Pokemon XY rumors

    I'm going to discuss some of the rumors for the new Pokemon games in this post.  Of course, at this point they're still just rumors.  But the guy who leaked this stuff, has also said a bunch of other stuff that has been coming true.  Therefore, this might just be true, so if you want to avoid spoilers, you might wanna skip this post.

   Lets start off with the starters.  This seems like a good place to start.

    Not bad overall, I think.  The fox is cute, Chespin is kinda odd, but has potential.  The frog is a frog.  Overall I like the designs on these starters more than the past few gens.  But what is on everyone's mind is what their final types will be.  That and what they'll look like.  The internet is almost full of more fan art for that than normal pictures.  So, according to the leak, this is how they'll end up:

• Fennekin: Fire/Psychic.  This is an interesting type combination, it's one that only exists in one other place, right now.  Darmanitan in Zen mode.  Not counting the new type (which I'll get to) it's a combination that has five weaknesses (ground, rock, ghost, water and dark) and six resistances (fighting, steel, fire, grass, psychic, ice).  But most of all, people are crying for Fennekin not to become fire/fighting.  So this would be a good thing.
• Chespin: Grass/Dark.  This is another uncommon combination.  Not as rare as the previous, though, it is shared by Nuleaf, Shiftry and Cacturne.  All of which are from Hoenn, if that means anything.  This is a type combination with six weaknesses (fighting, flying, poison, bug, fire and ice) and six resistances (ground, ghost, water, grass, electric, dark.)  On top of that, it's immune to psychic.  This is an interesting turn. 
• Froakie: Water/Fighting.  Here's another type combo we haven't seen much of.  Outside of the legendary pokemon, Keldeo, the only other contender is Poliwrath, all the way back from Gen 1.  This combo comes across as the most defensive of the starter typings, with only 4 weaknesses (flying, grass, electric and psychic) and 7 resistances (rock, bug, steel, fire, water, ice, and dark.)  

    Besides the fact that these are all rare type combinations, through Gen 5, lets look at them again.  Your in-game rival will usually choose the pokemon that your starter is weak to.  Another rumor is that Gen XY will have two rivals, similar to how Gen 5 worked, presumably.  Let's look at this, though.  Say you choose Fennekin.  In a previous generation, your rival would choose Froakie.  Water does, in fact, beat fire.  But once they are evolved, Fennekin's psychic type will give Fennekin a super effective type against Froakie in return.  Comparing Fennekin to Chespin, while Fennekin's fire type gives an early advantage, Chespin again picks up a type that gives it a fighting chance against Fennekin, not only super effective, but immune to the physic attacks.  

    If this rumor is true, the starters all seem balanced to have both 1 strength and 1 weakness to each other.  This is pretty amazing.  Why do I say that?  Because to me it seems a lot more thought went into this than usual.  If the develops are really putting thought into these things, it bodes well for all the games changes in general.  But I already explained why I think this game might be the first 'new' Pokemon in a while in a previous post, so moving on.

    This is Mewtwo's new form, called 'Awakened forme.'  It's hard not to have seen it yet, if you follow pokemon at all.  My opinion on it is that the head-tail ruins the whole thing.  Looks like that twiggy neck should just snap right off.  But I'm here to share rumors!  So, here we go.  Mewtwo is going to get two new forms.  They will be activated by items, presumably similar to changing Shaymin with the Gracidea flower.  This form is supposed to lean more heavily towards his 'Mewtwo' design, while the other form is supposed to lean more heavily towards 'Mew'.  

    I would be happy for this to be true, as I think this form is a tad ugly.  Can the world live with a cute Mewtwo?  There's no word on just what these forms do, just yet.  Mewtwo already has pretty good stats, if they got boosted it would be overkill.  They could shuffle them around a bit, perhaps, but that would just make him Deoxys Jr.  Perhaps the new forms will let him pick up secondary typings.  Is the world ready for Psychic/Fairy Mewtwo?

    Now, Fairy type being a thing isn't just a rumor anymore.  But it bears mentioning that this information source both mentioned Fairy type being super effective to dragons and some old pokemon gaining the fairy type before the real information hit.  So what is the rumor, then?  Fairy types full list of strengths.  According to the source, they are as follows.  

• Super effective to: Dragon, Dark and Fighting
• Weak to: Poison and Steel
• Not very effective to: Fire and Psychic
• Immune to: Dragon

    No resistances were listed.  But if it is immune to dragon, this is a pretty major deal.  The jokes about fairy types being dragon slayers get stronger.  Using Outrage could be a death sentence if you are locked into the move while they switch in something immune.  Giving poison something else to is nice, as poison only has one super effective as it is.  Steel doesn't have too much it's strong against, either.  Classically, there are tales of fairies being weak against iron and such, so it makes sense that way as well.

    Here's a couple of smaller things that I still find interesting.  According to the source, you will be able to train EVs with mini-games.  This can remove some of the tedium and guessing game involved in grinding them.  Also, HMs are supposed to be less of an impact.  I don't like dragging an 'HM slave' pokemon around with me, but I don't wish to mess up the movesets of the ones I use, either.

    There are other rumors, of course, I just touched on the ones I found the most interesting, and that I thought others would want to hear about.  I shall keep appraised with any interesting things that I come across. 

Animal Crossing: Fun or a second job?

    I'm going to start out being honest.  I don't like games where you need to make your own fun.  What do I mean by that?  I mean games that give you a bunch of tools and say 'go ahead, do what you want.'  Minecraft is one example.  I can't play the game more than 20 minutes or so, while someone else is spending a week constructing a scale model of the Enterprise.

Every version of the Enterprise exists somewhere in Minecraft.

    Now this is merely my own opinion.  I am not criticizing people who enjoy this sort of thing.  It's not for me, but that doesn't mean I can try and figure out why it's fun.  When you build the Enterprise, you have a feeling of accomplishment, right?  You've made something big and difficult that you can be proud of.  But was the actual construction project fun?  Is the hours of work enjoyable, or is it all the means to a goal?

    Lets talk about something I've been hearing a lot about lately, Animal Crossing: New Leaf.  I see lots of people playing and talking about playing it.  I played the original Animal Crossing back on the Gamecube because people poked me about how fun it is.  It wasn't long, however, before I discovered that I was logging onto the game because I had to, not because I was having fun.  Need to get to the store while it's open, need to pull some weeds.  New Leaf makes you the mayor of the town, so there's somewhat more reason why everything goes to heck without you.  But not much, honestly.

That'll teach you to go away for the weekend.

    Is it fair to be punished for not playing the game?  Animal Crossing isn't the only thing to do this, of course.  Some games are worse than others.  These days, MMOs like the idea of Daily quests.  Sure, if you don't log in, you're not losing anything.  You are, instead, missing out on something.  For a lot of people, the idea that you missed out on some experience, items, or achievement points, is the same as having them taken from you.  They are things you would have had if you had logged in.  I often see people saying they are 'doing their dailies' and it's all they log in for.  Are they having fun?  I'm usually told they are.  But if playing the game is so fun, why are you only logging in to do a daily task?

    When you get a reward of some sort, part of your brain makes you feel good.  Your brain can't tell if an item is real or digital.  To your brain, you have received something that is of value to you, and so it rewards you with warm fuzzies.  So sometimes you go 'that was fun,' but it wasn't fun, you just liked being rewarded.

    Animal Crossing makes it a bit worse.  Rather than just having to do something daily, it follows a clock.  You might need to play it at a certain time.  When I played Animal Crossing on the Gamecube, I was working all day.  I'm aware that I probably wasn't the target audience, but that meant that whenever I had time to log in, it was the middle of the night.  Sometimes I'd try and get in before work, when it was the morning.  It didn't take me long to realize I was playing because I felt like I had to.  So I stopped.  If I ever decided I wanted to play again, my town would be a mess.  I'm punished for putting down the game.

    What is the goal in Animal Crossing?  Well, it's to do whatever you want.  The only real goal is paying off your debt to Tom Nook.  All the jokes aside, he seems to let you take your time in paying that off.  For me, though, I need a goal.  Once I had paid him off in the original game, I felt no more reason to play.  It was the 'I win!' moment.  The whole town is still out there, though, with all the same activities.  But for me, there's no reason to do them.

"But I need more Nintendo Related house decorations!"

    If you have fun with this sort of game, that's fine.  Everyone enjoys their own thing, after all.  Fishing and shaking trees and chatting with animal people are all things to do.  You should just make sure that you're playing for fun.  If you find yourself saying 'I don't feel like playing right now, but I need to pull some weeds' or 'I have to get to the shop before it closes' or 'I'd better check what items are selling good today', then maybe you're not playing for fun anymore.  Maybe you're trying to maximize your profits or you're worried about the animals giving you a guilt trip.

"Dangit Sally, I have my own life!"

    I've watched my boyfriend be obsessed with MMOs, rushing to do his dailies and becoming upset when he missed them, all the while insisting he's doing it for fun.  All I'm saying is to judge your own feelings.  If you start finding yourself feeling that you 'have to' hop onto Animal Crossing instead of that you 'want to'... maybe it's time to let those animals fend for themselves.  

Dragons and video games

    Well, I said I'd talk about whatever occurred to me here.  So far I've discussed video games and I've discussed dragons.  I think it's time for me to branch out and discuss dragons in video games.
    Dragons show up in video games a lot.  They're frequently monsters or bosses who don't have much to say to you.  Sometimes they have their own personality, but you still need to stab them in the face with your weapon of choice.  If I tried to list every game that had dragons in it, I'd be here all day.  So it's obvious that people think dragons are cool.  In fact, some might say that they're over done.  But here's a thought, how often do you get to play as a dragon in video games?

Not a dragon.

    There's Pokemon, where 'dragon' is a whole elemental type.  There's also the Breath of Fire series, where your character can turn into a dragon form.  And then there's various strategy games with dragons as 'units'.  But in the end, in those games, the dragon is just the skin wrapped around some numbers and stats.  Are you getting the dragon experience?  If you're just clicking 'attack', it doesn't matter if you're telling a dragon or a guy with a sword to do it.  So what about other games?  I know my first thought.

This guy right here.

    Spyro has a whole series devoted to him, and I find most of the games enjoyable.  But what I'm discussing right now is what makes a dragon game?  First, lets look at the original games.  Dragons were just one of the races that lived in that world.  Spyro could glide and breathe fire, sure, but imagine with me for a moment.  Many games of that era featured Bandicoots or Bears or Squrriels as the main character.  How does it tie into the game?  Lets say you Search/Replaced all the dragons in the early Spyro games with other creatures, would the games actually be any different, other than the models you're playing as?

    Lets look into the reboot, when Spyro got dark and gritty and Sparx got really annoying.  Dragons are actually important now, powerful creatures feared by the forces of darkness.  So we're heading in the right direction.  But still, the only people you interact with in these games are people trying to kill you, and a few NPCs.  Once again, lets just pretend that gryphons were legendary forces in this world.  Has the game changed any?  I might be sounding a bit picky, but I have a point I'll get to.

    So what about games where you ride dragons?  There's lots of those.  You have your Panzer Dragoon, your Drakan, your Lair and your Drakengard.  There's more of these types of games, of course.  Technically your character is the person on the dragon, but when you move the control stick and hit buttons, it's the dragon doing things, so just as good, right?

    The problem is, once again, in the content.  The dragon is just a vehicle, in a Star Fox style shooter.  Some of the story lines of these games make a fuss about dragons, of course, but it's generally about the main character.  The dragon rarely, if ever, speaks and has a character.  If we take out our magic Replace power again, and turned the dragons into a vehicle, has the game changed?

Thanks for helping prove my point, Drakengard.

    So what makes a dragon?  Time for another story.  Long ago, someone had a dream of an MMO called Horizons: Empires of Istaria.  It wasn't going to be like any other MMO.  See, this game was going to have a variety of races, all of which operated in their own way.  The races would have their own play style.  Take a look at this from the early ideas.

    That dragon is pretty darn big, seems a bit unfair, right?  Well, in the original concept, dragons would start off rather weak.  They were also neutral or hated by every other race, meaning every race could attack them.  Why would you want to mess with a dragon?  Crafting components from the young ones, crafting components and raiding their hoards for the older ones.  Dragons were planned to grow over real time.  No way to grind to max.  You would have to wait literally a year or more before your dragon was a monster of destruction.  You couldn't just not play him either.  You need to run around and train, otherwise you ended up with a grown dragon that was tubby and weak because he hasn't gotten off his butt.  Other races would work similarly.  Demons and Angels would have to try and murder each other on sight, least their gods disapprove.  Vampires would appear to be human to most people, but couldn't go out in the day and had to feed on blood.  And so on.

    So what happened?  Well, it's a long and sad story.  The short of it is that the guy with all these dreams, the one who started the company, ended up being betrayed and having his company taken over by another guy.  That guy decided to toss out most of the original ideas.  So when Horizons was actually released, what did we get?  Half of those races weren't in the game.  What we did get were all the same.  Oh, the races had a few passive abilities, but stats and skills were determined by class, and every race could be every class.  So in the end, a pixie warrior was just as good as a half giant warrior.

    But dragons were different, sort of.  The only classes they could have were Dragon Adventurer and Dragon Crafter.  They couldn't use any equipment.  All dragons had the same classes, so there was no variety.  And ironically, dragons were the weakest race.  Sure, they gave them better strength to make up for lack of equipment, but a sword with bonus crit still did more damage.  When they finally added the 'adult' quest for dragons, they could fly.  That was quite fun.  But still, in the end, it was far from what was promised.  But get this, the game still has it's followers.  Horizons was bought by the fans, who now run a few servers.  These days it's just called Istaria.

    So why is an old, mediocre MMO still going?  Well, it's the only one where you can be a dragon.  I freely admit trying to balance dragons in things would be difficult.  But every MMO out there, the races don't matter very much.  Some have passives that make them better at one thing or another, but when people are putting a group together, they go 'looking for thief' and not 'looking for giant.'  Though I'm not sure a giant thief would be the best at that job.

    So, time to put my money where my mouth is.  If I'm so full of myself saying what isn't a dragon game, how about instead I say what is a dragon game?  First, being a dragon has to have some effect on the story and the world around you.  You have to feel like you are a dragon, and not just a character shaped like one.  Off the top of my head, I have a few ideas.

  First, single player ideas.  Lets think of a game in the manner of God Games, the sort of games where you are an all powerful entity who gets to choose the fate of the land.  Except instead of being a disembodied hand or something, you're an actual avatar in the world in the form of a dragon.

Not a dragon.

    First you customize your dragon, in appearance and skills.  You can pick out a place to make your lair.  Scope out nearby towns.  What do you do with them?  Perhaps you try and get them to trust you, become a guardian to the land.  That might get you some donations for your hoard.  Maybe you should burn them to the ground to avoid anyone bothering you.  Perhaps just a little threatening, so they'll hand over all their treasure and the occasional virgin sacrifice.  But then you have to deal with wandering heroes bothering you.

    Of course, if you start to get too rich and powerful, you attract the attentions of armies who want your gold and your land.  You may even have to start dealing with rival dragons.  Do you make alliances?  Do you kill your opponents?  This is a game where you get to deal with all the details involved in 'being a dragon.'

    Perhaps you think simulation is for wimps.  You want to chomp peoples heads off.  So lets imagine a game, instead, like Skyrim.  You start off as a younger, weaker dragon.  When you start to travel, people react like you'd expect them to react to dragons.  Once again, you choose.  Do you try and befriend people, do you chomp the heads you so feverishly crave?  You grow from worrying about people turning swords on you, to using those swords as tooth picks.  Now maybe you're controlling land and holding off armies.  But unlike in the previous example, you're stomping directly around the battlefield, crushing people and cooking them.  Or perhaps you're a nicer dragon, but the people are calling for you to defend them.

    In both of these examples, the main idea is that you are acting out as a dragon in a world that recognizes you as such.  It's not just a power up or a vehicle.  I suppose the idea I am getting at is that you have to feel like being a dragon matters.

    So how about multiplayer?  I still think an MMO could give dragons a try.  It would be a challenge, of course.  If they were just the same as other races, we fall back into my earlier complaints.  But if they're stronger than everyone else, is that fair?  Well, game balance doesn't always mean that two units can always defeat each other.  Starcraft strives to be balanced, but a Zealot is always going to defeat a Zergling.  The balance comes in with the cost of the units and the time it takes to make them.

    Would dragons be the 'best' thing to play as?  Not necessarily.  Being the strongest race doesn't mean the best.  Maybe others would want you dead.  Can you imagine playing AS the raid boss?  What about dungeons?  Well, young dragons can travel with people, but once they grow and become stronger, give them a humanoid form.  In this form they are weaker and can use armor and weapons from their hoard.  So they can still take part.

    But the fun comes in with dungeons designed for them.  Imagine a few dragons needing to distract a titan from above while the main force attacks it's weak underside.  You can fill up the team with dragons, as multiple roles are required.  Just as a warrior is probably going to defeat a cleric in battle, but you don't make teams full of warriors.  Well, maybe you do.  I'm not here to judge.

    Also, imagine a dungeon that requires flight.  So the raid is split into small groups riding on player dragons.  This is a level of teamwork that you don't usually see.  The dragon needing to keep ranged classes in range while avoiding attacks, healer needing to keep the dragon and the passenger healed, ect.  I just have ideas, I'm sure professional game designers could figure out the details.

    I suppose this was a bit of a long rant about dragons.  But hey, I'm a girl who likes dragons.  So far, I still the Spyro games are the closest I've come to feeling like I'm controlling a dragon, even if the story doesn't put as much emphasis on it.  What do you guys think?  Know any games I don't know about that you feel give you the better dragon experience?  I'll just keep waiting for a game closer to my own expectations, or at least a new pokemon that looks more dragon-like.

A dragon.

Role Playing and displacer dragons

    So, I figure that at some point, someone is going to go 'what the heck is a displacer dragon?'  Well, to be honest, I ended up with this because every other name I tried was already taken.  Almost every blog I peeked at had one post to the tune of 'check it out, I started a blog.'  I say most because one of them had no posts at all.  First of all, here's a close up look of the art in my icon.  Of course, once I change this page up some, the icon might be different.

You can find the artist of this picture here.

  This is Ivory.  She has a complicated history, but I suppose I should start back a bit.  When I was younger, I was a tad depressed.  I still have issues on and off.  Back in 1995, I started out using this new thing called AOL.  I poked around here and there, met some people.. then I was introduced to the idea of role playing.  I had always read books a lot.  I suppose it's one form of escapism, and this was a more direct form.  My first exposure to RP was in Star Trek 'sims'.  Short for Simulations.  It was a group called the UCIP, United Confederation of Interstellar Planets.  Because, I suppose, just calling themselves the United Federation of Planets was too obvious.  Even though it's been a long time since then, this group is still around!  You can find their webpage here if you are curious.

This is my very first role playing character ever, in Star Trek Online form.

    My very first character ever was named Blake.  He was a Sivaoan, a feline race from a Star Trek novel.  In Star Trek Online, he's a Caitian, close enough.  So, how do I go from Star Trek to tentacle dragons?  Well, part of that is Lunar: The Silver Star.  Lunar was a video game that was first for the Sega CD, but it's been remade a few times since then.  I don't believe it ever became a very 'big' game.  I was chatting with people who also liked Lunar on some message boards, when one of those weirdos said he wanted to run an RPG based off of it.  So I applied a character and got in.

This is Ebony 1.0.

    My character was the young Black Dragon of Lunar.  While I was a fan of Star Trek, of course, I was always more into fantasy than sci-fi, and I was quite in love with dragons.  This RPG took place on IRC, which introduced me to the whole concept of IRC in the first place.  Lunar: Middleground is a story for another time, however.

    So now I knew about the existence of IRC.  So I started peeking around for other places to role play, and I found some fantasy places.  This led me to a channel called the #BlkDragon*Inn, and that place still exists, too!  Webpage found here.  So, now that I was in a fantasy setting, of course my first character was a dragon.  At first he was simply known as 'baby black dragon.'  Shockingly, my first time RPing got the interest of another player there, who surprised me with this art.

This is Ebony 2.0.

    Now, I didn't plan to be unimaginative with names.  My screen name was something along the lines of 'bb_dragon', but there ended up being some confusion with the guy who started the channel, who was BlkDragon, as such, I spontaneously named him Ebony after my Lunar character.  Ebony, seen here, was very young at the time.  And he aged in real time.  He's a character I've played for more than 10 years.

They grow up so fast.

    Now we're getting close to the whole point of all this.  See, during one of my plots, an Ebony from an alternate dimension appeared.  That Ebony had grown up living a worse existence and left his universe because everyone he knew was dead and he was likely to be next.  While pondering how odd my plots can be, one has to remember that, over the course of playing a character for years, a lot can happen.  This Ebony saw the relatively happy Ebony of the 'normal' universe and was upset and disgusted.  Why does that Ebony get to be happy and have a family?  The new Ebony did not wish to be like Ebony Prime.  So, using magics, he turned himself into a white dragon.  When he felt it wasn't enough distance still, he became female and started using the name Ivory.

    Ivory still felt like she had a lot to prove.  She became friends with rougher types than Ebony.  Perhaps a bit out of spite.  This led her on a variety of adventures until she was bitten by a were displacer beast.  Because who says those aren't a thing.  She embraced the change, finally feeling like she was her own person and not just 'the white Ebony' or something along those lines.

    As is a habit with me, Ivory became a more major player than Ebony was.  I suppose she had issues to work through, and that gives you things to RP.  It seems lots of the characters I made up on the spur of the moment end up pushing the characters I put real thought into aside.  There's a few details missing, but that's how the displacer dragon came around.  Through random combinations of plots happening over the course of years.

    I wonder if any people out there will be all 'oh hey, I remember you.'  Feel free to leave comments if so.  As I go, I'll leave you with this.  There's many universes and possibilities out there.  Ivory eventually ran into another version of herself, who took her pain and bitterness to different levels, and decided to just claim the planet in the name of dragons.

Vote Lady Ivory for Queen of the Planet.  Or else.

Pokemon X and Y, the first new Pokemon games in a long time?

    I already posted today, but hey, it's a new blog.  I need to get some content out there to reach the masses.  Hey masses!  Are you here yet?  I have the word 'Pokemon' in this post, it's popular, right?  Except making that little line over the e is annoying.
   But seriously, I have been playing Pokemon since the days of Pokemon Red.  Back then I thought you could only get Charizard if you picked the red one.  I mocked my friend who picked blue.  Who wanted that turtle thing anyway?  Charizard is a dragon!  I still feel sorry for that charizard.  I was sort of clueless back then and it seemed that most of my chosen Pokemon couldn't learn the HMs that the game dumped on me.  So that poor charizard had a move list that consisted of Flamethrower, Dig, Fly and Cut.  Fortunately, I have gotten better since then.
    Alright, I'm going to toss a Pokemon game at you.  Let's see if you can figure out which one I'm talking about.  A young trainer meets with a professor and is given a pokemon and a pokedex to start their journey.  They encounter some bad guys along the way, but due to their friendship with their pokemon, they defeat them.  In the end, they face the Pokemon League and become the champion.
    I'm sure anyone who has followed Pokemon lately is already nodding at my sarcasm and going 'I get it, you're describing every game.'  Well, you'd be wrong.  In Pokemon Black and White 2, you get your starter from a professors assistant.
    Will X and Y be the same?  Well, spoilers if you don't want to know anything.  But the game's pokemon professor and bad guys have already been revealed.

"We're here to be the bad guys in this 'Pokemon Red' thing, are we late?"

    So yes, I am expecting there to be to be some of the same sorts of plot points.  However, I have some hopes.  Lets look at how Pokemon bad guys have gone.

    We start off with Giovanni, the head of Team Rocket, the bad guys in Generation 1.  So what was Team Rocket up to?  They want to use Pokemon in the pursuit of illegal goals.  Fair enough.  They're also meanies who don't believe in the heart of the car... Pokemon.  Once Giovanni is defeated, he realizes the error of his ways.

    As for Generation 2, the bad guys are... Team Rocket.  What's left of them, anyway.  They're pretty sure that their boss is going to return.  Your character ends up disbanding them and everyone is happy.

    Generation 3.  For the first time, we have different bad guys based on which game you are playing.  Before Emerald, you either found yourself facing Team Magma in Ruby or Team Aqua in Sapphire.  Their goals were to either expand the world's land, or expand the world's sea, respectively.  

"Then we all die from the resulting global cataclysm, GENIUS!"

    Once again, you teach the error of their ways before wandering off to finish your goal to become the very best, like other people already were, until you beat them and take their place.

    Generation 4 gave us Team Galactic.  Now here, I believe, is where things start to change.  For one, Team Galactic was smart enough to have a legitimate business face.  Their did research into Pokemon energies.  By not simply yelling 'we are evil' at the world, they got people to donate pokemon to them.  What was their goal?  Their boss, Cyrus, wanted to capture the Pokemon of Time and the Pokemon of Space and use them to rewrite the world in his own image and become a god.

    Well.. we've certainly stepped forwards a bit from 'using pokemon to commit crimes' haven't we?  And, for the first time, when you defeat him, he does not say 'by losing a Pokemon battle, I realize that bad stuff is bad, and will be good from now on.'  He is last seen swearing revenge on the player.

    Generation 5 takes it another step forwards.  Team Plasma, like Team Galactic, pretended to have the best interest of pokemon at heart.  But they were trying to get people to release pokemon so that the region would be weakened for take over.  At the end, you head to the Pokemon League, as usual, but then.. this happens.

"How did they construct a giant, underground castle without anyone noticing?"

    A giant castle bursts from the ground and attacks the Pokemon League itself.  Something like this has never happened before.  Unlike in the previous games, where the 'final battle' is a fight against the Pokemon League champion, with nothing but at title at stake, the end of Pokemon Black and White is a final 'dungeon' of the Plasma castle.  You face off against N, who really did think he was helping Pokemon, before having a final battle with Ghetsis.  And he doesn't reform after a Pokemon beating either.

    For the first time, Pokemon games get a direct sequel, rather than a remake.  In Pokemon Black and White 2, Ghetsis is back to try again.  A villain in a Pokemon game returning?  MADNESS.  Team Plasma was also flying around in an airship blasting cities with a giant freeze cannon.  

"No, seriously, where DO they get those wonderful toys?"

   It's like an actual PLOT is happening.  Like the bad guys matter for more than some grunts you have to battle now and then.  It feels like, if you fail, BAD STUFF WILL HAPPEN.  If you haven't seen it, you should check out the anime trailer for it HERE.  I think the stuff we see there is better than anything the real anime has.

    So, I started all this by talking about X and Y.  My point is, it seems like Pokemon is getting a bit more serious.  Sure, Pokemon aren't exploding in pools of blood.  I don't think we'll see any games that start with your characters parents being murdered in front of them, and your character taking their last Pokemon on a journey of vengeance.  Truthfully, I wouldn't even want that.  I like the Pokemon games for being fun.  The stakes can be high without it ever getting into Game of Thrones territory.

    The idea of a story based around 'kid with Pokemon encounters bad guys' can be more, as Black and White are showing.  Not to insult Game Freak, but I really feel like pokemon has been spinning it's wheels for a long time.  It's been a simple matter of 'new game introduces some new pokemon and moves.'  The only games that have felt a little different have been the spin-off games where you steal Pokemon from other trainers.. but you're the good guy, honest.

    For the first time, Pokemon are moving into the wonderful world of 3D.  I don't mean the kind that pops out of the screen, either, but actually modeled Pokemon.  We'll be getting animations for attacking and similar things.   I know they will be limited, but it's a lot less limited than the non-moving sprites we've had for 4 generations, or even the animated sprites from Gen 5.  

    Okay, so they're using later technology, does that mean that these games will really be that different?  It also sounds like they've been listening to players.  Information released has pointed to EVs and IVs being easier to figure out.  I'm guessing there'll be some NPC who tells you things about them.  The way Pokemon goes, he'll probably say 'this Pokemon's speed isn't very good' instead of giving you numbers.  Just guessing of course.  So what else, well, character customization for one.

"Wow, hair AND skin color?"

    It seems limited, though we can't say until the full game is out.  It just feels like Pokemon has to be dragged kicking and screaming into anything new.  But if they have to take baby steps, that's better than them not taking steps at all.  Of course, you may be wondered why I'm not addressing the donphan in the room.  The somewhat controversial introduction of the Fairy Type.

"Hi!  I'm here to destroy dragons!"

    The Fairy type will be super effective against dragons.  According to the guy who has been leaking information, they will also be immune to dragon type attacks.  Whether or not that is true, this is big news.  Dragons are all over the higher tiers in Pokemon.  This is going to shake things up a bit, and I think that is a good thing.  If everyone is stuck on the same teams and the same strategies, things get kind of stale.  No one type should be 'the best'.  As of now, dragons are only countered by ice and.. yet more dragons.  Don't get me wrong, I dig dragons, just look at my icon and all.  But I think this is a big sign that they are trying to change things with this game, that they want this game to be 'different.'

    If they are going into this game with a concept of 'lets make a new Pokemon game' and not 'lets make another Pokemon game', this could be the best Pokemon game to come along in some time.  After all, when I talk to people who haven't played since Gen 2, they never ask me what happened in the plot.  It's 'what pokemon were added?' 'is this ability new?' or 'What the heck is Eviolite?'  

    Maybe this is the game where things start to change.  Maybe we'll be able to link up with our friends and interact in new ways.  Maybe our characters will be able to unlock new outfits to show off how cool they are.  Maybe the bad guys will do something unexpected and shocking.  Maybe someone will run around wielding a Honedge like a weapon because THAT WOULD JUST BE AWESOME.

SOURCE

    Or, you know, maybe you'll defeat Team Flare, they'll see the error of their ways, then you'll have a friendly battle with the current Pokemon League Champion.

Mega Man and Artificial Difficulty

    So, this is a blog I am making.  I am told you should pick a subject and stick with it.  But everything's been done.  There's so many places out there that you can look up info on video games, why should anyone come to me about it?  So I'll be sharing thoughts and insights about whatever occurs.  So let's talk about video games.
    I'm going to start off by saying everything here is my opinion, so please don't hate on me if you disagree.  I've been thinking about Mega Man.  You know Mega Man, right?  He's been around for over 25 years now.  I started thinking about Mega Man due to this fan game, Mega Man Unlimited.  But we'll get back to that, lets step back a few years.
    Mega Man had 6 games on the NES before jumping to the SNES.  The Mega Man X series had started at that point, so perhaps they were moving on from Mega Man.  Mega Man 7 was released, followed by Mega Man making the jump to CDs with Mega Man 8, and that was it for over a decade.
    Then Capcom releases Mega Man 9, returning to Mega Man roots, with a retro style.  Admittedly, Mega Man had never strayed far from that style in the first place.  Only two of the eight games were on systems besides the NES, and two two games were still pretty basic side-scrollers, even if the CD versions added cut scenes with bad voice acting.

"Mega Man, dis space wobot might hab somtin to do wiff Doctuh Wiwee!"

    So what about Mega Man 9?  I thought it was a pretty fun game.  I was a bit disappointed, though.  I always thought that Mega Man 9 would be the game to link the Mega Man and the X series, what with X also meaning 10.  It would be clever.  Plus the Mega Man games seemed to be leading to something.  Mega Man was tempted to just kill Wily twice, and after being infected by 'evil energy', perhaps he would have.

    But we hadn't gotten a Mega Man game in so long, even the retro game was nice.  This was followed by Mega Man 10.  Now it feels like we're just spinning our wheels.  9 had the 'refreshing retro' thing going for it, 10 was.. just that again.  Also, 10 just felt to me like they were trying too hard.  It's a hard feeling to describe, really.  9 felt as if it were hard due to the level design and pacing.  10 felt like it was hard because they put unfair pits and spikes everywhere with the specific intent of killing you.

   This is where we start getting into the idea of Artificial Difficulty.  TV Tropes already has a page on this idea, though they call it Fake Difficulty.  I'm using the word 'Artificial' because it sounds fancier.  So what is Artificial Difficulty?  To try and put it simply, it's something that's there just to kill you, so that you can keep retrying the stage.  I will say most enemies in a game are there to add challenge.  But an enemy on a platform you can't see until you've made the jump and can't go back?  That enemy is there to kill you.

"I see you're trying to jump a pit, I think I'll pop up with perfect timing to kill you."

  Now, while I'm using those pit enemies as an example, once it happens to you once, you should be ready for them.  If they knock you down again, it's kind of your fault.  But it's a cheap death until you've learned that.  I feel Mega Man 10 was aimed more at 'killing you' than 'challenging you.'  They added an Easy mode to the game, and what does Easy Mode do?

"I feel insulted."

   It covers up most of the pits and spikes for you, as well as lowering the amount of enemies.  If it had that many spikes and pits in the first place, maybe that's a clue.  After Mega Man 10, Capcom seems to have abandoned Mega Man.  Two planned games were cancelled and his only appearance was as 'Bad Box Art' Mega Man in a fighting game.  Zero appeared in Marvel vs Capcom 3, representing the series, but neither Mega Man nor X did.  Mega Man is finally returning in the latest Smash Bros. game, which is more about Nintendo supporting him than Capcom.

   So, without Capcom giving us more Mega Man, it seems the fans have stepped up to fill the gap.  We got the well made Mega Man vs Street Fighter, which Capcom allowed to be released, sort of glossing over that they didn't make it.  But it seems that most fan games are leaning towards being very hard.  This finally brings us back around to Mega Man Unlimited.

"This is not the title screen of a game that is messing around."

    I am not saying this game is bad at all, I am saying that it is hard.  It was designed to be hard.  My first exposure was watching a playing on Screw Attack.  They play the game for about an hour or so.  During this hour, not one boss is seem, as they can't get through a single stage.  

   "Hah!" says I, metaphorically, "Clearly my skills are FAR superior to Craig's skills.  I shall download this game and show them how it is done!"  So I do and I start off with Comet Woman's stage.  I have to continue once before Comet Woman is defeated.  Feeling pretty good for myself, I decide to take on Yo-Yo Man.  No one called Yo-Yo Man can be that hard.  Unfortunately, his stage is full of pits, spikes, and enemies that will knock you into pits and spikes.  Comet Woman's stage had it's fair share of pits and spikes as well.  The stages are also very long with checkpoints set far apart, so your death will frequently have you back at the start of the stage.

    Once again, the game was designed this way, it is supposed to be a challenge.  "Yo-Yo Man can live.. for now.." I say in this hypothetical situation where I like to talk to myself.  "They barely touched Rainbow Man's stage, lets give that one a go!"

    Rainbow Man's stage is full of lasers.  Anyone who recalls Quick Man's stage will be familiar with the insta-death lasers of death and redundancy.  

"Run, Run, no time for the slinky!"

    But it's not that bad.  Hopefully I'm not hurting the feelings of too many people when I say that.  The thing is, the way the screen scrolls in the Mega Man games, you get a second or so of a sneak peek before the action resumes.  In Quick Man's stage, that second gave you a moment to plan your route before the lasers started.

   In Rainbow Man's stage, the lasers are bouncing around corners and such.  It's all too much to take in.  It becomes more a matter of memorizing where the lasers will be, as well as trial and error as you try and figure out what to do.  

   With Rainbow Man safe behind his laser barriers, I decided to go after Nail Man.  At a casual glance, this stage isn't so bad.  There's the death pits, sure, but most of it's danger comes from the enemies.  Then it keeps going and going, draining your health.  Toss in a few vertical screens where you may fall down 3 screens or so and lose progress.  Finally you see the boss door!  You have reached the end!

"LOL, nope!"

    You have reached the mid-boss, Hammer Man.  The mid-boss who will probably kill you as you need to learn his pattern.  And then you will find yourself all the way back at the start of the stage.  This is the part where people might be tempted to throw their cart out the window.  But this is a digital-only game.  You could throw your computer out of the window, but that would be wasteful.  You could delete it really hard I suppose, but that just doesn't have the same satisfaction.

   So, I went along again, defeated Hammer Man and was rewarded with access to the rest of the stage, and a check point.  "Oh, there's all the spikes."  Yep.  The relatively spike-free stage was too good to be true.

  Where am I going with all of this?  Well, most of you have probably fallen asleep or left, 'TLDR'ing or such.  If so, how are you seeing this paragraph?  For those of you remaining, I go back to the idea of Artificial Difficulty.  This game isn't trying to 'present a challenge,' this game is trying to murder you.  Some people enjoy the challenge and get a nice feeling of accomplishment when they win.  Other people.. not so much.

  If you have played previous Mega Man games, think back to them.  Are there areas where you die over and over again?  Not counting the bosses, just parts of the stage.  When I say that, I imagine the main thing that pops up is those blocks that pop in and out, when they're over pits or spikes.

"And that sound they make will follow your to your grave."

    What else?  Quick Man's lasers?  Maybe those passages where you have to weave between spikes as you fall?  The point is, there's probably not that many spots you will repeatedly die at.  The old Mega Man games were, for the most part, not designed to kill you, they were designed to challenge you.  You will miss a jump here and learn your lesson, an enemy will pop out of a pit there, and you're more careful around the next few pits.

    You can create difficulty without the game being out to murder you.  But maybe that's what some people want.  They want to climb forwards, limping and bloody, and stand on a mountain and say, "I did it!"  These are the same people playing those Mario hacks where blocks are always placed to drop you into a pit.

   Personally, I'm a little tired of seeing the 'Retro' Mega Man games.  The ones that try and think up new, silly bosses and plot lines like 'Dr Wily is using the worlds biggest Boom Box to make all the robots in the world dance, he must be stopped!'  I want to see Mega Man move on.  Update the graphics, take all the lessons we've learned over the years.  Lets see his story come to a climax so he can retire gracefully.

    Even the best Mega Man fan games are only making you feel like you're in the 80's again.  Mega Man is just spinning his wheels.  It's not the fan makers fault.  An 8-bit game is obviously easier to make than something more complicated.  On top of that, Capcom set the precedent.  And I happily admit, some of these games took a lot of work and are well done.

   But is that all that's left for Mega Man?  Are we soon going to see an 'I wanna be the guy' version where every block in the game is spikes?  It might just be me, but I want Mega Man to finally complete his mission.  I want him to fight and get that everlasting peace he's been after.

   Until Sigma comes along, of course.