Zorua

I rebooted the thread and promptly did nothing with it. Go figure. A while ago, Splatoon 3 had its big final Splatfest, the aptly-named Grand Festival. People were convinced that this meant that Splatoon was done with adding new content. No new stages, no new weapons, just maybe some bug fixes or balance changes here and there. Surprise! Version 10.0.0 added an old returning stage and 30 new weapon kits! Naturally, I had to try out each one of them just for a bit, and... I think I've decided on what weapons I'm gonna use for a few categories. In fact, this prompted me to firmly lock down a weapon for all categories even if it isn't a kit from this update. The Slosher class was perhaps the funniest weapon class in Splatoon 1, and probably still is in general. Basically, it's a bucket. You glug ink out of a bucket. That's the weapon. Very ink-hungry, you have to tap the fire button every shot, but the shot fall-off keeps the same damage as the direct hit. It just...takes a bit to get used to. My slosher of choice is the new Tri-Slosher ASH-N. Tri-Sloshers throw three ink blobs at once. It has probably the widest slosh and the fastest fire rate (least cooldown between shots), but it's also the shortest range. Still, faster fire rates are something I prefer, even for tap-fire weapons. The sub weapon for the ASH-N is the Splat Bomb. This is the most basic sub weapon in the game. It's a simple explosive, really. A grenade. It has an instakill radius and a good sour spot radius outside of that. The sour spot damage is juuuuust too low to get a two-hit kill when paired with the slosh, but that's small potatoes. The splat bomb detonates after being on the ground for one second, so if you figure out just the right spacing to roll it off of ledges, it could be a surprise instakill for people below it. Plus, nobody wants to be where a splat bomb is, so they'll move out of the way. This can force a retreat, cut off a retreat, or scare someone out of a hiding place. As a bonus, the throwing radius for sub weapons is farther than the slosh distance, so you can do something to opponents that are a little too far away to deal with. The special weapon is the Splattercolor Screen. When you set it up, it creates a large 'wall' over an area that slowly moves forwards for a bit. Any opponent that goes through it takes 40 damage, which pairs nicely with the Tri-Slosher's 62 damage for a good 2-hit kill. The screen also hampers the enemies vision, shifting everything to grayscale and making it harder for them to spot details. It also puts particles and a sound effect on them so people would be able to spot them even if they're hiding in their ink. All this also means that opponents don't want to go through the screen, so they'll go around it, which makes their movement predictable. It's also physically opaque for most of it, which can obstruct enemy sightlines. The downside is it's opaque for allies as well, and between that and the low damage, it's not seen as a particularly good special. Still, I like it. If nothing else, using your special instantly refills your ink tank, which is always a plus on an ink-hungry weapon like a slosher. The Brella class, added in Splatoon 2, is full of shotguns built into umbrella handles. Basically the spy umbrella from Kingsman. Tap fire to fire off a spread of ink bullets, as expected. The spread is generally wider the further away you need to hit, which can help do chip damage at a distance at least. Hold the fire button to fire one shot and then unfurl the umbrella canopy. The canopy acts as a shield that can block shots until it's broken. This can save you in dangerous situations. The shield can break with enough damage but regenerates over time, broken or no. And continuing to hold the fire button will cause the canopy to detach and move forwards like a mobile shield. The canopy leaves ink behind it and frees you up to move without it, letting you fire your weapon without having to worry about accidentally holding the fire button too long and opening your shield when you'd rather shoot. And my Brella of choice does absolutely none of that. The Undercover Brella is literally the spy umbrella from Kingsman, complete with transparency-from-underneath and everything. Since the canopy doesn't detach, you can hold the fire button to shoot continuously, treating it like a Shooter with a built-in shield and a wide spread of bullets. The trade-off is that it has the weakest shots and the least durability for the canopy. Still, it's my preferred brella. I was very close to locking in the vanilla Undercover Brella as my kit of choice, but the new update added the Patternz Undercover Brella, and after trying it for a bit, I decided 'This one. This one is the one.' The sub weapon on the Patternz is the Curling Bomb. I've already talked about this one. Since the Undercover is a fairly short-range weapon, the Curling Bomb can easily help with mobility, getting further into enemy turf. Between getting in their backline and having a shield, I can bother them when they respawn while having a small measure of safety, which means they're dealing with me close to their spawn instead of dealing with the rest of the team at the center, letting the team push the objective. Getting to their spawn is probably the best use for the Curling Bomb in general. The Special is the Killer Wail 5.1. This fires six lasers (they're sound waves, but who cares), in three pairs of two, that can target a player you're looking at. The targeting and lasers don't care about obstacles, so you can be at spawn and target someone who's behind literally all the cover in the universe. These lasers track them as they move, but there's a bit of a delay between target movement and laser movement, so it can be avoided; heck, you can keep ahead of it just by walking sideways casually. But that, once again, forces them to move. It takes basically no time being touched by the laser to splat someone, so moving is key to stay alive. Remember, though, that there are three pairs of lasers, and there's a slight delay between each pair firing. If you move sideways, each pair fires at different angles, and the farther you're moving, the farther the angle, making it that much harder to dodge. You can also make each pair target someone else instead, letting you put pressure on up to three opponents at once. There's also the quirk that the lasers go through anything, and that they don't stop when they hit their target. You can hit multiple people with these if aimed right. The lasers persist for a bit whether they hit their target or not, even after splatting their target, so they can absolutely continue to bother people until they stop. Overall, a good kit in my mind. It can bother people anywhere on the map and have at least a few moments of safety even in the thick of things. Related to Splatoon, I have a question. Which would you rather travel by: Land, Sea, or Air? Unrelated to Splatoon, how do I have eighteen shiny Pokemon in Pokemon Violet after 250 hours of playing, only two of which had boosted shiny odds, where over 300 hours of playing Leaf Green plus Arceus knows how many more hours playing Sapphire, Silver, White, Soul Silver, Pearl, Gold, Emerald, and Crystal only resulted in a combined five, two of which are fixed to be guaranteed shinies? I know how. It's because of changes to how shiny Pokemon spawn. It used to be that the game could only generate one new Pokemon at a time. You walk into the grass, game rolls the encounter dice. If it lands on 'spawn something', it puts you in a battle with a Pokemon. Is it shiny? Let's roll the 8192-sided dice and see if it lands on 1. No? Not shiny. End the battle one way or another, you're now out in the overworld. Trigger another encounter. Is it shiny? No. Try again. End battle. Encounter a Pokemon. Shiny? No. Try again. Shiny? No. Try again. One. At. A. Time. Yes, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum and Black/White/Black2/White2 had circumstances where you could encounter two Pokemon at once. But that basically means that's two rolls of the 1/8192 shiny chance. Only two. Pokemon X and Y doubled the base shiny odds from 1 in 8192 to 1 in 4096, where it has remained to this day. But doubling the base shiny odds doesn't seem like it would help that much. So what really changed? Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee happened. These games made it so that Pokemon generate in the overworld, and in large numbers. Basically allowing the game to roll the dice on shiny odds without having to actually force a battle. You can see that these Pokemon are not shiny and just move on, go somewhere else in the area so the old ones despawn and new ones spawn in. You don't have to waste time forcing an encounter. You don't have to waste time in battle. You can just walk away. And this has carried over to Sword and Shield, Legends: Arceus, and Scarlet and Violet, and it looks like it'll be back in Legends: Z-A as well and very well might be a series staple going forward. Scarlet and Violet generate 15 Pokemon in the overworld at once. Fifteen times to roll the 1/4096 shiny odds, which I would say is roughly about 1 in 273 odds (I don't know if that's how it works; I'm not a statistics major). Disallowing certain fixed encounters, if the game does generate a shiny amongst that 15, it removes the shiny from the count and spawns a 16th Pokemon. So if you're standing still and count 16 Pokemon around you? One of them is shiny. In fact, due to all of this, it's practically guaranteed that people are going to pass shinies without even knowing. Some Pokemon have shiny colorations that are incredibly hard to spot due to barely being any different color-wise or due to the Pokemon being incredibly small. My fourth shiny just looks slightly desaturated compared to its usual coloration. That doesn't explain the fact that I got my first shiny in this game within an hour of playing, that I got my first shiny in the DLC within the first half hour, that I literally ran into a random shiny while training my team, or that I left the menu and saw a shiny basically standing next to me twice. I don't even have the Shiny Charm yet, which is a key item that permanently triples the base shiny odds. What the heck is this? What is my game's RNG seed that lets this happen? (and would you believe the Switch 2 version ups the number of overworld spawns to thirty-six? For about 1 in 114 odds? it also ups the spawn radius, though, so it's easier to miss ones that are farther away)

I found myself gravitating towards two Splatoon weapons in particular: the Enperry Splat Dualies, and the Inkline Tri-Stringer. Dualies are a weapon class introduced in Splatoon 2. Essentially, they're a pair of dual-wielded submachine guns. They have an interesting quirk of them being the first left-handed weapon you can have; all other weapons are wielded in the right hand, making peeking around right corners dangerous unless you're willing to expose your entire hitbox. The Dualies don't have that problem. Dualies also have a dodge roll; by pressing jump while firing, you'll get a rapid burst movement in a chosen direction. This can let you avoid shots and practically dance around opponents, and helps you fast fall if you need to go down quickly for whatever reason. Each dodge does take up ink, and there's a bit of a cooldown after your second dodge before you can dodge again. But the best part about the dodge is when you dodge, it combines the firing hitboxes and ups the rate of fire, letting you deal even more damage until you start moving again, which puts things back to normal. These are rapid-fire weapons that have a safety window that lets you get out of dodge (heh.) if things get tough. The Enperry Splat Dualies is a variant of the default that has some very useful extra gear. Its sub weapon (secondary fire / grenade, basically) is the Curling Bomb. Throwing this will cause it to move forwards in a straight line, leaving a trail of ink behind you, before slowing to a stop after some distance and exploding. It can bounce off walls to get some unexpected hits. And you can charge it to reduce distance traveled but shorten its fuse; I've gotten some surprise kills with partially-charged Curling Bombs. The main utility for these, however, is getting to the center of the map quickly, or even getting deep into enemy territory quickly. Sometimes, working as a distraction is the way to go, and by surprising them in their own base, they're focused on you, freeing up your allies to cover more turf and gain ground. The special weapon (ultimate / Final Smash) for the Enperry Dualies is the Triple Splashdown. This causes you to go up and then slam down on the ground, creating a powerful shockwave of ink that can instantly splat the enemy. It also creates two giant fists at slight offsets to your position which also create their own shockwaves. If you use this on a ledge, the fists can fall over the ledge to hit ground below you. This can work as a panic button if needed. One of the fun things here, however, is that you can use the Triple Splashdown while super-jumping to an ally (super-jumping basically being fast movement to an ally, spawn, or temporary jump point, letting you get to where you need to go quickly). If you jump to an ally and activate the Triple Splashdown, you'll skip the initial jump up portion of the special and just land with the impact directly. Enemies can see where you're jumping to and might try to spawn camp you, so landing with a Splashdown will be a huge surprise. The tradeoff for that is the fists don't appear, so you lose a slight bit of range. You and the fists can also be shot before landing, but the timing to get all three is fairly tight. Overall, this is a very mobile weapon that can get in, cause trouble, avoid dying, get out quickly if needed, and creates an instant kill radius in a pinch. Very fun. My second weapon of choice is the Inkline Tri-Stringer. Stringers were introduced in Splatoon 3, and they're basically a bow and arrow that fires three shots, aligned horizontally if fired while on the ground and vertically if fired while in the air. Tapping the fire button will just shoot a few spurts of ink. Holding the fire button will charge the shot, and reaching the first stage of charge will cause the shots to fire projectiles that stick into surfaces and explode after a bit. They have a wide spread, which can be good for covering turf and surprising enemies, hindering their mobility. But continuing to hold the fire button will increase the distance the shots travel and tighten their spread. At the second stage of charge, they're practically one shot with three hitboxes, and you're unlikely to hit multiple targets with this unless you're aiming close to a wall or something. But that just means that you're hitting them with three targets, any of which that miss will probably explode at their feet. And there's this oh-so-satisfying electric zap noise when all three shots connect with the same target. It's one of the best sounds in the game. Especially if you hit them from over cover; the shots arc, so you can shoot them even if they're hiding behind a wall, and getting a KO with that is the best feeling ever. Whether it's a direct kill or getting them with the splash damage, some of my favorite kills come from using this weapon. For the Inkline kit, its sub weapon is the Sprinkler. This places a, well, sprinkler that covers the ground around it in ink. In Splatoon 1, the Sprinkler was one of the reasons I loved the N-ZAP '89 because of how much it covered turf to build up my special. It's received some nerfs since then, so I tend to replace it in a new spot as I go, but it can still be useful. If nothing else, placing it around a corner that the other team has to work to get to will help keep an area clean. And dropping it somewhere as a distraction can help; the other team wants to get rid of it, so they focus on it for a moment, which could be enough to let us advance and kill them. Put it in the right spot and it can also simply hinder their movement. It can also block a shot once before breaking, which is a very niche use but still potentially useful. Since the Tri-Stringer isn't the best at covering turf, the Sprinkler is good for making up for that. The Special is the Super Chump. I mentioned super jumping before. Super Chumps create a lot of fake super jump indicators, but instead of decoy players landing there, it just places explosives. These explosives can be destroyed before they blow up, but if they're left alone, they not only cover more turf over a decently large area, but they can get a ton of surprising kills from people who were too close to one they didn't see or didn't think was close enough to get them. I have gotten several surprising kills with this special. Overall, this is a decent long-range weapon that can cover a surprising amount of turf, with incredible potential for kills if you master its firing arc. My main goal is to have one weapon of each of the eleven weapon classes as my go-to for that class. Two down, nine to go, and I think I have an idea for four of them...

Previous Thread: https://community.910cmx.com/index.php?/topic/5590-video-game-discussion-5/&page=1 It's been...almost two years since the last thread died, so...yeah. So, since the last thread post, I got a Nintendo Switch and a few games for it: "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", "Tears of the Kingdom", the "Mega Man Battle Network Collection Volume 1" and "...Volume 2", "Little Kitty, Big City", "Echoes of Wisdom", and "Splatoon 3" and its DLC. My brother also got "Pokemon Violet" and its DLC, so that's a bundle of fun as well. Smash Ultimate, I've unlocked all the fighters and spirits, beat story mode, and occasionally come back to it to make a new stage or play against my brother. Tears of the Kingdom is fun. Being able to build all sorts of fun contraptions to zip around the map, like a car or a hoverbike, is just...it's so fun. If I had any criticisms, it's minor things with writing, and that's it. Echoes of Wisdom was another fun Zelda game. Playing as Princess Zelda for a change and being able to copy several overworld objects and enemies to basically treat the overworld as a puzzle unto itself. Meanwhile it has the most insane lore drops. Mega Man Battle Network 2 was the first Mega Man game I ever played, and 6 was even more fun, so getting the full collection means I can enjoy both plus everything I missed for the other four games in the series. Currently still working on the first game. I...haven't opened Little Kitty, Big City yet. I don't know why. It's an adorable game where you play as a cat. Why haven't I started it up yet? What's wrong with me? Pokemon proves to be just as fun as expected. I'm not sticking with the planned team I had in mind, though, but rather rotating out who I'm using for the next badge. I did manage to get a Zorua for the first time, so that makes me happy. Splatoon is my current obsession, though. I've picked out two weapons to stick with, beat the DLC and keep going back to it for funsies, having a blast in Salmon Run, and even dabbled in Tableturf because why not. Overall, I'm having fun. I'll put up more specifics about one thing or another later.

Honestly? I do like how the shading is done in the last panel. I'm reminded of cross-hatching and other such shading techniques I've forgotten the names of. The grayscale-using-only-black-and-white, however...kinda makes Diane's shirt and the back of the chair look like cut-outs revealing a flat background layer.

So I was lurking Tumblr and someone put up a TikTok video of people singing "Soon May the Wellerman Come". I remembered The Longest Johns existed and looked up to see if they'd done it, and I found... this. The Longest Johns "Wellerman Community Project". Sixty-five hundred voices. Just listen to that harmony! (this is also a test to see if the spoilerbox still works. i just copy/pasted the source code from an older post since I can't remember the shorthand format; any help there, please?)

Welp. Couple days late. Oh well. I keep posting news and observations rather than actual game experiences. Shows you how much gaming I've actually done lately and how I'm really just trying to keep this thread from dying and having to be replaced. Closest thing to gaming I've done is Pokeclicker. I've finally beat the Kalos Champion, and I just need two more Pokemon before I can go to the next region. There's a few other things I'm trying to do first, such as grind up my Pokemon's attack, try to get something that will let me get a few Mega Evolutions, and beat a few quests. It's...a grind, to say the least. So, regarding Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, the new gimmick is called the Terastal Phenomenon, use of which is called Terastallizing, which enables your Pokemon to change from whatever type it is into a new, single type. When you catch a Pokemon, its Tera Type usually matches one of its original types, but you can get Pokemon with completely different Tera Types by finding ones in the overworld that are glowing or beating one in a raid battle. When you change a Pokemon into its Tera Type, that Pokemon loses its default types and becomes its Tera Type, losing the defensive weaknesses and resistances from before and gaining the new ones for its current Tera Type. It also gains the Same Type Attack Bonus (STAB) for its new type. When a Pokemon uses an attack of the same type of the Pokemon itself, it gains a 1.5x damage boost thanks to STAB. One fun thing about Terastallizing, however, is that you don't just gain the STAB for the new type; you also keep the STAB from the previous types. So if you have a Charizard (Fire/Flying) with a Dragon Tera Type, you get STAB on Fire, Flying, and Dragon moves. But if the Tera Type matches one of the Pokemon's default types, STAB increases from 1.5x to 2x, so Tera Fire Charizard gets double damage from STAB for using a Fire move while keeping the 1.5x boost for Flying moves. As mentioned, Pokemon with differing Tera Types can be found in raids. Tera Raid Dens respawn at midnight (IRL, according to your Switch's clock) and are a mandatory 4v1 battle against the Pokemon in question (NPCs are provided if you have no internet or friends). Tera Raid Dens are ranked from 1 to 5 stars, increasing in difficulty, giving better rewards for higher star raids. Once you complete the post-game, an NPC will tell you that there are now 6-star raids, and he explicitly tells you not to do them since they're too powerful. Heh. And guess what? Nintendo is also releasing raids online for Pokemon not normally found in the new region. Some of which are 7-star raids. Such as a level-100 Tera Dragon "Charizard the Unrivaled". Running around the world hoping you find a roaming Pokemon or raid with the Tera Type you want would be a pain, however, and very heavily RNG-dependent. Plus, any gift Pokemon such as the starters or box legendaries won't appear in the wild, so you're stuck with their default Tera Type. So, the solution is to change a Pokemon's Tera Type. How? Items called Tera Shards, which come in 18 different types. Collect enough of them, and you can use them to change your Tera Type. Tera Shards are obtained by beating Tera Raid Dens, which is your incentive to try those out. Clearing a Tera Raid gives you a few shards of a few types. So... How many Tera Shards of any single type do you need to change a single Pokemon's Tera Type? Fifty. Yeah, that's...incredibly grindy for the region's new gimmick that they want everybody to use. 300 minimum if you want to cover your entire team? Thousands if you want a lot of options with the entire PokeDex? That's a lot of grinding. So, what kind of fun can you have with Tera Types? First of all, there's the move Tera Blast. It's a somewhat decent Normal-type move by default, but it changes type to match the user's Tera Type, so a Terastallized Pokemon will always get STAB on Tera Blast. It can be taught to literally everything except Magikarp and Ditto, so you always have this as an option. This provides good type coverage that otherwise wouldn't happen with the rest of their moveset. Offensive type coverage is one of the keys to this whole thing. Pokemon that learn strong moves of other types or just want to hit more Pokemon with super-effective damage can benefit significantly. Staraptor learns Close Combat, so it benefits from being Tera Fighting, while Toxtricity learns Boomburst and has an ability that buffs sound-based moves, so Tera Normal gives it STAB on top of that. Electric-types like Jolteon could also benefit from an Ice-type Tera Blast as well. Boosting your existing offense is also good, such as Tera Fire on Torkoal to buff Sunny Day + Eruption, Tera Ghost on Houndstone to buff Last Respects, or Tera Electric on Pawmot to let it spam Double Shock. Defensive type coverage is also good, changing what types your Pokemon is weak to and resistant to. For example, anything with a x4 weakness to any given type will benefit from suddenly resisting or being immune to that. Water/Flying Gyarados fears Electric moves, so becoming a Ground-type shuts that down entirely and buffs Earthquake. The Levitate ability grants the user immunity to Ground-type moves. Anything that has it will benefit from being Tera Electric, as it now has no weaknesses, but if you have Dark-type moves, Tera Poison is also good as that combo is only weak to Psychic, which is itself weak to Dark. You don't even need to have moves of the new Tera Type if you're just using it defensively. Tera Poison on Krookodile or Tera Flying on Magnezone are good defensive types with their original types already covering things offensively. Or if you just wanna switch your weaknesses and resistances to last a bit longer without giving up a move slot for coverage. Taking advantage of the weather is a great option. Sunny Day buffs Fire-type moves, so Torkoal, Leafeon, and Sunflora benefit here. Rain Dance gives a similar buff to Water moves, so try that for Golduck. Rock-types get a Special Defense buff during a Sandstorm, so Tyranitar and Hippowdon get a lot of mileage out of this. The Steel type is probably the best Tera Type, as it has ten resistances and an immunity. Few Pokemon will hurt from being able to become Steel. One reason for not wanting to be Steel type is if you're already weak to Steel's weaknesses and would rather resist those instead. On a side note, nobody wants to be Tera Psychic. Psychic's resistances aren't very useful, and what Psychic hits strongly, other types do it better. Anything you have that's Tera Psychic, change it to something else. Anything else. Like Steel. Or Bug. Bug, of all types. And Frosmoth (Ice/Bug) wants to be literally any other type. Try Water or Electric. A competitive player compiled a list of the best Tera Type for every (fully-evolved) Pokemon in the new games, with some of them getting multiple options (Tyranitar could work for either Tera Rock for Sandstorm or Tera Ghost for immunity to Fighting, and some of his other observations I've listed above). But people are already finding some alternatives; he said Dragonite's best Tera Type is Steel, but Tera Normal also works really well due to Dragonite learning Extreme Speed and some other good Normal-type moves. He also says Mismagius is good for being Tera Fighting or Tera Dark, but Mismagius has Levitate and benefits from being Tera Electric as a result, so that's a good backup option.

There are a number of reasons why I haven't been playing a lot of video games lately, mostly relating to work and sleep taking up a bunch of time in addition to Christmas being around the corner and us needing to decorate. I've mainly been playing Pokeclicker still, but I'm at a part where I straight-up can't progress without grinding. If nothing else, I've thought about my eventual team for Pokemon Violet. Dogfather, the Mabosstiff. Mabosstiff is a Dark-type dog Pokemon based on a Mastiff. It's stated to be protective of its family with an intimidating look, so it's like a protective mob boss. The name is just obvious. Ammy, the Lycanroc. Lycanroc is a Rock-type wolf introduced a couple regions back, and naming it Ammy...well, that's an Okami reference, where you play as the goddess Amaterasu in the form of a wolf. Lycanroc doesn't have much connection to Amaterasu other than the wolf thing, but why not. Church Grim, the Houndstone. Houndstone is a Ghost-type dog based on a Briard or a Catalan Sheepdog. There's some folklore reason for why I'm calling mine Church Grim. Windy, the Arcanine. Arcanine is a Fire-type dog introduced all the way back at the beginning. Its Japanese name is Windie, so there ya go. Purebread, the Dachsbun. Dachsbun is a Fairy-type dog Pokemon based on a Dachsund. It's the evolved form of Fidough which we learned about earlier. It's still a pure-bread purebred, so the name is perfect. Oliver, the Sprigatito. Because Oliver & Company. A small cat in a gang of dogs. Yes, this means all of my Pokemon will be single-typed, one of which is entirely unevolved. This is in no way a good team. I don't care. I'll make it work. Somehow. Even if Oliver ends up horribly overleveled. I have another post in the works that talks about every single new Pokemon from what I can learn from the wiki, but since that's 105 Pokemon divided into 60+ paragraphs, I think I'll hold off on that.

Show of hands: how many people aren't surprised? *raises hand* Noah's left eye has been seen before, as a normal human eye, so presumably he learned eventually. Or his emotions are affecting his shapeshifting. Or magic glamour. Or something. Also, is it just me, or are there some parallels here between Uryuom/Seyunolu antennae sensing stuff and autism? What with the whole 'can't handle crowds and everything is loud' thing. Or am I misinterpreting things?

First, we have Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's official release. I'll be taking a closer look at the Pokemon later, but I do like what I see so far. Also, grass cat Sprigatito is adorable and I will choose it as my starter and never evolve it. Second, we have Minecraft Snapshot 22w46a, and there's one thing that's pretty exciting: the "fillbiome" command, which lets you change the biome of an area! People have been asking for something like this for a while, and it'll be a huge help for mapmakers. Previously you had to adjust your world in external programs like MCEdit or something to change a biome, so this is kind of a big deal. Especially for me, since one of the builds I'm sitting on is a big maze divided into several segments, and I want each segment to have a different biome.

Haven't been playing Minecraft much in the last couple of weeks. Instead I've been playing that Pokeclicker idle game I mentioned a few months back. Progress is slow because I've again reached the part where level grinding is a requirement to progress (basically the difficulty spike between the eighth Gym Leader and the Elite Four is a nightmare in the Kalos region). They also had a Halloween event that added some custom variant Pokemon (pumpkin-themed Bulbasaur and Togepi as well as a Pikachu in a Gengar costume), so that's neat. In other news, Minecraft has had a couple of snapshots that add or change a couple of things. A number of new game rules affect items dropped when an explosion happens, how high snow will pile up when it's snowing, and whether or not water and lava can flow together to form new source blocks. There's also new spawn eggs for the Iron and Snow Golems and the boss mobs, though the Wither and Ender Dragon spawn eggs can only be given by commands, and you can get the mob spawner, dragon egg, and ominous banner in creative mode. The server owner can also get command blocks in the creative inventory, while visitors can't. And a number of other quality of life changes. Meanwhile Octopath Traveler 2 has another trailer, putting the spotlight on Partitio and Osvald. Partitio's path actions let him buy things from NPCs or hire them to accompany him, while Osvald's path actions let him scrutinize people for information or mug people for their belongings. Also, you gotta love the dynamic camera angles.

So, Minecraft Live 2022 dropped, and with it, it brought a vote for a new mob and some information on the eventual Version 1.20. No name yet, but we got some new features. A few days after Minecraft Live, we got our first snapshot...for version 1.19.3. But it comes with some data packs that will add 1.20 content as experimental features, which will be properly added to the base game once the actual 1.20 snapshots come out. Anyway, the features: Bamboo Planks! A new wood type, made by crafting four Bamboo in a 2x2 square. Bamboo slabs, stairs, doors, trapdoors, fences, fence gates, buttons, pressure plates, and signs. Try using the stairs to make a thatch roof. It's neat. Bamboo Raft. Identical to a boat in functionality and crafting recipe, but it looks like a flat raft. Neat. Bamboo Mosaic, a new wood block unique to the Bamboo wood type, crafted with two Bamboo Slabs in a 1x2 vertical rectangle. It has a different pattern, and it's pretty neat. Bamboo Mosaic slabs and stairs as well. Hanging Signs! Signs that are placed on the underside of a block. You can also place them on the side of a block, where a pole will appear for it to hang from. They already showed that you can use them to make neat decorations crossing streets or hanging from each other, and some people on reddit found that they also work as an alternate fence for walkways. Cool! They're made using Stripped Logs (or, for the Bamboo variant, just with Bamboo Planks) and Chains, so that's nifty, give some incentive to actually use Stripped Logs. The only issue is they seem to have less horizontal text space than normal signs, which might be the point, give incentive to use both. Camels! A new mob that's...well, a camel. They spawn in desert villages. They're slower than a horse but can sprint for a bit. They have a "dash" movement option, which rapidly dashes forward some distance. This is pretty useful for crossing gaps or rivers that horses can't cross. They're also tall enough that if you're riding it, Zombies can't reach you. You can also breed them using cactus, giving new uses to the almost useless block. But the best part? Two people can ride a camel at the same time, one steering and one in the back to shoot arrows or just enjoy the ride. Neat! And the winner of the mob vote is... the Sniffer! An ancient pig-like mob that can find rare and ancient seeds, so we have the promise of new plants in the future. The Sniffer isn't currently in the game yet, but it's been voted in, so it'll get there eventually. Meanwhile a second data pack gives bundles a crafting recipe again. They were still working on those things, so bundles have not been available in survival mode despite being added in 1.17. But probably the best feature is the one that's actually part of the 1.19.3 snapshot: the rearranging of the Creative Mode inventory. All items have now been shuffled around so that like items are near each other, the nine categories they were sorted into have been rearranged to make more sense, and it's just an overall improvement. So, between Minecraft Live and the snapshot's release, I decided that since 1.20 is officially on the way, it's time to get to updating my main Minecraft world and start/finish a project I wanted to work on. So I booted up my main world in 1.19 and went to certain coordinates I knew about before...and I began to dig. A long, wide staircase headed down from the top of a sizeable hill at elevation 91-ish, to the bottom of the world at elevation negative 50. Then I went forwards just a bit, and there it was. The Ancient City. Home of the Warden. The Warden is currently the strongest mob in the entire game, stronger even than the Ender Dragon and the Wither. It isn't meant to be a mob that you fight; it's meant to be an environmental hazard you avoid. It can't see, but it can sniff out mobs and detect motion. Its melee attacks can easily kill a player wearing unenchanted Netherite armor, the strongest armor in the game, in just two hits. Even enchanting the armor doesn't do much, since it has the most health of anything in the game. If you get out of reach, such as behind a wall or up a pillar you hastily made, it has a sonic blast attack that goes through walls and ignores armor, shields, and enchantments entirely; it's basically an instakill death laser. And if it's got its sights (erm, you know what I mean) on you, it is relentless in chasing you down. Also, it inflicts the Blindness effect, so you can't see where the heck you're even going when you decide to run. Now, the Warden only spawns if you set off the motion sensors (Sculk Sensors) and alarms (Sculk Shriekers) too many times in a row. The key to exploring it is to...well, not. If you crouch, or if you walk on wool, you don't set off the sensors. It's even better if you straight-up break the things...but breaking stuff sets off the sensors, which trigger the shriekers, which summon the Warden. And I do not want to fight the Warden. So I had to completely obscure all of them in wool to keep sound from getting through, then slowly uncover and break them one at a time. Only then can I bother opening the chests to take all the loot. After each chest, I went back to my little base camp area and put all the stuff in chests, then went back out with nothing but an enchanted tool, some torches, and a few stacks of wool, and I snuck my way to the next area. Repeatedly, slowly, tiptoeing my way around the city, panicking when I accidentally set off a shrieker I didn't see and getting the heck out of there even though it hasn't been enough times to call the Warden because I am not risking it, no sir. The scary part? Other mobs can trigger the sensors. Such as bats, which spawn in the cave right above the Ancient City. And slimes, which spawn up there and fall off a ledge in their random wanderings and pass the sensors. And spiders, same deal with falling and dying. And if a player is too close, the sensor will trigger the shrieker even if the player isn't the one that performed the action that set the sensor off. So you can imagine how terrifying it is to look over at the center area and see lights light up because the lights are connected to the sensors, and bats are just carelessly flying past like they aren't giving me a heart attack. Still. Inch by inch, block of wool by block of wool until the whole area could pass for a Rainbow Road course, I finally found all the shriekers and broke them, finally found all the sensors in the city and broke (most of) them, and finally found all the chests and emptied them. The Ancient City...had been conquered. Except there's also Sculk Catalysts. If something dies near one, it causes compatible nearby blocks to turn into Sculk (basically a block of experience). Sometimes sensors and shriekers generate on top of them (fortunately shriekers generated by catalysts don't spawn wardens, but it's still terrifying). And there's one right in the area near where those falling slimes and spiders land, and I can't find it. Fun. Happy hunting. My short-term goal is to find a Mangrove Swamp biome. I know where it is thanks to a copy of the world. All I need to do is go set up the portal in the Nether, and then readjust it in the overworld to where I want it. After that... I'm not entirely sure. There's a number of things to do.

Octopath Traveler again (still). It's about the only game I'm playing right now. Since I've completed everyone's Chapter 3, I'm going around to all the Chapter 1, 2, and 3 areas, exploring the optional dungeons, revisiting the story dungeons to get certain things only Therion (the Thief) can get, and just generally level grinding. My plan for after that is to go to the Chapter 4 areas and get the four bonus classes. There are a few important things I'm going to use: The Cleric skill Reflective Veil perfectly deflects one elemental attack per veil set up on the chosen ally. It can be boosted (up to the maximum of) three times to place up to four on that ally. Reflective Veils last forever until used. The Dancer divine skill Sealticge's Seduction causes a skill that would normally target a single ally/enemy to hit the entire party / all enemies. The Cleric divine skill Aelfric's Auspices causes a target ally to use their skills twice for no additional cost, with the exception of other divine skills. Combining these three (Aelfric's Auspices on my Cleric, then Sealticge's Seduction on my Cleric, then Reflective Veil at full boost) will be how I defeat a number of bosses. Most importantly, it's how I'll defeat the optional boss Balogar, and thus how I unlock the Runelord class, which immediately goes on Tressa (the Merchant). Once I have that, there's another completely broken strategy that I'll employ. The Runelord skill Transfer Rune causes the user's skills that target themselves to affect the entire party. The Merchant skill Sidestep causes the user to perfectly dodge one physical attack per sidestep. The Cleric divine skill Aelfric's Auspices... You know the drill. Transfer Rune + Aelfric's Auspices + Sidestep at full boost = 8 sidesteps for the entire party. The end result is that the optional boss Winnehild becomes a cakewalk, and defeating her unlocks the Warmaster class. With those two combinations, almost every remaining boss in the game becomes a cakewalk if you can get it set up. The tricky part is having to set things up so the Cleric (in the Reflective Veil strategy) can act at full boost twice in a row, since divine skills can only be used at full boost and you can only store five boost points.

When you're so close to getting your untamed wilderness of a backyard finally trimmed down to the height of a functional yard only for your lawnmower battery to completely die to the point where it is unable to charge, leaving you with your lawn stuck at two different heights and no way to fix that without spending at least two-hundred fifty bucks that you don't have.

So, it didn't quite sink in when watching, but the Octopath Traveler 2 trailer did elaborate further on the "intertwining stories" thing, with one player character saying another's name in a voiced cutscene, so there's that. Yay! In light of Octopath 2, I've gone back into Octopath 1 to try and beat everything. I finished everyone's Chapter 2 and am on the way to their Chapter 3. I've been playing their Chapters 2 and 3 in the order of minimum recommended level (ties are broken by going clockwise by starting town), and I've noticed something interesting. Olberic's Chapter 2 has a minimum recommended level of 27, tied with H'aanit for the highest min rec for a chapter 2, while his Chapter 3 has the minimum recommended level of 32, tied with Alfyn for lowest min rec for chapter 3, a jump of a mere five levels. Meanwhile, Primrose's Chapter 2 has the lowest min rec at 21, and the highest min rec for chapter 3 at 40, a 19-level jump! Dear lord, people who use Prim for a solo run must spend hours grinding. Meanwhile, the Hired Help skill remains broken, and I've killed at least three bosses using it as a screen nuke. It's even crucial to any% and true-final-boss% speedruns; start with Tressa and you can get to the credits in under an hour or beat the true final boss in under four hours. Me personally, I'm halfway through the story at about 45 hours. In other news, Overwatch announced a new hero: Kiriko, a ninja/miko from Japan. Some people have noticed that despite the futuristic setting and nanomachines and hard light and robots and hover tech and stuff, Overwatch does appear to have actual magic, but it seems exclusive to the characters from Japan. Hmm...

Nintendo Direct let's gooooooo! Ooh, what's this? The Continent of Elios? Wait, Fire Emblem? Another Fire Emblem Warriors game? No wait, that's the usual grid movement. Still, it looks pretty awesome. Fire Emblem Engage. January 20, 2023. There's two editions, the second one containing a bunch of extra collectibles like an art book and a poster. Neat. What's this one? Two people with a straining relationship are turned into dolls and have to work together to explore the world and try to get back to normal. It Takes Two, coming out on November 4. Is this a Fatal Frame game? It is! Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse makes its way to the states for the first time in early 2023. Follow the main character as she searches for her lost memories while repelling evil spirits. Xenoblade Chronicles 3's Wave 2 expansion pass introduces Ino, a new hero that appears mechanical. There's also Challenge Battles, which look like a PvE wave mode. October 13. SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake features 3D platforming in all sorts of interesting worlds. 2023 release. It's that guy from Fist of the North Star. "You are already... Fit?" Fitness Boxing Fist of the North Star. If you're interested in anime and rhythm-game-style exercise, this unusual combination might be up your alley. March 2023. OddBallers. Dodgeball has never been more absurd. Frantic minigames featuring propane tanks instead of a ball, monster trucks, wrecking balls, and many, many more. It looks hectic. Early 2023. Tunic. "A small fox washes ashore on a ruined island. Brave the unknown in this isometric action adventure game." Look for pieces of the missing pages of the in-game manual while avoiding traps and enemies. Looks neat. September 27 release, with preorders available today. Front Mission 1st: Remake and Front Mission 2: Remake, remakes of a couple of mech games. Tactical turn-based combat, upgrades, terrain effects, and more. FM1 comes out in November, FM2 comes out in 2023 (incidentally its first ever non-Japanese release), and keep an eye out for Front Mission 3 Remake at some point in the future. Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. Looking for a farm simulator game that isn't Stardew Valley? Well look no further! Build your farm, interact with the community, raise a family. Characters even age in this game, so that's neat. Summer 2023. Shiver: Listen up! It's going down... Repping the Splatlands, we are DEEP CUT! Frye: Anarchy Splatcast! We're live! Big Man: Ay! (Here we go!) Frye: Shiver! You oughta know. It's that time! Big Man: AAAY! Ay. (SPLATFEEEEEEST! Ahem. It's time for a Splatfest.) Shiver: Ooo! I like a Splatfest. Frye: YEAHHH! TIME TO PARTY! Shiver: Without further ado, this Splatfest theme will be none other than... Frye: Drumroll! Budda-dudda-budda-dudda... BAM! What would you bring to a deserted island? Gear, Grub, or Fun? From the 23rd to the 25th, from 5pm to 5pm, check out Splatoon 3's first post-launch Splatfest! Oh, HELL YES! Octopath Traveler II! All the classic character classes are back. Everyone's path actions change between day and night. New land. New mechanics. New characters. This is gonna be awesome! February 24, 2023 on the Switch. I hope there's a PC release, admittedly, but still. LET'S GO! We have... Hikari, the Warrior, on a journey for home. "With that, we could realize a world without conflict. Without bloodshed." Agnea, the Dancer, on a journey for stardom. "I'm going to become a star, and bring smiles to people's faces. Just like mama." Partitio, the Merchant, on a journey for prosperity. "I'm hittin' the road. I'll be back once I eliminate that devil called Poverty from the world." Osvald, the Scholar, on a journey for revenge. "The man who took everything from me shall die by my hand." Throné, the Thief, on a journey for freedom. "Not again. Not this stench. The stench of blood." Temenos, the Cleric, on a journey for truth. "Heheheh. Doubt is what I do." Ochette, the Hunter, on a journey for legends. "Leave the hunting to me. You'll have all the tasty meat you want." Castti, the Apothecary, on a journey for memories. "I need to rediscover who I am." Looks like the new setting, the land of Solistia (or however they spell it), is more Victorian-era rather than Medieval; there's trains and pocket watches, at least. My only hope is that their stories interact more than the protags from Octopath 1 did (they do say there's intertwining stories...), but really there can be nothing but improvements. Anyway, back to your regularly-scheduled whatever else. Ooh, cel-shading. Fae Farm. Another farming simulation game. Magic to improve crops, dealing with nuisances, and exploring the realm. Solo play or local multiplayer. Looks nice. Spring 2023. And if you're looking for Final Fantasy stuff, we have Theatrhythm Final Bar Line, a rhythm game focused on Final Fantasy music. You can also have 2-player co-op and 4-player competitive. February 16, 2023 release, with preorders available today. Paid DLC songs will come in later with songs from the SaGa series, NieR series, Octopath Traveler (LET'S GOOOO!!!), Live A Live, and more. And if you're looking for something featuring Nintendo's classic all-stars, we have Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope. Free roaming in new worlds, interacting with NPCs, finding hidden things, collecting power-ups and allies, and more. October 20, with preorders today. There's also the Gold Edition, up for preorders, with a few extra goodies. Rune Factory 3 Special. What is with all the farming simulators? Sure, there's more to it, like fighting, interacting with the monsters, and a relationship mechanic, but whatever. 2023. Plus, a new Rune Factory game is on the way. Looks like we got some N64 games coming back through the e-shop: Pilotwings 64 Mario Party Mario Party 2 Mario Party 3 Pokémon Stadium (YOOOOO!) Pokémon Stadium 2 1080 Snowboarding Excitebike 64 GoldenEye (!) Various Daylife. An RPG that looks like it places a higher-than-usual focus on the slice-of-life aspect compared to the combat aspect. Interesting. Factorio is coming to the Switch. Build your factory and fend off the local creatures. Ib. A 2D exploration game where the title character explores an art gallery but is drawn into an unusual world and has to go back out. Mario Strikers: Battle League is getting a second free update! Pauline and Diddy Kong are joining the game, as is more gear and a new stadium. Added in this month. Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key. I gotta say, I like the 3D anime aesthetic. Very nice. Anyway, another massive open-world RPG that reminds me of Genshin Impact and Breath of the Wild, and definitely not in a bad way. February 24, 2023. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: Wave 3's Booster Course Pass includes the Merry Mountain from Mario Kart Tour and Peach Gardens from Mario Kart DS. Nintendo Switch Sports will be getting Golf in a free update, including courses from Wii Sports. Survival Golf is basically competitive multiplayer. The update has been pushed back from fall to holiday 2022. And a few notes from Miyamoto The Mario movie will be released in the Spring. Super Nintendo World, a theme park, will open in Hollywood, California. As for Pikmin, we have Pikmin Bloom, a mobile game where you travel around the real world, planting flowers along the way, finding Pikmin on the way who will collect items. There's also an Augmented Reality feature to add Pikmin to photos of the world. It's a fairly easy-going game that's been out for a little bit. And for the main event: Pikmin 4, coming out in 2023. No footage yet, but we will get a more ground-level perspective. It also has easier controls, so it shouldn't be too hard to get into. And some more headlines Just Dance 2023 Edition. Feel the rhythm! November 22. Harvestella. Another RPG featuring farming, but with the 3D anime aesthetic and an ongoing threat called the Season of Death. November 4. There's a demo, and if you get it, your demo's save data can transfer over to the full game. Bayonetta 3. It's been 500 years since Bayonetta 2 and the title character has been revived to fight monstrous bioweapons. Featuring Luka and Jeanne from past games, plus new character Viola. If you're interested in a high-intensity spectacle beat-em-up and don't mind a higher age rating, Bayonetta might be for you. October 28. From the creators of Danganronpa? "Welcome to the city of perpetual rain." Seattle? *badum-tss* Corporate-controlled metropolis? Lots of master detectives? Yuma, an amnesiac detective, and Shinigama, the spirit haunting him after their pact. Find clues, then unravel them in an adjacent realm to learn the truth while dealing with Mystery Phantoms that try to hinder your case. Master Detective Archives: Raincode. Spring 2023. Resident Evil Village Cloud comes to the Switch. Zombies. Am I right? October 28 launch. Free demo today. And the Winters' Expansion DLC will launch December 2. We also get cloud versions of Resident Evil Biohazard, Resident Evil 2, and Resident Evil 3 this year. And a rapid-fire list here. Sifu, a kung-fu action brawler. Break their stance. Losing a battle means you get older, but this also lets you learn more things. Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII- Reunion, a prequel to Final Fantasy VII. A neat remaster with new graphics, music arrangements, and improved combat. December 13. Radiant Silvergun, a classic arcade shoot-em-up. Shoot enemies of the same color for a chain bonus or foes of different colors for a secret bonus. Today. Endless Dungeon. A roguelike set on a derelict spaceship. Procedurally-generated levels full of enemies. Up to 3-player online co-op. 2023. Tales of Symphonia Remastered. Classic turn-based RPG with a brand new look and animated cutscenes. Early 2023. And an even more rapid-fire list. Life is Strange: Arcadia Bay Collection. September 27, 2022. Romancing SaGa -Minsstrel Song- Remastered. December 1, 2022. Pre-orders available now. LEGO Bricktales. Fall 2022 Disney Speedstorm. 2022 Fall Guys - Season 2. September 15, 2022 And it's Kirby! Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe! In addition to familiar copy abilities, we have the new Mecha copy abilities, which include multiple styles of combat. Up to 4-player co-op, with no restriction on who plays as who, so you can have four Kirbys. There's a lot of minigames too. February 24, 2023. Pre-order today. And let's end on a high note. Nothing too much; just more news about Breath of the Wild 2. A stone carving of something with a vaguely Majora-esque face? Zelda enemies? Interesting lore. Here's Link running and diving off a flying island, rising up on an ascending platform, climbing the sides of a floating island, and landing from a dive on some large glider thing. And then the title fades in. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. May 12, 2023! For me, the highlights were the Splatfest, Pokémon Stadium, the very nicely-done abundance of 3D anime art style and cel-shading style, BotW 2 finally getting its official title, and Octopath 2. What's yours?