Category: Playthroughs

Pokémon Moon, Episode 1: In Which I Am Rescued From Certain Death By An Island Deity

All I wanted was a goddamn holiday.

“Come to sunny Alola,” the brochures said.  “Let all your cares wash away,” they said.  “Relax on the beach and enjoy the sunset with a glass of cool Pinap juice,” they said.  “Immerse yourself in the vibrant local culture,” they said.

The brochures did not mention roads blocked by irritable Tauros, strange waifish girls with dangerous and suicidal cosmic Pokémon, “quests” handed out by mysterious and fickle gods, ritualised duels to please the aforementioned fickle gods, or anything that might be described as a series of “trials.”

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

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We Should Really Talk About Pokémon Uranium

So what the $#!t is Pokémon Uranium?

A fan-made bootleg Pokémon game, some eight years in the making, that was completed and released a few weeks ago.  It runs on what I think is some sort of homebrewed version of the Diamond and Pearl-era game engine hacked together in RPGmaker, with a number of general ease-of-use improvements like multiple save slots, key rebinding (I mean, if you’re playing Pokémon on your computer you can do that anyway through your emulator software, but it’s still nice), and a built-in Nuzlocke mode with a few optional rules.  More importantly, Uranium features a whole new region, Tandor, inhabited by about 200 fan-designed Pokémon as well as many of our old favourites.  It’s not unique in concept, of course, but to my knowledge it is, by a significant margin, the most ambitious project of its kind ever to actually see completion, which sort of makes it worth talking about, and probably even giving some level of playthrough commentary.

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On Playing Through Alpha Sapphire: Delta Episode 2: Electric Boogaloo

Holy $#!t

Just… so much holy $#!t

All of the things happening

I should… like… talk about it all. I warn you, this one just kept getting longer and longer and at some point I just lost control of it, because there were just so many things I had to comment on and I didn’t want to split up the events of Delta Episode any further. If even half of the things I’m reading into these events are true, my views about the history of the Pokémon world and the relationship between humans and Pokémon need serious revision; I mean, I’m seriously beginning to think Archie might have been right to waken Kyogre, and to hell with the risks. Some of the ideas I’m starting to have will  probably crystallise in the article I’m supposed to be writing soon about Mega Evolution (and by the way, I am so glad I didn’t try to write that before playing this game), but the rest… hard to say. May have to write something else to deal with the history of Hoenn in detail. I’ll think about it. In the meantime, here are my reactions to the final plot sequence of Alpha Sapphire…

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On Playing Through Alpha Sapphire: Delta Episode 1

This damn plot extension is making my head spin in at least three major ways, and I haven’t even finished it yet. So much to talk about, so much to think about! Not going to bother listing the team at this point; you know who they are if you’ve been reading these. Let’s just talk about what’s happening…

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On Playing Through Alpha Sapphire: Ep VI

Well, Kyogre is still a thing… And just like that, the game’s climax is done with and I’m just sunbathing in Sootopolis City while I wait for my appointment with Wallace.  Good times.  So, how’s the team doing?

And I think it’s only fair at this point to give a little credit to someone who was with me throughout all of that nonsense, the long-suffering…

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On Playing Through Alpha Sapphire: Ep V

Sitting in Lilycove City at the moment, having just cleared out the Team Aqua base in the bay.  In theory I should now pursue Archie across the ocean to prevent him from ending the world or whatever, but I’m just not really feeling it at the moment; I think I might just hang out here for a while and enter some contests.  I mean, a trainer can’t visit Lilycove and not enter a contest, right?

Current team:

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On Playing Through Alpha Sapphire: Ep IV

Reports of my death have been mildly exaggerated…
Yes, yes, I know, I’m being lazy; I had to do my usual thing where I fly halfway around the world and then immediately attend an academic conference because apparently I hate myself, and there was other personal stuff that kinda sucked but to be honest I deserved everything I got, and really it’s not been a great week all around, but the show must go on, and all that, because I have at least ten questions piled up in my inbox and should probably do those sooner or later.  Hopefully Jim and I will be saying our piece on Bianca and Cheren within the next week.  For now, let’s get back to Alpha Sapphire, where I am hanging out in the vicinity of Fortree City.

Current team:

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