Tag: Generation 7

My thoughts on the June 5, 2019 Pokémon Direct

My thoughts on the June 5, 2019 Pokémon Direct

Is there anything better than waking up to Pokémon trending all over Twitter?

Especially when the series is trending because of some brand new Sword and Shield information dropped in this morning’s Pokémon Direct!

There’s a bunch to talk about, good and possibly not-as-good, so let’s jump right into what stands out the most.

The Galar Region and the Wild Area

Over the years, I’ve learned that my favorite thing about Pokémon is the world each region helps to create. A world that’s similar to ours but flourishing with fantastical elements on account of the creatures roaming through it.

Unova, Kalos and Alola made this especially apparent as Game Freak experimented with landmarks and traditions from places outside of Japan to great effect.

For all its faults, I have to commend Alola for its Hawaii/pacific island setting. Gen 7’s theme song was a perfect tone setter.

The theme song for the UK-based Galar Region heard in this and the last Direct is a bit more generic, but aesthetically the world looks like series of a watercolor paintings on the graphically superior Nintendo Switch.

The trainer models also look far better than the flat-faced happy trainers in Alola, and fist bumping Scorbunny helped me settle on my starter.

Hands down the best thing we learned about the Galar Region today is the existence of the “Wild Area.”

The Wild Area is ostensively a Breath of the Wild-esque open world that connects towns with free-roaming movement and camera controls. It also has overworld wild Pokémon like Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee who change via environment and time of day.

wildarea1
Image courtesy of serebii.net

Also it has local multiplayer roaming elements. Need I say more?

Luckily Galar’s human inhabitants don’t seem too bad either.

 

Images courtesy of Serebii.net

Professor Magnolia is an obvious Queen Elizabeth reference and the first female Professor since Juniper, while her Granddaughter Sonia…

Already has a lot of smut drawn of her.

Because she’s really cute and that’s how the internet does.

 

Images courtesy of Serebii.net

Meanwhile Hop is our generic rival/friend-type who has a name eerily similar to both Hau and Hugh… Because Game Freak loves rivals with ‘H’ names apparently.

His older brother is Leon, the region champion and person Hop wants to defeat.

Personally I think the gameplay themes of Pokémon could have been utilized better if Leon was your character’s brother that you aspire to beat. But early revealing a beloved, undefeated champion with links to other major characters possibly sets up a fun secret villain twist.

Or maybe he’ll be Henry VII like I said earlier:

New Pokémon

That’s enough about boring people. In today’s Direct we got to meet new Pokémon.

Glossifleur and Eldegoss

 

Images courtesy of serebii.net

The signature line of Galar’s gym leader Milo, Glossifleur and Eldegoss are cute in their own right.

I’m not enamored with them necessarily, but the fact that they have Regenerator as an ability means we can probably expect to see a little meta action out of them if their stats are decent.

Wooloo

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Image courtesy of serebii.net

He’s a fluffy sheep and he rolls around like Sonic.

Not sure I need to say anything else about this beloved Normal-type.

Corviknight

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Image courtesy of serebii.net

Corviknight is easily the big winner of today’s Direct.

This super rad armored raven is a killer Steel/Flying-type that puts Skarmory to shame and has the hilarious role of being intertown fast travel.

I’d let this boy caw in my face and fly me to a new place in a heartbeat.

Drednaw

drednaw
Image courtesy of serebii.net

I’ll admit, I’m not a huge fan of Drednaw.

It’s typing and abilities are decent, but something about the design is a little too… Rough around the edges for me.

Four out of five ain’t bad.

All of the new and returning Pokémon will interact with the world, either free in the Wild Area or playing hopscotch with NPCs like we see a Wynaut in the trailer.

I can’t emphasize how much I love that aspect of these games.

However, there are two Pokémon that astute viewers will notice I’ve missed. Unfortunately they comprise the first negative thing I have to say.

The Legendaries

 

Images courtesy of serebii.net

Meet Zacian and Zamazenta, the Legendary Pokémon of Galar.

Zacian is a good boy who runs around with a sword in his mouth and I love him.

Zamazenta is literally the exact same Pokémon but carrying a different weapon.

Whose decision was it to make the Legendary Pokémon so similar? I could see there being lore about the same Pokémon with different held items, but Cosmog kind of just did that idea. And Solgaleo/Lunala at least weren’t a bland duo.

Maybe they would have worked in a Rome-themed Region playing off of Romulus and Remus. But as it stands I’m ambivalent at best.

Dynamax

Pokémon changes mechanics frequently to keep things fresh.

Up to Gen 4’s physical/special move split, most of those changes were integral to underlying battle mechanisms that evolved the games.

Mega Evolution in Gen 6 was arguably the first “spectacle” battle mechanic — if you don’t count Chatot in Gen 4 or the sometimes still relevant Triple Battles.

Megas were a selling point by all accounts, something unique to Kalos. But it was a tastefully handled gimmick that gave old favorites new potential and meshed well with series’ themes of bonding with Pokémon. It remains popular.

Much less tastefully handled was Gen 7’s Z-Moves that provided a once-per-battle super attack which was only interesting when tied to a handful of unique Pokémon.

They were situational and not nearly as well conceived.

Now we have Dynamaxing: A similar limited-per-battle gimmick that turns Pokémon giant and essentially gives them a full set of Z-Moves for three turns.

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Image courtesy of serebii.net

I like some aspects of the Dynamax system, but overall I believe it could do more harm than good.

In the Wild Area, local co-op allows trainers to take on Dynamax Pokémon together.

This is cool, but I hope co-op isn’t limited to it. The main selling point of Dynamax Raids is encountering Pokémon you can’t find otherwise, but you’ll need a little more to impress a 22-year-old Pokémon scholar who already owns every creature.

They also appear to be giving every gym leader the ability to Dynamax, and I love the idea of making tougher challenges with unique mechanics. Like how Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire used Mega Evolution in its Pokémon League.

But Kaiju Pokémon are more restrictive than Megas design-wise.

Every gym in Galar will be a soccer stadium with an open ceiling for these Dynamax transformations. The developers use this to emphasize an idea of battling as spectator sport in Galar, but uniform gyms remove the uniqueness of a palace designed by its inhabitants from earlier games.

Part of why I love Black and White 2 is because every gym was unique down to the remix of the same theme for each building. That was awesome, and we might lose that uniqueness because of Dynamaxing.

And that, ladies and mentlegen, is today’s Sword and Shield info dump.

I might not be super impressed with Dynamax or the game’s Legendaries, but I’m still incredible stoked for new Pokémon games.

And I’m stoked to talk about about the build-up to them!

This post didn’t even touch on enhancements to Sun and Moon’s RotomDex, or my fan theory that the train system in Galar looks incredible similar to the unused train station of Couriway Town in Kalos.

Let me know all your thoughts about Pokémon Sword and Shield somewhere on the Internet, because lord knows I’ll be thinking of nothing else for the next week!

My (obligatory) Top 10 Games of 2017 List

My (obligatory) Top 10 Games of 2017 List

A merry Christmas to all of you out there that are taking a break from your families on this most Yule of evenings and have decided, for one reason or another, to spend some time reading this silly, clichéd offering of mine.

That’s right, as the title above suggests, I’ve decided to throw my hat in the ring with a top 10 list of my favorite games that I played this year. It’s been done to death by anyone with an interest in anything… But what can I say. I’ve always enjoyed the idea and wanted to try it myself.

As I don’t celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah ended a couple days ago, I’m just going to be hanging around all day today more or less. I figured doing a list like this could also double as my ‘here are some good gifts for the holiday season’ suggestions. A little late? Perhaps. But I like to think it’s just well-timed enough.

As a couple of forewarnings before we get into things. Just remember that this is my own personal list of favorites. In other words, it’s an opinionated list, so if you don’t agree with me… Well, that’s your opinion. I respect that you have your opinions so long as you respect that I have mine.

On top of that, while it has been an objectively great year for games in general, it has unfortunately not been a wonderful year of gaming for me. Because of the work constraints I’ve had as a college newspaper editor, a full-time student and an intern, there hasn’t been nearly as much time to play games as I would have liked.

So, if anything, these 10 games I’m listing off are arguably the only 10 games I’ve spent any considerable time actually playing this year.

If you don’t see a game you really liked this year, that’s probably why. As a matter of fact, unless you’re a Nintendo junkie like me, you probably won’t see a lot of games you’re familiar with on this list. A Switch and 3DS are my main gaming systems right now, so there aren’t a lot (if any) PS4 or Xbox games in my playing field.

With all that out of the way, let’s jump into the reason we’re all really here than, shall we? After all, what would a games list be without the games?

Editor’s Note: For anyone reading this on my blog proper, I’m going to stick the content under a read more tag. I pretty much let it all out with this one, so it’s long and I don’t want to completely bog everything else down.

Even so, I hope everyone enjoys the show! #UnintendedRhyme

Continue reading “My (obligatory) Top 10 Games of 2017 List” →

New Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Information: Rise of the ‘roc, part 3

Been a while since I’ve had the chance to do one of these.

Since the games were teased for us back in June, we haven’t gotten too much new information on Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, the follow up sequels/reimagining/who even knows what for Pokémon’s seventh generation games Sun and Moon.

However, now it seems like some information is starting to swing around. In this case:

lycanroc
Image courtesy of Serebii.net

We have Dusk Form Lycanroc making an appearance. Now orange with green eyes, this third form of the beloved canine wolf from Alola seems to be a mix of its two alternate forms.

Midday form Lycanroc
Midnight form Lycanroc

Image courtesy of Serebii.net

It keeps its overall quadrupedal look from the Midday Form while adopting a different color and a large tuft of back hair like the Midnight Form has.

We don’t know too much more about this new form past its appearance at this point. Though, it was also revealed that the Dusk Form Lycanroc will be what Ash’s Rockruff evolves into in the Pokémon anime. Whether it will have some insane stat spread or any extra moves unseen in the last two additions has yet to be revealed.

On one hand, I almost feel like this addition could simply boil down to needing to give Ash a super special version of a popular Pokémon, as he has been known to get in the past. If so I suppose that makes sense, though it would be a little disappointing to give such a great Pokémon what is essentially a ‘sell-out’ version. Cool, but clearly made for selling toys.

However, the idea of the Dusk Form does open up some interesting possibilities. While Lycanroc was one of the few Pokémon that got a special Sun/Moon differential treatment (not counting the more traditional version exclusivity), the fact that they’re adding a Pokémon based on the time between the ‘Sun’ and the ‘Moon’ suggests that there might be more of a unifying focus between the two Ultra sequels.

Plus, the fact that they’re adding at least one new Pokémon form in the first place leaves the possibility open that we could be seeing more new forms along the same vein as the Dusk Lycanroc, different significant in-game events, new Alolan Forms or even new Mega Evolutions in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.

… Okay, new Mega Evolutions are a stretch, but a man can dream. I’m still holding out for Mega Solrock and Mega Lunatone to make an appearance in the Alola Region.

Now that my buddy Juan pointed out that these kinds of updates are starting to pick up, I’ll probably be talking about them like I did during the build-up to Sun and Moon last year, so look out for that.

How do you feel about the new Lycanroc form? Do you think it’s more of a toy/anime tie-in ploy? Or does it open the doors of possibility for more interesting new stuff to come down the pipeline? What would you like to see them announce for the new games? Let me know in the comments down below!

Preparing for battle – The 2017 International Challenge for February

I put a lot of pomp and circumstance around my entry (or lack thereof) in the Pokémon Sun and Moon Alola Friendly battle competition when it came around last month.  With Pokémon standing in pretty consistently as my favorite video game series, competitive team building and battling has been one of the things that has helped elongate my interest and playtime since I began to do it in Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.

Of course, I’d been planning on trying out a team in the Alola Friendly competition, but I missed the registration window.

Luckily, the 2017 International Challenge for February has a prize worthy enough to encourage me to remember to register on time this time.  For participating, players get access to the Mega Stones for Mawile and Beedrill, which up until now have been unavailable in Generation 7.

Mega Mawile happens to be my favorite Mega Evolved Pokémon, so I jumped on the opportunity to get those stones right away:

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See?  Totally signed up this time.

Given that the 2017 International Challenge for February is a doubles battle competition, I decided to breed a whole new team just for the occasion.  I do have a wonderful combination sitting in my box with Wishiwashi and a Speed Swap using Ribombee, but I didn’t have a lot else to work alongside them.

Therefore I built a squad around a doubles combination I wanted to try, and I’m actually pretty proud of how it turned out.  Again, it might not be smart to give my strategy away ahead of time… But I also just love to gush about these things.  So here goes anyway!

Big Chungus

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My Elective is actually the first Pokémon I have competitively built that I didn’t personally name.  I was a little stuck on just what to call him and let my friend Juan name him instead.  Thus, Big Chungus was born.

It’s grown on me, admittedly.

This Pokémon was the reason I initially wanted to build this specific doubles team in the first place.  I had the idea of running a Motor Drive Pokémon holding a Cell Battery so I could get both an attack and a speed boost at the same time.  Combined with a Discharge user, I figured he could become a real beast in the field.

But of course I never decided to look up this strategy online ahead of time.  If I did, I would’ve found out that Motor Drive absorbs the Electric-type attacks before they can do things like activate items.  So that strategy kind of flew out the window.

While this development was disappointing, it didn’t lessen my zeal to build a powerful Big Chungus to sweep away the competition.  He still gets a speed boost from Discharge and now has the chance to hold a berry so he can heal some health when knocked down a few pegs.  By using a consumable item like this, I still have the opportunity to play with Thief and steal the items of opponents once it’s gone – the plan I had going for Cell Battery use as well.

Thunder Punch serves as Electivire’s primary STAB attack while Ice Punch gives him an opportunity to take down pesky Ground-types that gets sent out (a particularly useful strategy against Pokémon like Garchomp).  Finally, Cross Chop gives him more of a super effective damage spread against Normal-types, Ice-types, Rock-types and Steel-types.

The crux of Big Chungus’ skills only really become fully apparent when combined with his partner, so I should probably introduce him too.  Thus, without further adieu:

Schnoz 

This protruding proboscis Pokémon, aptly deemed Schnoz, is my team’s Discharge dealing defensive wall and the proud partner of Big Chungus whenever I get the chance to use them.  While this is mainly because of discharge, other factors help contribute to that as well.

Firstly, Schnoz has Magnet Pull as his ability.  As a result, no Steel-types can switch out when he’s on the field.  This doesn’t mean a lot for Probopass himself, but it does mean that Electivire can spam some Cross Chops while they’re out together.  Other team members benefit from this magnetic pull as well, like a certain other monkey I’ve trained, but he really is meant to work with Big Chungus.

Wide Guard is another example as to why they’re meant to work together.  Even though the Air Balloon Schnoz holds allows him to dodge Ground-type attacks until hit, Wide Guard lets him block Earthquakes for both himself and his partner.

Let me tell you, it’s incredibly satisfying to block an Earthquake from a Garchomp that’s killed by Ice Punch that same turn.

Flash Cannon and Stealth Rocks finish off Schnoz’s moveset, giving him a pretty powerful STAB attack and another utility option to damage opponents as they switch into battle.

Like some of the other Pokémon I’m using on this team I’ve built, I never expected I would ever use a Probopass in my life.  In fact, I was pretty opposed to his overall design not too long ago.  Now that I know what he can do, particularly in conjunction with my big, strong electrical ape, I’ve come to like the mustachioed magnetic rock.

Or at least, I like seeing the two of them in battle together.  If it wasn’t weird to say it out loud, I might even say that the two are the flagship couple on my squad.

But it is pretty weird to say, so let’s move on shall we?

Capuchin 

This semester I’m taking a course on primate behavior at Cal State Fullerton.  It’s easily my favorite class that I’m taking right now and I could probably argue that it’s one of the most fun courses I’ve taken in college in general.  Something about the subject matter and the professor just really click together for me.

One thing I’ve learned through the class so far is that the Capuchin monkey has to be my favorite primate ever.  Not only are they cute, but their tool usage is pretty incredible to watch, and I still haven’t gotten tired of it.

Seriously, check it out:

That’s some really cool stuff.

Anyway, the reason I’ve gone on this little tangent about primates is because it happens to coincide perfectly with this particular team member, a Passimian simply dubbed Capuchin.

Not only is there an intrinsic pun just in using a monkey name with ‘cap’ in it for a monkey wearing a shell like a hat, my Passimian likes to use stone tools as well.  His Hard Stone both improves his Rock Slide attack that hits both sides of the field and makes Fling a powerful 100 base power Dark-type move.

The Receiver ability works real well in a doubles battle setting as well, allowing Capuchin to steal his partner’s ability when they faint.  He could wind up able to absorb all Water or Electric-type attacks, he could gain an immunity to priority attacks, he could trap a Steel-type opponent against a Pokémon that’s super effective against them and more.

Really it’s just about a win-win no matter what he gets since a jolly speed-oriented heavy attacker is the monster in question.  I really do love having this team member around, and I’m looking forward to seeing him take some lives during the competition.

Tharja 

Tharja the Mandibuzz is essentially my main defensive wall.  While Schnoz fits that role pretty well too, Mandibuzz intrinsically has an immunity to Ground-type moves that balances the two weaknesses I have.

My strategy for using her is pretty simple honestly.  Knock Off and Brave Bird are strong STAB attacks with the prior also allowing me to nullify most of my opponent’s items.  Toxic is there so I can make use of the hefty bulk behind this bird in situations where those two attacks just won’t cut it.

Now Roost is where things get interesting.  With her hidden ability, Tharja gains two speed boosts at the cost of one defense stat debuff whenever she gets hit by a physical attack.  This boost compensates for her middle-tier base speed stat and helps her outspeed most opponents.

Once she’s that much faster, Z-Move Roost recovers her health AND replenishes her stat debuffs, making it so she has all the speed with none of the fallen defense.  It feels fantastic to pull it off on an opponent, especially if a Brave Bird or two can sweep up the rest of their side.  Plus, Z-Move Brave Bird can really pack a punch when I need to use it instead.

Before Tharja came along I never really imagined I’d ever use a Mandibuzz, but now I really dig what she can do.

Oh, and I figure I should add that she’s named after the Plegian mage from Fire Emblem Awakening because she has that darkness-and-death vibe going on.  Also because Fire Emblem Heroes has gotten me way back in the mood for any and all things Fire Emblem.

Seriously that game is like my current addiction.

Peach

Named after arguably the most famous princess in all of video game history, my Tsareena is here to kick ass and take names.

Literally.

Because kicking is her thing.

It’s a joke, see?

Anyway, moving on.  Tsareena actually wasn’t meant to be on this team I’ve built.  Originally I intended to run a Hyper Voice Sylveon thanks to the accessibility of the move via Poké Bank, but with this competition being limited to the Alola Pokédex I wasn’t sure whether I would be allowed to use a Pokémon with the pentagon icon indicating origins in Generation 6.

So, in came Tsareena as a replacement.  Not only is she strong against Ground-types (which I apparently felt was something I needed to correct against), she has quite a few weaknesses to make use of a Weakness Policy alongside her immunity to priority attacks and her diverse move pool.

Plus Trop Kick is just great.  I had quite a few experiences while practicing where I would lower the attack stat of a Pokémon using a super effective move and get a sweet stat boost as a result.  Pretty solid strategy also courtesy of my friend Juan.

Tsareena’s moves round out with Acupressure, which is more of a gimmick I was looking to try out in the moment.  Rapid Spin may have been smarter, but I like the idea of being able to strengthen my other Pokémon during a calm moment.  Hopefully the random nature of Acupressure doesn’t wind up screwing me over.

Nessie 

Like Tharja and Peach before her, my Lapras (named after the infamous Loch Ness monster) has a rather simple role on this team.  She’s the strong special attack wall to balance out the more physically oriented group around her.  With 237 HP and a 161 special defense stat (boosted to about 240 or so thanks to her Assault Vest), it’s pretty hard to take her down.

She even lived against a Thunder in the rain from a Tapu Koko during one of the practice battles I did.  It’s nuts.

Past her amazing walling status, Nessie also has a pretty wide typing coverage.  Hydro Pump is STAB and hits Fire, Ground and Rock-types.  Freeze Dry is also STAB and hits Flying, Grass, Dragon, Ground and specifically Water-types.  Dragon Pulse hits Dragon-types and isn’t resisted by much.  Finally, Psychic hits Fighting and Poison-types.

I’d considered running Perish Song as a way to take down Pokémon that are trapped by either Magnet Pull or a Mean Look from Schnoz, but I preferred having the walling capabilities that only an Assault Vest can bring.

I also decided to run Nessie with Water Absorb rather than Shell Armor so that I can switch her in whenever I’m expecting a Water-type attack to come my way, even if I’m stuck with taking potential critical hits as a result.

Though she has no particular gimmick, Nessie really rounds out my team well.  Her strength and attacks are solid all around and make her a good Pokémon to bring out for a wide variety of situations.

I’ve always loved Lapras, and I’m glad to finally get the chance to help her shine.

Tonight is the last night to register for the 2017 International Challenge for February, and battles will go underway throughout the weekend.  I’ll be keeping a log of how I do and there will probably be an update on that coming by Monday or so… Assuming the world doesn’t fall apart in the newsroom again like it did this last week.

While I’m really looking forward to putting this team to work, I’m also always looking for more ideas to build in the future.  If you have any comments about my team and how it shapes up or if you have any teams in mind you want to see built, I’d love to hear any and all of it!

Good ideas are never a bad thing to stockpile, I’d say.

A Pokémon update: Here comes the Bank and the Alola Friendly competition

A Pokémon update: Here comes the Bank and the Alola Friendly competition

The first week of school, adjusting to new courses, setting up things for our first few issues of the Daily Titan and some personal things happening at home have kept me incredibly busy for the past week or so.  In fact, they’ve kept me so busy that I haven’t been able to address some fairly big things happening with Pokémon Sun and Moon that have honestly been hugely of interest for me.

Namely the release of an update for the Pokémon Bank (or Pokébank for short) allowing it to be used with the Generation 7 games.

For the uninitiated in the room, Pokébank is an application out of the Nintendo 3DS eShop released during Generation 6 that allowed you to transfer Pokémon (with the help of the additional Poké Transfer application) from the Generation 5 games Black, White, Black 2 and White 2 into Pokémon X, Y, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.  It also acts as a cloud-like storage space for Pokémon, holding 100 boxes that you can freely transfer Pokémon in and out of while playing the Generation 6 and now Generation 7 games.

You can also transfer Pokémon up from the 3DS ports of Red, Blue and Yellow… But I haven’t had the chance to play those yet.  So I can’t use that feature.

An added bonus in the update that allows the application to be used with Sun and Moon is access to the previously unavailable Z-Crystal Mewnium Z:

I haven’t had the chance to transfer a Mew into my copy of Moon yet, so I can’t use Genesis Supernova, but I’m excited to being able to as soon as I get the chance.

With Pokébank officially released, I’m looking forward to finally being able to do two things.  First, I’ll be able to fill out my PC boxes with my complete collection of every single Pokémon, a collection I spent quite some time fleshing out a few years back.  Second, I’ll be able to transfer all my competitively bred Pokémon over, either to use again or to re-breed with new strategies in mind for competitive battles.

On the subject of competitive battling…

alolafriendly
Image courtesy of Serebii.net

The Alola Friendly battle competition begins today!  I’ve actually spent some time picking through the four competitive teams I’ve bred thus far to pull together a complete squad that’s balanced and viable for battle together.  Though it probably isn’t objectively smart to give away the strategies of my team ahead of actually battling with them… I enjoy talking about what I’ve done with my cute and powerful Pokémon.

So, here we go.

Cuddles

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Cuddles, my Komala.  She’s sleeping, but she’s still ready to kick ass and take names all the same!  Entry hazards like Stealth Rocks and Toxic Spikes aren’t a problem when she can Rapid Spin them away, but her utility also extends to healing other team members thanks to the combination Wish and U-Turn attack pattern.

Oh, and STAB full friendship Return with 136 attack really, really hits hard.

Add on some extra healing from the leftovers and Cuddles isn’t a threat to… Sleep on.

And with that lousy pun, I officially move on.

Peek

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Peek-a-boo (Peek for short) is up next: My cute and not-so-cuddly Toxapex.  Toxapex is generally considered to be overused in the current pre-Pokébank competitive metagame, but I never really understood why.

Until I actually used a Toxapex.  Since then I totally understand the reasoning.

If her Toxic stall combined with the Recover attack and Regenerator ability wasn’t bad enough, Peek can Haze away any stat buffs her opponent tries to set up (I know I’ve certainly torn down a few Swords Dance-setting Pokémon) and Scald to potentially burn any opponents that can’t be poisoned.

My Toxapex is also a defensive monster, which gets even better in combination with extra Rocky Helmet damage each time the opponent makes physical contact.  Mix that all up with the attack stat-slashing burn status coming from Scald and Peek makes for an exceptional late-game stalling team sweeper.

Charlotte

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I may have talked about Charlotte before, but this isn’t exactly the same Charlotte as before.  Instead, she’s what I like to consider the competitive embodiment of the same Mimikyu I used during my main game play through.  All the same tricks with a far exceeding degree of power.

Seriously, Mimikyu remains one of my favorite Generation 7 Pokémon, and I love using the powerhouse that is Charlotte whenever possible… Even if I haven’t been able to successfully use a Z-Destiny Bond quite yet.  Leech Life makes for a good substitute though, as it makes use of her sky-high attack and allows her to regain some health at the same time.

Syrup

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I continue to hate the explanation for Raichu’s evolution that was given on the official Pokémon website leading up to the release of Sun and Moon.  Seriously, eating too many pancakes would not cause a ‘divergent evolution’ in a new land, it’s just the most ridiculous thing.

Yet, when I fell wholeheartedly head-over-heels in love with Alolan Raichu after seeing the Pokémon sit on her tail in mid-air like it was a bench in Pokémon Refresh, I knew I needed a cute name to give my little Electric/Psychic-type.  I couldn’t get that explanation out of my head… So Syrup just felt right.

At the same time, Syrup is incredible in battle.  Deciding not to make use of its ability, Surge Surfer (which requires an Electric Terrain effect to be set up as a means of doubling her speed stat), I set up my Raichu to hit hard with a Modest nature and move faster than just about all others with a Choice Scarf-boosted 162 base speed.  Most of the time she Volt Switches out to let another Pokémon come in and tank a hit from whoever the opponent may be, but even if she isn’t doing that her other special attacks hit hard on a variety of different Pokémon types.

Honestly?  Alolan Raichu has become one of my favorite Pokémon as of late, simply due to how useful my little Syrup is.  Guess I have her to thank for breaking my annoyance over the lousy background lore of her species.  I just can’t stay mad at a Pokémon so sweet.

Iris

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Iris, who I’ve named for what I feel is a pretty obvious reason, is one of the more… Unexpected Pokémon I’ve built thus far.  I’ve liked Masquerain since Ruby and Sapphire, but haven’t ever found a chance to use one until now.  The original team she’s a part of is a little more gimmick-y all together, but Iris definitely stands apart as something special.

Not only can she swap in on a physical attacker to cut their attack with her ability, Intimidate, she has a decently high speed stat and a pretty damn-high special attack stat, making her exceptional as a good Pokémon to force the opponent to swap out their Pokémon.  With a Flying-typing helping her dodge Ground-type attacks, that idea becomes even more useful in application.

Iris also works well with Peeks, since it’s always useful to cut a Pokémon’s attack before swapping into the defensive wall, or swapping out of the defensive wall into a Pokémon that can resist Ground-type attacks like Masquerain.  Such a good combination.

Sticky Webs make for a good entry hazard when I feel like playing speed games, but the real bread and butter for Iris comes from being able to hit a large variety of types with Expert Belt-boosted Super Effective attacks: STAB Air Slash and Bug Buzz, plus the addition of a Hydro Pump or Solar Beam (if I’m using a Sunny Day team at least).

All-in-all Iris has a great thing going for her, and she fits into the team I have quite well.

Cheval

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Wrapping up the team and ruining what could otherwise have been an all fatal female show of force is Cheval, my big bad Mudsdale.  Don’t let his gender fool you however, he fits in with the others from a power perspective more than well enough.

While I’ll admit his name isn’t the most creative, as it’s just ‘horse’ in French, Cheval puts in just the finest of work for me.

Usually I have him holding a leftovers, but considering I can’t have replicated items across my team members in official Pokémon battle rules, I decided to give my Mudsdale an Assault Vest instead.  Honestly, it makes him extremely viable to take hits on both the physical and special side since the item boosts his special defense by 50 percent.

The hard-hitting move pool this horse gets access to also makes him quite the asset.  In my experience, Cheval has been able to kill Alolan Ninetails and Mimikyu in one hit with Heavy Slam, which can really put holes in some teams.  Plus, STAB Earthquake and Close Combat makes it very easy to hit Steel and Rock-types, as well as many more. Finishing with Rock Slide allowing him to hit Flying-types as well and Cheval is an absolute monster.

It helps when Cuddles is able to heal the big horse with a Wish U-Turn as well.  Especially when I get to imagine the little Koala snuggling up to her big equestrian friend.

There’s only one problem that arises, even after all the work I put together to set this team up.  One problem that, no matter what I do to try and correct things, is unfortunately unavoidable…

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I’ve been so busy for the past week that I missed the registration window for the Alola Friendly competition.  Thus, unfortunately, my squad won’t be able to prove themselves in that official fashion.

Oh well, at least I can use them all together to duke it out in the Battle Spot and against my friends.  There will be plenty of battles for me to take part in later, I’m sure.

If you like the team I’ve built, or if you have any ideas for teams you think I could build (especially since all 800+ Pokémon are available in the latest generation) let me know below!  I’m always looking for new things to try, especially since I’ll need something to keep me from going nuts after hours of homework and newspaper shifts.

Until the Fire Emblem content comes around at least.

 

November 30, 2016 Article Published

Two articles in two days?  Fairly unprecedented, but certainly not a bad thing I’d say.

While yesterday’s story was my profile for the Features page, this story is quite a bit more entertaining.  I wrote a review for the Arts & Entertainment page for my buddy Kaleb, our A&E editor.  As a hardcore newsy person, it’s been pretty nice to let my skills expand a bit this semester, I have to say.  Because of my news-oriented background, I’m sure you all must be asking just what I wrote a review on exactly?

Well, Pokémon Sun and Moon of course.  What else would I write on, I’m pretty much an expert in almost all things Pokémon and have nearly 90 hours sunk into the game. Plus, I almost never get to mix my passions for video games and writing on this kind of scale, so how could I pass up the opportunity to vomit all my thoughts on a page for mass consumption?

Also, when I say vomit all my thoughts, I pretty much mean it literally.  I hit a weird place with this article to be honest.  On the one hand, I know so much about the series and about Sun and Moon that it was simple to run through the list of everything I enjoy and everything I find less than stellar about the games.  However, on the other hand I had to make sure not to get too in depth and nerdy with my writing because I was writing for an audience that probably won’t be as much of an expert in the subject as I am.

Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people that see the article have never even touched Pokémon in their lives – as hard to imagine as that can be for someone like me.

Because of how much I had to say, I wound up writing a fairly long piece about the games, one that I expected to get cut down for spacing concerns.  There wound up being far more room available than we expected in the end however, so the 1000+ word review ended up getting printed just about in its entirety.

I tried not to spoil any plot details or get too in depth with some of the deeper mechanics and things I enjoy about the games, but I still think I put together a really solid little review.  I’ve talked about them more than enough on this site here, so I won’t reiterate much, but it’s a nice summary of a lot of things in a (somewhat) succinct package.  So, check if out if you’ve got the chance, because I’m pretty proud of it!

If you want to see the review in its entirety, you can see it here.  You can also check out my whole archive of work for the Daily Titan through the link over on the right!

Oh, and just FYI, there may or may not be some extra multimedia content on the horizon to go along with this.  But I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

The first Champion of the Alolan Pokémon League rises

After five days as part of a very conveniently timed Thanksgiving Break and over two days worth of playing, I have officially beaten the main campaign of Pokémon Moon by conquering seven Island Challenge Trials, four Grand Trials staged by the Kahuna of the islands in Alola and taking on the newly completed Alolan Pokémon League.

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I don’t have any fancy screen capturing equipment to take pictures of my game, so phone camera pictures will have to do for now.

Though I haven’t had the chance to start the post-game content as of yet, the main story alone has been absolutely wild as far as some of the twists and turns that were taken.  I won’t spoil anything on the off chance anyone sees this who hasn’t played but wants to of course, but the region is gorgeous, the Pokémon that were introduced are awesome (including those we were not shown before the official release), the characters that inhabit Alola are just as vibrant as the environment itself and each new mechanic and feature adds so much more to love.

For the most part, at least.  I’m not a huge fan of the new fishing system and the S.O.S. Pokémon summoning can be a pain to deal with when you aren’t looking to use the chaining features.  I haven’t had the chance to use it very much, but there are already plans in the work for some competitive teams I would like to build, so those should be seeing the light of day sometime soon.

Speaking of teams, I would be remiss not to talk about the group of six that got me through the story.  I spent a long time talking about who I wanted to use before the game came out, after all.

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One realization I’ve come to is that my team isn’t exactly a great cohesive unit.  There are a lot of holes in my type coverage/type resistances that became very clear as I took on the Elite Four.  For the first time I think ever, there are no Fire-types or Ground-types on my team, and though this made for new interesting combinations, it also led to problems fighting certain types.  Like Grass-type Pokémon or Steel-type Pokémon, for example.  Part of this may have admittedly been due to being a little under leveled toward the end of my journey, but really the lower levels made bigger fights at the end might more exciting in my opinion.

A lot of the move sets I’ve used for them are also a bit gimmicky or have conditions on how to work well, so I can see them working well with other teams, but not necessarily together.

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I love each individual member to death, however, and as far as in game immersion goes I would not have done things any other way.

Niles the Decidueye

My boy.  The first.  The one and only.  Niles the Decidueye.

Watching my impish natured Decidueye grow over time has been one of the best parts of playing through Moon so far.  I’ve been so excited to use this Pokémon for so long, and using him hasn’t disappointed.  I do wish he was a little faster, but considering the rest of my team his speed is actually one of his more superior selling points.

Utilizing a Scope Lens critical hit boosted STAB Leaf Blade and the signature Spirit Shackle attack, Niles is always ready to party hard.  On top of that, he always has that smug look on his face, which is what led me to his name.  Niles, after all, is the smug and caustic bisexual archer from Nohr in Fire Emblem: Fates.  In my opinion, the name fits really well, and now I can’t imagine calling him anything else.

Well, I might aim for a female Decidueye and name her Nina after Niles’ canonical daughter in the game when I breed Pokémon to use competitively, but I’m a fair bit of time away from doing that at this point.  Plus, I already have an Altaria nicknamed Nina after one of my high school friends, so who knows.

All and all, Decidueye kicks a lot of ass, and Grass/Ghost continues to be a wonderful type combination.  Though Generation 7 introduced another new Grass/Ghost-type we weren’t told about, I’m glad that I chose this one to spend my time with.

Remus the Lycanroc

Raising Remus has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride, honestly.  Getting to find Rockruff in Ten Carat Hill was great, and he was the first partner I took on after Niles, but I felt like it took a long time to get to the point where I could catch one.  Granted, that may have just been from how excited I was to take in anything and everything when I started playing, but still.

He was fun to use even as a small pup, and though I had to use my sister’s copy of Pokémon Sun to get the version of Lycanroc I wanted, he continued to be a blast to fight with.  Accelerock is a great move, being priority-based and having Rock-type STAB, and the wolf turned out to be a great Stealth Rock/Roar switcher, as I discovered throughout my playing.

Using this strategy made Lycanroc a bit of a one-trick pony unfortunately, but that’s where my required dosage of Z-Power came in.  Continental Crush isn’t the most powerful it can be when used with Accelerock, but it still hits hard enough to do a lot of damage when combined with further priority attacks.

His name comes from the mythological founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus.  In the Roman mythos, the twin brothers were discovered by a she-wolf after being abandoned, and then they went on to find the great city of Rome.  That’s where the name comes in well for Lycanroc, for me.  As far as being Remus specifically, in the same mythology he was killed by his brother for mocking the wall built around Rome.  Though I don’t see Midday Lycanroc fitting a mocking characteristic, I do see Midnight Lycanroc fitting a murder-happy characteristic.  Thus, a pair of Pokémon twin names was born.

Sebastian the Crabominable

Aptly named after the crustacean companion from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Sebastian was pretty much a Crabrawler up until the very end of my journey.  After catching him on Akala Island with a powerful adamant nature, the purple puncher beat his way through trainer after trainer, serving me and my team well while taking up an even bigger place in my heart over time.

Toward the end of the Island Challenge, his defenses gave me some trouble, as he was taken down more often than not before I could Power-Up Punch my way to an intensive sweep.  I waited for forever to see him evolve, knowing he did but not wanting to spoil how.  Then, after starting my trip into the Pokémon League, the cold environment allowed for an evolution into the formidable Crabominable.

Admittedly, I was more disappointed and surprised when I first saw the evolution.  I was so used to Crabrawler that such a jarring change took some time to get used to.  However, the unique Fighting/Ice-typing is super cool (pun only slightly intended) and his movepool has a ton of variety to allow him to be a formidable fighter.  He has quite a few weaknesses, and with a slow speed that can be an issue, but his attack is so sky-high that I’d say it more than makes up for it.

He’s the most powerful member of my team, even more than the enigmatic Wishiwashi.  Speaking of…

Pandora the Wishiwashi

My relationship with Pandora started off a little rocky.  Hoping to get a relaxed nature, I spent a long time fishing in Brooklet Hill encountering Magikarp after Magikarp between each Wishiwashi I found.  On top of that, I felt compelled to catch a female fish after concocting a story in my head about hordes of male Wishiwashi coming to her aid.

After a long time I eventually gave up the nature search and went with Quiet, boosting her Special Attack in exchange for a deficit to her already pretty abysmal speed.  Her name, Pandora, comes from the Greek myth in which a single girl, the first woman, unleashes all the evils of the world from her box.  The way my Wishiwashi brings chaos and destruction in her wake is meant to reflect that.

On that note, I found that Wishiwashi is a pretty incredible Pokémon stat-wise.  Despite having low health and low speed, both offensive and defensive stats in the physical and special realm are so high when in Schooling Form that everything in her wake (literally) doesn’t stand a chance.

When I go for a competitive breed, the plan is to focus more on defense to keep the Schooling ability active as long as possible.

Grodd the Oranguru

Originally a Lurantis was meant to fill this slot.  However, Decidueye became a hardcore physical Grass-type attacker, so I didn’t want to have two on my team at the same time.  So, instead, the Normal/Psychic-type Oranguru took her place, and he proved his power pretty much right away.

Grodd, named after the highly intelligent and psychically-powered Gorilla Grodd from the DC comics universe, came equipped with Stored Power right from the get-go.  Soon enough he learned Nasty Plot, and the stage was set for an extremely highly powered STAB boosted Psychic-type attack that quite literally wrecked lives.  Soon after collecting him from the Lush Jungle, Grodd was strong enough to take on both Plumeria and Akala Island Kahuna Olivia all by himself.

After adding Charge Beam to his roster, Grodd’s strength continued to prove invaluable and his attack set didn’t change for the rest of my journey.  Though it could be a pain to set up Nast Plots on every opponent, especially with a middling speed stat, whenever he was ready to go the battle instantly became a joke.

Therefore, when I build a competitive Grodd, I’ll have to have him on a doubles team where he can be protected long enough to kick ass and take names.

Charlotte the Mimikyu

Though I was disappointed in how long it took to find her, the last but certainly not least capable of my additions was Charlotte, my Mimikyu.  I adored Mimikyu far before the games came out, and that much never changed as I played through the game, even though you don’t see any appear until the third island.

Her name comes from the anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which I’m sure I referenced in the past when talking about Mimikyu, in which Charlotte is a witch that hides as a tiny, innocent looking doll.  Her appearance in the show is a painful moment to say the least, but I couldn’t imagine a better name to reflect the Pokémon.

Plus, Charlotte is just a cute name.  A cute name for my adorable little girl.

I set my Mimikyu up as a Swords Dancer, which only buffs her already pretty great attack stat way higher than it is during a protected turn with the Disguise ability.  Really, Mimikyu wound up being one of the best Pokémon on my team, and she has awesome stats overall, so building a competitive Mimikyu should be a blast once I get started.

I can see it now… Disguise, Focus Sash.  Two turns of protection instantly to use Swords Dance.  Then, a highly boosted speed stat to ensure she can get attacks off.  It will be beautiful in execution – at least I hope.

Might I add, one of the coolest things I discovered about Mimikyu is that the Disguise substitute actually protects against Z-Moves as well.  It literally never stops being funny to watch a Pokémon use a huge, time-consuming attack only to have it fail.

Now I can begin my trip through the Post Game content, including the Battle Tree and Pokédex completion.  I have some final papers to work on, so my zeal for playing might not be as strong as it has been for the past week, but I will continue all the same.

I did just want to leave things off with one last note, however.

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I caught Lunala.  With a Moon Ball.

The Emissary of the Moon.  In a pokéball.  Named after the Moon.  Built by the great Azalea Town pokéball-crafting Kurt I can only assume.

I just find that hilarious and figured I would share.  But now I shall let you all continue on with your lives.  However, if you’ve been playing Sun or Moon since their release, let me know how your experiences with the games have been in the comments below.

Are you in love?  Are you disappointed?  Is Team Skull not the greatest enemy team ever?  If you don’t think so, I might say you’re wrong, but I’m still willing to hear why you think so.

My (currently planned) Pokémon Sun and Moon team

My (currently planned) Pokémon Sun and Moon team

A game series like Pokémon, in which there are over 700 individual characters to choose from when pulling a team together, really lends itself to choosing favorites.  Everyone who has ever played a Pokémon game undoubtedly has a favorite monster, be it for their competitive viability, the strength of the character building and lore around them or simply the nostalgia factor.

Personally, my absolute favorite Pokémon of all time is the Hoenn native Psychic-type Gardevoir for a combination of all three. A powerful and feared hyper voice using Mega Evolution with a newly adopted Fairy-typing, a wonderful design alongside descriptors about emotional closeness with the its trainer and a consistent reminder of my childhood days visiting my Grandparent’s house in Florida, playing Pokémon Sapphire and catching a Ralts on Route 102 that would stick with me for the entire journey.  I always taught my Gardevoir the move Shock Wave in those days.  Not entirely sure why, but I did.

While I don’t know exactly how many Pokémon will be added to the National Pokédex in Generation 7 (As I’m still avoiding the data mining spoilers), I’m going to assume that the total number of  monsters will probably top 800 by the time we’ve counted through all of them, from Rowlet to the mysterious Crystalline Prism creature we were shown not too long ago and beyond.  That adds a lot of new favorite Pokémon for both series veterans and newcomers to choose from.

In that same vein, I’ve seen many people putting together videos and lists of what Pokémon they’ll be using during their initial journey through the Alola Region.  I did the same kind of forward thinking when X and Y were on the horizon, and I’ve honestly been doing the same thing while Pokémon have been unveiled over the last couple of months, so I figure why not talk about them here?

I actually do team building quite often, both for casual gameplay runs and for competitive team planning, something I started to do a lot more in Alpha Sapphire.  Typically, I try to follow some personal rules when doing so for either kind of play:

  1. All members of the team will typically be entirely different typings, no overlap whatsoever is preferred for the sake of variety and diversification of moves/abilities.
    1. On occasion, teams may deviate from this rule if the typing diversity in a region isn’t phenomenal when using dual-typings or if there are some Pokémon I can’t avoid using that happen to be the same type.
    2. Usually the exceptions to this rule will only apply once.  Mono-type teams tend to be avoided at all costs unless the team is being built specifically for a competition with that rule in place.
  2. The make-up of my teams tend to vary based on region.  So, more often than not a play through of Black and White will have a Unova team consisting entirely of Generation 5 Pokémon, a play through of Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald or the remakes will have a Hoenn team consisting entirely of Generation 3 Pokémon and so on.
    1. Rare exceptions do exist for this rule as well, such as in X and Y where I considered Mega Evolutions to be Generation 6 Pokémon.  Thus, Mawile was on my initial team despite originating from Hoenn.
  3. Movesets, abilities and items used on each team member are usually decided on with single battles in mind, both for casual play and competitive building.  There are a few Pokémon I’ve built competitively that specifically exist to team up with another, however.
  4. While Pokémon can usually be either male or female (besides those with no gender or only one gender option), I tend to specifically pick a gender for a Pokémon that feels right to me and stick with it.  Thus, some I might refer to as he or she depending on how I personally picture that monster.
  5. No legendaries.  As much as I love legendary Pokémon in their own rights, I’m not a fan of mixing them into my team compositions.  Never really have been, it always seemed kind of cheap to me.  Sorry Lunala.

These rules are more my own attempts to make my life harder on myself, honestly.  Just choosing any Pokémon willy-nilly would be too easy, so it’s more fun to set up rules for myself as a way of encouraging more critical thought as far as building things ahead of time goes.

With that said, and without further adieu, I introduce the six Pokémon that will be accompanying me during my first adventure in Pokémon Moon.  Under this read more, naturally.  Could be some spoiler-y stuff for people avoiding any and all information, and  this post is already taking up a lot of space.

Continue reading “My (currently planned) Pokémon Sun and Moon team” →

New Sun and Moon Information: Our final last new Sun and Moon information, for sure this time

When the final evolutions of the three Alolan starter Pokémon were released, I was happy letting everything else in Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon stay secret, ready to be discovered through regular gameplay after Nov. 18.  Of course, there was all the data mining, but like I’ve said before I have no desire to spoil every detail for myself like that.

Then, just over this past weekend, a few pages from this month’s CoroCoro magazine were leaked, showing off more details about some Ultra Beasts and signature Z-Moves for the three starter Pokémon.  After that, I really should not have been surprised that we would be getting another video talking about those things in more detail.  That’s exactly what we’ve gotten.

While it isn’t a lot of new detail, this is presumably the last dump of new official information we’re going to be getting pre-release, so I figure I should still talk about it.  For old time’s sake, if nothing else.  It really has been a hell of a journey these past few months, one that I’m sad to see go… But not sad enough to elongate the wait.

Seriously can the games just get released right now?

Continue reading “New Sun and Moon Information: Our final last new Sun and Moon information, for sure this time” →

New Sun and Moon information: Last minute CoroCoro leaks

Alright, I’m assuming that none of this stuff is necessarily new if you happen to be following the data-mined information leaks.  Some people can’t seem to leave things alone so they can be a surprise, so I’m pretty sure just about everything about Sun and Moon is out in the wild, wild West of the internet right now.

I personally want to keep everything not officially released by Nintendo/Game Freak/The Pokémon Company/whoever releases this stuff a secret.  I love having the surprise reveals naturally appear during gameplay, particularly with Pokémon and mechanics we haven’t been told about yet.  Though it certainly seems like there is not much left to reveal after the last few months of videos, leaks like this one we got today out of CoroCoro suggest otherwise. Continue reading “New Sun and Moon information: Last minute CoroCoro leaks” →