#i like that they kept her basic moveset the same

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage Commands - Barrier

#kingdom hearts 0.2 birth by sleep a fragmentary passage #kh0.2 #aqua #commands #my gif #i like that they kept her basic moveset the same #it's cool to see it in hd

[whimsical-westbrook]

Okay yep yeah mhm okay I have woken up twice now to this being real. I'm going to make an intro post to get used to writing with a stylus and without thumbs.

Hello, my name is Lily Westbrook. Hopefully. I don't know how this works. I definitely still go by she/her.

I used to live in Eterna City. I wanted to meet my first ever pokemon buddy, so I went into Eterna Forest last night. Something happened, and I think someone had my phone while I was out?

If I take a photo maybe y'all will believe me, but I'm a Buizel now. Hold on, maybe I ca

[An image is attached.]

[Image ID: A poorly angled selfie of a Buizel, wearing a flower accessory. The Eterna Forest's Old Chateau can be seen in the background.]

n add a photo oh gods why did it put it in the middle like that I'm not fixing that

I still don't know why all my writing is orange. Is it because I'm a pokemon now? Is my phone playing pranks on me is that a thing that can happen

UPDATE: Turns out I'm a girl buizel and this was the best worst thing to ever happen to me. I still don't know if anyone in Eterna City will be able to figure out what happened to me, or if they'll even believe me, but I just. I'm so happy, guys.

Double UPDATE: I kinda feel like how I feel about life is going to keep drifting away from the tone of my original intro post but like. It feels weird to make a new one so I'mma just... leave it like that I think. For now. Important note: I'm no longer in Eterna, but headed to live in Goldenrod.

Triple UPDATE: I was able to figure out why my text was getting orange'd, and also was told that it was messing with some people's ability to read things I wrote, so I was able to apply that fix to the text. Though uhhh. I'm still leaving that mess in there. It's funny to me.

//OOC under the cut

//Hello! This is Astra (she/they) from my main (NSFW) @astralikacastle. This is a character I've had in my head for a long time, though my kinda fucked up brain doesn't quite know where to take it after the prologue.

//But basically, forever in my head I've had 'what if someone got turned into a pokemon and they had to deal with that and how it made them feel about gender' and now it's here. =3

//I do prommy to try to keep this blog as SFW as possible, though where the line between Mildly Suggestive and NSFW lies isn't always the same for everyone (especially with how Tumblr's been treatin' trans folk lately) so I'm not making guarantees, just promises to try.

//I should like. Keep track of Lily's 'inventory' huh

Lily's old human clothes

Buizel-sized Ballgown

Comm-Everstone Choker (See Below) (Worn)

Phone (obviously)

Book about Legendaries for Studying

Flexi-grip phone tripod

Poffins and berries

Trans flag bandana (Worn)

Hoopa-Ring-Alike Bracelets (Worn)

Thigh-highs (didn't decide on a pattern for these oops) (Worn)

Lily-flower pin (Worn)

Pink Ribbon (Worn under above pin)

Sunglasses! B3

Sylvie (Sylveon Plush)

Toki (Togekiss Plush)

Blahåj (Blahåj)

6" Buizel Plush!

JigglypuffPikachu Hybrid Plush!?

Large pink bag (where plush friends live) w/ Waterproofing

Waterproof Backpack (Where non-plush non-worn items live)

Wheely-Cart (Where everything rides on) w/ Floaty

Weighted Blanket

Keychains (Mew, Meloetta, Hoopa, Victini, Celebi, Darkrai, lotus)

Box o' Buizelnip (Lovingly referred to as Bui-Weed)

Always kept in Lily's room at Gen's home:

Figurine of Lily and Gen

Buizel-sized Piano

//And her moveset!

Protect

Agility

Water Gun

Surf

Baton Pass

Rain Dance

Aqua Jet

Aqua Ring [Glitch?]

Thief

Minimize [Glitch!]

ABILITY: Rattled

//What is the Comm-Everstone?

The Comm-Everstone is an Everstone, small enough to act as the 'gem' of a choker, and enchanted by Laplace to duplicate the effects of a sci-fi Translator. The stone translates Lily's buizel-chitter Poke-Speech and emits an ethereal voice that repeats her words in Human Speech. Whichever voice the listener best understands is brought to the forefront of their perception, preventing any 'cross-talk' from obscuring her words. Notably, it is still quite obvious to the listener that these words are being translated, and not simply Imparting Understanding. (Though, it being magic may be a little unsettling, still.)

#pokeblogging intro post #//I legit don't know what to tag this hahaa #//also I was legit about not knowing what else to put on this post for info! #//I remembered to update this a few times! #//now including readable text!

[crystalelemental]

Alright, time to snack worthily. I've got all the solo quests in Violet done, and can't do the group quests because I refuse to pay for internet. Violet has some excellent ones I really want, including Latias, Spectrier, and Lunala.

Alright so I caught Latias in like three Luxury Balls, which is staggering, but apparently they don't have three capped stats anymore? For what reason?

They gave Kyogre Aqua Ring. You absolute fucksticks. Thankfully sleep and Dive Ball got the job done but UUUGH.

Have to wait for night time for Lunala and Spectrier. So I went for Kubfu instead, and holy shit this thing is annoying. Level 30, so much weaker than the others and I can't punch it, and it knows Detect and Scary Face for no real reason other than stalling out my Spiky Shield on Chesnaught so the damage doesn't happen. Annoying. Easy enough to handle once we get to Noctowl though.

Cobalion then decided to be a shitheel, and ran super long. We did catch it as it shifted to night, but ugh. Nuisance.

Spectrier, as it turns out, is the worst creature in the world. Thrash so it confuses itself, and Double Edge so recoil. The first attempt failed because I didn't account for literally the stupidest approach ever. The second attempt went way better, because I knew its moveset and to just bring Gengar, who is immune to its Normal moves and can both Hypnosis and Night Shade chip.

Then we get to Lunala, who thankfully knows Phantom Force for Rocky Helmet Chesnaught strats, and has Dream Eater but no sleep moves for maximum comedy. Pretty simple clear once we got Noctowl into position.

Day is back, on to Terrakion. We caught it like second Ultra Ball. Sometimes miracles are real.

Zekrom apparently has mostly special moves for no reason, which is very exciting for my friend Chesnaught here. In fact, Fusion Bolt isn't contact. So Rocky Helmet just outright does not work. On the plus side, this means Vileplume is fair game.

Lugia is mercifully in the water, which means Dive Ball. I just think it looks nice, and it's really effective as an option. Took a bit, Recover is a problem, but we got it.

Virizion is up next. It immediately double Swords Danced which means Close Combat OHKOs Noctowl, unfortunately. Since my only other Sleep options are Grass, we're left to do without. It's thankfully night now, so Dusk Ball pog gaming.

Moltres is in the desert. Meaning it can die if the weather becomes Sandstorm. So that's fucking great. So the second time through I had to keep its HP high to avoid calamity, but that means it's super rough getting it to just not break out. Noctowl saved it.

Zapdos is thankfully stupid inaccurate, so you'd think this would be easy. Instead, it was one of the hardest to catch because it just kept breaking out, and perfectly used Detect on my Sleep Powder attempts, running out PP.

Finally, Articuno. As I've said many times, Articuno is my favorite of the original bird trio, I love this thing to death. Even if it is, essentially, ass garbage. What I'm saying is, I absolutely tried to catch it in a Luxury Ball. It took a while, but it worked.

Then we do the Perrin quests. There's basically nothing there. Perrin shows you the photos, you go find them, you show her them, she snaps a picture, the end. It's kinda boring.

So with that, everything in Violet is complete. I need to get the trades with the BB League, since those seem to be a daily adjustment. Which. Great, I guess. That'll take time. Same with trying to get Alolan Golem out of a raid. Fingers crossed that'll work out soon.

#pokemon violet #legendary hunt

[sir-adamus]

Me upon rewatching Taiyang's lesson with the suspicion that the show has been flagrantly ignoring his "advice" in terms of "what if you miss/weak and tired" since Yang's character short in Vol 5: "You were predictable in using your semblance in the Doubles/Single" The Single which was bluntly a white room match with no environment and down to weapons, skills and semblances was predictable? Also the fight with team FNKI? Predictable? Are we sure he actually watched the matches?

yeah in the FNKI fight, Yang losing her temper allowed her to vent her built up frustration and refocus - after which she changed tactics from trying to hit Neon to breaking up the arena to destabilise and separate her opponents and pick them off one by one (and her Semblance is a strength boost, which wasn’t helpful at all in that situation as breaking up the arena was solely achieved with her gauntlet shots, and she took out both of her opponents with her gunfire as well - hell she tried punching them and when that didn’t work because they kept dodging she took them out with gunfire). what’s that, changing tactics mid-fight after figuring out what works and what doesn’t (something she has done consistently since the bloody Yellow trailer; adapting to her opponents moveset and changing things up)? sounds to me like that’s finding another way around

and them dodging her punches also neatly answers Taiyang’s stupid hypothetical of “what if you miss?”, because we’ve seen time and again that it literally doesn’t matter, she just keeps going, she doesn’t lose the power-up. the only time Yang has actually burnt out her Aura charging her Semblance is also the one time she has deliberately taken an attack to charge up, against Adam, after this idiotic and vague “advice” from her father who clearly wasn’t paying attention (which plays into her theme of her being judged on surface level reads because no one’s looking deeper, especially from the guy who neglected her as a child and very clearly doesn’t know her all that well - i mean fuck, he kept comparing her to Raven and volume 5 showed they’re nothing alike, as well as calling her out for “stubbornness”, a character flaw she literally pointed out in volume 2 as something that nearly got her killed in the past and had already worked on to avoid the same thing happening again), the winning move against Adam there was literally directly against what Taiyang told her to do

and yeah, the Mercury fight, like, the fuck else was she supposed to do against an opponent that’s directly in front of her, using AOE homing attacks? teleport away at the last second and not get hit because she’s DEFINITELY got that power, right Tai? not use the strength boost that she gets accordingly, that does not at all change the way she fights because, once again, she has always adapted and learned her opponents moves during her fights with them?

also “find another way around” only works if there is another way around - sometimes the situation doesn’t give you that many options; like the one Yang lost her arm in that he was implied to be talking about (which is some victim blaming bullshit honestly), Yang didn’t have the time or the emotional distance (because she’s not a goddamn soulless machine, and she was already exhausted and on edge from the last 24 hours since the Mercury fight being emotionally exhausting - what with being framed for assault and then finding out she’d been lied to for years about Raven’s whereabouts and what she’d been up to in the intervening years - and then having to fight her way through the school) or any idea of what she was dealing with (so no way of knowing what Adam could do) to come up with “another way” of stopping Adam from hurting Blake again; charging him directly gets his attention on her and away from Blake

it was never an issue of how Yang fights (also just wanna point out that Taiyang is the moron who trained her, so if she’s fighting “wrong”, it’s his fucking fault for doing a bad job in the first place - like, what, did he purposefully not address this before, as a joke?), her real problems were always the emotional trauma she went through and Taiyang did fuck all to help on that score (and basically seemed to be avoiding the problem altogether; a habit his kids have replicated and is basically central to both their issues right now, though in different ways. Yang avoids talking about her issues but Ruby outright buries them) - it wasn’t until she was on another goddamn continent that she opened up about any of it, to someone else

#rwb/y #grundpfeiler #the fact that people act like Yang's success against Adam by fighting smart was achieved because of her idiot father is so grating because #a) she has ALWAYS been a smart fighter #and b) she literally did the exact opposite of his ridiculously general and vague 'advice'

[retphienix]

I Have A Lot To Say So I'll Read More This.

The short of it?

I'm glad I played Joker- I played it because I wanted to know how DQM evolved when it reached the DS and I got my answer.

It's mediocre. Not bad exactly, I enjoyed playing it, it adds some REALLY appreciated features to the DQM series and if you were playing it at release it had online play which plays well with the post game content which I haven't touched by the time I wrote this:

-but there are some engine/console specific things that made it a drag and there are some parts of the game that are just weaker than the previous games which is amusing since the previous games were simple GBC titles.

And finally, I don't really recommend playing through Joker 1. Can't speak on the sequels, but Joker 1 was a pretty middling experience for me so I'm the wrong person to get a positive recommendation from.

And since the opportunity presents itself: If you like monster RPGs and haven't tried it- go emulate Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 for the GBC, it's really good and also if you emulate you can fast forward the GBC era grind if that's your taste- really a win all around.

On to my rambling:

I debated on writing, rewriting, rewriting, and better presenting my thoughts on this game and the series as a whole but nah, Joker ain't getting that, I'm ramblin'- lol

I will split it slightly between "The ending" and "The game as a whole" though.

Ending:

1:07 - This is slightly a 'game a a whole' thing but honestly it's funny to me that you unlock a permanent repel in this game by doing the main quest. I entered this dungeon feeling strong enough to beat the game, so I just avoided 90% of encounters entirely.

5:00 - I genuinely got a laugh out of Sparkpug's whole deal in this finale. Not story wise, that's fine, no complaints- I mean that Sparkpug is clearly built to be a monster that can carry an ineffective team. He's clearly meant to be bred a few times and a god tier member of a potentially inexperienced player's team- but I literally never used him after the intro.

So during this scene it's supposed to be like "I'm a demi-god monster, you can't possibly beat me" and I'm thinking "Dude, you're like level 10 and shit tier, you can't win, this is hilarious."

Obviously it's a real boss fight and not 'face the monster you once had' but I was having fun roasting him behind the scenes of this recording.

45:00 - What an entirely unexpected change of pace.

Like, I had it spoiled for me by a screenshot that Dr. Snap becomes a monster or something- but I thought maybe he was always a monster or something, and also I got a bad look at him.

HE TURNS INTO A BODY HORROR BEAST, THAT'S NUTS.

Genuinely a highlight of the game.

52:00 - I fucking laughed what a meaningless exchange where the payoff is saying "He was stupid!", it's honestly just silly and dumb but not necessarily bad just dumb lol

55:00 - Not a great 'you won' victory lap. Like at all. Kinda feels like they should have just made this all a cutscene where I appear back at town and see that Solitaire is the leader now etc etc.

I kinda don't understand why it's a victory lap at all? Because all anyone says is "They picked a weird successor to Snap >:(" or "Snap went to the island? I bet he was stopping the calamity :)"

If you have 2 lines of dialogue prepared, maybe don't make a victory lap???

1:00:00 - What a fucking stupid payoff lol

Like sincerely, Solitaire does NOTHING the entire game! She's meaningless from start to finish! And the 'surprise' is that she's the new commish??? And she got the position because she's a rich spoiled brat??? Like LITERALLY that's why????????

What a stupid fucking ending lol

Now her proposed evolution of the contest is fair enough, I mean it's childish as hell, but to be fair- more contests is a fine idea especially since prior games and this game demonstrated the public's interest in watching monster fights. And the goal being to fight her as the final fight is fucking egotistical and stupid- BUT- it does play into the fact that the player didn't get to fight her the whole game so it's whatever?

1:03:00 - This is both the best and worst lol.

This game has no story, like at all, it's fucking empty front to back, and only explodes with like- 1 event at the very end.

This moment is a montage of memorable moments with your 'best friend' Sparkpug. It's cinematically very nice to be honest! Even includes a moment I don't remember at the arena which probably didn't happen lol.

So visually it's cool- I dig seeing the camera zoom out as we run across the beach, and the flashback moments intersplice over us making our way to the scout memorial- that's very well done.

The content is empty lol

As I said there's no story, these moments are nothing lol

And that's that.

All said the ending was a very nice challenge to face with my team- I had to abuse items like mad but I MADE IT! It was a GOOD fight.

The rest I've already said.

On to the game as a whole:

I have issues with this game, but there's good too. It's really like 4 steps forward 6-7 steps back it's weird, it's really weird.

Positives are neat!

> First and foremost- TRAITS!

Monsters in Dragon Quest Monsters have always had a problem with keeping their identity for long. The way I'd explain it to an outsider to the series is that Monsters DO have special stat variance and intended movesets and all that jazz- but the breeding system completely and entirely destroys that relatively early into the game.

While a monster might normally have really high defense and low other stats while knowing buffing magic- breeding, EVEN UNINTENTIONALLY, will have that same monster come out with 9 billion attack and all ice magic.

Monsters in DQM have a habit of becoming canvases for the breeding effects rather than their own mons- and this is undeniably a downside. It makes the game feel unique, it doesn't 'hurt' it, but when by mid-game monsters are more easily identified as sprites rather than strengths and weaknesses or even types (family) it's a slight downer on the series.

Traits fix this a lot by making every specific monster have unchangeable traits which offer things like "immunity to x type of damage" or "higher crit chance"- it's small, but it gives each monster more identity.

> Second and secondmost- SKILLS!

The older games didn't use trees, it used each individual spell as a potential pass on during breeding.

Each monster could have 8 spells, and when you breed two monsters you pass on all 16 spells to the offspring (they don't learn them all at once, they learn them as they level up) as well as the natural spells the monster would learn by level up.

So in the older games it is really easy to end up with a refined and overpowered list of 8 spells on each of your monsters.

Now spells are tied to Skill trees and your monsters can have 3 skill trees total (which are passed on as OPTIONS when breeding).

All to say skills do a lot for removing the "Master of all, weakness of none" spell lists that the older games made trivial to make, now you have to limit your builds and be more specialized- also they added skills like "Attack up" to add more variance to a build- instead of having spells you might just have high stat buffs as skill trees.

Overall I think Skills are an improvement because coupled with Traits it makes each monster feel much more specialized and unique and less like a sprite with no identity.

> Breeding is improved.

This is very much because of skills and traits- again- but also the system is just improved in general. Instead of being told "That's a monster you haven't had before!" and judging your decisions based on the name of the offspring breed, now you get to see a small sprite of the resulting monster to help you decide- ALSO instead of getting 1 result for every combo (to the point where you have to back out and choose Monster A + Monster B and Monster B + Monster A as separate options), you now get up to 3 results to pick between for every breeding opportunity.

It's just better.

> The engine is impressive.

At least to me. This is a DS title using (from what I read) a rework of the DQ8 PS2 game's engine- it certainly looks like it.

Combat models are nice, using moves looks nice, overworld exploration looks nice- it looks nice.

Now for some negative and general nonsense- all of which is more often than not 'weird'.

> I gotta be unfair and say "The Story" first and foremost.

DQM 1 and 2 are not intense story games. They aren't.

But they both knew how to handle their story well for what they wanted to tell, I can and will praise both for their narratives because they know what they are and do it well.

DQM:J does not. It's fucking bad.

Basically: The overall story doesn't exist- you're told to be a spy, but that comes up 1 time towards the end of the game and LITERALLY doesn't matter at any other moment INCLUDING the one time it comes up.

You have NO meaningful objective from the start up until near the end of the game. You show up and have no goal- so you get told to get some crystals with no meaning behind it (not even a lie because they are clearly evil- not even a lie to motivate you! NO MEANING IS PRESENTED! JUST DO IT! TO DO THE CONTEST I GUESS! WHY? SHUT UP!)

So 90% of the game time you're not doing anything meaningful. So what about the islands? Any small narratives to keep things moving?

NO!

NOT AT ALL!

So you go 90% of the game having no real objective, just kinda wandering forward mindlessly- and then the game suddenly goes "Oh! Guy who seemed sus! He's evil! He's gonna unleash the calamity that you were 'kinda but not directly' working towards with your dog! You know, that plot point that's kept vague and paid 0% attention to the entire game? Yeah it's happening! Aaaaand you're done! GG!"

Basically there's just nothing going on in this game, it's all background noise until the last 10% of the game. And that's lame.

DQM1 had a light story- but from the very intro cutscene you have a clear objective which makes every action you do seem relevant as you are working towards that goal.

From the start of the game you know "My sister is gone! The king says a magic wish can get her back! I'll go do that!" and then you do!

DQM2 has a much better story!

You have a goal from the start (The kingdom is physically dying and you have to save it by getting a new plug!) AND it has stories for each world you visit!

THAT'S MILES BETTER! THIS GAME COULD HAVE DONE THAT FOR THE ISLANDS!

Anywho. Story is lacking and empty and lame especially when DQM2 has a similar format but does every part better- you have a clear objective you're working towards AND side stories to keep the light narrative moving!

WTH!

The spy plotline doesn't matter! It could have been used to build suspicion on who's the good guy!

The islands are so empty of story!

DQM2 has a fun mix on how a rival character works which makes every world interesting to see how they get involved!

This game has a rival that does NOTHING!!!!!!!!!

It's just such a step back from the previous games, it's weird to see DQM 1 land a solid simple story and DQM 2 build a great format to expand the story going forward- and then DQM:J just slams its head into the dirt and wipes out.

> Game's slow.

The engine switch is a good thing overall, but it makes combat slower (a lot), adds loading screens to combat (primarily), and they didn't bother speeding up the grind from previous games.

Because of the grind still existing which isn't a problem in and of itself- the game becomes SLOW AS HELL because the engine makes that grind take longer.

Also world exploration is slow which is to be expected when moving from 2d to 3d, but this is countered by adding things to the world to find or do- and Joker tries but it's still noticeable. The world exploration isn't a problem, it just stands out alongside the combat being slow as hell.

The engine change was a great thing- but it feels like they should have put more work into speeding up combat to counter the slowdown of load times and flashy animations.

A GOOD WAY TO FIX THAT MIGHT BE XP!

> Music ain't great in my opinion.

DQ has amazing music. This game has some weak renditions in my opinion. The CELL HQ theme song is a pretty good poster child for the worst there is, but just in general even the better music is lacking compared to the chiptunes of the GBC or the better mixes of the main series.

Maybe it's unfair, it's a DS game, I don't know, I just know I ended up just muting most of the game because it didn't sound great. I played the GBC games OSTs instead for a large portion of my playthrough. I listened to videos instead for the bulk of the game.

It's just not pleasant to me, sorry to say.

> XP!!!!!!!

I'm being a spoiled ass on this but yeah!

XP SUCKS IN THIS!

There aren't good placed to grind until you beat the game! (apparently)

The first level blatantly has too low xp which makes you grind before you can tackle the boss of the island- and the late game has you mindlessly grinding low xp rewards in order to be ready to face the final boss.

It's WEIRD!

Why is it so low!

> Tech is weird!

I could ramble on this alone but here's the short version:

DQ has a unique fantasy world aesthetic that each game has explored in its own way. It's basically "swords, magic, monsters, and charm- things feel light but aren't afraid to get scary sometimes :)"

This game... doesn't.

This game has fuckin' tech watches, jet skis, TOWER PCS????

This ISN'T dragon quest on a world building level.

It's like, contemporary modern world but with slimes.

And that could be good I guess, but it feels so fucking weird to see PCs right alongside swords and axes and a dracky.

Like... why?

It's a poor aesthetic according to my tastes. Maybe I'm an ass for that. The tech is weird.

All to say, in a poor rambling "I gotta get this out of me" kinda way, is Joker was fine.

I enjoyed breeding. I enjoyed seeing the engine. I enjoyed the unique additions like a 'hero monster'.

But I also had to grind mindlessly on a slower game.

I had to endure a story that forgot to show up until the very end.

I sat there thinking about replaying the older ones the whole time.

It was fine.

It's mediocre.

I'm glad I played it.

I'm done now :)

#RetPlays #Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker #Dragon Quest #Dragon Quest Monsters #Dragon Warrior Monsters #DQM #DWM #DQM:J #DS #Nintendo

[scoutception]

Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim review

After the release of Ys II, and the conclusion of the original story of the Ys games, the series went through a bit of a rough period, as the next three entries were, less than ideal. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys changed the gameplay from the topdown, bump combat gameplay to a sidescroller reminiscent of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and rather fittingly ended up as the black sheep of the series. Ys IV went back to the bump system, but rather confusingly released as two separate games by two separate developers, neither of them Falcom; The Dawn of Ys by Hudson Soft for the PC Engine CD, and the far inferior Mask of the Sun by Tonkin House for the SNES. Finally, Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand was released for the SNES, by Falcom themselves, and in its attempts to evolve from the bump combat, had become something that barely resembled Ys in gameplay, graphics, or music. While none of these games were outright bad, and The Dawn of Ys in particular is held up as the best of the classic Ys games, the series just couldn’t properly commit to a direction to take the series next, and Falcom put the series to rest after V’s release for a while, barring the Ys I and II Eternal remakes. Finally, though, in 2003, 8 years after Ys V’s release, the series was finally given a new game, one that would finally carve out the evolution of the series’ gameplay, and allow it to confidently continue even to the present day. This is Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim, easily the most important game in the series other than the original two. As for how it pulled it off, and how it holds up, that’s what we’re checking out today. The version I played is the PC version, available through Steam and GOG.

Story: 6 years since the events of Ys I and II, Adol Christin, accompanied by his now long time companion Dogi, has since become a legend throughout the continent of Eresia for his exploits. One day, Adol is reunited with Terra, an ally of his from Ys V, who has since become a member of a pirate crew led by her father, Ladock. Adol and Dogi accompany the pirate crew to investigate the Canaan Islands, a mysterious set of islands surrounded by the Great Vortex, a perpetual vortex that destroys any ship that draws near (basically just the Bermuda Triangle). Unfortunately, the ship is attacked by the fleet of the Romun Empire (no guesses as to who they’re based off of), and Adol is swept into the Great Vortex while saving Terra during the chaos, once again proving Adol should never be trusted to get on a boat. Adol washes up on Quatera Island, which is inhabited by the Rehda, a race of long eared and tailed people who worship the goddess Alma, who is of the same race as the goddesses of Ys. Adol is saved by Olha, the priestess of the Rehda, and Isha, Olha’s little sister, but soon discover that outsiders such as him, several of whom have built a town on a neighboring island, are distrusted by the Rehda, and that leaving the Canaan Islands is impossible due to the Great Vortex. After saving Isha from a strange monster known as a “Wandering Calamity”, however, Adol gains the respect of the Rehda and is gifted a sword made of emelas, a magical ore used extensively by the Rehda. Setting out to the Eresian made town of Port Rimorge and meeting with Raba, a returning ally from Ys I, Adol sets out to discover the secrets of the Canaan Islands and find a way to dispel the Great Vortex, soon encountering three malicious fairies with control over monsters, and a mysterious mercenary named Geis, who seems to know far more about the islands than he lets on.

While it’s actually a pretty unusual plot setup compared to most RPG stories, it’s pretty lacking in execution, simply because the plot just isn’t present for most of the game. By the time the main antagonist, Ernst, makes an appearance, and things besides just running around collecting plot items are happening, it’s just too little, too late, which leaves the ending of the game more than a bit unmemorable. Still, the writing has the typical Falcom charm, and the various NPCs actually have a lot to say over the course of the game, if you care about that sort of thing, like me. There’s not much more for me to say, so let’s just move right on.

Gameplay: Ys VI, as the first 3D game in the series, plays quite a bit different from the games that came before, yet unlike previous games, finally makes it feel like a proper evolution from the original duology, though it’s actually based heavily on Ys V. The bump combat is gone for good, with Adol now having a dedicated attack button, along with a jump button for some rather meager platforming. Adol’s moveset isn’t very impressive at first, only consisting of a 3 slash combo, a jump slash, a down thrust, and a lunge attack, but over the course of the game, he acquires 3 different elemental swords, each with an additional move and magical spell after being charged up. While shields and armor can be bought or found as usual, the swords instead need to be upgraded at Port Rimorge with emel, a resource dropped by enemies. Upgrading the swords not only increase their attack power, but gradually unlock new abilities as well. There are also accessories, with effects ranging from a simple boost to attack and defense, to increasing the amount of gold or emel dropped by enemies, to providing immunity to status effects, and so forth. While Adol only has one accessory slot to start, certain treasure chests throughout the game will bestow additional slots, up to a max of 5.

Unlike the original duology, Adol can no longer regenerate health by standing still, barring the use of an endgame accessory, nor can you save anywhere. Instead, saving is done at monuments scattered out all across the different areas of the game, which also restore Adol’s health to max and cures him of any status effects. Beyond that, however, Adol can carry several different healing items of varying strengths, which can either be purchased from merchants or dropped by enemies, and you’ll be needing them. Even on nightmare difficulty, Ys VI is on the easier side compared to a lot of other Ys games, but it’s still a struggle in its own right, just for the exact wrong reasons, mostly due to the lack of the refinements found in the other Ys games that use Ys VI’s engine. There are many enemies that utterly obnoxious, whether from flying in the air and being difficult to hit, using projectiles, or dealing very difficult to avoid collision damage, and Adol’s moveset isn’t versatile enough to deal with this, meaning, in classic Ys fashion, you’re going to be doing a lot of grinding to get anywhere, whether it be grinding levels or emel. The grinding isn’t nearly as long or boring as in a lot of RPGs, but it can still be irritating, especially in nightmare mode, where you need to do an absolutely unreasonable amount of it to get anywhere due to how much health even the lowliest enemies have. Status effects can also be an annoyance. They consist of poison, which saps health over time, heavy, which severely reduces Adol’s running speed and jumping height, confusion, which reverses your controls, and curse, which reduces Adol’s attack power. All of these except curse fade over time, can be prevented or cured with accessories, and can be cured with certain items, but the problem is that enemies that can inflict these effects do so way too often, and most often appear at a point where you have a good deal of more useful accessories, and too few slots to really manage them on top of this. Hardly a game breaking issue, but still one you’ll likely feel, especially since heavy can outright stunlock you, depending on the enemy.

The areas and dungeons you go through aren’t anything special, for the most part, being pretty linear and basic in design, but there are a few that stick out negatively, namely the Ruins of Lost Time, with some very aggressive and dangerous enemies, along with items that can only be reached with the very finicky dash jump technique, something’s nearly impossible to perform using the mouse, with keyboard or controller being the only reasonable options, along with the overly long and mazelike Limewater Cave, containing many of the game’s most annoying enemies. Bosses, on the other hand, tend to be a much more enjoyable time, thanks to having actual, understandable patterns that make them much more reasonable to take on, and there’s some pretty interesting and fun concepts among them, from a giant hopping, spinning robot that gradually destroys the safe ground as the fight goes on, to an ancient statue that hangs out in the background and can only be significantly damaged by magic, to the difficult multi phase fight with Galba-Roa, and especially the duel with the empowered Ernst. They’re legitimately intense fights, yet rarely feel unfair, and are by far the biggest highlight of the game. There’s even some optional bosses that reward you with accessories, or simply give you a large boost in EXP, though they’re among the less well designed fights.

Finally, some of the changes made by Xseed for the English PC version are worth taking note of. Firstly, and most importantly, the item Alma’s Wing, which was formerly merely an item used for escaping dungeons, has instead been given the functionality of warping between monuments, something that saves a tremendous amount of backtracking, especially during the actually quite rewarding sidequests. Secondly, a new gameplay mode is available, separate from difficulty options, called Catastrophe mode. In  Catastrophe mode, healing items cannot be kept in the inventory, and any normally found in treasure chests have been replaced. Instead, any that are dropped by enemies are used automatically on pickup, making the gameplay a bit more like The Oath in Felghana and Ys Origin. As compensation for this loss, stat boosting seeds are available to purchase from merchants in unlimited quantities, allowing you to boost your stats far past what you’d be able to achieve normally, if you have the patience to grind the money for them. While it’s an interesting mode in concept, the game really isn’t balanced around not having inventory healing items, which can make for a pretty frustrating time. Overall, though, while there’s certainly a good deal of flaws that were ironed out in later games, the gameplay of Ys VI is still quite a bit of fun. It successfully translates the simple fun of blazing through a bunch of enemies, and despite the annoyances, it’s surprisingly addicting.

Graphics: Ys VI uses a mix of prerendered sprites for characters and enemies and polygonal environments, a style also used in the Trails in the Sky games. While it’s hardly aged the best, it has a charm to it that keeps it appealing. Bosses, on the other hand, are rendered in surprisingly decent polygonal graphics. The artstyle used for character portraits isn’t anything special, but they’re well drawn nonetheless, and every NPC gets one of their own, which definitely adds some more life to them all.

Music: Ys VI’s soundtrack, composed by members of the Music Sound Team jdk, namely Wataru Ishibashi and Hayato Sonoda, at least according to the credits, is, in Falcom tradition, a blast. While on an overall, it’s not quite as memorable as, say, the soundtracks to the original games, or The Oath in Felghana, the tracks that stand out are fantastic. Some of my favorites are Quatera Woods, the titular theme for the first area in the game, Mighty Obstacle, the standard boss theme, Mountain Zone, the theme of the first dungeon, Defend! And Escape!, the theme for the game’s obligatory escort mission, and Ernst’s titular boss theme.

Conclusion: Overall, Ys VI makes for a rather odd game in the series, even to write about. In a way, it’s an odd jack of all trades, at least among the games using its engine. It’s not as difficult as most in the series, and is still much more accessible than the games made before it, but its lack of polish and plain frustrating design compared to later games can make it difficult to recommend in comparison, especially to newcomers. Overall, however, I’d still give it a recommended. It still manages to be a fun ride on its own that doesn’t overstay its welcome, and if nothing else absolutely deserves appreciation for putting the series on the right path forward. Till next time. -Scout

#game review #ys #falcom #jrpg #long post #xseed games

[athela-3]

Rank all Caligula Effect Overdose bosses

Sweet-P was surprisingly the hardest, I lost 5 times

Oho, after the GHC come the bosses? Hm, come to think about it, I never lost my entire party in my first playthrough to any of the bosses… but I did get game over'd by a random buncha Digiheads right outside Wicked's arena 🤣 Again, rating under the cut because length~

Kuchinashi: No. Just… no. After jumping through so many hoops just to reach her, you arrive and realise you don't really wanna fight her, only to be forced to do so anyway. Even her remixes just further hammer it home. The battle itself is mostly fine, even if her stun-locks make things a bit tricky, but what happens after removes any of that sense of triumph. 3/10.

Shonen-Doll: Honestly, feels like another of those "missed potential" moments. His design and concept were cool, but the battle itself was underwhelming. He may not like normies but the battle felt so normal, and neither remix really stuck out to me. It ain't bad, just… OK. 6/10.

Stork: Do not let him juggle you. Also, his DoT status effects are annoying, though not insurmountable. I'm mostly bothered by the skill names, but the music, man, the music is somethin' else! The music saves his battle from being a chore, especially considering we had to miniboss him several times before the real deal. I prefer the first remix to the endgame one though. 6.5/10.

Kagi-P: Like I said, his sword's kinda cooler in his Musician form, and even though it kinda stings to be on the receiving end, I still like watching him go slicing fidget spinner. Thing is, you gotta be patient to wait out his counters, so battle takes a while unless ya wanna tank it. Music's decent enough. 7/10.

Sweet-P: She's tougher than she looks, I'll give ya that. My first boss battle after amping up the difficulty settings, she did not wanna go down easily. Honestly though, the most memorable part for me was the boss theme remixes, which were really epic and switched up the mood every time. 7.5/10.

Mirei: Mechanics-wise, an OK battle. But the music amps up the fun factor, and the dialogues with Kotono leading up to it, acidic enough to eat a metal spoon in seconds, is what takes the cake. That said, her endgame battle with Wicked is one of the few battles where I really struggled (only Chiaki/MC and Shogo survived to the end), and that was exhilarating in its own way, heh. Also, Cosmo×Queen is an epic remix and really sets the stage. 7.5/10.

Ike-P: The moment I realised he has practically the same moveset as my Chiaki, I knew it was gonna get interesting~ Mirror matches are always so intriguing, dontcha think? The music's fine both times, not super special but it does its job. And I know this is about the boss battle itself, but I feel I gotta note he's my favourite Musician, so there's that. 8/10.

Wicked: Lemme tell you, by the time we got to her I sure was eager to kick her to Honmachi station and back. She grates on my nerves so much, but as far as boss enemies go that might be a good thing, so, huh. The first remix is fine, but it's the mash-up one for her endgame duet with Mirei that takes the cake; I'm a sucker for mash-ups, and the double-boss was also tricky to beat. 8.5/10.

Thorn: After losing half my squad to the Mirei/Wicked duo, you think I'd learn my lesson and bring a healer to the final stretch. Spoiler alert: I didn't. I marched in to face Thorn and found the battle… easier than expected. I mean, Chiaki died but it was literally one turn before Shogo finished Thorn off, so that ain't so bad, and I was deliberately giving him the coup de grace, otherwise it woulda ended a bit earlier. The music is pretty cool too. 8.5/10.

Shadow Knife: Ah, Chuuni-kun. Another guy who, like Stork, has to be faced as a miniboss a few times before fighting for real. Since he has Izuru's moveset, and Izuru's my main DPS, I knew exactly how unstoppable he could be given the chance, and that's before he pulls the clone jutsu on ya. Add that absolutely awesome remix with the orchestra and altered time signature, and mm… The mirror match with Ike-P was fun, but mirror the strongest guy in my squad and now we're talkin'. 9.5/10.

μ: This is it, folks. The moment my underlevelled, overconfident self finally got bitten. The first battle was suspiciously easy, but then she unleashed her second round, which towered over me level-wise and was immune to Risk Break, and that's when I knew I'm in trouble. I lost Izuru, then Kensuke, then Shogo (and lemme tell you, I was this close to yelling at half past midnight, I literally went "temee dake wa yurusanee!!" aloud), and had to basically play siege with her as Chiaki kept healing and evading and chipping away at her health. Took me, I dunno, twenty minutes? More?—but when I finally did it, it was pure relief. A final boss that really made me work to win, with a soundtrack so awesome I didn't even mind hearing it on loop for so long. 10/10.

There's also a buncha boss battles with our GHC folks, and Aria, and maybe Lucid counts as a boss in a way, since I played that route, but this post is already long and it's three am, so yeah~ Thanks for asking!

#ari answers #uniqueheropandapainter #caligula overdose #ari plays caligula

[cerastes]

I swore an oath of loyalty to ZUN because he did me right with ULiL.

Forever and a half ago, ZUN said in an interview that his only regret during the making of the old fighting games was that he wanted to put Mokou and Kaguya in them, but couldn’t find a way to do so that reflected their abilities without them being utterly broken, and the release date was close, so he canned that idea. In that same interview, he said he intended to add them in a future game.

Skip forward a decade and ULiL comes out with playable Mokou in the roster, I was very happy, it was all very cool, she had a balanced moveset and skillset, we were In.

Then came her plot in that game.

If you don’t remember ULiL, everyone’s looking for the Occult Balls because together they can accomplish the impossible... Or, at the very least, they could make weird stuff happen, which is always welcome in ‘Sokyo. One such ball ended up finding its way to Mokou, who initially was indifferent to it, but soon enough became pretty fed up with it because other people kept coming to visit and bug her for it. Now, this isn’t rocket science, but generally, when someone chooses to live in in a Death Labyrinth Forest full of Death Monsters Too Unknown And Forgotten, famous for how people get lost in it forever, hostile and secluded, that’s because they kinda wanna be alone and don’t want to deal with others, so others having an excuse to go see her in her happy little lonesome place Was Troublesome. So she dispenses Ass Whoopings (since they were all challenging her to fights in the first place) and gets MORE Occult Balls.

“HEY WHAT do you even want these for.” “They apparently make the impossible, possible.”

Full stop.

Mokou hears this and does a 180. Really. Ok. I’ll get a few more then, I guess.

Why could that mean? Literally every time Mokou has been involved in ANYTHING regarding the plot of games or even the written works, it has been against her will. She’s been a victim of circumstance every single time, never a willing participant, and never has it been for anything of importance: Kaguya wanted to mess with the player characters, so she sent them to kill this unkillable girl she feuds with for a laugh. Keine basically dragged Mokou to Remilia’s Rocket Party. Aya started making allegations about Mokou for publicity and almost had her face ripped for it. She’s NEVER wanted to be relevant, which is completely congruent with her character! With the character that decided to live in the Death Labyrinth Forest and who has never once had anything nice to say to anyone that has wanted to involve her for one or another reason! This character, this person suddenly leaps for what is the current Big Thing in ‘Sokyo by her own will. What did she mean by this?

Well, as we learn from her Story Mode, every time she acquired some Occult Balls, she’d ‘test’ something, and go “nope, still not working, need more, probably”. It goes on like this until she throws down with Mononobe no Futo, and this is where the narrative starts clicking.

Futo’s a funny shitlord, she’s endowed of a natural charisma that she probably isn’t even aware of. She’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, but certainly the brightest crayon in the box. She’s fun. Mokou didn’t really care too much for this, she’s met fun people before, it’s nice for the atmosphere, but that is ultimately something transient. All things are transient when you’re immortal. Then, they figure out, hey, you’re a Fujiwara, you’re a Mononobe, yo hey our families were friends! Nice nice nice nice, so, hey, Futo, are you like a descendant of the main family? And Futo’s like no dude, I AM the main family, I’m still alive babey!

Hang on. It’s been... 1300 years since then... How are you still alive?

SAME WAY AS YOU, BABEY, YOU’RE IMMORTAL, TOO, RIGHT?

And this is the game changer. Here it is, one of the precious few things that, much like her, aren’t transient. Sure, Mokou’s had other things that weren’t transient before Futo: 1) Her immense guilt, 2) Kaguya, her nemesis she once was very into killing but that now is more akin to an annoying existence she can’t get rid of, and 3) The fact that she will outlive everything else that are not those two things she doesn’t like, forever.

Out of nowhere, out of the literal god damn blue, Mokou just ended up meeting not just an old family friend, but one that is immortal as well, just like her. Not exactly like her, but functionally? Might as well be.

That’s when she stops ‘testing’ the Occult Balls. She doesn’t need to test them anymore. What was she testing them for? As she reveals near the end, she was testing to see if their power was enough to cancel her elixir-brought immortality (in other words, to make that impossibility, possible) so she could kill herself for good. Mokou saw this as her chance to finally End It All. She had a good run... Ok, a pretty damn bad run, according to her, but it was time to end it if that was a possibility. However, through this trip, she ended up meeting Futo, someone much like her, from her era, from her social circle back in the day even, but that lived much differently from her: Whereas Mokou shut herself away in the Bamboo Forest of the Lost, Futo had other equally immortal friends, frequenting a dojo-world-space meant for them, hanging out, concocting funny Taoist plans, what have you. Futo was having an extremely different immortal life than hers, and wowie howdy, has she been missing out!

Change of plans, thought Mokou, no need to End It All anymore. I made a funny friend, she’s gonna introduce me to other funny immortals, finally, something in my life won’t be transient, won’t end up passing away and on in the blink of an eye, things... Are going to change.

It turns out, though her existence might be stagnant, anchored in frozen time, unchanging and eternal, that ultimately wasn’t because she was immortal, it was because she decided that’s what being immortal meant, based on her experiences and the people she had met. It was suddenly apparent that she still hadn’t experienced the right things and met the right people. That’s all there was to it.

Later, she ends up gathering all the Occult Balls and being launched into the Outside World, where she meets Sumireko, and the fight she puts up is so amazing and fun, the joy that came with once again visiting the Outside World that she had long abandoned was so significant that, for about the first time in the franchise, Mokou just had a big ol’ laughter, promised to meet Sumireko again another time and guide her around if she wanted, and then contently went back to ‘Sokyo.

The story of a girl that wanted to finally kill herself resulted in her finding friendship, thrill, and a reason to continue living. It’s so validating, it’s so appropriate, and it’s so congruent, from beginning to end, with what Mokou was and where she could go as a character. And it’s never presented in any other way that the light-hearted Touhou way of showing us the world, times and stories of Gensokyo: Mokou casually saw a potential way to off herself, then casually found a kindred soul that knew more kindred souls, and changed plans on the go, letting us, the player, learn of this casually. It managed to tell a story like that in a way that never made the jazz music stop, if you will, and it is appreciated.

Later on you learn that she’s been visiting Futo frequently and also did indeed show Sumireko around Gensokyo.

And my heart soars. ULiL and ZUN did Mokou right. ULiL and ZUN did me right.

#thinking about mokou

[undoundue]

a season in hellsite - chapter 1

chapter 1. in which horatio and bacchus play chess

now the tale tells that darkness gave way to light, or else light filled a space where light had not recently been. the issue is theologically contentious, and at the time no one could be sure.

the light played an important role in the events that were to come. first it hit bacchus’s eyes. then it hit horatio’s eyes. then it hit bacchus’s eyes again, then it hit horatio’s eyes again, and this process repeated several thousand times in the next few seconds, until the light took a break.

the light did not hit the same spot each time, because of angles. it hit a narrow circle very well, and then a wider circle less well, and then an even wider circle far worse than that, because light is by nature a specialist.

now individually, these halos were not exciting, though everyone had his or her preference: but the width of the aureoles varied intriguingly, unlike the areas the light had not touched, which were all the same shade of black. so the boys ascended their subjectivities, refracting the light from their convex lenses as it bustled to describe the scene.

we may morbidly wonder how horatio and bacchus felt in this moment as the red sun dawned and with it their damnation. however, it took them a minute to realize what they were looking at, and in the interim they did not have interiority, so we cannot truthfully comment upon their thoughts or feelings, though we can surmise that in a certain qualialess way they too felt the soul-crushing dread of existential freedom—this being the onus upon all souls who wander the afterlife accurst, unguided by the voice of instinct that, after all, is only borrowed from God.

but what the tale says with confidence is this: one day horatio and bacchus looked up and noticed that they were in hell. neither of them remembered how they had gotten there, but neither of them were surprised.

“—,” horatio said, and he moved as if to speak, but then he saw bacchus starting to speak, so he stopped.

“—,” bacchus said, and then stopped for similar reasons.

“—,” horatio said, starting up again, but then he saw horatio starting up again, so he stopped, and then bacchus stopped as well.

“your move,” bacchus said.

“sorry, i was developing interiority,” horatio said.

“it’s ok,” bacchus said.

“yeah it’s okay,” horatio said: and he played 1. e4.

now when it was bacchus’s turn he did not blithely reach for 1…e5, nor the sicilian. oh no. instead he conjured two quartz goblets and poured in blood-red wine.

horatio said, “where did you get the wine?”

bacchus said, “i can infinitely generate wine, it’s one of my god powers.”

(note at this juncture that bacchus is class DYING-AND-RISING GOD, level 1, while horatio is class GEOMETRICA FRAUDULENTUS, level 1.)

“what the fuck,” horatio said.

“yeah, it owns,” bacchus said. “except it doesn’t really affect me because my blood is like 30% GABA at baseline? but it’s cool at weddings and such.”

so they drank. and bacchus made like he was going to move 1…e5, but instead he just grazed it and said “j’adoube.” horatio gave him a look.

and bacchus said, in a voice of ambiguous irony: “if i did move that piece, we would be much akin to those frozen center pawns: stuck in the zugzwang of existential freedom.”

“and also we can only capture on our diagonals,” horatio said.

“yeah,” bacchus said, “or, i don’t know, man. i suspect it's my history of epub piracy—that, or sometimes i've said something that sounded like it was nice, but by adhering too close to the letter of the law, i was actually deconstructing that niceness, mocking it, and God knew. that, or it was a sin of omission. that, or—and here's what's most likely—every decision i’ve ever made has been five degrees off-course. i trusted my instincts, and my instincts were good, but then i ran into the error margin, and unfortunately, i was too consistent, too kantian, too tragically good, perhaps, which—and i’m not trying to exculpate myself here, because if i did something wrong i would be the first to admit it—which could happen to anyone.”

now bacchus drank. and he stood and dusted the knees of his toga, and looked up at the heavens, and down at the earth, as if the two had been briefly confused.

“look,” horatio said sagely.

“yeah?” bacchus said.

“in the field of anthropology, it has been found that nearly every system of morality prohibits acute angles,” horatio said.

“yeah?” said bacchus.

horatio said: “so i suspect i went wrong in a similar way.”

now horatio took a drink. and from whence he was prone, he rolled supine, and felt the wind move over him: west, then east, then west, then east, a little weaker with each breath, folding in on itself like a blanket.

“also, my only charitable cause was wikipedia,” horatio said.

“same, of course,” bacchus said.

“dude, seriously,” horatio said, “it’s your move.”

but bacchus did not want to move. and so a long time passed in which they were kind of bored and did not know what to do. every few days one of them would feel the urge to eat or sleep, and so they would do

that, though the summoned pad thai got samey after a while and sleep was a time-skip without rest or even a recuperative panel of black, and their ghostly eidolons didn’t have to eat or sleep or perform any other bodily function for that matter, but it was a distraction. even so, now and then they looked up and noticed they were in hell: and neither of them were surprised.

“okay,” horatio finally said, “do you want to play a chess variant?”

so they played:

courier chess (german chess)

fortress chess (russian chess)

xiangqi (chinese)

jangqi (korean)

scottish chess (white moves once, then black moves twice, then white moves three times, and so on)

senterej (ethiopan; both sides start playing at the same time and make as many moves as they like until the first capture)

shatranj (persian)

shatar (mongolian; in which the king cannot castle, and the knight cannot deliver mate),

and then they briefly played connect 4. they thought about but did not play scrabble. they played checkers. and then they played:

turkish checkers

canadian checkers,

and then they dropped canadian checkers like so many rules and played go: go was fun, but lacked a certain je ne sais quoi; they switched to blue-red hackenbush. then they played chess. they played:

shogi (japanese chess), including but not limited to: micro-shogi, whale shogi (pieces with variant movesets, named after whales), tori shogi (birds), hasami shogi, trishogi, hexshogi, masonic shogi, space shogi (nine 9x9 shogi boards stacked vertically), and taikyoku shogi (402 pieces of 209 types on a 36x36 board)

atomic chess, kamikaze chess, avalanche chess, dunsany’s chess, and hexagonal chess (variants: brusky’s, de vasa’s, mccooey’s, shafran’s, gliński’s);

meanwhile bacchus kept them amped on high-tannin wine—tossing aside used goblets and summoning new ones—it was a cantrip that cost him not a soul point (SP), the class equivalent to horatio’s knack for summoning abstract games.

"do you think tannins are funny?" bacchus asked shyly. then, hearing his voice and finding it mellifluous, he became bold: “yeah…i'm thinking tannins are funny.”

“tannins are kinda funny, yeah,” horatio said.

name prime numbers (basically, they competed at naming large prime numbers, but eventually horatio named the biggest one and they had to stop)

but they felt like they were running out of steam. so they played all the games listed above, but as drinking games, wherein every time one spotted a pattern one had to take a drink. as a consequence of this behavior they became quite drunk.

“i don't know…….” bacchus said dysarthrically, “i feel like i messed up….…”

“what is this! i thought you didn’t get drunk!” horatio exclaimed.

“no!…i said, wine didn’t affect me,” bacchus countered, “but my ebriety [vocab word] can still be perpetuated by the endogenous, xanax-like molecule that floats in my ichor, i.e. the blood of the gods…!"

bacchus tripped and then caught himself. he smiled at gravity with the warm antagonism one holds for a cartoon villain, then turned his 18 charisma on horatio. but horatio, whose alignment was lawful neutral, was unimpressed.

“well, you did mess up,” horatio said, “you’re in hell.”

“yeah, but i don’t think i should have to feel guilty on top of that,” bacchus said, “guilt is un-dionysian! it’s bluepilled!”

“okay, so then don’t,” horatio said.

“okay,” bacchus said, “then i won’t!”

“okay!” horatio said.

“okay!” bacchus said.

they both felt better after this interaction. soon bacchus was puking into an ink-black river.

"yeah, i'm feeling it," bacchus said.

"you're feeling it?" horatio said.

"yeah, i'm feeling this is dionysian as fuck," bacchus said.

now the river was utterly opaque to light, so one would expect it to have the consistency of tar, but the boys were surprised to observe that to the touch it was thin as water. so they went uphill and upstream to a slow-moving pool and rinsed their hands and splashed their faces and hair. in the pool, dark nymphs with sporty swimsuits swam until they became silly with paresthesias; and the satyrs leapt in chortling menacingly like hoo hoo hoo and ho ho ho and the nymphs would giggle with elusive allusive illusive knowledge, and within a few minutes both had forgotten lifetimes, staring at each other like babies in a warm and curious fog.

by the time the boys had looked up from the river that did not show their image, they had forgotten most of the engrams their souls had contained.

“word,” bacchus said; though this should have come earlier.

“yo,” horatio said, “i’m pretty drunk.”

“yeah,” bacchus started to say, but for some reason he stopped and instead stared blankly.

“yeah,” horatio thought about saying; but he was too tired, so instead he stared blankly too.

the next one hundred years were spent in a hangover.

some of the games they played during the hangover include:

moving their hip flexors

moving their knee extensors

moving the plantar-flexing muscles of the feet

moving their hip extensors (meta-breaking)

moving their knee flexors

moving the dorsi-flexing muscles of their feet

by this point their enthusiasm for the lower extremities had dimmed—horatio bored when he had solved the path to the game’s solution, bacchus discouraged when the flapping of the map recalled to him the territory—and the psoas and quadratus lumborum muscles were given only a cursory trial.

their attention moved superior (we are skipping over the reflex arcs and smooth muscle contractions that took place automatically, such as laughter, sneezing, and vasodilation, though the boys became skilled at those too) as the boys practiced other forms of iterated narrowing choice: the brash trapezius giving way to the stoic biceps, the careful flexors, the presumptuous precision of fingers and thumb closing three pixels away from the yearned-for dimensionless point. they considered past encounters with such discrepancy: ah yes, these were the angles who ached to lose themselves in intersection. three pixels. electricity clenched efference on no choice at all.

“we could play chess,” horatio attempted to say.

but he had forgotten how to speak. horatio gestured with his hand (though not in a way that was interesting or original or which had semantic meaning) and briefly he felt good (due to dopamine) because he had moved (which felt like an accomplishment) but soon he stopped moving (and the dopamine faded) and then he was still.

“uhn,” bacchus said.

to explain these profound deficits is difficult. we must note that, in addition to the known amnestic effects of alcohol and the river lethe, their circadian rhythms were off. managing the boar-driven chariot that drew the sun across the sky was not a highly-sought position: the black sun rose during the day, and the red sun rose at night; but the red sun did not rise every night, and though the black sun was more timely it was directionally impaired: rising in the south and setting in the north, rising in the northwest and setting in the northeast, or rising in the north and taking a strange zig-zag pattern to the south and back—possibly an attempt to draw a “cool S”. we can also say with confidence that the grayish vapors disseminated from the cracked obsidian of the forsaken earth did not have a salubrious effect. finally, we must note that the boys’ amnesia could have resulted from the omnipresent rule of demonic soul magic, in which what is attended to becomes real, and what is not attended to, does not.

now at this time horatio and bacchus girded themselves with determination, even though it caused them sadness, and tried to recall language. it started with a sharp inspiration and then a slow expiration, “ooooooo”; which got a laugh, and with pursed lips they varied the number of oo’s for a while before settling upon 6 to 8 as the optimal (i.e. funniest) range. then they widened the distance between their lateral commissures to make eeeeee, and they dropped their mandibles and flattened their tongues to make aaaaaah, and these too were amusing, if admittedly juvenile in the way of all unperturbed air. hence the consonants: one would lead off with a gggggggg and the other would breathe the metronome of expectation and listen to gggggggggggggggggggggggg continuing past all semantic purpose until with some internal wrenching of sockets this noise would give way to eeeeee, and they would laugh.

various orderings of consonants and vowels were tried as the sophistication of their humor increased. now with words they recalled meanings, and with meanings they became capable of irony, and shortly thereafter they were back to their old ways.

“1…e5,” bacchus said.

“holy shit,” horatio said.

and so the boys continued to game systematically, but not as systematically as they once had; and they continued to drink, but sometimes in moderation.

“do you think there's a psychological typology of chess openings?" bacchus asked, “like, certain types of people prefer certain openings, to clarify?”

“yes,” horatio said.

“yeah, i think so too,” bacchus said.

2. Bc4 Nc6

3. Qh5 Nf6??

4. Qxf7#

now by this time horatio fundamentally understood bacchus, and bacchus fundamentally understood horatio, but not in the way that allowed them to make predictions about individual actions, so they kept being surprised. for it was evident that the light that limned them had exhausted innumerable other options before settling upon this one, because the scene had purpose and harmonious proportion. and even though the light vacillated across moments of perception, in each moment, it seemed that it could be no other way.

“yeah man,” horatio eventually said, “my take is, you can be in a bad place, and still make a good thing of it.”

horatio tilted the white queen and rolled her base across the fatal square.

“in fact, maybe it's better to have a good time in a bad place, on your own terms, than to be in a good place, conditional upon doing what you’re told,” he said.

“well,” bacchus said, spinning the board, “maybe.”

and with a desultory sweep, horatio brought pawns and knights errant to the frontier of their steady-state, while bacchus, kneeling, with three arcs of divine manumission lifted pawn, queen, and bishop directly to their native squares.

chapter 1 - END

#a season in hellsite #ash #horatio #bacchus #chess

[bronzeflower]

Freckles from Guardian Angels

Also on ao3

Chapter 3: Preparations

-----

“You have freckles now,” Inku mentioned to Shouta once the bandages were off. “I don’t remember you having them before.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then where did they come from?”

Shouta glanced from side to side to make sure no one was listening in on their conversation, and he gave a pointed look towards Present Mic before turning back towards Inku.

“Can you keep a secret?”

Inku nodded.

“You have to pinky promise not to tell anyone,” Shouta said, putting out his pinky.

“I pinky promise,” Inku shook pinkies with Shouta. When they let go, Shouta leaned in towards Inku.

“I have a guardian angel,” Shouta admitted. “And he practically demanded to ‘kiss my injuries better.’ And angel kisses make freckles.”

“Is that why Sobakasu has so many? Because an angel kissed him a bunch of times?”

Shouta shrugged.

“What’s your guardian angel like?”

“He’s loud and annoying.”

“Hey! Don’t speak ill of the dead!” Present Mic scolded.

“Do you think I’m loud and annoying?” Inku asked, her expression downtrodden and sad. “Other kids think so.”

“It doesn’t have to be a bad thing,” Shouta comforted. “Being loud means that people know who you are. When you’re quiet, you just kind of fade into the background, so, for certain people, being loud is a good thing.”

“You still called me annoying,” Present Mic complained.

“You aren’t that annoying,” Shouta spoke, the comment directed towards Inku and Present Mic alike. “That kind of thing is subjective anyway.”

Soon enough, Shouta grew older, shifting out of elementary school and into middle school, and it was around then when he began growing serious about being a hero.

“Will you help me train?” Shouta asked Present Mic.

“Of course! I’ve even put together a schedule for you! Although, you’ll need to change your diet too. Jelly and nutrition packs aren’t gonna cut it, ya dig?”

“Fine.”

Shouta threw himself into training, with Present Mic watching over him to make sure he didn’t overwork himself.

“Why are there even break days anyway?” Shouta asked impatiently.

“So you don’t get hurt! If you overwork yourself, you can cause some serious damage to your muscles, so it’s in your best interest to take it easy sometimes.”

Shouta frowned, but he didn’t complain too much after the explanation.

“I need some sort of weapon,” Shouta said about a year after his training began. “Was there any that my future self used?”

“He had what he called a capture weapon, and it was basically a big, long scarf. He would use it to immobilize villains after erasing their quirks,” Present Mic answered. “I don’t know if you could find something like that anywhere. It was pretty unique.”

“What was it made of?”

“It was a cloth made of a metal alloy,” Present Mic explained. “That’s why it’d be difficult to find without contacting a hero support department.”

“Then we’ll have to find a substitute. Maybe rope?”

“Rope could work for the time being! I will warn you though, it took you about five or six years to master using your capture weapon, but you were making your own technique, so it should go by faster now that I’m helping you. Ah, but I can only really teach you the basics. The more advanced stuff you’ll have to figure it out on your own, but, really, the basics are probably the most difficult part so-”

“You talk too much,” Shouta deadpanned. “Just teach me how I used it.”

“Gladly!”

-----

When Hizashi was in middle school, he started thinking about romance. He talked extensively about his crushes on others to Eraserhead simply because he was always there and couldn’t leave.

Which meant that, inevitably, he asked questions about certain things.

“You’re technically from the future, right?” Hizashi was dangling from the side of his bed upside down. He waited for a confirmation from Eraserhead before continuing. “Am I married in the future?”

Shouta, not prone to lying, nodded, and Hizashi practically had hearts in his eyes.

“Oh, tell me about them! Who are they? What are they like? What do they like? Do we have any pets? Any kids? Come on, tell me, Eraser! At least tell me what gender they are!”

“You marry a man,” Shouta answered. “I don’t know if you’ll end up marrying him if I tell you about him, so I won’t say anything.”

“Really? You won’t tell me anything about him? Not even a single thing?” Hizashi whined, sitting back up in his bed. “What about his job? What will his job be?”

“He’s going to be a pro hero,” Eraserhead responded.

“Will I meet him when I go to UA?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“Awww, why not?”

“Because then you’ll try to look for him. Just go with the flow and let things happen naturally. Date a few people. See who you click with. The idea of true love is a farce anyway,” Eraserhead commented.

“Boo, you’re so unromantic, you know that? True love totally exists!”

“I don’t like the idea of it,” Eraserhead admitted.

“Why not?”

“It’s misleading,” Eraserhead said. “It gives the idea that relationships don’t take work and that it’s just going to be all fun and games because it’s true love.”

“I know it’s not realistic,” Hizashi moped. “But I guess I’ve always been a romantic at heart.”

“...I think it’s more romantic to choose to love someone because of who they are, not because they’re supposed to be your true love or whatever.”

"Oh," Hizashi let out. "When you put it that way, it is pretty romantic."

But romance wasn't the only thing Hizashi was concerned about in middle school. He was also very concerned about being a radio show host/pro hero.

Almost everyone told Hizashi that there was no way he could be both. That it was too much work. That he should pick one and focus towards achieving that.

But Eraserhead told him he could do it. That he had done it before, so there was absolutely no reason why he should listen to anyone who told him he couldn't do it.

So, Hizashi went to the forest to scream, this time for power, for training, but he also kept up on music trends and practiced his radio voice in the mirror, gesticulating like crazy despite the fact that no one could see him motion on the audio of the radio. This practice also led him to start his own podcast.

Eraserhead encouraged him to practice not using a quirk in a fight. Hizashi guessed that it was because Eraserhead had met so many people who exclusively relied on their quirk and didn't want Hizashi to fall into the same trap.

Therefore, Eraserhead ended up teaching Hizashi a bunch of different movesets and martial arts, which Hizashi was thankful for.

Even if his quirk was useful for the UA entrance exam, he still needed to prove he could be there among his peers by proving his worth.

#erasermic #eraserhead #present mic #aizawa shouta #yamada hizashi #bnha #my hero academia #freckles from guardian angels #ocs

[epic-summaries]

British LegendsxPokémon

Gawain

As one a pearl doth prize, measured ’gainst pease, tho’ white, So do I hold Gawain above all other knight!

Didst thou a little lack, Sir Knight, in loyalty,

’T was not for woman’s love, or aught of villainy,

’T was but for love of life, therefore I blame thee less—”

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

For the longest time I had Solrock on his team. But I was never 100% comfortable with it because as the Maiden’s Knight I wanted to give Gawain only female Pokémon and Solrock is genderless (I also thought about giving him Braviary but Braviary can only be male). But luckily for me I looked up the Pokémon Species Type (for different reasons) and we have 4 sun/ne Pokémon (which doesn’t include Solrock).

Gringolet, Gawain’s horse has his own Wikipedia article. Not even Owain’s lion has that! Also Gawain’s Scottish, so unicorn. I was debating between Rapidash and Musdale because Gawain does have a story including a donkey. But Musdale is a working horse and Gawain is a knight. Rapidash feels more knightly.

Ponyta was Gawain’s first Pokémon. Gawain had found her in the field grassing. Slowly, the young (let’s say 5) Gawain would go closer to Ponyta every day. He would leave berries for her hoping she would come to him. Ponyta got spooked the few first times but sensing Gawain was kind, she let him come closer. Eventually, she came to Gawain. Once, Gawain tried to pet her, which surprised Ponyta and Gawain got burned. Gawain learned his lesson and the next time, he asked Ponyta’s permission to pet her. She gave him permission.

Neither one of them noticed when Ponyta left the fields and started to sleep in the stables with Gawain, but it didn’t matter. They were each other’s. (I’m going to make Gawain working at the stables for the Pope, ‘cause why not.)

Ponyta and young Gawain worked together and went on adventure together, both loving to explore. With Ponyta, Gawain was able to go places faster and help people. Classic knight errant stuff, but as a preteen.

Ponyta evolved into Rapidash during a joust. Gawain wanted to impress his uncle. Gawain was actually doing very well. He makes it to the end! And he was against a knight on a Rhyhorn. They would have lost if Ponyta didn’t evolve into Rapidash and won them the joust (Yes I am imagining that scene in the anime where Ash riding a Ponyta evolves into a Rapidash.)

The only time Rapidash goes into her pokéball is when Gawain is outside in the rain. But usually she hates her pokéball. Sometimes Gawain more time on her then he does walking.

Her moveset is Stomp, Fire Blitz, Megahorn and Poison Jab.

The Ralts line is partly based on knights. Why Gardevoir and not Gallade? Gallade cannot be female. (Also Gallade works with Guinevere.)

During his explorations, young Gawain and Ponyta found a Ralts in need of help. She was being attacked by a Ferroseed. She was locked into place unable to teleport. Ponyta used ember and the Ferroseed ran away. Gawain brings Ralts “home” aka still the stables in Rome. (Now I’m imagining them using Ralts during mass, it’s adorable in my mind.) Ralts becomes Gawain’s main battler. They sadly lost their first Little Cup tournament. But both of them worked hard and they won their next tournament using confusion!

She evolved into a Kirlia during a tournament, which because she evolved, Gawain was unable to use her. He lost the tournament.

Kirlia wasn’t just used for tournaments but in his adventures Gawain would often use her in battle and to help fight the wild Pokémon.

And in a reference to the Rise of Sir Gawain, Nephew of Arthur, she evolved into Gardevoir during the pirate battle. (I will never not think that’s cool.)

Gardevoir helped Gawain in negotiations when Arthur sent him away to talk with Arthur’s lords or neighbouring kings. Once when the negotiations were going bad, she created a black hole and scared a King in swearing his alliance to Arthur. (She’s still a fairy and they are mischievous.)

Gardevoir’s moveset is Moonblast, Psychic, Thunderbolt and Calm Mind.

When his character is not being butchered, Gawain is often a peace keeper. Leafeon is a piece keeper. Seriously, Platinum Pokédex: It basically does not fight. With cells similar to those of plants, it can perform photosynthesis. Also it gets stronger in the sun, like Gawain. And might be a reference to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, being green.

In the forest of Italy (because honestly it’s Arthuriana and the forest is magical and Pokémon has tons of Pokémon in the forest), while training Ralts, they found an Eevee sunbathing. Gawain decided to catch her. Eevee was more peaceful and she didn’t battle unless she had to. Though once a Surskit was bullying Ponyta, Ponyta kept trying to stomp on it but it wasn’t working. Eevee tackled the Surskit helping her friend.

In the Magical Forest of Adventure, Eevee had the nighttime munchies and found a mossy rock. Everyone was very surprised the next morning when Leafeon was sleeping with them. They blamed fairies.

Leafeon didn’t change much in personality. She is still very protective of her family and Gawain. Maybe some times a little to protective, getting revenge on people that wronged them.

Her moves are Leaf Blade, Sword Dance, X-Scissor and Synthesis.

Yes, based on both Mexican wrestlers and Aztec Eagle Warriors (seriously) doesn’t match a medieval knight, he is a hawk. And Gwalchmai may (there’s debate) mean Hawk of May.

After getting knighted Sir Gawain from the Pope, Gawain went back home to find his family. He met with Morgause and Lot and Agravaine and Gaheris and Soredamour. There was a family tradition when the child turn 13, they give them an egg of a flying type. Lot gave Gawain a Pokémon an egg, which hatched into a Hawlucha (I know Hawlucha is in the human-like egg group but magic was involved). Gardevoir and Leafeon were mainly her mothers. I’m also imagining Gawain and Hawlucha practicing fighting moves together. Gawain once wrestled Agravain and Gaheris at the same time using moves he learned from Hawlucha.

Hawlucha loved to tournaments. She made a septicle of the whole thing, which made her popular with the crowd as well. Though, sometimes she got into her own head and while showboating she got hit.

Her moveset is Sky Attack, Hi Jump Kick, Flying Press and Stone Edge.

Did you know Espeon is the Sun Pokémon? It also matches Mordred's Umbreon (spoilers).

Gawain was making a name for himself not just in the tournament scene but also in the adventure scene (sure he had a little hiccup with Owain/Morholt/Gawain maiden adventure but generally it was very positive). While on an adventure, Gawain slept with a woman who’s Vaporeon really liked Leafeon. Leafeon gave birth to two Eevees. Gawain kept one but gave the other to his little brother Mordred who was starting his Pokémon adventure. Eevee was easier to raise then Hawlucha for Leafeon. Eevee was always quick learning and loved to sleep with Gawain at night (which she kept doing after evolving). Some nights Gawain found her on his face sleeping (this did not continue after evolution).

Eevee evolved pretty quickly, like I said quick learning. On a bright day, resting from travel, Gawain was playing with Eevee. He threw a stick and the stick stopped in mid air. Having so much fun, Eevee evolved into an Espeon. (Basically the Eevees evolve in nontraditional ways.)

Espeon liked tournaments and showing off her precognition powers (blame it on Hawlucha’s influence).

Her moveset is Psychic, Shadow Ball, Toxic and Future Sight

Did you know that Volcarona is the Sun Pokémon? It’s partly based on sun spots.

Gawain heard about this magical Pokémon in ancient ruins. So, naturally it was adventure time (the theme of this post). He went to the ruins. It’s full of ghost and maybe a legendary? No, it was just a Volcarona. Not what was expected but still welcomed. There was a fight, where Gardevoir hits the final blow. It was as epic as any legendary battle.

After catching Volcarona, the ruins no longer caught fire randomly. So, the neighbouring town was very happy.

Volcarona like the Pokémon Dex entries say, she likes helping people and Pokémon. But, when angered, she is very dangerous.

Her moves are Fiery Dance, Bug Buzz, Quiver Dance and Heat Wave

Previous: Morgana

Next: Merlin

#yup #there are jousts and tourneys #but with a pokemon twist #pokemonxbritish legends #sir gawain #arthuriana

[tmae3114]

Tell us about the AUs. all of them.

Friend, that is a lot of AUs.

But okay!!

I won’t go immensely in-depth because a) that’d take forever and b) I want to do separate posts and drawings and stuff for a bunch of these

Okay, so, going in the order that I mentioned them in the tags:

(whoops this is going under a cut because It Got Long)

The Pokemon AU

More of a fusion than strictly an AU, I guess, because it’s pretty much “canon, but there are pokemon”.

I’ve determined full teams for the whole ‘crew, along with the genders, levels, abilities, natures, and movesets of all of their pokemon. I got… really into it. I went way too detailed with their teams. I even know what kind of pokeball each of their pokemon are in. I’m in the process of nicknaming them. I’ve also got scatterings of backstory for how they came to have each of the pokemon in their teams!

For now, I’ll tell you what their teams are, along with the nicknames and such of their pokemon. More in-depth stuff (such as aforementioned abilities and movesets and also the backstories) should probably be saved for a different post.

Diath:

“Cath” - Klefki - ♂

Ninjask - ♀

Scyther - ♀

Liepard - ♂

“Dawnguide” - Absol - ♀ 

“Gutter” - Aegislash - ♂

The pattern I went with for nicknaming Diath’s pokemon is based off of the one thing we’ve seen him name in canon - Moonsplinter. So the nicknames for his pokemon, when I eventually come up with them, will be two nouns put together into a name that connects what was named to someone or something important to him. Cath and Gutter are exceptions to the pattern because they were gift pokemon and came with the names (…sort of, in Cath’s case).

Evelyn:

“Morning Glory” - Rapidash - ♀ 

“Periwinkle” - Lycanroc (Midnight Forme) - ♀ 

“Thistleberry” - Eevee - ♂ 

“Sunflower” - Larvesta - ♀ 

“Jonquil” - Solrock - N/A 

“Juniper” - Pichu - ♀

The pattern I went with for nicknaming Evelyn’s pokemon started with Morning Glory and Juniper - I figured that since Evelyn showed a predilection towards plant names in canon, it was as good a theme as any to run with. Thistleberry is the closest to breaking that pattern, since I’ve been unable to find out if that’s actually a real plant (I’ve found thimbleberries but not thistleberries, so I feel like they might be a fantasy thing) in which case you could argue that he was named for Evelyn’s favourite pie. The reasoning for Sunflower should be obvious, a jonquil is a kind of flower similar to a daffodil which sort of resembles a sun in shape, and periwinkles mean “early friendship” in flower language, and Evie sure does make friends fast.

Jonquil may or may not mean “I desire a return of affection” in flower language but sshhhh, that was unintentional

Strix:

“Fuzzywuzz” - Venomoth - ♂

“Waffles” - Ursaring - ♀ 

Mismagius - ♀ 

“Stinky Junior” - Garbodor - ♀ 

“Clothy McClothface” - Banette - ♀ 

“Stinky” - Alolan Rattata - ♂

I don’t think I really need to explain the pattern/theme for naming Strix’s pokemon because, well, *gestures at canon* I just tried to follow the existing naming patterns.

Paultin:

“Palpatine” - Malamar - ♂ 

Exploud- ♂ 

“Charlotte” - Chatot - ♀ 

Gengar - ♂ 

“Peter” - Baltoy  - ♂ 

Alolan Marowak- ♀

I don’t strictly have a naming pattern for Paultin, wildcard that he is. I’ve just been operating on a general rule of “regular real life name that sounds fitting” (a la him naming Simon) or “reference”.

The Superhero AU

You are getting far less information about this one because it’s going to be getting posts of its own when I finally get the drawings for it finished - I’m going to do character profiles and everything.

The basic premise is a vaguely-modern-era-ish Waterdeep (in a vaguely-modern-era-ish Faerun) has a lot of superheroes running around and the Wafflecrew happens to be one of the teams that call the city home. Diath, Strix, Evelyn and Paultin are all doing the secret identity thing and there will be shenanigans involving those because, well, here’s the thing:

The Wafflecrew is a superhero team who’s members keep their identities secret even from each other, mostly because they haven’t been together as a team for very long yet.

Diath, Strix, Evelyn, and Paultin, however, are a group of friends who happen to share a flat. Who are all trying very hard not to let on to their friends that they’re a superhero.

So. Shenanigans.

(Well, except for Diath and Strix. They know about each other’s secret identities)

I won’t tell you everyone’s codenames, though, because ~character profiles~ :3c

The Daemon AU

This one is more loosely defined than the others, to be honest. I will say, straight up, that I have never read His Dark Materials and don’t have any particular intent to, because I’ve read enough excerpts to know I could never get through it. But the concept of daemons is really cool and fun and I’ve read a ton of daemon aus and I feel no shame in yoinking the concept for an au despite never having read the source material.

Evelyn’s daemon is a Norwegian Forest Cat named Carwyn, Paultin’s is a lyrebird named Leto, Strix’s is a Barred Owl named Cináed, and Diath’s… well, if you were to ask him, he’d tell you that his daemon is a very shy house spider named Perdita. The thing is, nobody’s ever actually seen her…

Diath may or may not be in a Special Situation in this AU thanks to the whole ancient-soul-that-Shemeshka-has-part-of circumstance

The Class Swap AU

This one!! Is one that I love!! a lot!! And also one that I fully intend to give its own post with art.

It started with me realising that Mason Marthain existing presented the perfect Backstory Butterfly to play with things a little and justify Evelyn being a rogue in a class swap AU. From there, I just kept playing with their backstories to see what there was that could be tugged on to shift them to one of each other’s classes. Ultimately, my class swap AU stands as such:

Evelyn Marthain, a swashbuckler rogue. Inspired by a slightly different family member, in this universe, Evelyn decided at a young age that rather than follow in her father’s footsteps, she wanted to follow in her uncle’s. Thus, rather than training at the Spires and taking on the mantle of a paladin, she apprenticed on her Uncle’s ship throughout her childhood, and eventually became a rogue.

Diath Woodrow, an oath of devotion paladin. A childhood on the streets went just a little bit differently for Diath, this time around. After a paladin caught him preventing another street kid from pickpocketing, he got taken in by the Church of Selune and found a calling that appealed to his sense of duty and his desire for adventure at the same time. (How does the oath of devotion’s call to obey just authority mix with being chaotic good, you might ask? Well, how does one define “just” authority? In Class Swap!Diath’s case, as soon as someone abuses their power, their authority is no longer just)

Paultin Seppa, a wild magic sorceror. Paultin honestly doesn’t know where his powers came from. They’ve been at the tips of his fingers for as long as he can remember. It probably has something to do with the big swath of his childhood that he can’t remember but he’s not particularly bothered with trying to figure it out. (The thing is, a panicking, traumatised child, very much going into shock, tearing through the mists of Barovia and out of Ravenloft, all on his own and without parental supervision for the very first time, has so much potential to go wrong. He stumbled through a few less than hospitable places before he ended up on the Prime Material)

Strix, a college of glamour bard. Her years in the Feywild were harsh and this time it wasn’t Baba Yaga whose care she stumbled into. She learned a lot, living amongst the fey, and not least amongst that was how a silver tongue, with words carefully chosen and used, is a magic all of its own and also a very dangerous weapon.

I can’t say anything about the two AUs I’m currently writing fics for because spoilers~ so just know that They Exist

The Star Wars AU is extremely conceptual. It features aspiring Jedi Knight Evelyn Marthain, an Alderaanian human raised in the Coruscant Jedi Temple, travelling musician Paultin Seppa, a human of mysterious origin who has an even more mysterious knowledge of the Force, given that he seemingly has no connection to any known Force sects, galactic treasure hunter/archaeologist Diath Woodrow, a human from Coronet City on Corellia, whose heritage may-or-may-not have originated on a certain planet starting with ‘M’, and Strix, a force-sensitive woman of indeterminate species (at first glance, you might think zabrak, but zabraks don’t have tails. They also usually don’t have hair but it’s not like hybrids are completely an unknown possibility… the thing is, if she’s a hybrid, there’s no way she’s a hybrid of just two)

The RWBY AU is Exactly What It Says On The Tin. It’s just an AU where the Wafflecrew are in Remnant. They comprise Team DEPS (”Deeps”) and all I’ve really figured out is their weapons and semblances and tbh, as an AU, it’s probably not going much further than that.

I had a Lot of fun with their semblances, though.

#dice camera action #dca #dca au #YEAH THIS IS ME /NOT/ GOING IN-DEPTH #I AM INCAPABLE OF BREVITY IT SEEMS #feel free to ask more about the AUs that I haven't labeled as getting their own posts! #I love talking about my AUs!! #anon #ask #THANK YOU FOR ASKING ABOUT MY AUS

[0poole]

Some more thoughts on Let’s Go, now that I’ve finished it (and also Firered)

I mean, I haven’t captured Mewtwo yet, or fought all of Red/Green/Blue, so I’m not COMPLETELY done, but I basically know exactly what’s up with the game. Even better, I played through Firered again (Not really again? I don’t think I ever finished it before) so I have a better reference for what people universally consider to be “Good Kanto.” I’m even going through Heartgold to get another slice of the Kantonian Pie, and also to try and actually conquer my least favorite Gen (Least favorite, not worst)

But yeah, I mean... Let’s Go is infinitely more enjoyable in pretty much all aspects compared to Firered. Like, all aspects. Literally not a single aspect is more enjoyable in that game. Note: More enjoyable =/= universally better. You may like the past games, but honestly I can’t like them, at least compared to the modern stuff. The biggest thing? The Physical/Special split.

Oh my god, I had no idea how much better that one change made the games. Some Pokemon are straight-up unusable because their type is Special, while they have better Attack. Case in point: I took a Hitmonchan from the Fighting Dojo in Firered, expecting a heavy-hitter in 4 different types (with the elemental Punches). Guess what? Kinda sucks when each elemental Punch is special, when the Punching Pokemon only has 35 Special Attack. Why even give him those moves then? Why did anyone think this was okay? Genuinely, this is one of the few things that seems like legitimately bad game design. What’s the point of having a Physical Pokemon have a type that’s Special, like with Kingler? He only has 50 Special Attack, but 130 Attack, and yet in that generation his STAB type was always Special. You could make do with other Physical types, but then it just makes him being a Water type so pointless. I did end up using Kingler in my Lets Go playthrough as retribution, and he was so much fun to use, mainly because Kingler is just a really cool Pokemon, and also walks behind you sideways, which is just a neat little detail that obviously was going to be a thing, but I love it anyway

I guess I’ll piggyback off of that. I LOVE the personality given to each Pokemon just by them walking behind you. Who the hell knew that Bellsprout was such a speedy lil boy? It always wanted to run in front of me, and I never saw Bellsprout as having that kind of energy. Since my sister also got the game, I was able to actually use a Golem in my playthrough (I always use a Geodude/Graveler at least for a while in basically every playthrough of every game, since it’s such a good mon to use in game, but I ditch it eventually since I usually can’t trade stuff) and I loved watching him roll into a ball behind me. I also was able to use a Gengar, and, even though it’s weird that you can ride Haunter but not Gengar, It was neat to see him phase through everything. 

Then, Rapidash. OH MY GOD Rapidash. IT’S. SO. FAST. I’m riding a flaming horse in a video game (that isn’t an MMO). I also had a Dodrio who wasn’t as fast so I never really rode him, but riding around on a Rapidash was actually one of the coolest things that could happen in any Pokemon game ever. I did not miss bikes one bit. Although, there was a bit of an issue here: Whenever you got a little too close to a wall, sometimes, since it was so big, it would return into it’s Pokeball for a second, making you return to normal walking speed, only for it to come back out a second later, making you go right back into hyperdrive. It was a little jarring, but it’s still pretty easy to avoid the walls. There was enough open space that it was still super fun, though.

That all being said, my team did end up being Kingler, Golem, Victreebell, Rapidash, Dodrio, and Gengar. That is, no Eevee, despite having Let’s Go Eevee. It was super cute and all (and having it run through the vents of the Rocket Hideout was in second place underneath riding Rapidash in terms of cool stuff) but I really never wanted to use it in battle... Even though it’s not egregious in my mind, it’s special moves were kind of lame by how powerful they were, and they’re names are still pretty dumb... Since I didn’t have to keep it in my party, and it would just stay on my head anyway, I just decided to ditch it for the classics I never got to use before. I did love how it was the replacement for HMs, but I also don’t really get why they couldn’t just keep the past HM names... Again, it’s not egregious, but the new names were much dumber...

Another thing I wished they improved from past games: The music. There was no Rival battle, Team Rocket Grunt battle, or Rocket Boss Giovanni battle music, like in the past. That’s super lame. It was all the same, plain trainer battle music. WHY? We have themes for each of them now, so why not remix that? It’s literally one of those things that no one has nostalgia for, so why keep it that way? Most of the time I just kept the music off, partially because I don’t really like orchestrated covers of Pokemon music that much, and because it got old after a while. I did like that the Snorlax fight was put on the same intensity level as the Legendary Birds and Mewtwo, though. Even though I wasn’t in any danger of running out of time or losing to it, I did feel the sense of urgency.

Then, the big one: Catching. I was actually travelling for most of my playthrough, so I used handheld mode for catching most of the time, and it was completely fine. I still needed to aim, but I could actually feel where I was aiming before I threw the ball. Then, I returned home, and tried to catch literally anything... Either I just don’t understand how they work, or the motion controls are actually terrible. If any Pokemon merely hops off to the side, it’s impossible to hit it. You can aim off in that direction, but it still won’t work. It’s weird, because if the Pokemon stays in the middle of the screen, it’s almost too easy... It almost always hits right in the center, so you just have to time it right. 

My biggest gripe with catching is the berries you have to use. They are technically useful, but... they only affect one single throw... Like... you only get 5 whole Golden Razz berries for the whole game (as far as it seemed), and yet if you don’t get lucky for the one throw you use them on, they’re just gone. The weirdest one is the Nanab berries, which only make the Pokemon stop moving for a single throw. It’s great if you’re planning on using the Master Ball, but otherwise they’re completely worthless. Also, I don’t even think I bothered to use the Pinap berries... All of this, combined with the fact that the skill of your throw (Nice, Great, Excellent, etc.) Don’t seem to affect your chances of catching the Pokemon either, even though they have every right to. It seems all they do is multiply the EXP you get after, which doesn’t help when you have to waste 30 Ultra Balls on a Chansey anyway. I got so many Greats and Excellents, but it doesn’t matter because it just broke out, and then lo and behold it got caught on the one measly normal throw I made on it. 

As far as I can recall, that’s all the possible negatives I can think of, to be honest. Even though all of these are painted as negatives, I’d still much rather have these mechanics over the alternatives in Firered. In that game, I just didn’t want to waste my time catching ANY Pokemon, whereas I actually wanted to catch ‘em all in Let’s Go. I’m still working on that. My sister even bought Let’s Go Pikachu after completing HER copy of Let’s Go Eevee just because she wanted to catch every Pokemon. This girl has a pretty limited amount of money in her allowance, and a need to buy a lot of stuff, so her spending her money on that of all things really testifies to how much she enjoyed it. She’s not even a PokeManiac like I am, either.

But, I’ve saved the best for last. The one, biggest improvement to Kanto that Let’s Go made was: The Movesets. I honestly had no idea how absolutely horrible the movesets in OG Kanto were until I played through Firered. Beedrill was practically unusable, even beyond its terrible stats, because it got basically nothing to work with. Now? It gets OUTRAGE. Also, it learns Twinneedle upon evolving, like it should have, and gets Poison Jab pretty soon after. It even gets normal Rage, because literally every single time Beedrill appeared in the anime, it was angry and chasing down whoever decided to fall into its turf. Why wasn’t this a thing before? 

Side bit: I loved that Jesse and James were in this game. Honestly, they are my favorite characters in the anime (even above the plethora of waifus) and I’m so glad they exist outside of it now (even though they did exist in Yellow and also even though Meowth doesn’t talk)

Back to the moves, the TMs were very interesting. At first, I was kinda sad Brock didn’t give you Rock Tomb, but Headbutt was an interesting alternative to say the least, since basically any Pokemon could learn it. It was a straight and easy upgrade to Tackle, which practically every Pokemon knew at that stage anyway. Also, the buffs to Absorb and Mega Drain were completely unexpected, but welcome nonetheless. It’s a bit odd making Mega Drain the wanted endpoint for my Victreebell over Giga Drain, but I got used to it. I also loved the Coach trainers, how they each used Pokemon with a specific move, and then gave you the TM for that move once you beat them. It was a great way to let the player stock up on TMs without having them just find a simple secret hidden behind HM. 

As for difficulty, it honestly wasn’t as easy as people said it was... Sure, it wasn’t insanely hard, but it was a very fair difficulty. I did actually have to try against some of the Gym Leaders, and the Coach trainers did knock out a few of my Pokemon too. It was very fair to me as someone who knew exactly what they needed to do, so to a newbie I think it’d pose an OK challenge. The massive level curve after you beat the Elite 4 was a bit annoying, and I’m still trying to grind my way up to level 60 so I can use all of the XL candies I stocked up, but I can appreciate that they aren’t letting you sweep everyone just because you beat the game. Maybe that’s just because grinding is super easy now... I actually stopped playing Firered at the E4 because I really just didn’t care enough to grind to a level where I’d actually have a chance against them. That’s way too many hours just to do something I only kinda want to do to begin with. Seriously, I don’t know why people were okay with it in the past...

All of this just makes me super excited for Gen 8. I did enjoy the partial Go mechanics, but I will love to have back the usual stuff in the next games, not to mention having new Pokemon is always fun. The only thing I’m kind of pessimistic about is that they might end up using the same old models for each Pokemon in the next games, since they all already have walking AND running animations, like the ones used in Lets Go. They’re just getting a little old, is all. Plus, I don’t remember if I mentioned this before, but I really just want certain flying Pokemon like Charizard, Dragonite, and Xatu to just stop flying in their idle battle model. They really don’t work like they are now, since they aren’t designed to be constantly flying at all times (as seen in their 2D sprites and official art). That stuff just bugs me. They made it that way for Airborne battles in Gen 6, but since those types of battles don’t exist anymore, those animations are pointless...

But yeah, Let’s Go was fun, much more fun than Firered, and I have high hopes for the next Pokemon games.

I’m seriously feeling the stasis of the franchise right now, though. We need some reliable leaks and/or official announcements soon, or I might go nuts. 

#pokemon #lets go #eevee #pikachu #firered #leafgreen #kanto #gen3 #rant #review I guess #poole #rambling #opinions

[renewablenergon-main]

I Don’t Think Colress Actually Hates Ghetsis

@icykalisartblog asked me to post another one of their analyses!

So… I might get a lot of hate for this post, but I’m really interested in Colress as a character and I’ve talked about some of these details before, so I feel like it’s worth talking about this in one place. I’ve been thinking about this a lot after USUM especially, since a lot of people were praising Colress for confronting Ghetsis in that game. Basically, this post will explain why I’m pretty sure Colress is lying when he talks about despising Ghetsis.

Colress is a Liar Colress lies often. He’s especially fond of minimizing the bad things he does and lying by omission. We can’t trust Colress when he states things because this has been shown multiple times.

In BW2, he says, "Those Crustle… Were they just lying here, out of energy, with their boulders on their backs?" on Route 4 when he uses his Colress Machine to reenergize the Crustle blocking the road. Later, he gives Nate/Rosa the device and says, "Here! This is from me! This is a prototype of my device that energizes Pokémon! It doesn't work on battling Pokémon, but you may find it useful for something! Well then, I wish you and your Pokémon a safe journey! Now that I think about it! In the Seaside Cave on Route 21, I saw something that reminded me of when we met on Route 4." In these lines, he implies that he stumbled upon the roadblocks. But we learn right after infiltrating the Plasma Frigate that Team Plasma set up the Crustle on purpose! This is Colress’s own team!

Also, note that the Colress Machine Colress gives out breaks after only one use, and that the roadblock was right by the Plasma Frigate. It’s almost certain that Colress was lying about not knowing what was up with those Crustle and set all this up to lead Nate/Rosa to the Frigate to test him/her--putting a child in danger! Later, when we find out that Colress is a member of Team Plasma, he says, “The reason I have been traveling all over Unova and battling many Pokémon Trainers is because I was testing the viability of this approach to bringing out the full strength of Pokémon. In that respect, you've done an amazing job,” another sign that he led the main character into danger just to test his/her strategy.

Even when it’s clear that Colress is part of Team Plasma, he doesn’t say anything about being the boss of it. He just says, "Welcome! I was asked by an acquaintance to help with his research.” But then later, Ghetsis says this:

So Colress was actually the boss the whole time, but never says so himself. He was minimizing his role in Team Plasma’s actions.

Earlier in the game, when the player defeats Zinzolin in Lacunosa Town, he says this:

Zinzolin is saying that Colress is the one who figured out that the DNA Splicers were held in Opelucid City. This detail combined with the fact that Colress’s room in the Plasma Frigate has all the controls to the ship indicates Colress is the one who froze Opelucid City… but he never apologizes for that or any of the other things he did in BW2 or USUM. His never mentioning this is another form of minimizing.

Also, in USUM, Colress alters the device the Ultra Recon Squad asked him to create without their knowledge:

After all of this, we can’t assume Colress always tells the truth. He often twists or hides the truth for his own purposes.

Signs Colress Doesn’t Hate Ghetsis

In USUM, the Ghetsis who’s part of Rainbow Rocket knows Colress well enough to make a call on his behavior ("Of course... The Colress of this world! But you should have no reason to meddle in my plans!”) even though this is a BW Ghetsis. This means he and Colress have known each other for years, which makes sense. Colress gives out the Genesect Drives in USUM, suggesting he had something to do with that, and Ghetsis wouldn’t have just chosen anybody to be the boss of his team. But, in BW2, Colress says, “For one thing, I detested Ghetsis from the start!" Why would Colress have such a longstanding relationship with somebody he hated from the beginning?

Maybe Colress hated Ghetsis’s methods and just stuck by him for all that time for resources… except, Colress is fine with being “merciless” as long as it brings out the full potential of pokemon. He says so back in BW2. Since he intentionally pit Nate/Rosa and Ghetsis against each other to see which of their approaches was more effective, do we really know Colress wouldn’t have told Ghetsis something like, “How fortunate that you defeated that trainer! I detested them from the beginning, but I had no choice but to test the viability of their approach,” if Ghetsis had won instead?

Colress tells Nate/Rosa at the end of BW2, "The things you and your Pokémon have seen and felt... Do they belong to you and you alone? If you would, please have another Pokémon battle with me. By facing you, I feel as if I can see what I should do from now on." In USUM, when he’s talking to himself in the Tide Song Hotel, he says, "If a Trainer trusts his or her Pokémon, even in the most extreme of situations, the Pokémon inevitably respond by unleashing their full power! Just like that Trainer I once met..." These quotes make it sound like Nate/Rosa taught him that treating pokemon with respect was the right method--it makes it sound like he learned his lesson. But in USUM, he keeps doing unethical and creepy things, like enabling Necrozma to forcefully fuse with Nebby, making them go out of control and putting them both in pain (so much for consent or “trust”). Also, if Colress hated Ghetsis and his methods, would he use the exact same moveset he did… and on Klinklang, his signature pokemon, no less?

Would Colress keep making his Metagross spam Explosion, a powerful move that hurts his pokemon, in the Battle Tree?

Would he decide to do something so similar to Ghetsis’s evil plan, hurting Nebby and Necrozma and betraying the Ultra Recon Squad in the process?

Would the designers have decided to mysteriously not show Colress’s face when he tells RR Ghetsis he despises him?

Would Colress have chosen to deal with RR Ghetsis in a way that did as little harm to him as possible?

Would Colress have creepily followed Moon/Sun and Lillie while invisible, letting them face off against dangerous adults? Also, consider that when Colress does finally reveal himself, it’s when Lillie and Moon aren’t in serious danger (they had conscious pokemon, unlike Ghetsis), and Colress chooses to play with Ghetsis by appearing and disappearing. Since Colress says he wants to study RR’s castle, it really seems more like he showed up to research everything and stopped Ghetsis because he was holding things up--not to help out at Wicke’s request. He even slips up and says, "This castle... Oh, of course! Necrozma's power to open Ultra Wormholes overflowed and resonated with intent of tremendous evil, twisting reality and causing this to appear! The vortex of power somehow...summoned the evil leaders, such as Ghetsis, from their worlds! It's all very interesting... Ah, I mean, quite a pain. I could put this power to much better use!" which is pretty disturbing considering he’s saying the power specifically drew in evil people.

Would Colress have explicitly stated that he hopes Ghetsis stays out of trouble in such a way that it’s possible he’s saying he hopes Ghetsis doesn’t get hurt himself?

Also, Colress names Ghetsis many times in quick succession here, even referring to RR as, “...the evil leaders, such as Ghetsis,” and mentioning that Ghetsis shouldn’t be taken lightly (even though he took him pretty lightly just then).

I think all of these details show that Colress’s attitude toward Ghetsis is ambiguous, and that his supposed hatred for him is probably not real. The question then becomes, “Why does he keep saying he hates him?” I think it’s because Colress misleads people to get what he wants. It’s another way of avoiding blame. Note that he always says he hates Ghetsis when the protagonists are there--it’s another form of misrepresenting things to make himself look helpful and nice.

Also, Ghetsis Definitely Doesn’t Hate Colress

It’s probably worth mentioning what Ghetsis thinks of Colress. I’ve seen some people saying he abused Colress or treated him badly, making Colress hate him, but… there isn’t any evidence for that. He gave Colress power and resources, and doesn’t appear to have restricted his freedom in any way--Colress got to travel all over Unova in BW2, and was able to easily undermine Team Plasma in the process.

As I stated before, Ghetsis knew Colress for a long time, and he wouldn’t have made just anybody the boss. Since Colress has a color name, he might have held a rank similar to the Seven Sages even though he kept himself scarce in BW. He berates Colress once he watches him betray Team Plasma: "That blasted Colress! The fool is far too committed to pure science. This is how he repays me for making him the boss of Team Plasma? How dare he put his personal intellectual curiosity before our ultimate mission of conquering Unova!" And then Ghetsis… does nothing. Normally, Ghetsis has no qualms with treating his enemies with brutality. But he just leaves Colress at the controls of the Plasma Frigate after this without punishing him whatsoever! Similarly, RR Ghetsis doesn’t try to do anything when Colress yells at him and says he despises him, though he does call Colress a “bastard” in versions of the game in other languages. So once again, he gets angry, but does nothing to hurt him. Speaking of other languages, in the Japanese version of the game, the way the dialogue is timed is a little different than the English version. So in that version, we get to see that Ghetsis actually smiles for a split-second when Colress shows up.

I really don’t think Ghetsis hates Colress at all, even though he does get mad at him. I can only theorize about this, but since Colress did locate the DNA Splicers and develop technology for Team Plasma and Ghetsis has known Colress for a long time, he probably figured working with him was worth it despite Colress being unpredictable. Ghetsis is really manipulative, so maybe Colress’s ambiguous attitude was even useful to him in some situations. In Conclusion

It’s not totally clear what Colress thinks of Ghetsis, but there’s a lot of evidence that he doesn’t truly hate him. I think the most likely possibility based on Colress’s phrasing and body language is that he respects Ghetsis, but also finds him amusing and uses him for his own ends. As for Ghetsis, he didn’t abuse Colress (just because he’s an abuser, that doesn’t mean he abused everyone he knew) and clearly doesn’t hate him, regardless of Colress’s opinion of him. I hope this was interesting to see!

#pokemon #team plasma colress #plasma leader ghetsis

[vonaegiremblem]

When looking back at the now presumably dead Mario & Luigi series, people often talk about how the enemy designs became more standardized as time went on. The thing I think people should focus on instead is the changes made to bros attacks immediately after Superstar Saga.

In my opinion, Superstar Saga easily handled bros moves the best way in the entire series. I don't think the others handled it poorly, maybe with the exception of Partners in Time because you could just max out your trampolines and finish every encounter with all four bros on the first turn, but I do think they never quite got back up to SS's level. This is mainly because of the fact that SS links your bros moves with your bros attacks, meaning that upon receiving a bros move, both your exploring and combat options greatly expand.

Furthermore, the inclusion of the advanced versions and difficulty modes changes the way the player interacts with the moves that has not been seen since. I'm still not sure if I prefer the original's advanced moves or the remake's super moves. On the one hand, it's really cool that you can theoretically change your mind between standard and advanced as the move is happening in the original. On the other hand, the remake separating the super and standard versions and giving them distinct BP costs actually gives the player a reason not to go for Super Cyclone Bros or Super Knockback Bros. I'm also split on the unlock requirements for the moves. I think it's really clever that the remake forces the player to prove that they can consistently do the standard move before giving them the super version, and reducing the amount of times the move has to be performed to unlock the super version opens up returning player's movesets earlier. But, the fact that the original just gives it to the player after using the move a bunch encourages new players to try out older bros attacks once they unlock their first advanced attack. I also think the greater usage requirements from the original gives players a better reason to use the moves more frequently and allows for cool interactions, like players unlocking Advanced Splash Bros right before the Bean Bean Queen fight and using it to do damage despite her spiky crown. I will say, I do think it's hilarious that Mario comes up with, like 7/8 advanced moves in the original. I wish they had kept that.

I am once again split on how the remake and original handle the difficulty options for the bros attacks. I think the original gets the edge, but only just. The reason for this is because of the differences between Mode 1, and Modes 2 and 3. Mode 1 is great for beginners, offering the button prompts and generous slowdown. Modes 2 and 3, however, allow more experienced players to do more damage with, I believe, every single bros attack after the first two. The fact that losing the slowdown allows players to input more hits into moves like Chopper Bros is really cool. That being said, I'm pretty certain there is no reason to use Mode 2 unless you are colorblind. Mode 3 does the exact same stuff without the button prompts, just for cheaper, allowing experienced players to use more bros attacks. The fact that the remake added in the practice options basically eliminates the need for the different modes, since players can practice until they get the timing. Normal just has shorter windows for inputting commands while having lower costs. A similar dichotomy to the original, and I still think it works very well and encourages experienced players to use more bros attacks, I just think it isn't quite as interesting.

Overall, both the original and remake of Superstar Saga offer interesting and unique interactions with bros attacks that the series never really offered again and probably never will get to now that it is almost certainly dead

#mario and luigi #superstar saga #bowser's minions #mario & luigi #The closest thing we every really got to advanced moves was in partners in time #where if you use a bros attack that only needs two bros with all four; you can use the babies to do special things #like more damage or hit flying enemies with ordinarily grounded moves #admittedly in later games; i.e. bowser's inside story and beyond; getting a new bros move would lead to a new bros attack #but they still lacked that connection between bros moves and attacks #like it's really easy to see how bounce bros or splash bros come from the high and spin jump #the failed versions of fire and thunder bros are straight up just the bros moves hitting an enemy #long post #I really do hope nintendo maybe at least does a remake of partners in time #mainly because its bros attack system needs a desperate revamping

[sentimentalprejudice-blog]

The Last, Best Second Try

“It’s truly inspiring how hard that little girl works to achieve her parent’s dreams.”

I.

He had driven his daughter to Slateport City for the Pokémon Beauty Contest.

Her father had watched her practise. She was good, but was she Hyper Rank good? It really depended on her mood. Focused and driven one day, limp and slouchy the next. There were days she was in complete control of her Spheal — skillful and precise. Then there were days she needed to pee. And she’s been chewing her hair a lot.

He had been giving her helpful advice. Use Dive to go last in the next round, then jam the other contestants with Hail. When you’re nearing five-star excitement, use Ice Ball to unexcite the audience, making it impossible for the others to maximise their appeal. And the Hail from the previous round will synergise with Ice Ball, forcing the other kids to double down on jamming you if they’re not retarded (“dad, you can’t say that”). It was all about mind games.

Obviously, Hatsune Miku and her Pichu were the crowd favourites (“that’s not her name, dad”) — the Introduction Round wasn’t going to be a fair fight. But the Secondary Round was up for grabs. Miku was already a Hyper Rank in the Pokémon Cuteness Contest, but she basically relied on acting dumb and flashing panties. The lolicon (“dad!”) schtick wasn’t going get her an easy win in the Beauty Contest.

It was the kind of advice he wished he’d been given, back when it was his turn.

II.

So there were twelve other contestants. Standard rules; top four move up to Hyper Rank. Hatsune was going to take a top rank, leaving 3 spots. If Rika got in, she’d definitely make it. Tori and Siena were older and if they got picked for seniority, that’d leave only one spot. Close.

Dad said this to her: whether you make it to Hyper Rank or not, you have to keep practicing. You can’t get lazy and fat if you do make it to Hyper Rank — it just means you have to try even harder for the Master Rank. It’s an entirely different league in Lilycove.

And if you don’t make it, you need to find out why. Go over the adjudicator’s feedback with a fine-toothed comb. Review your strategy — what worked, what didn’t. And then try again at the next Hyper Rank contest. (That’s what this is all about. Teaching his daughter resilience. That is life.)

Besides, they’re not going to let someone who’s too good stay at Super Rank forever. The whole point was to give everyone a chance, and someone who dominates the contests would make everyone unhappy. (That’s also life. But it’s not a lesson he wanted her to have to learn.)

III.

   “I’m feeling sick,” she mumbles. “I’m feeling really sick.”

The Slateport City Contest Hall is bigger and more pompous than Fallabor’s or Verdanturf’s, like walking into Apple store, except somehow even more pretentious.This is how you know you’re playing with the big kids, her Dad says. She’s too busy looking at the ground and picking her nails.

They’re behind the stage. Stagehands and parents and other, obviously important people move around them with purpose.  

   “Those are the nerves,” he says. “You need to learn to master it.”

   “I can’t go up,” she pleads, something in her tone making it into a question. “Let’s just go?”

He looks at her as if she just spat in his face.

   “Dad, this place is so much bigger than the others -- the crowd is like, a bajillion times bigger--”

   “You’ll be fine. Just focus on your routine. You’re all right.”

She needs to learn to face pressure, he thinks. This is good for her.

Besides, he didn’t drive two hours on his weekend to back out now.

   “I’m serious dad, I’m feeling really sick.”

He says more words and then the contestants are called up. She looks back at him as if he made her drink poison. He waves.

IV.

After the First Round: Tori and Siena are currently placed 2nd and 3rd. Hatsune places 5th. That doesn’t make any sense. Some no-name mute with a Charizard sits in first place by over 20 points. His daughter doesn’t get announced at the end of the round. Which means she’s in the bottom four.

   “I can’t do it!” she’s chewing on her lip. “I’m really feeling sick!”

   “You’re making yourself sick by saying that,” he says, more harshly than he means to. “You’re throwing away all our hard work!”

   “I wanna go home!”

   “Do you really want to run away?” 

He’s worked hard to get her here. And it was his responsibility to teach her to be a man. Or, a woman in a man’s world. Ideally, he wants to be friends with his daughter. But he’d be a parent first. He’d make that sacrifice.

   “Can I?” She looks at him.

Here we go, he thinks.

Maybe this seems like a simple yes or no question, but it’s not. Everything is a teachable moment when you are a parent, he thinks. This is a micro-skirmish in the eternal war of parenthood. And war needs strategy. So: as terrible as the situation is, he can use this to make her a better person.

The most obvious lesson is that failure happens. Nothing is ever guaranteed. It’s basically impossible to rank now. Life is competition. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, an asshole with a Charizard will swoop down and take everything from you.  

So, going out there for the second round — whilst maintaining your dignity — without giving up, without limp-wristedly bowing out — there’s value in that. And then owning whatever rank you get. (“What do I tell everyone back home? Can I lie?”) No. Tell them the truth. That you didn’t make the cut — that there are people better than you, and that you’re going to practice hard, and try again soon.

Besides, it’s not like she really tried all that hard. She wasn’t out every day practicing at the town gym, or studying optimal movesets. Getting to Master Rank with just occasional practice can make you think you deserve to win. That you’re naturally good at everything. And when life inevitably makes you fail it will crush your identity right into dust. And the next thing you know your best friend’s elder brother introduces you to a guy who’s got some rare candy dust (“you should see what it does to humans, bruh”) and keeps bringing up how he and his Gardevoir love to ‘experiment’.

Getting to Master Rank is an accomplishment. Going back out there, failing, and then coming back? That’s a life lesson.

V.

She’s standing on stage for the Second Round. She’s going second last -- it’s coming up to her turn.

   “Going back out there is hard. But you can do it. Nothing is impossible. You can do whatever you set your mind to. You’re young, the whole world is out there. Just focus, focus, focus...” He had kept talking, saying more and more words. But it wasn’t enough to stop the inevitable thought:

You’re about to fail at Pokémon again.

Did he ever tell his daughter that he wanted to be a Pokémon trainer, when he was her age? Of course, he tells himself that he hadn’t wanted to be a Pokémon trainer that much, but with all that wasted time and lack of effort it’s inevitable that he’ll never be a Trainer any more.

Watching her try and fail the same way he did was like failing at Pokémon training twice. On the wrong side of fifty there wasn’t any more time left for him, but his daughter was like a thousand open doors, leading to all sorts of possibilities that were now closed for him. There are no more chances for him. But -- crazy thought -- his daughter would give him a sort of loophole.

He’s not going to be a Master Rank Pokémon trainer any more. But he could be the father of a Master Rank Pokémon trainer. And he’d be in the front row of all her contests, sitting in a kind of fulfilled contentment. Giving some sage advice every now and then. Everyone would know it was his effort that got her there. He’s not saying he’s father of the year material or anything. But that’s because he wouldn’t need to say it.

She’s raising her arm to direct her Spheal.

She’s gone back out there. She’s giving it another go. I’m winning, he thinks. This is what it means to be a good parent. Seeing past the surface, striking at the core issues that will make her better. Tempering her into a strong woman.  And, maybe, getting some of the recognition I deserve.

She stands there, silent. Everyone is watching her. Something is wrong. And then, motionless, she starts sobbing.

I am a failure, he realises.

Somehow, he had gotten it into this head that his daughter’s success would keep from from getting old. He had failed at being a Pokémon Trainer, he had failed at everything else in his life, and he was proving to be just as mediocre at parenthood as everything else.

He had managed to turn something as joyful and wondrous as Pokémon into a child’s nightmare.

For his daughter’s entire life, he had been trying to con her into thinking she can be anyone she wants to be, completely disregarding that she’s already who she wants to be. Instead of being a guiding hand, he had been just another one of the bullies in her life, chipping away at her foundation until there was nothing left, making it harder to be fulfilled, and impossible to be happy.

Everything is a teachable moment when you are a piece of garbage. And everything that he had said to her today had been a biotoxin. Did he hear her, did he listen to anything that was important in her life? What she really valued?

If he is so wise, with so much knowledge to teach, then he wouldn’t be so miserable. And none of this would have happened.

VI.

The story isn’t about his atonement, or absolution. The story’s not even about him at all. You either get that or you don’t, and it’s not a stretch to say that’s precisely why children are competing in Pokémon contests at all.

He had planned so many speeches. For every single eventuality. All the inspiring speeches he’d write about in his memoirs.

But.

Something in his brain breaks and he manages to resist all of the worst in him, and just run out on stage and hug her.

He leads her by the hand off the stage, out of the hall, into the beautiful summer day outside.

He takes them to a park nearby and leans down next to her and says, “there’s not much I can do or say to make this better, but I love you. All the time. I’m so proud of you. Take this.” He hands her a disc — it’s the TM for Bubblebeam. She had wanted this for so long, but the Pokémon Trainer he was pretending to be had said it wasn’t an optimum move for the Beauty Contest and forbade it. He had been saving it as a victory present for her win today. But sometimes when your daughter is crying, you just have to — fix it.

They teach it to her Spheal and they spend the afternoon blowing bubbles into the warm summer air. His daughter looks at him through her drying tears and her face begins to bloom with a toothy, wide grin. She walks, then runs between her Spheal and the bubbles, talking and chatting excitedly about everything and nothing, and for a moment he thinks that if he can just keep his mouth shut and stay the hell out of her way, she might just be okay.

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