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PugofCrydee
You want to know how I got these scars?
Phoenixx
Well-known member
Pokemon BDSP is out and I have to say I think I'm relieved I didn't end up pre-ordering it after all. I'm very disappointed to learn that there is zero Platinum content in these games and it's literally an exact copy of Diamond and Pearl, just updated for Switch. I mean, I guess there are some changes, but not too much from what I've read. Therefore not worth the brand new game price tag, imo. I bet you that they'll eventually release Platinum content as an add-on paid DLC by next year. 
But being a Pokemon fan, if they did do this I'd buy it. Because Platinum is my second most favorite game in the series.
I'll eventually get this game, but not right away like I was planning. I'm gonna wait for the price to drop some before jumping on board. Besides Legends Arceus is right around the corner with only two more months to go.
But being a Pokemon fan, if they did do this I'd buy it. Because Platinum is my second most favorite game in the series.I'll eventually get this game, but not right away like I was planning. I'm gonna wait for the price to drop some before jumping on board. Besides Legends Arceus is right around the corner with only two more months to go.
PugofCrydee
You want to know how I got these scars?
LoyalXenite
Well-known member
LoyalXenite
Well-known member
PugofCrydee
You want to know how I got these scars?
Phoenixx
Well-known member
Less than 7 days to go now. I'm excited for this one. I've spoiled myself with leaks, only images though, haven't spoiled the story at all for myself. But man, a whole new adventure!
In the meantime I have been playing a little Red Dead Redemption 2 here and there where I can. Feels good to pick up the Xbox again. I can definitely see all the hype with this game too, even with it being a few years old now. The world is beautiful, the details are fantastic, the story is quite good too. Definitely not a game I'll ever finish, but still fun nonetheless.
At first I wasn't optimistic about this "Arceus" game.... then I saw the Voltorb made of wood. You're damn right I'm buying it day one.
Phoenixx
Well-known member
Playing through Pokemon Legends: Arceus, I got through the first frenzied Pokemon and have a 3-star ranking so far, about 17 hours in. I still haven't even made it to the other area yet on the map as I've been taking things fairly slow and checking out as much as I can before moving on.
What I like so far:
- The formula change! I absolutely hate how it's taken them this friggin' long to actually come out with something different story-wise. I'm really enjoying it. It's fresh, it's different, it's not perfect, but it's still enjoyable.
- Toggling the HUD. That's pretty cool. I don't have it off often, but it's nice that the option is there because then you can take some pretty nice screenshots.
- Visible size differences in 'mons! Finally, some proper scaling of these pocket monsters! I like how you can physically see size differences in the wild, how some are itty bitty and others are much bigger. I especially like the alpha forms too and how big they can be.
- Missions. I really like the mission log and being able to take on as many as possible and work your way through them as you progress. I don't feel pushed by a story and I really like that. Not that I don't like having a main objective in a game, but it's just nice to have side quests and given the option to explore while still earning experience -- it gives a better change of pace and a nice break to the main story.
- Difficulty. So far this isn't a hard game, but there is a slight learning curve since it's an entirely different game. I like the fact that some 'mons are straight up ready to attack my face the minute they see me. Pokemon track you for a longer distance than I expected and I like that. The level scaling is on point too. You will run into some 'mons that are double your level or more if you try to engage in battle. You will find yourself running from that battle and sacrificing your poor little partner in the process. Oops, sorry little Zubat. One-hit KO'D by a cute Shellos that ended up being an angy boi and took him out with a freaking Ice Beam at that level.
- Music. Music in Pokemon games is always very good. 'Nuff said.
- The crafting system. I love the fact that I'm expected to craft my own pokeballs and medicine and such. I haven't purchased a single item in game yet despite having the option to. Why waste the money when I can collect everything I can on my explorations and then head back to camp?
- Evolving is a choice! Not that it wasn't a choice in the past, but it got so annoying being prompted to the evolution screen whenever you leveled up a Pokemon that was past it's evolution level without an Eviolite. Now you just have the prompt "Can Evolve!" and can choose to do so from the menu when you click on a Pokemon that can evolve. And with your Pokemon's skills and attacks being much stronger even starting out, you don't feel as weak if you choose not to evolve. I really love this option and so far I've only evolved half of my team.
What I don't like:
- The graphics. Yep. Gonna bitch about these graphics. Some of the textures are just plan awful and hard to look at. Some of the lighting/shading is terrible too. The sky is very pretty though. A++ for that.
- Frame rates. There are some parts where I found Pokemon in the distance just moving so slowly because the frame rate was so bad. I also saw a small glitch yesterday when playing where my character was on uneven land and their foot was moving(?) up and down like they were tapping their foot, but it wasn't an idle animation. Maybe a patch will fix this? No idea.
- The environment. Okay so I don't hate the environment. I actually really like how big everything feels. But that's the thing. All that vast space and it's just plain empty. If I'm far away, like looking over a cliffside, you don't see a single bit of movement from a farther distance. You don't see any Pokemon in the sky, none running across the land like you would expect. When you get closer to some areas trees, Pokemon, and such will just pop in. It just feels very half-finished. A part of me hopes they're keeping everything vastly empty to make room for a DLC or something, but I think that's just wishful thinking.
- Cut and paste behaviors. So there's basically two behaviors to expect when out and about. Scared pokemon and angry pokemon. Some pokemon straight up want to wreck your face, others will run/fly away as fast as they can the minute they see you. And of course alpha Pokemon are always pissed off and will want to kill you. I like this, but at the same time I wish they included more behaviors and some unexpected responses of certain Pokemon. I want to see a huge alpha Bidoof run from me because he's scared despite being 1/2 my size, and go try to hide behind a little tree or something and think he's succeeding at being hidden. I want to see a herd of Stantler, where a majority of them run, but one of them that's not an alpha decides to charge at me instead of run away. I want to see a puny little Starly look like he's flying away only to turn around and divebomb me or something. I don't hate what we got, but I just expected more variety.
- No abilities. I don't know why they took this out. Maybe because some abilities required held items (which you don't have in this game either, but I understand why and it doesn't bother me)? Even then they could've forgone those and just kept things like Thick Fat and Intimidate and such. This would've made for even more strategic gameplay.
- That half-finished feeling. What I just mentioned above, and basically with everything I've listed, I'm pretty disappointed with this graphically and how things run. It's not a hot mess, but it definitely could be better. I was not expecting this to be Breath of the Wild Pokemon. It seemed like that with the very first trailer last year, but since seeing more screenshots and videos, it became apparent that it wasn't the case and I was okay with that. That being said, I still think this game could've used another year of development. Add more 'mons and flesh out the environments more, fix the frame rate, add some freaking textures instead of copying and pasting patterns. Hell could've added in abilities too.
Regardless of the cons, this is overall a pretty great game and a nice refresh to the series. Definitely worth a play through.
What I like so far:
- The formula change! I absolutely hate how it's taken them this friggin' long to actually come out with something different story-wise. I'm really enjoying it. It's fresh, it's different, it's not perfect, but it's still enjoyable.
- Toggling the HUD. That's pretty cool. I don't have it off often, but it's nice that the option is there because then you can take some pretty nice screenshots.
- Visible size differences in 'mons! Finally, some proper scaling of these pocket monsters! I like how you can physically see size differences in the wild, how some are itty bitty and others are much bigger. I especially like the alpha forms too and how big they can be.
- Missions. I really like the mission log and being able to take on as many as possible and work your way through them as you progress. I don't feel pushed by a story and I really like that. Not that I don't like having a main objective in a game, but it's just nice to have side quests and given the option to explore while still earning experience -- it gives a better change of pace and a nice break to the main story.
- Difficulty. So far this isn't a hard game, but there is a slight learning curve since it's an entirely different game. I like the fact that some 'mons are straight up ready to attack my face the minute they see me. Pokemon track you for a longer distance than I expected and I like that. The level scaling is on point too. You will run into some 'mons that are double your level or more if you try to engage in battle. You will find yourself running from that battle and sacrificing your poor little partner in the process. Oops, sorry little Zubat. One-hit KO'D by a cute Shellos that ended up being an angy boi and took him out with a freaking Ice Beam at that level.
- Music. Music in Pokemon games is always very good. 'Nuff said.
- The crafting system. I love the fact that I'm expected to craft my own pokeballs and medicine and such. I haven't purchased a single item in game yet despite having the option to. Why waste the money when I can collect everything I can on my explorations and then head back to camp?
- Evolving is a choice! Not that it wasn't a choice in the past, but it got so annoying being prompted to the evolution screen whenever you leveled up a Pokemon that was past it's evolution level without an Eviolite. Now you just have the prompt "Can Evolve!" and can choose to do so from the menu when you click on a Pokemon that can evolve. And with your Pokemon's skills and attacks being much stronger even starting out, you don't feel as weak if you choose not to evolve. I really love this option and so far I've only evolved half of my team.
What I don't like:
- The graphics. Yep. Gonna bitch about these graphics. Some of the textures are just plan awful and hard to look at. Some of the lighting/shading is terrible too. The sky is very pretty though. A++ for that.
- Frame rates. There are some parts where I found Pokemon in the distance just moving so slowly because the frame rate was so bad. I also saw a small glitch yesterday when playing where my character was on uneven land and their foot was moving(?) up and down like they were tapping their foot, but it wasn't an idle animation. Maybe a patch will fix this? No idea.
- The environment. Okay so I don't hate the environment. I actually really like how big everything feels. But that's the thing. All that vast space and it's just plain empty. If I'm far away, like looking over a cliffside, you don't see a single bit of movement from a farther distance. You don't see any Pokemon in the sky, none running across the land like you would expect. When you get closer to some areas trees, Pokemon, and such will just pop in. It just feels very half-finished. A part of me hopes they're keeping everything vastly empty to make room for a DLC or something, but I think that's just wishful thinking.
- Cut and paste behaviors. So there's basically two behaviors to expect when out and about. Scared pokemon and angry pokemon. Some pokemon straight up want to wreck your face, others will run/fly away as fast as they can the minute they see you. And of course alpha Pokemon are always pissed off and will want to kill you. I like this, but at the same time I wish they included more behaviors and some unexpected responses of certain Pokemon. I want to see a huge alpha Bidoof run from me because he's scared despite being 1/2 my size, and go try to hide behind a little tree or something and think he's succeeding at being hidden. I want to see a herd of Stantler, where a majority of them run, but one of them that's not an alpha decides to charge at me instead of run away. I want to see a puny little Starly look like he's flying away only to turn around and divebomb me or something. I don't hate what we got, but I just expected more variety.
- No abilities. I don't know why they took this out. Maybe because some abilities required held items (which you don't have in this game either, but I understand why and it doesn't bother me)? Even then they could've forgone those and just kept things like Thick Fat and Intimidate and such. This would've made for even more strategic gameplay.
- That half-finished feeling. What I just mentioned above, and basically with everything I've listed, I'm pretty disappointed with this graphically and how things run. It's not a hot mess, but it definitely could be better. I was not expecting this to be Breath of the Wild Pokemon. It seemed like that with the very first trailer last year, but since seeing more screenshots and videos, it became apparent that it wasn't the case and I was okay with that. That being said, I still think this game could've used another year of development. Add more 'mons and flesh out the environments more, fix the frame rate, add some freaking textures instead of copying and pasting patterns. Hell could've added in abilities too.
Regardless of the cons, this is overall a pretty great game and a nice refresh to the series. Definitely worth a play through.
It looks like the game turns off animations for pokemons that are far enough away, and their position only updates every so many frames instead of every frame. I think it's supposed to be a performance optimization, but in my semi-informed opinion... I don't think it's a very effective one. Strange choice.
Overall I agree with everything you said. I was expecting a game that's a bit quirky but fun to play, and that's exactly what it is.
Two more minor negative points that I would add:
- Too much cutscene for my liking. Too much talking. Too many conversations where you'll talk to one person alone in a room, then two or three more people will appear out of nowhere to interject. This has been an issue with Pokemon for a few generations now. The stories aren't as interesting as GameFreak seems to think they are, so I wish they would knock it off. Streamline the story down to the essentials so people can spend more time exploring, battling, catching, and researching the Pokemon, and less time mashing A through generic JRPG dialog with boring characters. (Am I too harsh?) Note that this only applies to the main story. Side quests have been good so far.
- The worldbuilding is weird, at least so far. Pokemon has always had strange worldbuilding, but it's more noticeable in this game. I won't get into specifics because I'm still early on, and I don't want to assume that some of my questions won't be answered by the end. For now, it's just a bit meh.
Phoenixx
Well-known member
After playing Sun and Moon back when it came out, I have no problem with the cutscenes so far here. My god, Sun and Moon was terrible with the cutscenes and hand-holding. It ruined that Gen for me so bad I didn't even bother playing Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, not that it was much of a new game to begin with. Sword and Shield wasn't too much better, tbh, but I found the gameplay much more engaging since there was more to do.
Nope. Game Freak has been repeating this formula for years. I'm not always one to mind dialogue, especially if there's an engaging story behind it. But like you said, it's really not that interesting. Then again, also after playing Dragon Quest Builders 2 over the summer, the dialogue in this is nothing compared to that game. Holy hell was there a crap ton of dialogue in that game.
It's definitely different this time around. Not entirely sure how I feel yet about it either, but I'm also still early on in the game. We'll see how the story goes.
Additional complaint to add to my list that I forgot yesterday:
- Little character movement. You can dodge, you can crouch, you can walk while crouching, you can run, you can swim but not in super deep water for very long. That's about it. In a game where you're spending 99% of your time in the wilderness, I hate that my character can't jump or climb even the smallest of rocks or mountainous terrain. Or what little rocky terrain/banks/steep hills your character can walk up, it's extremely slow. You can't even run. I know, that's what the riding Pokemon are for, but you can clearly still have those to scale actual cliffsides and mountains, travel long distances, and traverse across lakes. Your character shouldn't have to be so limited at basic exploration without riding Pokemon.
Phoenixx
Well-known member
I've been watching quite a bit of Horizon Forbidden West and Elden Ring gameplay on Youtube recently. Really makes me wish I owned a PS5 but I'm still no where near ready for one, not that I could even buy one anyway if I had the money to spend.
Watching those videos has had me itching to get back into playing some open world games on the Xbox. The Microsoft store recently had a sale so I decided to get Dragon Age: Inquisition dirt cheap to try out. I know it's a nearly 10 year old game, but it's not too bad. It's held up well graphically, imo. So far I'm about 10+ hours into it. I definitely don't love it though. Some animations are janky and character models are not the prettiest. I've found some glitches where I can't complete some missions, including the one where I'm supposed to be able to have a horse. The game will not let me complete it for some reason. The story is incredibly vague and not all that enticing to me either. Fights get repetitive with hack and slash combat, and some mechanics are not explained at all and are left for you to figure out. Not always a bad thing as I don't always mind figuring things out on my own, but sometimes I find myself lost trying to do something and it takes me longer than I'd like to figure it out.
The detail of the world and settings and exploration are what keeps me coming back though. For a nearly 10 year old game, the environments are still very pretty and look great. I just hate that I cannot explore everywhere I want to due to in-game limitations (lots of random dams/tree blockages in the Hinterlands) and the fact that no one apparently knows how to climb at all. I also hate that the A button is assigned for so many actions that it gets annoying when I try to jump onto something, but instead I find myself talking to an NPC. A lot of the missions are pretty good, not too tedious nor too quick. Some are fairly easy, yet some have a difficulty spike which I like. There is a mission I currently found myself not being able to progress with as the demons emerging from the rift were 5 levels higher than me with some sort of immunity that prevented most of my team from attacking them and then they pretty much obliterated everyone in my party. Even with changing armor and weapons, I still couldn't proceed to finish that mission so I will have to come back to it later. I did like the fact though that despite the fact my team died, I still manage to fall a couple demons and got my hands on some nicer weapons that unfortunately I cannot use yet due to level restrictions. But hey, if I wanted to farm some rare stuff and build XP I could just keep coming back to this mission until it's actually done. I like that I'm at least rewarded for my efforts despite not being able to complete said mission.
Not sure how long I'll continue playing this though. Because there's such a vague story I imagine this will eventually become pretty dry and not something I'll be able to dive back into right away. It's currently scratching the itch for the time being anyways.
Watching those videos has had me itching to get back into playing some open world games on the Xbox. The Microsoft store recently had a sale so I decided to get Dragon Age: Inquisition dirt cheap to try out. I know it's a nearly 10 year old game, but it's not too bad. It's held up well graphically, imo. So far I'm about 10+ hours into it. I definitely don't love it though. Some animations are janky and character models are not the prettiest. I've found some glitches where I can't complete some missions, including the one where I'm supposed to be able to have a horse. The game will not let me complete it for some reason. The story is incredibly vague and not all that enticing to me either. Fights get repetitive with hack and slash combat, and some mechanics are not explained at all and are left for you to figure out. Not always a bad thing as I don't always mind figuring things out on my own, but sometimes I find myself lost trying to do something and it takes me longer than I'd like to figure it out.
The detail of the world and settings and exploration are what keeps me coming back though. For a nearly 10 year old game, the environments are still very pretty and look great. I just hate that I cannot explore everywhere I want to due to in-game limitations (lots of random dams/tree blockages in the Hinterlands) and the fact that no one apparently knows how to climb at all. I also hate that the A button is assigned for so many actions that it gets annoying when I try to jump onto something, but instead I find myself talking to an NPC. A lot of the missions are pretty good, not too tedious nor too quick. Some are fairly easy, yet some have a difficulty spike which I like. There is a mission I currently found myself not being able to progress with as the demons emerging from the rift were 5 levels higher than me with some sort of immunity that prevented most of my team from attacking them and then they pretty much obliterated everyone in my party. Even with changing armor and weapons, I still couldn't proceed to finish that mission so I will have to come back to it later. I did like the fact though that despite the fact my team died, I still manage to fall a couple demons and got my hands on some nicer weapons that unfortunately I cannot use yet due to level restrictions. But hey, if I wanted to farm some rare stuff and build XP I could just keep coming back to this mission until it's actually done. I like that I'm at least rewarded for my efforts despite not being able to complete said mission.
Not sure how long I'll continue playing this though. Because there's such a vague story I imagine this will eventually become pretty dry and not something I'll be able to dive back into right away. It's currently scratching the itch for the time being anyways.
PugofCrydee
You want to know how I got these scars?
Been playing Elden Ring. Very, very enjoyable. Apart from dying very, very often.. I enjoyed dark souls but always wanted it to be open world. ER takes care of that.
Phoenixx
Well-known member
So I'm dumb and didn't realize the mount horse action was in the same action menu where you heal.
But regardless I think it is strange to have to go to a menu to call a horse to mount, which randomly shows up out of the blue. Not to mention that I find the controls a little cumbersome and the travelling really isn't all much faster. 
Not sure if this is just the horse or if other creature mounts are quicker.
LoyalXenite
Well-known member
I've been playing Horizon Forbidden West (On my PS4, I also dont have a ps5
) I've been loving it, enjoying it probably on par with how much I enjoyed the first one in many ways
MollyBeGood
Well-known member
The horses in RDR2 are pretty sweet
LoyalXenite
Well-known member
Very keen for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, it comes out on my birthday so I definitely am thinking I can justify the spend 
I started replaying botw a while ago to get back into the mood for it but I havent had as much time or focus for gaming lately so havent gotten around to finishing it again yet, may not end up doing it before the second one is out but I figured its not cheating to skip it since I've already finished it a couple times
I started replaying botw a while ago to get back into the mood for it but I havent had as much time or focus for gaming lately so havent gotten around to finishing it again yet, may not end up doing it before the second one is out but I figured its not cheating to skip it since I've already finished it a couple times