Missy's Game Shelf

I haven’t played this game since launch which is saying something. X and Y are not my preferred gen 6 games. I like Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire more, but with the announcement of a revisit to Kalos I decided to take a look at the game again. The game takes place 3000 years after a war and a giant weapon was used to basically destroy everything and now some Pokemon can Mega Evolve. Mega Evolution was a big deal some new forms and boosts to already powerful Pokemon sounded nice except I never really used or needed it. I was consistently 10 – 20 levels above my opponent and since the only Pokemon on my team that could Mega Evolve was strong enough without it I rarely used it. This was the generation that started that trend though. Pokemon this generation aren’t that interesting I liked Pokemon like the Flechling line, but others are pretty boring and over half the monsters is older Pokemon so monsters are hit or miss. The game is a fairly linear turn-based RPG and while it looks nice Omega Ruby also exists and somehow did everything this game did better. The starters aren’t great and the battles are easy. This was the introduction to Fairy-Typeing, but it doesn’t feel fleshed out and with it some Pokemon just a waste. It had a nice post game, but everything about this game is outclassed by games that came before and after. It remains a game with potential, but never hitting those marks one thing I can praise however, is presentation. In games after this when you hear about disasters happening all you are given is a newspaper talking about it or one boss fight in a desert where nothing can really happen. In this game you see houses toppled over, dust clearing after disasters, and the aftermath it was a nice change to just being told about something going on to you actually seeing it. As Pokemon’s first main series 3D game it really shows Pokemon at its best and worst it is an average game, but never gets past average.

With all the talk over Billy Mitchel, Jawdiwi’s, and Queenpwnzalot cheating recently I wanted to talk about the sheer toxicity these people can create. Is cheating, hacking, modding, or changing a game in some way bad? If you are doing it on your own or in single player games without any competition or contest then I think that is okay because you are only hurting yourself rather than anyone else, but the minute you are going online to play with others or as part of a competition that is crossing a line and I struggle to see how anyone can say that is a good thing. Take games like Among Us, Call of Duty, and Fall Guys all three have large audiences, but most won’t even bother playing anymore because hackers cheating at the game when a majority of players just want a fair round. I firmly believe hackers just want to skip actually getting good at a game and try and cheat their way to it and see the irritation, anger, and lack of fun they cause other players as a trophy they can brag to other hackers. I actually can’t play online games anymore due to games with legitimate players only looking for a good time eventually coming to an end thanks to these guys who can’t be bothered to give a fair win and in my opinion if you are willing to cheat people you don’t know online in a game what are you willing to do to people in real life to people you do know? There may not be consequences in the online space, but you can’t cheat people and get away with it.

The Billy Mitchel situation is well known he did cheat his scores and submitted them in a competition then lied about it. He did so to increase his popularity and financial position. The competition was only for authentic and approved Donkey Kong arcade cabinets, but it is widely believed that he used an emulator by the name of MAME. Emulators can change certain things about a game in this case the opening cutscene is choppy, the ability to move diagonally, and in some cases faster gameplay. Which on the original Donkey Kong only had four directions and a jump button thus the things MAME allows can be an advantage compared to other players. When questioned on any of this he tries to sue or hide his involvement. Many wrongly say he was the first to score a perfect score on these games. This is especially terrible towards Ginnis World Records and to be honest they are the worst source for gaming records and you are better off looking this up yourself. Even they were wrong to reinstate his scores due to a settlement lawsuit. Twin Galaxies also settled and his scores are only on their site when you access the ‘historical archive’ on their site. In my opinion it should be renamed to cheaters archive and is only named as such for legal reasons.

Jadiwi used a spliced Speedrun to try and cheat their way to specific bounties and clear a game in a given time. A splice is when someone does multiple runs and takes their best times for different parts then submitting it as a singular run. Bounties are money given for times in this case $6000 for a glitchless run of Pokemon Red done in 52 minutes. The thing about this is that all speedruns submitted to speedrun.com need to be verified and while Jadiwi got away with it before there was shade towards this run so moderators looked at this and the other runs and found several inconsistencies. Pokemon rarely has a speedrun cheater in fact this was the first major cheater in over a decade and understandably in that no one wants to accuse someone of cheating just for some things looking off, but when everything from NPC behavior to IVs of their Pokemon is off or a small chance entirely even healing her team at weird times that cost the run a few seconds so she wouldn’t attract attention to themselves and avoid getting a record run. They almost took $6000 from a more deserving runner who submitted the same month. Furthermore, the reason her splices were hard to detect was because she knows video editing to a certain degree and picked certain moments where it would be hard to detect to splice in better runs.

Queens cheating is still being covered, but in all honesty makes me question Asmolgold I know he isn’t an expert, but it should not be hard to figure out. Queen was attempting a blind run of a boss fight in Monster Hunter World. A couple of things caught my eye about it she was able to correctly dodge and pinpoint enemy attacks so she could see you could say specific sound ques for attacks, but how does she know the exact distance needed to dodge. Anyone doing a blind run usually takes a lot of damage during fights due to under correcting or overcorrecting positioning or goes for strategies that are a sure way to win in this case: lock on to ensure hits which she never uses or move out of range which she doesn’t just goes to a spot where the move won’t hit her. Furthermore, she is seen fixing her camera to face the boss this shouldn’t be necessary as if you are blind it doesn’t matter where the camera is. In fact people who have done blind runs sometime knock their camera and the entire run goes by staring at the ceiling the reason they don’t fix it is they don’t know it is. What makes it worse is she tried to cheat a second run of the same boss fight to prove something only to insult this community more.

Jobst, Karl. “This FAKE Blindfold Speedrun Fooled Everyone…” Youtube, uploaded by Karl Jobst, 29, February 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTLfU4ysKHg&t=1174s

Jobst, Karl. “Streamer Fakes Blindfold Speedrun For Clout” Youtube, uploaded by Karl Jobst,
19, February 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugT5eLpuwMo

Jobst, Karl. “Billy Mitchell Lost His Lawsuit” Youtube, uploaded by Karl Jobst, 16, January 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7mE1LkkOGg&t=53s

Abyssoft. “Caught Red-Handed: Streamer FAKES A Blindfolded Speedrun” Youtube, uploaded by Abyssoft, 29 February, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OlxQb0jT-w&t=16s

PulseEffects. “Biggest CHEATER in Pokemon Speedrun History Was Just Caught.” Youtube, uploaded by PulseEffects, 11, January 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px5fOalltXw&t=51s

So Ubisoft is trying to sell their new game without acknowledging how bad it actually is. The biggest problems lie in the fact that it just looks like they tried to copy Sea Of Theives and their own pirate themed game, Assassins Creed: Black Flag. More than that like Sea of Thievies it’s a live service, but knowing Ubisoft it won’t be as easy to connect in fact, I would be shocked if this wasn’t a way to scam more money out of people by forcing them to buy a U-Play Account. Also gameplay looks barebones compared to others in this genre. Yes, it did take Sea of thieves a long time to get its reputation, but comparatively even in its early state Skull and Bones has less. We all know how this will go Ubisoft will ignore all warnings and release regardless, then after players realize how little it has compared to Assassins Creed, Sea of Thieves, or even Raft the game will inevitably die due to lack of updates and low content, all the while Ubisoft makes profit off new U-play accounts being made. Basically, Square and EA’s current business models without drowning in lawsuits. I’m giving the game a max of 2 months before server shutdown and poor apology written by some PR guy or ChatGPT possibly both. Even if this isn’t connected to U-play (which I doubt) the poor looking gameplay is obvious. If you need an explorative pirate themed game Sea of Thieves is amazing with friends and only requires a STEAM account and Assassins Creed: Black Flag is at least polished and somewhat credited to being one of few games that did ocean exploration correctly inspiring others. If you don’t care for pirates and want a crafting exploration game set on the ocean play Raft and if you want adventure in the sea The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker is an amazing game. Several games already exist that look and play better.

“Ubisoft. Skull and Bones | Gameplay Overview Trailer.” Youtube, uploaded by Ubisoft, Jul 7, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgy4WZ9ta7E

Happy Valentines Day Everyone in celebration of today I decided to talk about a game that everyone loved, but I personally hate. Anyone complaining about how Scarlet and Violet crash too often I challenge you to play this. Monster Crown at launch I am so sorry you were stable in comparison. This game has been out for almost three years and hasn’t really improved. If you ever look up monster taming games Temtem comes up as a game that is recommended and I can’t actually see why.

Gameplay is you capture creatures and monsters to build your team and use them to fight. It uses a stamina mechanic similar to other games in the genre like Nexomon, but does everything wrong. You can use your moves if you don’t have enough stamina at the cost of health which is fine and unique, but the game has a lot of forced damage as moves themselves need to be ready before you can use them. This means while you could beat an opponent first turn often you have to wait 2-4 turns while taking damage and being careful about stamina, type effectiveness, and your own health so you don’t accidently take yourself out. The fast travel mechanic is a joke as well you don’t unlock it till the end of the game and it costs in game money to use as well as at that point you’ve already seen everything the game has to offer and the game would actually benefit from giving it to you early instead.

The story has no real meaning as any point that could have some impact like a major and unlikeable characters death while it might be treated with some kind of respect is taken away by that character coming back. For the record Nexomon and Coromon have original stories and unlikeable characters don’t overstay their welcome. While you could argue this game is still darker than most a lot of those darker moments have their impact ruined later on making it just another monster taming game with nothing added. Monster Crown tells a darker story, Nexomon has better creature designs, and Coromon just had a story overhaul that improves both flow and pacing. Three indie games in the same genre better than this all available on the same device at half the price each.

Temtems main marketing was it was released at a time when Pokemon was at a low, while it could compete with Pokemon so could others and it honestly fails when put up against other indie games. It’s only thing setting it apart is it is a MMO, but aside from the raids being annoying and all legendary monsters as prizes I didn’t see much value in it. Player vs. environment was just the main story and a battle frontier and the Player vs. Player was never used by me normally I at least try to capture all the monsters in these games, but with irritating combat, uninteresting creatures, and raids I refuse to do since I can’t use my own team in them it wouldn’t be worth it. To write this review I actively avoided comparing this game to Pokemon and see if it could stand on its own against other indie games, but it really can’t without the comparison it has poor gameplay, a terrible fast travel mechanic, and the game isn’t stable at all. Maybe the PC version is more stable or better but I really doubt it.

FANTASY LIFE 3DS

I thought I’d never get a chance to talk about this game. An amazing and charming game on the 3DS and easily one of my favorites, Fantasy Life released at possibly a pretty bad time in 2014. Given that several new releases and sequels came out so peoples attention was elsewhere. Despite this game not really getting the attention it deserves I still love it to this day and play it whenever I can. It did have a game for a short while on mobile devices that shut down and after no announcement of any kind of switch port or sequel for the longest time I felt that the series was just ending. Then while trying to find a similar game a forum post informed me that a sequel was in the future. I didn’t actually believe it and searched LEVEL 5’s and Nintendo’s Youtube channels finding the trailer posted to both.

Gameplay

The game is heavily centered on specific roles called lives. There are twelve in total split into three categories, Combat, Crafting, and Gathering. Each Life has specific challenges for the life chosen Woodcutters have different quests than Carpenters. That doesn’t mean you can’t cut down trees as another life, but you’re encouraged not to. Some quests specifically have certain buffs and abilities that can help in certain lives and roles and you also lose some experience points. Fortunately, Fast Travel is easy and you can switch the role at any point and the world resets when you sleep. Combat has four lives Paladin and Mercenary which focus on light and heavy attacks and Wizard and Hunter which focus on ranged attacks. The Gathering is focused on getting certain materials Miners get ore and gems, Woodcutters get wood, and Anglers get fish. Finally Crafting is where you can use all the materials you find during the other lives. It gets you stronger equipment, healing items, and better gear. Cook and Alchemist get food and medicine that can provide buffs, Carpenter is used for better weapons and furniture, Smithing is used for better armor and other weapons, and Tailor is used to make clothes and furniture like rugs and curtains, but in reality is the easiest way to make money since armor is more useful.

Conclusion

Despite this being a great game I feel like even now the developers are repeating mistakes. This year alone there are several sequels and well-established IP are releasing. So if this does release there is a chance that once again it will be overlooked in favor of other releases this year, but I will definitely be looking forward to it possibly more than other upcoming RPGs this year. Is it a perfect game? No, but it’s charming and enjoyable enough and has enough in it to make up for it’s faults.

Nintendo of America “FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time – Nintendo Direct 2.8.2023.” YouTube, uploaded by Nintendo of America, Feb 9, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iewOAF-MO8c&t=3s

LEVEL5ch【公式】. ” FANTASY LIFE i: The Girl Who Steals Time – 1st Trailer.” YouTube, uploaded by LEVEL5ch【公式】, Sep 16, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBNvg-1MC4E&t=13s

Mochi Mayhem is the epilogue for the Treasures of Area Zero DLC content for Pokemon. It also allows the player to invite the last three coaches to Blueberry Academy for more difficult battles. It also has the worst way of access to the content. First you need to connect to Mystery Gift, get the Mythical Pecha Berry, and fly to Kitakami where a plush has been added to Peachy’s store a cutscene will play and start the final quest in the game. There is no real indication you need to do this. As for the epilogue content much like Daybreak from Legends Arceus it only acts as the last chapter so not much added. Just the addition of the new Legendary Pokemon, Pecharunt. I think it will be a unique Pokemon to add to teams that use status conditions especially since if a Pokemon is poisoned its ability, Poison Puppeteer, adds confusion.

So given how short this review was I thought it would be fun to try and guess what Pokemon’s next game would be. Pokemon is known for easter eggs pointing to their next game and at the moment there are two very strong contenders for the next remake. These are the generation 5 games, Pokemon Black and White and their sequels set in Unova, or the generation 2 games, Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal set in Jhoto. While there is a lot pointing to one or the other I honestly think it will probably be both. I think a game with capture mechanics and gameplay similar to Legends Arceus or the Let’s Go games will release for the Jhoto region, while a more traditional remake will release for the Unova region. It wouldn’t make sense to promote both in the Indigo Disk DLC then do nothing with that. At this point it is only speculation with the Sports Ball making a return from the Jhoto region and the Blueberry Academy taking place in Unova it really could be one or the other, but it should be noted that Pokemon Go and Pokemon Masters have had recent events for Generation 5. So more than likely it will be a remake of the Unova games first as that will likely take less time given most of the plot is already written along with some way to get to areas in the sequel and be made on the same engine for Scarlet and Violet similar to how Pokemon regularly handles remakes. While a game focusing on capture will release for the Jhoto Region with its own mechanics will release later. I could be wrong, but at this point we just need to wait and see what else can come out. Shouldn’t be long February is next month and Pokemon has a trend of announcing new content and games every year around the 27th and 28th of February so news could come soon.

Hogwarts Legacy is one of the best Open World games I’ve played in awhile. Now to be fair I am certain there is ton of easter eggs and references to the Harry Potter franchise, but for the most part you can go in blind and still see almost everything the game has to offer. I never watched any of the movies or read any of the books, but still enjoyed the game. The Switch does have graphical limitations, but compared to other open world games on the system looks passable. There were quests and side activities that were far harder than they needed to be, but still doable. There are hundreds of collectibles and activities my least favorite was Summoners Court Questline not because it’s hard, but because of the lack of perception making it incredibly difficult for no reason. There are five parts in that questline and minigame and at first it is used as a tutorial level to teach the player how to bring faraway objects and enemies closer. After that it just becomes a nuisance. While it is a small part of the larger game that makes it stand out more other questlines that have multiple parts either are part of the main story or are more fun to do. While the exploration can feel limited at first as you explore the world the harder the challenges and since you can pretty much go anywhere without consequence it is more a matter of whether or not you are ready for harder fights or difficult quests. Another thing that seemed pointless was the limited gear slots. You can unlock more through the completion of Merlin Trials, but after awhile it becomes obvious that there are more Trials than slots to unlock thus making the vast majority of them just there for experience points. Gear can be upgraded and the various beasts can be cared for giving you materials. Another thing that seemed odd was you can only sell gear and beasts to the trader. You gain materials by rescuing beasts and caring for them and while a unique and fun concept. Aside from the novelty of interacting with these creatures especially with how much of the story is focused on the local poachers is wasted in its reward. I ended up having tons of materials that while yes, I could use them to upgrade serve no real purpose outside of being in my inventory.

I had fun with this game and I do think it is a legitimately great time when it does something right it pulls it off amazingly, but the flaws and annoyances stand out more. I still like and recommend this game especially if you like the world of Hogwarts and its universe.

Happy New Year Everyone I wanted to start this year talking about something I enjoy. Pokemon and a challenging game, I can honestly say I have attempted both of these Challenges and tried to see how far I would get. A Nuzlocke is a challenge where you can only capture the first Pokemon per area and route and you nickname all of them. While none of that is that hard the next part is difficult if a Pokemon faints it is considered dead and needs to be released. This is particularly hard if Pokemon are high level hatred over grinding as you need to consistently swap your team and sometimes protect members of your team in exchange for others. I managed to do well in a Nuzlocke, but experienced a full team wipe in Brilliant Diamond’s Victory Road when mixed with being tired and some bad luck ended that run.

The next Challenge I tried was a Clone Challenge where someone picks a Pokemon and sees if they can beat the game with a team of them. This forces the player to decide move-set and weaknesses as there are eighteen types you need to get through and you are limited to one or two. When I did my Clone Challenge I picked Pikachu and limited it to just 2 of them. While I did struggle I still had fun with it and managed to get better luck and beat all of base Violet with just remembering moves, TM usage, and over leveling. For Star Road levels I added a Pokemon that was low-level or would lose almost instantly as those require a third party member.

A lot of people may ban healing items, ban over leveling, or only allow one Pokemon. Honestly, I like these challenges because with Nintendo’s focus on family friendly content there is so little challenge so by making a few self-imposed rules to make things harder brings some difficulty that was missing that I feel other RPGs have.