Zorua

So a few days ago, I tried to boot up RuneScape for the first time in a while. I wouldn't have cared much about how many days since I'd logged in last if it was any other number than 1248. The little powers of two thing kinda tickled my brain a bit. Anyway, I tried to play a bit, but it kept crashing on me. My graphics card drivers are apparently horribly out of date. Anywho, Splatoon again. Splatfest next week! Themed around the upcoming Splatoon Raiders. Which playstyle do you favor? Speed, Power, or Tactics? Quick movements to avoid damage and perform hit-and-run attacks? Powerful attacks to decimate the enemy? Or tactical fighting with traps or battlefield control? Pick your team. As for Salmon Run mode, I finally got the best achievement. I. Dethroned. a Triumvirate! Which, to reiterate, is where all three King Salmonids attack at the same time. While they all have reduced HP to compensate, you still have to deal with all of their attack patterns at the same time, which can get pretty chaotic. Cohozuna (or Coho for short) is perhaps the easiest to deal with. He is large and lumbering, but he is one giant hitbox. He'll slowly lumber towards you, occasionally flopping forwards to try and squish you. Sometimes he will leap up into the air to slam down on another part of the map, usually trying to land close to a fighter that's too far away. The key to taking him down solo is to just...unload on him. Shooting him with your guns or launching Golden Eggs at him. Just blast him. Horrorboros (or Boris) is a long, serpentine enemy that flies up into the air. He charges up a projectile in his mouth to throw at you, and where it lands becomes the center of a big explosion. He takes more damage if hit in the orb when it's charging, and less damage if you hit him in the body. Shooting the orb until it bursts is the key to defeating him. Some weapons have enough range to reach, but for everyone else, you have to use your specials or the egg cannon. Megalodontia (or Joe (his code name was revealed as "jaw" and people misread it as "Joe", so...)) is the hardest to defeat. When you only have 100 seconds in a wave, he spends a good 40 of that in a position where you straight-up cannot touch him. He hides under the surface, targets a player, and then launches up to eat everything in his radius. It's a pretty sizeable radius. It's also an instant kill on any player...and any Boss Salmonid, so luring him to piles of enemies is a good way to take out a bunch at once. Like Boris, Joe has a defined weak point, a large spot on his back. Hitting it deals more damage, while body shots do less. This weak point also points in the direction of where Joe emerged from the ground last, so you can lure him to places to make sure his weak point is accessible to the team. After a moment, he will target another player and return to the ground, out of reach of everyone's attacks, to prepare for another bite. During a Triumvirate, all three appear at once. Joe is crucial to clearing this mode as he deals damage to Coho and instantly pops Boris's bubble. Finding a way to hit both Coho and Boris with one of Joe's attacks is the ideal strategy. Triumvirate waves also force you to use Grizzco weapons Through all of this, we were on Bonerattle Arena (the same stage I got VP 600 and 999 on in previous posts) on high tide, where the water level is higher and thus the number of places we can stand without dying is reduced. Boris was the first to go. We (meaning everyone else) lured Joe to take out Boris first (I lured him towards Coho). Any opportunity we had was spent blasting Joe in the back, so when Boris was gone, Joe had the lowest health bar, so we prioritized finishing him off. After that, it was basically a regular Coho wave, and we trounced him with time to spare! Achievement Unlocked: Not Bad At Video Games. On the subject of Minecraft, my current plan is to update my main world to the latest snapshot and go to some specific coordinates in the Nether, so that I can access a Sulfur Cave and the new Dappled Forest biome, giving me the Cinnabar, Sulfur, and Poplar Wood block sets. The main drawback is I have to dig through a lot of Netherrack again. I am planning on making proper tunnels through the Nether, so this will work on getting that started, but it's still a ton of Netherrack that I do not have the storage space for. It's worth it to get the new stuff, though. I also have to partially move a tunnel I already built, because I made a decision regarding where to put it that I already regret, which means I need to dig a whole new tunnel again. *annoyed sigh*

BIG Big Run has come and gone, and I was able to participate. To reiterate, Big Run is where Salmon Run happens on regular multiplayer stages, and BIG Big Run has Salmon Run happen on all six stages that Big Run has ever took place on, picking one of the six at random every shift. BIG Big Run also forces the weapons on rotation to be nothing but the intentionally overpowered Grizzco Weapons. So how did I do? Day one of my participation, I focused on getting the gold medal prize, awarded if my work crew got 135 golden eggs in one shift. It took a while, but I was eventually able to pull that off. Day two was just continuing for fun and seeing if I could kill the Triumvirate, which is all three King Salmonids at the same time. Sadly, I was not able to dethrone the Triumvirate (it came very close one time), but I did rack up some more kills on two of the three. As for my actual high score? I managed to set it at 194 in one shift. That's awesome! The stage it happened on (Barnacle & Dime) is easily my absolute favorite Salmon Run stage (yes, more so than the one I got VP 999 on), and I wish we could play on Big Run maps in custom lobbies. I think it's official. I am no longer bad at video games. ...naturally, going into regular Turf Wars after, I was unable to hit a guy with my preferred weapon. Stupid Inkbrush users and your naturally fast roll speed, casually dodging around me at point blank. I hate Inkbrush users. He was probably laughing at me. I didn't get graduate from the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy for nothing, you know! Brush verses Tri-Stringer in close quarters is a bad matchup. I need more practice hitting moving targets. I'll just be keeping my title of "Panicking Noob", if you don't mind...

So I hopped into Minecraft for the first time in a hot minute. Decided to set up a big farm for sugar cane and rig it so it's always loaded. ALWAYS. My next main goal is creating a tunnel in the Nether to get to the place I set it up. Which is over 2000 blocks away in the Nether. Ordinarily I'd fly there, but I'm trying to make a clearly labeled pathway. It does mean I have a lot of Netherrack, though, so I might need a new storage system just for Netherrack. In Splatoon news, the next Big Run is gonna be a... BIG Big Run? That's right; the Big Run event will happen on all six multiplayer stages Big Run has ever took place on. The Salmonids are out in force this time!

Minecraft news! 26.2 Update: Chaos Cubed Release date: June 16! Right around the corner! A Minecraft Movie Sequel title has been revealed: A Minecraft Movie Squared. Kirsten Dunst has been cast as Alex. Minecraft Dungeons 2 Confirmation that there will be stuff involving the Deep Dark biome and the Warden New boss version of the Warden. It's a good thing Minecraft Dungeons isn't in first person because the Warden by itself is bad enough; I don't want to deal with a kaiju version. 26.3 Update No official title yet. Dappled Forest biome, a cold biome containing new trees Poplar Trees, which generate with three different leaf colors: red, orange, and yellow. We finally have autumn trees! Poplar wood type, which is gray. Comes with all the fixings. Mixes well with stone, from the looks of it. Red Shrubs, a nice red plant that stays red no matter which biome you place it. Shelf Mushrooms, a new decorative plant that generates on the side of logs. Neat. Little tiny touch-ups to the world. Adds ambience, and you know builders are gonna find some creative uses for it. Like...I dunno, shelves. Abandoned Campsites, a new structure. A little improvised tent made of wool and wooden fences, with campfires and chests. Like someone just made a little campsite to sleep for the night. Might also be decayed with cobwebs and leaves growing into it. I like these little touches of worldbuilding. Wool Stairs and Wool Slabs! The ability to turn wool blocks into stairs and slabs! People have wanted this for a while now! We can finally have the red carpet run up the staircases! Couches made out of wool instead of wood! More colorful decorative options for construction! I haven't updated my world to 26.1 yet, but I'm looking forward to everything. In other news, I managed to get into a Splatoon match with a confirmed YouTuber. This is the second time it's happened, and the first time while they were streaming. He splatted me, I splatted him, my team won the match, I found their stream and took a screenshot of me and the other three randos on my team styling on him in the victory screen. Neat. Video proof that I'm not cod-awful at video games. [Edit]: I think I ended up with a twitch streamer too a couple matches later. I switched to Twitch as fast as I could and saw my name in the match results on their video for like a second before they moved on. I can't rewind and get a screenshot of their feed, so all I got is my own results screen and replays. He was on my team this time.

Last week's rotation might have had the biggest jump in one run, from VP 40 to VP 935, but this rotation was the one that finally took me to the top. Rotation data: 5/25 3:00AM - 5/26 7:00PM; Stage: Bonerattle Arena; Weapons: Tri-Slosher, Splattershot Jr., Heavy Edit Splatling, Snipewriter; King Salmonid: Horrorboros. I'd reached VP 400 on this stage before (and Boris was the King Salmonid back then too), which means that every time this stage rolled up since then, it started me at VP 200 rather than VP 40. And surprisingly, this weapon rotation worked better for me than the last one I talked about. I actually managed to make it all the way to VP 999 this time! It feels great! I think I'm actually getting good at video games. Now to do so on the other six stages, two of which I haven't even reached VP 200 yet.

The last Salmon Run rotation (5/18, 11am to 5/20, 3am on Sockeye Station) is literally the best I've ever done in Salmon Run, ever. The weapons are the Dapple Dualies, Mint Decavitator, Big Swig Roller, and Hydra Splatling. I'm better at the Dapples and Big Swig than the other two, but I've had good luck with the Hydra in Salmon Run before, and the Decavitator (a sword) isn't too hard to get used to. Because I hadn't made any real progress playing on this particular map before, I started at the highest 'no badges' pay grade for this map: Eggsecutive VP +40. As of the end of the map rotation, I reached Eggsecutive VP +815, peaked at VP +935, and have cleared a shift at maximum difficulty level. This was a really good rotation for me. The Hydra gave me the most trouble, though; I died the most when I had this one. I got so close to VP +999. Going from VP 40 to VP 935 in one rotation, with ever-increasing difficulty, sitting at the highest difficulty for the last bit of that? I don't think I can top that.

Splatoon just wrapped up its latest Eggstra Work last weekend. Eggstra Work is an occasional Salmon Run mode that consists of five waves per shift instead of three, lets you keep one weapon through all waves instead of switching from each wave, and has a difficulty that increases each wave rather than being the same difficulty for the whole shift. Difficulty goes up depending on how many Golden Eggs you get for each wave; meeting quota keeps it even, getting 1.5x quota ups difficulty by 30%, and getting double quota ups it by 60%. You start at 60%, which is just barely enough to get double quota but is really easy to do. Since enemy spawns appear to be fixed at certain difficulty levels, it becomes very easy to know exactly where enemy spawns are. However, the more you familiarize yourself with spawn locations, the easier it is to bank more eggs, thus the easier it is to increase your difficulty for the next wave and have to learn the new difficulty's spawns. It's really meant to be played over the entire weekend to get that sweet high score, and I simply do not have the time for that. I did get the bronze medal at least.

Hit another milestone in Splatoon: I managed to get the Inkline Tri-Stringer to 5 stars. It is officially my second most-used weapon, and it's absolutely gonna pass the Enperry Splat Dualies as my main. In Turf Wars and Splat Zones, anyway. The other modes are still gonna have the Enperrys. I'm in the process of leveling up my gear. Once each piece of gear gains enough 'experience', so to speak, one of its ability slots is rolled, which gives me an ability that affects my stats. I'm trying to fill all three ability slots on every piece of my gear. It'll definitely take a while, especially since I found a bunch of gear I'd missed before. When you get gear that doesn't have three ability slots, you have to add them in through some other method. One is waiting for that gear to return to the shop and buy it again with more slots, which can take forever waiting for that last one. The other is using a Splatfest-exclusive currency at a different merchant. With all of the gear I had that didn't have three slots, it took me from 144 of that currency down to 71. Fortunately the last few pieces of gear to obtain already come with three ability slots. Unfortunately they're also the hardest to get because they need another in-game currency that takes forever to get. Literally the best-case scenario is you get 13 of this currency at a time every five rounds of Salmon Run, and that's a huge skill check right there. And I need 5,200 of this currency to get everything. So that'll take a while. And I can't level up my gear during Salmon Run either. I've also partly solved my monitor problem. Since my Switch has a headphone port, I'm using the monitor that doesn't have a headphone port for my Switch and the one that does for the PC. Incidentally, the one that doesn't have a headphone port also has better color balance. Which is a little off-putting since I kinda got used to playing the extremely colorful Splatoon game on the worse color-balance monitor; everything looks oversaturated now. =/ In unrelated news, I played something other than Splatoon or Pokemon for the first time in a while. My brother is interested in doing the Portal 2 Co-op levels, so I checked to see if my copy was still installed. And I thought, 'while I'm here, I may as well just beat the game, yeah?'. On a related note, I should really publish some of those level editor levels I made.

And once again I keep falling behind. Ah well. Splatfest results! The 2026 SpringFest has come and gone. Team Baby Chicks, Team Li'l Bunnies, and Team Bear Cubs had it out in a battle of fuzzy fluffiness, and the Bear Cubs managed to claw out a victory! I was on Team Li'l Bunnies, but the luck just wasn't in our feet this time. Meanwhile I'm trying to level up my gear. Which would be great. If we were winning. Which we could. If members of my team would actually play, instead of faffing around doing f[TWEET!] all. Quit squid partying and cover turf already! I want my team to hold my casket at my funeral so they can let me down one last time.

New Minecraft news. The Tiny Takeover update, which massively updates the models for every baby mob in the game, will be released on March 24th. After that, the next update, Chaos Cubed, will contain: New Biome: Sulfur Caves, a new cave biome. Always fun finding new stuff underground. Sulfur blocks and Cinnabar blocks, new yellow and red blocks for building. They have full block sets too: regular, brick, and polished variants with slabs, stairs, and walls. I've already heard people calling these the McDonalds blocks. Potent Sulfur, which generates bubbles when underwater. This causes the Nausea effect to players that get in them. That'll make the "How Did We Get Here?" achievement easier to get, I guess. (that's the one where you need to have literally every effect applied at once) The Sulfur Cube, a new mob. Normally it just bounces at you, but if you give it a block, it absorbs that block, stops moving, and now has physics. You can knock it around by hitting it, and its properties change depending on the block. Wool makes it floatier, Iron makes it heavier, Logs make it bouncier, Ice makes it slidier... There's so many minigame possibilities like golf or ice hockey. It looks fun! Back in Splatoon, I wish there was a Salmon Run rotation on the Marooner's Bay stage where the weapons weren't dogsh[TWEET!]. (although I did just get a kill on the hardest King Salmonid with one player disconnected on that map, so... skill issue?)

A bit late (I'm bad at this). I found a solution to my PC's audio problem. While trying to do something that has nothing to do with video games, so...bonus. I tried plugging my headphones into the computer's speaker port, however that port kept recognizing the headphones as a microphone instead. I tried searching the internet, and something somewhere suggested that the monitor might have an audio port? So I checked, and...sure enough, one of my monitors does indeed have an audio port. So now I just have my headphones plugged into my monitor, and it works fine. Hooray! Now I can play games on my PC with audio again! Octopath, Celeste, RuneScape, Portal, No Man's Sky, Minecraft... (downside is I have to rework my monitor setups a bit, but that's minor) In actual video games, I've completed a base-game post-game thing that I honestly should've done a while ago. Finishing it has unlocked 6-star Tera Raids, which have stronger opponents (level 90 and with even larger health bars) but better rewards. It's also unlocked the ability to participate in Nintendo-hosted 7-star Tera Raids, which are level 100 with even more health. I haven't touched either of them. I still have difficulty with 5-star raids. At the moment, there are very few Pokemon I need to complete the Pokedex. Literally just four for the base game, one for the first DLC, and five (well, four plus the bonus mythical) for the second wave. All except three of those (all of which are for DLC wave 2) are exclusive to Pokemon Scarlet. I've been hoping to get them in surprise trades (send something out there, get something back, you have no idea what you're gonna get, it's full of hacked Shiny Pokemon with websites for nicknames), which has borne fruit for most of the version exclusives. The main downside is three of those things are one-per-game: the box legendary plus two exclusive static encounters, so it's unlikely that people are just going to yeet those into the wild. I'll have to...*gulp*...socialize. *dun, dun, DUUUUN* (or just use some room codes the community agreed upon like three years ago and pray someone is still using them). (it also means I'll probably need to nab a second copy of the Violet exclusive static encounters so I don't lose the ones I have) In other news, I think I've become a shiny hunter.

Yesterday was Pokémon Day, and we got a Pokémon-centric Nintendo Direct to celebrate. Here's all the highlights. The overall theme of the 30th Anniversary is "Every Pokémon is Someone's Favorite". A special 30th anniversary logo was made featuring a Pokémon. Which Pokémon? Take your pick. There's one-thousand and twenty five of them. More than that, thanks to regional forms! Give big props to the art team; even if most of it was just moving and recoloring assets, over a thousand images is still a lot of work, and even then it looks like brand new art for all the Pokémon themselves. I think it's neat that the Voltorb lines outright replace the 0 with the Pokémon itself. They had fun with it, for sure. Pokémon music player. It looks like the original Game Boy, and each individual music track is a separate cartridge. That's a big and obvious money grab (at least there's a box set, though), but it also seems kinda neat that they're still making dedicated music player devices instead of just 'put it on the app'. PokémonXP and the Pokémon World Championships will be held at the Chase Center, and it'll be bigger and better than ever. The Pokémon Trading Card Game will... have something. Way to be descriptive, guys. Pokémon GO will have a lot of older Pokémon brought back, and showing up all at once no less. If you still play Pokémon GO, this is a chance to grab a lot of variety you may have missed in the past. Red from Pokémon Red and Green (1996) is coming to Pokémon Masters EX. Florian and Juliana from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet also get new Sync Pairs with Ogerpon and Terapagos, respectively. Pokémon Café Remix will have a roundup of all the Starter Pokémon from each region starting today. Mew Missions in Pokémon Sleep. And possibly a tease at Latias and Latios? Pokémon Unite will get Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres as new playable characters. Meganium, Typhlosion, and Feraligatr are also planned for the future. Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket will get the Paldean Wonders card packs added to its list. So now we can have Gen 9 Pokémon in the mobile card game too. Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness will be added to the Switch 2 Game Cube library. Who doesn't like Shadow Pokémon, canonically stealing Pokémon from other Trainers (for a good cause, I can assure you), and the Miror B. Battle Theme? Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen are now available for purchase on the Nintendo Switch eShop. Experience the wonders of Gen III, predating most of the modern quality-of-life features. You'll eventually be able to transfer Pokémon from them to Pokémon HOME, though you can't send them back. Pokémon Champions, the dedicated Pokémon battling game along the lines of Pokémon Stadium and Pokémon Battle Revolution, will be released this April. All of the new Mega Evolutions in Pokémon Legends Z-A will be compatible. Mega Garchomp Z will be available in Pokémon Legends Z-A. New characters and features for Pokémon Pokopia: Rotom (Stereo Form). This character, named DJ Rotom, can play any music CD given to it. With classics from across the series from the original Kanto Route 3 theme from Red and Green to the music of the Academy in Scarlet and Violet. There's also a cooking mechanic. A Greedent named Chef Dente will teach the protagonist how to make meals. Some dishes even offer powerups. You can visit other players' towns in multiplayer. Up to four players can hang out and even play hide and seek. You can also functionally play Prop Hunt, since you're playing as Ditto. Enjoy! And finally, the big reveal, confirming the leaks. Generation 10 is here! First of all, the game looks gorgeous. The lighting engine, the water physics, just...it looks phenomenal. Nice tropical-looking region. Based on the leaks, it's definitely based on the islands of Southeast Asia, like Indonesia or the Philippines. Huge open-world game. Open-world is always awesome. I like the designs on the protagonists. They have slightly different outfits between each game, and both look like they have a wetsuit underneath. Fitting because... We can go underwater! They wouldn't put that much detail into the underwater and have Pokémon freely swim around like that if there wasn't a mechanic to dive down to see it and get them. The move Dive as an overworld tool hasn't been in the games since the Hoenn remakes, and hasn't been in a new game since Unova. I honestly can't wait to see how it works. Returning Pokémon families: Pikachu, Oddish. Krabby, Tangela, Ledyba, Slugma, Wingull, Taillow, Wailmer, Duskull, Corsola, Mareanie, Sandygast, Tropius, Carnivine, Tympole, Nymble, Sizzlipede, Finneon, Frillish, and Tynamo. Two new Pikachu with outfits show up, nicknamed Mr. Windychu and Ms. Wavychu. They look ready for vacation. I wonder what their importance will be. The new starters! Browt, the Bean Chick Pokémon. A little bird chick where its beak and 'eyebrows' look like a plant sprout. It looks like it came out of Angry Birds, but it's apparently lively yet clumsy. Pombon, the Puppy Pokémon. Immediate favorite. It's an adorable fire Pomeranian doggo! It's so fluffy! Gecqua, the Water Gecko Pokémon. A little aquatic gecko with a bit of a pretentious personality it seems. It will be a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive, which will be pricey if I want to play it. But it'll be released in 2027, so they have time to perfect it. Always better to delay a game to finish it than to rush it to meet some arbitrary deadline. Pokémon Winds and Pokémon Waves. I can't wait to see what lies ahead.

So I found something out. Apparently Pokemon you get from Tera Raids can be Shiny, and they have lower odds of being shiny than usual. So the fact that I found two Shiny Pokemon in raids is kind of insane. And makes me wonder if I accidentally chose not to catch Pokemon with barely-noticeable shiny colors in raids before. One fun thing about open world games with a lot of ledges on climbable surfaces is there's constantly that feeling of "Wait, I've never been here before? Neat!" Even over 400 hours into the game, I'm still finding non-regenerating items in places.

I did something I've never done before: intentionally hunt for Shiny Pokemon. "Shiny Hunting" means using an in-game method to boost the odds of a Pokemon generating as a Shiny Pokemon. For Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, this involves making sandwiches with the right ingredients. Sandwich effects always last for 30 minutes after making the sandwich and provide effects such as raised shiny odds, boosted encounter rates for Pokemon of specific types, making eggs hatch faster, and more. Ideally you'd make one that simultaneously boosts Shiny Pokemon for the desired type, but also boosts the encounter rate of that type. The ingredients needed to boost the shiny odds are decidedly late-game, though, presumably as a reward for getting that far. The Pokemon I hunted for was Luxray. I found a location where Luxray was the only Electric-type Pokemon that spawns, then used a sandwich that boosts both shiny odds and encounter rates for Electric types. I ran around for a while and noticed that Shinx, the first stage in Luxray's evolutionary line, also spawned there. I decided that was fine and kept looking. And in less than five minutes after making the sandwich, I found the Luxray. With 25 minutes left, I went to an area I knew Luxio, the middle stage of the Shinx line, spawns. Unfortunately, that location also generates other Electric-types, meaning I wasn't guaranteed to find a Luxio. At about the 15 minute mark, I switched to another area that had a lot of Shinx, but this location also had other Electric-types. This other location also had cliffs, so there was a chance for Pokemon to spawn inside of a wall. Either way, I didn't find a shiny Shinx. I should've stayed in the place I found the Luxray and tried for two more Shinx and just evolved one. Still, I have a shiny Luxray, which is one of the best shinies you could ask for.

Who do you spend the holidays with? Friends, Family, or Solo? Well, the results are in. Team Solo! Way to go, Team Solo! Let's all sit and enjoy our victory in silence. Sadly, I was on Team Family, and we got dead last. So thoroughly dead last, we got third place in all scoring categories and got literally 0 points. And now that I'm done with Splatoon's latest monthly Event, I can get back to other stuff. Like Pokemon. Speaking of, I've found a spot where the terrain wasn't properly visually rendered, leaving what looks like a hole in the wall. Man, Scarlet and Violet. Everybody likes to clown on these games for their performance issues, and it's hard to disagree when I find an actual (visual) hole in the level geometry. (I wonder if it's fixed in the Switch 2 update)