MindFreak

Perhaps you need to progress the story further to open up more boxes?

I saw in the beginning that there only were 8 pastures. I got really scared that I had to organize everything and find the best versions of the Pokémon, etc. Luckily, they gave me more pastures afterwards. Cheers, only having to see the Pokémon makes the task much more doable.

I have unlocked the final area but have spent some time gathering resources and doing side quests in the earlier regions now. Due to the randomness of some of the stuff, I'm unsure that I want to complete the dex. I do find it fun to roam the lands and catch Pokémon but the tedious nature of getting 10 research points for each species and finding specific Pokémon that spawn rarely and randomly is just not that fun. It's a shame that they still rely on randomness to extend the life of the game but at least it's a lot less random than the main series games. I'm also finding it frustrating that I cannot gather certain materials while riding a Pokémon. Surely that must be an oversight in the game... Or they could make it such that the mount itself can destroy the orange, black, and blue stones or shake trees. Other than that, I find this game very satisfying and relaxing. Do I want a true sequel? Nah, I just want much of the stuff here to drift into the main series games.

What happened with Team17? Edit: Oh. https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/1/22913110/team17-worms-nft-metaworms-gaming-playtonic-overcooked Hadn't read that before. But yeah, NFTs are stupid.

The Kickstarter goal has been met. Not surprising. The game looks solid, and even though it's quite far away, I look forward to seeing more of it.

I don't like catching water Pokémon in this. It's nearly impossible to sneak up on them and it's much harder to actually hit them, I find. And they just want to fight all the time.

Aaah. Here's me thinking that the story is filling the Dex. So just the Galaxy quest then? Those rifts are not to be triffled with! Hot damn, I had a hard time when I went into one the first time, knowing nothing about them.

25 hours is really impressive for a full dex. I'm absolutely sure that I won't make it that fast. I assume you went in and did the story section of an area to get the Mount and then scoured the area afterwards? I'm at 17 hours and have just unlocked the third area. My Pokémon are around level 40. I haven't spotted a single shiny except for the one from an early side quest.

Ouch. Those rifts are not easy! Got a couple of rare catches but almost blacked out so had to run. And that satchel is just too small and it's ridiculously expensive to expand it beyond 5 extra spaces. I also really fast run out of materials for crafting PokéBalls.

Poison no longer sticks after the fight. That's nice. I didn't have an antidote anyway. I could do with a litlte more overworld music. Sometimes there is simply none. Also, regarding sound, isn't the sound when collecting materials the same as in BotW?

I've been put to sleep. My Pokémon got drowsy and a Zubat actually put me to sleep. I'm having fun with the game but I fear it's too big for its own good. It will most likely get repetitive after the first 20 hours or so.

Yeah, you can even just defat them enough times in battles, though merely catching them will be good enough in the long run. Found a Chimchar standing by a tree, threw a cake for it but then my two heavy balls dropped right in front of it so it ran. It hasn't respawned. Also went looking around for another Eevee but couldn't find it. It's a tad frustrating that it still depends on sheer luck if you find a Pokémon or not. Oh, and the first Noble Fight? Not at all as tedious and long as the gameplay trailer made it seem. It actually went pretty quick.

Yeah, I played Ocarina of Time with an English dictionary by my side, 10 years old. Taught me a great deal of English but even before that I was more interested in the language than my class mates simply because I needed it to be able to play games. But voice acting with text boxes is surely the best of both worlds? The introduction in PLA really feels like a drab, the characters just stand there, moving their mouths. It could be much more lively with a bit of voice over at least. Generally, I think introduction in games has become less boring over the years so when they are old-school like this, it really feels off. Also... the way the NPCs walk in this game looks so silly. They have bent knees and straight upper bodies, arms barely swinging.

Once you are set free from the shitload of text boxes, the game is actually quite fun. It has the same kind of discovery as for instance Pokémon Go - you see something in a not too far distance (the draw distance is a bit short) and get excited when you discover that it's an Eevee for instance. You try to sneak up on it, but it discovers you and runs. Once it's running, it's nigh impossible to catch it! The areas are very big, perhaps 10 % too big. I also wonder how this region turns into the Sinnoh region in just a matter of 200 years. There are no settlements at all. The people living in Hisui have migrated from other regions (one NPS mentioned Hoenn) just a couple of years before the events of the game and yet, they don't know much about Pokémon. It's a weird universe. And despite them saying that no one is able to catch three Pokémon in a row, you see "plenty" of people with Pokémon that can fight you. I think the world building is a bit inconsistent. But it's still fascinating. It was furthermore confirmed that it's the Pokémon themselves that know how to shrink and fit inside the Pokéball. Not the Pokéball making them shrink. You have to investigate each Pokémon until you get 10 points to finalize the Pokédex entry. You get points for catching them but also defeating them, seeing them do a specific move, or evolving them. Doing more than this can reward you with money that you spend on upgrades, materials, and clothing. I was afraid of running out of Pokéballs but materials for crafting them are plenty and you can craft anywhere you want.

This game is not for small kids. XD I just went through the first hour of the game and it is just text box after text box! Then we are finally let free in the first wild area and boy, I got attacked a lot. I then let my 4 y.o. son take the controller as he has been going on and on during the introduction "Is it my turn now? Can I play now?" (there was literally no real playing during that time) and he went straight into some angry Pokémon and almost got himself killed (or black out'ed).

Yeah. But that way, every player would have more or less the same Pokémon. I guess what we really want is one version of the main game and then Pokémon Stadium where you can use the Pokémon you just collected in a ranked battle system. Or to make it more accessible, just have a Pokémon Stadium inside the main game where you take part in a series of battles. Which we had a couple of versions ago? (The battle subway and the battle frontier and the like, if I'm not mistaken). I just found that the entry for these "tournaments" where a bit too hard to find so I never really got started. It would also require knowledge about IVs and EVs but I guess that is made more accessible in the later games at least.

But how would the battle version work? How do you get the right Pokémon for battling without going out of your way to collect them? This way, the adventure version would be the main version and battling would be DLC... I do like the split, though, and I kind of wish they would ditch the dual release as it's not very consumer friendly and with online trading collecting the Pokémon from the other version has become trivial. --- The guy running the website I work for has got the game (physically) for me at his office so once my son wakes up, I'm going to bike there to pick it up. Looking forward to it!

That was a reassuring read. I am starting to really look forward to the game though I still fear the world being a bit too empty with nothing but fetch quests to do.

Finished Hawkeye yesterday. It was a good show, not outstanding but the overall story was enjoyable and I liked the humour in general, Kate Bishop was actually quite funny. The story was a tad confusing and I found the main villains to be less terrifying than I would have expected.

Ah crap. Couldn't avoid corona virus anymore now, my son got a positive test yesterday. So now my wife has to work from home and I have to take care of both kids for the next week. We got the booster vaccine two weeks ago so we are protected. My son has a fever and coughs a little but other than that is fine. My other son turns 1 today and thus, we had to cancel his birthday celebration on Sunday. Too bad but luckily we helt something last weekend.

Oh. Then I won't call it Hawkeye, that's for sure. He's fast. Still going with it, I like stealth stuff as well. And yeah, it's probably got a regional form.

I'll go with Rowlet as I like Decidueye. It looks cool, shoots arrows, and is part Ghost type! It's also not as slow as the usual grass types which is nice.

Ah, not this Friday - the Friday it comes out. Nintendo doesn't distribute review copies before release to smaller vendors anymore - they are afraid of leaks. (Oh, the irony)

I think this is because they aim at worldwide launches nowadays. In order for that to succeed, they probably send out the games earlier than before.

Normally I would be frustrated, why does this keep happening? But with this, I really miss previews so hopefully I can now catch a decent preview of the game. I'll be getting the game on Friday anyway as I'll be reviewing it but I would really like to know what I'm going into before then.