Okay so this initial premise was clearly quite stupid, but I'm enjoying the memes it has spawned
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Okay so this initial premise was clearly quite stupid, but I'm enjoying the memes it has spawned
Playing the Mega Man Zero quadrilogy was an illuminating experience for how I view Pokemon stories because it made me realize that Actually It's All About Vibes And Aura
Obviously whenever the actual words in the textboxes are well-written that's cool and appreciated, but Pokemon is a series of 15-20 hour monster-catching RPGs, not a book series. There are a plethora of other tools you can use in this medium to immerse people and attain the aforementioned Vibes And Aura. People don't like N because of a particularly quotable monologue of his, people like N because he's a handsome mystical puzzle man with a big fuck-off dragon who you fight in a giant castle risen from the earth. People like SV's story because it's based around your cool motorcycle dragon friend and 3 other funny lovable blorbos and at the end you go with them into a big crater with wicked time creatures to fight a robot with Undertale text glitches. Vibes And Aura! On the flip-side, Team Galactic and Flare suck not because of any egregiously bad lines but because they look stupid and their plans are anticlimactically thwarted before the game even ends and you just continue with your journey like nothing happened.
I bring up Mega Man Zero because those games are often considered the best Mega Man stories and some of the best games in the series in general. Why is that? Is it because they have these brilliant beautiful dialogue exchanges and extremely detailed character arcs? No, lol, these are 2-3 hour Game Boy Advance sidescrollers. The key is - say it with me now - Vibes And Aura! Without spoiling too much the setting is cool, the villains are cool and the threats they pose feel real thanks in large part to having some of the sickest setpieces on the hardware.
Here's a tier list if that makes it any easier to understand what I'm saying (probably should've bumped down swsh a slot but the galar gym challenge is pretty high aura while rose's plot is low aura eternatus not-withstanding so it's kind of a borderline case)
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I might just have a cold dead heart because I think most Pokemon games would be objectively better if you removed the storytellingIn all this discourse I think this is the take I resonate with most. I know Pokémon’s not Shakespeare, but it still engages the part of my brain that likes storytelling and I still generally come away with cool impressions from the stories and some thoughts and observations that I find meaningful. I haven’t felt much of a reason to even want to expect more than that on this front when I’m already getting more substantial stories from other, non-Pokémon media. Pokémon is fun, low-stakes storytelling that stays in its lane, but I think that also offers flexibility in terms of what you take away from it, and I like that.
Luckily in Brazil it's required by law that a medicine's name is also written in braille in the box/ package so that's the reason I quickly realized what it was and what I used to decode the messages.
View attachment D Rose Lost Loss for words.webpis learning braille (or at least a bit of it) from medicine packs a canonical brazilian experience... i did play these games as an adult only but when i saw the dots i was like oh its braille because i learned to read braille to read medicine boxes
Each their own, but that would just be boring to me. Like, I could go play Solitaire or Tetris if I just wanted a ruthlessly efficient, plotless game, and sometimes I do. But I don’t ever connect with those games in the same way that I do with Pokémon, because Pokémon has lovable creatures and characters and an adventure with obstacles to overcome. Doesn’t need to be high art (and it never is), but these are adventure RPGs, and I like being immersed in a story that can create situations beyond “catch monster, grind through cave, beat nondescript League-sanctioned boss, repeat.” And I think narrative is important for differentiating those things.I might just have a cold dead heart because I think most Pokemon games would be objectively better if you removed the storytelling
I've always had one major rule when analyzing media: If you do something, do it right. I'd rather you not try something in your game that you don't give a shit to do well at all than to fail and dilute the game. If you remove all of the storybeats from Hoenn games I straight-up have a superior experience, same with Crystal, same with Kanto, same with Platinum.
Since we're on this topic, we really might as well call it for what it is.the galar gym challenge is pretty high aura
To be fair, there were a bunch of children who would get sick often and my parents had an attitude to stock on medicine "just in case", so we had a lot of medicine in the house. But 3 common medicines are half of the alphabet's letters: tylenol, advil, dorflex. You don't need much, you just need variety.View attachment 716266
How many fukkin meds y'all taking to learn a whole-ass writing system out of medicine boxes!?![]()
And besides that the words have to make sense. I doubt that I ever discovered the letter "w" in braille, it's not really used in portuguese so I had "_ailord", but I knew there is a pokémon named Wailord, it was easy to deduce that first unknown letter.There's also the fact that Braille is algorithmic. Sign language or a foreign language, you have to learn everything on it's own. Braille is a pattern.
So, MAJOR props to Galar for putting respect on Gyms' names. They're this franchise's meat and potatoes gameplay-wise and should have a BIG impact on the journey.
There's also the fact that Braille is algorithmic. Sign language or a foreign language, you have to learn everything on it's own. Braille is a pattern.To be fair, there were a bunch of children who would get sick often and my parents had an attitude to stock on medicine "just in case", so we had a lot of medicine in the house. But 3 common medicines are half of the alphabet's letters: tylenol, advil, dorflex. You don't need much, you just need variety.
Playing the Mega Man Zero quadrilogy was an illuminating experience for how I view Pokemon stories because it made me realize that Actually It's All About Vibes And Aura
PLA isn't really contradicting anything when the Pokedex has been describing their behaviour of some species since the start, like Clefairy and Chansey being very timid, or Mankey/Primeape being very aggressive. Heck, Gold and Silver (and I think some mons in BW) had Pokemon that run away from you, like Teddiursa, Tangela, Delibird, etc.; so the Canalave Library thesis is that, a theory proposed to explain the behaviour of Pokemon, but is not absolute.
PLA using the "humans versus Pokemon" theme so little is a problem, though. It seems at the start and how the game was promoted in trailers that everyone in the village are wary about Pokemon, but you're quickly given sidequests to catch Pokemon for the villagers. They even offer you to take care of your caught mons in a ranch, they didn't commit to this premise whatsoever. Only when not-Rowan kicks you off the village due to paranoia kicking in, but it wasn't well executed.
Now wait a minute...Gen 7 and 8 were PEAK for gyms
Well, now I'm getting read like a children's book out here."But Alola didn't have gyms," I hear you say. EXACTLY.
LMFAOGamefreak may think they're cooking, but they got a British recipe book out there
This is nothing to me after Justy's Sand Veil-Storm + Double Team spamming Ground/Grass mons (in games with limited access to Shock Wave or Aerial Ace) coupled with things like Ingrain and the mentioned Sandstorm to win/recover by ChipView attachment 716842
I'm curious now, what recipe book did this come from?
(for context, I'm not saying it's a weak set, in fact it did its job well by stopping cold plenty of people's runs, but I dunno, playing with Double Team feels...dirty)