Glen-i

Player's Choice tonight at 8pm.

On one hand, YES PLEASE! On the other hand, I wonder how it would work without touch controls, especially if it's a port.

Doesn't mention anything about fixing the single RNG seed issue with multiplayer battles... Granted, I won't be ready for competitive battling for ages due to my more meandering progress then usual, but I hope that's fixed by the time I'm ready.

You need to be more like me. Doubling up on types don't matter, because Pokémon is easy enough that you can get away with it with some decent strategy. My current team struggles with Dark types, but I don't care! Your other point though, the funny thing is that if you were to tackle each task in order of level, you'd find the difficulty curve to be actually pretty good. Once I started following this map, I found my team to be on around equal level to my opponents. You see the problem though, right? Some of these placements are incredibly counter-intuitive. That level 27 place actually barricades your path to the level 24 place. Luckily, my Koraidon could swim, so I could get around that. My cousin, meanwhile, got sidelined by the level 44 Titan because she went Pokémon hunting in the desert, where the Pokémon were around level 28-ish. And don't even get me started on why Level 45 is all the way down there. Currently, we're up to our 12th badge, which means level 44 Titan is next, but I imagine most people choose east or west at the start, work their way up, and then grind whenever a level jump occurs, which leaves them vastly overleveled for half of the badges they eventually have to return to.

Yes! That's it! That's where I've seen that face before. I knew it reminded me of something. Thank you!

Don't tempt fate... I imagine Koopas are easier to emote with, seeing as they, you know, have arms and legs.

I mean, the eyes are different. I think the head shape is different as well? It's not a massive redesign. In fact, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say it is a redesign, really. Other characters in the movie look more drastic in difference, honestly. I prefer the current game one anyway.

I had my suspicions confirmed when New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe happened. Toadette picks up a crown stuffed with magic power, and just happens to transform into a Peach-like entity? Yeah, it's magic. Magic that makes her look like that. Except Toadette gets a temporary artificial burst of magic, similar to how Mario uses it, while Peach and Bowser's is hereditary.

It's an elegant form of natural selection, really. Either that, or being able to use magic without magic wands warps your bodily proportions over time... I haven't quite figured that out yet... BTW, before anyone asks, Daisy isn't a Toad, she's a normal person. Sarasaland is a whole different thing. They have planes!

She's a big, deformed, massive Toad. Just like Bowser is a big, deformed, massive Koopa. Why do you think he's into her?

A Toad? Why do you think she rules them all?

Can't help but notice that half of those spoilered images has the "character folds arms and looks sassily at the camera" thing that kids movie promotion loves to do. I hate that I've had that pointed out to me ages ago, because now I see it everywhere.

Yeah, and in the past two generations, there's been a way to get both. Sword/Shield gave away the other legendary via Mystery Gift. Meanwhile in Sun/Moon, you can get the unevolved version of the cover legendary. Trade that to someone with the opposite version and have them evolve it to get you both. And going by the fact that H-o-T posted something. I'm gonna guess that pattern continues.

The thing that's changed since then is online compatibility. It's not even remotely difficult (and a lot cheaper) to find someone online with the opposite version to you to trade those version exclusives. Hell, the past two generations have even provided methods to get the other cover legendary without trading yours away. Getting both version's exclusives is so much easier then it was in the 90's.

But no matter how you went about it, it was still multiple times longer then every other Pokémon game. The game was a glorified version of Pokémon GO with a tacked on battle system. PLA does a few things right, don't get me wrong, but I imagine both games being developed around the same time is why some of the QoL stuff didn't carry over to this game. Will be interesting to see what stuff will be brought over to the next mainline game after this.

Catching one Pokémon is slower then PLA. But actually filling in the Pokédex is about 20 times quicker. Catch a Pokémon in most games, and you get the Pokédex entry, but in PLA, you'd have to catch 20 of them and see it perform a specific move 25 times to do the same thing. That actually made me drop the game for months. Ridiculous padding to hide the low amount of Pokémon. I also think Sca/Vi handles learning new moves better. Having the option for the game to stop you to tell you your Pokémon can learn a new move is a lot better then how PLA had it quietly happen on the side. I missed a lot of new moves because I didn't notice the tinchy pop-up notification.

Infinite use Flare is totally balanced! What are you on about? But yeah, the bonus dungeons in FF1 Advance completely snap any semblance of balance like a twig. The other advance titles handle their bonus content better, generally being near or after the credits, and being a bit more fleshed out. FF2's is very good, a touching story of 1 man and his redemption arc against a door. And then he's rewarded by getting into Theatrhythm instead of 2 more important characters.

That smacks of Azumarill shenanigans. Is it Azumarill shenanigans?

Had a feeling that would be the case. Oh well. It's the weakest plot of the four games, honestly. Still better then almost every mainline game.

Fair point. This and the previous game really discourages relying on grinding. Level ups aren't the most effective way of getting stronger (Protein and the like is better at that). Item management and careful navigation get you farther then grinding. I've always maintained that this series is not gonna appeal to everyone. But the somewhat more difficult gameplay and surprisingly decent plots fill a nice gap that other Pokémon games don't hit. Speaking of plot... Seeing as you're not planning on tackling the post game stuff, I'm curious if you figured out something.

Well, at least we're definitely getting some kind of patch in the future. Because there's no way in hell that is gonna be kept around. Not with VGC being a thing. Seems like an incredibly amateur mistake that slipped through the cracks because of this rush job.

Had a good chuckle to myself at that sneaky Mega Drive reference.

We're up to 11 badges now. I caved and looked up a map that shows the levels of each of the badges, so I'd have some semblance of where to go next. There's no real rhyme or reason to the level curve in this game, and I kinda hate that. It's moments like the spoiler above that are why I enjoy restricting myself to new Pokémon only. You don't get that sense of discovery if you just stick to what you know in a playthrough.

Yeah, hope you didn't mind some of Dcubed's friends jumping in. They're pretty decent at the game, I suppose.

I dig them a lot. It's more snappy, and the Tera types help to reward Pokémon knowledge. Sure, that Tera bug type is weak to fire, but you need to be careful that the Pokémon's original type doesn't blindside you. Unfortunately, more often then not, Sword/Shield raids were chockablock with some proper bad Pokémon, so I despair about having to rely with randos if these new raids require more finesse.