...

Weekly Bloog 5: Legends-ZAZA Review and-Life-Updates

Update 1: I got the Uni!

So cool. Her name is Sardine. I was torn between Usada (as in usada pekora) and Marine so I just merged them. Her socially acceptable name is Mimikins.

Update 2: I went to ComicCon.
I went to comicon! It was pretty fun! I threw money at things and took pictures with cosplayers.

Someone kept screeching at me from a distance and I was really confused until I remembered who I was dressed as. It was really funny actually.

Update 3: I got legends Z-A (za).
I took the week off to play it.

If a member of staff is reading this, I was sick. (i was actually sick though)

Update 4:

I realise I didn't include a song of the week for the last few issues so I recommend Deep Breath Deep Breath Reincarnation Reload because I need to take a few honestly I might be crashing out.

To the review!

I’m so incredibly sick of open world games. Games, something I used to find enjoyable, has become the equivalent of Netflix documentaries; padded with things I don’t care about to waste my time. I’ve not found and along with the live-service + gacha mechanics, I’m at an all time disinterest. Open world means I’m not playing it.

I think that Lumiose is a nice compromise for this, while not feeling too cramped. If you’re feeling like this, it’s because you’re playing it for too long a session. Seriously, try walking the outer circle of Lumiose. It takes forever, which although is proving my point, is also a bit of an issue for me; not having a mobility upgrade outside of the Roto-Glide, which is a timegated upgrade is awful and limits the already tutorial limited exploration in a very not-fun way. What was the point of pushing that back to story progress? Now I have to find the random piece of scaffolding I’m unable to mark on my map that I was trying to parkour for a full half hour again.

Sick.

I'm not quite sure why roller-skates are absent either, considering this was the generation that introduced them as a movement mechanic. I would’ve loved to see some online alternative battle modes using the roller skates like the Ogre Ousting from Scarlet and Violet.

I was waiting all game to get the hex manic outfit, or the Slurpuff dress from the original game but there’s…no dresses at all. Which seems like a pretty trivial complaint but I dunno. I’d say Kalos has 2nd best fashion to Sun and Moon but the options don’t hold up in its sequel for sure. Individual trainer themes are quite good, considering the game is about 75% Lumiose City ‘remixes’. They’re not bad at all! They’re quite well done actually, but the changes are personally too subtle for it to not sound like exactly the same song and it's just very rough that it rarely ever stops playing. I often had to mute the game until I could fast travel to most places.

Speaking of individual trainers. I’m infinitely more attached to the not-gym-leaders than a single character in the original X Y. (Not including post game) Corbeau is my mob wife. Jaicathe is a name I have no idea how to pronounce but she has electro swing and that's really cool. A dragon-maid who isn’t a child is also sick. Ivor is there.

I love Lida, Naveen is okay and absolutely hate Urbain but at least they’re giving me something which is again, unlike the untoasted bread of characters from the original game. But also the fact that I like Hop now might be a red flag for how rivals have been recently.

Actually, let's go into this. I absolutely despise Taunie/Urbain. Selfish, irresponsible and worst of all never held accountable for anything they do. Do they even do the promo in the end? I’ve seen people argue that they’re supposed to parody/parallel the main character but that makes no sense to me. The main character tends to be dragged about by the rest of the cast and made to do all the work (like you), not the other way round (like Urbain/Taunie). They don’t get a single win in the narrative other than to provide the illusion that they can keep up with the player as the ‘main rival’ and it’s really aggravating.

The one time you actually get some appreciation from the group from ranking up, they immediately undercut you by pushing the fact they should be praising them too because they also, very conveniently are level with yourself again.

Also what’s the point of Team MZ? Sure it's to get to A rank and wish for the hotel presumably but no-one on the group is really a passionate trainer though?
It feels like when your friends are like “we should start a podcast/youtube channel cuz we’re so funny”; it just never happens.

I know Pokemon has always had a big emphasis on how gym leaders are hobbists with their own interests and careers outside of Pokemon training, especially gym leaders but it’s not convincing anyone in Team MZ cares enough to be the best (aka training up for rank a) outside of Urbain/Taunie randomly deciding to be on your level after losing round 1 in a tournament to someone about 10 ranks down from them.

But sure, this is my equal.

I did NOT want to be part of team MZ and if Taunie/Urbain was able to get to A rank so quickly and easily(again, how?) why did I need to be involved?? This might be the Pokemon game with the weakest inciting incident (for lack of a better term), which is really bad considering 80% of them are “Mother, I’m going to live in the wilderness for 6 months and raise wild animals and fight people”.
I don’t want to help the hotel. I don’t want to catch 45 Bunnelbys. I spent a lot of time asking myself why I as a person, or my player character should care about anyone or anything happening because right out of the gate, it violates the little free will that it’s implied by any Pokemon game.

In Legends Arceus, what happened made sense for the most part. You were dropped off in some strange place, completely isolated. you had to earn what you were given. It made sense to catch so many Pokemon.

Everything about Legends Z-A just feels really shoehorned in and first-draft like. What was stopping me from turning around and getting back on the train after immediately getting robbed other than the game willing it to be so? Why do I HAVE to stay at this random hotel and ‘help’ these people I don’t know? This game makes it very clear why you have a pre-established friend at the start of most games; Unfortunately my like for the group as a whole suffered significantly because of this.

This could’ve and honestly should have been Pokemon Rangers. People aren’t happy and it would’ve been a great time to bring back older fans who are fed up with nostalgia that’s actually interesting. And seeing as most of the game is solving individual quests, I think it would’ve worked really well! Even with the mouse feature on the Switch 2 could simulate the capture mechanics from the original games. Anyways, I’ve started learning Japanese and German so y’know…Hire me Nintendo.
I have great ideas for Pikmin 5.

I thought Naveen was cool until the streamer thing. Getting a bit sick of the streamer meta-commentary. We did this with Iono already. I was really hoping there’d be a sad twist where Canari died and her grandfather was fulfilling her wish of being an ultra cute famous idol but nope, another streamer who dislikes their audience and is pretty obnoxious. She had to be electric too? Was also hoping for a reference of her online beefing with Iono for being in the same streamer bubble (ik Iono is more drama/commentary compared to not-project-voltage-miku’s gamer thing but still), also nothing. Why even bother?

She’s fine, but i’d like her more if
1. We didn’t already have Iono
2. She wasn’t also a streamer.

I really hope this isn't going to become a thing for streamers to “he he ha ha” at.
I’d truly love the next electric gym leader to be a crazy mechanics lady like doc oc from spiderman or something. I know the grabby arm element is present in Clemont already (while we’re here where did he go??? Is he okay??? They kicked him out of his gym :( )

But at least have something to do with electricity that isn’t being chronically online. It’s such a versatile type.

There isn’t really a story and that was kind of disappointing. I felt very much like I was trudging along until the next thing I didn’t really care about happened, and that was only because very little else was. The reason to collect Pokemon like a crazy person is significantly less compelling than it was in Legends Arceus.

Even at the climax of the game, once again I’d been shafted by Urbain and had one of the most disappointing boss fights I’d ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

Seriously, I wasn’t paying attention and assumed there was a phase 2. I sniped 2 flowers for about 4 minutes and the game was over. The mega fight before that took me longer to handle.

The ending of the main campaign is stupid sad though. I wasn't expecting it and I did cry a bit, then got mad at myself because I’m not sure the game is good enough to shed tears for.

I’ve not gotten to the end of the post game but I can already feel the end of the Urbain/Taunie mystery person being insanely disappointing considering they paywalled the actual post-game into DLC. Not happy about that at all. The fight to 50,00 points is seriously putting me off the whole thing, and I have no idea when the end of it actually is.

This game should’ve been reliving my childhood on the big screen, but the absence of some houses or cafes to go to, no rollerskates, movie-making or even dresses left me wondering if the magic of Pokemon was all in my head. The supporting cast are one of the few redeeming qualities about the whole experience and even still, I could take or leave the ones that are actually meant to be your ‘team’. Honestly, without the new live battle system providing a breath of fresh air to the formula, I highly doubt this would have been a game that I even finished.

– End of Review

It’s a bit strange, my relationship with Gen 6 as a whole. I definitely think it’s lower down on my game tier list, Diamond and Pearl being lower because I find them boring and they’re the only games I’ve never put in the effort to complete.

They were my first full Pokemon games on my first proper game console. My dad got me the special Y edition version for my birthday and I was super duper excited to play with my brother, who got X. I didn’t like Delphox as much as Braxien though, so I tried to reset the game, which my idiot 8 year brain couldn’t figure it out, so I deleted the game from the system, and not realising I could re-install it, cried for hours.

My dad took me back to Argos (Rip Argos catalog btw) and they were like “We’ll just give you a physical one with a normal 3ds so you don’t do that again” which sucks in hindsight because they don’t make them anymore and they look really cool. Anyways, I play the game, find one of my first female crushes in Shauna (slay), enjoy some banger tunes (shoutout route 8), be insanely disappointed by the main antagonist and make some movies with my unevolved Braxien. Good times.

Pokemon ORAS came out next year. I have over 1000 hours in it and I’ve beaten it 7 ½ times (doing a modded challenge run right now.) So uh. XY didn't have a crazy impact on my life.

While I’m ranting about Pokemon, I might as well address the voice acting thing.

I’m of the opinion that not just that it’s unnecessary, but it would actively make things worse.
It’s not even a budget thing; Pokemon essentially have infinite money, but planning, recording and implementing consistent voicework when the original Gen 1 crys are still in rotation…like it’s just not gonna work. We’re barely making functional games here.

We can’t even change Pokeballs. And that’s literally just a texture swap.

And knowing GameFreaks ability to make QOL features miserable to find (looking at you Sword/Shield loud-ass dynamax crys and random npc in Motostoke), if not completely absent (looking at you, link cable), it wouldn’t even be mutable without an item without finding some npc in a random alley in the 6th city. And then still on in the pre-rendered cutscenes. And tied to text language. No JP dub for you, weebs. Someone suggested Animal Crossing/Undertale style text bleeps, but I’d find it more irritating than charming honestly? There’s way too much dialogue.

Ya’ll know that stuff is not going to be synced to the mouth animations either. Just appreciate them being there.

It’s not that I don’t like dubs either. It gives me time to look at my phone, draw, take review notes. But I really doubt they’d get people to do it for nicher languages and it would be either English or Japanese.

Worse case scenario it releases as JP only with language patches. I’m really sorry about this, but I can’t do subbed things. I just can’t.

I’m sorry watching the entirety of Hunter x Hunter and up to My Hero Academia's season 4 in Japanese in 4 weeks traumatised me for life. Maybe Crunchyroll should have dubs.

As much as I love the Atelier Ryza series it became unplayable for me. I don’t care if the dub is apparently worse.

Also even more likely it would make dialogue unskippable, aka the worst part of replaying pokemon games made even worse. This is literally my least favourite thing about Genshin Impact. My game is MUTED because I'M ON MY 3RD ACCOUNT WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME SIT THROUGH THIS AGAIN???

I’m very content with the anime and #PokemonMasterex (._.) being an option for what characters sound like to be honest. I opened it up a few days ago and it was a real jumpscare honestly. Anyways I hope they add the anime characters to it. That would be so cool.)

I said this a bit earlier, but a lot of Pokemon is what you make of it. I don’t think any professional voice actor could replace the enjoyment I get from voicing characters with my little brother and people insisting it should be a necessary feature because “iTs 2025” are too old, bitter and jaded to understand that. Just my opinion.

(Except Max Mittleman. Itto/Ryuji sweep)

So uh, yeah, maybe let's maybe focus on enterable buildings again first? I’d really like that.

As much as I’ve whined about Pokemon in this Bloog, am I excited for what's coming next for Pokemon? Sure.

But I absolutely cannot wait for Monster Hunter Stories 3 to come out, because it’s probably going to be a lot better.