Pokémon

The Price of Mastery

This weekend I finally completed the pokédex in PokéDoku. It took me 268 days of play to do so, and you could even shave 20-30 days off there since the dex feature wasn’t even added until I’d already been playing for a while. So that’s not too bad!

Of course, the question now is: what comes next?

Well, more PokéDoku, of course. A couple months back, shinies were added into the game. If you’re not a pokémaniac like me, shinies are pokémon that are a different colour than usual and have a 1/8192 chance of appearing. Or, that’s their odds in the real Pokémon games, anyway. In PokéDoku, there’s a 1% chance of a pokémon being shiny, which is way more likely. Still absurdly rare, but not mind-bogglingly so.

I’ve never really been a shiny hunter in any pokémon game. My very first natural shiny was a Sunkern in Pokémon Soul Silver, which was not terribly exciting. I did try to hunt another one in Pokémon Alpha Sapphire years later, but never found one. I participate in community days in Pokémon Go to take advantage of the boosted shiny odds for the pokémon highlighted on those days, but don’t really put much more effort into it than that.

Have you played PokeDoku yet?

Since sometime around Xmas last year, I’ve been playing a little online game (almost) every single day. That game is PokeDoku – something of a twist on sudoku, where you fill in a grid with pokémon instead of numbers. It’s also only a 3×3 grid instead of sudoku’s traditional 9×9. It’s perfect for poop breaks!

How it works is along the top and left sides are six conditions. You have to select a pokémon for each cell that matches the two conditions that intersect on that cell. For example, in the top-left corner of the screenshot below, you’d need to choose a pokémon that is ice-type and can learn the move earthquake. Avalugg was an easy choice there: it’s obviously ice-type and is a big behemoth so it was a pretty safe bet that it could learn earthquake. Galarian Mr. Mime in the top-right corner, on the other hand, was a lucky guess since I knew it’s an ice-type but wasn’t sure if it has a secondary typing (it is in fact ice/psychic).

The screenshot above is actually a perfect example because it uses one of almost every kind of condition; though there are also conditions for each region, as well as starters, mega evolutions, and gigantamax forms. Technically you could also say it doesn’t show “mythical” or “ultra beast” or “paradox” either, but let’s be honest: those are all just different ways of saying “legendary.”

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: September 2023

~ Game Over ~

TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge (Switch) – Played story mode once to clear the game with Usagi, a second story mode run with my family on my birthday, and spent a bunch of time playing the new DLC survival mode.

Wario Land 3 (GBC) – Wrote some words about this here. TLDR: I had fun, but the game has a couple of very annoying issues that may prevent future replays.

Pikmin 4 (Switch) – Completed all post-game content. Except for getting gold/platinum medals on all the Dandori Battles, because honestly doing well in those feels more dependent on RNG than skill. And nuts to that.

Peglin (PC) – We will Peglin ’till we die!

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: June 2023

~ Game Over ~

Peglin (PC) – Well, it’s a roguelike. And therefore highly replayable. Especially since it’s got a mode that adds a new handicap every time you beat it.

Inhabit (Switch) – A cute puzzle game about taking care of yourself. It took less than two hours to beat, so it was really just a li’l appetizer of a game, but it was fun. Also, I recorded my playthrough for YouTube.

Gargoyle’s Quest (GB) – An action-RPG spin-off of the Ghosts ‘n Goblins series, and much more enjoyable in my opinion. While it’s got blind jumps and cheap deaths for sure, I did have fun revisiting this one for the first time in well over a decade.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: May 2023

~ Game Over ~

Peglin (PC) – Imagine Peggle, but as a roguelike. Not something I’d normally give a second thought, but it’s so much more fun than it has any right to be. It’s a bit short, but still in Early Access, so there’s potentially a lot of room to grow.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed (Switch) – Now THIS is the heaping helping of fanservice that I was hoping the base game would be. Simply being able to go on another adventure with Shulk (and Rex too, I guess) made my heart so happy. Plus they added a similar system as the last few Ys games had that tracks all the collectibles and treasures you’ve found, which really should be in every RPG.

Lost Alone Ultimate (PC) – I watched let’s plays of all three chapters of Lost Alone when they were originally released last year, and really enjoyed them, so I was very excited to play this remade collection. Easily one (three?) of my favourite Steam horror games in recent years.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: April 2023

~ Game Over ~

Ghost of Tsushima (PS5) – I wasn’t too sure about this one for the first few hours, but it really grew on me over time. An excellent game in most regards, though it does feel very repetitive, as open-world games usually do. My favourite parts by far were the side-stories of Jin’s allies. Folks who ignore side-quests in games would absolutely be missing out on the best parts of this game. Norio and Masako in particular were characters that I really liked adventuring with. Platinum trophy’d.

Super Mario Land 2 (GB) – Yes, again. But this time, the colourized romhack! It’s… the same game, but looks nicer. Also, you can be Luigi!

Resident Evil 4 (PS5) – Everything I could have hoped for. It’s generally a very faithful remake, but remixes a lot of the content in different ways to keep veterans of the original on their toes. That plus a whole bunch of new elements, and MUCH improved boss fights across the board. Basically exactly what a remake should be, in my opinion. It also fleshes out the story and characters way more than the original, which is definitely a nice-to-have. I’ll absolutely be playing this a few more times before the year is done.

Top 10 of 2022: Runners Up

These get a separate post because the main article is long enough as-is, but I still felt like they deserved a little recognition!

Triangle Strategy (Square-Enix / Artdink, 2022)

This was probably the hardest finalist to cut. I’ve never been able to truly get into any tactical RPGs besides Final Fantasy Tactics, but Triangle Strategy came real close. The story is interesting, the choices you make carry a ton of weight (and there’s almost never a clear “correct” choice), and the battles are great fun. Despite all that, however, I got pulled away from it when I was only halfway though, and never felt compelled enough to pick it back up. I keep looking at the case and saying “I should really finish that”, but I have a feeling it’s just not going to happen.

TE’s Top 10 Video Games of 2022

Well, another year is behind us, and as usual, I frittered away a huge chunk of it playing video games. To help justify spending all that time on viddygames, here’s a big, long list of the ones that I liked most.

If this is your first time reading one of my Top X Games lists, I don’t make them based on games released in the previous year, but rather, games I played in the previous year. There is one constant rule: I must have played the game for the first time in the last year. And I added a new criteria for 2022, which is: no two games from the same franchise. Helps to keep the list a little more diversified. Oh, and the games are listed in the order that I played them. No playing favourites among the favourites.

Okay, that’s the preamble. Let’s go!

In 2021, I played most of the games in the Ys series, and most of them were really good. Ys: Memories of Celceta even managed to secure a spot on my Top 10 list for 2021. So the only video game “goal” I had going into 2022 was to finish off the Ys series by playing through the two games I had outstanding: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, and Ys IX: Monstrum Nox. Needless to say, they were also really good.

Lacrimosa of Dana in particular gets to adorn this list because it is definitely my favourite game in the series. It takes everything that was great about Memories of Celceta and makes them even better. So really, you could probably just read what I wrote last year and it would mostly still apply, and I could skip writing another paragraph here. But I suppose that I should at least go over some of the highlights. Specifically, I enjoy how the combat is exciting and very speedy, exploring is more fun than ever with map and treasure box completion percentages for every area, the metroidvania-style way that the world slowly opens up as you gain new traversal abilities is always appreciated, and I think that this game has the best cast of party members in the series.

One thing that I cannot praise enough about Ys VIII is that it has one of my absolute favourite video game soundtracks of all time. All Ys games have phenomenal music, but Ys VIII’s in particular really stands out to me. Not only did I get an imported physical copy of the soundtrack, but I also bought the Ys VIII: Super Ultimate arrange album, and I listen to both of them quite often. Sunshine Coastline specifically is straight up one of the best video game songs I’ve ever heard, and multiple official and cover versions of it live on my phone so I can listen to them all the time.

A List of Viddy Games from the Old Year

Happy 2023!

Here is a big ol’ list of all the video games that I spent a significant amount of time playing in 2022. It’s not a comprehensive list, as I left off a few little indie games that were more “experiences”, games that I gave up on after a single session, and games that aren’t really games (like Rocksmith and Fitness Boxing). If you’d like to know how I felt about any of them, I included the month in which I started playing each one, so you can conveniently look up the appropriate Month End Round-Up post.

Of note is that of the 75 games listed below, 53 were eligible for my “Top X of 2022” list. I’ve narrowed it down to the ones I liked best, and I was left with fifteen finalists. Now I have the unenviable task of deciding if I want my GOTY list to just be 15 games, or if I want to try to figure out which five to cut to make it a nice, round Top Ten. Or, should I add seven more games to make it the Top 22 of ’22? Find out in… I don’t know, like a week or two, maybe? I’m going to try to get it done before February, anyway.

Monthend Video Game Wrap-Up: December 2022

~ Game Over ~

Pokémon Scarlet (Switch) – Paldean Pokédex complete!

Mars Moose: Cosmic Quest: City Sights (PS1) – More of a curio than anything. It’s a 10-minute game for wee bairns, but still, I played it.

Trombone Champ (PC) – A wacky game that I don’t think really lived up to its potential. It’s not exactly the rhythm game it first appears to be, but nor does it go nearly as off the deep end as similar games like Frog Fractions or Inscryption.