Pac's Place - Games and other stuff

[Brinolovania]

Yes, this logo is dumb. No, i'm not changing it.

 

Greetings, friends! What you see here is a blog thingy that your friendly neighborhood me decided to make. Just like it says on the box, I'll mostly be writing about games, mainly League of Legends and Hearthstone. However, I may end up writing about other random stuff when I get in the mood. As for my update schedule, it probably won't be anything consistent. I'll basically update on a schedule of "whenever I feel like it", which may well be relatively frequently if I get ideas. Anyway, I do believe that's enough of an intro...

 

[spoiler=Previous posts]

Entry #1: The "Y" Factor (Pokemon Y Review)

[/spoiler]

[Brinolovania]

Entry #1: The "Y" Factor

 

Warning: This is a very long post. Like, 2,000 words long. Get a snack or something, you'll probably need it.

 

Well met, citizens of YCM! For my first blog post, I’m going to talk about a game I recently completed, Pokemon Y. This will contain spoilers, although I’m guessing most of you have either played X/Y by now, aren’t going to, or assumed there would be spoilers anyway. I’m going to do this in sections, and each will have its own tl;dr for the lazy (they’re actually mostly for my own amusement, and are really not helpful in any way). Right then, on to reviewing!

 

[spoiler=Game Mechanics]

I don’t know if this is the best title for this section, but whatever. I’ll start with what’s probably the biggest change X/Y brought: The EXP Oprah (see it’s funny ‘cause “You get exp and YOU get exp, you ALL get exp!”). A lot of people have complained that giving all of your Pokemon experience at once makes you level up too fast, thus making the game too easy. And ya know, they’re probably right. I did use the EXP Share for my entire run because I’m a motherfucking casual, and I actually outlevelled about half of the gym leaders. This is significant because I NEVER outlevel anything past the first 2-ish gyms, because I’m too lazy to grind. Getting to the E4 with my team 5-7 levels below them is pretty common for me, which made it quite weird when I was only 1-2 levels down in this game. So yeah the EXP share makes the game a lot more easier than it should be. I only managed to keep it somewhat even by actively trying to avoid every trainer I could.

 

I haven’t used it too much, but Super Training is really nice. Made my Chespin all OP like, which was cool. I was too lazy to do it for my entire team, but I may well end up using it a lot if I start breeding competitive Pokes. It takes time, but it’s one hell of a lot easier than killing a million Bidoofs to get your HP EVs. Amie also seemed OK, but again, laziness. Besides, who needs friendship when you have an EXP Share on crack? =D

 

The pacing was a bit off, too. The gap between the first and second gyms was huge, and then going between the rest of them was pretty quick. It would have been nice to spread them out a bit more evenly, if only so I could’ve listened to the battle music a second time a bit sooner.

 

O-Powers also exist. I haven’t used them yet. Mr Bonding is a creepy fuck and I want him to leave me alone QQ.

 

There’s probably more to talk about here but I can’t think of anything, so let’s move on!

 

tl;dr: Oprah needs to GTFO

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[spoiler=Plot]

I think I let White raise my standards waaaaaay too much.

 

Like, I know I shouldn’t expect much from Pokemon games, but I guess I’m subconsciously wanting everything to be on the level of moral questions and plot twists and fabulous green hair. I like it when games have a good plot to them (that’s why I suffered through Mystery Dungeon), so Y was a bit disappointing, especially since it could have been a lot better. AZ could have been a pretty cool character, if it weren’t for the fact that you learn almost nothing about him. How did he make a machine that could revive the dead? How did he convert it into a death ray capable of wiping out everyone on the planet? How did he live 3,000 years? How did his Pokemon live 3,000 years? How did he get to be like 10 feet tall? Why did he not get his own battle music. And assuming the answer to all of those questions (except the last one) is Xerneas/Yveltal, why did they decide to help him? Being mysterious is OK, but SOME sort of explanation would have been nice.

 

I also this it would’ve been nice to have Lysandre revealed as the leader of Team Flare earlier, so that the battles with him would be a bit more spread out. Facing him 3 times in the span of an hour, when his team barely changed, beyond two of them magically evolving somehow. That being said, Lysandre and Team Flare did succeed in being the only leader and team that legitimately made me mad. It wasn’t until the part after Lysandre came out of the evil guy closet, but even so. Him talking about killing everybody, and the rest of Flare making him out to be some kind of hero actually made me kind of angry. And of course, his space laser suicide was cool, and I did enjoy the final battle segment.

 

Remember how I talked about White raising my standards for plot? And remember how in Black and White, Alder was out doing stuff and helping you? And how the champion always did that in every game prior to B2/W2? Yeah, Diantha is a lazy shit who doesn’t do anything. She’s similar to Iris, in that regard. Both of them showed up, like, twice in their respective games, and didn’t do anything particularly important. And out of the two of them, Iris is a bit better, because she did some stuff in the earlier games (well, at least she did in White), and her music and stage were better too, IMO. Diantha just seemed pretty random and bad. Likewise, almost none of the gym leaders mattered at all, except Korrina. At least in previous games, some of them actually do stuff besides lose and throw a badge at you.

 

Lastly, the fact that you had four friends around you, combined with Pokemon’s less than stellar character development, means that you’re gonna have some pretty boring friends. There should have been less, I think. Like, Tierno and Trevor did nothing at all, and could have been removed from the game without affecting anything. At least Shauna was actually with me for some stuff and did SOMETHING (gotta get dat door open, guys), and of course Serena had to be there because she’s the rival. Why did all 5 of us get honored in the parade thing, by the way? I’m the one who’s the friggin’ champion, captured Yveltal, and actually stopped Lysandre. I guess Serena can be there because she did help a bit, and maaaaaaybe Shauna, but Tierno and Trevor should just get out of my life. It also feels like the game is trying to ship me with Shauna, and I wish it would stop. If it’s gonna ship, it could at least be with Serena. She’s not completely useless.

 

tl;dr: I complain too much. Also, B/W master race.

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[spoiler=Important Battles]

The worst part about fighting Lysandre three times so close together was that he sucked ass all three times.

 

I’ve only actually played gens 4 and 5, so my personal experience is limited, but even Cyrus was harder than this scrub. The biggest problem was that his team had no real out to the legendary. In the final battle, I very nearly won by doing nothing but mashing Oblivion Wing, and I would have if Pyroar hadn’t gotten some burn hax. Seriously, his lead is weak to both Xerneas and Yveltal. Pyroar doesn’t really do anything. Honchkrow is equally useless, and even straight up is weak to Xerneas, as is Gyarados. Let’s look at B/W again. You get to use Reshiram or Zekrom, but N has the other one to fight it, and a full team backing it up. Then Ghetsis has a very strong team, including a Hydreigon that’s higher levelled than the legendary dragon you have. I had pretty epic battles against both of them, and actually had to use my full team to win. Lysandre? Not so much.

 

The gyms and rival seem pretty average, so I’m gonna move on to the Pokemon League. Here’s what I have to say: The Pokemon league sucked major Metapod. My Blastoise smashed the Fire lady, with just a bit of help. Lucario straight up swept the Dragon and Steel ones. The only one that was remotely hard was Water, and that was only because of Gyarados. Diantha herself was very disappointing too. Her team wasn’t particularly threatening. Even Gardevoir just got smashed by by Chesnaught. And like I said earlier, Iris’ stage and music were better. This is why Cynthia should just be the champion of every region.

 

tl;dr: More B/W master race

[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Graphics and Music]

Finally, something I don’t need to complain about! It’s pretty obvious that the graphics are going to be nice on one of these schmancy 3 Dee mini X-Box whatevers. It did make the battles feel more epic, and a lot of the moves looked great. I felt like a total boss every time I say the pink swirlies when Lucario mega evolved. The Elite Four chambers were very cool, especially the water guy, although Diantha’s was mediocre. Plus, characters actually have expressions occasionally?! This is witchcraft.

 

Most of the music was quite good, too. I don’t think there was anything I thought was particularly bad, although the normal trainer battles and wild battles seems a little too “intense” sometimes. Also, the Lysandre Labs music was really weird and IDK if I like it, and I’ll reiterate for the third time, Diantha’s theme wasn’t as good as Iris’. But like I said, it was mostly really good. Highlights include the Pokeball Factory, Route 15, Gym Leader/Korrina, Sycamore, Yveltal/Zygarde, and Team Flare.

 

tl;dr: Ya dun good, Game Freak

[/spoiler]

[spoiler=The Postgame…]

...didn’t exist.

 

tl;dr: ...sucked.

[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Other stuff]

I really liked some of the game’s random little things. The PR videos are a lot more fun than they should be. I mean, I spent 5 minutes of my life making a video that was a bunch of shots of me walking with hearts everywhere and corny music. What could possibly be better? Actually, I’ll tell you what: the fact that you can CHANGE YOUR PANTS! Seriously, I was way more excited than I should have been to get new clothes for my character. Dude looks pretty good now, though. This has also added some post game content for me, as I embark on an epic journey to make my guy look as feminine as possible.

Some of the randomer littler things were nice too. I mean stuff like sitting on benches, being able to talk to people while on benches, the fact the you bend down to talk to little kids, rollerblades, the glorious <1 second save time, Shauna frantically spinning her arms while running away from Team Flare (the one time she was actually useful!)... The designers really used the fancy graphics well to add it the small details that make the game feel more complete.

 

tl;dr: I put on new pants and filmed me in them, 10/10

[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Finally almost done! Concluding thoughts]

All in all, I’d say Y was fairly disappointing, but I still enjoyed it. While it did have a lot of problems, primarily being so easy, it was still not that bad compared to the average Pokemon game, and I was able to make it a bit harder by avoiding insignificant battles. The music was nice and there was some fun stuff to do, and the final series of fights against Team Flare was pretty cool, even if the plot was lacking and Lysandre was a noob. Not having much of a post-game was a pretty big letdown, though. At least the easier competitive breeding might make up for it. And I’ll certainly replay the game at some point, so that will probably be fun, especially if I actually catch more than 1 Pokemon and don’t use the EXP Share so much. Overall, I’d describe Y as a bad/mediocre game that I found enjoyable to play anyway.

 

tl;dr: 7.8/10, too much exp.

[/spoiler]