-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2024 Smog Awards!
Post your searing hot takes
- Thread starter Yung Dramps
- Start date
why are you guys lowering the temperature in the room. i came here for hot takes, not takes so cold I feel like I'm living on Hoth
anyways, the one piece is not real
anyways, the one piece is not real
Deepseek is overrated af.
Berserk never got bad but I think it got worse after the conviction arc
Also, the end of the conviction arc was fucking goated man. I think it's the most interesting stretch of chapters there are
The Millenium Falcon arc is good overall but, despite having read it twice, I genuinely can't recall how Guts ties into the main plot of it. Like I remember the Zodd team up perfectly clear, but just completely blank out on any other involvement Guts had. Ganishka is also an alright villain, has some very interesting aspects, but pales to previous villains
Just kinda lost a lot of it's psychological edge I'd say. It's why my absolute favorite parts of modern Berserk are the exploration of Casca's mind and the reunion. And I really liked the previous God Hand reveal
Haven't read it in 2 years though, maybe some of the new chapters are better. I did kinda like how fast and unceremonious the end of the fairy island was
Just kinda lost a lot of it's psychological edge I'd say. It's why my absolute favorite parts of modern Berserk are the exploration of Casca's mind and the reunion. And I really liked the previous God Hand reveal
Haven't read it in 2 years though, maybe some of the new chapters are better. I did kinda like how fast and unceremonious the end of the fairy island was
Also, the end of the conviction arc was fucking goated man. I think it's the most interesting stretch of chapters there are
deepseek was really a plan to fuck with the american tech industry as hard as possible (which clearly it succeeded in) but being able to boot up a whole ass AI model on my pc is pretty cool even if i'll never use it
My only problem with it is that it's heavily censored
no it isn't. get a job plus ratio
dudunsparce might be the funniest thing game freak has ever done. in 1999, they release dunsparce, an unremarkable yet ellusive pokemon somewhat resembling a dragon. everyone collectively agrees that it deserves an evolution, coming up will all sorts of cool designs for it. then, 23 years later, they finally do it, and give it an evolution. and it's just dunsparce but bigger. lots of people complain about pokemon designs saying that its just its prevo but bigger, but this is literally just dunsparce but bigger and with an extra segment. that and two letters are the only differences between the two. people waited 23 years for a dunsparce evolution, and what game freak finally gave us was probably done in Photoshop in 3 minutes. peak comedy.
common big ashley W
gen 7 and z moves are fun and the meta is interesting and creative because of Z moves
i think if that was true then the people who make pokemon would not make tournaments
you're right. the ingredients are here to make a good competitive game as we all know, but there are so many features that make the game just a bit too uncompetitive. a prime example of this is critical hits. without critical hits, pokemon would be one of the best competitive strategy games of all time. however, the fact remains that at literally any point, there is a 1/24 chance of your opponent just screwing you over through no fault of your own. this game would be SO much better without critical hits, and while they don't come up often, they can and WILL be the difference between a win and a loss.
Let me clear something, when I say this I mean that the competitive aspect was never meant to be a strong part of Pokemon at its roots. Competitive Pokemon is a niche, no one can deny that. But really, its creation is a happy accident, and it was clear from the beginning that Pokemon was really only thought to be this cool collection-adventure game. This may not be a very well known aspect of the first generation, but human vs human battles in Pokemon were close to not be implemented. There's a thread about that in the orange Island if you're curious, and Pokemon Legends: Arceus is a good illustration of that idea, and something much closer to the developer's original idea of what Pokemon should have been.
All of this to say that, yes now Game Freak / Creatures Inc. Care about competitive aspect much more than before, but at its roots it was clearly not the case, and competitive is still a niche that is not GF/TPC's top priority
That's different from saying it was "never meant to be played competitively" it clearly is meant to be played competitively nowadays
Yes, you should sue them. It was pikachu's fault anyways.
Yeah that oversized Rat is always the issue
(I'd never actually sue them I hope you guys realize this was a joke.)
induction is the best stove type
yeah it takes a while to get used to its aggressiveness and your tossing method needs to change with it (albeit, not that much if you use a pan that has good heat retention), but it's so efficient, easy and precise once you got the technique down
some people say you can't season surfaces with it, but that's not true, you just need to work in sectors when you season cast iron or carbon steel
I think it's biggest downside is that you can't use stainless steel cookware with aluminum cores with it, but newer bottom materials are really good and don't distract too much from the purist nature of stainless steel cookware
Genuinely believe that it will replace gas completely in a few decades. Even jet engines used in Chinese cooking can be replaced quite well with certain induction types
yeah it takes a while to get used to its aggressiveness and your tossing method needs to change with it (albeit, not that much if you use a pan that has good heat retention), but it's so efficient, easy and precise once you got the technique down
some people say you can't season surfaces with it, but that's not true, you just need to work in sectors when you season cast iron or carbon steel
I think it's biggest downside is that you can't use stainless steel cookware with aluminum cores with it, but newer bottom materials are really good and don't distract too much from the purist nature of stainless steel cookware
Genuinely believe that it will replace gas completely in a few decades. Even jet engines used in Chinese cooking can be replaced quite well with certain induction types
gas is more fun though
15 random, mostly unconnected gaming takes of questionable heat level and varying seriousness:
Kanji is the best Persona 4 character even though he's one of the characters most affected by the weaknesses in P4's writing. (This might be a freezing cold take, I do not keep up with persona discourse for my own sanity)
*Persona 5 spoilers ig? It's 2025 tho who's getting spoiled* My reaction to Goro Akechi's death was the #ripbozo meme.
The closest thing Fire Emblem has to a masterpiece is Tear Ring Saga.
People should know better than to not shadow drop fangames by now. Don't tempt fate, guys, it's not worth it.
Smash 6 will almost certainly not live up to Ultimate. I'd be surprised if they can convince Sakurai to direct it (and I absolutely don't blame him for this, my man deserves a break) and whoever replaces him will probably not make the kind of decisions that straddle the line between "admirably ambitious" and "arguably deranged" that made Ultimate great.
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is maybe the greatest example of a discrepancy in the quality of a crossover as a crossover, versus as its own thing. It is also a cognitohazard, sorry for putting you all at risk
There are valid reasons for not liking the combat in FFXIII but some of people's most common complaints are actually skill issues. Or maybe 'mindset issues' is a better term? Or you bought the official guide, which advises you to play in the least fun way possible. In any case it's very fun if you have a decent idea of what you're doing.
As someone who loved pretty much everything Gen 5 did since day one, I do think my 10-year-old self's obviously exquisite taste makes me superior.
The best era of gaming is, was, and always will be the era that is/was happening at that (this?) exact moment, at least since the '83 crash. You have everything that's come before, and you can almost certainly find something you think is cool that's happening right now. Like spend 15 minutes on the Steam store bro, gaming isn't dying. The only exception is if you're an arcade head, in which case I legit feel bad for you, I wish they were still around too.
Keep posting about Among Us, I'll never get tired of seeing it.
If your game's character creator can't be used to make an episode of Monster Factory, why are you even bothering?
The stereotype that all JRPGs end in killing God is overplayed. Look up Persona 2 Innocent Sin's final boss if you disagree.
I've honestly been a Silksong skeptic for a good while now. If it does release (and that's a big 'if' that gets bigger every day) it'll still be one of the biggest examples of how not to handle a dev cycle, especially when crowdfunding is involved. Like, just give people some goddamn screenshots or like a gif of character moving around every couple months, you CANNOT have this level of radio silence. I know some news just came out, but from what I can tell it's another generic "yeah guys its coming don't worry" with nothing to prove the game actually exists. This is very pessimistic I know but like Jesus Christ. Just let us know what's going on more often than once a year if we're lucky. My actual reaction to Xenoblade Chronicles X DE was 'wow, we're getting this before Silksong.'
More games should be made with spite. Look how well Spec Ops: The Line turned out!
SMT 5 having like 4 cutscenes after the first thirty minutes for several hours was one of the greatest design decisions made by any modern RPG.
Kanji is the best Persona 4 character even though he's one of the characters most affected by the weaknesses in P4's writing. (This might be a freezing cold take, I do not keep up with persona discourse for my own sanity)
*Persona 5 spoilers ig? It's 2025 tho who's getting spoiled* My reaction to Goro Akechi's death was the #ripbozo meme.
The closest thing Fire Emblem has to a masterpiece is Tear Ring Saga.
People should know better than to not shadow drop fangames by now. Don't tempt fate, guys, it's not worth it.
Smash 6 will almost certainly not live up to Ultimate. I'd be surprised if they can convince Sakurai to direct it (and I absolutely don't blame him for this, my man deserves a break) and whoever replaces him will probably not make the kind of decisions that straddle the line between "admirably ambitious" and "arguably deranged" that made Ultimate great.
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is maybe the greatest example of a discrepancy in the quality of a crossover as a crossover, versus as its own thing. It is also a cognitohazard, sorry for putting you all at risk
There are valid reasons for not liking the combat in FFXIII but some of people's most common complaints are actually skill issues. Or maybe 'mindset issues' is a better term? Or you bought the official guide, which advises you to play in the least fun way possible. In any case it's very fun if you have a decent idea of what you're doing.
As someone who loved pretty much everything Gen 5 did since day one, I do think my 10-year-old self's obviously exquisite taste makes me superior.
The best era of gaming is, was, and always will be the era that is/was happening at that (this?) exact moment, at least since the '83 crash. You have everything that's come before, and you can almost certainly find something you think is cool that's happening right now. Like spend 15 minutes on the Steam store bro, gaming isn't dying. The only exception is if you're an arcade head, in which case I legit feel bad for you, I wish they were still around too.
Keep posting about Among Us, I'll never get tired of seeing it.
If your game's character creator can't be used to make an episode of Monster Factory, why are you even bothering?
The stereotype that all JRPGs end in killing God is overplayed. Look up Persona 2 Innocent Sin's final boss if you disagree.
I've honestly been a Silksong skeptic for a good while now. If it does release (and that's a big 'if' that gets bigger every day) it'll still be one of the biggest examples of how not to handle a dev cycle, especially when crowdfunding is involved. Like, just give people some goddamn screenshots or like a gif of character moving around every couple months, you CANNOT have this level of radio silence. I know some news just came out, but from what I can tell it's another generic "yeah guys its coming don't worry" with nothing to prove the game actually exists. This is very pessimistic I know but like Jesus Christ. Just let us know what's going on more often than once a year if we're lucky. My actual reaction to Xenoblade Chronicles X DE was 'wow, we're getting this before Silksong.'
More games should be made with spite. Look how well Spec Ops: The Line turned out!
SMT 5 having like 4 cutscenes after the first thirty minutes for several hours was one of the greatest design decisions made by any modern RPG.
TBF ultimate still holds up today (at least far better than brawl or 4 did on release of the next game) so it's more likely they'll go for a more fast-paced smash game akin to melee. Yes, I know ultimate is like... the second or third fastest paced smash game thanks to its 3-frame jumpstart across all characters but this decision leads to much of the game being defined by air interactions so in my opinion it's better to give characters more consistent anti-airs from ground (since there's actually not a ton and maybe 1/10th of the cast has one that isn't prediction reliant) or give each character unique jumpstarts and jack up ground accel a little bit. Also bringing back wavedashes would be nice methinks.
I genuinely hate the Shibuya Arc and it's where I quit JJK
I don't know man. I just hate JJK. It's incompetent and (most likely involuntarily) extremely mean-spirited. The dissapointment from JJK and MHA years prior has led me to stop following shonen
I hate how things just happen. Why does Toji come back? He doesn't do shit except look cool and then dying before giving Megumi a single fucking interesting interaction
I hated the Mahoraga reveal so much. Megumi feels genuinely like the author's punching bag, he never gets cool shit to do besides his incomplete domain expansion, always gets punished psychologically and physically and with the reveal that he has Mahoraga, it was also revealed that he was willing to commit suicide at several points before this arc, some of these points being minor obstacles for almost every character except for Megumi
I don't get why characters die in JJK without doing anything before they die and then still being forced into the story somehow. Mechamaru was introduced and killed it off within a single fight, yet everything plot-relevant he does is past his death
I hated the Kenjaku reveal. Geto was the most interesting character in the story and again, the most important thing he does is be a vessel for a much, much less interesting villain, past his death
There's a lot of small points I found bad to awful. Nanami is one of the best characters in the story, the moment he punched Taylor Swift to death was cool. But Taylor Swift didn't die. He just bullied Megumi again after Megumi's father committed suicide in front of him. Did I mention how much I fucking hate how bad Megumi was treated? I don't even love Megumi particularly, but the punishment he receives throughout JJK is comparable to what Squidward goes through in modern SpongeBob episodes
Sukuna is legit trash. There was Geto who was well-written. Sukuna is just some dude who likes to kill people. And he's somehow the most important person in the entire story. Nothing about him is interesting. I don't feel anything seeing him. Just slight annoyance and some boredom
Nobara was killed before she got to do much. Mahito is also much less interesting in Shibuya, compared to how philosophical and enticing he seemed in the Junpei arc. Again, he's like Sukuna, just a guy that kills people for fun.
I hated the Mahoraga reveal so much. Megumi feels genuinely like the author's punching bag, he never gets cool shit to do besides his incomplete domain expansion, always gets punished psychologically and physically and with the reveal that he has Mahoraga, it was also revealed that he was willing to commit suicide at several points before this arc, some of these points being minor obstacles for almost every character except for Megumi
I don't get why characters die in JJK without doing anything before they die and then still being forced into the story somehow. Mechamaru was introduced and killed it off within a single fight, yet everything plot-relevant he does is past his death
I hated the Kenjaku reveal. Geto was the most interesting character in the story and again, the most important thing he does is be a vessel for a much, much less interesting villain, past his death
There's a lot of small points I found bad to awful. Nanami is one of the best characters in the story, the moment he punched Taylor Swift to death was cool. But Taylor Swift didn't die. He just bullied Megumi again after Megumi's father committed suicide in front of him. Did I mention how much I fucking hate how bad Megumi was treated? I don't even love Megumi particularly, but the punishment he receives throughout JJK is comparable to what Squidward goes through in modern SpongeBob episodes
Sukuna is legit trash. There was Geto who was well-written. Sukuna is just some dude who likes to kill people. And he's somehow the most important person in the entire story. Nothing about him is interesting. I don't feel anything seeing him. Just slight annoyance and some boredom
Nobara was killed before she got to do much. Mahito is also much less interesting in Shibuya, compared to how philosophical and enticing he seemed in the Junpei arc. Again, he's like Sukuna, just a guy that kills people for fun.
I don't know man. I just hate JJK. It's incompetent and (most likely involuntarily) extremely mean-spirited. The dissapointment from JJK and MHA years prior has led me to stop following shonen