Pokemon Moon gets its first speed-run!

So... uhm...

Yeah, I haven't updated this until long after I beat Pokemon Sun. Oops. My bad. (This is actually a picture I made with Pokefinder in the game and downloaded by pulling out my 3DS's memory card and put it in my computer.)

But I know you viewers don't read this blog for information, you have Youtube for that. Instead, I wanted to share something interesting...

One of my favorite videos to watch on the WWW are speed-runs. Speed-runs are basically races to see how fast you can complete a video game. While Mario games are the most popular, I've seen speed-runs for my favorite games like Kingdom Hearts(Bizkit047 and Bl00dyBizkit, cheers!).

Pokemon speed-runs are in my Top 5, especially the glitchless any% runs. This is because Pokemon refuses to be sped through. Especially later games; they focus a LOT of the story. But the pros don't let that stop them; they break the games over their knees anyways, and I love how they do it. Check out this Pokemon Black speed run by Vulajin!

So I wasn't expecting this, considering how soon the games came out, but...

  Someone actually speed-runs Pokemon Moon!

Put up a week ago by a Youtuber called omegarevolution, who has a nice gaming channel with the usual suspects(Pokemon and Final Fantasy XV), this guy managed to rush through Pokemon Moon, one of the most story-intensive games, in a tad shy of five and a half hours. (5 hours, 30 minutes, 35 seconds) Being a typical speed-runner, he complains about RNG being the reason he didn't break 5:30, but even so, that's impressive. I decided to skim the video to find out what he did and write up a file on what I could have done(if I was interested in speed-running).

Short update

C'mon, you thought that Cosmog was a Mirage too. ^_^

So yeah, I'm not going to play the demo anymore as it has nothing for me. I have Dragon Quest Builders and World of Final Fantasy to get through before I do anything else, but a lot of new stuff was revealed, including the final starter evolutions. The Tapus are going to be the most OP Pokemon ever - Nature's Madness is a Fairy-type Super Fang(cut enemy current HP by 50%) and its Z-move, Guardian of Alola, also does fractional damage(cut enemy current HP to 25%!), making it very powerful indeed.

A whole bunch of stuff revealed! (Sun and Moon)

Yes, plz, take my money! @_@

Well, despite many's wishes and hopes, the Chinese leaked pictures were accurate - those pictures showed the forms of the final evolutions of the starters to be true.

Despite the despair of getting spoiled to all the stuff, we basically got spoiled because Game Freak forgot to remove all the data of every new Pokemon in the Alola region from the demo file and you know what they say about hackers - they're like roaches on a dead body with this stuff! :p

But the good thing is that we never found out what the types of the final forms WERE, so here are some interesting info from the newest trailer:

1. Rowlet fully evolves into an owl hunter called Decidueye, and its secondary type changes from Flying to Ghost. It has a signature ghost-type move called Spirit Shackle which works like Mean Look - once hit, the opponent is trapped and cannot switch out. I expected something like this, but if it's a damaging move, it will be really powerful - I can see a Decidueye set with Toxic, Spirit Shackle, and a grass-type move being freakin' annoying and wiping out a trainer's ghost and psychic types. :)
2. Litten's final evolution is the pro-wrestling bobcat called Inceniroar, but it's not Fire/Fighting, that's been done to death. Nope, it's Fire/DARK. Yep, move over Mega Houndoom, there's a new bad boy on the block! Especially with its signature move, Darkest Lariat, a dark-type move that ignores stat changes. So any Psychic or Ghost types trying to buff their defense - forget about it, you're done like dinner. ^_^
3. Finally, Poplio looks goofy, but after evolving twice, it becomes the seal-nosed diva mermaid called Primarina, a Water/Fairy type. Yeah, Azumarill is strong, but Primarina can heal allies with its Fairy-type signature move, Sparkling Aria, which removes the burn status on whatever it hits. Actually, I think this will be the burn-variant of Smellingsalts - it removes the condition BUT does a whopping double damage! Makes Will-O-Wisp viable. :D
4. Tapu Koko's fellow guardian Pokemon have been revealed; Tapu Koko is the guardian of Melemele Island, is Electric/Fairy, and has an ability to proc Electric Terrain when it appears. The others have similar names and effects:  Tapu Lele is the Psychic/Fairy guardian of Akala Island and has an ability that procs a new type of terrain,. Psychic Terrain. This terrain makes the Sun and Moon meta flip the bird to Quick Attack moves even MORE - all priority moves are negated while this field is active!
5. Tapu Bulu is the Grass/Fairy guardian of Ula'Ula Island and his ability procs Grassy Terrain. Finally, we have Tapu Fini, the Water/Fairy Guardian of Poni Island, which has an ability to proc the Misty Terrain.
6. All the Guardians can use a unique Z-crystal to activate the Z-move, Guardian of Alola. What it does... IT SUMMONS A FRICKING GOLEM WHICH THEY FUSE WITH TO SMASH THE F*** OUT OF A FOE! It'll be a Fairy-type move since all the Guardians have the Fairy secondary type, so the Z-Move has to share the same type as all of them.
7. There was a weird smoke-like Pokemon with smoky antenna shown before Lunala, and many expect it to be the pre-evolved form of that legendary. It was revealed to be Cosmobog(no, I mean Cosmog - sorry, had Dragon Quest VII on the brain XD) with the ability Unaware, and it's a Psychic-type Pokemon. Go figure.
8. Alolan Persian gets an official reveal - it's much uglier with a huge bulbous face. One of the interesting things we didn't get was that one of its abilities is Fur Coat, the same ability Furfrou has. Well, it makes sense - Furfrou is a pampered poodle, and Alolan Persian is a pampered fat cat. ^_^ This would be a great ability against many Fighting and Bug type Pokemon since most Fighting and Bug moves are physical in nature - it could tank a Megahorn or Hi Jump Kick.
9. We then get into post-game stuff; once you beat the final challenges of the main story, you can go to Mount Lanakila, the top of the highest mountain in Alola, and enter a "Battle Tree" competition where you not only fight, but team up with, famous faces from the other generations - yes, Champion Cynthia returns as does Wally from OR/AS... and we also get a surprise; Red and Blue, the trainers from the classic games, make a return, and Red is as silent as always. :p

This is looking to be a cool generation, folks, and now I am off to build my teams. ;)

I've got good news and I've got bad news, which do you wanna hear first?

After reading an interview with Shigeru Ohmori, one of the people working on Pokemon Sun and Moon, I gleaned a few new things that will upset a lot of people, including myself, but I got over it:

Mega Evolution is confined to the post-game:

"We really wanted to have people kind of get used to this new idea, this new strategic element. So over the course of the main scenario of the main game, Mega Evolutions don't appear. But once you finish the story, you unlock the access to Mega Evolve Pokémon. You run through the main game learning about these new Z moves, and after the game you unlock more strategic depth by combining Z move with mega-evolve Pokémon."

 What a lot of hardcore fans of a game franchise hate is the post-game: It's basically stuff that's the aftermath of the story and some things are not available until that aftermath section, once all of the main story is over and done with. Disgaea D2 is furiously notorious for this, giving you playable characters from other games in the franchise like Emizel and Raspberyl.

And it looks like Pokemon's 6th gen mechanic, Mega Evolution, is being restricted to the post-game because this game's mechanic are the Z-Moves.

IMHO, I have no idea WHY fans hate this. The 6th gen games did not let you have the Key Stone right away. Even X/Y barred you from the Key Stone and Mega Evolution until you beat Korrina in the Tower of Mastery, which was after the third gym battle, and even then you only had access to Lucarionite and Mega Lucario and the Starterite of your Kanto starter you chose at Lumiose City.

Mega Evolutions are powerful but I only used one in my entire play of Omega Ruby (because Mega Mawile is awesome) and I didn't even use one in Pokemon Y. The Z-Moves I might use more often but I don't intend to harp on them much.

Confirmed: There are no Alolan Pokemon changes past the original 149.

"long-time fans of the game that have played since the beginning, and I really wanted to have a special surprise for those players. Also for the fact that Pokémon from the Kanto region of the original game are probably the most recognizable among long-time fans. So I really wanted to kind of focus on them and give them kind of them a new take on their appearance to really surprise them. But at the same time, by having the new appearance they kind of look like new Pokémon for a lot of new players who are maybe just getting started with Pokémon. So that was the reason we decided to focus on Kanto Pokémon."

It's straight from the Mudsdale's mouth, folks: Any future Alolan Pokemon will be strictly derived from the 149 Pokemon of the original Chromatic classics. There will be no Alolan forms of Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova or Kalos Pokemon!!!

Again, a lot of fans will hate this because it'll be "Oh, the creators are Genwunners!!! X(" I admit I was born long before Nintendo was a video game company and had long since graduated from high school before the original Pokemon games came out, and I got hooked on the games after seeing Ash battle Brock in his gym in the anime, but after playing the original games, I enjoyed them.

But I am not a Genwunner. In fact, I didn't like 90% of the classic 149. The only Pokemon I liked were Starmie, Ninetales, Kangashkan and Vileplume. However, I am with the creators on restricting the Alolan forms to a certain number of one generation.

Technically, it's good: Even if you didn't given Alolan forms to Legendary Pokemon (that would make them Overpowered), the starters(why do this?) or Pokemon who have Mega Evolutions(the Mega Evolutions won't mesh with Alolan Forms), you still have over 650 Pokemon to work with. That is impossible without making the Nintendo Switch have the memory of a super-computer. Sadly, you have to accept that most of the Pokemon are never getting Alolan Forms.

So why not have a few Alolan forms from each generation? While I support the "melting pot" thesis(after all America and Hawaii in general are melting pots of culture and ecology), it would be hard to determine what Pokemon would work in which generation.By focusing on one generation alone, they can work with what they know.

Finally, the nostalgia factor. Yes, I am supporting the classic games here, but I am not a Genwunner. I'll get into a discussion in a later post. If Gnoggin's to be believed and the Pokemon Company's next Pokemon game, the one they will develop for the Nintendo Switch, is a Ratchet and Clank PS4 reboot of the entire franchise, which generation will they start off reworking in glorious 4K?

Yep, the original 151 of the Kanto Region. This is because Red/Blue/Green are the original O.G, in the immortal words of Zenmaster Blue. ;) Long fans of the series usually began their Pokemon careers training Butterfree or Pikachu in Viridian Forest, so it makes sense that this first wave of critters is the one most will connect with. While I love Mawile, Ralts, Lucario and Goomi, my first Pokemon love was Butterfree.

Now for the Good News: Nintendo's next console is not a console per se, but a dock for a handheld game system called the Nintendo Switch. In other words, you usually play it like a 3DS, but you can insert the device in a socket which is connected to your TV and you can connect a special controller or attach the button/joystick to a grip and play it like a Wii U console. They are going to develop Pokemon games for this device, which I hope I'll be able to afford in March 2017, when it comes out.

Pokemon Sun and Moon demo thoughts

I am going to include some things that were talked about in GameXplain's discussion video here.

One of Ash's Pokemon has been cloned and is now going to be in everyone's Sun/Moon game.

So I've just played the first day of the demo - it seems that, like the Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire demo, you can start it up again and it'll have different things going on - and I liked the experience. In the first day, I did the following:

1. I got control of Sun, the male trainer, and he got a Greninja from a mysterious person. (The name isn't visible, but I am betting it's Ash and he's sent his Greninja to Alola. The episode where Ash leaves his Greninja behind is still not dubbed yet and I have yet to finish watching the original X/Y anime past the Skiddo ranch!)
2. I met Hau, the 'rival friend' who will be fighting you with the starter you're strong against.
3. I visited my Alolan Pokemon center, which has a cafe on the left and a shop on the right. Both of these are unusable in the demo, they'll say they're closed for the time being. (The cafe owner is on a trip that is lasting a month, which references the time between the demo's release and the game's release. Nice touch.)
4. I met Team Skull for the first time, who made me laugh inside as they attempted to be cool gangsta punk thieves who demanded our Pokemon. I took one of the punks and his Yangoos, which dropped to two hits from Greninja's Water Shuriken.^_^ They ran off swearing revenge, and Hau gave me a Super Potion, which was nerfed - now it only heals 60 HP. Not like I needed it, I only took damage a couple of times.
5. Professor Kukui - yes, that's the name of the Professor here -arrived and invited Sun to do a trial on Ten Carat Hill. (You thought Dragon Quest remakes are bad with the puns? :p)
6. I talked to some of the people out and about and asked the old man to let me pass, so he did. I went up the trail and Kukui warned me about wild Pokemon. Not like the Level 25 Pikapeks were any threat and I only ran into a couple of them. (I know they should be evolved for their levels but the demo isn't going to spoil any evolutions it hasn't yet. I did glimpse a leaked Pokemon from a data mining site, but I was able to avoid staring at it for too long.)
7. There as also a trainer battle but it wasn't any harder. I liked how the trainer battle goes.
8. It seems this is an alternate universe were Kukui is a trial captain as he had Sun do his trial and gave us the Rotom-dex and Pokefinder. The trial began and we had to take photos of two Jangmo-o and two Kakomo-o, the new dragon-fighter Pokemon. This isn't Pokemon Snap 2, sadly - there was no zoom function. Kukui lent us his Level 40 Pikachu for the trial.
9. And when I took the photos, the dragons attacked. Luckily the Jangmo-o's only got in a Leer before Pikachu wiped them out with Iron Tail and Slam. The first Kakomo-o was a bit harder and got in a Tackle before the Pikachu Iron Tailed him to death.
10. The second Kakomo-o... was a totem battle. I love how Totem Battles work, and found that Kakomo-o has Automize? What? Is this a special move that only this Totem can use? It also called for a Rockruff, not a Jangmo-o. I guess this was so Greninja could take out the Rockruff with Water Shuriken and unleash the beast with its signature Battle Bond ability, transforming into the Ash-form of Greninja which is in the anime. It looked rather cool as it Aerial Aced the Kakomo-o and defeated it, then struck a victory pose. ^_^
11. Kukui rewarded Sun with his own Z-Ring and the Electrium Z-Crystal for Pikachu.
12. Then, the last event was a run-in with Team Skull again, and then in walked Plumeria, who looked like she was going to walk away. But we got the fight with her.
13. She sent out Golbat but the game had switched in Pikachu, so I unleashed the Z-Move, Gigavolt Havoc! It was awesome and that Golbat had no chance. Heck, I could have taken it out with Thunderbolt but I wanted to unleash the beast. <: li="">
14. After that, the group decided to celebrate with 'masalada' and then a trailer rolled to end the demo for that day, showing a girl with a Mudsale... another trial captain, maybe?

That was an awesome first-day event for the demo to start off with, reminding  me of how Ruby helped Steven capture a Mega Glalie and protect it from Team Magma in the OR/AS demo first-day.

I won't spoil anything else, just try out the demo yourself... and when the games come out, you can send a clone of this special Greninja to your copy of Sun or Moon!

Another thing I learned, from the GameXplain video, is...

Pikachu: "FREEDOM, BROTHERS AND SISTERS! WE ARE FREE FROM THE OPPRESSIVE SLAVERY OF THE HIDDEN MACHINES!!!!"

Tauros: "Say you." X(

HM Slaves are now a thing of the past. Yep, the new Poke-Ride feature which you can access from your Pokedex is going to replace the need to use HM moves. Which means that the moves that were usually vital to getting around the land in past games may now become TM moves instead and you earn Poke-Rides by defeating Trial Captains or Great Kahunas. Needless to say, 99% of the Pokemon community is cheering for this new feature. All in all, I think this is an improvement and hope it remains in future generations/reboots. :)

That's all for now. I will probably put up a team tag video on my Youtube channel in the future. Alola and ciao for now!

Yep, definitely seperated at birth ^_^

(First off, I apologize for misnaming some of the stuff in my last post. I hadn't checked it.)

As you know, Dragon Quest shares one of my top spots for favorite RPG series. The first Dragon Quest I ever played was the original Dragon Quest IV(which was renamed Dragon Warrior IV in the US - at least it wasn't renumbered like Final Fantasy IV and VI!), and the first character I liked was Princess Alena, who was a tomboy princess who loved to battle and was a martial artist. When she was retitled "Tsarvena" in the remake, I still liked her, and then she got a voice when she appeared in Dragon Quest Heroes for the PS4 and I fell in love with her...

Then we get the Bounsweet's final evolution, named Tsareena... and its description on the official site says "It punishes those with evil in mind", "only the strongest Steenee can evolve into Tsareena" and "it attacks with kicking motions"...

Yep, whoever designed this final evolution obviously pulled a ton of inspiration from Dragon Quest IV's tomboyish violent Tsarvena. Even the name is similar!

That tears it - this had better not be exclusive to Pokemon Sun or I'll cry. "Alena" is going to be a part of my Pokemon Moon team. I don't give a crap if its stats are horrid, seeing water, ground and rock type crumble to Trop Kick is going to be SO awesome. ^_^

A ton of new Pokemon Sun/Moon information

So now a whole lot of new data has been revealed over the past month and I decided I need to summarize a lot of it.

(1) First off, we got the starters' stage-2 forms. As you know, all Pokemon starters have three stages. Now we see that Rowlet becomes a dapper character called Dartrix, Litten becomes a meaner-looking cat with a cat bell called Lottacat, and Poplio turns into a dopey ballerina seal called Brionne. I have a feeling that the Chinese leaks for the final stages of these creatures is either going to be proven true or false, but I'm leaning towards false. I refuse to speculate on the final stages, but I'll go for any of them... well, maybe not Dartrix...

(2) As Bounsweet's evolutions are revealed - Steenee and Tsareena. They look awesome and Tsareena can get an ability called Queenly Majesty that negates priority moves. Priority moves are pretty weak, but anything that prevents a Swords Danced Mega Lucario from Bullet Punching you to death works.

(3) Mega Lucario? Yep, it's revealed that Mega Evolution will return in the games, but it probably won't be for a while as many game reporters got a chance to spend the first two hours in the games and we hadn't seen it. Dexio and Seena from Kalos(who seems to be young adults now, so chances are these games take place several years after X/Y) will show up and give you an Alakazite. Of course, some of the Mega Evolutions have been nerfed; it's revealed that Mega Kangaskhan's Parental Bond will only do 125% damage in two hits now - but I can't wait to import Mawile over... as long as they don't make me spend Battle Points. Yep, many of the Mega Stones are now swapped for 64 BP, so you'd better start building your competitive team to get a massive win streak!

(4) I know there won't be a lot of Alolan variants. Not all of the Pokemon will get Alolan variants, but one that gets a much needed variant is Grimer and Muk. They look really disgusting now, and Alolan Muk looks like a blob of toxic waster with stones all over its body and glowing rainbow colors that constantly shift, giving people seizures. I joke, but this is one disgusting Pokemon. It is also now Poison/Dark, meaning that Drapion and Skutank have lost their lustre, especially with a creature that has a venomous Shadow Punch.

(5) I found out where you get Festival Points for trainer gear - it's part of an online feature called Festival Plaza where you can meet other player trainers who give you quests and reward you with Festival Points. You can also play in some of the attractions with your Pokemon so they don't feel left out.

(6) Speaking of feeling left out... I have a bad habit of hoarding Pokemon I will never use in battle. Well, guess what? These boxed Pokemon can still help you in Sun and Moon! You meet this NPC who will take care of those Pokemon for you by sending them to a small island chain called the Pelagelago which consists of three islands - in the first one, they can gather beans and befriend wild Pokemon(Pokebeans are like Pokepuffs in X/Y, used for Pokemon Refresh); in the second island, they can explore a spooky cave and mine various stones, especially evolution stones! In the final island, you can let the boxed Pokemon train on their own and feed them special beverages to give them EXP. This means you no longer have to use these Pokemon if you need to level them up for evolutions for your Pokedex. This is a wonderful feature that makes your boxed Pokemon useful.

(7) Another Pokemon which got a lot of attention was Type: Null, which I probably mentioned in an earlier post. Well, it evolves into a powerful chimera called Silvally, which has the same sort of ability as... ARCEUS. Yep, it has 17 'memory chip' hold items that change its type from Normal to something else as well as a signature move which, like Arceus's Judgement, changes type as well. If you love Arceus but can't use him in tournaments, well, get ready for a weaker but similar variant. I only hope it is a genderless unbreedable Pokemon.

(8) We also find out that there is a fifth Trial Captain, Ilima, who is a girl whose type speciality is the Normal Type. I have a feeling that the totem battle seen in trailers will be part of her Trial Challenge. There is also another revealed Great Kahuna, Olivia, who is the Kahuna of Akume Island.

(9) For my final summary, there is another Pokemon I'm going to add to my team, Jangmo-o. It evolves into a Dragon/Fighting type called Hakomo-o, which evolves into a stronger Pokemon called Kommo-o. The fun thing is its abilities - Soundproof and Bulletproof. Yep, this dragon fighter is going to be immune to either all sound attacks(which means a Pixelated Hyper Voice, which would kill it in a single shot, won't work) or all projectile attacks(which means that Ice Shard isn't gonna work on it). I can see this Pokemon being a great competitive player.

There is a lot more I may have missed, but all in all, the info is going to be great, and I'll cover the demo a bit when I get it in a few days. Ciao for now!

Why isn't Ash a married man now? (Another anime mini-rant)

I was watching Did You Know Anime, a spin-off of the popular Youtube series about gaming called Did You Know? and got some interesting info.

One of the creators of the Pokemon anime says that Ash rotates girls like a giggolo because, according to him...

Yep, one of the WRITERS said honestly that Ash's female leads are nothing buy eye candy. Yep, go ahead and cry sexist, folks, but that's what the Japanese think of women. This is because Japan's culture is far different from ours. They're only now getting a feminist movement when the usual lifespan of a Japanese girl was grow up, get educated in home economics, get married, have babies, and grow old and die while the husband works his butt of to support the family.

Another writer of the anime said in a novelization of the first season this interesting tidbit...

You thought 16 was pushing the legal limit for having a wife and babies? Well, in Japan, once you get into puberty, kiss your lifestyle of childhood bliss goodbye! You're now a man/woman and thus treated like one with all the consequences and benefits, INCLUDING MARRIAGE!

So yeah, that episode where Clemont, who is Ash's age, almost gets married isn't a joke - it represents what happens to 10-year olds, they are now able to get engaged and married! The modders of The Sims that created mods for school children to get married and  have WooHoo probably were Japanese.

Okay, I know I am being offensive to the Japanese people by saying all of that, but let's face it... when an anime writer states stuff like that, it's probably fact. After all, he has lived in Japan all his life and you have not, so stop griping.

I'm just saying that if Serena wanted to, she could pop the question to Ash right now and he could accept and marry her, even though they are pre-teens, because they are in a Japanese anime. Of course, because they are catering to us, the prudes who are old-fashioned and think kids are kids until the age of 18, they don't do that, but please... to all the Amourshippers, the writers said that Ash is not going to marry, he's going to string girls along until he and his story are finished, when the Hells Freeze Over, because the writers think that Ash is a lusty boy who needs to have a different girl on his arm every time he travels to a new region, and he's old enough to romance girls, according to them. So stop whining about Serena's removal from the anime. She was just another piece of eye candy, like Iris, Dawn, May and Misty. *sigh*

And for those who did not believe me, I've linked Did You Know Anime's Youtube page, you can just check it out yourself.

This is why I never PvP in Pokemon (mini-rant)

Well, they announced that the first Intercontinental tournament is happening for Sun and Moon right after it's release, which means that PikaHex and PokeSav won't be ready for it...

To be fair, I know how these cheaters feel - when I played The Sims I couldn't stand watching my Sims get stinky, wet themselves or faint from exhaustion or starvation. It was too bothersome, so I used Max Motives cheats to keep them happy and doing what I wanted them to do until they got all of their aspirations completed. Thank goodness I was banned from the Immortal Dynasty due to being banned from Carl's Forum, because I would have sank a year of my life into The Sims 4 instead of REAL games and abused Max Motives cheats.

The same thing goes for these losers - yes, they are losers because they won't sink time into the games long enough to breed for perfect IVs, even though nowadays there are easy ways to get 31 IVs in what you want(Friend Safari and Destiny Knot) and the perfect natures(Everstone breeding), and thus they use hacking programs to hack their games so they can have their dream Pokemon... even though the games are getting more and more diligent about squelching hackers.

Something like this needs to happen to force the hackers to stop their hacking and do things legit or force them to leave the VGC. This sort of hacking business is a betrayal of the game. Now, before you say anything, I am not condemning the use of hacking as a means to test out your dream team before you start working on it for real by asking friends to test out your team with their teams. However, using a hacked Pokemon in a serious tournament battle is just asking for trouble.

Luckily for me, I did not fall into the easy-way-out trap and become a Hexer. In fact, I never even heard of PokeSav until I saw ToyDualer(who has a lovely Maplestory video series, btw) teach you how to use PokeSav. I am a guy who spends hours on Dragon Quest VII training his heroes in every monster class to maximum to get a full team of Platinum Kings. If you know about how to get a character to become a Platinum King class by raising other monster classes and how hard it was to get monster hearts in the original Dragon Warrior VII, well, you can see how stubborn I am. I am a PSN trophy hunter and poured my soul in Kingdom Hearts 2.5.

"Half of the fun of traveling is the journey."

A lot of people forgot how fun a journey is and just want to get there instantly, so they cheat. I pity these people; chances are the first VGC for Sun and Moon will have to be canceled because nobody will attend because everyone forgot how easy it is to get a perfect team to Level 100.

Maybe they'll put out a new tier - the Traditional Tier, similar to the Traditional Tier of Yu-Gi-Oh which has no ban list. Then the hackers can be happy. :p

Whole bunch of Sun/Moon revealed!

(Not obvious but I photoshopped Eevee's head on Orgodemir, the Demon King from DQVII - I love the remake of DQVII)

HOLY S%*@, GAME FREAK! WHAT SORT OF SAKE WERE YOU DRINKING WHEN YOU CREATED THIS, AND CAN I HAVE IT?

Seriously, this is what a lot of people were freaking out over when they saw this new Z-Move for Eevee. Yes, two new signature Z-Moves have been revealed for untouched Pikachu and untouched Eevee, which means you can never evolve them. Pikachu got a pinball move which I think will be Ash's secret weapon if they ever have him do the Island Challenge - I can probably forgive the writers for making Ash look like something from a B-rate Saturday cartoon after Kalos if he spams this - and Eevee...

Well, meet Extreme Evoboost which totally rips off of Power Rangers; Eevee's eight evolved forms appear and empower Eevee... and he gets a boost doubling all his stats. Yep, it's like the side-effect of Ancient Power and Silver Wind, boosting all your stats, DOUBLED. This means that it'll be the OP in Little Cup but they'll probably ban Z-Moves in Little Cup considering they are so OP.

Of course, we now know how Z-Moves work. It's not enough to simply have the gem in your bracelet and have your partner wearing a gem... you have to select the Z-Move option and then the move you are going to transform into the Z-Move for that turn. (Yes, like Mega Evolutions, you can only use the Z-Move once in battle, and only once. It's a secret weapon.) So a move has to be sacrificed to become a Z-Move. Even so, Extreme Evoboost is going to be totally broken in Little Cup...

Also, if you know about Rockruff, the little dog Pokemon, we found out that it evolves into the wolf Pokemon Lycanroc... but what Lycanroc becomes depends on your version. If you get Pokemon Sun, Lycanroc will be a desert wolf which gains a signature move that is the Rock-type Quick Attack, AccelRock. (Yes, that is how it is written.) But if you get Moon, Lycanroc becomes a bloodthirsty werewolf which gets Counter instead. Now I have more fuel to the fire for AuraGuardian's joke vid about Pokemon who can kill Superman... Lycanroc Midnight Form with Focus Sash... ^_^

We get info on two new Pokemon - Pokemon Sun gets Passimian, a Fighting-type monkey which plays footballs with giant berries and has the ability Receiver, which is only useful in double/triple battles. If the Pokemon next to it dies, the ability transforms into the fallen's ability, meaning that the opponent has to deal with another dose of that ability, which triggers right away if it was something like Intimidate. Pokemon Moon(the version I will start with) gets Oranguru, a white gorilla which looks like a wise sage(it's even called the Sage Pokemon) which is Normal/Psychic and has a chance of having Telepathy, meaning it can avoid getting hit with the partner's Surf/Earthquake/etc... and it should because of its signature move, Instruct. It's probably going to be a go-last move like Counter which allows Oranguru to teach the partner how to focus and causes the partner to use the move it had just used AGAIN! That means: Those Pokemon which survived by hanging on with one HP? Nope, it's dead now. :D

Anyways, we also get some minor stuff about the Pokemon-Amie thing, called Pokemon Refresh. It seems that now you have to groom your Pokemon. You can ignore that, but if you want that shiny Crobat, you have to keep grooming it! Also, it seems that it mitigates the use of status removal items like Antidote as you can use a medical swab to clean it of the poison and paralysis conditions.

Finally, I relate the fact that yes, Virginia, you can customize your trainer to look like you, or your dreamboat fantasy girlfriend, or whatever, thanks to the huge amount of style options. I don't see as many for my self-insert avatar(the boy) but I'm sure we'll see something soon. Also, it seems that you buy clothes(or dye clothes) with Festival Coins, so I think that this game will take place during a festival and you can earn coins by mini-games or some other method. Maybe that Pyukumuku task gives you festival coins? Anyways, there's a lot of new stuff.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention the new Ultra Beasts that appeared, UB02 Beauty which looks like a woman with the hair looking like a waterskipper, and UB02 Adaption, which looks like a muscular red mosquito man, both attacking Tapu Koko. (I also mislabeled the Ultra Beasts as Pokemon but we don't know it they are Pokemon or actually aliens which are separate and thus uncatchable but you might fight them.) It looks like this "great catastrophe" I mentioned last post might be the Ultra Beasts invading the world and the Guardian Pokemon trying to drive them away. Stay tuned for October, when the Pokemon CO releases even more new info as the release date draws near! ;)

In the meantime...

I'll be playing my digital copy of Dragon Quest VII for the 3DS. I'm at the third-final land to be freed, but I need to get Multiheal for that dang Cumulus Hex. X(

Ash is Immortal (Anime Rant)

Get over yourself, girlfriend. The day Ash gets laid is the day when Pokemon come to the real world. :p

This blog is supposed to be about the Pokemon games, but I feel like I have to rant about the anime once in a while, especially now that I've been catching up on it. Recently CoroCoro(the #1 news sources for Pokemon) shows art images of Rockruff's two form evolutions(which are version-exclusive forms, which is a first) as well as the Ultra Beasts, which may not be Pokemon at all...

And this anime poster. Serebii.net says that Ash will go to Alola but since there are no gyms or Pokemon League, his goal will be different here. In the Sun/Moon Anime, Ash will be going back to school to catch up on the education he missed during the five years of his travels and he has to graduate from elementary school... or something like that. Maybe the story is that his mom, Delilah, calls him back home and says "We're moving to Melemele Island, and you need to catch up on your education", or he might be attending a Pokemon School like Pokemon Tech in that old Kanto episode and when he graduates, he takes the Island Challenge.

But this isn't about that, it's about my theory on Ash which points out a couple of things: One, I was spoiled to Ash's Kalos League tournament participation(he loses in the finals to Alain, the new main character of the Mega Evolution specials) and two, the poster hasn't got Serena in it.

Now, first off, Serena may be attending the school with Ash and this poster, being the first Anime poster we see, may not be giving up the entire story of who Ash is with this time, but then again, if Ash is in school, this season is a "high school anime" and there may not be any travel, the entire Sun and Moon story may be set in Melemele Island.

However, the fact that we don't see Serena in the poster has caused the Amourshippers(the people who think Ash and Serena should become lovers at least) to go apes*** and call foul. Worse, many fans of the anime have turned their backs on it.

So let me rant. The anime's story is owned (at least partly) by the creators of Pokemon, the Pokemon COMPANY. A company is "a number of persons united or incorporated for joint action, especially for business", as defined by Dictionary.com. Note the "business" at the end...

The Pokemon Company is BIG BUSINESS, and as such, has to make a PROFIT. If Pokemon was non-profit, it'd be more of a local thing and would stay in Japan, it wouldn't be as popular or the Juggernaut it is today because non-profit rarely expands far outside of its hometown due to the fact that the creators have to beg for donations to keep afloat, and chances are that Pokemon would have become charity games which live off of Social Security checks month by month instead of the massive megalith series that makes Mario and Luigi s*** their pants every year.

IOW, in order to be rich and famous, one has to make money.

If I have learned anything about politics, it is that it cannot avoid being corrupt. Even the Constitution had to be amended many many times. Every time a person campaigns for President, they make lots of promises... but once they are sworn in, 90% of the promises are deleted or compromised to suck up to the corrupt officials who brought them into power. I sincerely doubt that whoever wins this year's election will be a good choice to rule the USA, all we can hope for is that they don't rock the boat.

Politics is the basis for Big Business due to the laws of economy. The law of Supply and Demand - when people Demand something, you'd better Supply it, even if it's crap.

The problem with the Pokemon anime is that Ash is the Player. Yes, Ash was "born" as an anime character based on the main character of the classic games, which had no voice, no face, and no personality other than a single mom, a mean rival, and his Pokemon. So Ash started life as a ten-year old cute boy who travels with the Pokemon Mascot, Pikachu, which was voted the most popular Pokemon amongst Japanese kids.

The problem is, Ash is actually a CPU from Gamindustri and Neptune's sister. Okay, I'm kidding, but he's an Ageless Icon representing the main character of every Pokemon game. As such, he can never age. He has never celebrated his birthday, so he's always 10 years old.

Because of this, he can never enter puberty, which is usually the time Ash's jewels would grow and he'd start acting like Brock did in the anime, lusting over girls. But that will never happen because... he's Ageless as the writers want him to be Ageless as the instant his gonads develop and start spewing their hormones, Ash will turn into a young man like Alain and then all of the people they are targeting, the pre-teens who connect with Ash, will boycott the games out of rage and their moms will pull the plug on the show because "Ash is flirting with girls! This should be PG-13!"

Yeah, Pokemon has a very bad stigma of being a Kiddie Game because the original games were low-quality and had very little violence(except for Pokemon hitting each other) and no sex.

The problem is, because Ash is never going to become 11, he'll never have interest in girls. (He did have a blushing fit in that Pokemon Tech episode but that was just for laughs, he's never blushed over girls since.) As such, any girl he travels with is forever friendzoned.

Also, because Ash would become a Pokemon Master if he won a Pokemon League tournament, the writers decided never to let him win. I know it sucks, but people need to understand that the instant that Ash's dream is realized or he falls in love, then he'll be a more mature character and newcomers will not connect with him, so they'll stop watching the show and that equals net loss.

Anime Articles: Study of the Show (Part 1 - Pokemon Showcases)

Welcome to a feature I'll do on this Pokemon blog that focuses on the anime. Ever since I caught up with the anime and got into Pokemon XY, I have been enjoying the character developments. In this feature, we'll look at parts of the anime and examine them in comparison to the games themselves and previous seasons. For our premiere article, let's get into something that is supposedly an anime invention and doesn't appear in the games, sort of like the Orange Island gyms(which may change with Sun and Moon's Island Challenge)... Pokemon Showcases and Pokemon Performers.

Actually, this anime convention was inspired by the Pokemon Public Relation Videos in the games - in the games, your hero can visit the Pokemon PR Studio in Lumiose City and create a Pokemon video where your character and one of his Pokemon can act in a sort of viral video which you can share with other players of Pokemon X or Y. This led to the Pokevision concept in the anime, and that led to the whole Showcase thing.

I cut this from a video. Do not sue me.

Shauna explains to Serena about how Showcases work, and it seems suspiciously familiar...

WRONG

Oh yeah, the Pokemon Contests from the third generation! But in the anime, Pokemon contests worked differently - you had to use your own Pokemon for both rounds. Still, the idea fits - in round one, you do a theme skit showing yourself off, and in the second round your Pokemon does a performance of its own. Serena learns that Showcases DO NOT HAVE BATTLING IN THEM!

CORRECT

Just like the contests in the games, there is no battling allowed... which is 180 from how the anime handles Pokemon contests. Yeah, the writers decided to make the Coordinators battle each other, which is really stupid as Pokemon contests are supposed to show style and grace, not battle skill. I don't give a Fennekin's flying feces if they say that the battles are conducted with grace, the anime Pokemon contests are still mainly battle tournaments with a showcase round to winnow the contestants to four semi-finalists who beat each other up... WITH STYLE! X(

I totally understand that, at the time when May and Dawn were running about doing contest training, the writers had no "funky freshly" clue how to portray Pokemon Contests, and it could have gotten much worse, but let's face it, if they wanted to portray Pokemon contests in the anime, they should have take a cue card from the Pokemon Showcases Serena participates in. I mean, Pokepuffs are a anime knock-off of Poke-block and Pokepuffs are essential to Pokemon-Amie, which is bound to make a return in Sun and Moon. So please, don't tell me to go suck an egg. It's my opinion and if you want, you can comment down below about it.

After all, Pokevision is just the Pokemon world's version of Youtube... which means lots of disgusting filthy viral videos about Pokemon that would make a grown man cry. :p

Pokemon Sun and Moon are literally like night and day!

(NOTE: I want to clarify that I misconstrued the effect of Happy Hour. I learned from other Pokemon fans that Happy Hour has an effect - if you use it in a trainer battle, you get double the money, as if the Pokemon has an Amulet Coin/Luck Incense equipped. This stacks with said equip items so it's great for getting rich off of trainer battles. Also, I found out the effect of Hold Back - it's just another name for False Swipe, it has the same effect; it doesn't kill a Pokemon outright, it only drops to them 1 HP. The difference is that Hold Back is a learned move which only certain Pokemon can learn.)

The site idioMeanings defines idioms that have existed since humans began communication, and one of the most common idioms is "Like night and day." It means that the two things before the idiom are total opposites to each other.

The term comes from the fact that everything looks completely different in the darkness of night than it does in the bright light of full daytime. But now Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon are about to take this idiom and turn it on its ear!

I sort of expected something like this considering that the games are named after the celestial bodies of the day and the night, but this still surprised me: Pokemon Moon's timeline is on a different time cycle than Pokemon Sun! That's right, if you set your time in Pokemon Moon game cart to 6 AM, it'll be 6 PM in the game, meaning that while you're playing in the real sunlight, your avatar will be taking a moonlit stroll on the beach or down a city street! Not only that, but the Pokemon that trainers have may be different. For example, we got a trailer about the Island Challenge, where you fight a totem Pokemon. In the Sun version, that fight will be with a Totem Gumshoos. In Moon version, it'll be against a Totem of the Alola Raticate, which was become a more hideous chipmunk-cheeked ugly rat which retains the Dark/Normal typing. Of course, by that time you should have a Fighting-type move which can easily one-shot it. (Quad weakness to fighting sucks.)

With Sun and Moon coming out in 2.5 months, it's expected that they'd start giving more information, but now we have more interesting stuff to learn. For example, we find out what that strange floating lab in the center of the island archipelago is - it's home to the Aether Foundation, a group dedicated to protecting Pokemon, especially those from other regions. They may be the key to transferring Pokemon from Pokemon X and Y to these versions. I bet that, if Game Freak isn't rebooting Pokemon, they are going to start introducing regional types of Pokemon that adapt to different climates like arctic tundrae, sandy desert lands, and more so that the old Pokemon we grew up with don't become stale and dull.

Also, the Aether Foundation are enemies to Team Skull (though considering the stories past, I bet they'll become friends at the end of the game to prevent a world-wide catastrophe 6_^). There are also two tourists who will help you in finding Zygarde by giving your character a cube which allows you to contain Zygarde Cells and Zygarde Cores. For those of you who haven't kept up with the anime or watched the recent movies, the Zygarde we saw in X and Y is only 50% of the real Zygarde, and it is very unstable. There are other Zygarde forms - a 10% which looks like a Great Dane wearing a scarf and a Perfect Zygarde(100%) which is a humanoid kaiju monster! We may never have gotten a third wheel to X and Y but these games are going to make Zygarde have a role in it, and the whole quest to collect Zygarde parts reminds me of the Zoni collection in Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time.

A couple of new Pokemon were revealed. One of them is called Type: Null and for a second I thought it was a new type of Pokemon, but it's the name of a Normal type Pokemon which looks like a Trojan Horse. There is also a cute little dragon with the very anime-like name of Jangmo-o, which has the abilities Bulletproof(protecting it from damage from multi-hit attacks) and Soundproof(negating any moves that have a sonic-quality to them like Supersonic and Sonic Boom). They also showed off a jellyfish Pokemon called "Ultra Beast: 01" without showing any type of abilities. This is a mysterious Pokemon which I am curious how it will play into the game.

Finally, for those of you who fondly remember Pokemon Snap, this game has a treat for you! You can take photos of Pokemon standing around in the games with your Poke-Finder(a part of you Pokedex) and send them to other players to be rated. I'm sure there are a lot of shutterbugs eager to start snapping away.

All in all, the new reveals have shown that Sun and Moon are not your ordinary Pokemon games and shake up the formula. I don't know what's coming after Sun and Moon - maybe a reboot of Pokemon Red and Blue in 3D? - but the future of Pokemon is looking bright... and twilit too! ;)

The Revolution has come...

After being out of the loop for a long time, I decided to bring forth this blog because...

Pokemon is getting a reboot.

Yep, this blog will report on things happening with the upcoming Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon. (I apologize for the e in Pokemon, my current computer doesn't have a means of making an accented-e. <_>)

As you can see, this screenshot is from a trailer showing off a Z-Move, a new type of move. A couple of years ago, Pokemon came out with Mega Evolution, creating new temporary evolved forms of famous Pokemon that made them stronger. This new generation will (probably) replace that with the new Z-Move system, where Pokemon have over-powered moves that do a lot of damage! Like Mega Stones, Z-Stones in a Z-Bracer are used to do a coordinated attack!

And we found out recently that it's not just 18 Z-Stones. Now the Pokemon company is distributing a free Munchlax with the moves Happy Hour(which does the same thing as Splash - zippo) and Hold Back, which I don't know much about. When you evolve the Munchlax, you can equip it with a special Z-Stone called Snorlium-Z, which gives its own signature Z-Move, Pulverizing Pancake!

Also, old Pokemon are gaining new forms - the games take place in the Alola region, which is a tropical archipelago similar to Hawaii. As such, many old Pokemon that emigrate there have change their appearance and even type - Sandshrew and Vulpix and their evolved forms are now Ice-type Pokemon and Meowth and Rattata are now Dark-types.

Don't worry, there are some new Pokemon. The starters are a grass owl called Rowlet, a fire kitten called Litten and a clown-nosed seal called Poplio. I've already reserved my copies and I hope you go visit Serebii.net and check out their news. So long for now!

(The information I got from Serebii.net and the recent Nintendo Direct for 3DS.)