Have you ever had the desire to play a puzzle game?
There are many varieties to get hooked on. Some of the most popular are grid-based matching games like Bejeweled or Candy Crush; fast-paced luck and skill games like Tetris or Puyo Puyo; and logic-driven games like Sudoku or crossword puzzles.
I like myself some Tetris and played Pokémon Shuffle for a long time, but my puzzle game crack is undoubtedly Picross.
Because I’m nothing if not a shill for Pokémon spin-off games.
In the 3DS’s Pokémon Picross, every puzzle creates a different Pokémon.
There were only about 300, and the game had a number of other restrictions including a stamina bar that depleted for each square filled and the requirement for an obscene amount of in-game currency (calls Picrites) to buy upgrades and access new areas.
Both of which were obvious ways to “encourage” spending money.
Even so I fully completed all of the Pokémon puzzles.
And the Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire tie-in Primal Reversion murals.
The game featured a daily challenge to gain meager amounts of Picrites for players who did not want to spend money, and I opened that sucked up every day for months to get enough.
It was worth it for me. Not only was Picross incredibly relaxing, but I wanted to see all of the Pokémon — including Mega Evolutions and Legendaries.
They had different skills based on their typing to help players complete puzzles faster. A neat idea that kept me coming back.
At the end I gave up on Pokémon Picross when it wanted me to enter the “Alt-World,” which cost 300 Picrites and used a weird mechanic I could never understand.
Didn’t think much of Picross for a couple years after.
But I didn’t want to buy a game for the Switch. Or bother with Alt-World stuff in Pokémon Picross.
So I turned to the iPhone app store.
My first attempt was a game simply called Nonogram.
This version is good for quick games. You pick a difficulty level and solve one puzzle. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The puzzles themselves were fine, but the game had issues. First, it gives you three incorrect moves before prematurely ending the session. Second, you cannot re-examine the puzzles you complete or use them in any significant way.
That second point sounds like a nitpick born out of high expectations from Pokémon Picross… And it is.
But the second game I found did fill that niche.
Picture Cross is a Picross game with amazingly worthwhile art direction. The sprites used for menus and worlds are insanely detailed and charmingly reminiscent of the Habbo social networking site.
Each world has a large amount of puzzles that cover up an image you slowly reveal.
Puzzles will often depict the objects they are covering up and can be re-completed, giving them a bit more value in my book.
So far I’m about 50 puzzles into the first of 12 maps, fueled by a combination of my feverish Picross addiction and other completion-driving elements like achievements.
It also helps that the puzzles look pretty good while varying in difficulty.
I really only have a few problems with Picture Cross.
First, the fact that it’s absolutely chock full of advertisements. The game’s free so I can’t complain, but they are long and show up after every puzzle. They’re also often necessary to view if you want to collect more tokens.
Speaking of: Tokens (the game’s main microtransactions) are required to unlock new puzzles. Players can hold 10 tokens that individually recharge every five minutes as a baseline, and more can be gathered via advertisements or awarded after a puzzle.
So far I haven’t run into any problems collecting tokens, but I can foresee Pokémon Picross levels of daily grinding in my future.
Picture Cross also falls behind Nonogram in at least one major category. Nonogram crosses out each individual number in a row or column as they are placed:
See the six on the fourth column.
Only entire rows are blacked out in Picture Cross, which can make things harder to track on a number-by-number level.
Frankly all of those are relatively minor complains to me. I enjoy the game a lot, and I can see it being a nice brain-teasing time-killer.
Plus… Downloading the game gave me stickers in iMessage based on its cute sprites.
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.
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.
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.
So when do we find out that the villain team leader in Pokémon Sword and Shield is a Henry VIII surrogate who doesn’t actually do bad things with Pokémon but has killed multiple ex-wives for not producing a male heir?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
Oh yeah, I’m clickbaiting all you social media folks today.
It’ll be worth it. I promise.
After an interview fell through this afternoon, in order to not be a complete bum for the day I decided to finally put my full energy into another New Year tradition that I’ve been half-assing for a little while now:
It will sometime soon when I finally get this new computer together and put in a proper spot, but for now you can get the gist of things from that other post. All the decor is mostly the same.
Arguably the most notable thing I had originally wanted to talk about with this post was how nice it feels to finally clear off a usually cluttered surface.
Because just look at this:
Especially with the new calendar, it’s looking pretty slick.
At least until you turn around and look at where all the stuff wound up…
Slightly less slick.
Though I’ll admit it’s also satisfying to remind myself how much I usually put up without it looking too busy.
However, if you’re keen on picking up context clues with blog post headlines, featured images and past tense language in text, you know that I wound up finding something completely different to talk about.
Something much more whacky and interesting.
Hidden away behind my bookshelf in an unopened plastic casing was this astounding poster:
You may be wondering why I decided to just put up a picture of the woman’s face instead of the full image for my Featured Image, and to be fair it’s 99 percent just to be funny clickbait.
But it’s also because that was genuinely my reaction when I first unraveled this thing.
Now you can’t just dig up something this bizarre and not try to do a little bit of research into it.
As the corner of the poster suggests, this was a promotional poster for “Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution,” a 2014 game released on the most notable last gen consoles besides the Wii U.
I never played the game, and in fact I don’t think I’d even heard of it until right now.
But after a while, employees just started to give them away with anything. I must have picked it up alongside some totally different game and forgot about it.
I shared this rare finding with my friends and together we did a bit more fun elaboration into it. For instance, my friend Nina (who lives in Japan and is studying to be a translator) gave us a bit of insight into exactly what it says:
Knowing this is basically like a cheesy B-movie poster is kind of fascinating, honestly.
Then my friend Jonathan went out to YouTube and found us some footage of Mecha Naruto in action.
It’s uhh…
It’s something else.
Probably the most beautiful nightmare fuel I’ve seen in a long time.
Just look at his ultimate jutsu. I’m dumbfounded staring at such a glorious spectacle and frankly want to go thank anyone who was involved in the executive decision to include it in the game.
It’s just that good.
I’m absolutely putting this up on my wall tonight. Probably right up next to my Mega Diancie poster.
Gotta fit that call to action in here somewhere, so let me know what kind of weird stuff you’ve found while cleaning up around the house! This is probably one of the more strange things I’ve ever dug up, so I’d be curious to know if any of you have some similarly unexpected items hiding away.
I don’t usually start these posts with a look behind the curtain, but I figure this seems like an alright time to do so.
To be frank, I expected to have this post out a couple of weeks ago. Jokes on me for expecting the battle record results to be released right after the competition, I suppose.
Next time I enter a competition, I’ll be sure to account for this and try to space out whatever I release about it. I unfortunately won’t be entering the Alola X Kanto Regional Rumble that registration has opened up for this weekend both because I don’t have a team set up and also because being sick really doesn’t help my energy level or processing power.
Oh, and while I’m at it, I figure I should mention that this is my one-hundred-and-first blog post!
The post I made earlier today about the story I had published was actually my hundredth, and if I had realized it was going to be I probably would’ve incorporated things to be a bit more grandiose. Oh well, if anything this shows that I continue to live up to my blog’s name – Work in Progress.
I continue to be amazed that what started out as a literal placeholder for a blog name that I couldn’t come up with has sort of come into its own as something that makes sense for the continual development of myself as a writer and a game player.
Am I thinking too much into that? Maybe. Maybe I’m just lazy and still haven’t come up with a better name. But that’s neither here nor there.
With all of that out of the way, enjoy this sort of really late recap of a battle series I did some time ago. I’ve been throwing it together for a while. I’ll throw it under a read more since it’s pretty big and I don’t want to push everything else down too much, so continue on if you’re interested!
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:
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
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.
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.
I never seem to be on time with these things anymore. Guess that’s just the nature of my life right now. It’s not really that much of a problem since technically we’ve only had new things for a few days, and since I’m really just giving my opinions so it doesn’t much matter how timely I am… But still. I’m hoping it doesn’t annoy anybody out there reading.
Anyway though, we’re not here to talk about my schedule yet again. No, we’re here to talk about some new Pokémon news. Some great news at that, if I do say so myself! Check out my likely over-embellished thoughts below the cut if you want to see whether or not my feelings on the Alolan starter Pokémon have changed in light of recent developments.
Nearly a year after the original teaser video was released, Pokémon GO is finally available for iOS and Android devices in at least certain parts of the world. I haven’t talked all that much about the game around here, but I’ve been really excited for the prospect since it was first announced!
So, since it’s available now in the United States and I’ve had a few hours to mess around with it, I figured I’d share some of my first impressions on the experience and aesthetics of Pokémon GO in it’s current Day 1 form. Keep on reading if you’re curious to see what I think, but honestly it’s also plenty easy enough to go check it out yourself – considering it’s a free download out of the app stores of the mainstream phone market. It’s something I highly encourage you do if you get the chance!
Jason's Blog - Work in Progress 