Lurker > charmander6000

There was a teaser at the end of the episode which showed Team Rocket so at the very least it won't be a total restart. Whether Ash or Goh join them is still up in the air.

Might as well keep this alive until the end of the season.

The final Project Mew arc looks promising. Obviously it's not touching the Ash/Leon battle, but I do like the exploration aspect of Pokemon.

Oh no...

XIII_Rocks posted...

Yeah I watched it again and I'm prepared now to put it above the Paul match on the strength of that conclusion.

Yeah, easily the best match with Pikachu vs. Charizard being the best 1v1.

The Pokemon from both sides all had an opportunity to shine with no one truly jobbing. The only Pokemon that may have not had the best performance was Leon's Cinderace and even then he at least picked up a win.

Honestly, with the amount of attention Ash got for winning the Alola League, I'm not surprised how crazy they've gone by essentially becoming a Pokemon Master.

What a great end to the battle.

Sounds like the anime will continue next week with Goh's stuff. While I don't care as much about it, I'm glad they aren't going to do it off screen due to time constraints.

Yeah, this is usually the time when the high profile games are released. Throw in the fact that games have been delayed due to COVID and you're seeing one of the best years in gaming since 2017.

Yes, technically in a few hours.

Great Part 2 battle

Good start to the battle, can't wait until next week.

Looks like the Switch has moved up to number 2 for Nintendo consoles

Preview trailer was nice

Not surprised after they released the title of the second episode, no way they were going to end it on that episode.

Donkey Kong

Next week spoilers

Eternatus returning for next week?

Can she wait for Mario to save her or is she on her own?

The next two weeks are Goh episodes. There might be another one or two (or an Ash training episode) before the final.

Great game.

The first three minutes of this video gives you an idea on how messed up the borders of former Soviet Union nations are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZdkqqjosCM

There's a territory owned by Uzbekistan that's completely surrounded by Kyrgyzstan, but is 99% ethnically Tajikistan

It was a good battle

htaeD posted...

I am surprised they bothered to dig at all.

Even if you assume they are completely heartless, it makes sense from an avoiding disease/smell perspective.

Yeah, the borders of the former Soviet nations were essentially drawn to promote conflict. The change in the balance of power is emboldening some nations to take/regain land.

Yeah, 64 characters is just too restrictive. Looking at the last character battle, assuming they would take the top 8 seeds only we would have had snubs like Donkey Kong, Knuckles, Pokemon Trainer Red, Charizard, Aerith, Vincent Valentine, Sub-Zero and Mewtwo while characters like Chloe Price, Neptune and Aloy would still make the bracket.

It was a night match

Yeah, the writers have done a good job showing Garchomp is weakened quite a bit while Lucario is pretty fresh. The good news for Cynthia is she still have Togekiss to weaken Lucario.

Yeah, Trump should've been an option

Roosevelt probably still beats him. His life was pretty interesting considering the time.

Not spoiling anything to let people some more time to watch the episode, but there are going to be a lot of anger towards today's episode I imagine.

Cavedweller2000 posted...

But rolls and buns are rolls and buns. Not sandwiches.

I'm confused with this line. Sliced bread are sliced bread not sandwiches until you put something inbetween, which is what the person said.

Also rolls and buns don't make it into a burger (though I'd argue they are required to be a burger). For example if I make a peanut butter and jam sandwich in a bun it doesn't become a burger.

The Mega Mans are an easy answer

So since Mario is the run away winner, what other NES games hold up well? Are there any that held better than Zelda 1 (besides SMB3)?

Maybe her acting career distracted her from Pokemon battles?

I'm still hoping for a three episode Ash/Leon battle, but these breaks are cutting things pretty close. We still need to finish Goh's stuff too. There's still enough time for a three-parter, but for every future break the chance of a two episode battle increases.

No they took a break this week.

Leon/Diantha starts next week.

SMB holds up the best if you were to hand it to someone who hasn't played them before.

Xeybozn posted...

I've never seen trends like that, but I suspect this sort of thing is why there are always fans who insist the newest seasons in particular are an improvement. It's super rare to see people defending any specific post-classic seasons except for the newest ones, which are always considered the best of the post-classic era. The way this pattern has held for 20 or so years makes me think this is the Simpsons equivalent of "the best ___ is what you grew up with".

If you go with the idea that the "old" and "new" Simpsons are actually two different shows it makes more sense. The "old" Simpsons were a counter-culture show making fun of the mainstream perfect family shows seen from 70s to early 90s. The "new" Simpsons were the mainstream culture show.

Both types of shows are created differently and appeal to different people. The people who loved the early seasons hate the newer ones while the people who like the newer ones like it for what it is and don't understand why to older ones are placed so high on a pedestal.

While there is very little skill, luck still plays a big part. The game isn't deterministic in the sense that if we played the game, went back in time and played the same game we would get different roll orders.

As an aside, as a kid I learned to have precise muscle movement for dice/coins to get what I wanted. For example, I was able to flip a coin (with it turning multiple times in the air) and get what I wanted >80% of the time. I remember my math teacher calling BS on me for flipping a coin 100 times and getting 85 heads, had to flip a coin in front of them 10 times to show that I can somewhat control it.

Pokemon SM's "too many cutscenes" was an issue from the beginning plus some people didn't like the change in formula. It did amplify quite a bit for USUM.

I may take it over FF15 in a rematch though.

If you look at 100m races, typically the top athletes run slower in the heats/semi rounds.

GildedFool posted...

100m sprint is exactly the same.

Your 9.8 second time is precisely the same whether other people are running next to you or not.

If everyone around you is running a 10.1+ then you'd want to save your energy and run a 10.0.

banananor posted...

if you have A without B, you have something like the high jump, 100 meter dash, or shotput events- pretty much anything you'd traditionally associate with the olympics. Golf and bowling fall into that category as well. I'd call these athletic competitions, but not sports.

I'd argue that there is still some element of strategy in those events. For example, in golf you may make different decisions if you are behind or ahead.

Long distance running you see runners speed up or slow down at different points in the race as part of their strategy. There's less of that in the sprints since they are a lot shorter, but you do have athletes which may hold back during the early rounds in order to conserve energy.

Yes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Association_of_International_Sports_Federations

It's also recognized by the International Olympic Committee

Speaking of fossils, I wonder how they will handle the ones from Sword/Shield. Will they continue to use the wrong halves or will we ever see the full intended versions?

I think the experience rating is fair (maybe bump it up to a 3) when you consider the level of competition. Outside of maybe Iris, Ash is the youngest person in the tournament while canonically, Cynthia, Diantha, Lance and Leon have been champions for years. He is definitely the least experienced person in the semifinals.

It's like in professional sports where they say one player has below average skill. It's all relative. It doesn't mean he's not going to get out-skilled by some random person watching him on tv.

The latest episode gave power level stats for the semifinalists, if anyone is interested...

Leon
Attack - 5/5
Defense - 5/5
Speed - 5/5
Strategy - 4/5
Experience - 4/5
Unpredictability - 4/5

Cynthia
Attack - 5/5
Defense - 5/5
Speed - 4/5
Strategy - 5/5
Experience - 5/5
Unpredictability - 3/5

Diantha
Attack - 4/5
Defense - 5/5
Speed - 4/5
Strategy - 5/5
Experience - 4/5
Unpredictability - 4/5

Ash
Attack - 5/5
Defense - 3/5
Speed - 5/5
Strategy - 2/5
Experience - 2/5
Unpredictability - 5/5

Zylothewolf posted...

Has Sonic ever been close? Mario was the face of video games before Sonic was Needlemouse.

Possibly in the early 90s during the Genesis days you could argue he was close. Now that we are around three decades out, definitely not.

Don't you know? Ash is still 10 years old :p