a thread for this? Oh well. Won't need to ask a mod to move it here. It's the sequel to Crypt of the NecroDancer... kinda. It's not a roguelike, this time, but more of a straight rhythm game. But don't believe for one second that you won't be learning enemy patterns here. Because the enemies are the notes, and they all have different behaviours to how you tackle them. That's where the challenge comes from. I'm playing through Story Mode on Easy difficulty, and it's starting to ramp up. Kind of dreading the harder difficulties. The Guitar Hero style segments make up the main meat of the game, but there's also minigames that take inspiration from Rhythm Paradise. The only critcism I have is that if you happen to be offline when you get a new high score, there's no way to upload that score retroactively when you get back online, at least, I couldn't find one. Kind of a problem for a portable console. On the other hand, there's a "Shopkeeper Mode" for every song. Crypt fans should know what that means. Yes, even the Celeste Remix, and the Super Meat Boy songs (Which are the original songs, weirdly enough) So yeah, I recommend this to Rhythm game fans. It's less then 15 quid right now. Also, I'm the best in the world, and will certainly never be dethroned.

Tee Lopes coming back to do this soundtrack as well! Disney really did just go to DotEmu and say "Do Shredder's Revenge, but with Marvel", didn't they? PR says it will have 15 characters at launch too. Hoping for Deadpool and Rocket Raccoon. The only two Marvel characters I remotely care about... EDIT: Never mind, found a screenshot. Could change in the final product, but I find it amusing that the buttons in the UI are exactly the same as in Shredder's Revenge.

We're moving on to common Pokémon that got banned in Generation 5 (Black/White). There's nowhere near as many here as there are in the previous generation. In fact, there are only 2. You should recognise this one from a previous nerdy Pokémon thread I did. Blaziken is the final evolution of the Fire starter introduced in Generation 3 (Ruby/Sapphire). It's Fire/Fighting, and is the first starter Pokémon to get banned to the Uber tier. And no, Gen 5 happened before Pokkén, so it's filthy, filthy design isn't the reason why. Stats wise, it's basically just a worse Salamence. A mixed attacker in a sea of Pokémon that excel in one of the attacking stats. But Blaziken doesn't have the BST of a Powerhouse Pokémon to back it up. Which, nine times out of ten, means that the Ability is the reason for it getting banned. Except that all fire starter Pokémon start with Blaze, which isn't noteworthy. Generation 5 is the one that introduces Hidden Abilities. Particularly rare abilities that, at the time, you could only get via the Dream World section of the Pokémon website. Blaziken's one is absolutely ridiculous, and definitely falls into the "This was a mistake" style of overpowered Pokémon. Speed Boost: Speed increases by one stage at the end of each turn. I've been saying a decent amount about how the Speed stat is very impactful on the competitive scene. After just 1 turn, Blaziken becomes as fast as Arceus, and it only keeps snowballing from there. The general idea is to use a move like Protect to block damage on the first turn, get Speed Boost to activate, and then become really hard to outspeed, and after the second turn? Well, you have no hope. Blaziken is going to punch big massive holes in most Pokémon. It's not a foolproof strategy, Blaziken has powerful moves, but they do come with drawbacks in Gen 5. Flare Blitz (120 Power, 33% of the damage done is dealt to the user) will eventually KO Blaziken, and Sky Uppercut and High Jump Kick have less then 100% accuracy. But the odds are very much in Blaziken's favour, and nothing short of rain strategies can stop it's onslaught. So most people used heavy sunlight to offset rain, and only make Blaziken more terrifying. Blaziken's Flare Blitz can knock out almost every Pokémon in the OU tier in 2 turns at most when the sun is out. Yes, even most Water types. So to no-one's surprise, it got banned to Ubers, where it still performs well. This thing can take on Legendaries just fine. When I said that Blaziken is one of the best Starter Pokémon ever, I wasn't kidding. Still, at least it can't get much worse... Oh... Oh no... Generation 6 (X/Y) gave people who purchased it early a free Torchic, complete with Blaziken's Mega Evolution item. So it was that Mega Blaziken was inflicted on the Smogon scene. Pretty standard stat increase that Mega Evolutions provide, but still, Speed Boost is one of the greatest Abilities ever, so the Mega Evolution has to be worse off, surely? You'd think so, but Blaziken is one of the very few Pokémon whose Ability does not change with Mega Evolution. Well, assuming you're using Speed Boost, because why wouldn't you? Game Freak very much thought "If it's broke, don't fix it!", and Mega Blaziken gets Speed Boost on Mega Evolution, even if it didn't have it before. Suffice to say, this made an already amazing Pokémon even better. It's absolutely trivial to scare a Pokémon and force it to switch, and use that to set up Swords Dance (Boosts the user's Attack stat by 2 stages). Nothing can survive that. OK, except maybe Slowbro, but Slowbro kind of sucks. Blaziken and Mega Blaziken were very quickly banned to Ubers in Gen 6 a mere month after X and Y came out, and it remained there for Gen 7 (Sun/Moon). It has very much fallen from grace in Gen 8 (Sword/Shield), losing it's Mega Evolution, and there being a lot more viable Pokémon that can handle it. We'll have to see if Pokémon Champions will allow it to reclaim it's crown of "Best Starter Pokémon". Does that mean it's good in casual play? Kinda? Getting a Speed Boost Blaziken isn't an easy task, like most hidden abilities. So it's not gonna be living up to it's potential in Gen 3, where the ability doesn't even exist. It's still really good on the GBA, despite that! The only other game you can easily get one in a playthrough is Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. Torchic is one of the starter Pokémon there, and you don't need to get one with a hidden ability, because Mega Blaziken always has Speed Boost, and you're given the item for freeeeeeee! Knowing that, I still chose Treecko...

It's France, they gotta get close to you to give you the double-kiss-on-cheek manuever.

Yes, but it didn't exist before today, and you can't get to it on a Desktop, believe me, I tried.

Dude here wants to kill all the Gogoats. I wonder if he's from Paldea? The branding on his jacket is from Scarlet/Violet. BTW, Pansear was seen. Marking the first time those Unova monkeys have been in a game since the Pokédex cut.

There's a Mii Maker on this thing! And I think I finally fixed my broken desktop Mii, so my next gaming calender should be accurate. Maybe it'll finally stop suggesting I play Persona now!

The production values on this are kinda bonkers! Also, this has themes! But Switch doesn't... They're just messing with us at this point. I find it interesting that of all the games that allow you to receive notifications on (Pokémon Scarlet, Fire Emblem Heroes, etc), Smash Ultimate is there. Why? That game isn't getting any new notifications these days.

Someone at Square Enix really loves the SaGa series. We're getting close to every game being on modern consoles in some form at this point. It's not too surprising, have any of you seen the DLC for Theatrhythm? A third of it is from this series!

Excellent name, very Resident Evil 7.

I wasn't too interested, until I saw DotEmu developed this. Now I'm interested. Shredder's Revenge was dope!

It's so obvious in retrospect. Thank Arceus that trainers can actually instigate battles now. Mad that I have to be hyped about that in a Pokémon game, but that's where we're at. That said, cheap shotting another trainer's Pokémon with an attack before a battle has to be illegal! The Kalos Police force is bloody useless!

Rift of the Necrodancer getting released later today is very cool! Was hoping that would make the jump to Switch. And naturally, I am all in on Tomodachi Life, the 3DS one is completely insane!

Mario Kart tonight at 8pm. Player's Choice. Hopefully @Dcubed gets his act together and sorts out his damn internet!

Ehhh, I'd go with second best. Ain't no beating the Swift Sail! Actually, scratch that, third best. Gyro controls, baby!

Kirby & Th- I can recycle jokes from WhatsApp too, mate.