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mmani-e · 4 months

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I've finally finished my Danganronpa AU personal project! I personally call it

DANGANRONPA: DEMIX

And yeah, all the swaps as you can see above, and these guys in the middle are the replacements for Monokuma and Usami respectively:

Check out under the cut for some design insights on my take AND closer pictures of each pair:

Finally finished my personal AU project. I hope it's to everyone's liking!

I can go on forever about these designs but I'll limit myself to one-two sentences on some facts about the designs.

Mikan: Mikan's face tattoo was commissioned on her against her will so that she can never hide her nature as a Yakuza, but her leg tattoo was done on purpose, and she and Nagito have matching tattoos on their legs, his is just hidden most the time.

Nagito: He is usually seen with a spear and prefers the weapon over the sword, but he is more famous for his natural skill with the blade. That said, he resents the blade and wishes he could be recognized for the things he actually works hard to do, like throwing spears or protecting Mikan and her family.

Ibuki: I kept her design very similar to her base design because she pretty much just looks like a student, and I don't want to change anyone's personality so there's no reason for her to not get highlights. But I gave her some more symmetry in this design and gave her a cute little semi ahoge I guess with a hair tie, bc she doesn't naturally have one.

Imposter/Gamemaster: Yeah I made the big brain choice to keep him with his colors as "Byakuya" because it made for a more striking visual, and more recognizeable as the impostor. Also I made him too tall because I wanted to give him big legs lol.

Hiyoko: Her four cats are named Heart (scraggly cat), Mr. Pearls (sleepy cat), Big Red (Giant cat), and BB (black cat) bc canonically the four dark devas are named after shonen manga, I named her cats after pokemon games, which she canonically likes playing. Also chickens are her favorite animal, despite her love of cats.

Kazuichi: Kazuichi's not a natural born prince, through shenanigans it turns out he's extremely distantly related to some royal line in a microstate north of germany called "Nordsumpf." Their main exports are cars and Kazuichi is still new to being a prince.

"Kyoko": She'd try her best to act like Kyoko, but she's a little too meek and openy affectionate to pull it off properly. Also her knockers are way bigger than Kyoko's, so there's an immediate discrepancy to the trained eye.

Also in my au of DR1, Kyoko is the ultimate affluent progeny and Makoto is author/serial killer.

Hajime: His hair is actually extremely long back there, he just keeps it tied up. On shows he lets it all out and a wears red contacts, his stage name is "Izuru."

Sonia: Sonia became a team manager because she was escaping an assasination attempt, strolled into a junior laegue soccer game, took over for the coach and started just barking orders and the team won. They were the worst team in the whole league and after that she just sorta stuck around them and won them the championships.

Gundham: Gundham was orginally meant to wear the japanese flag… but there was too much white in his design so I cut it. He has names for all of his gymnast moves and he announces them very loudly when he does any of them.

Peko: I tried to give Peko a unique sort of "zombie survivor" kinda vibe so while she's clearly a mechanic first she can also just fucking kill you by braining you with that monkey wrench. Most of the time she's cool though, she's just like horribly dependent on other people to tell her what to do, so she attaches to Kazuichi because he's the most immediately available authority figure.

Fuyuhiko: He's got that sort of machismo that makes him not like to admit he loves dancing, but the moment he's complimented on it he'll really appreciate it. Also he's still part of a crime family, but it's just not as strong as Mikan's.

Akane: She really looks sporty still, but don't worry she's definitely "lucky," she's just much more focused on the future than her bad luck in the moment… which can be very bad, actually, and can make her come across as kind of aloof.

Nekomaru: Why is nurse Nekomaru not as common a thing. Just think about it, it's perfect. Nekomaru here got inspired by the bravery and hard work of the nurses that treated him and boom he became a nurse, nobody tougher than healthcare professionals after all.

Mahiru: Mahiru as a nurse is honestly a really really really fun concept but I feel like I wasn't very ambitious here, and I can't really show it through the drawing but one of my early drafts had her look more like a european chef a la gordon ramsey bc I headcanon her as a scot.

Teruteru: Decided to give him a raincoat which my sister pointed out to me could also be a trenchcoat, which is just PERFECT for a creep like him. It just writes itself man, though seriously he's mostly a landscape photographer who specializes in pics of the countryside. Still a huge perv tho.

Usowa: Name is a combo of Usagi and Chowa, the word for Harmony. She's less like a chaotic force of nature like Monokuma and more a manipulative and hardline teacher who coaxes the students into doing awful things by playing into their insecuritoies with motives, and which then causes them to kill, allowing her to punish them, "weeding out the weak and undisciplined among their ranks." She replaces Monokuma.

Kyojuma: Name is a combo of Kyoju (professor) and Kuma. He's a pretty silly guy with an easy temper to poke at, but he's good at heart and tries his best to be a more sort of "fun" teacher than the rules lawyer Usami kinda was. He just wants to help his students, too bad Usowa showed up and decidedly does NOT like his approach.

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sunlightsilence · 2 months

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MY THOUGHTS ON SIDE ORDER

If you see this, you don't have #side order or #side order spoilers blocked. .

. I'm about to spoil things all the way to completion, so this is your chance to look away! .

. Last chance to hide this post!! .

. Okay, here we go!

So. Side order's gameplay is fantastic to me, I've completed it with all 12 palettes now. I love splatoon and I love roguelikes so this was sort of a match made in heaven for me.

Creating the OP builds, the final boss, the general colours and music and vibe of the game is amazing! Everything to do with Pearl and Marina are *amazing* and they're so hella gay it's adorable :D And I love that they're not even hiding the queer representation now. Marina having a sprawled out Pearl as her desktop background is so cute, even seeing an elevator scene where they gush about eachother, and another one where Marina worries that Acht is hitting on Pearl.

And... cannon They/Them Acht! I remember all the people on Reddit being like "it's just the marketing team mistranslating their pronouns in a tweet!" NOPE, it's in game too!

Hell yeah :D Smollusk is adorable and I love him, and maybe we finally have a splatoon villain tumblr won't turn into a tumblr sexyman since he's a literal infant xD

And Pearl Drone is so hecking cute, I love her so much!! If you spin around in the lobby she spins too, and if you stay still she falls asleep :D

I did my first run with Brella cause it's my fav and it has my beloved inkstorm kit from S2! It took me three tries before I beat the tower for the first time, but then every run afterwards with different weapons I've always cleared it (I was got bounced off the tower for that first death and the second I was caught offguard by how fast the reefslider spam is)! Brella was definitely my favourite run, but I also really enjoyed the roller and brush runs. My roughest run was with the Splatling. I had dreaded doing charger after that, but charger turned into my fastest run!

I could see myself unwinding in this mode hundreds more times. I am saying this all to demonstrate that I really love this DLC, it might be my favourite of all the single player modes so far, either that or S2 hero mode. So my following criticisms are out of love for it because it's close to perfect. So the big one is... "the dlc is too short!" I hear that a lot on both tumblr and reddit and someone inevitably chimes in with "You don't play a lot of roguelikes, do you?" I mean... do YOU? I've done over 100 runs in Wizard of Legend, and thousands of hours on Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and Etrian Mystery Dungeon. Yes it's made to be run multiple times, but when a run is only 20-30 minutes it's still only about 6 hours of content if you do all the palettes. And these could be fixed with the assets they already have! Like imagine an Endless mode where the difficulty (enemy speed and hp values and number of spawns) kept ramping up higher and higher each floor, with the leader board being kept track of on the app. Or a daily tower run to save a random cephalopod from being grayscaled - the daily inkling/octoling's palette giving you a random weapon/sub/special for that day that followed the rules of 8's Octoshot (more hacks = less chip slots). Or like a super hard difficulty mode - imagine a mode where every floor had a danger modifier, and maybe a Parallel Cannon spawns into the stage to try to hunt you down (maybe it's even invincible so you have to run away from it while doing the stage objective?) I know the Octoshot is kind of the "hard mode" (it's still not too bad though since it's basically just like starting from the beginning without hacks), but it's not fun being limited to just the one weapon type. Especially for it for people who find the regular shooters boring. I don't feel like this is an unreasonable request either, Wizard of Legend - a roguelike made by *two* people - for instance has a few options for post game challenge runs (a randomized mode, a mode where the enemies start from the highest difficulty from floor 1, an extra long run that touches on all the bosses, a BOSS RUSH mode, Curses - basically one thing gets massively buffed while a second thing gets massively debuffed). The Mystery Dungeon games tend to have unlockable MASSIVE dungeons that start you off from having nothing. (like imagine a 99 floor floor tower where you started with no hacks, and a basic shooter with no sub/special and you had to earn new weapons/subs/specials/hacks as you go). Could do the Curse style idea with extra special Marina hacks. "Hey 8, I just figured out a hack that turns everyone's Max HP to 1 - both yours and your opponents!" "This hack will make you much faster but the floors will always be dark!" Or those Bonus challenges, imagine if there was an option to do conditional runs with them. Like "Beat the Tower without using your special, unlock a specific splat tag banner" Again, I am only criticizing because I love it. It's just also the easiest and shortest of all the single player campaigns we've gotten I feel, and if they were going to lean into the roguelike genre, I wish they looked into how other roguelikes reuse assets to lengthen the gameplay and provide extra challenges to keep players interested for a long time.

AND I AM STILL MAD YOU CAN'T PLAY AS A SQUID AND THEY REMOVED THE PLAYABLE SQUIDBEATZ (half joking. Not really upset, but I do find it odd now that there's more campaigns you can play as an octoling than an inking on the switch now despite inklings being the mascots...... rotm/oe/so vs just s2hero/rotm. And I don't see why we can't just have minigames back, they remove more minigames each entry and paying to listen to music now is frustrating...) Haha... But yes, overall, I loved it. It's a 9/10 from me. Adding squidbeatz and some post game longevity / challenge modes would have made it a 10/10. I can't wait to play more, I can't wait to visit Inkopolis Square again next splatfest :')

Now, onto random observations!

The lobby has jump ramps on the back corner pillars. I don't know why!

You can turn Color Lock on in the main game and it *does* affect Side Order. It gives you permanently Blue+yellow or Blue+green ink, even in the hub area.

So with this boss, it uses the hairstyle from your S2 hero mode data to get their appearance... But I swear mine is using the feminine voice here and when being splat, despite that hairstyle being locked to masculine inkling voices in Splatoon 2? I do use it with the feminine voice in Splatoon 3. Or maybe the voices are just mixed into one here, I can't quite tell? Well it made enby me happy to see. I do kinda wish we got a challenging superboss fight with 4, these felt a bit weak.. but it seems to imply they aren't specifically 4 but Order made them based on their data... So...where is the real 4?!!! Did she never show up to work? Speaking of that boss....

Around the room are these white pipe like structures...

That will be instantly recognizable to anyone who dabbles in japanese model kits - they're sprue trees, like the kind used in Gunpla.

The robotic boss has robot model kit building pieces in the background :D

I still don't quite get the intro scene where everything goes digital on the train.... So it's implying either A) your character got Grayscaled.... But your character is fine when you go back to town... you don't even see any characters standing around suffering it's effects, they could have had some npcs spacing out or acting weird ala Persona 3... or B) you're getting pulled into the memverse too, but there's no sign of your S3 character *at all*... (though this would have been a good way to let us play as an inkling too nintendo >:l *angry woomy noises*)

Honestly I felt kinda like Acht's inclusion was sort of superfluous at first... mostly their role felt like "Pearl & Marina: *does something gay* Acht: wow these two sure are hella gay right 8? i feel like we're third wheels". I kept waiting for some kind of...reveal? Their memories are pretty much fully restored instantly rather than rolled out gradually like I was expecting...I was thinking maybe they'd, like, link them to Paul, or follow up on the recognizing Pearl somehow or being linked to the engineers that created Order or...SOMETHING, but it never came. Other than maybe dropping a hint about the person who instructed them and Marina when they were in school? Their role was really just "I'll hold the elevator and jump in for a song"... But maybe that's okay, eight and Acht are trauma victims and this was meant to be a place to heal them. Maybe it's okay that we take it slow getting to know them.

Okay that's all that's brainworming away at me for now, I'm sure I'll think of more later. Again, I really love it, definitely a 9/10 for me. I hope yall enjoyed it too :)

#side order #side order spoilers #splatoon 3 #splatoon

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uproariousscarecrow · 11 months

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@heropartnerweek day 7 - free day

this is not a team i've played as, actually. i chose this team based on the pokemon i relate to/see myself as now (lucario) and my very first pokemon in pearl (my first game ever!!)

pokemon as a whole, with mystery dungeon in particular, has been a really important series to me for about 15 years. i wanted to try my best to encapsulate that feeling for the final day :-)

#pokemon #pmd #pokemon mystery dungeon #lucario #infernape #fanart #I DID IT!! ALL SEVEN DAYS!!#thanks for organizing this event -- it got me out of an art funk and made me excited to draw more regularly again

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kafus · 1 month

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random infodump about the various pokemon related shit i do online and beyond (this is about fandom/community stuff and not my actual in-game accomplishments):

i'm a moderator for the ribbon master discord, which is a community dedicated to getting as many ribbons as possible on individual pokemon (i have many ribbon masters myself!) technically i'm also a mod on the community reddit but uh i just let the other mods handle the reddit lol. i've been in the rm community for 4 years now

not me specifically but ayano who i share a brain with runs the pokemon fansite blue moon falls which has a lot of comprehensive articles and custom coded tools pertaining to RBY/GSC and the rest of gens 1 and 2 (she's the reason that the internet has all those nice gifs of stadium 2's idle animations now btw)

in speaking of ayano, she's also a full odds shiny hunter and is a decently well known name in that community due to her resources and general friendliness lmao

i'm not as active /w it atm because my art focus has been more on human characters but for the majority of my life i was what people would call a "pokefurry" and i have a metric fuckton of pokemon artwork under my belt

on that note i've written pokemon fanfiction on occasion too though nothing major

i'm a casual VGC competitor - i ladder in-game relatively often, keep up to date with the meta, and i attended my first regionals this year and met up with a lot of pokemon folk in the process! i hope to attend more events in the future

i'm planning on getting involved with a local pokemon convention near me to distribute mystery gifts for old pokemon games the same way a toys r us would in the early-mid 2000s

i have been a part of and donated money to a few indie pokemon sites and projects, including pokemmo, gpx plus, and pokemon eclipse (previously known as pokemon the moon rpg when i was a kid and played it for the first time!). in speaking of eclipse even though i don't play it anymore i'm the reason that a 3d model for shadowobliveon exists lol

i know a tiny bit about romhacking and made a romhack of firered that lets me play the entire game as kafu once, with kaf as my rival. i also have a bunch of personal lost media of "story" videos i made as a young child by stitching together recordings of fake cutscenes i romhacked into pokemon ruby

i made all these really shitty pokemon fangames when i was around 10 years old and i'm kind of obsessed with them

apparently i'm a pokemon horizons fan now and people keep acting like im the second coming of christ in terms of likodot on twitter so maybe that means something (LIGHTHEARTED I AM JUST SHOCKED BY THE POSITIVE ATTENTION)

i own more pokemon plushies than what's healthy and i wish i could show them here but a lot of them are in a storage bag rn

my pokemon game collection is also fucking ridiculous but i'm too lazy to put all that together for a photo. for what it's worth i own at least one copy of every single mainline pokemon game before the 3ds era including all alternate versions (diamond pearl AND platinum instead of just one for example) and almost all spinoffs aside from like, 3 of them

i'm probably forgetting shit tbh the 2010s are like a blackout void to me sorry

i've been a pokemon fan since 2004 though when i was 4 years old i am in hell

#kiki was here #kiki.txt

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who-the-fuck-is-sennalye · 1 year

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I'm sure you're all dying to know more about my addiction to buying video games. So I took some photos of my entire collection + some toys.

I just love boxes, you know?

If you're from my Instagram you may remember when I posted my collection last September. Obviously the collection has grown since then.

Some notable new additions are

All the switch games (BD, PLA, Scarlet)

Soulsilver (which has taken Scarlet as the most expensive game in my collection)

Several cheap DS games from Cash Converters, the cheapest of which being Imagine Beauty Stylist for 50c. I never plan on playing it.

Pokemon X

Possibly a third copy of Brain Training

Some of my favourite entries in the collection include

My 2DS. My Dad said I shouldn't buy a console just for one game (series). I proved him wrong by clocking in over 500 hours in Pokemon Y alone.

A Switch that I bought for a similar reason. Over 400 hours in Animal Crossing.

My several copies of Brain Training and More Brain Training.

A copy of Kirby Planet Robobot that I went across town to get at a good price. Two hours each way bus and train. The boxart is a reproduction. I made it myself.

All the Pokemon games I "borrowed"/rescued/stole from my sister.

A complete in box copy of Pearl that didn't cost half a fortune, but a SoulSilver copy that did.

A broken copy of Platinum that, even if I fixed it, wouldn't be worth the $5 it cost.

None of the toys are new except the Dialga, which was the preorder bonus for Brilliant Diamond. In fact the Servine figure was my first ever Pokemon toy, and product, ever. For anyone curious, it is an Attack Servine figure from 2011, although I got it in 2013.

I could go on about my toys for a very long time, this isn't even my full collection of them, most of them were omitted for space. But I won't because this post is meant to be about my games and I've gone on long enough about these.

Anyway, if anyone has any questions about my collection (or want to hear my various stories about it) please do ask, I love to talk about it.

#if this post gets one (1) like i will make a post going over my entire collection of toys and that is a threat #game collecting #game collection #pokemon #3ds #3ds collection #nintendo ds #game talking #stch

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trainergraceneedstherapy · 1 year

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Suddenly got nostalgic.

It's funny how much I talk about Unova without actually-TALKING about Unova. I miss it, for sure. I just-..it's home. It may not be where I'm from, but I will ALWAYS be a Unovan at heart. That's where my story began after all-where I met him. Well-one of the hims you're probably getting sick and tired of me rambling about on here but-..he was one of the first people to respect me as a trainer, even if He didn't exactly AGREE with me.

He was-..well-in a bad situation. The older I get, the more I understand what was going on and the more ENRAGED I become about how unfair it was. And the more I want to kick that so called father of his' ASS again.

Unova is where I learned people and pokemon BELONG together-where I learned to hold my dreams-my convictions, my truths, MYSELF-tight and never let go, keep FIGHTING-but to accept the viewpoints of others, even if you don't agree. (Unless that viewpoint is hurting other people. Then it's ass whooping time.)

I didn't know what to say back then, when he left. All I could think about was what he asked me. What he-asked me in that stupid cave I kept getting lost in. (Fuck chargestone cavern.)

'Grace, Do you have a dream?'

He looked me in the eye-I was younger than him then, but he still asked me-like I was his peer. Like we were equals and that-..it meant so much, after everything. ..And I still said no. I-had no IDEA what I wanted then. I didn't think about what I wanted to be-what I wanted to do.

And he said to me-

"Dream your dream! Then, pursue the ideals to make that dream a reality, and someday you will achieve all that you dreamed of!"

...I can still hear that last "Farewell!" even now.

I wonder if he's out there somewhere. I mean-I would HOPE he isn't like-dead in a ditch somewhere! For someone that kind, that brilliant-it would be a horrible fate. ..I just wonder sometimes.

...Hey kingy...

I finally figured out my dream. You proud of me..?

(OOC Rambling time: Sorry about this long ass lore post-I was feeling nostalgic.

My first official pokemon game (Not the Spin-offs like the Mystery Dungeon series, Conquest, and my REAL first pokemon game, Pokepark 1 and 2.) was White 2. I guess i should have started with the originals, but i was 10 back then, i didn't know any better! Anyway, my first encounter with N was in chargestone cave, and i was pretty confused. So, i looked up and watched a couple youtubers (Marriland, Munchingorange, ect.) play through the first game to see what the heck was going on, and BOY, did N's story steal my heart. He quickly became my favorite character, and you can't imagine my excitement when he showed up in the anime series! (i used to watch it all the time when i was little, starting with the Diamond and Pearl series) His story really made me think about the fact that these pokemon i was training weren't just tools, but living, breathing beings. Characters in their own right! In short, despite having its fair share of flaws, Unova will always have a special place in my heart, along with the "Freak without a Human heart" whose title couldn't be farther from the truth. Thank you, Gamefreak, for creating a memory that will last a lifetime.

And thank you, N, for being a teacher of sorts for a kid who had NO CLUE what she was doing back then.)

#pokeblogging #trainer grace lore #pokemon au #pokemon irl #unreality #Unova pride #ooc post #kinda

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ketchupstrain · 4 months

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Am I alone in that Ive come to only play video games to Help/Harm in my executive dysfunction? Like instead of doomscrolling, i'll boot up ACNH and piddle around. Or I'll boot up, stare at the title screen, maybe walk around for a few seconds, then exit 4 different games in 5 minutes.

Sometimes I'll also get perfectionistic about my files, saying "if a run isn't going the way I think would be perfect, I erase the whole file and start from the bottom", as I erase my pokemon file for the 3rd time just because I died to Candice in Pokemon Pearl in a One Pokemon Run (Torterra FTW btw). Or I'll restart my entire ANCH island instead of just re-terraforming my existing, perfectly fine island.

I have nothing to show for my childhood games, I deleted my pokemon games that i'd poured HUNDREDS OF HOURS into as a kid--Pokemon was literally all I played for like the first 10 years of my life. The pokemon company is shutting down the ability to transfer Pokemon to current games and I literally have no pokemon I had as a kid.

It's almost as if I subconsciously make choices to make my life harder for myself to endure. I make it hard on myself to enjoy things and just let myself exist; I make it hard on myself to have fun.

#why am i like this #video games #sad thoughts #tw depressing thoughts #executive dysfunction

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wafflecat2 · 7 months

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You know what? Because I can, Imma show my pkmn game collection so far!

Here's all the games I have now! Only the switch games are my original copies. The older games are pre-owned. [minus the downloaded ones.] The Pokepark games might also be pre-owned... im not sure, but they have been with me for years now tho! Pokepark 2 my beloved I do have Pokemon Go and Masters EX... but those doesn't count xD

For now, Im waiting for my black 2 copy I bought recently! It was only for 50€! Imagine that! Tho... I should have it already, but the first seller was kinda iffy, blocked me on everywhere and like... never messaged me other than it came back to them... cool that Im getting my money back! ... hopefully 😤

BUT, also Im quite happy I found these relatively cheap! I didn't pay the full price Shining pearl, got it on sale. Same with violet on release day >:)

Also funny thing was that when I tried to find OR, I got black on the same packet! How cool is that! White 2 came with a second 3ds, it wasn't my intention to get a second 3ds... but really cool since I can trade Pokemon with myself! Also got pkmn red and crystal before the eshop closed... only got red so I can try get the 8f shiny mew. Crystal for shiny shiny celebi. HG could consider CIB, but it doesn't have the pokewalker nor the packet... but other paper things are still there! Also I found some cool pokemon inside it, like two shinies and beautifully named pokemon. It was also tampered, with cheats and succh but at least my platinum character will be rich xDD

Would like to have emerald... but I don't have a ds where I could play it... but maybe someday! Also Im making a custom covers for the loose copies... when I eventually can get them printed because our printer sucks I also should try finish these games but oomf... busy...

Thats all for now!

#pokemon #pkmn #pokemon game collection #kitty rambles #games #3ds games #ds games #pokemon games

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slowpokesami · 2 years

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Volo headcanons

Hello! I'm finally back to this blog and with a lot of new headcanons to tell you and new ideas to draw... so in this post will be the first part of my Volo headcanons, I hope you enjoy it! Introduction and general opinion Volo is a character I really love; I just think he is a totally well-constructed character. I think game freak really worked hard on him, and now I’m going to tell you why, but before I proceed, I must make clear THIS POST HAS SPOILERS!! So if you are still playing the videogame Pokemon Legends: Arceus and don’t want to get your game ruined (as I ruined it myself just by googling some stuff ;_;) I really recommend you to stop reading.

Okay so… it’s very difficult to know how to start this kind of posts but I’ll divide it to different parts, so it is more easy to read. The best Back Stabber in Pokemon?

Volo is a character we know at the beginning of the game; we first see him as a friendly face, but then he starts appearing everywhere and we all start suspecting… anyways one can still think he’s just a good character and if he appears everywhere, it’s just to give you a hand or telling you the Hisuian myths and history. After all, he is Cynthia’s ascendant, so it makes kind of sense he is the only one who knows all the myths; we all know Cynthia is always exploring the ruins and history of Sinnoh like him, right?

Later, he confesses it was him who opened the space-time rift with the help of Giratina (the pokemon version of the Devil). That was when our main character fell from it to mysteriously appear on Hisui. The betrayal moment is very commented on the internet and Volo is sometimes referred as the biggest back stabber on the pokemon franchise, also making reference to the moment he shows you how to catch a pokemon by back stabbing it.

Here I will explain how wisely game freak confused us with him;

The first card they played was making him Cynthia’s ascendant. Cynthia was the one good character of Pearl and Diamond games, the one who was against team Galaxy. This makes us think he probably is a good and trustable character. Meanwhile they confuse us by making us be part of an old team Galaxy that had nothing to do with the bad team Galaxy we already knew, so probably most of us were expecting the villain to be inside team Galaxy and were waiting for an explanation about how the good old team Galaxy would turn into the present evil team Galaxy. Also there’s Cylene, which I personally never thought was going to be bad or something, but probably most of us suspected her at some point.

And while we are suspecting team Galaxy, we are being kind of marginated by most of the game characters, and at some point, some of them fail to our trust, for example Kamado when he kicks us out from the galaxy team. Volo, meanwhile, appears to help us and is always nice to us. His nice face is something that can make us suspect too, of course, but I think it was all well done because we were distracted by other facts.

On the other hand, there’s his appearance. If you take a look at the other pokemon games, most boss villains look older than, at least, 30 years old. Volo is the first one to break this rule (apart from N, but I don’t count him as a villain, his role is way more complicated), I mean, he could be 30, but personally I think he looks more like 20-something. Also they always – with the only exception of Rose – have some kind of uniform or detail that screams to us: I AM THE VILLAIN HELLO.

So, bravo Game Freak, you could surprise us all this time. Apart from me, who was spoiled ;_;

The biblical Reference – Is Volo Lucifer? All the game is charged with mythological, religious and occultist symbolism, and that’s something I really appreciate because since I started my comic Black Wings – which you can read in its web blackwingscomic . com, I highly recommend it :P – I started loving all these topics. Of course, we all know the game is a big biblical reference; where the Devil is represented by Volo and Giratina and God is represented by the main character and Arceus. But I really think Volo’s personality was directly inspired by Lucifer himself. Why? Let me explain you Before falling, Lucifer was known as the prettiest angel but he was also known for being the wisest too. He fell when he faced God and tried to be better than him – that’s why Lucifer is known as the demon avatar for the sin of pride. He knew he was intelligent and wise, and also charismatic, so he thought he could be better than God at ruling Heaven. Then he fell and became the Devil.

My interpretation of Lucifer in my comic Black Wings From my point of view, Volo is one of the prettiest characters in the game, and I think most people can agree that at least he is not bad looking. Here we have the first reference. But obviously the biggest point here is the fact that Volo also sinned of pride, thinking he could overcome and even dominate the pokemon God Arceus and make a better new world with his help. We can say it was his urge for knowledge and his prideful personality what made him fall; probably Giratina is the representation of Volo’s fall and decadence in general. Let's make it clear... what do Volo and Lucifer have in common? - Both defy God and their power - Both are stunning - Both are intelligent - Both look for knowledge - Both can be considered traitors - The moment Volo takes out his Ginko Guild outfit could be a metaphor of Lucifer's fall

About his family connection with Cynthia and Cogita I’ve read a lot of head-canons on what is the real familiar relation between Volo, Cogita and Cynthia; I’ve heard that Cynthia is a descendant of some Volo’s sibling, and Cogita is a random family member of Volo, which could totally be. I also heard that Volo reconsiders his actions and starts constructing a new life, then he makes a family and all that. I even heard crazy theories like him coming from another time and also arriving to Sinnoh through the space-time rift or even that either he or Cogita are Cynthia coming from another time and idk, I haven’t read much about this theory, but it looks kinda forced to me. I’m going to be totally sincere here, though probably some of you don’t like what you hear – and I will totally understand. I am with the group of people who thinks Volo and Cogita had an affair and had some kid. This sounds crazy at the beginning because of the apparent age gap, but I have my reasons to believe it. The first reason is because of their interactions. I mean, at the beginning I also thought they were simply family, but they don’t talk like such. For example, when Volo introduces the main character to Cogita he tells her “it’s always a pleasure, Mistress Cogita”. No one talks to a family member referring to them as “mistress”, it would sound very forced. They also have no apparent reason to hide they are family to the main character.

Another thing that makes me think of that is the fact that they both are shown like people who live their life on their own. I mean, if you take a look at it, all the characters have like big families; there’s the Pearl Clan, there’s the Diamond Clan, the Galaxy team and the people from the Jubilee Village. They all interact between them, have their places where they live. Let’s say, we don’t know where Volo is from, and neither we know it about Cogita. I personally think the Ginko Guild travels through the region selling their products, and they are not controlled all the time by their bosses. That gives Volo the freedom to go around the region studying the ruins and myths, he is never on the same place and he doesn’t really have close friends or family. Cogita on the other hand, is inspired by the wiccan witches, which can be appreciated because of her house (I can develop this in another post if you are interested). We can observe she is self-sufficient because of her vegetable garden and she lives in a literal secret place; these made me think about her wiccan witch influences (not to mention her outfit looks very witchy to me!). That all together makes me think Volo and Cogita are socially marginated and that’s what makes them understand each other and end up together.

From my point of view, Cogita’s been alone for most her life, probably because people don’t trust her despite being a good person; in the past the witches were highly marginated, even killed in some cultures, and we don't know if something similar happens in Pokemon Legends but it would make sense seeing how, apparently, she is not close to any other character than Volo, so she must feel really lonely. When Volo discovers her and starts assisting her house to ask for mythology stuff, probably she doesn’t trust him much, but surely she appreciates his visits and starts having some affection for him. I also think Volo was all his infancy bullied (I will develop it later) and that probably has affected his sexual and sentimental life too – he might be even virgin. And Cogita, even being older than him, is a very attractive woman; even if he doesn’t have any feelings for her, I can see him totally seducing her just to please his ego – but it can also be her who seduces him, seeing their interactions, it even makes more sense, to be honest.

I also think that, if there is someone who can control Volo’s ego to her own favor, it is Cogita. We see her teasing him more than once in the videogames and she even manages to send us to look for some wood in exchange of Volo’s desired plate; she acts as she didn’t know Volo thought the wood thing had relation to the plates, but I think she totally was aware of it. In fact, I don’t think it was necessarily a romantic relationship, but I do believe they were close friends and lovers, and they did understood each other very much. Maybe they even fell in love whith each other because of the time they ended up spending together, or else Volo disappeared again, who knows. I don’t also think Cogita is 70 yo, for example, I headcanon her to be about 40 or 50, but no more than 65 for sure, so she probably can still give birth to babies who would grow and give birth to other babies and this way until Cynthia is born. For me this is the head-canon that makes more sense, but you can tell me your opinions on the comments; I’ll read them and answer! If you liked my headcanons you can follow me, as I will soon be publishing the second part of them. I also post some fakemon, comics and illustrations made by me! See you in the next post! Sami Luu~

#pokemon #pokeblog #pkmn #pokemon headcanons #pokemon volo #volo #pokemon cogita #cogita #pokemon legends arceus #pokemon legends #volo headcanons #cogita headcanons #pokemon legends headcanons #pokemon cynthia #pokemon villains #pokemon opinion

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genesisgijinka · 1 year

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hello! i've been reading genesis for...oh god, since 2017-2018, i think. and it's been a blast, i love the series a lot! it's a really unique storyline with one of my favorite characters (mewtwo, beloved) and your art is fantastic! i was wondering how much of the storyline you have planned out/had planned out, and how much of it has changed over time? and how far along we are in the storyline/how much is left before the end. i hope you have a good day!

Oh wow, you've been around for a while lol Hi friend!

I'll be honest, Genesis had the most bare bones of starts. I created the characters for what I thought was going to be a one-off costume month long challenge, with some other old ocs to fill out the roster. I had zero plan to create a story with these new characters, since I was brand new to the idea of having a story based off of pokemon game play. I've always been a first and foremost Zelda fan and was actually slowly picking at my own Zelda story at the time but I couldn't quite get the story to go the way I wanted and I was determined to draw that comic first.

And then I drew this:

This is the first time I drew Prime, and a younger M2-K, I think. One of the very few things I drew before I launched into starting Genesis. Y'all might recognize this scene from the first few pages of chapter 2 lol. I was riding off of that high of finishing my first long-term project and now I had somewhere where I could start. So three months after that October challenge, I decided screw it, I'll just draw this pokemon comic as a practice, be done in like 2-3 years, then work on Zelda again. And then lol here we are almost 7 years later.

Read more bc it accidentally kinda got long :'D

A lot of my planning has gone like this; I draw a thing, and then work it into the story somewhere like threading pearls on a string, then I add more beads in between the pearls as I go.

So Genesis has points that I know I'm going to hit (the ending has probably the thoroughly written script of all of Genesis and I'm quite happy with it) but a lot of it is in a fuzzy grey area of I only kinda know what's going to happen next, I just need to write how to get there. It keeps me engaged with the story and the few drawings I have as story concepts are the juicy carrots I dangle in front of myself to keep the motivation going even if I'm going through an art rut or if work has been particularly draining.

As for things that have changed? Alcina didn't exist in the beginning. I sketched up a gardevoir gijinka in my sketchbook bc I needed K to talk to someone. And then she stuck around. Heph wasn't originally planned either, and he actually replaced this guy:

left to right: M2-K, Talil the heliolisk, and Jean-Luc (mega'd)

Talil was originally going to be the one to fix K's prosthetics, but that's all I really had him around for, and he eventually got scrapped. Which is a real shame, because heliolisk is one of my favorite Kalos mons. I did later use the concept of shorting out K's prosthetics when he fought a luxray in chapter 1.

I can't remember when V came into being, but I think it was sometime after Genesis had started, but well before she was introduced. She was originally supposed to be that one mewtwo from the Genesect movie (and that's where the V in M2-V originated from, M2-K was originally short for Mewtwo-Kalos. And then I made it worse by going alphabetically :) )

As for how much longer are we going to have? We've definitely passed the halfway point. But since I've had a revelation and added [REDACTED] in to the story, chapter 3 got longer unexpectedly and is gonna be split into a surprise fourth chapter. And then an epilogue, but //handwaves that's farther down the line.

#comic ask #anonymous #anon #Genesis art #i'll spoil y'all with 2 of like. 5 pieces of concept art Genesis ever got #no I don't recommend starting a comic with that little bit of work lol #i sometimes just have to follow the impulse or I won't Do the Thing

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froggie-bolt · 1 year

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If you’ve never played gen 5, Ingo’s appearance in Legends won’t matter much to you at all.

So sad to think about 😭

As someone who played gen 5, the fact that ingo was in PLA and had come there from the future was one of the MAIN reasons I got the game in the first place. Cause I wanted to know what was up.

I don’t play Pokémon cause it’s an RPG, or because of the different pokemon, or the stories— I play pokemon for the characters.

And when a new game adds lore to another character, I am all for it.

Especially if it’s as sad and tragic as Ingo’s situation when you really think about it.

That being said, I really hope that

A) the pokemon black and white remakes are more like Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, where they’re put in a different timeline from the originals and we get some kinda insight into emmets situation, or what led up to ingo disappearing through a time-space rift.

B) they don’t happen at all and it’s left up to interpretation. Because if we get anything like Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl for gen 5 remakes, all hope is lost for pokemon to me.

Others can continue to enjoy it of course!

But when you have put extra effort to separate the remakes from the originals in a bunch more way than just visuals, why would you not do that again? It’s the expectation now, so why are you giving fans anything less than expected.

(Secondary rant omg)

Pokemon Pearl was the first pokemon game I ever played. It was the first game i actually got myself. I loved the heck out of that game, and have played it over and over, despite is short comings. It reminds me of good times during my childhood.

And when we got remakes for gold and silver, that interstates stuff from Crystal while also making a bunch of quality of life updates— and omega ruby and sapphire that did an overhaul of the story to also include things from emerald as well as a bunch of NEW lore, they made me so excited for diamond and Pearl remakes! I wanted to know how they would make the world look brand new, and update the story so it felt better.

But when it finally got announced, I remember standing at the front door getting ready to head to the bus stop with my brother, and seeing it get teased. Then we were shown the players room as the first look of the game and..my face dropped. I can not express the amount of disappointment I felt almost automatically.

So with black and white being the first pokemon games that my brother played with me, and the first ones we actually got to see the announcements and got to feel the hype around its release, it’s probably even more nostalgic for me than gen 4. So this time, I’m hoping they get it right.

And with ingo showing up in pokemon legends arceus, I’m holding out, hoping the black and white remakes might actually be good.

#long rant #pokemon #pokemon rant #pokemon remakes #pokemon bw remakes #pokemon bdsp #pokemon ingo #pokemon legends arceus

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medea10 · 1 year

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Medea Plays Pokemon Scarlet & Violet: Part I

Time for my shit and giggles shit-post. I mostly do this for my friends who end up on the fence of buying a game. And seeing as this is the latest Pokemon game, I am all up in this drama. I mean, let’s face it, these games were getting trashed on. What else is new? Sword and Shield got shit on early on because of the national dex and something about mother fucking trees. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl got shit on because of its chibi-ism and no charisma of Platinum. And Legends Arceus got shit on because...I don’t know, internet trolls will find anything to shit on. As always, I’d like to give the benefit of the doubt by playing it myself.

Clefable is unobtainable in Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet

Okay, okay. But in all seriousness, let’s start this off on the right path.

Literally the second after you choose the language for the game, you get to customize your character. You can even choose eye shapes and eyebrow intensity. Well, here’s my black-ass not smiling. Just like in real life.

Unfortunately, you’re stuck with these whack-ass uniforms where you can’t even change the color to. I guess that’s because you’re attending school now. Let’s meet Director Clavell.

No. But a pearl point if you got the reference.

No, this is the bro that heads up the academy you’re going to attend. And for the moment, I’m focusing on playing Scarlet. I’ll probably fuss around with Violet later down the road. Clavell will give you your first pokemon.

I picked weed kitty. His name is Dr. Dre (or Dre for short). I love you Dr. Dre.

Before leaving, let’s say goodbye to my mother.

At least she has a room in this game. In past games it looks like the mothers would sleep in the kitchen.

Ooh, I hope it’s a meatball parm.

Yeah, this game LOVES sandwiches. You even have a classmate that loves making sandwiches. I feel like I’m running into a bunch of Thurman Mermans.

People eat sandwiches. Pokemon eat sandwiches.

Give Koraidon or Miraidon your sandwich at the beginning and it’ll save you from a pack of Houndour and become your bicycle (that runs instead of cycles). I’d like to see Ash Ketchum try and break this one. You get Koraidon quite fast as it belonged to Arven and his parent.

In the past, we’ve gotten certain version exclusives like certain pokemon and gym leaders are only available on a certain game. In this game, that applies to the professors. Either one, Arven is still their kid.

His parents are Professor Big N***a and Crazy Bitch.

They aren’t really. But come on, you were all thinking the same thing. Well, we’re not really going to worry about the professors for now. It’s time for school.

Your homeroom teacher is Mr. Jacq-strap. You have classmates of all kinds attending school alongside you. And once you go on your treasure hunt journey, you’ll battle students from the academy.

What?

Pokemon, what the fuck are you doing? No, seriously. What the fuck is this? I can accept people attending school at any age. But what the fuck is this Harvey Weinstein-looking mother fucker doing in a school uniform, shorts and all?! This is not Pokemon. I’m convinced Family Guy hijacked this and made a pedophile joke. What the fuck?! I seriously do not like the way this guy is looking at me.

I’m sorry, but that set me off. Where was I?

I’m in my dorm room. Yeah. Nice that my dorm room here is a lot more spacious than the one from when I attended college. And for those who hate Nemona, don’t worry, she won’t be your roommate.

I’m not sure how to feel about Nemona yet. People either hate her or want to fuck her. I just think that she loves pokemon battles the same way Yumeko Jabami from Kakegurui loves to gamble. They both get wet from it.

On your first day of school, you’re being pushed to do many things. Nemona wants you to go the traditional route of challenging gym leaders and becoming champion. Arven wants you to search for Titan Pokemon.

Don’t blame me, the game only gives me two choices to your request.

And then there’s some bruh that hacks your phone and wants you to go after Team Star.

At least when it comes to this last quest, you do get some help from ‘a student’.

Give Director Clavell some credit, at least he doesn’t look as cringe as that other student. But he was totally obvious in that get-up. Like, Professor Kukui as Masked Royal had more of a disguise.

Bruh, just stop!

Okay, let’s have some fun in this open world. Let’s teach my team some fun, new moves.

Sigh. At least getting duplicates hasn’t been as painfully stupid as it was in the Diamond and Pearl remakes. Let’s look at some Pokedex entries.

Wow. Magikarp is getting burned in this entry.

Let’s terra! Following Sword and Shield’s dynamax phenomenon, pokemon can terraform and crystalize. A crystalized pokemon. How original!

ORANGE ISLANDS DID IT FIRST!

WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO ACKNOWLEDGE ORANGE ISLANDS AGAIN, POKEMON?! YOU CAN’T IGNORE IT! IT EXISTS!

Time for a sandwich break.

Mmm...look at that quality-ass sandwich. I’ll give Pokemon this, at least this sandwich isn’t as cringe-looking as other shit sandwiches.

Thankfully technology has evolved a bit so we don’t have to make sandwiches that look like they came from Rapsittie Street Kids hell. But not by much.

But it isn’t just sandwiches. There’s a lot of restaurants and different treats to eat in different cities.

These foods help when it comes to catching pokemon and producing pokemon eggs. Ditto is still being used here. It’s just that you have to put the two pokemon you want to make whoopie on your team when you go on a picnic and keep checking the basket to see if the stork dumped some eggs.

And sometimes, Mr. Stork might bring more than one egg.

Now, let’s talk about falls.

First of all, you cannot use your phone as a parachute. That’s just not something. Secondly, if you end up in the water without the use of a swimming aid or fall from a large height, you’ll just go back to the top like nothing happened. If this were Legends Arceus...

Okay, let’s get into gym battles. First, there are no more trainers in the gym that challenge you while you make your way to the gym leader. Instead, you have to do a task for each gym.

GOD DAMN IT! Pokemon, I am sick of having to gather other people’s pokemon. I had it up to here when I had to chase that fucking Furfrou back in XY. Yes, I realize this all started back in Johto-times with Sylvester and his Farfetch’d. But the Furfrou one really irritated me.

One gym down. Seven more to go. Let’s take a break.

This shit-post is brought to you by Every Wich Way Sandwich Shop. The sandwich that makes you ask the question...

To be continued.

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon scarlet #director clavell #nemona #arven #koraidon #sprigatito

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lunawings · 1 year

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It begins!

I remember the first time I played a Pokemon game in Japanese. It was Pokemon Pearl, and I imported when I was in college months before it released in English to stumble through with my limited intermediate Japanese skills to mixed success. Still, it blew me away. I remember how excited I was watching trades complete on the free wifi of an obscure dining hall as I thought to myself, “Isn’t technology AMAZING!?”

Pokemon was then a Japanese-only adventure for me for several years. I got better at it, but it was still a bit tedious at times, and I also had issues remembering the names of Pokemon in this era because I never learned their English names and I only half remembered their Japanese names, especially of the more obscure ones. And then X/Y came out.

If I remember correctly, it was the first day one international release. I downloaded it onto my 3DS shortly after midnight in Japan though, just to still get it a few hours ahead at least. And after much internal debate, I chose English, which was almost as much as a novelty to me as when I played in Japanese for the first time. Everything was so much smoother and faster all of a sudden, and I began to learn all the names of Pokemon I’d been missing.

But now that I’ve left Japan, and thus lost most of my everyday opportunities to read Japanese, I can no longer justify being lazy. My adventure begins in Japanese, as a new era of Pokemon has began for me again!

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itsbenedict · 2 years

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Haven't played the vidya since being a teenager but getting a family Switch for Christmas, top new and classic recs for kids (7 years old), family, couples (casual!), and me whose favorite was always Zelda games?

Ooh, I am delighted by the opportunity to put a vast and largely-useless body of knowledge to work. One set of game recs, coming right up:

For the kids:

Picking out games for kids 7 and under is tricky, because kids tend to be bad at video games at first. I don't know what kind of experience your kids have (is this their first game console? have they played a lot of games on computers or mobile devices before?), but I'll assume they're fairly green.

My top rec is going to be New Pokémon Snap, for a lot of reasons.

First, it's pretty easy to control. Each course is mostly on-rails, with the player inside an autopiloted vehicle that moves forward and navigates the course by itself. The player only has to worry about controlling the camera, which can help acclimate a kid without much experience with joystick controls to the idea.

Second, which may or may not matter to you, it's nonviolent. Sometimes the wild pokemon will get in altercations with each other, but the player never gets attacked. Super G-rated squeaky-clean.

Third, the courses are fairly short- they range from 5 to 10 minutes long, and have decisive and natural stopping points at the end. If you're planning to have any rules or restrictions on playtime, or need to regulate whose turn it is with the Switch, this is a godsend. (As a parent who's introducing a video game console to a household with multiple children, you will presumably need to be ready for trouble with sharing and appreciate any assistance the game can provide.)

Lastly- the original Pokémon Snap for N64 was my first videogame, which I got when I was 5, and I am biased would love to share that experience with a new generation.

After that... any Kirby game is probably a good option. Those games are actively made for little kids, being very easy and designed to acclimate new players to controls and concepts ubiquitous in other games. Kirby Star Allies I haven't personally played, but it's well-reviewed, looks like every other Kirby game I've played, and has 4-player local co-op- it's a pretty safe bet.

There's a couple mainline Pokémon games on the Switch, too- Pokémon as a series is pretty good for kids, thanks to the turn-based battle system with deep but approachable mechanics. Sword and Shield (one of the two, they're basically identical, Nintendo still haven't given up on that two-versions sales gimmick) aren't my favorite entries in the series but the baseline is pretty high. (There's also Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, which I haven't really looked at, which might be simpler and better for kids?) Turn-based battles are good for kids who maybe don't have the kind of reflexes or hand-eye coordination for real-time combat systems yet.

Another angle on that- it doesn't matter if kids are kind of bad at video games if their opponent is on the same level, so there's PvP type games like Super Smash Bros Ultimate or Mario Kart 8 Deluxe which, although pretty difficult and skill-intensive against CPU opponents, have simple enough basic controls that they'll be fun for the two of them going at each other, not worrying about all the advanced stuff.

For family:

I assume you mean, like, for the whole family to play together? Kirby, Smash Bros, and Mario Kart all fit that bill, for sure.

There's also Snipperclips, which is this adorable little physics puzzle-platformer where you play as... these two little walking archway-shaped thingies, except they can overlap their bodies with each other and clip each other into different shapes, which they can then use to solve puzzles. It's only two-player co-op, but it's a good one for parents to play with kids.

Also I hear Ring Fit Adventure is good, though I haven't tried it myself- it's a motion-controlled workout game that requires a peripheral device, except the exercises and stuff you do with the ring are, like, the way you attack and cast spells and defend yourself in a turn-based RPG. I don't think it's co-op at all but it's not a bad one to have around if you want to tire someone out before bed keep the kids active and healthy.

For couples:

This one's tricky, since I do not know your wife or her taste in video games, but- any of the aforementioned multiplayer family games work fine in two-player.

The game that always comes up when people talk about games for couples is It Takes Two, which is a mandatory two-player co-op game about... two terrible neglectful parents going through a messy divorce, who- when their daughter wishes on a magic book for them to stay together- get shrunk down to the size of toys and have to go on a wild Honey I Shrunk The Kids-style adventure through the house to get back to normal. By all accounts it's beautiful, extremely well-designed, and fun- but features a lot of very weird, dark, and questionable writing decisions which make it... probably not something to play around the kids. They announced literally today that it'd be getting a Switch release on November 4th.

Oh, but- hey, you haven't played any videogames since you were a teenager, so you probably haven't already experienced...

Portal 2- included in the Portal Companion Collection on Switch- has a fantastic co-op mode. I'm sure you've heard of Portal via all the memes about the cake being a lie, but there's a reason it's so beloved and influential. Basic premise is- you have a gun that shoots portals, and you have to use it to solve physics puzzles while a passive-aggressive robot heckles and/or threatens you over the PA system. Portal 2's co-op mode is continuity-free, available from the start, and features two players each with their own set of portals, which makes for some pretty mind-blowing puzzles. (And the single-player of both games is more than worthwhile, too.)

For you:

Alright, so recommending games for people I don't know is challenging, but for someone I do know but whose taste in video games I don't, that's a horse of a different color. Just starting from what you've given me here- that you liked Zelda growing up- the obvious rec is Breath of the Wild.

Pretty much everyone besides the Ocarina of Time GOAT holdouts agrees that BotW is the best Zelda yet, though it's very different from the earlier games in the series- it's totally open-world, and does a lot with physics toys like bombs and a magnet beam and stuff. It's huge, there's tons to discover, and so much of it is designed to be open-ended and allow for multiple solutions without making puzzles trivial. It's just really impressive on a design level, and there's so much of it.

Zelda games are a lot of things to a lot of people, though, so it's hard to say what the active ingredient was for you back then without more info. If it was about the exploration, then yeah, BotW will scratch that itch for sure. The puzzle-solving stuff, BotW also has plenty of (albeit in these scattered, self-contained mini-dungeons instead of huge expansive temples.)

If you were more into the feel of the progression, getting new items that gradually expand your options and open up more of the world, I'd actually look at Hollow Knight- a pretty-difficult 2D metroidvania-type platformer with a lot of Zelda DNA, where you play as a little bug with a nail in a world full of other, mostly larger and scarier bugs.

But what are the best ones?

Outside of those specific criteria you gave me, there's a few Switch games that are a) too advanced for seven-year-olds, b) not multiplayer, and c) nothing like Zelda. But I'd be remiss if I didn't recommend them anyway, because they real good.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is the latest in the Ace Attorney series- and a reboot in a new continuity, so IMO it's the best jumping-on point. (The original trilogy is also on switch, but... this one's just better.) AA is a franchise of detective games where you play as a lawyer trying to get defendants acquitted of crimes they didn't commit, and so you've got to figure out what really happened by investigating crime scenes, cross-examining witnesses, and pointing out contradictions. TGAAC takes the series to early 20th-century London and gets Sherlock Holmes Herlock Sholmes involved, and it's just wildly entertaining from start to finish.

I remember mentioning Return of the Obra Dinn when you were looking for games for that volition study you were planning (did that end up happening?), but it's on Switch and I'd recommend it just to enjoy for yourself- you play as an insurance investigator whose job is to figure out exactly how everyone on a boat died, in order to figure out how much the insurance company has to pay out. You do so by finding corpses and then using a magic pocketwatch to go back in time to a frozen instant of the moment they died, inspecting the environment to figure out who's who and how they bit it from a limited number of snapshots of the incident. Really satisfying bit of deduction that'll consistently make you feel clever.

There's also a Pikmin game on Switch- Pikmin 3 Deluxe- which is a series I really enjoy. It's a... weird one to explain. You control a small squad of tiny astronauts who've crash-landed on an alien planet (not-so-secretly post-apocalyptic Earth), and are trying to reunite and repair their spaceship with the help of a small army of inexplicably-obedient ambulatory plant-creatures that decided to follow their orders. It's a weirdly compelling mix of time-management, action, strategy, puzzle-solving, and alternate-ecosystem worldbuilding. Not really comparable to anything else I've played, but really fun and fascinating. I'd recommend it for the kids if the controls weren't so weird and demanding of precision.

Also,

I don't recall if you played it when it came out for PC/Mac/Linux, but I have a game on there now! Partnered with a guy who does ports from the framework I built it in to bring it to Switch last month. It's this short little ~2 hour mystery thing, but people seem to like it and I'm pretty proud of it!

So yeah! There's probably some other good stuff I'm forgetting because I played them on other platforms, but hopefully this gives you some good options to pick from.

#game rec #shlevy

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kafus · 5 months

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what's your personal story with lumineon? i'm really happy to see empoleon, cradily, and fidough here since they're some of my own favorites! - 🦢

ogh ty for asking, i forget if i've shared this before but even if i have i'm doing it again LOL

even though FRLG was my first pokemon game, for a variety of reasons, i consider sinnoh/gen 4 to be my true childhood pokemon games. despite this, my childhood memory is extremely spotty (i am almost 24 years old + i have a severe dissociative disorder, i don't remember shit ever LOL) and so my memories of actually playing gen 4 are very few and far between. but lumineon is involved in two of the ones i still manage to hold onto

in pokemon diamond, i actually completed the natdex as a child, which was an arduous process that took me a Really long time, i don't know how long. i unfortunately no longer have this save file. gen 4 was obviously the dawn of wifi features and i always wanted to complete my dex in FRLG but i couldn't because i didn't have the hardware/games to trade with myself and i didn't have friends (in fact i was bullied pretty severely for liking pokemon, i had to change schools) so when i could use the GTS and trade with people online i got VERY excited about dex completion, and just like, interacting with people. i managed the task with a mix of breeding eevees and evolving them into eeveelutions as trading chips on the GTS and using my mom's yahoo account without her permission to ask for trades from people on fucking Yahoo Answers lol (sorry mom SDJKSD)

i don't actually remember doing most of this, i was just able to put it back together with context clues from my pearl file that survived and things i am just vaguely aware happened but don't actually have Sensory Memory of. BUT what i do remember is that one night i realized i was finally almost done and somehow the finneon line is the one line of pokemon i never got. they were the Final Dex Entries i needed. i did everything in a really weird order and wasn't prioritizing the sinnoh regional dex lol

so i went and caught a finneon and grinded it to evolve it into lumineon. i think the reason i remember this is because i was so close to being done, i was way more impatient with grinding than usual, and then just like. the sheer pride and relief i felt when that finneon evolved and then scrolling through the complete dex list is like nothing i had ever felt before gonna be honest. high point of my childhood

even back then i formed an attachment to lumineon in this moment and i used that lumineon for other stuff in sinnoh. i don't remember how i found this out, but one of the first competitive doubles strategies i ever learned was that thunder always hits in rain, and i knew that my lumineon had rain dance through level-up and i had a luxray with thunder, and i was Obsessed with pokemon battle revolution, so i have a brief memory of spamming thunder with my luxray after setting up the rain with lumineon and being really proud of myself for that (even though there's way more optimal ways to do this that i'm aware of now LOL, cut me some slack i was 8 years old)

this is a really long explanation cause i wanted to really emphasize WHY this meant so much to me as a kid but tldr lumineon was the last remaining pokemon left for me to get the dex entry for in sinnoh as a kid and it was a culmination of a lot of months of work and then i went on to use that lumineon in battles and yeah shoutout to lumineon

#kiki was here #asks #swan anon #anonymous

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runolllo · 2 years

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Legends Arceus, 108 Wisps and Chinese Classics

I'm finally playing Pokemon Legends Arceus and I'm just realizing the game is somewhat inspired on the Chinese classic Shui Hu Zhuan, often localized as Water Margin, or as All Men Are Brothers, or also as (-The 108-) Outlaws of the Marsh.

*THIS POST MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS*

I have seen people comment on how Spiritomb and Typhlosion (Hisui variant) are related to the number 108 in various ways, as it's the novel I'll be discussing. To gather the Pokemon facts first, let's start mentioning that to get Spiritomb in Pokemon Arceus, you have to find the 108 wisps wandering around Hisui, and some of Spiritomb's Pokedex entries read:

'Exactly 108 spirits gathered to become this Pokémon. Apparently there are some ill-natured spirits in the mix.' 'It was bound to a fissure in an Odd Keystone as punishment for misdeeds 500 years ago.'

As for Hisuian Typhlosion, Professor Laventon says in the Pokedex 'Said to purify lost, forsaken souls with its flames and guide them to the afterlife.' Additionally, from the official Legends website we also learn the following:

'It emits ghost flames –said to number as many as 108- from the fires around its neck. These flames all attack the opponent, adopting the countenance of ferocious beasts.'

Some people already explained that the number 108 is significant in various Asian religions, but to be brief, it often revolves around the idea that there are 108 'temptations' on the way to Nirvana, 108 mundane 'feelings' in the way to purification, etc. and so, many rituals and traditions involve the number in some way (rosaries have 108 beads for this reason, temples sometimes have literally 108 steps, they ring bells 108 times, etc.)

Shui Hu Zhuan, or Water Margin, is among the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. JRPG enjoyers such as myself might have heard of it because of Suikoden or Eiyuden… being a Suikoden fan for as long as I've been a Pokemon fan, my impression is that this novel is not known to westerners, so allow me to explain further.

The plot revolves around the 108 Heroes or 'Stars of Destiny' seemingly inspired by the Taoist idea that everyone's destiny is tied to a Star. Generally speaking, this funny but also tragic brutal novel is about people from all walks of life, sometimes criminals, coming together to fight evil (mostly in the form of a corrupt disastrous government and the invading regions). It's about sworn family, about friendship, about repenting, about changing times… and about how beautiful women are evil because the novel is definitely a product of its time. A number of the adventures in the book are inspiration for the characters arcs in the game, as well as for the locations.

Back to the 108 wisps, Spiritomb and Hisuian Typhlosion; other than being possibly related to Hinduism and Buddhism, the way I think they can relate to the novel is explained by this Wikipedia quote that summarizes the lore of the books: 'The 108 Heroes represent 108 demonic overlords who were banished (…) Having repented since (…) the stars are released from imprisonment by accident, and are reborn in the world as 108 heroes who band together for the cause of justice.'

I don't have enough reliable sources to talk more about it and it's been some 15 years since I read this novel -a very mistranslated version apparently-. But I know for a fact that out of the 108 heroes/Stars of Destiny, there are 36 Heavenly Spirits and 72 Earthly Fiends. These 36 are generally higher ranked or more important in the novel, and if I'm not mistaken, there are 36 characters in Pokemon Arceus that are somewhat relevant, all being ancestors to other human characters in the series -including the antagonist-, a lot of them either officials of the Galaxy Team, Wardens and leaders of the Diamond and Pearl clans, or people of various 'mundane' talents helping Jubilife Town prosper… much like in the novel.

So yeah there are many little ways I which Game Freak seemed to take inspiration from Water Margin!

#pokemon legends arceus #typhlosion #spiritomb #Pokemon Lore #Suikoden #pokemon

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