Addendum Review: Pokemon Go, Two years Later

At the time of Pokemon Go's launch, while I was interested leading up to the release, even talking with people who were participating in the Beta here, the early launch period soured my interest quite drastically. At the time, my phone couldn't handle the game, the Google Play store outright refused to let me download it. What also lowered my interest in the game was the limitation of just Kanto Pokemon, and not even all of them as, from what I've heard, more unique pokemon like Ditto were missing at launch. Even when I got a new phone, one that could play Go, I just wasn't motivated enough to start it, only officially starting it late last year while I was killing time waiting for an event that I was working at to end, and only catching my starter, Squirtle.

So what inspired me to actually give it a chance? A number of factors actually. The first being the upcoming Let's Go Games, and how they're trying to marry the Go catching mechanics to the core RPG world design. The other? My broken foot. Throughout all of the winter this year (remember Northern Hemisphere people, down below the equator, June, July and August are the winter months), I was housebound healing a broken foot. A friend of mine on Twitter recommended I use Pokemon Go as my rehab of sorts, to help build up my leg and foot strength again, and I'll admit that it has done that quite well, I'm now back to full mobility in my leg and foot with no pain. As a result of it though, it has meant that I've had a lot of time with the game, and I figured it might be time for an Addendum Review, covering some of the changes that have happened since then.

Mediaholics Podcast: E3 2018

Late to the party? Maybe, but better late than never (unlike PrE3 this year)

Android Triple Hit: Because Blaster can actually do more with his phone now

Pretty on the nose, but yeah that's the reason I haven't done a lot of ios and android games. My iPod touch and phone I got back around 2011, they were out of date, my iPod still is. And before anyone asks, I like dedicated equipment, something designed to do one thing is going to do that one thing better then something designed to do 100 things. I also admit that yes that probably has affected my judgement on these three, I know it has for at least one of them. I ask you hear me out, so that you might be able to see where I'm coming from. As to what those three games are? They are Transformers Earth Wars, Transformers Forged to Fight, and Fire Emblem Heroes. Like with every solo review I do, I will be having images that split up each review so that if you only want to see one, then scroll down until you see the image for the one you want. With that out of the way

Transformers Earth Wars: So this is what its like in between episodes...

The plot for Earth Wars is pretty basic (spoiler, all three of these games have simple plots). The Autobots and Decepticons are fighting on earth, and in order to achieve dominance. To do this, you as the player must build up your base and army, and then use your army to destroy bases of the opposite faction. What's the difference between the factions? Almost nothing in terms of gameplay, the biggest difference being who you have easier access at getting. I sided with the Decepticons, so my base structures have more of a Decepticon look to them, and while I can get Autobots, I have 5 Autobots to around 47 Decepticons. The character selections have been designed as well to make as many characters have the same powers on both sides, which is probably the only reason Octopunch is in the game as he's a clone of Seaspray (look them up, I have to keep moving). The roster itself also has some questionable choices, as I can think of some far more well known characters to go in then the afore mentioned Octopunch, with another being Viper.

Designs themselves, while they try to make them look as close to each other as possible, its a hogpoge of designs from the CHUG era (Classics, Henkei, Universe, Generations. Basically the current size scale) along with Masterpiece/ original generation 1 toy. You've got Megatron who has his Combiner Wars design (granted each of these are tweaked so they aren't one for one) along with the combiner limbs that are in the game as well as the two complete combiners (like I said, I picked cons, so most of my examples are going to be cons). You've then got ones like Bludgeon and Seaspray that have their Hunt for the Decepticons designs back from movie 2, Optimus Prime and Star Sabre who have their Masterpiece designs, though granted Prime's is a little different, borrowing some cues from his combiner wars repaint of Motormaster). It is interesting to see, but what does make it distracting is the model reuse. While some are expected like Nemesis Prime being Optimus like he always is. The afore mentioned Octopunch because Seaspray, along with Slipstream because Windblade, Nightbird because Arcee among maybe more are other examples of it, I can only talk about what I've seen because... well...

All three games covered here are free to play, pay to win, so we have some of my all time favorite mechanics in games including "multiple currencies with the only one you can convert into others being the one you get the least of and the one directly connected to real life money", "timers that mean you might only play a game for 10 minutes before being told "wait or pay", "random number generation that determines what you get and don't get making it harder to get the thing you want, making you want to pay real money" and "no roof for payments before features get unlocked so you can pay every cent you own into a barely rewarding game". Real talk, if you actually do like these mechanics (the lines before meaning to be sarcastic as I absolutely hate them), then you're part of the problem as to why the F2P model is a piece of money grubbing scrap. How does it work here? Well, one part of the game is base construction. You build a base that will get you resources, being Energon, Alloy, both of which are needed for construction and upgrades, and eventually Ore-13, for combiners. You will also, on average, get two crystals daily which will give you power ups to use in battle (more on that later) or low star units. Higher the star count, the stronger the character. If you get a double (which I swear should not be as common as it is), then you can get shards for a crystal that is a star up from the one you get the double of, and other things mainly for powering up units. If you need more of any of these, you need "Cyber Coins", which is the thing you can pay for.

As you build your base, you attack other bases to get boosts in resources, but if you can attack others, others can attack you. I've had 10 people attack me, only successfully two attacks so far. It's very easy to attack, a lot harder to defend because the combat is all automated. You can choose when to use special moves and where units start at, but apart from that, its a cutscene. Considering you need to be online to play this, I'd rather be spending my time with something else now that I've cleared the, at times brutal, campaign to get the combiner lab that I can only use if RNG lets me get the right Constructicons and Combatacons. Moving on!

Transformers Forged to Fight: Transformers goes Street Fighter

"How do we mash up as many continuities as we can into one game?" Apparently the answer was street fighter with micro transactions and a hexagon rock paper scissors mechanic. Ok then...

I admit this is the game I've put the least amount of time into, more due to technicals, in terms of plot, Optimus Prime has crashed onto a planet that is in a state of spacial and temporal flux, bringing characters, both autobot and decepticon to the planet and making them fight each other. To unlock more characters, you go through the same RNG system as Earth Wars, but what makes this one more annoying is the variety. I've only just taken out Starscream again, but for that, I had to fight Movieverse Grindor, Ironhide and Bumblebee, I could have fought Windblade, I did fight Rhinox, and there's more in the game, and probably a lot more to come. I'd be down for some Unicron trillogy love, though that's more transformers general. The character collection is basically the same as what it was for Earth Wars, so I won't dwell on it here.

My issues with the game come down to performance, and controls. This is a fighting game, but the controls don't feel very precise, not very detailed, all the fights I've done so far, and this is coming from someone's who's main experience in fighting games is Super Smash Brothers, I've won by tapping the touch screen at random, overpowering my opponents with speed and luck over skill. What also doesn't help is that my actions could lead to the move I didn't want to do because its a combination of taping, swiping and holding the screen for your light, heavy, ranged, shield, dodge and super move. The game also chugs at times in terms of a solid frame rate. What that rate is, I don't care about, but it does noticeably drop and stutter. I don't know why, it shouldn't, my phone's as up to date as possible in terms of hardware, so it comes off as "optimized for tablets" which makes me wonder why it wasn't, if possible, locked to being just for tablets. Presentation's also pretty bleak. In Earth Wars, the characters had animations during dialogue, whereas here, its still portraits, which does feel like a downgrade by comparison. The art style also goes for a "realistic" approach, in that every colour looks depressingly dark. Was it because of the Beast Wars and Movieverse characters? Regardless, I personally would have preferred a lighter colour pallete. But, to each their own. If they can get the technical side to the game sorted out, I'll give it another try, but until then, if you want a new fighting game, probably not the best place to look if you're into the Street Fighter/ Mortal Kombat/ Tekken ect style.

Fire Emblem Heroes: Chibi powers, activate!

Might as well get this quickly out of the way, as people are going to ask, I didn't get into Super Mario Run, it just didn't hook me.

Fire Emblem Heroes, the third in house Nintendo game on phones, bringing the stratergy from Fire Emblem to the phone. As a short answer to if they did it, I'd say yes. The plot for it is that two kingdoms are traveling to the realms of the main games, from the original Fire Emblem, all the way to Fates, siding with the playable characters from each game. You have the power to summon random heroes, and you're tasked with breaking the contracts of each of the heroes to stop the villain army, or rather one spoiled little kid and her army. From where I stand in it right now, its a veil for the game, and an excuse to get the characters, which to me, is interesting because most of my experience with Fire Emblem is limited to Awakening and Fates (along with Smash, but that goes without saying), so getting a feel for each of these characters, almost all of them I had either forgotten about, or had never heard of before. All of the characters do have English voices too, so for the first time ever, Marth and Roy have an English voice.

I was lucky enough to get her early on, she's one of the strongest in my team right now thanks to her Dragonstone. I also participated in the Easter event, so I do have Bunny Lucina, I just don't want to risk that genie getting out. Will say though that Bunny Lucina is cute, not as rediculous as Chrom or Xander, and not as... expected, as Camilla

The gameplay is as close to Fire Emblem as you can get when taking into account the mobile format. Permadeath's disabled because of the F2P parts of the game (but more on that later), characters only have one weapon to them, and special moves are easier to pull off, but the trade off is a 4v4 environment for combat, and maps limited to the one screen, so what you see in map size is what you get. This takes some getting used to because there's not much safe room to move, and some characters got a nerf for the sake of balance (I liked it when mages didn't need to be a space away to attack), but it is Fire Emblem on a handheld. The F2P model also feels more player friendly here. It might be because I'm not very far into the game, but the play session timer hasn't run out for me yet, orbs that are needed to summon heroes are plentiful, and while I have had double ups, they haven't been as ridiculously common as earth wars where 47/130+ means I keep seeing characters I already have. If we have to have the F2P model, I'd rather a version of it that is player friendly in some form rather then punishing because you haven't paid them everything you own for the sake of that rare item.

I do really like the presentation for the game though. I'm assuming the soundtrack is a mix of original and remixed/ reused songs from past fire emblem games, I cannot confirm that though, but what I do like about it is the new artwork. Each of the character portraits is well done, and their in battle/ overworld chibi sprites are very cute. I'd love to see this style used in the main games for things like FE 2018, as I think its safe to say they're not in Shadows of Valentia or Fire Emblem Warriors.

Hard to do a full summary for each of these games, they may be worth looking into if you're looking for something new to play, but for the next two reviews, what should they be? The strawpoll can be found here http://www.strawpoll.me/12771732 and before I'm asked, Heart Gold and Soul Silver arc will be after these two. I haven't forgotten... Ok I completely forgot about how much time was left in the month, but I'll stick to it.

Fire Emblem Direct Impressions

"Why is this not a podcast?" Well, both Marissa and Marcus have next to know knowledge on Fire Emblem, and CJ on top of that is busy applying to do her Masters course for univercity. Do I have a working knowledge of Fire Emblem? No, but I know more then just playing Super Smash Brothers like Marissa, Marcus and CJ. That's why. These are also primerilly going to be just notes as I'm writing this as soon as the livestream finished.

Pokemon Go: First Impressions

Everyone that ever played a core Pokemon game probably imagined what would it be like if Pokemon were real. Thanks to the advances in technology, we have that in a free to play smartphone app called Pokemon Go. How it works is that your phone locates you via GPS tracking and wild pokemon spawn a little aways from you, so you’ll have to go out and find them. It’s basically an improved Pokewalker from when Heartgold/SoulSilver came out. Although instead of it being a pedometer where you can cheat steps in by shaking it, you have to physically move your location.

If you live near a town, you’ll probably notice little blue markers by some locations. Those are called Pokespots. When you get close to one, the Pokespot will grant you items when you interact with it on your phone. People can use lure modules at pokespots and they’re marked by swirling cherry blossoms near the pokespot. Lure modules lure nearby pokemon towards them. Don’t get confused with the incense which only work for you.

Some locations can become gyms too. When you pick a team as you reach level 5 (either Red, Yellow, or Blue), you can take on these gyms. You can either take a gym of a different team or you can add a pokemon to the gym of the same color as you. When you add a pokemon they will stay at that gym, but if they lose while you’re away, they automatically come back to you even if the gym is far away.

Pokemon Go uses AR to show a pokemon in front of you using the phone camera. I find it easier to catch pokemon with the AR off, plus it saves battery. When you catch a pokemon, you get some candy of that species. Catching even weak pokemon is good because you need plenty of candy to level up and evolve some pokemon. Pokemon will have CP meaning Combat Points. The higher the Combat Points the stronger it is. There is no cap on CP from what I can see.

My personal experience with this app was quite fun. My friends would go on these outings to various locations like the park or the beach. There’s a town walking distance from my house with a lot of pokespots, so I usually go there for some items and some pokemon catches. After that we go to the beach and catch some wild water type pokemon as well as Dratini.

The amazing thing about Pokemon Go is how active it is. When you go out on let’s say an afternoon, a surprising amount of people play it. You can probably notice at least one person playing it and most likely have a stable conversation with them. The team system makes your neighborhood into, as my friend puts it, a socially acceptable gang war. People yelling out encouragements for their teams and trash talking other teams, all in good fun of course. Although the experience can depend on what kind of neighborhood you live in. As the loading screen with the Gyarados says, always stay aware of your surroundings.

This game is of course without its faults. The game tends to lag when catching pokemon. Sometimes the screen would glitch and you can’t press anything, usually what happens when you use battery saver. Most of the time in certain crowded areas, it would kick you out saying that the servers are busy. It’s very important to carry an external battery charger while you go out, this game tends to drain a lot of phone battery. Though that’s to be expected when you have the app open as you travel.

Pokemon Go is a fantastic idea that needs a lot of polishing. I can forgive all the faults because it’s still in beta. It’s playable for the most part, it’s basically a free early access game for everyone. Currently it’s very active and has scheduled updates from the company for various bug fixes. You can’t ignore how much of a phenomenon despite how buggy the game is. Various news stories on mainstream networks, and a surprising amount of how many people play the game never picked up a core pokemon game. It’s a great way for people to get introduced to the franchise. It’s still a great time to at least try it out. It’s free to play so you’re not really losing anything by downloading it. Pokemon fan or not, it’s a good introduction to the types of pokemon you can meet. It’s still an amazing experience and I highly recommend going out with friends to play together.

-keybug55

Pokemon Rising Rainbow: This is the actual spelling of the game this time, I swear

So right before I got to bed last night, I found this on my Twitter feed, now I was a bit skeptical at first. A well made Pokemon fan game, by a large team, with a great visual art style, playable on computer, iOS and 3DS, every region in the main series, fan games and planned dlc for more on top of a new region and Bank support, being released on April fools... surfice to say that yeah, it was skeptical. But I was able to complete it, and I do mean complete it, unlike Zeta. So how is it?

Against all odds, still very good, surprisingly good. Visually it is.. interesting, and its not without its bugs, I unfortunately had missing textures and weird collision detection at times, but with its limited development time, things like that will happen, and might get patched our. The read me was detailed and provided a lot of information about the game, but is limited by the format of .txt, maybe a link to a open reading access Google doc would have been better, to give more structure to the information. The voice acting is well done, and did get some laughs out of me thanks to the writing.

Is it worth playing? Yes if you have the time to spare, but thankfully it is, even though it has so much content, a very short game. It is free though, so if you have the time, check it out. I know I'm being vague, but its better experienced raw, akin to Undertale, though probably not for the same reasons.

Four games at Freddy's: I solomly swear that there will be no jump scares in this post. Besides, have you tried typing Jump scares?

Five Nights at Freddy's, chances are you've herd of these game if you've spent any time on Youtube this past year, that's what happens when one person puts out four well received horror games in under a year, which bugs me even of itself, as I feel that the quality of the games is diminished as a result. But, I did promise last year that I'd review the first game, and I'm doing one, I may as well do all four. So, here's my review of the four Five Nights at Freddy's games. As a forewarn, I'm reviewing the PC versions of all of these games, but iOS and android versions do exist.

Hatfall: Why? Because I'm bored right now.

Sometimes when I'm bored, I'll look around, maybe play a browser game, or what I probably should be doing, catching up on sleep. However in this case, I went for the first option because "Live while you're alive, sleep while you're dead" and another reason you may or may not know of in the future... So Hatfall...

I'll start with the plot, as I could clear it in one sentence. To paraphrase a paraphrase in the game itself. Hats are falling, you need a hat.What else were you expecting? It's a browser game also in smart phones.

Gameplay wise, you do just that, you get hats. You use the left and right arrows to position yourself under an object and hope its a hat, the more hats you get, the more of a chance you have to get unlockable costumes and items, to which, by the looks of it, they're all purely cosmetic. Levels get harder by adding in more dumb AI walls and more chances of objects not being hats, like polls, fridges and more.

Aesthetic wise, if you're used to Zero Punctuation's art style, then you know what this is going to be, its the style used in his review, just more fluently animated thanks to the fact that this is a video game. Music's alright, nothing spectacular that hasn't been used in the reviews before.

Overall? If you're looking for a time waster, then this is alright. It doesn't do anything stupid like put in micro transactions, though you can choose to see an ad every now and then for a few extra hats, which is the currency in the game. Am I basically wasting your time with this? Yes, but I needed something to do, and now this has beaten the Kirby's Adventure record at 15 minutes to do... yay...
I'll see you for Ocarina of Time.

iOS and Android games. My opinions

This is more of a rant then it is a review, it should also be noted that these are just general terms and unless told otherwise, do not relate to any specific game.

iOS and Android gaming, oh how I hate thee so. Unlike most people nowadays, I couldn't give less of a crap about iOS and Android games even if I tried. To me, it is infuriating to see those games. I will admit that I have played a few and there are some I generally enjoy, but for the most part, unless its a port of a game, I don't play it.

And now for the reason why: iOS and Android apps are designed to be small, easily downloadable and easily be erased. Because of this, I feel that the games that are produced have little to no effort put into it. I want to divert your attention to Candy Crush and its developers. Candy Crush is just Bejewled with different textures. If it was just Candy Crush, I would live with it but the developers have released 2-3 other games that are, once again, BEJEWLED WITH DIFFERENT TEXTURES. All for a quick buck. If it was Candy Crush 2 or something similar then I wouldn't care as much but their claiming that its a new IP, that it is a completely new game when its anything but.

Another reason why I hate iOS and Android games, Ads and Micro Transactions. If you get a game for free off of the Apple App Store or Android App Store, then chances are, one of the two (if not both) are going to be in that version of the game. It frustrates me to no end this lame excuse for money. IF YOU WANT MONEY FOR THE GAME, THEN SELL THE GAME AND NOT PUT IT UP FOR FREE!!! I don't want to have to wait 24 hours to complete a game session, nor do I want to pay to complete said session. I don't want to pay for WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN INCLUDED IN THE F&!#^)! GAME TO BEGIN WITH (though I will pay for DLC, but I'll explain why at another time). I don't want to watch a add every 5 F&^$*(! minutes just to get s$%@ done.

And finally, the last nail in the coffin. The argument that iOS and Android systems are better then portable game systems. BULL@*!^. iOS and Android systems will never be able to keep up with portable consoles like the 3DS and PSVita. The reason: because their not designed to be gaming consoles, their designed to be PHONES AND MUSIC PLAYERS. They are phones and mp3 players first and games are thrown in second or at the last moment where as the 3DS and Vita, they are designed to be gaming systems. Are they more expensive? Yes. Are they worth the price? It depends on the library. Will they be going anytime soon? No, the reason: Because there will always be a market for portable gaming consoles, it might be a small market, but as long as there are the games that need the power of the portable consoles, there will be portables, even if its a laptop.

That is all that I'm going to say on the matter, I have finished my rant.