Zorua

Well, I think we're quite a bit past the expiry date. Thread 5, here we go. So, a big recap for a bunch of games: Minecraft is in version 1.17. It adds copper, amethyst, deepslate, moss, snowier snow, axolotls, glow squid, goats, stalactites and stalagmites, raw metals as a step between ores and ingots, the ability to place rails in the water, renewable lava, and a bunch of other stuff. Meanwhile, 1.18 is in some experimental testing right now, working out the new terrain and biome generation. And so far, it does not disappoint. This new update is gonna look amazing. Official snapshots coming soon. Pokémon Diamond and Pearl will be getting a Switch remake: Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. The overworld goes back to the chibi style from the pre-3D games. Most of the old mechanics are brought back the same, but the underground has some new functions to it that actually incentivizes using it. On the subject of Pokémon, there's a game set in the Sinnoh region in what looks like feudal times back when Sinnoh was called the Hisui region, with a Breath of the Wild-style open-world nature to it. Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Gorgeous graphics, Poke Balls have to be invented properly, wild Pokémon can attack you directly, new forms of Growlithe and Braviary, and new evolutions for Stantler and Basculin, among other changes we don't know yet. Metroid Dread! The long-rumored game marks Samus's return to the sidescrolling Metroid games. It's a sequel to Metroid Fusion, features an invincible robotic enemy called an E.M.M.I., and might feature a living Chozo for the first time in the series. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity will get its first wave of DLC. Featuring a new chain whip weapon and Zelda on a motorcycle. Anyone play Advance Wars? Well, it's getting a Switch port. First two games bundled in one. Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp. The sequel to Breath of the Wild will feature floating islands and a skydiving mechanic like in Skyward Sword. Combining aspects from the first game in the Zelda timeline with the world from the chronologically last game in the timeline? Sweet! Mario Party Superstars, for when you want to play some of the N64 Mario Party boards and minigames on newer hardware. Splatoon 3 has been announced. Featuring what looks like an Ink Bow (archery fans unite!), Octolings as a default character choice, gender no longer a selectable choice so you can mix and match however you want, a Salmonid companion pet, and what looks like the Eiffel Tower fallen over. Project Triangle Strategy looks like it's gonna fall in the same vein as Octopath Traveler, being 2D 16-bit characters in a 3D environment. The triangle in question appears to be a sort of reputation/karma meter type thing, with the three points being Utility, Morality, and Loyalty, and doing different things can boost or lower those things, ultimately affecting the story. Battles will also have a vertical component to them, making things easier or harder depending on where your and your opponents' units are. Looks interesting. If anyone likes the Touhou Project (a series of Bullet Hell vertical scrolling shoot-em-ups with an East-Asian Mythology theme), the 18th game in the series, Touhou Kouryuudou: Unconnected Marketeers, came out in May. It features a card mechanic in addition to the usual Bullet Hell. It's also the first in the series to debut as a digital release, for reasons that probably don't need to be mentioned *coughcovidcough*. Genshin Impact is an open-world RPG and it looks beautiful. I'll be honest: any 3D open-world game in a medieval fantasy setting reminds me of Breath of the Wild just by being a 3D open-world game in a medieval fantasy setting, which is not a bad thing as I love Breath of the Wild too. It has a lot more characters than Breath of the Wild and a story that's more involved in more places, so give it a looksie. Paper Mario: The Origami King is the 6th or 7th installment of the Paper Mario side series (depending on how you count Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam). The evil King Olly and his Legions of Stationary have taken over the Mushroom Kingdom! Princess Peach has been folded into an origami version of herself and is brainwashed to boot, and Bowser can't help because he's been quite literally folded into uselessness. It's up to you to save the Mushroom Kingdom. You want to fight on a circular arena against a giant stapler? Sure! Embrace the weirdness of the idea and have fun. A lot of people seem to like Cyberpunk 2077. It looks interesting. Looks like this thread closed down just before we could talk about Final Fantasy VII Remake. It's a remake of Final Fantasy VII, bringing the familiar story up to date with new graphics and reminding everyone what the characters' original personalities were. It's definitely a remake. Pay no attention to those Whisper things that weren't there in the original game. Among Us, which was released in 2018, got a surge of popularity once Covid trapped everyone at home and some YouTubers started playing it. Speaking of games by Puffballs United, the Henry Stickmin Collection combines all of the first five Henry Stickmin games into one compilation game and adds in a sixth game to cap off the story. The collection tweaks many of the references to be less copyright-infringing while cleaning up the first five to improve the graphics. As a side note, the airship from the Henry Stickmin games was turned into an Among Us map. It's a pretty big map. Oh snap! It's New Pokémon Snap! The classic rail (photo-)shooter is back! On the subject of Pokémon, we also get Pokémon Unite! The first Pokémon MOBA game! Anyone who likes Subnautica might like its sequel, Subnautica: Below Zero. Now includes ice. And now for a big list of Super Smash Bros. fighters: Min Min Arms Herself! It was known that an ARMS character would join the Smash Bros. roster, but everyone thought it would be Spring Man (despite him being an Assist Trophy). Everyone was surprised to see Min Min instead. She's a fun character. Her stage is Spring Stadium, which, in ARMS, is Spring Man's home stage, funnily enough. Also including 18 tracks from ARMS, which is pretty much the entire ARMS soundtrack already. Only two of those--the main theme and the Ramen Bowl theme (Min Min's home stage in ARMS)--are new remixes. Steve Rocks the Block! Steve from Minecraft! Minecraft in Smash! Also including Alex, a Zombie, and an Enderman as alternate costumes. Yes, you can place blocks on the stage! The stage, Minecraft World, looks like something we can just build (I've certainly taken a crack at it). Includes seven music tracks, six of which are new remixes, from Minecraft Dungeons, Earth, and Console Edition. Sephiroth Descends into Battle! Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII joins the roster! Easily the most powerful character in terms of average raw damage output per move and one of the four most powerful characters in the roster lore-wise (next to Kirby, Palutena, and Bayonetta). He brings the Northern Cave as his stage, and with it, some measure of spoilers for the end of Final Fantasy VII. There's also nine new music tracks from Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, including Sephiroth's iconic theme, One-Winged Angel. Pyra Blazes into Battle! and Mythra Awakens! Pyra and Mythra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 share the invitation, being able to switch between one another mid-battle, much like Zelda and Sheik in Melee and the Pokémon Trainer in Brawl and Ultimate. Pyra's attacks are stronger but slower, and Mythra's are quicker but weaker. It's all in the balance. Their stage is the Cloud Sea of Alrest, which is basically riding on the back of the character Azurda (also known as Gramps), a Titan (a giant creature) sailing through the, well, cloud sea on the world of Alrest, passing by other, much larger Titans in the background. Includes 16 new music tracks from Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Kazuya Gets Ready for the Next Battle! Kazuya Mishima from Tekken joins the Super Smash Bros. cast! After his father Heihachi and son Jin have shown him up several times, Kazuya finally gets to be the focus of the Tekken crossover this time, and arguably in the much more famous and iconic crossover too. Fitting, since Kazuya was the protagonist of the first Tekken and was demoted to antagonist for later games. He's got a whole bunch of moves from his home series, including a famous 10-Hit Combo. Kazuya has far more moves than anyone, so there's a high learning curve for anyone who isn't a Tekken veteran already. His stage is the Mishima Dojo stage from Tekken 7, and it brings thirty-nine tracks from the Tekken series. Also it's kinda neat to think the next Street Fighter x Tekken game is Super Smash Bros. One more to go... We also got a number of new Mii Fighter costumes: Ninjara (ARMS), Heihachi (Tekken), Callie and Marie (Splatoon), Vault Boy (Fallout), Creeper, Pig, and Diamond Armor (Minecraft), Gil (The Tower of Druaga), Bomberman (Bomberman), Travis Touchdown (No More Heroes), Barret, Tifa, and Aerith (Final Fantasy VII), Chocobo hat (Final Fantasy), Geno (Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars), Hunter Equipment, Rathalos Equipment, and Felyne hat (Monster Hunter), Arthur (Ghosts 'n Goblins), Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia), Dragonborn (The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim), Dante (Devil May Cry), and Shantae (Shantae). Shantae's costume also unlocks a music track: Burning Town from Shantae: Half-Genie Hero. In other news, I got Celeste, which is pretty fun. I'm stuck on this one room in Core B, though. I've almost made it on a couple of occasions, but the timing is a bit too strict for my level of skill. I need more practice. I also got to play Octopath Traveler for a bit, which is also pretty fun. I beat Ophilia and Cyrus's stories and finished chapter 3 of everyone else's. Love this game. Also Octopath has some of the best music.

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?

Thus far I haven't really been doing much. I've gotten back into Raft and decided that, instead of exploring Varuna Point on my survival world, I should just travel around, improve my raft, and just gather supplies. Nothing major. I've also hit a slowdown on a browser game I was playing, Pokeclicker, a Pokemon-themed idle/clicker game that's a bit more interactive than most idle games. To avoid over-explaining, basically I have a few Pokemon to get in order to progress to the next region, and they're all in expensive areas or have rare encounter rates, which means I've basically hit a slog. In other news, Masahiro Sakurai, one of Nintendo's big-name developers and the guy responsible for the Kirby and Super Smash Bros. franchises, is now a YouTuber. His channel mainly focuses on little details of game development, such as why hit stop is important or what a frame is, and about the design process behind games he's worked on. If you're interested in game development, give it a look.

Hold on to your tentacles... It's Inkopolis News time! Check it! Here is the current news updates from the Squid Research Lab! Two new movement options exist: the Squid Surge, to rapidly swim up walls in a burst, and the Squid Roll to jump out of ink while rapidly turning around, deflecting enemy ink briefly. New stages include: Scorch Gorge, Eeltail Alley, Mincemeat Metalworks, Undertow Spillway, and Hagglefish Market Returning stages include: Museum d'Alfonsino, Hammerhead Bridge, Mahi-Mahi Resort, Inkblot Art Academy, Sturgeon Shipyard, Makomart, and Wahoo World. Post-launch stages include the surprising return of Flounder Heights from Splatoon 1 and a new stage that we don't know the name of yet that seems to be Egypt-inspired. As for weapons, all the base weapons from before will return. New weapon types include the Stringers, which are based on bows, and the Splatana, which are kinda sword-like. The ones of each we know about are the Tri-Stringer, which fires three shots horizontally on the ground and vertically in the air and appears to be based on a fishing rod, and the Splatana Wiper, which fires slashes of ink like a sword beam and is based on a windshield wiper. Some new specials are the Tacticooler, which gives four power-ups that give buffs, like a speed boost; the Wave Breaker, which sends shockwaves along the ground the damage foes and track foes hit by them; and the Reefslider, a ridable mount that carries you forwards before exploding. Then there's also the Triple Inkstrike and Crab Tank. Returning specials include the Tenta Missiles, Inkjet, Ink Storm, Ultra Stamp, and Booyah Bomb. Back in the main hub, we have Ammo Knights, the weapon shop, stocked by Sheldon as usual. His currency is Sheldon Licenses, which are obtained by leveling up in battle and consistently using the same weapon. You can buy weapons you don't have the level for just yet, but it's more expensive. For fashion stores, we have Naut Couture, the hat shop, staffed by a nautilus named Gnarly Eddy and his snail friend Nails; Man-o'-Wardrobe, the clothing store, selling shirts and jackets, staffed by Jel La Fleur, a fashion-minded jellyfish; and Crush Station, the shoe store, owned by a large crustacean named Mr. Coco. Clothing have abilities that help you in battle, as usual. A new one, Intensify Action, improves the Squid Roll and Squid Surge moves. Don't like the abilities on your gear? Talk to Murch, who returns from Splatoon 2 but is noticeably older, and he can swap abilities for you. Save your entire outfit/weapon kit. 5 presets are seen, but there might be more. Ranked Battle is now called Anarchy Battle, which appear to be pretty much the same. There's a noticeable difference to Rainmaker, though, in that there are "checkpoint" pedestals, so you don't have to take the Rainmaker as far if you lose it. The practice area is also changed. You can go into training while waiting for a match. Ghosts of your allies can be interacted, so you can interact with them to a point or even invite them to join a battle. You can also view replays of battles and share them. Customization is also a thing. There are viewable lockers that you can customize with stuff. Have fun decorating your space. There's a new store called Hotlantis, run by an artist named Harmony who used to be a regular customer. The store owner vanishes quite often. Hotlantis is where you get customization options. Players also have banners that can be customized, and even their victory emotes can be customized. These can be unlocked at Hotlantis. Customization catalogues are released every three months for the first two years of the game's release. Who wants to play cards? There's a turf war imitation card game called Table Turf Battle! Cards have tiles of turf to cover the play field. A 1v1 competitive spin-off of Turf Wars. Salmon Run: Next Wave. Salmon Run is mostly the same, but with a few new Boss Salmonids added in. The Slammin' Lid is a UFO-type thing that creates a barrier that protects Salmonids underneath and tries to crush anyone that goes underneath. The Big Shot has basically a mortar launcher whose shots create shockwaves similar to the Wave Breaker special. After you clear the mode, you could get an emergency that a new King Salmonid appears. A giant Boss Salmonid that appears after you've cleared the final wave. You can launch Golden Eggs at him to hurt him, but remember that this mode is under a time limit. There's even a mode called Big Run where Salmonids can invade regular multiplayer stages. Single Player mode is called Return of the Mammalians. You play as Agent 3 (or a new Inkling with that number, at any rate) and their mini Salmonid companion called Small Fry battling the Octarians once again, but this time the Octarians are covered in hair...for...some reason. Use it to learn how to use weapons and get some good practice in. In the hub, there's the Mailbox, which lets you make Miiverse-style messages that show up in the world. There's a concession stand where you can buy food and drinks that give you boosts to money or stuff. The Shoal returns, which allows for local connection with nearby friends. Photo Mode lets you take pictures that you can send to a smart device or put them in your locker. The Recon Guide lets you look around stages by yourself. Any stage, not just the ones in rotation, and you get a full hour to explore, instead of three-to-five minutes. Splatnet 3, a mobile app, lets you track statistics, get phone wallpapers, get gear you can't get in-game, and support Crusty Sean, a character from the previous two games, for unknown rewards. Available at launch. amiibo figures can be used once again. Save an outfit/weapon set to your amiibo to load it in as needed. Take a picture with the amiibo character. And get hyped for the Splatoon 3 amiibo: Inkling Girl, Octoling Girl, and Little Buddy. Post-launch stuff doesn't just include stages and catalogues, but also new weapons, X Battle (for high-ranked Anarchy Battle players), and League Battle (team Anarchy Battle modes) will be added for free, and a large-scale paid DLC will be added eventually. Meet the announcers: an Inkling named Frye, an Octoling named Shiver, and a manta ray named Big Man, form a group called Deep Cut. They serve as the news announcers. Players have Sea-Cucumber Phones, which lets them check the news while doing other things. No more being forced into the hub for stage rotation updates. Splatfests return! There's some changes, though. Splatfests now have three options! They're divided into two halves: first has typical 4v4 turf war rounds, but then they switch to 2v4v2 rounds where the team in the lead starts in the middle of the stage and is surrounded by two players each from the other teams. Yes, a tri-color Turf War! We also get the Splatfest World Premiere on August 27! Our choices are... Rock, Paper, or Scissors? (Frye questions why this is a thing before getting into it). Tune in on September 5 for the first Splatoon 3 tournament! No, in real life! The Splatoon 3 Enter the Splatlands Invitation 2022! Hosted in Seattle at PAX West, the top Splatoon 2 teams will duke it out in the Splatlands! Check it out! From Splatsville, that's a wrap. Catch ya later!

Few days ago, we got the next official Pokemon presentation. As usual, here's the highlights. Here we go. First, Chris Brown gives updates on the annual Pokemon World Championships, which return in 2022 after a three year absence. The event will feature battles in the card game, in Pokken Tournament, in the main series games of course, and now Pokemon Go and Pokemon Unite for the first time. We also see a new Pikachu championship trophy. Looks nice. Ultra Beasts and Shaymin appear in a new Pokemon Go event: Pokemon GO Fest 2022. There's also a new item that can attract Pokemon not normally in your area, Legendary Pokemon included. Pokemon Unite is a year old, and to celebrate, there's some new Pokemon and events. The Pika Party event, lasting until September 3, has Pikachu as the only Pokemon in the entire arena, playable and wild. Buzzwole is a new playable Pokemon, with Tyranitar on the horizon and three more to be added starting in September. Pokemon Master EX, in celebration of its 3-year anniversary, gets a new playable character: RED! Mewtwo is back in Pokemon Cafe Remix, and he is hungry. Clear a one-minute cooking game, and he can even join your staff. Latios is also on the way. ...did they seriously make actual wearable mascot suits for the Gen 9 starters? Well, I guess that's a good enough segue into the Scarlet and Violet news. Anyway, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet! The region is officially named: the Paldea region! Definitely looks like it's based on the Iberian Peninsula. The region is fully open-world. Presumably some locations are locked behind badge progression or story progression, but you can battle the Gyms in any order you choose. Beyond the Gym challenge, there are two other stories. We didn't get a lot of detail, but overall, it's called the Treasure Hunt, which presumably is less looking for shiny things and more making your own story. We meet one Gym Leader: Grusha, the Ice-type Gym Leader. Not gonna lie, I thought Grusha was a woman too. I blame the winter clothes and the hair. The Legendary Pokemon, Koraidon and Miraidon, accompany you from the start as your multipurpose riding mount! Ride on their back for faster travel, aquatic travel, scaling cliffs, or even gliding in the air! There might be some story component where they switch into their status as actual battle-capable Pokemon. Of note is that despite looking like it has wheels, Koraidon (who appears to represent the past) just runs everywhere. We have two new Pokemon: a mono-Fairy-type pastry-themed dog named Fidough (so... a pure bread purebred?), and an Ice-type land whale called Cetitan (the third whale Pokemon line after the Wailmer line and Kyogre). We also get a regional variant of Wooper. Paldean Wooper is Poison/Ground. I wouldn't pet this one, though. Returning Pokemon aren't too shabby either, as we see Skiddo being catchable for the first time since Gen 6. Also Pikachu appears to have its animalistic cry again, instead of saying its name as has been normal for a couple gens now. I counted, and the number of Pokemon confirmed so far is 172 (counting the not-yet-revealed evolutions for the starters). Only 16 of which are new. Multiplayer! Invite up to three friends into your game. Run around to catch Pokemon you haven't caught yet or just race across the map. Have fun! The new gimmick is the Terastal phenomenon (I think "terra" and "crystal"). It provides a crystalline filter over the Pokemon and a goofy-looking but elementally-relevant hat thing (probably for accessability purposes; it's hard to tell Fire-type red from Grass-type green if you're red-green colorblind). Terastallizing your Pokemon will change their type and give a boost to that type and moves thereof. Every Pokemon has a "Tera Type", and by "every" Pokemon, I mean every individual Pokemon could have a different Tera Type. Eevee's Tera Type is normally...well, Normal, but you could find Eevee that have a Water or Grass Tera Type. Tera Types are not equally common. Pokemon with rare Tera Types can be encountered in Tera Raid Battles (yes, raid battles are back). During these battles, you and your allies are not limited by turn order; you can select an attack even if your allies are in the middle of an action! Pre-orders are available. As a pre-order bonus, you can get a Pikachu with not only the Flying Tera Type but also the move Fly, which I don't think it's been able to learn since Pokemon Yellow (correction: Pikachu with Fly is a recurring event giveaway and can be found in the Pokewalker so never mind). So, gyms in any order you want, new doggo, new whale, Legendary is on your side from the very start, active multiplayer, no-turn-limit-among-allies raid battles, and a much-easier-to-program-and-memorize Super Mode gimmick. Scarlet and Violet are looking pretty good so far.

I decided to boot up Raft again. In the months since I last played, they added three new story islands, some new craftable items, trading posts to get rid of excess junk, and four new player character options. In my main survival world, I went to the next story island, Varuna Point, which is the top of a submerged skyscraper, and found basically nothing there, only to have the realization that the bulk of the level takes place underwater. And while I was exploring what was on the surface, there was a mysterious impact noise, like something exploded. Faced with that realization, I decided to start up a new world in Peaceful difficulty--resources and islands still generate, but no hostile land creatures will attack you unless you attack first, and hostile aquatic creatures don't attack at all. You can also still get hurt from drowning, starving, dehydration, fall damage, and environmental hazards, so that's still a worry, but no big. I used this to build up a significant resource base without having to worry about the shark attacking my stuff, and I managed to build my raft about to where my usual Normal-difficulty raft was. To sum up my trip through the new story, all three new islands have an enemy that hurts you in ways that break the previous trends of peaceful mode. Varuna Point has the Anglerfish, an aquatic creature that retaliates, and the Rhino Shark, a boss that attacks by ramming into you, pushing you away from your precious air bubbles even if you're playing in peaceful and thus take no damage. Temperance has the Scuttlers, which are outright hostile and attack you even in peaceful. And Utopia has the final boss, who is fought in three phases, all of which involve setting up some kind of environmental hazard but phase three is hostile even in peaceful. Now, my main goal is to build up my raft. I'm going for kind of a layered design, which means I need to build supports for everything. Which requires nails, which are made from scrap, which is a pain to get in bulk if you need a lot of it. I basically need to loot all the scrap from every tiny island I can find. Titanium is also needed for a lot of high-end equipment, and you're lucky if you get more than one per island. Fortunately, the trading post option sells titanium, so that'll speed things up a little. I'm building up my resources by revisiting all the story islands. That said, I need to progress my actual survival Normal-difficulty world, which is still parked at Varuna Point dreading the underwater trip. Maybe I should come back later after getting some more things. Like oxygen tanks. Or a spine. If you're looking for tips, here's one: Don't build the tall storage cabinet. First, it costs titanium, and second, it has less storage capacity than four wooden storage chests. Chests can be placed on walls, so build a single two-high wall panel and you can have four chests taking up the same amount of space as a storage cabinet. Cheaper and more resource-efficient. Likewise, there's a fridge you can buy from the trader. Don't, for exactly the same reason. Looks nice, but four chests do the job way better. Another tip: enemy creature heads fill up the biofuel reactor very well. Watermelons are also a good substitute, so if you're looting small islands for scrap and titanium, be sure to pick up some spare watermelons and set up some crop plots near your reactor. A third tip: clam shells are surprisingly good in the recycler, so any shell from your fourth onwards is recycling fodder. Wool is also good, so catch a lot of llamas to build up a good supply.

So instead of upgrading my Minecraft world, I decided to boot up Octopath Traveler again. After debating for some time about what order to do everyone's Chapter 2 in, I decided to just do it in order of minimum recommended level. Chapter 3 as well, and then their Chapter 4 in reverse order I recruited them so as to end on the character I started with (Ophilia will be horrendously overleveled at that point). [Edit]: Something I forgot to mention is this: When you beat your starting character's Chapter 4, you're treated to the proper end credits sequence. Throughout the credits, you see scenes from your playthrough, specifically the final hit you dealt against every story boss in the game. So if you want the most out of it, finishing your starting character's chapter 4 last will give you the most scenes. And it might be a good idea to make those moments memorable. With that in mind... Tressa is a Merchant, which means she has access to the ability "Hired Help". In exchange for money, you can call an NPC to your side of the battlefield to perform a single attack against the enemy side. The fourth on the list is a Cleric, which performs a Light-element attack against all enemies. Attacks can be boosted, which means by spending up to three Boost Points (they build up each turn in battle), you can make an attack stronger. How boosts apply to Hired Help is with each boost, you hire an additional NPC of the same type to do the same attack for no additional monetary cost. Basically what this means is when fighting Tressa's Chapter 2 boss, I had her pay 10,000 money to hire four clerics to basically nuke the guy. That's gonna be a memorable scene in the credits, that's for sure. (as a side note, the Cleric's strongest skill, which can only be used if you use three boost points, will let the target ally use their abilities twice for no additional cost. Which means one could use Hired Help to summon eight of them for the price of one. I (don't) feel sorry for Tressa's (or anyone's, really) other bosses.) [/edit] I still haven't booted up Kerbal Space Program. Not sure why.

The full Minecraft Version 1.19 is finally out. Community response is mixed; they love the new red wood type, the Mangrove Swamp biome is interesting, the Ancient City is very well-designed, the Warden is a neat boss-in-all-but-name, mud is nice, boats with chests are awesome, and so on, but they think it's also lacking in content, the Allay is complicated, and the Ancient City doesn't have enough worthwhile loot. Overall, they like most of what's there, but they think the Wild Update isn't wild enough. Personally? I haven't updated my main world just yet. I made a copy and updated that one so I could find the new biomes, to prepare for going out to search. The Ancient City is close enough that I can probably walk there in the overworld (which I might do because I don't want my portal to generate right next to the Warden), but for the Mangrove Swamp I'll have to go even further out from one of my Nether tunnels. I'm interested in all the new blocks, so I'm gonna go for it.

A tiny bit late. Oh well. Anyway, so minor Minecraft thing. With 1.19 on the way, I wanted to try and set up a number of automatic farms in different places and finish some other ways of getting a lot of resources. To this end, I decided to work on three things at first: finishing my Villager Trading Hall, building a Piglin farm, and building a Drowned farm. The Piglin farm is a gold farm hooked up to a Piglin bartering station so I can trade the gold for a large amount of resources, including gravel, obsidian, and potions. The Drowned farm will produce tridents, nautilus shells, and the coveted copper ingots. And the Villager Trading Hall will produce...practically everything. Not literally, but there are so many resources you can get out of those, and I want in on them. The main problem is I wasn't sure what to do first. Finish the trading hall? Set up the gold farm? Go for copper? So I chucked named pieces of paper in a dropper and let the Random Number Gods decide. The gold farm is almost finished. Literally the only thing I'm missing is the Piglin to barter with. The problem with spawning one in is the spawn platform is too close to the gold farm, so Zombified Piglins are filling the hostile mob cap. The farm produces all the gold I will ever need, so we're not having trouble just yet. A couple of optional things I'd like to add to this farm is 1) a Cleric-profession Villager to trade the stacks upon stacks of rotten flesh the gold farm produces, and 2) a furnace to smelt the stacks upon stacks of golden swords into gold nuggets into. Those are just nice add-ons, though, and I'll worry about them once I get the Piglin in place. My Villager Trading Hall is divided up into 11 buildings. Ten of them are dedicated to a specific villager type while the remaining one has the three blacksmith-style professions sharing. The main reason for dividing stuff up is entirely for the theme, admittedly; all the Librarian Villagers are in a library, all the Shepherd and Farmer villagers are in a big barn with attached sheep pen, the Leatherworker villagers are in a clothing store, etc. The main issue is resources, as the Shepherd/Farmer hall and Leatherworker hall both require stained terracotta, and rather than mine all of that, I could easily just buy it from the Mason villagers...which I currently have none of. I know I'll end up breeding more than enough villagers and probably recycling some of the excess for other projects. Two more things with this I need to do is first, to move the villager breeder as I think it's too close to the established villagers so it thinks this village is sufficiently populated. If I move the breeder, then it'll probably work better. And second, I need to make a Zombie Cure Station, where I intentionally let a villager become zombified and then cure them so that they will, out of gratitude, permanently lower their prices. Do this a few times, and a lot of expensive trades could be brought down to just a one emerald/resource cost. I need to do this with every villager, and counting how many villagers I'll have...this could take a while. Finally, the Drowned farm. I found a basic tutorial and built this thing in a Creative Mode copy of my world. And thus far...it has produced exactly zero Drowned. Plenty of fish, but no Drowned. I wonder if I did something wrong. I'm honestly tempted to try and copy one of the ridiculously overpowered Drowned farms made by TangoTek on the HermitCraft server, but it seems like a lot more work and I'd at least like something simple. Technically I have a Drowned farm already that funnels zombies from a spawner into a chamber that turns them into drowned for me to kill, but this is incredibly slow. After I make all of these, there's a couple of things I'd like to do. Fix my Iron Farm (should be easy when I end up with way too many extra Mason villagers), make a TNT Tree Farm, improve my Honey farm, a Dripstone farm, Bamboo farm, Blaze Farm, Amethyst, Guardian, Flowers... I have a lot of farms I need to work on. As for actual builds I'd like to work on, well... I like the idea of taking existing Minecraft structures and building them in different build styles. I want to turn an End City into a collection of tree houses and build a Nether Fortress as a futuristic flying structure using colored glass to simulate hard light bridges. Both of these require a lot of wood and glass, respectively. Plus there's making my own custom Woodland Mansion, making one again underwater out of prismarine, making an Ocean Monument on the surface styled after said mansion, and some other stuff. I also have a dumb idea of making a massive city with themed buildings. Nineteen central buildings themed after the superheroes/villains from Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir, surrounded by about ninety buildings that are based on the Super Smash Bros. playable characters, either themed after those characters or lifted directly from their source games. Not sure if I'm gonna do this in my main world or not. And that's just on my main world. I also want to build the Kanto region from Pokemon, but scaled up and more fleshed out with elevation changes and a lot of extra buildings, and there's no way that's going to be a Survival-only world. I'm starting in the middle, in Saffron City, and it's...already a little out of hand. Speaking of Pokemon... New gameplay trailer! Two Professors! Professor Sada if you pick Scarlet Version, and Professor Turo if you pick Violet Version. I wonder if the other one will show up in a minor or even antagonistic role. Could be neat. New rival! Nemona, the player character's friend. Her design is neat. She has a Pawmi. New Pokemon! Pawmi, an electric rodent that, if the cheeks are any indication, is gonna be the new Pika-clone. Lechonk, a Normal-type pig Pokemon. And Smoliv, a small olive Grass/Normal Pokemon. Region details! Looks like Pokemon Center-type kiosks are scattered outside instead of being indoor buildings. New Legendaries! Koraidon in Pokemon Scarlet, and Miraidon in Pokemon Violet. People have noticed that their names refer to past and future, respectively, and that they seem to have an odd wheel-like shape on their chests. Release date! November 18, 2022!

Not much in terms of games I've played other than adding a little bit to my Nether tunnel, but I did look around (a copy of) the world in Spectator mode and found a cave that had a horde of Zombies. There's a chance that a baby Zombie will appear while riding a chicken, a chance referred to as a Chicken Jockey. If the player gets too far away, the baby Zombie will despawn, but since the chicken itself is a passive mob, it won't. Chickens also lay an egg every 5 to 20 minutes. Since this chicken exists in a pitch-black dark cave, it exists in the same darkness level that Zombies can spawn. Zombies have a low possibility of being able to pick up items that are dropped on the ground, such as...eggs dropped by chickens. If a Zombie is holding an item it picked up, it will not despawn on its own, meaning it will persist in the world. And since this particular cave is entirely closed off, I didn't find it by running around lighting up caves, meaning it had been entirely ignored. In a cave close enough to areas I spent a lot of time in that there were plenty of chances for Zombies that could pick up items to spawn. The result was a horde of zombies some thirty-or-so strong just sitting there in a cave. Now, this might be a good thing. The game has a few mob caps, limiting how many of certain types of mobs can exist at once. The more naturally-spawned zombies exist, the less can spawn anywhere else so long as the others are still loaded in the world. Putting a mechanism setup called a Chunk Loader in the right spot would keep this horde loaded, meaning zombies and other hostile overworld mobs wouldn't be able to spawn, making the game safer overall. The problem is the horde was close enough to a hostile mob farm I'd built, one that relies on dark spaces for hostile mobs to spawn to funnel them into a kill chamber. If the horde is loaded, the horde adds to the hostile mob cap, meaning the farm becomes less efficient, and thus I get less resources out of it. Ultimately, the horde had to go. In terms of game update news, they added the Goat Horn which had been in Minecraft: Bedrock Edition's experimental versions for a little while now. Using it makes a sound that can be heard from a very far distance. They didn't just add one, but eight, each making different noises and giving a reason to make a goat farm. They're also adding a lot of bug fixes in the last couple of snapshots, which is usually a sign that the full version is around the corner.

Yeah, any time someone on DA posts a multi-page story or comic and doesn't either add next/previous links in the description or put them in order in a folder in their gallery so the left/right arrows work, it's frustrating. Fortunately, Jocelyn does both. I think Rain was hosted on Smackjeeves at one point. The comments on the last page imply that it no longer is, but I can't be bothered to check. (...aaaaand someone beat me to it with the comic's actual site that I didn't even know existed)

The main thing about my Minecraft world is that it's been updated so many times that I have to go really far away to find new stuff. It's at the point where biome-finder programs online don't match, sending me to a biome that doesn't exist. Fortunately there's an in-game command that locates a biome for me. Unfortunately, if I update the world any further, the new terrain generation will completely mess everything up and ruin even that command (e.g. I try to locate a swamp and it gives me the coordinates for a mountain). I've made a copy of the world to see where actual swamp, badlands, flower forest, and mushroom fields biomes can be found. And they're really far away. I'm going to connect them using the Nether, which will be rather perilous as the paths I've found to these coordinates go through open air through a Soul Sand Valley biome. What this means is I have to place a two-kilometer-long covered stone bridge over a lake of lava by hand while exposed to the air in an area in which giant flying murderghosts appear the most often to shoot explosive fireballs at me while staying far enough away that I can't even see where they're shooting from. Fun. Then, when Minecraft 1.19 finally comes out, I have to go out even farther to find the new Mangrove Swamp biome. Or hope I get lucky with the Wandering Trader. At least I have my automatic cobblestone farm now. Progress. Meanwhile in the world of Minecraft snapshots, the Warden now has a ranged attack. A sonic scream that has insane range and hits through walls. ...FUN.

Rain has reached its end. The final page was posted yesterday. I won't link it because it's the literal last page, so here's the literal first page. [link] Suffice to say, it ended on a good note.

Been playing Minecraft some more. I built an Enderman farm. Never need Ender Pearls ever again, plus it's better than any other experience farm I've built yet. I actually got the design from Welsknight from the Hermitcraft server. Also, yesterday I found a spot to sit and idle where mobs wouldn't get to me and left the game running while I went to work. For thirteen hours straight. I basically never have to worry about my iron supplies ever again. I also built a melon/pumpkin farm, which automatically feeds the excess into a Composter to get bone meal so I don't really have to worry about overflow. ...actually, I know I finished building it already, but maybe I could raise it up higher and put stuff underneath, use the excess bone meal for some other farms.