Howdy, Partners

Microsoft’s announcement last week that four of their games would be coming to other consoles came true, as both Grounded and Pentiment were confirmed for Switch andPlaystation consoles. (While Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves were announced for the PS5.

Epic Mickey is being remastered for Switch, Playstation, Xbox, and PC, with new visuals and updated gameplay. No release date was confirmed.

The original Monster Hunter Stories game, originally a 3DS exclusive, is getting remastered for Switch, PS4, and PC this Summer.

A new game in the Ender Lilies universe, Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist, was announced for this year.

Gundam Breaker 4 will release this year for Switch, Playstation, and PC.

Sega’s releasing a new Super Monkey Ball, Banana Rumble, with four player co-op and 16 player battle race modes. This will be Switch exclusive and launches June 25th.

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, is confirmed for October 10th. We can accept this Nintendo Direct farm game representation.

Suika Game, the viral puzzler, is getting a new multiplayer mode. Local mode is available now, and online multiplayer will release later. It is paid DLC, and a bundle of the DLC and the base game is available.

Shin Megami Tensei V is getting a new version, subtitled Vengeance. This new version will have a brand new route that splits right at the start of the game, adds another 80 hours of gameplay, and has updates to demon interaction. It’ll be out on Switch, but will also be getting released on Playstation, Xbox, and PC, and maybe finally run at a good frame rate.

Penny’s Big Breakaway, the 3D platformer via ex-Sonic Mania devs, is out now! (Right friggin’ now!) It’s available on all consoles.

A release of Star Wars Battlefront has been announced that bundles both of the classic original titles into one! There are new characters and maps as well, plus 64-player matches. This will be hitting every console and PC as well.

Game Freak’s 3DS sleeper hit Pocket Card Jockey got a Switch port available now. It’s really good, if you like card games, please check it out!

Switch Online’s classic games got an update, with five Rare titles added. Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll, R.C. Pro-Am, Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, Killer Instinct, and Blast Corps. are all available today. In Japan, the GBA Switch Online roster got MOTHER 3. Keep dreaming, MOTHER fans. Maybe some day. (Just go replay the fan translation, John knows he will.)

Another Japan exclusive (so far) announcement was the RPG REYNATIS from FuRyu. Its staff is absolutely packed, and John agree with the below Tweet—this better get localized.

The last announcement was a new Endless Ocean, subtitled Luminous. The old Wii games were a delight for the senses, so we are sure this will be a treat as well. There will even be up to 30 player multiplayer as well. It drops May 2nd.

There were a few other reveals, such as a date for the new Contra and Aggro Crab’s new Crab-based Soulslike, so check the rest of the Direct here.

Other Reveals

IGN also had a few reveals lined up, mostly trailers for previously announced games. However, the big new announcement was a port of the Game Boy Advance title Ninja Five-O. This is exciting, as Ninja Five-O is a solid title that many haven’t experienced due to its massive aftermarket price. Now more people will be able to experience this fun title thanks to Limited Run.

Beloved MOBA Gigantic is coming back—this time as a $20 release. The Rampage Edition will release April 9th, with a closed beta starting today.

The League of Legends fighting game, previously known by the codename Project L, is officially named….2XKO. Pronounced with each letter/number separately. Two Ecks Kay Oh. What’re we doing?

Tekken 8’s developers confirm that the game will soon receive a microtransactions shop, certainly concerning players.

The Borderlands movie got its first trailer. We’re sorry for showing you this, but news is news—and this isn’t even the worst bite this week! At least Jamie Lee Curtis gets to cosplay.

Elden Ring‘s expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, has been confirmed to release June 21st. New weapons, areas, and characters were shown off in the below trailer.

Continuing Losses

Creator of Suikoden and director of its spiritual successor Eiyuden Chronicle Yoshitaka Murayama passed away on February 6th. He was 55 years old.

Toys for Bob, the Activision subsidiary behind the recent Spyro and Crash games, laid off 36 people. Rumors said the entire studio shut down, but instead they cut around a third of their staff and went fully remote. This followed the massive 1,900 layoffs Microsoft enacted throughout their gaming sphere after the Activision acquisition went through.

Nijisanji EN vtuber Selen Tatsuki was publicly fired after a lengthy absence, which was revealed to have been due to a self harm. Now rebranded as Dokibird, she has re-entered the Vtuber space and has regained success. Nijisanji released multiple statements on the matter, but only ended up fueling further anger at them.

Kazumasa Habu has stepped down as producer of Digimon titles at Bandai Namco. There is still a new Digimon Story game in development without his involvement.

Mane6, developers of indie fighting game Them’s Fightin’ Herds, were fired from development on the game while mid-quality assurance for the last two characters in their season pass. The characters were released in an unbalanced, broken, buggy state, and it has been confirmed that further development is not planned. Promised story mode additions will not be made.

Maximum Entertainment, the current owner of the Them’s Fightin’ Herds IP, is ending active development on the fan-inspired My Little Pony fighting game, reportedly shifting their focus onto an Avatar: The Last Airbender 2D fighting game set for 2025 and Diesel Legacy, set for this year.

In other news…

Larian Studios achieves several more wins from the 27th D.I.C.E. Awards, ending on a high note by ultimately winning another Game of the Year award for Baldur’s Gate 3. Unlike the limitations that they dealt with at The Game Awards, the recipients were able to take their time in their winning speech to call out the current melancholic and unsustainable state of the games industry.

Hosts of the show this year, Greg Miller of Kinda Funny Games and Stella Chung, were also not privy to holding back on cracking scathing jokes against executives who were in attendance.

Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 also walks away from the 51st Annie Awards winning Best Character Animation in a Video Game.

2B from Nier: Automata has been released as a playable fighter in Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising.

Lady Gaga has come to Fortnite, with her music being added to the Festival mode and a new skin so you can play as Mother Monster and shoot Peter Griffin.

IGN’s Creators Guild has been voluntarily recognized by Ziff Davis. There’s still more work to be done by the union, but this is a huge step in the right direction.

And finally, a beta version of Hotel Mario has been found by YouTuber Game Pak Rat at a thrift store. This beta has unused dialogue and clear versions of old speech, meaning YouTube Poop just got DLC, baby.

The post The Bulletin: Nintendo News and Borderlands Blues appeared first on Gamesline.

Bust out the hankies and get crying, its the Tears of the Kingdom episode. Scott’s got thoughts on TOT-Kuh, the new Legend of Zelda game. But you don’t come to the Gamesline podcast to hear about one game, right? No way. That’s why John’s here to talk about Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines as well as some Banjo-Kazooie.

Plus: Hollow Knight: Silksong gets delayed again, Game Freak is collabin’, Under Night In-Birth 2 might be more than a waning dream, Mortal Kombat‘s getting rebooted… again, taking a look at the Asus ROG Ally, Open Roads splits from Fullbright, and games for moms.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Twitter @TheGamesline, @john_michonski, and @FKAsocks,

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on iTunes, and tell a friend about the show! If you want to send in questions send them to our ask box at gamesline.tumblr.com/ask.

You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or directly to our RSS feed.

Edited by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Ep. 3: Talkin’ TOTK appeared first on Gamesline.

New Games Coming Down The Track:

Zelda is out! The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Breath Of The Wild 2 if you’re nasty) is real and in folks’ hands. Immediate reviews are glowing as you’d expect, but it’s hard to tell what that really means this early in. Press around it has been highly guarded and handled by Nintendo as well as by deliriously ebullient fans whose identity depends on this game being a massive success. Luckily for you, Scott is live tonight playing it for the first time on GameslineTV. Come in tonight and see the Takes of a Gamer.

Hollow Knight: Silksong has been delayed once again to… later this year? It’s unclear currently when it will be released but there is still much to be done to prepare for a release way larger in scale than the original Hollow Knight. Will they be able to meet the lofty demands of fans? The pressure is clearly on and this is a sign they are taking it seriously.

Growing up, I played a TON of games on Kongregate and FlashGames. Some were regrettable, and some were jmtb02’s Achievement Unlocked series. A fun lampoon of the burgeoning design trope of the era. Now, Armor Games announced the blue platforming elephant has returned after a decade of absence in The Elephant Collection. And somewhere deep inside my soul, a younger me has lit up again for the first time in a decade.

Private Division is officially publishing a new action-adventure game by Game Freak. It’s not Pokémon though. Project Bloom is the codename for this new IP they have just started development on. While that may sound exciting, Game Freak’s track record has been shaky outside of Pokémon‘s unflappable IP with the lackluster Little Town Hero (2019). Private Division also has struggled as a publisher through many of its releases leading to a lackluster library, especially the recent Kerbal Space Program 2. So we’ll see if they can turn out anything from this vaguely potent combination.

“We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to create new IP that is bold and tonally different from our prior work,”

Kota Furushima, Director at Game Freak. 

Is French-Bread cooking again? The Korean Ratings Board seems to have rated what could be a sequel to Under Night In-Birth. There is a lot of speculation surrounding a sequel to clearly the greatest fighting game ever made but it may be titled Under Night In-Birth 2: Systacelles based on Gematsu’s report. Either way, your Eltnum loops better not be caught lacking anytime soon or my scrub ass Merkava will eat you.

Finally, Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon teased a new Mortal Kombat-related project on the way. Is this Mortal Kombat 12? The clock’s second-hand stops before striking twelve. Perhaps we’re moving past a twelfth entry and returning to another reboot of the franchise, but that’s the only heads or tails I can make of whatever this is suggesting. If you have ideas, let us know on your favorite social media, Discord, or in the comments below!

Merging The Green and Blue Lodge

Outside of new games announcements, we continue to follow Microsoft’s efforts in the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard. The EU’s European Commission may be finalizing it’s decision as soon as next week to allow the merger of the two corporations to happen. If that were to happen, it would make the current score Yes from China, Japan, and the EU’s trade commissions and a No from the UK and the US’s federal commissions. What does this mean for the $69B acquisition? It’s still too early to say, but Microsoft and Activision are exhausting all possible avenues before they finalize a deal. One thing is for certain, both corporations are so desperately hungry for this merger.

ASUS has revealed all the details to their Steam Deck competitor: The ROG Ally. The base price $599 version features an AMD Ryzen Z1 processor, 7-inch 150hz display, and 512GB Storage. This makes it stronger than the Steam Deck for a very comparable price. Pre-orders are up now (I won’t affiliate link you here, I promise) and it sounds like other than a very short battery life that this will be some substantial competition for the previously unchallenged mobile PC gaming space.

The developers of narrative game Open Roads has officially removed any recognition of the Fullbright name from their game. This follows reports of employee mistreatment from Fullbright’s co-founder Steve Gaynor in 2021. Gaynor was removed from development shortly after the reports were published, but Open Roads is now pushing forward with less baggage. The team is currently referred to as “The Open Roads team”.

In lighter news, Mark Frost confirms he did consulting on The Legend Of Zelda: Link’s Awakening while working on Twin Peaks?? In an Iwata Asks blog posted on Nintendo’s website around 2006, Zelda-series director Takashi Tezuka spoke about how he was inspired to make a followup to A Link To The Past by the runaway success of the surreal serial drama. I don’t know how Collider found this old blog post or how Mark Frost found the Collider piece, but he quickly tweeted out his collaboration on the project which confirms this whole story. This is a fascinating new wrinkle that somehow ties the beach-loving Marin to the beach-lying Laura Palmer.

The post The Bulletin: Games That Aren’t Zelda? appeared first on Gamesline.

Unlike most Pokémon games, Game Freak has seemingly hurriedly contracted an outside studio, ILCA, who has done outsourced work for absolute classic games such as Nier Automata, Dragon Quest XI, and Yakuza 0, to bash together a barebones remake of the already weak fourth generation games, basically just to check the box that says “Released a game in 2021”. This has produced titles that feel better than the originals, sure, but it didn’t bother to do anything beyond the most weary, sigh-worthy, passable improvements, making this title feel more empty and bland than the generation two remakes that came out when Diamond and Pearl were new! BDSP are mediocre games that, while not without some merit, make me wish that Pokémon would just take its goddamn time in development and stop its death march to irrelevance by churning out low quality games. Game Freak does not need to do this. There isn’t a mainline Mario game every year, there isn’t a yearly Zelda, why is Pokémon still doing this?

If you’re aware of BDSP at all, you’ll know that these are specifically remakes of just the Diamond and Pearl titles, and not Platinum. If you’re not into Pokémon, you’re probably saying “Yeah, makes sense,” but if you are an old-head you’ll quickly understand that this is flaw number one. The original Diamond and Pearl are poorly paced games with a limiting, bland Pokédex and a crappy map, with half-assed theming that dots the landscape with uneven climate. (There’s a swamp within walking distance of a snowy mountain? Why?) This was seemingly thanks to its own rushed development, which didn’t allow time for the Game Freak team to get used to the new DS hardware. This has, historically, been how it always is, with the first game on each new console generation being a huge step down as the team learns the ropes, which wouldn’t be an issue if they just had more time!

So many of the original’s issues are still here in the remakes, as they’ve been stuck to like a blueprint instead of a guide, for some reason. There are two fire-type Pokémon usable in the entire game before you beat the story, and one of them you have to choose to start out with. You will fight more Geodude in this game than in the generations Geodude came from. The electric-type gym leader uses a water-type. A good amount of these issues were amended in the third version, Platinum, but those updates are mostly ignored for this remake. Platinum was such a step up that many consider it to have straight up saved the fourth generation from being a complete wash (I mean, if you’re counting gen four’s own remake then it’s arguably actually the best ever, but I digress). There’s absolutely zero reason for the developers to ignore Platinum, and there’s even nods to it in the post-game, such as updated gym leader rosters, but why not in the main storyline encounters?

You may be asking, “John, wait, didn’t they add Pokémon to the Underground? That was a big thing in the originals, surely they did some new stuff!” Yeah they did, but absolutely not enough. If you recall, I said there were two fire types in the game. That was a slight lie. There are three, with Houndoom catchable in the underground. One more. The other underground additions are neat in the post-game, with catchable starters and even more options, but before then you’re barely getting anything you didn’t in the decade-old games. Hell, the Spiritomb quest is far worse than before. You used to be able to talk to 32 real live players in the underground. This lets you cooperate with another player and enter and exit the underground to both reach your goal, or smudge it with two copies. Now? You have to talk to different NPCs, who have different spawn rates and spreads across the entire underground area. Spiritomb went from a mid-game event to post-game at best, a far bigger headache than it ever was. It’s not even a communication thing any more! It’s just awful busywork!

Diamond and Pearl needed a tune up. Platinum got most of the way there, but with the gift of hindsight so much more could have been done. Expand the postgame, integrate more past Pokémon into the game throughout the routes. Give the region better theming that actually works. The previous and next generations were far better examples of world building in the series, with regions that meld into the themes of the story fluidly. Hoenn in Ruby/Sapphire was a commentary on land reclamation and its pros and cons. Unova in the Black and White titles is a reflection on the split of urban and rural communities in America. For Sinnoh, I keep thinking about how there’s a coal mining town at the start, and a town run entirely by solar power at the end. Perhaps this is supposed to stand for how things should change, a more advanced, healthy relationship with power as you reach bigger cities, but instead it’s just confusing, since there’s no reason why every town isn’t doing this to stop pollution, unless there’s Pokémon oil barons, which in that case let’s tackle that! The pieces of a conversation are here, but there’s never any follow up. A revamp to the story would be excellent, and hell, could’ve made Team Galactic a real threat and its leader Cyrus into an actual character.

Brilliant Diamond is also rife with bugs, most of which can be used for the player’s gain, such as the multitude of cloning techniques and item dupes that are popping up faster than the developers can wack-a-mole them back down. We’re going to be flooded with illegitimate shiny Pokémon in the coming weeks, or at least we will whenever the Wonder Trade function turns on. (YEAH IT DIDN’T LAUNCH WITH WONDER TRADE??? AND YOU STILL CAN’T AS OF WRITING!)

I’d even say the music is a downgrade. I look forward to hearing the remixes of classic Pokémon songs whenever a new remake happens, and usually they’re at least competent, if not superb. Here they range from straight up bad to just passable, with only maybe the Underground song being a good remix. The Dialga/Palkia theme sounds soulless instead of awe-inspiring, Team Galactic’s grunt theme starts off with what sounds like someone playing on one of those tiny cat pianos. It’s so frustrating when you remember how previous remakes treated remixes. Go listen to the HGSS remix of National Park and remember that they could’ve done something like that here.

Even with all these issues, I didn’t loathe playing BD. It could have been much, much better, but the overall enjoyment of the Pokémon experience will always be there. There are very light additions to the experience that shouldn’t be ignored, such as the ability to access your boxes from anywhere, as well as the ability to use the online functions from anywhere. However, you have to activate them by speaking to certain NPCs, so it’s not automatic for some reason. So many things in this game, and in Pokémon in general, are a few steps forward and a leap and bound back, frustrating! I feel like such a chump still getting some fun out of a game that’s obviously rushed and unfinished, but I did, so I won’t lie to you.

I feel really bad for ILCA here. This is their first game as a lead developer, and it sure doesn’t look good. However, I don’t blame them at all. This is because of Game Freak, who selfishly decided there NEEDED to be a game in 2021. Legends: Arceus is in less than a month, which is only around three months after BDSP released, so there’s no reason why this game had to be shoved out the door besides pure greed.

In the lead up to the remake’s announcement and release, I replayed Pearl version for the first time since I was a child. I sincerely think you should just stick to that, or even better, “acquire” a copy of Platinum for an actually improved version of the game. BDSP is unnecessary. It’s crass. It makes me very tired to think too hard about it. I thought I’d keep chugging along even beyond what I had to for the review, but not even the allure of shiny hunting has kept me occupied with this one. If you can’t keep even me playing a Pokémon game into the new year, something is really wrong here.

The post Pokémon Brilliant Diamond Review appeared first on Gamesline.

There are things to love about Let’s Go!, and the first thing that stands out is its art direction. I was really impressed with how the characters and environments look in the game. Character models are a good mix of early-gen Game Boy designs and 3D takes on the classic characters, and the towns and routes you take to reach them have wonderful colors and soothing ambiance that make them a joy to look at, even if they’re places you’ve been many times before. The visuals are coupled with soothing redoes of the Red/Blue OST, a far cry better than the iffy versions on FireRed/LeafGreen. The aesthetics of Let’s Go! obviously have a lot of love poured into them, and that especially shines in the new cutscenes put sporadically throughout the game. It’s adorable seeing Bill emerge from the teleporter while your confused player character stares in awe from the PC, or the Marowak ghost passing on to the afterlife in Lavender Tower, all in full 3D with actual staging. Pokemon follow you again like in HeartGold/SoulSilver, and it’s just as adorable now as it was then. You can even ride some of the larger Pokemon, and flying ones such as Charizard and Dragonite allow you to float freely over barriers and across routes. This all brings a warmth to the game, as you can turn around at any time and check in on your favorite Pokemon. Your chosen mascot, Eevee or Pikachu, is also interactable. You can pet them, feed them berries, and dress them up.

Unfortunately, that love isn’t everywhere, and the actual gameplay of Let’s Go! is quite a let down. Wild Pokémon battles have been all but removed; replaced with the capture game from Pokémon Go. A circle floats in front of the Pokémon, and you have to flick your joycon towards the Pokemon, preferably within the slowly shrinking inner-circle that will give you extra experience and a higher capture chance if you nail it. It feels rewarding to flick the ball right in the correct spot, especially if you’re using the Pokeball Plus (more on that later), but this makes playing the game while the switch is undocked a hassle. You can switch to handheld mode and aim with the gyros and control stick, but if you want to set the Switch down to play, say, on a plane, you’re going to look like an idiot flicking your controller at the screen. Not only that, but occasionally the aim just doesn’t work. I’ve done tosses at the exact same angle with the exact same Pokémon, and the ball has managed to travel in vastly different ways. When you’re starting out, Pokeballs and money are a valuable resource and so this can cause headaches, especially with the new leveling system.

Without wild Pokémon fights, experience is gained by catching Pokémon. EXP is distributed to your party after every capture, and special combos raise the amount of EXP with each consecutive capture. There are also bonuses for catching each new species of Pokémon, having good aim, and perhaps the most important one, comboing captures. The more of the same Pokémon you catch in a row, the higher your EXP goes, as well as other perks, such as rarer spawns, higher stats on the Pokémon you’re chaining, and a higher chance a shiny Pokémon will appear. This works well in Pokémon Go, as that game staggers how many Pokémon you can catch with items drops and spawns. In Let’s Go!, however, the only thing limiting you is how many balls you have, which can lead to flooding your one Pokémon Box (ONE!!! ONE, COMPLETELY UNREFINED) with a single Pokémon species. It’s easy to accidentally release a good Pokémon you wanted to the Professor in exchange for stat boost candies instead of keeping it, unless you take care to label them with nicknames or little stars. PC boxes that let you organize your Pokémon has always been a genius innovation in the monster collecting genre, but this omission makes Let’s Go! feels like a Pokémon knockoff. This dump of Pokémon isn’t helped by integration with Pokémon Go, which lets you bring Pokémon from the mobile game into the Switch game. Your box will quickly become a warzone, strewn with dozens of Pokémon that you just want to get rid of.

There’s a lot here that feels regressive, and maybe that’s not fully Let’s Go!’s fault, but how the game is designed ends up highlighting these issues. The VS Seeker in previous titles allowed you to rematch trainers nigh-infinitely, which would have been a massive boon when money is such a commodity in this game. In Let’s Go, you can rematch gym leaders and a few select special trainers here and there, but those Pokémon trainer’s levels become drastically higher., Meanwhile in previous titles, the trainers would only level up slightly, so you could revisit them with weaker Pokemon and get some good EXP out of them while actually using the Pokémon instead of sitting on it. Perhaps the most archaic element of Let’s Go! is its online functionality. Instead of the robust online functions the 3DS titles boasted, such as random trading, easy battle challenging, and other unique functions. In this game, you do this:

This is how online works. How do you not connect to randos? pic.twitter.com/X67Vtg15qI

— John (@john_michonski) November 18, 2018

I meant it when I said this was one of the worst features in any game I’ve ever seen. Game Freak seems to think very little of the people who bought this game, whether they want to aim this towards mobile fans or youngsters starting out with Pokémon for the first time. Pokémon has always been simple and accessible, and this weird dumbing down of the concepts almost feels offensive. I was really young when I played Pokémon Red on Game Boy, and there are plenty of kids playing far more complicated games. Fortnite is the biggest game in the world right now, and has matchmaking, weapon pickups, and other contemporary features. Let’s Go! absolutely did not need to be as as mild as it is.

On top of these simplifications, it’s even more confusing when some of the more hardcore elements of Pokémon are kept around. The previously mentioned stats you have to constantly capture Pokémon for are IVs, the difficult to grasp secret stats that you normally have to use special methods to gauge or influence. It’s far easier in Let’s Go! to see these stats, but it’s confusing why they don’t just do away with them at all, especially when something as basic as abilities. Abilities make a visible, fun change to battles, but IVs just bloat the experience, making the player capture more and more Pokémon, hoping to find one with perfect stats. I quickly found myself combo-catching Pokémon I barely had an interest in training, just because the thought of having perfect stats overwhelmed me. For a series supposedly about making bonds with your Pokémon and forming a team, this game is incredibly impersonal.

An additional layer to Pokémon Let’s Go! is the Pokeball Plus accessory, which comes bundled with the game in a $100 bundle, or separately for $50. That’s really expensive for a controller that has one control stick, two buttons (one of which is the stick!), and a speaker, but its design at least accentuates the feeling of playing the game. The controller vibrates with the movements of Pokeballs in-game, and lights up to match the status of your capture. The game is absolutely playable this way with no hassle. It took a little re-tooling as I had to basically reprogram my brain to remember that pressing buttons AND using the stick was on my right thumb, not spread between both thumbs as per usual. The Pokeball Plus can also be used to carry a Pokemon with you and gain EXP with steps a la the Pokewalker from HeartGold/SoulSilver. There aren’t any minigames like the Pokewalker, just occasionally the ball will shake and your Pokémon’s cry will sound, which will immediately out you as a total dweeb when you’re waiting in line for pizza. The last thing it can do is work as a Pokémon Go Plus, by automatically collecting items from PokeStops when it is connected to your phone. These are all fun additions, but for $40-$50? That’s a stretch.

Pokémon Let’s Go! absolutely has a reverence for the first generation of Pokémon, and that’s not a bad thing. What is a bad thing is how it’s somehow both overwhelmingly confusing and too simple. Pokémon should absolutely mess with its formula, but this was not something I would consider as a step-forward. There are positives, but they’re swimming in a sea of frustration. Generation 8 better come out swinging.

The post Pokémon: Let’s Go! Eevee Review appeared first on Gamesline.

Pokken Tournament is getting the Deluxe port treatment, with the title coming to Switch on September 22nd. The four missing fighters from the arcade edition will be added, as well as Decidueye from Sun and Moon. Pokken is an excellent game so if you missed it on Wii U, I highly recommend the Switch port, so long as it runs well.

Strangely enough, the next mainline Pokemon games were casually mentioned mid-Pokken reveal. Pokemon Ultra Sun and Pokemon Ultra Moon will release November 17th for 3DS, and will include an alternate story and some mixed and matched Pokemon. The trailer showed Lunala and Solgaleo in some Mewtwo Strikes Back style headgear, so the story will seemingly be vastly different from last year’s games. Let’s hope there’s more to it than that, especially since it’s not coming to Switch like everyone wanted.

Finally, Pokemon Gold and Silver will be releasing on 3DS Virtual Console September 22nd (same day as Pokken Deluxe). These ports will work with Pokemon Bank, and while that’s all well and good, it’s pretty confusing that there’s no Virtual Console port of Crystal to go along with this.

I’ve never seen so many confusing announcements in one eight minute package. While I am excited for everything shown here, I’m also left wondering why Game Freak didn’t go a step further. Sun and Moon were such forward thinking games, and now it seems the developer has fallen back into its old habits.

The post Pokemon Direct Reveals Pokken, Ultra Sun/Moon, Virtual Console Games appeared first on Gamesline.

Sun and Moon is a fantastically paced game, at least once you get out of the tutorial. The beginning’s requisite Nintendo tutorial leads to a briskly paced game that carts you across each of Alola’s four islands in swift fashion. You constantly swap between island challenges, the game’s refreshing replacement for gyms, and fending off the hilarious antics of the antagonistic Team Skull. Island challenges are usually minigames that blend battles and exploration. They then culminate in Totem Pokemon battles, fights against buffed Pokémon and their subordinates, such as the fight against a super-powered Ghost-type Pokemon in the back of a supermarket. Once you clear each island’s challenges, you go against the Kahuna, the island’s most elite trainer.

You’re told where to go by the map on your bottom screen, but you can of course explore the area around you, collecting Pokémon and items at your leisure. It’s incredibly refreshing to not be inundated with battle after battle, even if the island trials are a bit basic in premise. The brief moments of respite add up and make the game feel more welcoming than previous entries. When you clear a challenge, you get a Z-crystal, which boosts a Pokémon’s attack into a super-move variant. These can be a bit cheap, but reigning it in a bit, they can only be used once per battle.

Rose already pointed this out in her own article, but one big downside to the game is the Alolan variants. In theory, changing the typing and movepool of first generation Pokémon is a genius idea. Unfortunately, many of these Pokémon don’t learn moves that correspond to their new typing until late-game. An Alolan Dugtrio I had in my party from beginning to end only knew two Steel-type moves the entire time I used it, but of course, its Steel typing became a liability against the usually easy to kill Fire types I’d run into. There are a few Alolan variants that don’t run into this issue, such as Ninetales, but this is a bothersome oversight.

Luckily, the completely new Pokémon added to this game are almost all amazing, especially the adorable disguised ghost Mimikyu and Drampa, which is a dragon that’s also a grandpa! This generation is also a high point for Legendaries, with the Tapus and Ultra Beasts all having interesting abilities and unique designs. I’m very glad I got to use all six party slots in this game, as HMs have been removed in favor of Ride Pokémon that do the work for you. You can call up a Tauros to break rocks, a Machamp to push boulders, or a Lapras to surf. The days of “HM slaves” taking up a spot in your party are gone, which is a gigantic relief.

Team Skull deserves to be recognized. The standard evil team has become so stale after years of talking a big game and attacking you with Poochyenas and Zubats. Sun and Moon decided to embrace the bungling nature of their villains and made them lovable oafs. Guzma, their leader, is a highlight, squatting next to his Pokemon in a tracksuit like a Slavic meme. You end up caring about them in a weird way because of how obvious their “evil” is masking a lack of confidence, empathizing and thinking that maybe we all need to be told that we’re worth a damn here and there. Another standout character is Lillie, a girl who travels in parallel to you with her partner Cosmog. Getting her to come out of her shell feels organic, and she’s easy to become attached to as she becomes more comfortable with the world around her.

The most notably rancid elements of the game are the online functions. Instead of X/Y’s easy to use capabilities that were swiftly accessible on the bottom 3DS screen, Sun and Moon introduces the Festival Plaza, a physical area that you teleport to in order to talk to random people and potentially interact with them. Honestly, I have no idea what the fresh hell is going on in that area. You can talk to shopkeepers in the Plaza, but most of the time they told me they were closed. It’s extremely difficult to connect to specific players over the Internet, scrolling through lists of random names instead of clicking on your friends’ faces. It’s so incredibly complex and annoying for zero reason and it’s the worst thing Game Freak could’ve possibly done in this regard. Most of the items you’d usually get from the Battle Frontier in previous games are locked behind this, which just adds to the frustration. Just writing about it here made me angry.

Screwing up the online menus is a very Nintendo thing to do, but what makes it confusing is how well Game Freak tightened up the rest of the game’s menus. Battling is streamlined, with notifications informing you on stat changes and attack effectiveness. These small quality of life upgrades add up as time goes on, and even as a Pokémon expert I felt good not having to check Bulbapedia whenever I had a lapse in memory. Everything in the game is friendlier than previous games, with everything from the characters to your Rotom-possessed Pokedex rooting for you to succeed.

Sun and Moon, despite the flaws, is a new standard in quality for the Pokémon series. With charming characters, useful and fun Pokémon, and a sprawling, interesting landscape peppered with unique challenges, this generation will hopefully lead the way to even better games down the road. But for now, Sun and Moon are fantastic games that anyone even slightly interested in Pokémon should check out.

The post Pokémon Moon Version Review appeared first on Gamesline.

The starters are Rowlet, a grass/flying owl, Litten, a fire cat, and Popplio, a water circus seal. Other things we’ve picked up from the trailer include the setting, Alola, which is a stand in for Hawaii. You can also see differences in the main characters’ design throughout the trailer, indicating that X/Y’s character customization will return.

The trailer ends with a look at the version legendaries, and a release date, November 18th. We’ll certainly get more information as time goes on, so check back for more updates.

In case you were wondering, I’ll be using Popplio.

The post Pokemon Sun and Moon Starters Revealed appeared first on Gamesline.

John:

Pokémon has been a constant in my life almost since conception. My first Pokémon memory was when my father, who worked as a delivery driver, brought home a beat up original Game Boy with an even worse for wear copy of Red Version. He said he “found it” in a truck he was driving in, but there are hundreds of different possibilities as to what truly transpired. I played the holy hell out of that game, and I still have the original game (not the Game Boy anymore, since I eventually upgraded to newer models as time went on). Pokémon continued with me throughout my life, as I’ve purchased each new release every year since then.

My first forays onto the Internet were for Pokémon reasons too, and I eventually found myself perusing and messing around on Pokémon forums. I actually honed my sense of humor on these sites, and while I may not be too proud of some of the shenanigans I pulled on people back then, I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t start out listening to Pokémon themed podcasts, yearning to record one myself and have other people listen respond like I responded to those podcasts back then.

Ryan: 

My earliest memories of Pokémon can be best described as murky, yet fond. I remember going the whole hog on Pokémon, being pushed to the edge of playground fistfight death-matches on my willingness to defend Pikachu and friends over the clearly inferior Digimon. Being a small child through most of the 90’s, it’s impossible to say what roped me into Pokémon first, as life in the latter half of that decade was often a relentless inundation of Pokémon-related material. There were the games, the show, the trading cards, the toys, the books, the clothes, the novelty foods, the moral panics, and of course, those poor resolute souls who flew too close the sun with stout proclamations that Pokémon was just another fad.

Even at the time, six-year-old me, forming my first substantial gaming memories with Pokémon Crystal on a bright yellow Game Boy Color (Pikachu colors, of course), wouldn’t have believed them. Between my innumerable hours spent watching the cartoon, or collecting the trading cards, or playing Crystal or Stadium or Snap, or later Ruby, I couldn’t afford to believe that Pokémon was anything less than the best thing in the world. And now, 20 years after Red and Blue were unleashed onto an unsuspecting world, I’m less involved in the franchise, but nonetheless ecstatic about how it’s managed to endure and appeal all this time later. Thanks to the wide-eyed wonder of my younger self and the power of nostalgia, I’ll always see gaming as Pokémon’s world. Everything else is just living in it.

Niall:

I’m going to be honest here, out of everyone at Chooch, Pokémon probably means the least to me, and it’s probably not even close in that respect. I probably couldn’t name a single Pokémon outside the original 151 off the top of my head. With that said though, there was a time when Pokémon was basically my everything. It was huge when it first made its way west, and I was one of the millions enchanted by its spell – I got a Gameboy one Christmas purely to play Pokémon Red and Blue.

I probably put a couple hundred hours into those games – most of which was into Red – and a further couple hundred into the TCG game. During that time, Pokémon was my life. I had magazines, books, toys, all of it. But just as deeply as I got wrapped up in it all, I fell out of it equally. By the time Gold and Silver had come out, my interest was waning, and it had totally evaporated by the next games. For me, Pokémon was a fad, but one that gave me a lot of enjoyment for a year or two, all the same.

Kay:

Pokémon has genuinely been one of the biggest influences in my life. It was the first video game I ever owned. One day, my parents presented me with a blue Game Boy Pocket with a copy of Pokémon Blue inside. My uncle had found it laying in the middle of the road, lost by some poor kid during a bike ride or something. I was instantly hooked, loving it intensely, though I’m embarrassed to admit that it took me several weeks before I discovered I could actually save the game. I repeatedly made it to Lt. Surge in Vermilion City before those wimpy triple-A batteries would run out, but thankfully discovered I could save during a camping trip, finally discovering the option on the pause menu. After that, my Bulbasaur and I powered through the game, continuing to play it long after I had beaten every challenge in it, squeezing every ounce of entertainment from the little cartridge.

Pokémon did more for me than just the start of my lifelong love affair with video games. It helped me get my start on the internet, with my first community being a Pokémon forum. It also aided me connect with people in real life, helping me make friends with other fans who I might have had trouble interacting with socially otherwise. It helped me get through some dark times in my life, and even helped me identify that I was suffering from depression. I know I’d be in a much worse place today if some kid hadn’t carelessly dropped his Game Boy in front of my uncle’s house. While there are some franchises that would be better off ending before they hit 20 year, Pokémon is definitely not one of them. I hope when I’m an old lady at the age of 104, I’ll be celebrating the Pokémon’s 100th anniversary by booting up my Nintendo VR Chamber to play the latest game in the series.

Michael:

For years I wasn’t very good at video games. I had been going into my brother’s save in Link to the Past and Final Fantasy II, casting powerful spells and beating powerful enemies I couldn’t get to on my own. I wanted to play more games, but my options were limited to my skill. Then Pokémon landed, and an obsession was born.

After its release I would be left with two Gameboy Colors, all three versions of the game, and several hours spent duplicating items with glitches and trading back and forth to prepare the best team I could. My original save, started in 1998, still sits on my Pokémon Red cartridge. The first game I did everything in. The first game I pushed to its limits. When my friends had moved on I remained fixated on catching them all.

It was the birth of my inner nerd. A potent mixture of curiosity and dogged determination. A convoluted motivation I can’t control that propels me forward. It’s unpredictable but aimable. It lays dormant, waiting for another subject to lay waste to. A powerful catalyst birthed by Pokémon Red in 1998.

The post Our Pokémon Memories appeared first on Gamesline.

The story in Pokemon Y is a welcome improvement, albeit one most people won’t notice right away. You’ve still got your professor, your starter, your rival, an evil team alternatively run by an anime Bond villain and utter morons, gyms, and a legendary Pokémon. Here, it’s the little additions that make things different. The MacGuffin the anime Bond villain wants this time around has barely anything to do with Pokémon, and you’ve actually got a circle of pals outside of your rival. (By the way, pick a nickname you like when they ask you to choose one, because you’ll be hearing it a lot) The protagonist is still a blank slate, but the recurring side characters have a decent amount of personality. Sadly, there isn’t much in terms of post-game story content (at least not that I found, anyway) besides the usual battle challenge area. For most of you, the story may be a non-issue, but take solace in the fact that it only directs the player. Pokémon stories are at their best when they move you in the right direction, not when they pump the brakes on the action to go into another diatribe about how great Pokémon are and why it’s okay to make them fight each other.

Thankfully, aforementioned fighting remains just as fun as ever. Pokémon has always had some of the cleanest turn-based combat I’ve ever seen. When a battle goes your way, when you sweep a whole team using just one Pokémon…it’s a great feeling, unmatched by anything else in the genre. The addition of a Fairy type does help rebalance the combat a little, but there aren’t enough Fairy moves to make that much of a difference. It’s also an odd mix of too easy and too difficult, especially around the midpoint of the 15-hour storyline. Captures now give experience – which also encourages players to fill out their Pokédex – and the EXP share is now a Key Item that gives all the creatures in your party half the experience. Needless to say, Pokémon level up fast now. Plus, the game has a tendency to just hand you things. 5/6ths of my party were given to me. As a result, I found the early Trainer and Gym battles a little toothless. However, there’s a point around Gym 6 where it feels like the designers suddenly understood how easy their game was and ratcheted up the challenge.

You’ve got the brand new Mega Evolution sub-system on your side, though. After a certain point in the story, you can activate a Mega Evolution during battle if you’ve got the right Pokémon holding the right item. A Mega Evolved Pokémon has increased stats, a new ability, and just looks straight up cool. You can use it once per battle, but other than that, I can’t think of any reason to not use Mega Evolution and wipe the floor with whatever poor fool challenges you. Discouraging players from using the system would have been much worse, but some kind of balance would have been nice.

Design-wise, the new monsters represent some of the best new designs in the history of the franchise. When the kids who grew up with X and Y cite this crop as their favorite, they’ll have plenty of great designs to back up that argument. Yes, even the keyring one. There’s also a pleasantly surprising number of old favorites available for capture as well. At times, it feels like a “greatest hits” Pokémon game; you can even get a Pikachu right out the gate if you’re patient enough.

Plus, they all look spectacular in 3D. Although the 3DS’ titular feature can only be accessed during battles/cutscenes and in certain areas, you don’t really need it to appreciate just how good this game looks. The handheld Pokémon series has finally committed to polygon-based graphics, after a long period of courtship on the DS. You can now move in all eight directions (which really speeds up the usual ice sliding puzzle, let me tell you) and Pokémon battles are now in full 3D with individually rendered moves. It’s not anything like Coliseum or Battle Revolution, where the attacks looked all weak and stringy. These moves look fantastic. If this is the future of the Pokémon franchise is polygons, then I’m more than ready to kiss pixels good-bye.

The other changes introduced in X and Y may seem miniscule on their own, but together add up to create a baffling mix of genius changes that should’ve been implemented years ago, and frustrating steps back. TMs are still multi-use, but now you can see which Pokémon can learn which move from the TM menu. Medicine can be used in the Pokémon sub-menu, which can be easily accessed by tapping an icon on the touchscreen. Also, you can change your clothes, which is nuts. All that? Great stuff. Should’ve been put in the games last time around, but it’s good that we’ve got them now.

But this wouldn’t be a Nintendo sequel without a couple steps backward, so we’ve also got connectivity notices about going into a crowded space or trading with friends popping up on the lower screen every minute (please do not put this in the next game, or at least let us turn it off), the healing process has been slowed to a crawl, and out of battle moves are now hidden beneath another sub-menu. All that? Unnecessary. Not a single human being on the planet finished Black and White and thought: “You know what this game needs? Pop-ups!”

Awful decisions aside, Pokémon Y is oodles of fun. Battling is still a blast, capturing new monsters tickles a very specific part of my brain that I’m reasonably sure has some relation to gambling, and it looks utterly fantastic. The core mechanics will never really change, and if you’re okay with that, great! I hope you like Pokémon games, because this sure is a really good one of those.

The post Pokemon Y Review appeared first on Gamesline.