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I ATTAC

8 (15.4%)

I PROTECC

6 (11.5%)

Waiting on the third one

2 (3.8%)

Waiting on the third AND fourth one

1 (1.9%)

GET WELL SOON ZYGARDE

5 (9.6%)

I am a concientous objector and abstain from taking up arms

30 (57.7%)

Total Members Voted: 51

[Akura]

3. Full gym rematches also returned even if the Platinum Battleground did not.

That's what DLC is is for~!


*sigh* I figured I'd pull the trigger on this one. Brilliant Diamond anyway. There is no bundle discount for buying both. It's downloading now, I'll start playing it on the way to/at work tomorrow. Was getting a bit tired of my Stardew Valley run. Figures, and I had just proposed to Penny as well. Oh well, like father, like son-in-law.


EDIT: Started playing it, made it to Oreburgh in the ~60 minutes total playtime I've had today.

I am not liking the art style for the overworld, and I'll also echo the dislike for the compulsory EXP share and very fast level growth. Not to mention that the EXP sharing doesn't seem to be even across the team. Somehow, my Kricketot reached Lv.10 before Piplup despite him starting out at a lower level. Several other members of the early team also seem to be gaining more experience despite not fighting than Piplup.

Also disliking how the D-pad controls you as well. Even more jarring is how NPCs appear to be using the same control scheme when they walk around in cutscenes. Left-stick analog control still works and is a lot smoother.

[None]

I thiiiiink that might just be related to the general requirement for how much exp each pokemon needs to reach 100? It scales or curves a little differently, particularly for bugs- they grow quick to make up for generally being unimpressive.

[MrRoboto75]

Yeah, there's always been fast/slow leveling for specific pokemon.

I will say, its odd that pokemon stadium 1/2, which has to be like 15/20 years old by now, has the best battle animations.  I get that there been like 600 more 'mons since then but still.

[Akura]

Huh. Halfway between the first and second Gyms the game straight up

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

just hands you Jirachi.

I would have expected a little more work for that.

Yeah, there's always been fast/slow leveling for specific pokemon.

I will say, its odd that pokemon stadium 1/2, which has to be like 15/20 years old by now, has the best battle animations.  I get that there been like 600 more 'mons since then but still.

Pokemon Stadium was released in 1999/2000 in Japan/US respectively, so both Stadiums are definitely older than 20 years. There was also an older Pokemon Stadium released in Japan in 1998, but for a lot of reasons was never released in the west.

Perhaps the fact that there are 898 baseline Pokemon(plus variant forms of many of those) is the reason Pokemon Stadium had the highest quality animations. You'd have to model and animate over six times the amount of Pokemon using higher-quality and more detailed models. That's not including the vastly expanded move pool.

[Nighthawk]

Perhaps the fact that there are 898 baseline Pokemon(plus variant forms of many of those) is the reason Pokemon Stadium had the highest quality animations. You'd have to model and animate over six times the amount of Pokemon using higher-quality and more detailed models. That's not including the vastly expanded move pool.

That's most definitely a factor in the lackluster animations of newer titles, the other factor that I'm aware of being Game Freak not adapting well to 3D models; their character design and sprite work were always amazing, but they weren't really experienced with model animation when Pokemon made the switch to 3D, and a lot of the boring, not-very-expressive animations got grandfathered in because... who the heck is going to redo all of those when what they have is good enough already, right?

It's worth noting that Pokemon Stadium was developed by HAL, not Game Freak, and yes, as previously mentioned, they didn't have to spread their work out over a gazillion 'mons.

[MrRoboto75]

Huh. Halfway between the first and second Gyms the game straight up

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

just hands you Jirachi.

I would have expected a little more work for that.

The Ruby/Saphire remakes did something very similar, and it irked me up til I put the game down.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

R/B hands you either latios or latias at that cave just outside the fighting gym, and in addition hands you their mega evolution to sort of introduce that system.

it really undermines legendary pokemon being legendary.  Imagine as a kid you might be the only one on the playground with a legendary bird, yet alone one of few that even encountered one.  Now imagine everyone on the playground has one, because everyone beat the tutorial level.

I get the wandering legendaries like latios were a right pain in the ass to acquire, but handing one to you isn't legendary at all.

Perhaps the fact that there are 898 baseline Pokemon(plus variant forms of many of those) is the reason Pokemon Stadium had the highest quality animations. You'd have to model and animate over six times the amount of Pokemon using higher-quality and more detailed models. That's not including the vastly expanded move pool.

Yeah, but also one of the reasons behind sword and shield having a reduced pokedex was so they could improve the models and animations...

Frankly that game's animations are at best on par with most of the mainline games.

[delphonso]

Huh. Halfway between the first and second Gyms the game straight up

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

just hands you Jirachi.

I would have expected a little more work for that.

The Ruby/Saphire remakes did something very similar, and it irked me up til I put the game down.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

R/B hands you either latios or latias at that cave just outside the fighting gym, and in addition hands you their mega evolution to sort of introduce that system.

it really undermines legendary pokemon being legendary.  Imagine as a kid you might be the only one on the playground with a legendary bird, yet alone one of few that even encountered one.  Now imagine everyone on the playground has one, because everyone beat the tutorial level.

I get the wandering legendaries like latios were a right pain in the ass to acquire, but handing one to you isn't legendary at all.

Christ. I don't even remember that - assuredly because the instant the game hands you a legendary like that, I would just stuff them in the box.

Same with X/Y - when I got Lucario and the game was like "Hey. Fucking play with Lucario" - I just stuffed them in the box because of my strong "don't tell me how to play this linear children's game" attitude.

[LuuBluum]

Perhaps the fact that there are 898 baseline Pokemon(plus variant forms of many of those) is the reason Pokemon Stadium had the highest quality animations. You'd have to model and animate over six times the amount of Pokemon using higher-quality and more detailed models. That's not including the vastly expanded move pool.

That's most definitely a factor in the lackluster animations of newer titles, the other factor that I'm aware of being Game Freak not adapting well to 3D models; their character design and sprite work were always amazing, but they weren't really experienced with model animation when Pokemon made the switch to 3D, and a lot of the boring, not-very-expressive animations got grandfathered in because... who the heck is going to redo all of those when what they have is good enough already, right?

It's worth noting that Pokemon Stadium was developed by HAL, not Game Freak, and yes, as previously mentioned, they didn't have to spread their work out over a gazillion 'mons.

Notably, it is Creatures that handles the Pokemon modeling, rather than Gamefreak, for the titles with 3D Pokemon.

They did the modeling for Pokemon Stadium and Stadium 2, too.

Really, any 3D Pokemon models you see in games were done by Creatures.

[Nighthawk]

Notably, it is Creatures that handles the Pokemon modeling, rather than Gamefreak, for the titles with 3D Pokemon.

They did the modeling for Pokemon Stadium and Stadium 2, too.

Really, any 3D Pokemon models you see in games were done by Creatures.

Does modeling include animation work? A quick search confirms that Creatures did "Pokemon modeling" for X and Y, Sword and Shield, and a bunch of spinoffs, which is enough to credit them with basically all the models, but the disparity in the liveliness of the animations from the spinoffs vs. the mainline games would seem to suggest that the actual animations were done by different groups. Obviously that's just conjecture on my part, but still, it's almost comical how stiff and boring the mainline games' animations are compared to the games that Game Freak had little to do with, like Stadium and Colosseum.

[LuuBluum]

Notably, it is Creatures that handles the Pokemon modeling, rather than Gamefreak, for the titles with 3D Pokemon.

They did the modeling for Pokemon Stadium and Stadium 2, too.

Really, any 3D Pokemon models you see in games were done by Creatures.

Does modeling include animation work? A quick search confirms that Creatures did "Pokemon modeling" for X and Y, Sword and Shield, and a bunch of spinoffs, which is enough to credit them with basically all the models, but the disparity in the liveliness of the animations from the spinoffs vs. the mainline games would seem to suggest that the actual animations were done by different groups. Obviously that's just conjecture on my part, but still, it's almost comical how stiff and boring the mainline games' animations are compared to the games that Game Freak had little to do with, like Stadium and Colosseum.

They list it on their own site as "3DCG". Similarly, they have this blog post on an attached site where they described how they did the 3D facial animations for Detective Pikachu in the games. In one of their hiring pages, they mention in the job description "3D animation".

So... probably did the animation, too. It's just that they do a whole lot of other stuff as well; they handle the cards, the packaging, game dev, and other things. Not surprising that by the time Pokemon blew up big (since it wasn't the giant thing it is now back in the Stadium days), that the animations suffered a bit. Now they're doing vastly more work.

Also, y'know, make sure your battle animations are turned on.

[Akura]

I've unlocked access to the Underground, I think I'm addicted to the mining minigame.

Be the best? Save the world? Nah, I'm gonna slap rocks.

EDIT: Amusing anecdote from today. Unlocked the ability to have your Pokemon walk with you outside their ball. Decided to see if my Crobat could keep up with me on my bike.

No. No they could not. But in the attempt to do so, my Crobat, a large, flying, poisonous critter, smacked into a baby carriage.

[JoshuaFH]

I decided that I should get back into pokemon, since it's been forever and a half since my the last time I've enjoyed pokemans. I was drawn to playing the fangame Pokemon: Insurgence due to the promise of a dark storyline and interesting game mechanics.

It IS really interesting! What's extra interesting is that at the start of the game you can pick an optional challenge to opt-in to. This include Nuzlocke, Ironman, No PP Restoration, though what's making it for me is the Egg Challenge thing I just learned about. Every pokemon you get is replaced with a random egg pre-generated inside your PC, and that pokemon could be anything. The hatched pokemon also auto-levels to match the pokemon it replaced, so no need to worry about grinding for EXP. I just love the concept of being given random bullshit and being forced to make it work.

There's also a Wonder Challenge, where every pokemon you acquire is automatically Wonder Traded (there's wonder trading in this fangame! I love it!) and you just gotta deal with whatever random bullshit people give you. I tried this though, and it just doesn't work, because Wonderlocke runners can only trade with other Wonderlocke runners, and given that this is a niche fangame, and that specific challenge is also niche, just trying to get started is very hard. I'd pick up my starter, and the Wonder Trade mechanism kicks in... and I'm left waiting there, because it's very possible that I'm the actual only person in the world doing a Wonder Trade Challenge, and there's nobody to trade with. I would have thought there'd be a server with a queue of pokemon to use instead of another person, where I'd simply place my pokemon into the back of the queue, and then I'd take the pokemon in the front of the queue, and that way the challenge is doable even if there's noone to trade with at that specific point in time. There could be a failsafe where it checks to make sure you're not getting your own pokemon traded back to you, and then it'd be good. It doesn't work like that though so I'll just have to be happy with random eggs.

[JoshuaFH]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 

Just my luck to encounter my first shiny during a challenge run where I can't use the pokemon I catch! XD

[Akura]

Spent all day trying to catch Mesprit. And failed. Did manage to paralyze it and get it to critical health, but I still rarely get more than one shake with a Quick Ball. The other two aren't nearly as much a pain in the ass. No idea if it can be locked down with Mean Look or Shadow Tag(not that I can get Shadow Tag at this point). Arena Trap won't work, due to Mesprit having Levitate.

Did pin down most of the mechanics on how it moves around though.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mesprit can move anywhere in Sinnoh except for Route 222(leading to Sunnyshore from Lake Valor) and beyond, as well as the post-Elite Four island. I haven't actually yet entered Route 222, so Mesprit may simply be limited to areas you've already entered.

Mesprit will teleport to any random location if you Fly or after any battle(including Mesprit if you fail to catch it). They will sometimes randomly teleport instead of moving around(see below), but I don't know what triggers that; it may be time-based.

Whenever you enter any area through an overworld transition(when the music changes if necessary; the game hangs slightly), Mesprit will move to a random adjacent map block from its current position. Some routes are more than one block long; you must be on the same block to encounter Mesprit. It seems Mesprit can move more than one block away. Entering/exiting a town via a town gate building, or entering/exiting a cave or house does not trigger Mesprit to move. This can be seen in Eterna City: the south exit is a town gate, but the western exit is an overworld transition. The latter will cause Mesprit to move, the former will not.

Mesprit's current position can be tracked on-screen using the Marking Map App for the Pokètch. When you start the chase from Lake Verity, Professor Rowan will tell you to pick it up from the Pokètch Company building in Jubilife City if you don't have it.

The best way so far I've found to get a good fix on Mesprit is to go to Solaceon Town, repeatedly enter/exit from the south(or north, if you can get Mesprit to appear there), and wait until(as you exit the city) Mesprit appears in either Route 208, the northern part of Route 212, or Route 209. That's the space between Mt. Coronet and Heathhome City, the immediate south of Hearthhome, and the area between Hearthhome and Solaceon. There are no overworld transitions and no mandatory grass patches between any of those locations, so Mesprit will not move. This is true even for Route 209, despite being three blocks long. However, there are transitions between parts of Route 212, as there's different weather effects along that route.

As far as my limited knowledge goes, Cresselia follows the same rules, but I don't know how to trigger that one. Serebii.net doesn't have the information, and I'm assuming that she's not actually available at this time.

[JWNoctis]

So um, Pokémon Legends: Arceus is out.

Set in the past, though presumably not so far into the past as Conquest was. They had Pokéballs, at least. And it's open world too, which must've been a first for the franchise. Wonder if next gen's mainline games are going to feature something similar.

A Gen II-remake-remake set in the same era with similar gameplay might be even more interesting, with all the ancient ruins and classical architecture and arts and crafts in Johto. There's even some ready-to-go story around Burnt Tower and the three legendary beasts, presumably to be experienced first-hand this time.