Glen-i

... Why does the dragon make elephant noises?

I think we have to give best finish to @RedShell for that Isabelle win against my Captain Falcon. For a brief moment, I thought I got the win there.

Fixed that for you.

Stock format tonight. Custom stages from 7:30pm.

Considering how much I love Dancing Mad, it always feels like a bit of a shame that not many games has done the whole "1 song that develops as you progress through each phase of a final boss" thing. Well, you know, except Kirby. Kirby did it. Probably my favourite final boss theme from that series. Although that said, Forgotten Land's "Two Planets Approach the Roche Limit" is a metal as hell name for a song.

Yeah, that's the image they use on the Nintendo site for this. Weird... Wario Land 4 is a 2D platformer that originally released on the Game Boy Advance in 2001. As you probably know, it recently got added to the NSO service, and that's where I revisited it. Archaeologists have discovered and unearthed a solid gold pyramid! It's all over the news, the historical discoveries one could find in there are mind-boggling! Unfortunately, it's all over the news, and Wario found out. He's not the kind of guy who wants to further knowledge, he just wants all of the swag for himself! So he gets in his surprisingly sick car, and goes to rob the place. What a role model! Wario Land 4 differs quite drastically from the previous 2 games in the series. Wario is no longer invincible. This was a selling point, apparently. It also follows a more level based structure compared to the Metroid-esque approach the third game took. Despite having a health meter now, Getting hit by certain enemies won't actually damage Wario, but transform him into a different form, which can be used to solve puzzles and find loot. Each level has 4 parts of some kind of gem to find, as well as some strange key creature called Keyser. You need all of them to reach each boss. But the key thing to note is that in order to finish each level, you have to press some kind of frog statue, which sets off a bomb, forcing you to rush back to the start of the level before time runs out. These escape sequences are probably the most well known aspect of the games, and they're my favourite bit. One thing I also like is how this game handles difficulty modes. I played on Hard mode, and there's a lot of differences from normal. Harder enemies, but also, the gem parts are better hidden, and the time limits to escape are stricter. In fact, a couple of levels even change where the frog statue is just to mess with your expectations. The unlockable Super Hard difficulty is even more ridiculous, but I didn't do that. Anyway, the game is still great. I'm more partial to 3 and 2, mind, but I still enjoy this one. I'm of the belief that Mona from WarioWare was based off of whoever this is.

Well, seeing as you're such a big fan. I guess I will bullet point my thoughts as I go. What's that, minimalist guide? If I go to a place with just Tir (Thanks for the heads up on the canon name, Julius), I can get an orb? That's dumb! Who would grind that much just to... ...Doubles EXP, you say? This actually wasn't too bad, seeing as Tir was getting 6 times the EXP because he was by himself. Did get a few Game Overs at first because mosquitos, but once I reached level 5, it was fine. That FMV intro is very budget. JPEGs! Sliding across the screen! WOOOOOOAHHHH! It's kinda charming, but yeah... That said, if a PS1 RPG's quality was determined by it's opening cutscene, Chrono Cross wouldn't be utter cack! So I'm not worried. Music is off to a strong start. Not heard much, but it's solid so far. Gotta give props to the remaster team, it has scrubbed up nicely. The game looks really good. Not quite as amazing looking as Dragon Quest III, but that's a stupidly high bar. The loading times going in and out of battle are really quick. Very appreciated. It's 30 FPS on Switch, but I've seen no slowdown, so it's perfectly fine for a game like this. The updated portraits look very nice. Normally with these kind of remasters, updating those pictures tends to look off, but these are very high quality. Anyway this is more of a me thing, but I see the option to get out of battles you're overleveled for, and I can't help but think of this dumb meme. Anyway, now I can actually start the game. Maybe I'll resist the temptation to put any and all funny animal people in my team, like in Eiyuden Chronicle. No, I won't...

OI! That's my setup! He just cribbed my style because he realised (rightly) that it's very good!

I do agree with this though, especially the bolded. They use that trick too much for my liking. Legends: Arceus was actually kind of a regression with human animations compared to Sword/Shield, mainly because actual battles with other trainers were such a minor part of the game.

Look, there's a lot of things Game Freak could do to improve the visual aspect of their games, but I think they do a pretty damn good job when it comes to the animations. Taken on their own, a single Pokémon isn't that impressive, but any time any animation is made to fit any mechanic they come up with, they have to do a similar animation for every other Pokémon. Even with modern games not having every Pokémon in them any more, that's still over 400 different models. 400 models that are surprisingly high quality, and have very distinct rigs where Motion Capture can't do the heavy lifting. And that's ignoring the fact that a good 100+ of them will be new for a new generation. Apparently, each new Pokémon can take up to 6 months of work to get the animation done, I can believe that. Now granted, Legends Z-A won't have that many Pokémon, but Arceus still had 242. But then we got to factor in the fact that Mega Evolutions will have to have similar work, seeing as the majority of them haven't been in a game since the 3DS, any new regional variants and new Mega Evolutions will need to have to be done pretty much from scratch. And then after all that? There's the human characters themselves. They've come on leaps and bounds since the 3DS, BTW. From a basic JPEG in X/Y to this. That's some random dude you fight once in the DLC, yet he still has bespoke animations that are just full of character and fun. (Although tossing a Poké Ball like that can't be hygenic...) It's the one visual aspect of Pokémon games that impress me. Just from the sheer scope alone.

OK, now that I'm on the net again, and gotten a good look at the trailers. Does it look like it addresses my issues with Legends? I mean, yeah. No denying it, the battles are absolutely a main focus here. That said, I'm conflicted. I'm not a particular fan of the notion that turn-based fights are something that needs to be left in the past. Final Fantasy has certainly convinced me of that. They only just got decent action gameplay with FF7 Remake. And I very much think Pokémon has one of the best turn-based systems in all of gaming. To ditch that would be a massive shame. Then again, if the Legends series of Pokémon games are the place where Game Freak wants to be experimental with Pokémon, I'd be fine with that. And I'm not against the idea of real time battles. As much as I absolutely loathe Legends: Arceus, the real time Noble Pokémon fights were legit fun! If the game was just that, I would've liked it a lot more. And on the other hand again, I have a sneaking suspicion Pokémon Champions is gonna be used as an excuse to not have turn-based battles in future games. That's likely my pessimism at play here. But well, open-world is in Pokémon games now, so... Yeeaaahhhh... It's hard to go by from the footage, but I get the sneaking suspicion that the Speed stat may be even more overbearing here. Although how it works is yet to be seen. But let me put it this way. From Sword/Shield onwards, Pokémon that follow you around all have different speeds they can run at, it's a nice little attention to detail. Something like Lucario can keep pace with a trainer, but you're gonna leave more sluggish Pokémon like Groudon behind if you run at full pelt. It wasn't an issue, because it's just a cosmetic flourish. But now that the speed at which a Pokémon can move at can actually help them avoid attacks? Well, you saw that Hippowdon. That thing can't dodge an attack to save it's life... Literally! Another kind of issue that's become apparent is the size of Pokémon. Yes, humongous Pokémon like Onix have been downsized a bit, but it's still a massive target. Nothing short of a complete reworking of every Pokémon's base stats can stop this being a complete mess, balance-wise. And considering this will almost certainly be compatible with HOME, I doubt that's happening. Also related, what even is the downside of switching Pokémon mid-battle? It was so instant, I can't see one! Arceus had this same issue, just send out whatever Pokémon is strong against yoiur opponent, why wouldn't you? Impossible to tell yet. It doesn't look hopeful though with the new battle system. Also impossible to tell. Well, at least Stealth Rock works like I'd expect it to. But at least if this game has few moves compared to the mainline games, it has a viable excuse this time. My above concerns about Speed still applies though. If there aren't abilities, then Pokémon will likely be rendered pointless by other Pokémon with the same type just having better Speed. I hope this doesn't happen here, but the extended look trailer did provide a ray of hope here. I'll get into that in a bit. As you can imagine, I'm very OK with how Wild Zones work. Lumiose City looks so much more intricate then anything in Arceus. Jury's still out on how many buildings you can actually go into. They didn't even mention the Pokédex this time, so who the hell knows how this will even work? For all I know, it might not even be a thing here. As long as it's not just pointless busywork to get a page filled. Ugh... It would still have that boring method of capture, wouldn't it? I'm baffled why people say this is a good change. On the plus side, it seems like actually battling the Pokémon first is going to be an unequivocally more reliable method of capture, so at least you're not gonna be punished for battling in a Pokémon game. BTW, a thing I neglected to mention that I hate in Arceus was the items. The game had limited item space in your bag for stupid reasons, and crafting mechanics suck. Remains to be seen if this is the thing here. You'd think the more modern setting would mean this won't have it, but that didn't stop crafting ruining TM's in Scarlet/Violet... So I'm coming out of these trailers more hopeful for the game then I was before. Not really sold yet, though.

OH SNAP! The Donkey Kong game that ends with "4" just got shadow dropped! I totally called it happening before that other game. Also shout out to Mario's Picross and it's terrifying first 6 seconds of the title screen!

Me when I realised this could be possible. Me when I transferred my Fissure Machamp to the 3DS games. As much as I'd like to believe Game Freak copped on to that, it's far too specific of a case. No other Pokémon truly benefits from the bizarre TM's Gen 1 has. I think it's more likely that they made every Virtual Console Pokémon have it's hidden ability as a kind of benefit, and this was just a happy accident. Ironically, now you can actually get an item that changes a hidden ability back to a normal one, but the moves a Pokémon can learn are dictated by the game it's used in now. So a Machamp with Fissure will forget the move in a Switch title.

Before our next Pokémon, I just want to point out the absolutely impeccable timing of me making this thread about a month before Pokémon Champions was revealed. Anyway, here's a Pokémon that probably won't be much good there. Yes, Machamp. No, I'm not messing with you. Everyone's favourite "Totally not wearing clothes" Pokémon is only allowed in the same tier as Wobbuffet and Garchomp! I bet some of you are surprised. I certainly was when I found this out. You see, Machamp is a very interesting case of the common Pokémon getting banned to Ubers, because it only just got banned to there in the Gen 4 (Diamond/Pearl) metagame two months ago! Why? Well, if you're knowledgeable about some of the tools Machamp has access to, you can probably hazard a guess. Because let me tell you, it's not because of it's stats. That Attack stat is great, but it hasn't got the speed to back it up, and it's middling defensive stats means it can't take too many hits. So what gives? How can a lame Pokémon like this be deemed as overpowered as the likes of Garchomp? Well, there's precisely two reasons. The first is it's ability, No Guard. No Guard: The accuracy of all moves known by this Pokémon and all Pokémon targeting this Pokémon raises to 100% So this ability is an interesting double edged sword. A lot of powerful moves usually have the downside of having a chance of missing. No Guard ignores that chance of missing, as well as any attempts at raising evasion. It works both ways, though. Every move will hit Machamp if it has this ability. A few Pokémon have this ability, but they're not considered so overpowering, so what makes Machamp so special? Well, it can learn Dynamic Punch... Dynamic Punch is a physical Fighting type move that has 100 power (Fire Blast has 120 power in Gen 4, for comparison) that guarantees the target will become confused if it's hit. The downside is that it also has a ropey 50% accuracy. It's essentially a coin flip for it to hit. But well, Machamp here seems to have found a double-headed coin, hasn't it? No Guard means that Dynamic Punch will always hit. A 100 power (Technically, it's 150, due to Machamp being the same type as Dynamic Punch) move that guarantees confusion is a very powerful tool to have. A powerful and positively irritating tool. In the first 6 generations, a confused Pokémon has a 50% chance of hurting itself instead of doing whatever move you told it to do. Confusion can last from 1 to 4 turns before it goes away. It also goes away if you swap the Pokémon out. The only things that can deal with Dynamic Punch shenanigans are Ghost Types (which are immune to Fighting Type attacks), or Pokémon with the Own Tempo ability (Prevents confusion). Everything else has to suck it up, and hope luck favours them, assuming they don't just faint from the sheer force of Dynamic Punch in the first place. Sure, you could swap out, but if you don't have a Ghost Type, and there aren't a lot of good Ghosts in Gen 4, you're just sending another Pokémon to exploding fist hell. But why only Gen 4? Well, Gen 5 (Black/White) introduced a lot of very good Pokémon, which means that Machamp's mediocre stats were just too much of a detriment. Not helping matters is the fact that confusion got nerfed in Gen 7 (Sun/Moon), so that there's now only a 33% chance of a Pokémon hurting itself. Machamp in Gen 4 is not much more than an effective gimmick strategy that doesn't really reward skill or good strategy. So it's not too surprising to see why it got banned. Does that mean it's good in casual play? It can certainly work, although it's a bit reliant on luck, and assuming you have a way of evolving Machoke with trading. It's more effective in Gen 4-6 before confusion was nerfed, mind. Machamp isn't much good, otherwise.

That's why I asked. I noticed you spin out on the map. Definitely feel bad for you there.

Maybe before my time, I guess. But I feel like Care Bears were a thing in the 90's?

Sorry about the confusion there. Disconnect happened in the middle of the second GP, but we did every track eventually. Speaking of confusion! Here are my clips! Kinda similar to that trick I found in Rosalina's Ice World where you can use a half pipe to take the top path without a mushroom. Was that you, @Ike? Simon's reaction on Voice Chat suggests it was you who threw it. That's some horrendous luck, because it was a masterful throw!

Soooo... Both? Not the answer I was expecting. Good for you!

You're not helping my dilemma!

Not sure if the game is good, or has an easy Platinum...

Icon's nice. 8 out of 10. Found a nice little minimalist guide for the first game that bullet points the important stuff that can be missed without spoiling story stuff, so I'm ready for my next big RPG.

I crowbarred Tony Hawk into Smash, now watch me do it again with Mario Kart! The Booster Course Pass did most of the heavy lifting here, with it bringing Half/Quarter Pipes back. Other then that, there's tracks that give mad air opportunities, and ending with Mario Kart's very own Downhill Jam! See you at 8pm.

It's always funny to me that that's the only level that you can barely make the 10,000 coin threshold, and you have to squeeze every money making technique you can there. As you probably guessed, I also did a Hard Mode playthrough, but I'll talk about that when I'm on a PC.

I think the crown next to "Press Start" signals it, but did you get the gold crowns and the hidden 17th CD?