#Legends Arceus was also fantastic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shima-draws · 2 months

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Hi Shima! You have a lot of Pokemon content on your page and I’m sorta curious about the like, world of Pokemon, so would you have any recommendations on what like game I should start with or what I should watch first? Thanks!

!!! YOOOOO OKAY I GOTCHU ANON. Buckle up bc my 20 years of being a Pokemon fan is about to kick in

As for where to start with the games--this is all really depending on how your own personal playstyle! Do you like games that are more easy going and light on plot? Or do you like ones with heavy amounts of story? Or do you prefer games that are a perfect blend of the two? Pokemon's got a mixed bag of all of the above so you really can't go wrong

If you're into that really nostalgia feel I'd recommend starting out with the first Pokemon game I ever played as a kid, which was Pokemon Emerald! You can actually play this for free by downloading a Gameboy Advance emulator and the Emerald ROM. I have a lot of fond memories of Emerald and it's still one of my favorite games to date. I actually even prefer Emerald over its remakes (Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire) bc it just doesn't quite hit the same lol. I think even without having played Emerald as a kid it'll just spark that nostalgic feeling? It's that kind of game, at least to me :")

Going off of that if you REALLY want to hit nostalgia central and start where it all began, Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen is also a good game to start out with. It's a remake of Pokemon Red/Blue, which were the first ever Pokemon games that were made. Personally I'm not a super huge Gen 1 fan bc I feel like it's been WAY overdone at this point (it's had two remakes already) but if you've never played a Pokemon game again it's definitely a good starting point. It's barely got any plot so it's really a game you can just dive into and enjoy without focusing too hard on the story. AND as an added bonus, Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver is the direct sequel to Gen 1 (and a remake of the original Gold/Silver/Crystal) so I'd definitely play that one as well, it's lots of fun!

Of course I will also recommend Pokemon Black/White and Black 2/White 2, which is generation 5 and my FAVORITE mainline Pokemon games of all time. BW released right before the transition to the 3D games so it still has sprite art. It's a GORGEOUS game honestly and I think it's really well balanced with story VS gameplay. It's got great characters and fantastic design elements (with everything honestly like the Pokemon designs are great, the character designs are great, the city/town designs are great, etc) and the most KICKASS soundtrack ever (looking at you Driftveil City AKA Toothless dancing meme music). I could go on and on and on about Gen 5 for hours lmao I really hold it near and dear to my heart. Also it's one of the very few games that actually has a sequel which I LOVE. BW2 takes place two years after BW and I love the story and character progression 🥰

Shouting out Pokemon Platinum as well, I know it's a huge fan favorite and honestly I also love it very much!! Platinum came out before BW did so it's got that early DS era feel to it. It's got a decent plot and classic fun gameplay elements. Also Pokemon Legends Arceus which ties directly into Platinum as its prequel (but you should play Platinum first? I know it's confusing lol). PLA is SUPER fucking fun, it's got a completely different gameplay style and mechanic than regular Pokemon games, and it ties in with Platinum so well.

And to my last few recommendations -

Pokemon Sun and Moon!! There's mixed feelings about this one from a lot of people but it's one of my personal favorites...I think people dislike that it's so plot heavy, there's a LOT of dialogue even when starting the game so if you're not into that I wouldn't go with SM. But I LOVE games that are heavy with plot and SM just does it so well. The characterization is really well done and I love watching Lillie go through her development arc 🤧 But yeah it's SM NOT Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon which are like. The same games but Worse. USUM took SM's plot and stomped all over it so I would not go for those lol

And, of courseeee. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet! These are the most recent mainline games to release and ohhh my god. Is the game laggy and bugged out as hell? Yes. Is it also fucking FANTASTIC and has made me cry multiple times? ALSO yes. If you don't mind occasional shitty graphics then please please PLEASE play SV. The open world aspect is a ton of fun, the new Pokemon designs are so charming, the characters are wonderful, and the STORY??? The plot literally blew my socks off the first time I played it. SV endgame you will always be the king of my heart. It's definitely heavier than any previous Pokemon game and it had me reeling for DAYS after. The story is just. So so so good. And we get a continuation of the story kicking ass in the DLC. I love SV to death it really redeemed Pokemon after the disaster that was gen 8 for me (and it's REALLY fun to shiny hunt in).

And LAST but certainly not least. My favorite Pokemon game of all time period ever in the history of Pokemon. Not a mainline game but a side/spinoff game--Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky!! If you want the classic Pokemon experience I probably wouldn't start with this since it's so different from the mainline games but I'd 10000% play it after finishing your first Pokemon game. It's a dungeon crawler, you get to BE a Pokemon, the music is phenomenal, the gameplay is phenomenal, the story is PHENOMENAL, everything about it is incredible and I will love this game until the day I die. I CANNOT recommend it enough. It's so so SO good and it means so much to me I can't even. Please play PMD Sky this goes to everyone who hasn't played it I prommy it's worth it

So basically:

Easy games with no/light plot: FRLG, Emerald, HGSS

Games with a perfect blend of actual gameplay and plot: BW/B2W2, Platinum, PLA

Games that hit HEAVY with plot/storyline: SM, SV, PMD Sky

Honestly you really cannot go wrong no matter where you start out. Even if it's with one of the games I DIDN'T personally recommend, all the mainline games have their own unique charm and each generation has its die hard fans (UNOVA GANG RISE). I've played all of them and they're all enjoyable!

As for the anime, my personal recommendations are the XY saga and the SM saga! The SM saga is my ultimate favorite, it's really cute and charming and fun, with some heavier plot arcs sprinkled in so it's a good blend between lighthearted stuff and more serious story. XY is VERY plot-heavy especially in the latter part, there's a lot of character development and crazy stuff going on, so I'd go for that one if you want to get hit hard with Feels. I haven't watched as much of the anime so I'm sure other people would recommend other seasons (I know the original saga, the Hoenn saga and the DP saga are fan favorites).

I'd also recommend watching the sub instead of the dub,, especially if you haven't grown up watching the Pokemon anime like me the dub is VERY hit or miss. I prefer subs as well bc the dub actually cuts out a LOT of stuff? I know for SM they had fun extra little bits at the beginning and ending of each episode that the dub just. Didn't include. For some reason? Like they'd cut out entire scenes. Idk. It's up to you either way tho ^^

And that is my introduction to Pokemon list.........if anybody has anything to add feel free! These are just my personal recommendations based off of what I like so naturally not everyone will agree lol. If you have any questions anon don't hesitate to ask, I'm always down to talk Pokemon. And I hope you have lots of fun playing whichever game you decide to go with!!

#Shima answers questions #Long post #Pokemon #Sorry I word vomited there LOL can you tell Pokemon has been my hyperfixation since I was 7 #It is Everything to me <3 #ANYWAY HAVE FUN ANON!!! So glad I managed to catch your interest with my Pokeposting lmao

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skylertheminish · 5 months

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Naturally my cheese brain decided to do some crossovers shenanigans. Totally not because I'm a monster hunter fan as well as a pkmn fan among other things, not even remotely the case! Even though Ceruledge and Armarouge would be fantastic dual blade and heavy gunners.

So yeah I guess the lore would be two eggs traveled through time and space via whatever shenanigans happened in legends Arceus? Lines up with both lores given the power these creatures tend to have from both franchise. These little beans need names still and I might make it a comic or story thing.

Was trying out the watercolor brush for the first time. Also Ew sketch dump.

Like it? Reblog it :)

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #charcadet #monster hunter #monster hunter stories #would this be like a misadventures?#cant get over how many of you liked my previous post btw ;w;#my scribbles

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waywardstation · 7 months

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Hi, I hope you’re doing good in life. I wanted to ask out of curiosity, have you completed Legends Arceus? I don’t mean just get the end credits or battling arceus, but like have you done everything that could be like completed? I know “completed” is kind of a loose definition since what can be considered completed in a game is sometimes debatable and by how the player wants to define “completed.” In my case for example in Arceus, I did the whole story: the credits, the final battle with Arceus, and the daybreak update. I also filled every Pokédex entry, got the shiny charm, did all of the side quests including the ballon mini games and the path of solitude quests, got every crafting recipe, all the Hisuian poems and I won fifty battles in a row in the eternal battle reverie and got a special mark on my trainer card from Arceus for doing that. That’s my personal criteria for completing Arceus and I was wondering if you’d done the same. Before Arceus, I had never cared about doing things like completing the Pokédex or things like the battle facilities(mainly because I suck at competitive battling and am too lazy to do things like EV train), but Arceus was the first Pokémon game where I did any of that stuff. I loved the game so much that I actually wanted to and was willing to do stuff like that. I was curious if you’d done the same since you seem to love the game as much as I do.

Hey friend!! Wow what an accomplishment!! It certainly sounds like a lot so it's fantastic that you got through all of that!!

I have not finished PLA to these standards like you have, but I am SO CLOSE!!! I've done all of the above except for two things:

-Ingo's paths of solitude

-completing the eternal battle reverie

I really struggle with Ingo's paths of solitude; THEY'RE SO HARD!!! I've been doing my best with it but it's very slow going haha, Ingo really knows his battle techniques ;o;

And the 50 battles in a row, I simply haven't done yet as I was always concerned I'd never have enough time at once to do it, and I want to get it all done at once.

BUT YES! just the same as you, I've never been motivated to ever complete any pokemon game. But I'd found myself just naturally doing it with PLA since I've enjoyed playing it so much, so I just kept going. I'm not as far as you, but I'm almost there!!

What a fun question OP, thank you!! ^^

#wayward’s asks #INGO DOES NOT GO EASY ON SOME OF THESE BATTLES #AND ARCEUS LOVES TO MAKE ME SUFFER

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lastoneout · 2 months

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hi idk if you're a huge kalos fan but how are you feeling about the direct

I haven't watched it yet, but ngl Kalos wasn't my favorite OR my least favorite pokemon game, I was pretty neutral on it overall. My main complaint was how annoying the map was to traverse before you got fly, but aside from that it was fine, introduced some cool pokemon and had a decent plot. Tbh for the next Legends game I would have preferred Jhoto, but eh. It's not a huge deal to me.

My real issue is that it's a little hard to get excited about it when I know how bad crunch is at Game Freak and that despite saying they were reevaluating their tight release cycle bcs like, ScarVi was borderline unplayable at launch and Arceus got abandoned the second they were done with it despite being the most popular game in years....I just have no faith that this game will be good, or at least it won't be anywhere near as good as it has the potential to be :/

I hope I'm proven wrong tho, and I don't think it's wrong to be excited about the game, something something no ethical consumption and I'd be a major hypocrite if I told people to drop any game company that has bad practices bcs almost all of them do, I just can't get hype. I was really, really hoping Game Freak would slow the hell down and stop making new games for a couple of years, put all of their focus on gen 10 and release that maybe in 2026 or 2027, but nope gotta make that money even if the games we release are falling apart at the seams and our devs are working on two or three projects at once.

And like, given the current trend in decreasing quality I'm genuinely unsure if the game is even going to be functional enough to be worth playing, especially since I figure to hit a 2025 release they probably started working on this right after Arceus came out, and there has simply not been enough time to make this game good. Plus there were a lot of points in ScarVi where I legit just wanted to put the game down and stop playing entirely bcs the graphics and glitches and framerate drops started to make me annoyed and dizzy, and once I was done with the main story I lost like all motivation to keep playing(I like finishing my dex, I did it in Sw/Sh and Let's Go and have almost done it in BDSP and Arceus, but I don't care about ScarVi's dex at all), and I haven't even bought the DLC yet. Tbh I'm probably not even gonna pre-order this, I'm waiting till it's out to decide if I want to buy it or not.

Anyway sorry to be a buzzkill, I don't fault anyone for being excited, I've loved Pokemon for more than half my life, it helped me meet my fiancé, it really means so SO much to me, so I get it, but like....I think I love the series too much to get excited for this. Seeing what Pokemon is turning into is just...painful and sad. I hope y'all enjoy it tho, and who knows, I could be wrong, maybe it will be fantastic and super polished and we can all breathe a sigh of relief bcs they got their shit together! That would be nice.

Edit: I do want to say I'm glad it has been 3 years instead of the usual 2, and I'm VERY glad they didn't announce gen 10, but unless the scope of this game is narrow as fuck and they also don't release until like November-December 2025 AND this team was NOT the same team who worked on ScarVi's DLC that is still not enough time to make a game with the scope they've been establishing as their new baseline. TOTK took SIX years to finish. Elden Ring's DLC was built on top of an existing game and it still took TWO whole years just to make it. Most open-world games take a really, really long time. Adding an extra year is great, but they need to be taking a lot longer than that between games. This is a step in the right direction, but it's not enough to inspire confidence.

#pokemon crit #most of the modern gaming industry gets by releasing a new huge game every like 6 years or so #and they're promising shit on the scope of TOTK or Elden Ring especially with that $60 price tag #I just don't think three years is enough time to make a game like that #especially especially since ScarVi's DLC literally JUST came out #and it was a big one

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chipsncookies · 1 month

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Group-that-has-Ingo anon again! Hi! Thank you for the wonderful post!! It absolutely brightened my day to see all the info. I’m totally gonna make my own TTRPG submas twins now. I do have an update on the game: I mentioned to someone that I had a copy of Black in its original case and they were like “dang you have a valuable thing right there” so I fetched it from my brother’s room and… the case is empty!!! I feel like I was this |—| close to greatness. I’m very sad, but maybe I’ll look into the Arceus game or something so I can meet these guys! Have a fantastic day!

WHAT NOOOO THAT'S SO SAD 😭😭😭😭 I'm so sorry to hear that it sounds like a cruel joke ;; although, understandably it's hard to find a good copy of bw these days...

I hope you'll have better luck with legends arceus!!! 🫂 Sending good vibes to you!! Also i hope you have fun with TTRPG with the twins! ;; 💖💖💖

#asks #if it makes u feel better I haven't played bw either #so we're same #and they're hard to encounter anyway fhfh

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slothfuzzz · 1 month

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Pokémon Z-A: My thoughts & Predictions!

(Plus some Fakemon!!!)

While much was revealed in the trailer on Pokemon Day, the visuals and content told us enough about what may potentially be in the game. Partially from the fact that it's another installment in the “Legends' ' series of Pokemon games with the last one being Legends Arceus, we will probably expect similar gameplay. That being a more open world breath of the wild or monster hunter formatted game with lots of action and scenic graphics. Which at least for me as someone who is a huge fan of open fantastical environments I'm excited about.

Also, the fact that the last Legends game set the president learning about the past of the Pokemon world. This makes me hopeful that we'll learn a lot more about the events of what happened before Pokemon X & Y. both came out in 2012. Before I continue, here's a bit of context on X & Y conceptually as past Pokemon games.

Pokemon X & Y take place in the Kalos Region which is based in France with architecture like the tower in Lumiose City being insured by the Eiffel Tower. Also, the choice of Pokemon that were introduced in that game as well as the debut of the newest type at a time fairy. This game has gone down in JRPG infamy for introducing Mega Evolution as well as the amount of incomplete content it had which segway into my main point of writing this.

What will be answered in the new game? And what will be introduced into the games going forward?

Both of these questions are what I'll be using to guide my hopes & predictions of what potentially will be in this newest game.

New Pokemon:

The full visual of all the Pokemon introduced in X&Y.

Like I stated before XY was infamous for having only 72 new Pokemon. But it is revealed later in the original games that many Pokemon died in a war in the Kalos region's past. So theoretically if there is some type of time travel or Pokemon restoration mechanic there is the possibility some of these “extinct” Pokemon could make a comeback with their first debut in this game.

Time travel:

As stated at the start the last Pokemon Legends game involved time travel with the protagonist going to the past of a different region of the Pokemon world. And from the fact that we see in the Pokemon Z trailer two distinctly different maps of Lumiose City one that looks old and the other looking modern, I am led to believe that this could potentially nod towards a past and future jumping through time aspect to the game. Which depending on how it's implemented could be great.

Expanded character lore:

Through the past and future mechanics that are being added too, we could see past Pokemon characters (gym leaders, trainers, rivals, etc.) either fulfill their dreams from past games or find out who their ancestors and/or children are. It wouldn't be the first time Pokemon has done this. But generally whenever they bring back characters from past games or introduce characters that are related to other characters they almost always get really good reception. Especially since they are usually the opposites of the character they are based on personality which could lead to some entering in game dynamics.

AZ’s Floette:

So probably one of the biggest unanswered questions that's been in the Pokemon community for a decade if not more at this point is what happened to AZ Floette? Does it have an evolution?

For context, AZ is a character who created a machine that would revive his Pokemon that tragically died in the Pokemon war of Kalos past. He did this by using the love of other Pokemon to power the machine. Thus bringing back his beloved Pokemon but with a different more gothic form.

What's interesting about this is that even after we see Floette return to see AZ before flying away once again, it never evolves.

But there was concept art that was leaked several years ago of a potential Floette evolution that was drafted at Game Freak so there's still hope that we may not only be able to catch this mysterious Pokemon but also unleash its full potential.

Closing thoughts & Concepts:

Honestly, I think it will be pretty difficult for this game to disappoint me. Even though I have to wait till 2025 (which will break the Gamefreak year schedule of releasing a Pokemon game) I am okay with that if it means I finally get to experience a Pokemon game that is complete on release. For the past several years Game Freak has released a game and then some DLCs when all we want is the whole game all at once. And while the DLC content can be nice it should feel supplemental and nonessential like if I don't get it I am missing core content but that is a whole conversation in itself.

Out of excitement and the fact that whenever a new Pokemon game is announced I always love creating some Fakemon to see how accurate my predictions for the game may be and/or what concepts may be implemented but with my spin on it. Below are a few different Pokemon forms that I came up with for Pokemon that I hope will be in the game. I am fully aware that they won't look like my iterations but I have fun making them as an artist and Pokemon fan.

Quick sketch I did of Floette Evolution Ideas:

(may come back to these as game approaches release)

Paradox Vivillon I called “Iron Seasons”:

Alternative Furfrou Trim mock-ups:

(Ancient & Future Trims)

#artists on tumblr #neurodiversity #pokeblogging #pokemon community #pokemon thoughts #pokemon xy #pokémon #furfrou #pokémon za #pokémon az #pokemon go #pokémon fan #pokemon #pokemon art #small artist #lgbtq artist #digital artist #queer artist #my art

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themattress · 1 year

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When Poke-History Repeats Itself

The Kalos Champion Diantha and Team Flare Boss Lysandre from Gen VI are blatantly recycled from Sinnoh Champion Cynthia and Team Galactic Boss Cyrus from Gen IV. Seriously, it couldn’t be more obvious. An elegant female champion whose English name ends in “tha”, whom isn’t revealed as the Champion until the end of her debut game’s story. An obviously evil-looking, constantly frowning man who runs a scientific company and desires to use his region’s ancient legends to cleanse the world of all he deems is ruining things. Giving those descriptions, it’d be anyone’s guess which character you’re talking about.

But what’s most funny of all about this is that these two heroine/villain duos also share an eerily similar trajectory in the franchise where they kind of sucked in their debut games, only to become stand-outs everywhere else they appear (other games, anime, manga, TCG, etc.)

Cynthia and Cyrus each have a grand total of four scenes in the original Diamond/Pearl games (and their 3D remakes). In that time, Cynthia comes off as an irrelevant character until her last scene where she’s revealed as the Champion. Cyrus’ introductory scenes come and go absurdly quickly without any dramatic impact, he has no interactions with his own team, his personal goal seems too divorced from how the rest of it was usually operating, his motivations are sketchy, and his suffers from a massively anti-climactic resolution. Both characters look cool and are great to battle, but you can’t help but feel they’re stuck in rough draft form. Then Platinum came along, fleshing both of them out considerably: Cynthia is now involved in the plot and helps you defeat Team Galactic, and all of Cyrus’ issues are mended.

The only other place they fumbled was in the Diamond/Pearl anime series where they were subjected to insulting OOC writing, but Cynthia improved dramatically in Best Wishes and Journeys, and the latter series even managed to posthumously use Cyrus to good effect. Otherwise, it was smooth sailing for them. The Pokemon Adventures manga, the Diamond & Pearl Adventure! manga, the TCG, the Generations animated web shorts, and games such as Black/White, Black 2/White 2, Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon and Pokemon Masters. Heck, even Legends: Arceus, which they didn’t appear in, was able to deepen their characters in a way by implying that they both share blood from the descendants of Volo / Cogita and Cyllene.

In the X/Y games, Diantha also only has a number of scenes you can count on one hand and is also irrelevant to the story other than being the Champion you battle at the end. Lysandre gets a lot more screentime and development than Cyrus did in Diamond/Pearl, but it’s so badly written that it doesn’t really make much of a difference: by the end you still don’t really get why Lysandre is the way that he is, he and his extreme objective doesn’t match how Team Flare was depicted prior to the reveal, and his conclusion is not only anti-climactic but also straight-up confusing. It doesn’t help that the game’s narrative is horribly intellectually dishonest about his objective. Behind the scenes report indicate that neither character was remotely depicted the way they were originally conceived, which had a strong extra-terrestrial angle to it, so that explains a lot about how undercooked they both feel as a consequence.

And yet in the anime, Pokemon Adventures manga, TCG, Generations and Evolutions animated web shorts, and games such as Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon and Masters? They’re great! Diantha feels less like a hastily prepared discount version of Cynthia and more like her own person...she even has fantastic chemistry with Cynthia in Masters and the Journeys anime. Lysandre actually rivals Giovanni as a villain in the anime and TCG, he’s a well-written and compelling character in the manga and web shorts, and his depiction in Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon and Masters is well above X/Y in terms of narrative consistency and intellectual honesty.

On the whole, I still prefer Cynthia and Cyrus to Diantha and Lysandre, but it’s cool that both sets of characters have been able to redeem themselves for their lackluster introductions.

#Pokemon #Diamond/Pearl #Pokemon X/Y #Cynthia #Cyrus #Team Galactic #Diantha #Lysandre #Team Flare #Comparison #Analysis

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cyberdragoninfinity · 7 months

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I would love to hear your Legends Arceus thoughts! I got it a couple months ago and I'm having so much fun with it!

WOUGHHH I LOVE LEGENDS ARCEUS SO MUCHHH the Legends choice was easily one of the best decisions Pokemon has made with its video games in years and I genuinely would LOVE to see them do another one (Legends Unova pleeeease god)--I love this idea of going back to old regions and doing something new with them, new story, new gameplay, new exploration of this vast world theyve had cooked up for over a decade. And new POKEMON!! I really enjoy like all of the Hisuian Pokemon theyve added...The concept of making regional variants for older gen regions RULES, and I love how this game gives some lovin to some lackluster older 'mons by giving them evolutions that SHRED LIKE HELL. OVERQWIL. SNEASLER. URSALUNA MY BELOVED.

(also, regional variant starter evolutions is SUCH a phenomenal idea and I wanna see it again so bad!! Hisuian Samurott legitimately my new all time favorite water type. He's perfect)

when I was a kid I was really into exploring DPP's legendary lore and having my self insert OC hang out with Sinnoh legendaries and a lot of PLA's everything really just makes me feel so soft and nostalgic... game middle schooler me would have gone Absolutely Insane for. I love the story and the characters, Pokemon is really gettin good at Characters these past few games--even when the actual game is weaker the charaters still feel very memorable and fun. I love you Cogita my beautiful wife Cogita. And Like. My God. There is SO much lore tucked in that game that I wish it made more of an effort to tip you off towards, shit i'm only just learning RECENTLY, hidden tidbits extremely off the map and underexplained. It is very very cool and I hope if they do another Legends game there's more secrets to unearth. Cuz that's like, probably one of my favorite aspects of the game is just...wandering around the map, sightseeing. I get why some people feel like the maps are kind of empty but I honestly don't mind it very much...it's peaceful. I like just scurrying around looking at things, listening to the world.

also on that note: god the music is fantastic. I love the way this game approached the motifs and music from Diamond and Pearl, all the tracks in PLA kick so much ass and/or Unlock a Tremendous Sense of Nostalgic Tenderness Within Me. The Lake Theme is one of my favorites; when the motif from the DPP original version kicks in i get a little misty eyed i must admit... (also the Late Night Field Theme. holy shit. the first time i heard it i got CHILLS. OUGH.)

It's not a perfect game of course, the Getting a Little (A Lot) Playfully Colonialist inherent to the Galaxy Corps and their place in Hisui is. not fantastic.😬 And it's got little bugs and glitches and graphics that could have used another year in the oven. But damn if it's not some of the most fun I've ever had with a Pokemon game. it really feels like a weirder older spinoff game, like something that woulda come out in gen 5, but it actually gets classed as a mainline series game and i love that about it.

And i hope you continue to have fun with it!! The late game stuff is really a treat imo. So much great OST tracks headed your way :3c i Really need to go back into PLA myself and actually complete my dex and battle Arceus but time keeps running away from me....one day. i will get back in there. I'm very fond of Hisui ;__;

heres a picture of my H-Samurott plush his name is Kaiser and he's my friend ❤

#i also love the spacetime rifts like what a delightful way to include pkmn that wouldnt nessecarily make sense in the space #its just a fantastically creative game which this franchise desperately needs #pokemon chattering #asks #anonymous #PLA really feels like such a love letter to the gen 4 games.#im really happy thinking about kids who got to play this as one of their first pkmn games. something rly special there!!

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alexissara · 1 year

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Art That Touched Me 2022

It's that time of year where people recap the stuff from the year they enjoyed and put them into structured lists. I like a nice structured list but instead of doing a bunch of categories of things I am just gonna talk about my favorite pieces of art across all forms of media this year and why I like them. Something being on this list doesn't mean they came out this year [but most did] I just have to have tried it out this year.

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes

I love Fire Emblem, I make no secret about it, I see Fire Emblem and my dirty little consumer brain activates and the main theme plays in my little brain. It's probably my favorite series of games. However, I really also love the gameplay of the warriors series so this game was perfect for me. While the first FE warriors was a little mid thanks to a really bad story and a meh roster, this game is just amazing on every level. It expands on a cast of characters I love, gives Fire Emblem it's second canon lesbian character, the last one being on the Wii and it has two really amazing stories our of three. The game is held back by just how awful the Blue Lions are but that isn't anything new for the Three Houses world they also sucked in Three Houses. Edelgard and Claude's routes were both amazingly done and elevated the characters and their casts, fleshing them out even further and really showing their visions for a better world even if the game was still afraid to show you what this world would look like with it's subpar endings. The gameplay is great, the writing for characters is fantastic and really all it's missing is exploring more of Shez and Byleth both of whom needed a bit more spotlight in the game.

Ultimately I took a lot of great ways to write characters in compelling ways and a fun format for telling a war narrative in the context of a revolution. I think it's a really good and engaging piece of art that's also very fun to play.

The Executioner and Her Way Of Life

This anime was well worth the hype. The stunning action, the take down of isekai tropes, the lack of subtly, the wildly flamboyant and over the top cast, it is a stunning piece. The show is running at all engines fired and multiple easy ships and clear romantic feelings from several characters.

While this show opens with a guy character who is then killed the show after episode one then focuses pretty much wholly on women. This gives us a range of women in adversarial positions and allied positions. Everyone is a little bit messed up and it's just so much fun, it instantly became one of my all time favorite animes.

This instantly inspired me to want to write a setting for TSL and wanting to do more work with the isekai story telling space. I think this just makes me want to make something fun but that also like has more to say. Which is always my target goal but it was nice to see it in action in someone else's work.

Pokémon Legends Arceus

While Pokémon Scarlet and Violet really let me down [You can read my review here], PLA was an amazing experience. The gameplay was really exciting the flow of capturing Pokemon was just so much fun and the focused theming made for really great visual design. The game did a good job with the story telling through the way the village progressed. While there isn't a lot of deep depth there is something to say for a focused fun experience. I just really liked it.

I'm In Love With The Villainess

I haven't really gotten super far in this series I had a ton of fun with the first volume and some change I read. This is a classic example of me wanting to get deep in something but wanting to support the offical release so I am taking it pretty slow cuz money. I know this series has a trans woman character, has revolutions, has all sorts of shit I will really love.

So a lot of me really enjoying being engaged with it has been through fan art and covers and stuff. Still reading it was still just really nice and I really want to keep pushing forward with it and enjoy the relationship between Claire and Rey.

This series feels just so inspiring as a former comic book writer, like I love seeing a series with such clear good ethics and indie spirit get more and more experience. There is free translations of the light novels the creator just retweets and shares. She tries to communicate in tons of languages to her now global fan base and it's just really nice to see this little series that could grow. I feel really encourages to stick to my own ethics in my work and push for new amazing art to be as accessible as possible.

Guilty Gear -Strive-

This year I got a new laptop and with that I could finally get back into fighting games and the game that has given me the most joy from them all has been Strive. The amazing music that gets into the personal struggles of each of the characters, the over the top action, it's just an exciting and fun game. Bridget was what brought me to the game but I have no regrets diving into the series again after years since I last played XX Ancient Core on my PS2.

The game is also visually stunning, maybe the best looking game around. The stunning experience feels like you are in control of an anime fight.

I don't think I got a big take away from it as an artist that is like applicable to my current mediums but it does inspire me just listening to the music while writing to go big.

Los Espookys

Los Espookys is one of the funniest and queerest shows ever created. The cast of weirdos who like to make spooky stuff starts super grounded and grows increasingly ridiculous with each episode. This show really is something special and it is such a shame it got canceled by HBO.

While it's canceled there is there is two seasons of these little freaks trying to make spooks. I think the narrative of this little weird family is really fun and each character really brings something new to the table.

As a character focused writer I really love the focus on characters here and the way they make ridiculous characters feel like part of their world is masterful. I feel like I'll be pulling from this show when I am looking at how to capture my comedy forward characters especially.

Sun Haven

There is a billion farming sims and this is one that's stood out to me. Most farming sims in fantasy settings don't really embrace the fantasy elements for your farm but this game let's magic be a part of every aspect of what you do. This is a very cozy game and one that i am taking very slowly since I am playing it with one of my girlfriends. It's a really nice chill time that seems to be constantly improving in early access.

Harley Quinn

I don't think the sense of humor in Harley Quinn is for everyone, it's very over the top but not in the way like Los Espooky's is. There is more violence and swearing, it's more "adult comedy TM" except it feels a lot more masterful and less mean then most those kinds of shows. The narrative focus allows the show to actually weave it's comedy and have longer ends for punch lines and bits. It also makes it where it always feels like it's moving because the characters are not in the same place in any given episode, every episode matters to the plot.

I think this show also has some of the best versions of each character in the show with in all of DC media. I am not a big comic book girl anymore, I left them behind when I realized like the abuse and bigotry and stuff just wasn't going to end and I lost hope for the big two. That said I did used to be a super super engaged fan.

This show really makes me wish copyright wasn't the beast it is because it really shows the value of adaptation and how making a world made of these long term iconic characters can be an amazing narrative toolbox. Instead you have to get these ideas in front of gatekeepers.

Fire Emblem: Absolution

This is a Fire Emblem fan game and this is the one that really gripped me in a huge way. It showed me the potential these fan games have to tell stories that go beyond the series and show the strength of the community of fan game makers and rom hackers. The amount of awesome BIPOC characters and the anti colonial vibe of the first arc are really great.

This game really inspired me to dive deep into the fan community and start playing a ton more games. I might right later about a bunch of rom hacks I think are neat and why I think the community is so cool. I want to play even more before I do that but I feel like after diving in I really more than ever feel determined to make an SRPG be it a fan game or something original. It's not at the front of my goals but it's really inspired me.

Girl Haven and Cheer Up

I am bundling these two together because their graphic novels for kids. I really loved both of these stories Girl Haven and Cheer Up both star trans women as their lead characters and sapphic romance for those trans girl. Girl Haven is more a wonderous adventure with a grounding in reality like a queer Narnia that also isn't religious. Cheer Up is more a real mix of drama and romance that comes with being trans, queer, and not fitting norms.

These stories would have mattered so much to a younger me if I had read them. One of the main reasons it took me so long to come out is trans is that I was told on early internet that to be a trans woman you had to be attracted to men, you had to want XYZ things, be this fem, etc. I didn't feel like I could match these clearly homophobic standards and so I suppressed it despite believing that trans lesbians were valid that I met in these spaces from a rare time to time. I simply internalized it. Every trans woman in the media was attracted to men too, it was just not something I could accept about myself.

These stories I hope will find their hands to lots of queer trans girls and help them find the strength to come out. I just feel so happy they exist.

One Step From Eden

This is a game I've been meaning to play for a long time. I am a massive fan of the Mega Man Battle Network for it's really cool gameplay. This game brings it into a rouge like game with far less narrative. While I wish there was a lot more going on thanks to Steam Workshop support being in the game this is a game I just passively play whenever. It's just a really fun time, it's simple and it's like a go to passive almost like stiming type game.

Murder Princess

Our final addition is Murder Princess, an old small anime that I watched with April when I was on a trip to work on Falling Deeper and spend time with her. Watching it it was shockingly pretty gay and actually really good. I love it, I love this body swap anime, I love the weird characters, I love the like One Punch Man esc power level of our main fighter girl for most the show.

This thing really convinced me to sit with the potential of body swapping which is a kind of narrative tool I already liked. I wouldn't be shocked to see it in Falling Deeper and I have an old Firebrands hack about trans people body swapping I would love to revive.

#2022 #Games 2022 #Anime 2022 #2022 Media #Queer Media #Queer Art #inspiration

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piratejenna · 2 years

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Prompt: fic you stayed up way later than you should have to read

Title: Victory Lies Before You

Author: @mobbothetrue

Fandom: Pokemon Black & White; Pokemon Legends Arceus

Rating: General

Word Count: 18193

Summary: Ingo has one week in the modern era to remember his brothers name, or else he’ll be sent back to Hisui… permanently. Except he can’t just ask him, because Arceus is a bit of a jerk and Ingo is now technically a ghost.

(Fortunately, there are forces in their corner.)

----

Alright, I could gush about this fic forever, but I'll try not to get too rambley.

So I fell down the Pokemon Arceus rabbit hole several months ago, followed by falling down the fanfic about Ingo rabbit hole shortly after, and while I have several fics in the "reunion fic" vein that I love, this is one of my favorites!

In particular, what I love about this fic is the way that it centers on the character relationships and dynamics. Like yes there's plot to the reunion, but the plot is there to facilitate the character stuff. There is angst in that character stuff, but it's a brand of it that I love, mostly because the starting point of the fic is that this is a reunion fic. So no matter how angesty and sad it gets, we know that we're working towards something.

I could gush about a ton of specifics, but this fic is paced wonderfully and I love the way that it unfolds, so I don't want to give a lot away. The only specific I'll drop here is that I love the way that the ghost thing works and is explored in the fic. It's a great concept, and the way that you learn about how it works is so great.

(Also my favorite scene, if I have to pick one, is the scene in the kitchen in the middle of the night. Everything about it is wonderful. It breaks my heart, makes me cry, and it's just so good. I got so swept up in the emotions that I legit kind of jumped when I realized with the characters what had happened and what that meant. Just such a great scene. 10/10. You should read the fic for that scene alone.)

The other major thing I love here is the way the characters are written. With a fic like this that features as its main cast characters who have incredibly minimal canon content, there tends to be a pretty wide range of interpretations in fic. And this fic right here is probably my favorite versions of Ingo, Emmet, and Elsea. You can absolutely tell how close they are, and in particular (speaking as a twin myself) I adore the way the author makes it clear that Ingo and Emmet are twins while still making them feel like distinct characters.

While this fic is obviously jumping off from stuff established in Legends Arceus, I would honestly recommend this fic to anyone who enjoys some angst, hurt/comfort, good family dynamics, and a really fun and clever ghost plot. It's an incredibly engaging story, moving smoothly between sweet and bittersweet. Chandelure (one of my favorite pokemon) is fantastic in it. And it has a follow-up fic. What more could you ask for?

As a last note, as the prompt says, I have stayed up way too late (on more than one occasion) to read this fic. Mostly because, despite it being an 18,000 word fic, I have repeatedly started it around or after midnight, thinking to myself "oh I'll just read some of it" and inevitably I read the entire thing. Because it's just so good I can't put it down.

#october fic recs 22 #submas #nimbasa trio #victory lies before you #if you have even a passing interest in these characters please read this fic #like listen i was legit starting to tear up and get emotional just remembering some parts of this fic #it's so good and i love it so much

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askmerriauthor · 1 year

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Pokemon S/V and the Fourth Wall

For those of you who may not know the term, the Fourth Wall is a narrative/theater concept that refers to the unseen barrier between the Audience and the Fictional World being portrayed. When a character in a given work looks directly at the camera/audience, speaks to the viewer, or otherwise interacts with the medium their story is being presented in outside of the way a being in that setting could normally do, that's called "Breaking the Fourth Wall".

Pokemon games have always played pretty fast and loose when it comes to the Fourth Wall. In the early days this could be attributed to simply not having better ways to familiarize Players with the games' systems, functions, and command prompts. The games were heavily limited by their medium and file sizes, so it's not like the devs could spare the extra space to give a more sensibly in-universe explanation to a lot of things. Sometimes a dev has little recourse but to have a character say "Press the B Button", speaking directly to the Player and breaking the Fourth Wall by acknowledging the game/console mechanics. Since Pokemon itself, as a setting and story, has taken lengths to establish a living, breathing world full of lore and history and characters with their own lives, such fissures between Player and Game are generally ignored as a necessity, or cheekily winked at as an Easter Egg, such as when the Player can find Game Freak studio in many of the games and talk to the dev team. Suspension of disbelief maintains.

That said, I have a MAJOR problem with recent developments as of Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Pokemon Scarlet/Violet.

PLA takes place in the far-flung past of the setting and covers a lot of mankind's first real efforts at domesticating Pokemon, which leads up to the modern era the other games take place in. That's a fantastic concept and one I love to see explored. But it also introduced an extremely unnecessary concept into the lore:

All Pokemon have the ability to shrink themselves down small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. All of them. All Pokemon. At-will. It's just an innate thing shared by all Pokemon in existence, even ones from other planets and dimensions or artificially made by man or spontaneously manifested from the grudge of a dying soul, regardless of their differences in biology.

To which I say... no, they fucking don't.

Far be it from me to tell the writers at Game Freak how to do their jobs, but y'know what? I'm a writer in the game development industry myself, so I will since I at least qualify as a professional peer. This doesn't make any sense whatsoever, directly flies in the face of the established lore, and doesn't add anything useful to the lore either. It's not used to expand or fiddle with our understanding of the setting. It's just an excuse to justify why Pokemon shrink away and disappear when they're defeated (a common video game practice of de-rezzing an unneeded character model) or why they can fit inside Pokeballs (we don't need to know that, we've gone the entire series without knowing for certain, it's better not being explained). That said, as the other Fourth Wall breaks prior, this can be massaged away and gently ignored. The story takes place at the very beginning of mankind's scientific exploration of Pokemon, so we can easily wave this statement aside as "they were operating on flawed logic and assumptions that seemed accurate at the time, but didn't hold up to scrutiny as scientific understanding progressed". Suspension of disbelief may be bruised, but it maintains.

Pokemon S/V takes this needless invocation of the game mechanics even further and far more to the detriment of the setting. The Academy is a place that was criminally misused by the game: the Player has the option to explore biology, language, history, math, and other topics outside of the normal Trainer framework we usually play in. It's the perfect opportunity to examine the lore of the setting, really dig into how Pokemon society functions when you're not a combat-focused Trainer, and really flesh out the whole story in interesting ways. S/V did exactly none of that. Instead, all of the classes just discuss combat mechanics or S/V-specific Paldea backstory. That's bad enough on its own because it's such a massive waste of potential, but S/V goes into territory that doesn't just break the Fourth Wall, but grinds it into dust and throws it in our eyes.

Classes in the Academy make statements that blatantly defy the setting we actively interact with at the very moment we're doing it, purely for the sake of justifying a game mechanic. The "Let's Go" function, where you can call out your Pokemon to walk along with you in the overworld, doesn't work indoors because of sizing/pathing constraints. That's fine, it doesn't need to be explained at all. But S/V goes out of its way to state that Pokemon in Paldea, regardless of their species, AREN'T ALLOWED INDOORS, even as virtually every room - including the very class that statement is being made in - features Pokemon in them. Just like the "all Pokemon can shrink" line, this exists only to explain a game mechanic and plainly breaks the setting for no reason.

Further, all these lessons directly reference concepts that don't exist in the setting itself but do exist as part of the game mechanics. They discuss the specific mathematical odds of Shiny probability, the exact damage equations of Super-Effective moves and STAB mechanics, the numerical likelihood and effects of a Critical Hit, and even refer to system statements made in the USER INTERFACE ITSELF THAT EXIST SOLELY FOR THE SAKE OF PLAYER.

What this sort of thing does is directly tie the game's mechanics to the nature of the setting itself; these mechanics are no longer a medium by which to interpret abstract concepts that can't easily be addressed in the game, but are now a fundamental part of how this setting operates. It's absolutely ridiculous and outright damaging to the integrity of the game setting, especially when it comes to the implications it brings up.

For example, there's an invisible stat called "Friendship" in Pokemon that measures how friendly a Pokemon is to you, which raises and lowers based on how you treat them. Some Pokemon will only evolve if they have high Friendship values, or some moves will change their effectiveness based on if a Pokemon likes or dislikes you. As a shorthand mechanic, there are items in the game that alter a Pokemon's stats, including making it more friendly to you. Previously, Players could just use this as an abstraction - "Oh, Pokemon enjoy these items, so using it is the game's way of representing me caring for the Pokemon and giving it things it enjoys". But now? Because of how S/V explicitly ties the game mechanics into the setting, it means these items basically mind-control a Pokemon. "Oh, this Pokemon doesn't like me at all? Let me shove a handful of Grepa Berries down its throat - now it instantly loves me". See how that completely defies the entire concept of Pokemon being independent creatures, Humans befriending Pokemon, establishing a bond with them, and being partners in adventure that even S/V itself tries to present?

This is made so much worse by the fact that it's completely unnecessary. One might argue "But Merri, this is some Players' first Pokemon game! They need to have the mechanics explained to them or else it won't make sense!". I understand that, dear Convenient Strawman, but that's ignoring a very important facet of S/V: the Adventure Guide. That is to say, an in-game key item the Player has from the very start of the game that explains all of the game's various functions, mechanics, and concepts in a non-lore manner. It's a tutorial guidebook specifically for this purpose; its presence in the game explains these ideas better and more thoroughly, making the integration of mechanics into the lore itself redundant and pointless.

For the love of lore, Game Freak, please stop trying to over-explain and integrate game mechanics into the story. Go home. You're drunk.

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon sv #I'm just going to have to ignore 80% of this game for the sake of my own sanity

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