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Honestly. That’s not a part I can comment on. Because I haven’t read the source material. I saw the movie, and he was in a couple episodes of the marvel cartoons I would watch in the early 2010s. But that’s not enough for me to decide if it would represent him well enough. I’m just going off of if he’s a recognizable character with an interesting potential moveset.
Man, when Newgrounds was in the "what if Dragon Ball Z" phase, that was peak flash animation.
I never was that big of a fan of Newgrounds, but found games on other.....sketchy sites. All of the sonic-fan games were my jam as a 5-year old toddler.Man, when Newgrounds was in the "what if Dragon Ball Z" phase, that was peak flash animation.
I want to go back.
. Not to mention Sonia going from bored assistant to passionate young professor. I do like the characters in this game and that made playing through this story a little more bearable. But Rose’s schtick really just annoyed me.
MODOK’s not on a standing on a floating board that could have confusing hitboxes.
offended? hah, it would take much more than...
excuse me wat? I dunno about overrated, assuming you're referring to the holiday in general, and not the religious connotations.
Plus, they were also able to make Amaterasu work as a fighter despite being four-legged.
I don’t see the problem.
I meant the holiday in general. I respect your opinion and disagreement, but even with presents, Christmas is not what it used to be for me. I am sure it is still great for others, but meh, nothing special in my eyes.
Imagine trying to fight a floating character with a horizontal board sticking out at least a foot or two in the way.
He doesn't have to be floating halfway up the screen, he can be on the board but still be relatively close to the ground.
The difference is he has a PhD
There’s still the board putting physical distance between him and his opponent.
Solid write up, Noi. Some things I disagree with: I actually loved Piers and Team Yell and really liked the single-typing of the starters but overall I agree with a lot of the points you made. Game is clearly rushed, but nowhere near the garbage heap people proclaimed it to be. Heck, it's my favorite Pokemon Gen simply for the fact breeding is incredibly easy to get into this time and super fun to actually do. And the music is incredible. Easily my favorite part of the game is the glorious OST, which somehow beat out KH3's OST for my soundtrack of the year! Oh, and yeah, graphics ain't great, but they ain't the worst either. Props for being brave enough to give this game a compliment over Three Houses, as I actually do agree with your comparison.So
It’s been one month since the release of Pokémon Sword and Shield, and I most certainly have some thoughts. I know most of you don’t care and I don’t usually go around reviewing games but considering the damn saga I had to go through just to play the game I found it appropriate.
It’s most certainly gonna be long, I have a lot to say, so each section’ll be split up into labeled spoilers.
Here we go!
We all know the Pokémon formula. Catching, battling, etc. and while some don’t like the fact that’s it hasn’t really changed in 23 years, you can’t deny that it’s very solid. The core gameplay loop of Pokémon is just fun, and I feel this game delivers on that fun Incredibly well. The traditional battling and catching is great (I have never appreciated wild Pokémon battles more than after Let’s Go) and hoo boy those quality of life improvements!
Having the pc everywhere is incredibly convenient, and now that Pokémon don’t get healed when deposited it’s not like you’re walking around with a free Pokémon Center either. Having full, free access to the move reminder as well as the name rather at every Pokémon center is a godsend. The tutorials aren’t as long and grueling as S/M, and are even skippable in some cases! And while the game still likes to abruptly stop your progress for more dialogue, I feel like it’s decently less than S/M. I loved those games but good lord would the characters not stop stopping you.
The wild area is really fun, if a bit small. I personally view it as a first step towards a fully open world Pokémon someday, and for a first try it’s alright. If they keep expanding on it it could become something really awesome. I really love max raid battles, and it’s a shame they’re so tied to dynamaxing because you know you once they ditch Dynamax they’ll ditch max raids too.
Speaking of, Dynamax and Gigantamax. A lot of people aren’t a fan of this gimmick, and while it’s not my favorite I will say I’ve come to enjoy it. It is very flashy and I like the extra effects all the moves have, it allows for some pretty strategic gameplay. I like the gigantamax forms fine (though they kinda just feel like big, fat megas) though I really don’t like how only certain Pokémon can use them. With megas, any Pokémon of that species can mags evolve. With gigantamax you have to seek out specific raids, battle the super tough Pokémon, somehow manage to win with the crappy AI partners, and hope and pray it stays in the pokeball which it probably won’t, meaning you’ll have to do the whole thing all over again. Come on, man. I have the right Pokémon, let me gigantamax.
I really enjoyed overworld encounters this time. I liked them in let’s go too, but that game is a tile by tile remake of Kanto, so the Pokémon kinda started to crowd the overworld. This game has a bigger scale, and less blocky world design, so it feels more natural. I appreciate that. I love it when big, beefy ass Pokémon start chasing after you. It’s hilarious! And certain Pokémon act how you’d expect them to, Rhyhorn charge in a straight line, Wobbuffet never attacks you it just waddles away, the attention to detail is radical!
The exp share, while it is annoying that it can’t be turned off, I feel was pretty well balanced. I was never overleveled until around the end, and that’s only because I spent too much time in the wild area battling and catching Pokémon. And Leon was actually on par with me, so it all balanced out in the end. It’s Pokémon so of course it’s easy, but it still gave me a bit of a challenge here and there.
One thing I’ll mention is the rotom bike, which I feel is unappreciated. It doesn’t talk, most importantly. Biking from land into water seamlessly without menus is something I didn’t know I needed. I love it. Please stay for future games.
The level design is kinda wack though. It’s a lot of hallways. Most routes, cities, hell Spikemuth is just a straight line. Just because you have an open area doesn’t mean you get to have every other route be a barren simple path.
Overall on the gameplay, I’d say it was really really fun. The best part about this game, I think. The Pokémon formula along with the QoL improvements mix into a traditional Pokémon experience with a hint of freshness.
Not too much freshness though. For better or for worse, this is 100% classic Pokémon.Remember how people were scared there’d only be like 40 Pokémon because of the trash marketing? Yeesh...
The Galar region introduces an even 80 new Pokémon, and I love these guys. Maybe it’s cuz I played the game blind so I have a lot of raw emotions surrounding these things, but I think they’re super radical. They’ve got these really unique designs that fit into British culture but also work just fine as they’re own thing. I’ll just name a couple I really think are cool.
Toxtricity is best boi. Legit top ten favorite Pokémon. Dragapult, also amazing. Love it. Snom is precious, Falinks is precious, Impidimp is precious, Cramorant, Copperajah, Eiscue, Applin, Grapploct, a lot of them are rad.
The starters, while not my favorites, I do enjoy. Rillaboom is awesome, Cinderace is adorable (and my personal favorite) and Inteleon is...ok. He’s cool enough, though he is kinda weird looking and not how I wanted Sobble to go at all. I don’t hate him though. I don’t like how they’re all duel types, though we haven’t had a pure type trio since gen 2 so I’ll let it slide. Just don’t do it again for gen 9.
The fossils are genius. Full Jurassic Park mode. A lotta people hate em cuz they’re genetic abominations but that’s what makes them awesome! Dracozolt is my favorite but my appreciation for Dracovish cannot be overstated. Tyrantrum and Aurorus are my favorite fossils, cuz they’re badass. But these freaks are an easy number two.
The legends are okay. They’ve got alright designs but they’re not that cool to me. I much prefer Solgaleo and Lunala. Eternatus is cool enough (it’s boss fight was the raddest **** ever) but it feels really disconnected from the other two. I dunno I like it when the third legend and the box legends are connected, it’s cool. Guess we’ll find out more about it in 2021’s Pokémon Cannon Version
The only ones I don’t really like are Duraludon and Pincurchin. Pincurchin looks like store brand Pyukumuku, and Duraludon is just ugly to me.
Toxel is a toxic dumpy baby. It’s me as a Pokémon.
Gotta give props for not only bringing back a well loved feature, but significantly expanding it. Not only do regional variants return, not only does it extend to regions besides Kanto, some even get evolutions! The first cross gen evolutions since gen 4 (besides Sylveon) how exciting! Corsola and Farfetch’d finally get their long awaited evolutions, bless. Darmanitan is rad, Mr. Rime is hilarious. Even Stunfisk, the saddest pancake gets some love. 10/10 great stuff. I hope to see regional variants and evolutions return for the next generation.
All in all, great stuff. Gamefreak has always delivered on solid Pokémon designs. People rag on gens 4 or 5 but look at Krookodile, look at Garchomp, look at Volcarona. Every gen has its cool and weird designs. And Vannilite isn’t really ice cream! It’s an icicle covered in snow dammit!You’ve probably noticed that I’ve been pretty positive for this. I’m a positive person, I like to see the good in things. But right now I’m gonna have to get a little negative.
The story in this game sucks ass.
And people will say Pokémon stories have always sucked ass. While they’ve never been high art, I will defend certain gens to the ends of the earth. Not this though. Oh no, not this.
Y’know how in the earliest gens, the story was just beat the champion? This is kinda like that, but with this weird, awkward message crammed in at the end. It’d actually be kinda interesting if this game took a full classic approach and ditched story completely, leaving everything up to you. But no, they don’t do that! They constantly have Hop or whoever stop you to tell you some inane things. And while they stopped you way more in Sun and Moon, there’s a difference here. In Sun and Moon, there was a story. When they stopped you they had something to say...mostly. Hau’s malasada rambles got tedious.
The game is 100% hyper focused on the gym challenge to the expense of almost everything else, that when a real story tries to creep in around the end it feels awkward because it wasn’t properly set up. And while it’s cool that the gym challenge is being treated as a proper sports event, adding some very rad world building to the Pokémon universe, the story ends up suffering because of it.
A minor saving grace I feel is the characters. Yes, even Hop. While not the best, not even by Pokémon standards, they are rather charming and I enjoyed their character arcs.
Hop going from a cocky kid 100% sure he’ll win, to a guy trying to find his place in the world after realizing his dream is unattainable is kinda compelling. And I liked how he constantly switched his team up, scrambling to find something that works. Bede finally gives us another douche rival, and him being disowned by Rose, assaulted by Opal, and being almost humbled is very funny. And Marnie’s just cute, I like how she’s not try hard edgy. She’s kinda rough, but that’s just her style, and she clearly likes you. Wait till these kids get older
Outta nowhere in the third act he has a meeting with Leon. And this is bad?? I guess??? I mean, he’s holding up your champion match, but that’s not evil that’s just inconvenient. And then Oleana shows up like “you’ll never get Leon out of his meeting unless you catch this security guard! Mwahahaha” where the hell did this come from? At least with the Aether Foundation, there were clear hints that some shady stuff was going on. Every once in a while Lusamine would crack this wicked smile, Lillie was wary of it, Gladion warned you of it. It wasn’t the most surprising twist, but it was still kinda cool. And to be fair we all kinda guessed Rose was evil, but what if for whatever reason you didn’t? This would come as a complete and utter surprise, and not even a good one. You chase this security guard around in a lame sequence, fight him a couple times (where Marnie cheers for you and it’s adorable but it’s still lame) and after some shenanigans you finally get to the tower. Where you have to fight a buncha employees while some discount Sonic Heroes music plays in the back. You get to the top, see Oleana’s been smoking that nut pack, and finally get to interrupt Leon’s meeting. And really, how do we know this is an evil meeting? They could be discussing his Wheaties sponsorship, we don’t know. You bare witness to some glorious png’s discussing a thousand year off energy crisis, and finally get Leon outta that sick, twisted, diabolical meeting. Rose does some lame evil **** that leads to an actually really badass boss fight. Not even kidding, the Eternatus max raid with the legendary wolves was really awesome I had a great time with it! Rose is arrested, some mess about the future, the end.
One thing that really annoys me is how they keep stressing the fact that things’ll get bad in a thousand years. Don’t get me wrong, we should work now to fix future problems, but come on. A thousand years is incomprehensible to most people. Their grandchildren’s grandchildren will be dead by then! If they said something like 50 or 100 years it’d be more understandable but a thousand? Chairman Rose can’t wait one damn extra day for something that won’t happen for a millennium??
And every time something cool happens, like wild Dynamax Pokémon rampaging throughout the streets, we’re always railroaded somewhere else. “You go on, let the adults handle this!” **** you! I wanna fight the giant Applin trampling the Honda dealership!
And I’m sorry, but I don’t like Team Yell. They were just annoying, and I know that’s kinda the point but they weren’t charmingly annoying. Team Skull does everything they do way better. The virgin Piers, the Chad Ya Boi Guzma. I know people like them and if you do, more power to ya. But they really didn’t do anything for me. Team Skull is still the best team in the series.
I legitimately considered if this story was worse than X & Y’s. XY has the AZ war stuff, which is rad, but sw/sh has some legit cool character development. I think i’d very slightly place this above XY, because I enjoy these rivals more than the Kalos lame gang. But that’s still not good. This is legitimately one of the worst stories in the series. And it makes me so sad because Alola’s story made me feel things. I felt for Lillie, and her abusive upbringing. I was happy when she gained confidence, I was sad when she left. I felt for the trial captains, I felt for the kahunas, I felt for the bad guys! This game has basically none of that. This game is really all about the gym challenge, with some weird environmental stuff thrown in at the end.
During Sun and Moon’s credits, it shows a montage of all the characters we’d met and what they’re up to now. How they’ve grown and changed. During Sword and Shield’s credits it’s just a bunch of emblems from the gym challenge. That really says it all better than I ever could.
I’ve noticed a bit of a trend recently. The recent even numbered gens have bad stories, while the odds had good ones. Gen 5 good, gen 6 bad, gen 7 good, gen 8 bad. Let’s hope gen 9 is better than this mess.
The character designs are top notch though 10/10.Holy crap the music in this game is rad!! The way they mix in the main theme in the trainer battle theme! They way the gym leader theme changes depending on how many Pokémon they've got left! The way Leon’s theme incorporates the hall of fame music, really emphasizing that sense of triumph! The way they use the first town’s leitmotif, reminding you of where you started! SLUMBERING WEALD!
It’s just incredible. I adore the soundtrack to this game. Absolutely adore.The graphics in this game are not the best. But I don’t think they’re the worst either. They’re better than three houses, and that game was rad.
Some textures look rough, but overall I think the game looks fine.
The animations have seen improvements, specifically when it comes to exclusive animations. Moves tons of Pokémon can use, like double kick, still have very basic unimpressive animations. But exclusive moves have been really beefed up this gen, have you seen Pyro Ball?? And the character animation has gotten very charming. The gym leaders especially. The way Melony snuggles her pokeball is precious, I wanna snuggle her. And other things but now isn’t the time. There is this one issue I have, and that’s with voice acting. When you get to Piers’ gym he has a bit of an introductory cutscene where he sings for a crowd of team yell grunts. Only problem is he’s not singing. His lips are flapping, but there’s no sound coming out. Hell there’s barely any music playing. The crowd is going wild but he’s just biting the air, it’s honestly laughable. I understand that recording voice lines for a ton of different languages can be difficult, so I’m not mad they didn’t have it. But don’t have characters do things like that if you won’t have voice acting.
On the positive side again, Gym battles truly feel like a spectacle, big events you’d pay hundreds for a ticket to see. It felt grand and exciting to earn these badges, and while future games probably won’t be as hyper focused on the gym challenge as this one, I hope they keep that grand scope in the next generation. After skipping gen 7, this is the grand return gym battles needed.
Graphics are passable, animations are decent. They’re not great, they’re not abysmal. The scaling is way off though, they cucked Wailord severely.Now to talk about something besides the game, it’s hype season. Though I don’t think I can call it a hype season. Ignoring the controversy, it kinda sucked.
With Sun and Moon, they blew their load. They showed off just about everything, when the game came out there were like six unrevealed Pokémon. And while we lamented at release, in the moment we were loving it. It felt like a party, every week a trailer would drop and we would eat it up! And we swore the were showing so much because the games were so rich with content they could afford to show this much and still keep tons of secrets.
They couldn’t.
And people made their displeasure very clear. And Gamefreak listened. With this game, they showed nothing! And while it was fun discovering everything in the moment (I deserve a ninja PhD for diving all the leaks successfully) knowing barely anything was a grueling painful process during the lead up to the game. That glimwood tangle stream was 24 hours just for one Pokémon. That’s not okay!
They shouldn’t show literally everything, but there’s a difference between everything and nothing. Obviously. Next time around, maybe show around half the Pokémon, less than half? It wouldn’t hurt to throw in some new characters too. And you need to show the starter evolutions, they’re too important.
Leaving us in the dark is not the way. We end up very bored and displeased.Hoo boy
Unlike most of the fanbase seems to these days, I don’t hate gamefreak. I don’t think they’re these incompetent swine, or these evil greedy pigs chomping at the bit to swindle us all out of our money. I see them as developers with good ideas that they can’t fully implement because they don’t have enough time. They’ve got to push out a game every year, no matter what. That’s not too great.
They need more time to really flesh out these games. Three years for each one would be good enough. Not three years working on multiple games at once, the whole team on this one game. Three years. They could do it. Poop out a mystery dungeon in the middle and no one would care if they didn’t release a game for three years.
Well, TPC would care.
I read earlier in the year that morale at Gamefreak was low, and I got kinda sad. These guys are responsible for my childhood, and now my adulthood too. I’ll probably die an old man after beating generation 42. It sucks to see things have gone to this, but I believe there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel. Things can, no, will get better. We just gotta wait and see. Maybe you’re not willing to wait, maybe you wanna go somewhere else. Whatever. But I’m in for the long haul.
After next year’s game (cuz we all know it’s halfway done at this point) I hope they take a while off to really get the next gen right. I know they can do it, they just need time. And maybe a little help.I feel like this game’s best quality is the foundation it builds for future generations. There are ideas here that could be sued for something truly special in the future. If you took the story quality of sun and moon, and combined it with the gameplay and qol improvements of this game, that enough would be great! At least to me. On the whole I think I enjoyed sun and moon more, at least in some ways. But I did have a lot of fun with this entry.I had a lot of fun with this game, most fun I’ve had all year probably. I don’t regret playing it at all, I’d probably be a worse person if I didn’t.
Is the game good?
Yes.
Is the game underwhelming?
Yes.
The game was very clearly rushed, it needed more time in the oven to be all it could be. It’s pure Pokémon. Nothing much changed. It doesn’t make up for the features removed, if that’s a big deal to you. I can see why people pass on this one.
What I can’t see is why some choose to be pricks about it.
Incoming rant in 3...2...1...
This year holds by far, the worst fandom interactions I’ve ever had. And of course it all had to come from my home team.
We got people screeching at eachother for daring to have different opinions. Calling eachother shills, sheep, boot lickers. ****ting on people simply stating they think the game looks fun. Death threats and even a tape accusation were hurled at Masuda. A **** accusation. Over Pokémon. I used to hold this fanbase in higher regard to something like Sonic’s or Undertale’s, but oh no. Not anymore. This is a bottom of the barrel fandom.
And don’t get me wrong, people are allowed to criticize. Campaigning for Masuda’s death is not criticism.
I won’t lie, when I saw the records this game was breaking sale wise I kinda got a little smug. Like yeah, this is where all your bull**** got you. How’s that? but after that I just got really sad. Here I am, getting vindictive at my fellow Pokémon fans. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
I’ve had countless **** thrown at me from all over the Internet because I said the game didn’t look to bad, and I’m sick of it. Im sick of being bullied for liking a harmless video game and I’m sick of seeing others get the same treatment. I’m completely disconnecting myself from any and all Pokémon related social media for the foreseeable future. I’ll become this weird, Pokémon hermit. Alone with his pocket monsters far away from all the **** that’s sure to be flung over future games. Just having fun, like we’re meant too.
I don’t know where pokemon’s gonna go after this. They’re gonna have to shake it up to keep certain fans happy, but do they need to? This game, with its controversies and what have you, is breaking sales records. They’re doing just fine with what they’ve got, so why switch it up for some when it’s clearly fine for others?
Well, Gamefreak does listen to fans. Not always, but they do. You can see it in this very gen. Fans liked regional variants, but wanted them for Pokémon not from Kanto. And they wanted more cross gen evolutions. That’s exactly what we got! Hell, a good chunk of X/Y came from the Black/White backlash. We’ll only be able to tell how they choose to act on these criticisms in the next generation, but I bet they’ll be some changes. For the better or worse, we’ll see.
If you got this far while reading all of that ****, I thank you. I’m really passionate about this series, and unlike a lot of you I still enjoy it : P. It’s disheartening to see your favorite games be the source of all that...everything. But I believe things’ll get better, eventually. Nay say all you want, but I do. And when they do, I’ll be right there playing Pokémon. Like I always do.
Yeah I can see why people would like team yell and Piers, I don’t think they’re completely unlikable. They just didn’t really do it for me. I’m not gonna be that guy who’s like “I didn’t like it so no one can!!!”
SnakeFighter64
So I completely forgot Marvel Contest of Champions was a thing and I saw that they made Silver Surfer work in that type of fighting game, I don’t know if he or the game is that good, but it looks like he’d work well enough.I have been trying to recover from real life stuff the whole day.
Living normal lives probably.
Or Christmas shopping/or spending Christmas with family would be a guess of mine.
I did my Christmas shoppings on Black Friday.
I still can’t believe I got three suggestions right, well I guess they were sorta obvious. I didn’t predict Cable but he’ll be cool regardless. Kinda would’ve liked to see Magik in this game as well.
I must say, I feel very sorry for you. You and your family having issues. I wish there was something I could do to help you.
I am really hyped for my man Gambit.
I appreciate the thought.
No problem, JDCabrera. Anytime,
Is there any more of a difference between the two as Ryu and Ken? Heck, if it's the down special, just look at Chrom.
Yeah, he does. I would’ve been really surprised if he didn’t make it in.
