The Pokémaniacal New Year’s Speed-Nuzlocke-stravaganza IV

1:08

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Though Slippery Sue’s numerous contacts, an independent contractor has been hired to deal with the trees in our path – paid in cash and onions.

1:21

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Hmm…

We could go fight a difficult battle against a master of Electric Pokémon to win a shiny bit of plastic and permission to fly in Kanto…

…or we could take a lucrative contract smuggling goods through Rock Tunnel.

…

Laters!

Continue reading “The Pokémaniacal New Year’s Speed-Nuzlocke-stravaganza IV” →

The Pokémaniacal New Year’s Speed-Nuzlocke-stravaganza

Okay peeps; it’s New Year’s Eve, I’m in Jim the Editor’s flat in sunny and tropical St. Andrews, Scotland, it’s fμ¢&ing miserable outside (because Scotland), and I am going to speed-Nuzlocke the $#!t out of Pokémon: Fire Red version, because WHAT ELSE ARE WE GOING TO DO?  This post will be updated throughout the night with progress reports, screenshots and commentary, and we will either conquer the Elite Four or die trying.

LET’S DO THIS

5:02:

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SHUT UP OAK WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS $#!T
Continue reading “The Pokémaniacal New Year’s Speed-Nuzlocke-stravaganza” →

Anonymous asks:

If you could LIVE anywhere in the pokemon world, where would it be? For me personally, I’d live by terminus Cave in Kalos. The whole eastern part of that just seems so mysterious, as if it’s practically screaming another region to the east…

This is my most recent assessment, as of Sun and Moon – I haven’t finished playing Ultra Moon yet, so I suppose it’s remotely possible that the charms of Ultra Space will win me over if I get to see more of it, but somehow I have my doubts.  The number one spot in the whole Pokémon world for me is probably Six Island.

Anonymous asks:

If you had to make a generic normal type rodent pokemon (like ratatta and zigzagoon) what kind of thing would you like to make? No cop outs like “I wouldn’t!” or ‘put ratatta in the game!”

I think you could make something interesting with a wombat Pokémon that evolves into one of the big extinct megafauna marsupials, like a diprotodon or a marsupial lion (Australia-inspired region…?).  Not actually rodents, of course, but then, most of them aren’t taxonomically rodents (we’ve had mustelids, procyonids, lagomorphs and feliforms), so I’d say we’re probably in the clear on that score.  Give ‘em biiiiig fμ¢&-off claws; wombats have nasty claws.  I still think we need some additional twist on this to make it a properly fleshed-out Pokémon and not just a cartoon version of a real animal, but it’ll do for a start.

Random Access asks:

Have you been watching teamfourstar’s Final Fantasy VII: Machinabriged?

I have, but to be honest I’m not terribly enthused by it.  I think the somewhat more freeform nature of the story after the characters leave Midgar City, with less interaction between the members of Cloud’s party, makes it difficult to abridge, because it’s very much a plot-driven story with a couple of nice character moments, not a character-driven story that also has a decent plot.  It’s an RPG; it’s intentionally designed to give you space to interpret the characters yourself, which is great in its way, but doesn’t give you that much material for parody in the way that Team Four Star’s flagship abridgement, Dragonball Z, does.

VikingBoyBilly asks:

What if Ability capsules were expanded to be more like TMs? E.g., there’s ACs for Static, Guts, Chlorophyll, etc. and any pokémon that’s compatible with that ability will learn it. There might need to be some “base” or “blank” capsule to get their original ability back in that system, ‘cuz we can’t be giving out Wonder Guard, Water Bubble, or Levitate ACs… maybe those pokémon will just be unable to use ACs.

I’m a little iffy on this, purely because abilities are able to define how Pokémon work much more completely than moves (usually) can.  Like, you raise Pokémon with abilities that are too overpowered to give out indiscriminately, but what about the Pokémon that originally had those abilities?  There’s no point in a Furfrou without Fur Coat, or a Darmanitan without Zen Mode, let alone some of the really mad stuff like a Wishiwashi without Schooling or a Shedinja without Wonder Guard.  A bunch of Pokémon have abilities that don’t particularly matter or aren’t very interesting, but I’m not convinced the implementation of a TM-like system that would be basically unusable by a pretty large fraction of all Pokémon is the way to fix that.

Crabrawler and Crabominable

Crabrawler.
Crabrawler

Today I would like to talk to you about crabs: specifically, Crabrawler and the delightfully named Crabominable (seriously, can we just take a minute to appreciate the wonderful tumbling rhythm of that name?).  In the process of writing this piece, I have learned (because learning obscure and not particularly useful zoological trivia is just part of what I do here) that evolution just really likes crabs for some reason, and consequently keeps trying to turn other random animals into crabs with mixed results, a process known as carcinisation.  Crabs have apparently evolved at least five separate times, from a variety of starting points (giving rise, surprisingly, to only two Pokémon before now: Kingler and Crustle, Crawdaunt being a lobster).  On the basis of this vague half-substantiated piece of pseudo-knowledge, I have decided that crabs are the ultimate form of life, to which all other species aspire.  Of course, Crabrawler and Crabominable have the advantage of already being there – so let’s see what the apex of all biological life has to offer the Alola region. Continue reading “Crabrawler and Crabominable” →