With the peculiar exception of Gen V, every Generation of the Pokemon series since the third has had a remake of a prior generation. Gen III had Fire Red and Leaf Green, Gen IV had Heart Gold and Soul Silver, and Gen VI had Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. For this reason, I am rather certain that there will be remakes of the Diamond and Pearl versions by the time Gen VIII comes around. I will make some predictions as to what these remakes will contain based on prior remakes, as well as my general reasoning in some cases.
The Underground will return.
As ORAS brought back Secret Bases, it only makes sense that a remake of Diamond and Pearl would bring back the Gen IV-equivalent. I had a lot of fun with it in the originals even though I am pretty sure I only had the opportunity to do the Capture-the-Flag thing once at most, if even that. I messed around putting my player character through trap-based roller coaster things, I believe. Also, digging, I did that a lot. Uh, what was I talking about? Oh, right.
The method of growing berries will be like in the original games
FRLG and HGSS did not introduce "soft, earthy soil" to Kanto or Johto (though the latter DID add Berry Pots), and ORAS brought back the separate patches strewn about Hoenn with the overall system changed to be closer to the one in the Gen III games. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that the remakes of Gen IV will do something similar.
Contests
They will be back. Much like how ORAS brought Contests back after they were absent in X&Y, the Gen IV remakes will also bring back Contests after their absence in Sun & Moon. This will allow Gen VII-native Pokemon to have contest ribbons. Z-Moves will be usable to earn bonus points or something, kinda like Mega Evolutions in ORAS. On that note...
Z-Crystals will be given to the player by Gym Leaders along with badges
As most Z-Crystals are already given to the player at the end of Trials in Sun & Moon, this would effectively be a very similar system. There is no precedent for this from prior remakes, but there is no other way of giving the player Z-Crystals in these remakes which makes much sense, aside from maybe finding them throughout the environment. Furthermore...
New Z-Moves
ORAS introduced a lot of new Mega Evolutions (as well as the somewhat similar Primal Reversion mechanic for Groudon and Kyogre), so it seems only logical that new Z-Moves will be introduced in the Gen IV remakes. Among the recipients of these will presumably be the Lake Trio (Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf), and also the cover legendaries. Of course, this means that...
These remakes will not have full multiplayer compatability with Sun & Moon
Much like with ORAS and X&Y, there will be restrictions for multiplayer games between the Gen IV remakes and Sun & Moon.
The S.S. Spiral in Snowpoint City will take you to the Battle Tree instead of the Battle Tower
HGSS and ORAS both used the battle facilities of the (most recent) games in their generations. HGSS had Platinum's entire Battle Frontier where the Battle Tower apparently was in Crystal (I had not played Crystal, nor had I played Emerald for the record). ORAS had the Battle Maison where the Battle Tower was in Ruby and Sapphire (and therefore where the Emerald Battle Frontier was). Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that, once whatever the now-traditional post-game storyline is has been resolved, the S.S. Spiral will take you to the Battle Tree.
There will be no character customization
ORAS lacked the option to change the outfit of your player character despite X&Y introducing the feature. Judging from this, presumably we will be stuck with the default outfits for Lucas and Dawn despite Sun and Moon bringing character customization back.
The characters will be redesigned
Previous remakes have brought character redesigns with them. Some of them drastic.
Heatran will be catchable
Heatran has been available to catch in every Pokemon generation in some way ever since it was introduced in, funnily enough, the original Diamond and Pearl. It only makes sense for Heatran to be made available in this generation, and where better but in the remakes of the games it was introduced in?
Saturday, March 18, 2017
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Saturday, February 18, 2017
The True Purpose Of The "Pikaclones"?
Every Pokemon generation after the second has had a new electric rodent Pokemon that is not in Pikachu's evolutionary line. Why is this? Is GameFreak merely trying to recapture the success of Pikachu each time? While that is probably part of it, I feel that there is more to it than that. I think most of the so-called "Pikaclones" is actually meant to show off something about the generation they are introduced in. For the purposes of this post, whether or not these Pokemon suck like a high-powered vacuum cleaner will be ignored.
Gen III: Plusle and Minun
So, the third Generation of Pokemon games introduced Double Battles and Abilities, among other things. Plusle and Minun's Abilities, "Plus" and "Minus" respectively, would only activate if Pokemon with both were out at the same time on the same side, which could only happen in a Double Battle. Later generations changed things around so that more Pokemon could have either "Plus" or "Minus", as well as making it so the Ability will activate if a Pokemon with either is teamed up with a Pokemon that has one or the other.
Gen IV: Pachirisu
Um...well, I said "most", didn't I? I mean, I guess learning Spark, a physical Electric-type move, counts, since Generation IV made it so a move being Physical or Special did not depend on the move's type?
Gen V: Emolga
So, Emolga was introduced in a Generation where GameFreak did some interesting things, such as emphasizing the story more than in previous Generations, only allowing the player to catch newly-introduced Pokemon until the post-game (until Black 2 and White 2, that is), and shoving plenty of features into a now-defunct Flash site. To reflect this, the "Pikaclone" of Black and White has a relatively unique type, Electric/Flying, which at the time was only shared by Zapdos, Fan-Rotom (as of that Generation), and Thundurus. Zapdos and Thundurus are Legendary Pokemon, and Rotom's non-Electric type can change, so Emolga was, and in fact still is, the only non-Legendary to be a dedicated Electric-Flying type. In a Generation that took a unique direction, the "Pikaclone" was, itself, rather unique.
Gen VI: Dedenne
One element Generation VI introduced was the Fairy type. Dedenne is part Fairy type. For some reason it did not get a Mega Evolution despite the mechanic being introduced here as well. It should be noted that the "Attempting to recapture the appeal of Pikachu" aspect of "Pikaclones" is plain as day here, as Dedenne looks very much like Pikachu did before it was redesigned.
Gen VII: Togedemaru
So, this is kind of a stretch, but, with one major exception, every Pokemon introduced in Generation VII has a low Speed stat compared to those of earlier Generations. The intent is arguably for Alolan Pokemon to be played with a more defensive playstyle, which is certainly shown with Togedemaru, an Electric-Steel hedgehog that learns the move Spiky Shield. While Togedemaru is not the first Pokemon to be able to know Spiky Shield, it is not exactly a common move.
So, as stated at the beginning of this post, most of the "Pikaclones" exist to show off something about a particular Generation. When the people at GameFreak want to point out something about a new Pokemon Generation, they'll probably make a Pokemon that happens to be an electric rodent in order to show it off.
Gen III: Plusle and Minun
So, the third Generation of Pokemon games introduced Double Battles and Abilities, among other things. Plusle and Minun's Abilities, "Plus" and "Minus" respectively, would only activate if Pokemon with both were out at the same time on the same side, which could only happen in a Double Battle. Later generations changed things around so that more Pokemon could have either "Plus" or "Minus", as well as making it so the Ability will activate if a Pokemon with either is teamed up with a Pokemon that has one or the other.
Gen IV: Pachirisu
Um...well, I said "most", didn't I? I mean, I guess learning Spark, a physical Electric-type move, counts, since Generation IV made it so a move being Physical or Special did not depend on the move's type?
Gen V: Emolga
So, Emolga was introduced in a Generation where GameFreak did some interesting things, such as emphasizing the story more than in previous Generations, only allowing the player to catch newly-introduced Pokemon until the post-game (until Black 2 and White 2, that is), and shoving plenty of features into a now-defunct Flash site. To reflect this, the "Pikaclone" of Black and White has a relatively unique type, Electric/Flying, which at the time was only shared by Zapdos, Fan-Rotom (as of that Generation), and Thundurus. Zapdos and Thundurus are Legendary Pokemon, and Rotom's non-Electric type can change, so Emolga was, and in fact still is, the only non-Legendary to be a dedicated Electric-Flying type. In a Generation that took a unique direction, the "Pikaclone" was, itself, rather unique.
Gen VI: Dedenne
One element Generation VI introduced was the Fairy type. Dedenne is part Fairy type. For some reason it did not get a Mega Evolution despite the mechanic being introduced here as well. It should be noted that the "Attempting to recapture the appeal of Pikachu" aspect of "Pikaclones" is plain as day here, as Dedenne looks very much like Pikachu did before it was redesigned.
Gen VII: Togedemaru
So, this is kind of a stretch, but, with one major exception, every Pokemon introduced in Generation VII has a low Speed stat compared to those of earlier Generations. The intent is arguably for Alolan Pokemon to be played with a more defensive playstyle, which is certainly shown with Togedemaru, an Electric-Steel hedgehog that learns the move Spiky Shield. While Togedemaru is not the first Pokemon to be able to know Spiky Shield, it is not exactly a common move.
So, as stated at the beginning of this post, most of the "Pikaclones" exist to show off something about a particular Generation. When the people at GameFreak want to point out something about a new Pokemon Generation, they'll probably make a Pokemon that happens to be an electric rodent in order to show it off.
Saturday, February 4, 2017
The Evolution of the Berries Mechanic in Pokemon
Last year was the 20th anniversary of the Pokemon franchise, and The Pokemon Company and Nintendo did many things in order to commemorate this, not the least of which was the release of the seventh generation of main series games, Pokemon Sun and Moon. Over the course of the history of the series, berries were introduced in the second generation games, Gold, Silver, and later Crystal, and the mechanic of growing them has been refined over the course of the rest of the series. And yes, I will be going over all of the generations in which berries were available, even the ones in recent memory. I'm going somewhere with that, trust me.
In Generation II, berries grew one at a time on very specific trees. In Generations III and IV, trees could be planted in patches of "soft, earthy soil(?!)" found throughout the region and harvested from to yield multiple berries. The remakes in those Generations, to account for the lack of "soft, earthy soil" in Kanto and Johto, used different mechanics. I, personally, never played Fire Red or Leaf Green, but it apparently had a post-game area known as the Berry Forst in which there was a regenerating supply of berries. In the Gen IV remakes of Gold and Silver,the player would use portable Berry Pots to grow berries and harvest them. This latter mechanic probably inspired how later generations of games would handle berry growing.
Generation V's berry growing mechanic made use of the gen's very good idea to have several features rely on the Pokemon Dream World, a flash website which was shut down ages ago. It was impossible to grow berries in the Gen V games themselves. Instead, the player would need to go into the Dream World to plant and care for them. With the shutting down of the Pokemon Dream World, it is now impossible to grow berries in the Generation V Pokemon games, so, uh, excellent forward-thinking there, GameFreak.This did, however, carry over the idea of having all of the player's berry trees in one, relatively easy to access place.
The non-remake duo of Generation VI games, X and Y, had the Berry Fields, an easily-accessible location to grow berries in. It also greatly expanded the mechanics of berry tree raising to include stuff like mulching and weeds. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire pretty much went back to how things were in the original versions of the games as far as berries went, however.
And finally, the Generation VII games, Sun and Moon, make berry growing more convenient than ever. Early in the game's storyline, you unlock Poke Pelago, which can be accessed from any location (except for Festival Plaza) at any time (outside of battles or cutscenes, of course). One of the islands you can unlock for Poke Pelago, Isle Aplenny, lets you raise eighteen berry trees at once when fully expanded. This is a downgrade from the number that could be grown in X and Y's Berry Fields, but you can access Poke Pelago from the X button menu very conveniently.
In fact, "convenience" is the trend here. As you may have noticed, getting berries has become more convenient as the series went on, and this is not the only case of the Pokemon series becoming more convenient as it goes on. For example, ever since Generation V, Poke Marts have been merged with Pokemon Centers. Furthermore, TMs have become infinite-use, rather than being discarded after being used once. In Sun and Moon, Ride Pokemon have replaced HMs, thus finally removing the need to use "HM Slaves". The list of examples of this could go on and on.
In Generation II, berries grew one at a time on very specific trees. In Generations III and IV, trees could be planted in patches of "soft, earthy soil(?!)" found throughout the region and harvested from to yield multiple berries. The remakes in those Generations, to account for the lack of "soft, earthy soil" in Kanto and Johto, used different mechanics. I, personally, never played Fire Red or Leaf Green, but it apparently had a post-game area known as the Berry Forst in which there was a regenerating supply of berries. In the Gen IV remakes of Gold and Silver,the player would use portable Berry Pots to grow berries and harvest them. This latter mechanic probably inspired how later generations of games would handle berry growing.
Generation V's berry growing mechanic made use of the gen's very good idea to have several features rely on the Pokemon Dream World, a flash website which was shut down ages ago. It was impossible to grow berries in the Gen V games themselves. Instead, the player would need to go into the Dream World to plant and care for them. With the shutting down of the Pokemon Dream World, it is now impossible to grow berries in the Generation V Pokemon games, so, uh, excellent forward-thinking there, GameFreak.This did, however, carry over the idea of having all of the player's berry trees in one, relatively easy to access place.
The non-remake duo of Generation VI games, X and Y, had the Berry Fields, an easily-accessible location to grow berries in. It also greatly expanded the mechanics of berry tree raising to include stuff like mulching and weeds. Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire pretty much went back to how things were in the original versions of the games as far as berries went, however.
And finally, the Generation VII games, Sun and Moon, make berry growing more convenient than ever. Early in the game's storyline, you unlock Poke Pelago, which can be accessed from any location (except for Festival Plaza) at any time (outside of battles or cutscenes, of course). One of the islands you can unlock for Poke Pelago, Isle Aplenny, lets you raise eighteen berry trees at once when fully expanded. This is a downgrade from the number that could be grown in X and Y's Berry Fields, but you can access Poke Pelago from the X button menu very conveniently.
In fact, "convenience" is the trend here. As you may have noticed, getting berries has become more convenient as the series went on, and this is not the only case of the Pokemon series becoming more convenient as it goes on. For example, ever since Generation V, Poke Marts have been merged with Pokemon Centers. Furthermore, TMs have become infinite-use, rather than being discarded after being used once. In Sun and Moon, Ride Pokemon have replaced HMs, thus finally removing the need to use "HM Slaves". The list of examples of this could go on and on.
Saturday, January 21, 2017
Important Reminder For The Next Four Years
Anything the Angry Orange Nazi does as POTUS is not normal. His election is unprecedented and illegitimate. If we allow him to, he will turn all of our sources of information against us in order to satisfy his massive, overly inflated ego. We have already seen his Press Secretary provably lie by saying that President Dump's inauguration had drawn a massive audience. There were even implied threats by the Fuhrer in Chief against those who had reported on the size of the crowd accurately. THIS IS THE BEHAVIOR OF A DICTATOR, NOT THE PRESIDENT OF A DEMOCRATIC NATION!
Anyway, video game related posts will resume next week.
Anyway, video game related posts will resume next week.
Saturday, January 14, 2017
My Nintendo NYC Switch Event Impressions
Okay, so first, let me get this out of the way right now.
PUYO PUYO TETRIS LOCALIZATION HAS BEEN CONFIRMED AND IT WAS PLAYABLE AT THE EVENT AND I RECORDED SOME FOOTAGE AND OH MY GOD THEY'RE RELEASING PUYO PUYO TETRIS IN THE WEST AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
Anyway, yeah, I was invited to a Nintendo Switch preview event for My Nintendo members in New York City yesterday, so here are my thoughts:
Also, a pin and a cookie were handed out to anyone who left.
The event was great overall!
PUYO PUYO TETRIS LOCALIZATION HAS BEEN CONFIRMED AND IT WAS PLAYABLE AT THE EVENT AND I RECORDED SOME FOOTAGE AND OH MY GOD THEY'RE RELEASING PUYO PUYO TETRIS IN THE WEST AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
- Puyo Puyo Tetris was the very first thing I played. NO, I DON'T HAVE A PUYO OBSESSION, WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!
- Anyway, Sig's voice in English is noticeably deeper than his Japanese voice. Apparently there will be no dual audio, which I imagine is probably down to licensing issues. Sega localization producer Sam Mullen has not said anything on the matter aside from "Don't you all already own the JP version?", which is a bit ridiculous, but whatever.
- The Splatoon 2 Demo Version certainly felt a lot like a sequel. It is difficult to put into words what I meant. I had by far my best performance with the Splat Roller, which I am somewhat ashamed of.
- ARMS is really good, more than many people were probably expecting. There is a surprising level of depth to the mechanics, and plenty of character variety. I heard a staff member say that a Pro Controller can be used in the actual game, and while the motion controls worked quite well for me, there are definitely people who will not be able to use motion controls, so this is good.
- Snipperclips froze at one point while I was demoing it, but I can forgive this as it is a WIP build. There were plenty of good ideas on display, with every non-tutorial level having distinct goals, such as one where you need to get a basketball through a hoop, one where you need to pop balloons, and one in which you guide a wheel along a railing to a car.
- The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild had a queue to play it, a sensible move on the part of the event organizers. I wasted time by dying twice, once against some Bokoblins, and once when I jumped down from the tower once you put the Sheikah Slate in the thingy. On my second attempt to get down from the tower, I used the more sensible method of using the "Let Go" command and re-grabbing the wall repeatedly. Ultimately, I failed to finish the first shrine.
- I played Studiopolis Zone Act 1 in Sonic Mania
- I played battle mode in Super Bomberman R. I am a bit iffy on the "in-game currency" thing, especially since this is Konami.
- I played a bit of Ultra Street Fighter 2. My knowledge of Street Fighter in general is sadly limited.
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is certainly Mario Kart 8 with new characters and a battle mode.
- I did not get around to playing 1-2-Switch, FAST RMX, Just Dance 2017, Skylanders Imaginators, Has Been Heroes, or Disgaea 5 Complete.
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| I got this Toon Link plushie for winning the first round | . |
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| This cap was the consolation prize for losing the Finals. The winner got a Zelda messenger bag. |
Also, a pin and a cookie were handed out to anyone who left.
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| The cookie was just okay, for the record. |
The event was great overall!
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Puyo Puyo Tetris English Version Leaked? Possibly.
Recently, an English trophy list for Puyo Puyo Tetris was leaked on the website Exophase. At first, many doubted the validity of this leak. After all, what is this "Exophase" website anyway? As time passed, though, skepticism died down, eventually leaving two logical possibilities:
I, too, am feeling this emotion.
If Puyo Puyo Tetris comes out in the Western world, you should buy it as soon as possible.
Yes, this was a short post this week. I deliberately decided not to do anything special to mark the end of the year, and this pretty much came up out of nowhere. Anyway, I hope to continue posting on this blog over the course of the coming year, and I hope you will continue to follow along with my posts!
- This is for an English South-East Asia release (And Sega could just release this version in the West)
- This is, in fact, for a release in the Western world.
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| The :AAAAAAA: emoticon from the Puyo Nexus Discord server |
If Puyo Puyo Tetris comes out in the Western world, you should buy it as soon as possible.
Yes, this was a short post this week. I deliberately decided not to do anything special to mark the end of the year, and this pretty much came up out of nowhere. Anyway, I hope to continue posting on this blog over the course of the coming year, and I hope you will continue to follow along with my posts!
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