Pokeymans

[Upthorn]

you can start anywhere and do things in any order and the game just scales up when you beat badges.

This sounds terrible. Open world is great, but having things scale always just kills any sense of actual progression.
Might as well just remove leveling up altogether.

[François]

so i recently learned about a really fucking cool seeming pokemon crystal hack called pokemon crystal clear where they turn pokemon into an open world rpg where you can start anywhere and do things in any order and the game just scales up when you beat badges and it seems rad as fuck

I'm not entirely sure I'd get the full effect without being familiar with how the base games work. Also I don't know what "beating badges" mean but I halfway suspect you meant to type "beating badgers" because engaging in fisticuffs with a wide variety of mustelids seems to be what the series is about.

Spend 5 minutes playing Pokemon GB and you'll probably be cured of that desire.

Oh I have no nostalgic attachment to the original versions so if I did do it I'd get on the remakes when available.

wait you're doing exactly what i asked why am i trying to get back on the wagon anyway oh no

[nosimpleway]

I'm really not the guy to talk someone out of a Pokemon LP because uh,

well I guess I could get weirdly territorial about it or something like no dammit Pokemon is my thing go back to SMT games

but nah it's whatever

"beating badgers" because engaging in fisticuffs with a wide variety of mustelids seems to be what the series is about

In that case you want one of the gen 3 games (Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald or a remake thereof) because the DQ slime in that game is a raccoon, yeah, but see, the raccoon evolves into a badger so later in the game there are indeed lots of badgers to beat up.

It's not always a raccoon/badger, though! Depending on which game you're playing the "plain ol' regular critter" role might be a rat, a squirrel, a beaver, a groundhog, a rabbit, a mongoose, or a... er, different squirrel.

[François]

You know, I think I just... I really like watching/reading blind LPs of old games by people catching up years/decades after the fact, and I figure the venn diagram of folk who don't know about pokémon and sort of want to try pokémon and can write a decent LP doesn't have a heck of a lot of people in the bullseye. I'm almost inclined to just try playing the games without making a literal spectacle of it but with my broken LPer brain math that kind of adds up to a bit of a waste.

I'm really not the guy to talk someone out of a Pokemon LP because uh,

well I guess I could get weirdly territorial about it or something like no dammit Pokemon is my thing go back to SMT games

but nah it's whatever

Yeah I knew there'd be some overlap but hey, blind LPs, different gimmick, new ground, etc. At any rate I unironically appreciate and am comforted by your indifference!

In that case you want one of the gen 3 games (Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald or a remake thereof) because the DQ slime in that game is a raccoon, yeah, but see, the raccoon evolves into a badger so later in the game there are indeed lots of badgers to beat up.

It's not always a raccoon/badger, though! Depending on which game you're playing the "plain ol' regular critter" role might be a rat, a squirrel, a beaver, a groundhog, a rabbit, a mongoose, or a... er, different squirrel.

I'm such an irredeemable Johnny that the thought of pitting an abundance of nigh-mundane quadrupeds against whatever brain-exploding beast-gods these games inevitably contain has very strongly pressed all of my "take something shitty and make it work somehow" buttons.

I can tell this information will make my final decision easier but I'm not entirely sure in which direction yet.

[Grath]

Speaking of Pokeymans, Pokemon Legends: Arceus seems to be the (pseudo)open-world, more real-time/realistic game that Pokemon fans have been talking about wanting for decades... so of course the usual suspects have to complain about how the graphics are awful, because they can't find other things to actually complain about.

[beatbandito]

Speaking of Pokeymans, Pokemon Legends: Arceus seems to be the (pseudo)open-world, more real-time/realistic game that Pokemon fans have been talking about wanting for decades... so of course the usual suspects have to complain about how the graphics are awful, because they can't find other things to actually complain about.

If I was going to complain about something it would probably be people calling it real-time when it's still the same turn-based combat system except you can make your character walk around while choosing items or pokemon moves. Also the fact that there's been a decrease in customization options for like 3 generations. Then I'd probably get to the complaints about it being the fourth full price (well, 5th if you count the shord DLCs) standard pokemon game on the Switch while the last one was a feature-lite remake of a 15YO game. After all that I would get to the fact that the environment as open and empty as a dozen $10 early-access unity games I have on steam, and that the textures and shaders look like they actively chose not to stylize in any way to give the game its own feel and not look like a knock-off of Monster Hunter Rise.

[nosimpleway]

I'm such an irredeemable Johnny that the thought of pitting an abundance of nigh-mundane quadrupeds against whatever brain-exploding beast-gods these games inevitably contain has very strongly pressed all of my "take something shitty and make it work somehow" buttons.

Again this is not intended to be any kind of deterrent, follow your heart,

but I finished Emerald by beating the last boss with the most useless of fish
and did another injokey randomizer run where I used nothing but the aforementioned supercommon rat for the entire game (it choked in the last gauntlet of battles)

So there's plenty for any irredeemable Johnny to do

[Grath]

If I was going to complain about something it would probably be people calling it real-time when it's still the same turn-based combat system except you can make your character walk around while choosing items or pokemon moves.

Yes, the battle system is still turn-based (albeit no longer strictly alternating...) There's also real-time in-world no-battle-or-turns-involved wild pokemon catching. The exact sort of thing we've been asking for, for decades. "More real time" is not the same thing as "entirely real time".

Also the fact that there's been a decrease in customization options for like 3 generations.

What customization options are you lacking? There's skintone, eye color, hair, clothing (with individual shirt/pants/shoes/masks and hats and glasses.) There's maybe like... gloves missing? Layered shirt/jacket with free choice of pairing? I haven't messed with the customization much yet because I've been spending my early-game money on useful items and inventory slots.

Then I'd probably get to the complaints about it being the fourth full price (well, 5th if you count the shord DLCs) standard pokemon game on the Switch while the last one was a feature-lite remake of a 15YO game.

"Stop trying new things! We want remakes!" "Okay, here's a faithful remake of an older game." "No! Stop remaking games and try something new!" "Okay, here's something new." "NOW YOU'RE MAKING TOO MANY GAMES!" (Also this time they didn't even do the money-grubbing two-variations-of-the-same-game.)

After all that I would get to the fact that the environment as open and empty as a dozen $10 early-access unity games I have on steam, and that the textures and shaders look like they actively chose not to stylize in any way to give the game its own feel and not look like a knock-off of Monster Hunter Rise.

I'll grant that the graphics are not mind-blowing, but it's also running on what's mostly a 6-year-old smartphone hardware-wise and the frame rate is already suffering as is.

[beatbandito]

Look, dude, you can be as hard for Pokémon as you want. You made a stupid point and I gave a real response.

[Brantly B.]

Nobody's confirmed for me yet whether or not it's literally the same maps as Breath of the Wild. Every time I catch a glimpse of this game I'm like "I know this place, I had a damned horse fall down here."

[François]

follow your heart

Oh dang this is the bit of advice that clinches it. I sat back and paid attention and my heart said "why don't you LP the enormous pile of LP-worthy games you're not melodramatically conflicted about instead you absolute dork". Sage counsel, if crudely put.

i mean i'm still gonna play pokémon on my own because brain worms but i'll put my lp juice into something that won't make me feel like i'm walking in a guitar store and saying "now i know you've heard stairway to heaven before but"

Anyway mission accomplished, outcome satisfactory, thanks brontos.

[François]

Man, I made all this fuss, I'm probably not even going to like it.

...

...

...



oh no

i like it

[beatbandito]

Arceus was obviously the testing ground for the next generation, but I didn't expect it to be quite this fast. Or Arceus to be as strongly well received outside the hardcore fandom. So for now I'm hopefully optimistic to hear more.

[beatbandito]

New poke is pretty fun. There's a lot they definitely could have done a lot better with like, another year of development. But it's fun. I've had a few progress-loss crashes, but it's mostly fun glitches. Some of the ease of use rollbacks don't make a ton of sense, some are expanded on with new poke abilities.

Fast battles are okay for very early game, but by the time you're reliably OHKOing it's much faster to just get into a fight, which is big. Everything they do to make fights quick and easy improves them, in my book. I'm entering endgame with multiple teams worth of pokes into their 70s, where I usually end with one team maybe into the 60s.

There's a lot to do. The open world aspects are pretty muted. With no random encounters and initiating npc trainer fights means you can easily skip everything up to the next gym/big poke/team base. Ultimately you can go to and do things in any order you want, but given there's a clear level-based path for all three questlines, and each win adds incremental ease to the leveling process to get further, there's no reason to go off-path. That said, there's only one location that needs to be "unlocked" by progress (other than endgame stuff) before you can go to it. So you can still technically go pretty much anywhere in any order.

Anyway that was a lot of run-on sentences because there's still a lot of game left, even at the point where I feel I've completed it enough to recommend it. It's very fun. Get Scarlet if you don't care, because we all got Violet already.