Lurker > UF8

You Don't Know Jack

Vegeta

Rillaboom is good but I just don't like Grookey or Thwackey that much. Eldegoss line is ok but I feel also overrated. I like Appletun but not the rest of the apple mons (spoilers). Zarude exists and so does Calyrex but I tend to prefer not thinking about their existence most of the time. Gen 8 mid.

I was firmly in the "would be extremely disappointed if they made Sprigatito final evos bipedal" camp. But, while my reactions to the final lines led to me being ultimately won over by the Quaquavel line, it was for a very different reason. I still think Meowscarada is great in its own right and ironically it's the non-biped of the generation that i was disappointed by. Arboliva line solid too. I like the Brambleghast line but don't think they mesh well with the designs of... really, many other pokemon at all. Don't exactly like the Toedscruel line nearly as much as the originals, also don't really like the Scovillain line, not a fan of paradox mons though Iron Leaves is at least ok. And not to mention Wo-Chien and Ogerpon singlehandedly redeem gen 9 legendaries to me. Plus Sinistcha line was a nice remix line and I do consider Hydrapple fun even if I'm disappointed by only dipplin getting an extra evo...)

overall gen 3 top

illegal poll (grass is overall my favourite type (prob, it's between that, bug and ice)

venusaur is king, overall neutral on vileplume line (not into gloom unfort but the others are fine), love parasect line and i have to say i love how smooth legends arceus went using the alpha one as my main mon through the whole game (the rare combo of spore and false swipe is truly huge), victreebel line has long been a favourite of mine too, exeggutor line was automatically really fun in gen 1 for that psychic dual typing, and tangela is fine too. great starting gen

I get that it's not really cool to bash Meganium but it definitely is a weaker grass starter line to me than most on this list sadly. I like Bellossom though I'm not actually sure if I still like it more than Vileplume currently (it definitely used to be my favourite of the two). I love the Jumpluff line a ton of a ton. Sunkern and Sunflora are kind of just there to me (i have slight nostalgia from unironically trying to use Sunkern in Black 2 earlygame at least lol), and it's hard for me to not have a soft spot for Celebi tbh. Overall, mixed gen.

Sceptile line is plain ace even if it falls apart entirely in stat distribution outside of gen 3 (they really REALLY should've fixed these when introducing physical/special split and it's an active insult that gf would rather just take the gacha approach of making redundancies out of their classics these days). Ludicolo line is amazing (big fan of Lombre and Lotad's designs especially, but i love the mexican kappa theme of all of them in general), and I like Shiftry even more than them (Seedot is great too, though I'm neutral on Nuzleaf's design. Of course I do obviously appreciate it for its community significance though). Shroomish and Breloom are forever some of my favourite mons to use in pokemon history. Roselia is a great mon (though i do ultimately like Budew and Roserade more, it was an excellent standalone mon). Harley in the anime really sold me entirely on Cacturne, a legend of a mon with a truly fiendish niche. Cradily is my all time favourite fossil mon and Lileep is great in its own right. And Tropius... is that mon I think we all wish was actually good, but hey it is basically the definitive RSE HM Slave. Gen 3 is such a generation.

Torterra is at a bare minimum a top 3 starter period for me (usually my overall favourite). Turtwig is fine and Grotile is... well, it's ugly but still fine. I already covered Budew and Roserade, Plant Cloak Wormadam is... I guess my favourite Wormadam form though I wouldn't consider myself a fan of Wormadam to begin with. Cherubi and Cherrim are inexplicably some of my favourite mons and I love the batshit off-meta doubles strategies you can employ with the latter. I used to really like Carnivine though I wish it was better now... Abomasnow is... well, objectively I know it's no Mamoswine as far as gen 4 ice types go (... or Weavile, or Froslass...) but I still love it for its unique typing and movepool, and of course its (originally) signature ability. Functionally it feels like the Ice is the primary type on it but I more than appreciate what the grass side brings to the table for it. Leafeon is my favourite eeveelution as well as the only one I like enough to ever use on a team (overall, not a fan of how relatively overtuned they all are by early gen standards, though I honestly like that they made it and glaceon. And last up, I'm not the biggest fan of platinum additions, so I still don't like Rotom forms as much as base Rotom (the only one I even like the design of as much as base is Fan Rotom tbh), and I still feel betrayed by the addition of Sky Forme Shaymin... But base Shaymin is still a... probably like top 20 favourite mon and very much a top legendary to me. Gen 4 has a strong argument to be the best one to me but I feel it falls short ultimately.

Serperior is also an of all time starter and the third gen in a row where I actively reject how it actually gets hate as a grass starter final evo. (Snivy and Servine are both great in their own right though). I sympathise with the hate directed towards the elemental monkeys' "unoriginal" designs, but anyone who shows hate towards the grass bancho monkey specifically has to see to me personally, he alone is a godtier addition. Not exactly a big fan of the Leavanny or Whimsicott lines, but like most people I am fine with Lilligant, and Maractus is an underrated fun mon too who pairs oddly well with Cacturne even for fellow cacti mons. I even like the Sawsbuck line, especially that majestic winter form on Sawsbuck itself. Sadly that's the last of the praise I have to deliver to gen 5 since I just hate Amoonguss and Ferrothorn, and really don't appreciate the muscateer legendaries (especially since they're all practically knockoffs of sky form Shaymin tbh). So yeah, sadly another mixed gen and probably the weakest so far overall just because of how much I dislike two of those lines in particular.

Gen 6... The megas go hard (even if Mega Scep was a massive mistake that absolutely should not have received Dragon that of all generations, and I'm still not sure if Abomasnow receiving a mega was really a worthwhile tradeoff for having a signature ability). Chesnaught line is... well, it's about as mid as you can get. I also still haven't gotten over my mixed feelings about ride pokemon to this day so I wish I could bring myself to like the Gogoat line but I just can't. Trevenant line is great and I still love that it also got featured in a big way in Pokemon Unite, staying a meta relevant defender I loved using up until powercreep came crashing in over the past year or so. and the Gorgeist line is fine too, never cared for it that much though Pumpkaboo is still cute. Definitely my least favourite so far overall.

I know people really like Alolan Exeggutor and consider it a vast improvement to the original so rather than say more dismissive comments on the matter that can offend people I've decided I'll instead offend people by saying I really couldn't disagree more. I generally just dislike Decidueye (my opinion is mostly just "edgelord's fantasy" in a predictably not good way, the only gen 7 starter i can say I really... like, at all, is Primarina, and I still wish that didn't get Fairy type (well, I'd be fine with it if the type wasn't just a comprehensive mistake competitively) though I'm still fine with Rowlet/Dartrix. Lurantis line is more my speed. Shiinotic line is fine, so is Tsareena's tbh (granted it's hard carried by Steenee which is absolutely in the running for my favourite design ever). Dhelmise is refreshingly a mon that feels like it more than deserves its Ghost dual typing unlike Decidueye, but its lack of water type always catches me out. About the only thing I actually like about Tapu Bulu is its name and the fact that it has grass typing at all. And Kartana is kind of just the most forgettable UB to me. Despite Steenee being so high up for me it definitely doesn't help carry this gen lol

continuing from here on a second post because i realised i went over the character limit somewhere around here

i like that my two songs with shibuya scramble visuals did the best here. clearly i should've considered doing this instead lmao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fad_0eQIlVo
granted i'm not sure if this is even in joysound

Wordle 1,013 5/6







def messed that one up a bit, should've done a more straightforward starting word, probably shouldn't have blown a second guess just ruling out every other letter for one of the yellows, and the third was just a wasted guess too

oh i guess these must be from their gyaar studios division if i had to guess

they've mostly been doing freeware outside of survival quiz city ithink (which to be fair is also freeware now)

it's nice that these ones aren't region locked though

oof the callout title, my topic may never recover tbh

Wordle 1,012 4/6

went with 4 because all of them are some of my biggest favourites, though the selections from gens 5, 8, 3, then 9 (in descending order) are all more than respectable too

Four Star

somehow, despite not watching them since close to a decade ago at this point

oh if we count action button then yeah that's the peak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjSRmtcnOLI

Super Mario World 2

staaaacked day, gens 1-4 are scary strong and i can at least see reasons to still go for the others besides 7 and 9

super tough call but have to go with gen 2

guess they really should've called it afterlife like a live

sad to think that an opportunity to play (or replay) standard ogre battle would just be passed up in favour of tactics ogre

LusterSoldier posted...

I blame this on the fact that probably less people have played Gen 8 than Gen 6. Less people familar with Falinks and Sirfetch'd puts them at a disadvantage against Vivillon.

i'd have actively assumed the opposite tbh

dkc3 isn't even a 1995 game wtf

OCTAZOOKA
+3 Serperior
+2 Deerling
+1 Beartic
-1 Tatsugiri
-2 Urshifu
-3 Cyclizar

PAIN SPLIT
+3 Kingambit
+2 Blissey
+1 Aurorus
-1 Glimmet
-2 Iron Boulder
-3 Crabominable

gen 5 comfortably

big fan of gen 2's set though (hi it's me probably the only one that likes magcargo

shame sunny castform is probably my least favourite castform so that knocks gen 3 out of contention for me, likewise not a rotom heat fan so gen 4 also out, 7 has blacephalon but i'm not big on the rest, i like the coalossal line but not nearly enough to save gen 8 from probably last place to me (ok hisuian growlithe is also cute but not enough for me to get over how much i disliked that one boss fight), the only gen 9 one i actually like is ogerpon and i don't even use that form, and the rest are solidly midfield to me

https://lifelikealive.zan-live.com
oh i forgot about this... (damn)

Box

If you think arguably the most revolutionary trivia game of all time is going to be caught napping here then...

You Don't Know Jack

fine lol, it was worth a shot

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I am pretty sure they both clear out each other, the back one is harder enemies but adds a second base to the map.

the level 17 one is the actual level right? i'm pretty sure it doesn't get cancelled out (doing the 18 one is just a filler mission in front of the gates) but yeah doing the level 18 one first does seem to give you harder enemies to fight on top of giving you that other base to start from (honestly though the top base is way better for rushing it anyway, you can just stealth rush your way up with fliers lol), and honestly i'm not sure yet if it was actually the doing the level 18 level first that spawned more enemies or if it was just one of those alternating enemy formation deals like what you see in the grind locations and it was just bad rng to get it on the second pass

actually just crossed my mind

Super Mario Odyssey - Jump Up, Super Star!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNpN5nNeoAI

is this safe lol

it's because i thought of the movie first that i was reluctant to include it tbh

being equally skilled at a game of skill as a game of luck implies a lack of skill, so i'd go for scrabble for sure

anyway uhhhh

Firestarter
The Green Mile
It
Under the Dome

probably should've also had the shining but i didn't feel like dropping these

anyway i think that's just about everything i had to say here so to get back on topic i will say i thought about it a bit more and concluded that my favourite soulslike is obviously pokemon legends arceus

Xiahou_Shake posted...

Hollow Knight structurally is very much like both Super Metroid and SotN, I'd say - definitely has only trace elements of Souls on that front by comparison though.

indirectly that's kind of what i was getting into earlier actually, that the defining characteristics of titles being souls-like as opposed to any other kind of action game are fundamentally way more light to begin with. all you need there is a souls-esque vibe and combat style (the difficulty helps too obv). which is why it's a lot less difficult for something to really qualify as that compared to metroidvanias, and why so many metroidvanias can be safely said to employ these concepts without much issue (it has so few qualifying factors that it doesn't even conflict with the many qualifying aspects a metroidvania requires (unlike roguelikes which unfortunately kind of do even in more surface level definitions))

it's kind of funny that metroidvanias have so many particular quirks when it's being limited to just the broad concepts that those games had in common, when soulslikes are evaluated as such on all of the souls series' quirks and it's still ultimately just that many (mostly i suppose because unlike with metroidvanias, it's not like, inherently tied to a single form of action game (counting king's quest it's had forays into first and third person officially). i suppose some obviously do still have hangups over it being applied on other genres but the resistance is less clear than with metroidvanias (i say, aware that i'm more than marginally to blame for this stance being represented in this topic right now lol)

i still need to pick up the latter two, thanks for the heads up

the first was pretty neat actually, though i will say you'd need to go in appreciating that it is NOT trying to sell itself on its writing or anything like that so much as the aggressively tabletop rpg experience (which is kind of why i'm surprised they made a trilogy out of it, i suppose it was easy to make at least)

UF8 posted...

but it's because of that that the term has awkwardly landed into a very specific meaning for a very specific game with the design philosophy one associates with the phrase, because the term itself isn't meant to actually represent that design, as it's not meant to to be anything close to a genre to begin with. it's just a cute terminology for describing clones of a small handful of games, that's the reality. if it was just that design it'd probably say zelda, or heck, even something like zork, on there

to go a little further with this since i ran out of time to edit it in at the time and i wasn't really satisfied with how i phrased this really. i feel like the true meaning of metroidvania specifically is a game that applies a nonlinear adventure game structure to an action-adventure platformer/sidescroller, with elements such as ability-based sequencing and a very strong emphasis on exploration (almost always with a minimap you fill in as you go (bonus points if it's grid-based and split into a bunch of rooms since that's just the standard)). again that's why it can't actually include things of other genres, since the very definition of it is the application of one genre in a different genre

and yeah that's why aquaria and hollow knight are fine with fitting into it

metroidvania and castleroid as a terms only came about in response to the castlevania gba games specifically for how they (and sotn) were like super metroid... so.

it's a funny matter since it really was a strict coincidence and igarashi seemingly didn't even know about metroid when sotn was made (he's said a lot of times that he was mostly inspired by zelda)

but it's because of that that the term has awkwardly landed into a very specific meaning for a very specific game with the design philosophy one associates with the phrase, because the term itself isn't meant to actually represent that design, as it's not meant to to be anything close to a genre to begin with. it's just a cute terminology for describing clones of a small handful of games, that's the reality

to a lesser degree the same goes for soulslike or roguelike (though the latter has certainly warped pretty far from, y'know, rogue at this point outside of pretty much just mystery dungeon)

Minute Hero

MacArrowny posted...

lol official wikipedia

considering it's a fandom term to begin with i think og fan definitions actually can be considered safe for once

Grand_Kirby posted...

Is The Legend of Zelda a Metroidvania?

officially as per like 2005 wikipedia entry conventions, metroidvanias are explicitly 2d platformers to differentiate it from zelda and 3d stuff (and castleroids/castloids are explicitly the term for igarashi's games circa sotn though i guess that term died a fiery death the moment igavania got coined instead)

the real slander is on tyrogue, i think he embodies a pretty great concept tbh (even if he also makes EV training up any of his evos a little bit annoying)

anyway voted gen 3 (i just really like all gen 3 starter lines a ton, and breloom just as much, and hariyama and medicham's lines have just aged really well to me)

hms to all of the rest of the first 6 gens though (7-9 each have one fighter i like a lot though i'm not that crazy about the rest)

Space

rogue gen 4 vote just because i love mime jr and togekiss tbh

i really wish they'd just been classified for their original types though, i still disagree with the changes to this day

Phantasy Star IV
Panel de Pon

damn i really wanted to do revue starlight stuff rip

Abominable Snowman
Loch Ness Monster
Tsuchinoko
Chupacabra

shoutout to Ogopogo, which got that namedrop in paranormasight

there's a lot of metroidvanias that definitely actively feel like they take as much inspiration from souls (or else just other metroidvanias that that do) tbh, i feel like you could've easily fit a blasphemous game or grime here too, and arguably even ender lilies or dead cells. i'm even pretty sure if you did a steam tag search on both you'd get a pretty hefty chunk of all metroidvanias in the last decade, and i wouldn't actually disagree with them

anyway i guess this is a pretty difficult call for me since i don't tend to play many since i manage to get too motion sick for a lot of 3d games, which is kind of why i can say more about metroidvanias, and ac6 (which is more pick up and play because of its mission structure) is probably my favourite """soulslike""" overall. i wonder if rise of the ronin is good

TomNook7 posted...

Hot damn, ITS THE YEAR OF RPGS, BOYS

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Persona 3 Reload
Unicorn Overlord
Dragons Dogma 2
Eiyuden Chronicle
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail
Paper Mario: Thousand Year Door
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

Am i forgetting something?

absolutely furious you skipped stray children

also shiren/notshiren(2hu)/smtvv/reynatis/saga/mana/metaphor/ys
that's definitely all of them though!

lisa the first is quite a lot like yume nikki. it's a neat game but yeah very unlike the rest of the series

2

i seem to recall a point where it got a free pass as one of the "best" tutorial cases for a while, but let's be real, it's just a practically nothing case on revisit and really doesn't deserve to be regarded as strictly better than any of them imo

tough call between gens 1-4 (yes including gen 3) for me. went with 2

if overanalysis is the benchmark then i wonder why we didn't get any umineko votes

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Those yellow missions are an extremely easy way to grind honors BTW. Especially the one right near the collesseum. Leave one defender and send one flyer at the boss and you can get 20+ honors in under a real time minute.

absolutely true. the later one in the elf area can be rushed in the late 20s in about the same time too (anecdotally since that's how i was rushing to get that one squad to level 30 for colosseum in no time)