Memes in Splatoon 2

Over the course of Splatoon 2's first month, I have noticed a few memes in Inkopolis Square. For example:

• Furries
• "I hate furries!"
• "How do you draw on this thing?!"
• Ketchup = Blood
• "INK THE SPAWN"
• Knack II
• Valuable Salmon Run tips (The Sting Ray sure is powerful)
• "I wish ____ was real"
• "Trans people are awesome!"
• "WAAAAAAAAH! KEEP POLITICS OUT OF MY VIDEO GAMES! WAAAAAAAH!"
• Pineapple on pizza VS pineapple-free pizza (from the future)

What's interesting is the spread of these. Whenever you start the game up, you are put in Inkopolis Square. Unless you use the menu to select a mode like some sort of weirdo, then there is a good chance that you will run into another player's avatar with a pseudo-Miiverse post. This makes it more likely that you will be aware of the latest trend(s) even before you see the posts from Inkopolis Square as graffiti in multiplayer matches, even if you are ignoring the community at large.

I do not know exactly how Inkopolis Square gets populated, but here are some things I have noticed:

• It probably prioritizes posts with a lot of recent upvotes, to get the completely obvious out of the way.
• I imagine it picks from the unpopular posts too? Otherwise, how are these posts trending in the first place?

So, basically, it seems Nintendo has put a decent amount of thought into making sure that you know what the newest trends are in Splatoon 2's community.

Correction and Clarification

Okay I'm back to writing on this blog now let's just get this over with.

In "Puyo Puyo Tetris and How it Pays Tribute to the History of Both Games," I said that the Frozen Puyos item was a reference to the Ice Blocks mode. It apparently showed up in Slot Mode. I guess I had blocked what little I played of Slot Mode on my imported copy of the DS version 20th Anniversary out of my memory. And did not bother to check the Puyo Nexus Wiki page for Slot for some reason.

I did not list Pichu and Alolan Raichu in  "The True Purpose Of The "Pikaclones"?" because they are in the same evolutionary family as Pikachu. I suppose, however, that Pichu was created to promote the baby Pokemon. Alolan Raichu could exist to show off Alolan Forms, as well as the Tapus' Terrains, since Alolan Raichu basically exists to be used on Electric Terrain.

Okay there.

Donkey

You see that? That's a donkey.

Why are you looking at me like that?

...Please don't kill me.

Why Party Mode in Puyo Puyo Tetris is Bad, AKA How Not To Design A VS Puzzle Game Mode

Okay, so I have implied and outright stated at various points, here and elsewhere, my dislike of Party Mode. "But why?" You may ask. "Why do you hate Party Mode so much?" Well, I will tell you why.

• THE ITEMS
• The items can range from useless/unintentionally hindering (Oh, awesome, all of my Puyos are gonna become single-color and possibly disrupt my plans!), to unintentionally helping the opponent (Ha! I've turned my next few Tetris-using opponent's pieces into pentominos! Wait, uh-oh, they had an I-piece queued up), to overpowered (Score Vacuum).

• THE SCORE VACUUM IS SERIOUSLY A "BLUE SHELL"
• The Score Vacuum means that a victory can be stolen from you due to the win condition of "Whoever has the best score wins!" 
•  THE ITEMS GET IN THE WAY
• A falling item can get in the way of a spot you were planning to use for a chain. Kind of like Sun Puyo in Puyo Puyo Sun, actually 

• THIS MODE IS AVAILABLE IN RANKED BY DEFAULT
• This means that, unless you change the settings (though this is easy to do), your Puzzle League ranking can be changed based on an item RNG-based luckfest.
• While all of the modes are RNG-based by the very nature of the genre, they are a matter of working with the hand that you are dealt and being flexible while still planning ahead, playing 9001-dimensional chess. Party Mode ruins that.

• THIS IS ONE OF THE ONLY TWO PLACES WHERE FEVER DROPSETS ARE USED
• Like, why? I just...feel like this is a wasted opportunity. Granted, as I said last time, Party Mode may be a call-back to Slot Mode from 20th Anniversary, but...why?

So, yeah, Party Mode is terrible.

Puyo Puyo Tetris and How it Pays Tribute to the History of Both Games

As a crossover between two great puzzle game franchises, naturally Puyo Puyo Tetris makes references to the history of both series.

Characters

• The Tetris characters are astronauts. This is in all likelihood a reference to the ending of the Game Boy Tetris game, which depicts a rocket launch.
• There are 24 playable characters, as is the norm for the Puyo Puyo series.

Modes

• Big Bang is like Non-Stop Fever from the Puyo Puyo Anniversary titles, except with, among other things, health bars instead of a set amount of Garbage Puyo each player needs to neutralize (that's the term Sega seems to be going with in the West instead of offset).
• Apparently Big Bang returns in Puyo Puyo Chronicle (The following game in the Puyo Puyo series, released for the 25th anniversary) despite Non-Stop Fever also returning, except with the Tetris elements removed for obvious reasons.
• This one is a stretch, but Party Mode is a bit like Slot Mode from Puyo Puyo 20th Anniversary. It uses Fever dropsets (with the Tetris characters notably using the dropsets of characters who only make cameos) and heavily involves item RNG. Also just like Slot Mode, it is terrible. Why would you pay tribute to Slot Mode of all things?
• Far less of a stretch is that two of the items in Party Mode, Frozen Puyos and Searchlight, are references to the Ice Blocks and Searchlight game modes from the Puyo Puyo Anniversary games.
• There is also an item which turns Tetris opponents' pieces into pentominoes. Tetris was inspired by pentomino puzzles, so if this was an intentional reference, then it is a pretty well-thought out one. Then again, I am calling something in Party Mode "well-thought out".
• Among the Challenge modes is Endless Tiny Puyo. Outside of certain stages in Adventure Mode, this is the only time Tiny Puyo is used.
• The Tetris Challenge modes are Marathon, Sprint, and Ultra, possibly the three most recognizable ways of playing Tetris, and definitely among the oldest.

Music

• There is a mix of music from both Puyo Puyo and Tetris, and the Tetris music does not just consist of variations of Korobeiniki (I had to look that up) as you might expect. The default BGM for the Tetris Challenge modes is actually from Sega's own Tetris game!

Skins

• The vast majority of the Puyo skins are from previous games in the Puyo series, though that admittedly may just be laziness. In fact, there is only one that is new.
• You can also unlock various backgrounds from certain games in the Puyo Puyo series. 
• And also one that is from Sega's arcade version of Tetris. It is very different from every other background in the game. You will know it when you see it, hopefully.
• You can unlock a Game Boy Tetris skin, and some other well-known tetromino designs are available from the start.

Puyo Puyo Tetris, as a crossover, references the history of both series in many ways, as seen in the examples above.

Puyo Puyo Tetris Is Out! This Is Why You Need To Play It!

So, I did not write a post two weeks ago, but you know what did happen two weeks ago? The localization for Puyo Puyo Tetris was released! You must play this game. Why? Here is why:

Puyo Puyo is awesome
Especially in multiplayer, Puyo Puyo is a strategic game of wits in which knowing the opponent's next move, thinking ahead, and praying for just the right piece are essential skills.


You know about Tetris already
You know Tetris is awesome.

The last Puyo Puyo localization was an eternity ago
Seriously, this makes it kind of important imho.

The Switch version shows how the Joy-Cons can be used for quick and easy local multiplayer
The game can be controlled with a single Joy-Con, so local head-to-head play can be initiated pretty much whenever there are two people willing to play.
(Note: The localization is also available physically on PS4. As for why it isn't available digitally on there, you can basically blame Ubisoft.)

The full game has a lot more than the demo
The demo only has a fraction of the content the full game has, believe it or not. Like, the full game has quite a bit more content in it than the demo does. Really. I swear.

Okay, also there are non-battle modes for both Puyo Puyo and Tetris
While the emphasis is on the battle modes, within the Solo Arcade menu you can find a sub-menu with non-battle experiences if you ever want a break from getting destroyed by the AI/online opponents. Or if you want to practice so you will not get destroyed by the AI/online opponents.

"But I can just play Tetris for free on my phone!"
Wow that is one of the most absurd things I have ever heard considering you're probably talking about Tetris Blitz which is free-to-play with microtransactions and doesn't have a comparable control scheme plus you're ignoring the first half of this game's title.

As an aside, by the way...
No streaming restrictions in the localization
Okay, so, yeah, you read the bold text. Streaming restrictions still apply to the Japanese version, though. Why? I donno, but Sega has had different (or in this case removed) streaming restrictions between regions before, so this is far from unprecedented.

So, I hope I have sold you on this game in this post. Here's hoping I will have more than one post this month, by the way!

How Team Kirby Clash Deluxe Takes Inspiration From Monster Hunter

This week, HAL Laboratories and Nintendo released an expanded version of the Kirby: Planet Robobot minigame Team Kirby Clash, creatively titled  Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, as a Free-To-Play game on the 3DS eShop. This game, for those who have not figured it out, is heavily inspired by Capcom's Monster Hunter series, which is gut-explodingly popular over in Japan. This can be seen in various ways.

• The whole setup of the game (both the original and Deluxe) has four adventurers teaming up to travel to various locales to take down giant monsters, accepting repeatable quests from a board.
• You use items obtained from fallen monsters to obtain equipment, though the premise is a bit different here.
• In Monster Hunter, you carve parts off of the monsters and pray that you will get the item you need this time. You can also get several of these items as quest rewards, which are also determined by RNG.
• Team Kirby Clash Deluxe gives you a fixed amount of certain kinds of "fragments" as a quest reward. No RNG.
• Both involve a heavy amount of grinding. In the case of Monster Hunter, it is so you can get that one monster part you need. In Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, there is traditional level grinding. Either way, the player will be grinding a lot.
• In Monster Hunter, each Hunter Rank (up to a certain point, at which time the mechanics for Hunter Rank change) has a selection of quests to tackle. Once certain quests among these are completed, an Urgent Quest is unlocked. Once this Urgent Quest is completed, the player's Hunter Rank increases, and with it comes a new set of quests. Team Kirby Clash Deluxe does pretty much the same thing, except without showing Hunter Rank, Urgent Quests are called Ordeals, and as far as I can tell, every quest is needed to unlock the Ordeal.
• Monster Hunter divides quests into Low Rank, High Rank, and in the Ultimate re-releases (because Capcom), G Rank. In each of these, in addition to new monsters, you can face old ones, except buffed (and with new, better drops). So far in my playthrough of TKCD, every new quest after a certain early Ordeal has been prefaced with "Tough", and many have featured returning, harder opponents.
• Equipment is given a "Rarity" value in TKCD, like all items in Monster Hunter. Though in TKCD it only really indicates what equipment set it belongs to.
• Also, there are armor sets.
• Before quests in TKCD, you can use Stamina and Attack Potions to boost those respective stats. Monster Hunter has similar stat-boosting potions, though they are used during Quests rather than before. You can, however, get stat boosts at the kitchen before a quest. 
• These boosts have been far less necessary in TKCD than in Monster Hunter, however, where they can mean the difference between life and...getting carted. Of course, Kirby games are generally on the easier side of things (certain side content notwithstanding), so...
• In multiplayer in Monster Hunter, only the "host" of an Urgent Quest (though not of the current group as a whole) gets credit for completing it (quest rewards aside). I have been unable to play multiplayer in TKCD because it is local-only, but according to the manual, it has a somewhat similar system. However, it does this for every quest, and even for many heroic missions, which are pretty much the game's achievement system (and one of two ways to get gem apples for free). Also, TKCD applies this restriction to the host of the group as a whole (though presumably the host is the only one who gets to pick quests in TKCD). I am not a fan of such systems.

Overall, the latest game starring The Pink Sphere of Adorableness (aka Kirby) is heavily inspired by Monster Hunter (though it is far from the first game in the Monster Hunter "genre"). It is interesting to see how developers take inspiration from one another.