Glen-i

They'd never make a Kecleon or a Toxtricity one, so my wallet is safe.

Actually, yes, Garchomp got banned around one year before HG/SS, but I don't think it would've helped too much. I mean, if the Garchomp hasn't used Swords Dance beforehand, then Intimidate may force it to switch out, but if it already has, then Garchomp's 2 extra speed makes it unlikely for Salamence to win that matchup. It would be forced to hold Choice Scarf to deal with that, which kinda ruins the flexibility Salamence benefits from. And remember, Sand Veil was Garchomp's only ability back then, so it'd be very risky anyway. In the Ubers meta, Salamence doesn't do quite as well as Garchomp, and seeing as they both have a crippling weakness to Ice, you'd be hard pressed to find people who use both. Simply put, we'll never know for sure. Pokémon don't tend to come back from Ubers. But what is certain is that there was an increase in Salamence usage in Gen 4 OU once Garchomp got the boot. It just wasn't the sole reason for it's ban.

Damn it! I was thinking "is that a Taskmaster reference?", but I put it down to a coincidence. Should've asked...

Imagine revealing a DLC pack by just silently adding a page on it there! I wouldn't put it past them. But yeah, this is very appreciated. If I wanted to learn the inner workings of some of the more weird characters, I had to go to Fandom, and Fandom is utterly horrible to browse, this site is a lot nicer. (No ads!)

So, I've started the sequel. Man, the production values are a stark improvement! Not to mention the much improved item management. Also, the game chucks a Kobold party member at you straight away, so that's a plus. Nanami's great! She's hilarious! Luca Blight, on the other hand, is a hell of a lot more blatant in his villainy. Sephiroth called, he said to chill out with the arson.

Custom matches from 7:30pm. And then Stamina format from 8pm.

Resident Evil has always been kind of corny though? The endgame usually ends up swerving into action-y setpieces with barely human looking atrocities, and the protagonists being armed to the freaking teeth with Grenade Launchers and such. Also, who built that mansion? That's not a place that would exist, even to hide a secret laboratory. And that's me ignoring the very entertaining voice work the first game has. Resident Evil has always had a bit of B-movie in it's DNA.

I didn't even know this box art existed, it's beautiful! Suikoden is a turn-based RPG that originally released on the PS1 in 1997. It was developed by Konami, and apart from a Japan-only PC and Sega Saturn port a year later, it never got a re-release. That is, until very recently, when a HD remaster of this and the sequel was released on all current platforms last week. I played that one, on the Switch. The game follows Tir, son of one of the Great Generals of the Scarlet Moon Empire. His dad has been called away on business, leaving Tir in charge of the household. Naturally, things go awry when Tir's friend, Ted, gets in a spot of bother and begs Tir to take his Soul Eater Rune, a magic orb that some woman who works for the Empire called Windy really wants. This forces Tir and the people his dad employs to go on the run. And this eventually leads him to the Liberation Army, who are looking to overthrow the Empire. But Tir needs to find more people to fight for the Liberation Army, 107 more should do the job. Thankfully, the sword isn't one of them The plot is... an interesting take on the whole "Ragtag army VS Evil Empire" plot. Suppose I should put this in spoilers, because hey, don't know if you know yet, but the spoiler tag is working! The main selling point of Suikoden is the 108 Stars of Destiny. 108 people, including Tir, that you can recruit throughout the game. Most of them can be used to fight the many random encounters you'll find along the way, but some also provide services for your headquarters. Shops and such, you get it. Unfortunately, this is a PS1-era RPG, so it does fall into the expected trappings of being basically impossible to get everything in the game without some kind of guide. Not really a fault with the game, just the general way this genre was made back then, so I won't hold it against this game. I will, however, point out the incredibly antiquated item system. It's very clunky, even for the time. Especially seeing as the game really likes to shift your party members around as the story progresses. A lot of times, I had to shuffle people around because they had items or equipment I needed, but got swapped around. So I had to get them back in the party, take the stuff I need, and then put it on the characters I was forced to use. As well as that, things are very expensive, and with each character having their own unique weapon, costs pile up. Thankfully, I stumbled upon an easy to exploit gambling minigame to get hundreds of thousands in a relatively short time. Despite that, it's a solid RPG. It goes along at a brisk pace, so it shouldn't take the average player more then 25 hours. Can your dogs wield swords? Didn't think so. The battle system is very similar to Eiyuden Chronicle (Unsurprisingly). You have a front row, and a back row, and each character is designated a "Range". Short range weapons can only hit the opposing sides front row from your front row, Medium range can attack from either row, but can only hit the opposing front row, and Long range has no restrictions. As well as that, using particular pairs of characters lets you use Unite attacks, basically Double Techs from Chrono Trigger. The sprite work is really nice, very detailed and big, and the HD remaster preserves this very well (Take notes, Grandia). The main difference is in the background environments. I do dig that aesthetic, even if the likes of Octopath Traveler outshine it. But Suikoden scrubs up really well. There's also some nice quality of life improvements such as not needing a particular orb to be able to run (Oh man, wouldn't want to play this at that walking speed). Suikoden is one of those games you can just tell has a lot of love and ambition behind it. But whether it's a lack of experience, or a lack of budget (Probably both), it can't really reach those heights it shoots for. I did enjoy it though, and it's been great seeing the origins of Eiyuden Chronicle here, and I'm looking forward to Suikoden II, which is supposed to be a big improvement. The Kobolds are wrong though, worst remaster ever.

This first one focuses on @BowserBasher (Top right) and @S.C.G (Bottom Left) And this one involves BowserBasher and me (Top Left)

Mostly because system features like this just feel like extra workload, especially when it only affects one platform. I'll always be reminded of how much Toby Fox didn't want achievements/trophies in Undertale, because it flies in the face of the point the narrative is trying to make, so he made them completely unsatisfying to get. Good on him, I say. I'd rather have a game designed with them in mind, rather then force it on developers.

...I'd play it.

Next free update is expected to be coming out this month. Poncle are saying it'll be the biggest ever. Free update, that is, ain't no way it'll be as big as the Castlevania DLC. Cross-save is also gonna be added then, except for Switch. Cross-save for Switch will be added later, but the free update will still be in March. Also, Online Mode expected to come out later this year.

Does the 'F' stand for Fatal Frame?

So, like I hinted before, sometimes a Pokémon getting banned to Ubers does end up paving the way for another Pokémon to start dominating the Smogon scene. Because if people couldn't use Garchomp in the Gen 4 (Diamond/Pearl) meta, well, they'd just find a new Dragon Powerhouse Pokémon to use. Salamence is one of the Powerhouse Pokémon of the third generation (Ruby/Sapphire). It's Dragon/Flying and definitely has the stats to back up it's Powerhouse title. When Gen 4 rolled around, there were two things holding Salamence back. The first was Garchomp kicking around the place. Dragon types are weak against Dragon moves, and if you would care to remember, Garchomp has a base Speed of 102, so Salamence struggled to outspeed it. It was just begging to be revenge killed by the land shark. The second is that it's movepool was quite limited. That attack stat is nice, but Salamence's strongest physical moves that matched its typing were Dragon Claw (80 Power), and Fly (90 Power). Fly needs a turn to charge up, and despite Salamence being unable to be hit during that time, it just lets your opponent set up or switch Pokémon freely. So Salamence had to rely on it's Sp. Atk, and become the kind of Pokémon that functions as a "Mixed Attacker", one that uses both Physical and Special attacks with coverage moves like Earthquake and Fire Blast. Generally, spreading yourself out like that is difficult to do well. You can only put so many extra points into a Pokémon's stats, which is why most people tend to favour only one of the attacking stats. To be fair, 110 is good, so it's not like Salamence is lacking there. Garchomp was just a more appealing option, but it getting booted from OU wasn't the sole reason for Salamence's rise to glory. It was certainly doing better without Garchomp ruining it's day, it's balanced, but still good, stats made it hard to predict, but that same balanced approach meant that it could be handled with the right approach. And then HeartGold/SoulSilver happened. These Gen 2 remakes, introduced some new moves for Pokémon to learn via various tutors. One of these moves was Outrage, and well, that was the last straw. Outrage is a physical Dragon move that boasts 120 Power, and 100% accuracy. The downsides are that once you use it, you're locked into using Outrage for 2 or 3 turns, and then your Pokémon becomes confused. The benefits outweigh the cost in most scenarios as very few Pokémon can resist Dragon moves. That, combined with the general unpredictablity of Salamence made it a very dangerous Pokémon to deal with. You see, because of it's balanced offensive stats, Salamence can make excellent use of Outrage, but also Draco Meteor (Special attack, 140 Power, 90% Accuracy, lowers the users Sp. Atk stat two stages). Hell, it can even learn moves like Roost to play a more defensive role. That will throw people off! Predict it wrong, and you'll get destroyed, which is very easy to do. Because if it decides to start using Dragon Dance when you were expecting Draco Meteor, well... Sucks to be you. It all proved too much, there were barely any Pokémon that could reliably counter Salamence, and it shut down a lot of typical OU teams, so it ended up following Garchomp into Gen 4 Ubers. But unlike Garchomp, Salamence would actually find itself banned in multiple generations. Not in Gen 5 (Black/White), but the two generations after that. I'm sure most fans can guess why. The Gen 3 remakes, Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire gave Salamence a Mega Evolution. Apart from looking like a croissant, Mega Salamence has absolutely bonkers stats. The general thing with most Mega Evolutions is that it raises the BST of a Pokémon by 100, hence the really good stats across the board. Why they thought giving a Powerhouse Pokémon more stats was a good idea is baffling (It's because of popularity), but a pure stat boost isn't what makes a good Mega Evolution. It tends to be the ability. Normal Salamence has the Intimidate ability, while Mega Evolution changes this to Aerilate. Intimidate: Upon entering battle, the opponent’s Attack lowers one stage. In a Double Battle, both opponents’ Attack are lowered. Aerilate: Increases the power of Normal-type moves by 20%. It then changes those moves to Flying-type. These two abilities gel really well with how Mega Evolution works. Salamence comes in on a physical attacker, lowers their Attack, and then Mega Evolves and uses Aerilate. See, when Aerilate changes a Normal attack to a Flying one, it does become a true Flying type attack, which means STAB also applies! STAB stands for "Same Type Attack Boost". When a Pokémon uses a move that matches it's type, it gets 50% stronger. Multiply that by the 20% Aerilate boost, and that becomes 80%. Thankfully, Salamence can't learn any strong Normal attacks. Oh wait, no. It can learn Double Edge... So Double Edge is 120 Power. 80% of 120 is 96. Which means Double Edge used by Mega Salamence is 216 Power! That's stronger then two Earthquakes! With that sky high Attack stat, and a way to have a Flying type attack that doesn't suck, it wasn't even remotely surprising that it was deemed too powerful for Single Battles and banned to Ubers in those two generations. Fun detail, in Gen 6, Aerilate boosted a move's power by 30% instead. Seems even Game Freak thought it was too powerful. I should point out that Mega Salamence alone was banned in Gen 6 (X/Y) and 7 (Sun/Moon). You were allowed to use normal Salamence, it just wasn't allowed to use the item that let it Mega Evolve. Does that mean it's good in casual play? Much like Garchomp, Salamence is good purely because it's a Powerhouse Pokémon. Assuming you can even get one, mind. The typical trappings with these Pokémon applies here as well. Hard to catch, and hard to train.

Not my best performance, I gotta say.

Player's Choice tonight at 8pm.

I don't think that's purely a Sea of Thieves thing, to be fair. There's a good reason why Nintendo not allowing voice chat with random players doesn't bother me in the slightest.

And they didn't even update it to meet 2025 Kobold Guidelines? Worst remaster ever! Seriously though, that's quite fascinating. Didn't expect it to be both wrong. How very Jurassic Park.

Yeahhhh... I'm gonna pass on that one. That soundtrack is not very good.

Eh, Majora's Mask is better. Oh, you agree? Good.

I believe @Dcubed has that emulator (along with an actual Virtual Boy). It's very impressive. I really should play through Wario Land at some point...

Yeah, pretty much. Just a steady increase of people complaining about it, until there were too many to ignore. It is possible that it might lead to Jirachi becoming uncontested in the OU meta there without Machamp keeping it in check. Funnily enough, the next Pokémon is a good example of that kind of thing, but that will have to wait.

That's some Dynasty Warriors grade accuracy there! Anyway, is it too late to rename the main character Schtolteheim Reinbach IV? Eiyuden Chronicle had a similar joke, so it's nice to see where that idea came from. I've just gotten to the Village of the Elves. Naturally, they're incredibly racist. But I'm certain I can ease tensions by hitting the right people/creatures with a big stick. That's worked so far. And I see Suikoden sides with Golden Sun on the "What the hell is a Kobold, anyway?" debate. Doesn't stop it being very weird, and wrong. Kobolds are reptiles, and that's that.