Board 8 > Exdeath Plays Every Game in the GotD 2020 Contest

(+) Yeah! (+)

Although the police saw Madison act as his accomplice last time, they don't seem to make any effort to bring her in, and she goes off to see Ann Sheppard, the Origami Killer's geriatric mum. She has to show the old broad various objects from around the room, and finally give her some flowers, before she spills the O.K.'s name, whispering it outside of the player's hearing for the extra suspense. Madison has never encountered Scott before and doesn't know who he is, but still acts shocked and then scoots straight to his apartment.

Another example of how poorly written this game is. Theres a lot of cheap misdirection.

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Honestly the game just feels like an excuse to string together a series of setpieces.

Granted, you could say the same about most games, even more plot-driven ones like Metal Gear Solid, but for something sold as an interactive movie...

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Aaaaahhh I've been so busy getting angry at Mass Effect 2 I've fallen behind on Heavy Rain. It's fine though, I'll catch up. I'm about halfway through the playlist now.

So here is part 1 of my final thoughts on Mass Effect 2. This part covers all the negative aspects of the game, which is a lot of stuff. I promise part 2 will be more positive.

Gameplay
Hide behind cover, shoot, wait for shields/health to recharge, keep shooting until all enemies dead. Use a power whenever its off cooldown and as long as it matches the healthbar. I played mostly on normal and switched to veteran near the end, which just made the enemies more bullet-spongey.

There were 2 times in the game when this pattern got shaken up. The first was the derelict Reaper with oodles of husks constantly spawning from the floor and charging at you. While this was a different experience I wouldnt call it a fun one. The second was the first leg of the suicide mission where you have to disable blockages in the vents before your hacker dies. I liked this because it makes you stop turtling and play more aggressively, albeit inelegantly by just giving you a very short time limit. To put on my armchair designer hat, what the game needed was common enemies that forced you out of cover, maybe with grenades, the Shockwave power, or teleporting like that DLC boss. Basically anything that would require you to move around and prioritize targets instead of hunkering down and shooting the closest guy.

What makes the monotony worse is that the only diversions from the shooting are 2 hacking minigames, one of which, the match-the-symbols one, I got very sick of near the end from how often it came up. The find-the-segment game was pretty fun though, didnt get sick of that.

World
Tiny hubs wouldnt necessarily be a bad thing if they were densely packed with interesting stuff, but they really arent. For every 2 NPCs with actual depth of personality, for example Captain Bailey or the asari matriarch bartender on Illium, there are 20 who exist solely for the purpose of dispensing a fetch quest or providing you with a binary moral choice that you sometimes cant even select if you havent gone through enough binary moral choices already.

Speaking of which, Mass Effect 2s choices have a lot of problems more than just the paragon/renegade system, but I may as well get into that first. Its not that the system is too simplistic, but that it has more weight placed on it than it should given how simple it is. By way of example, Ill refer to something in the game that really disappointed me: the part where you unfreeze the krogan and he attacks you. This is a setup for a really interesting role-playing opportunity: your goals are to convince this krogan not to kill you, to inform him of where he is and what happened to his creator, and to convince him to join your team. There are multiple dialogue options with multiple approaches, but all it takes is picking the one blue (or red) one. The experience of navigating through a tricky interpersonal conflict and deciding how you want to handle it is removed, because the way to succeed is simple and obvious. There were far too many moments like this in the game, where I was intrigued by a choices premise but defaulted to the highlighted option because I knew it would be correct.

The other major problem with the choices, one that makes the small worlds feel even smaller, is how compartmentalized everything is. That is, even the choices you make that matter dont matter outside of the immediate area in which you make them. One of the biggest failures in this regard is how your squadmates barely react to the decisions you make, which is partly due to the large amount of permutations that you could bring with you, but even their dialogue trees aboard the Normandy barely change over the course of the game. In fact, they barely change after their own loyalty missions, which makes no sense to me since youd think that would be an obvious trigger to unlock new dialogue. The points of interest where you can talk to specific squadmates are good, but theyre usually just a few lines long. And aside from your squadmates, the rest of the world doesnt really react to your choices either. The quests you do and the people you help are forgotten about the moment you leave their planet. I wont belabor this point too much since the your choices dont matter line is done to death now, but I will say that its pretty bad that the biggest way you see your choices shape the world is from emails at your private terminal.

Story
The plot structure is surprisingly simple: find out where the Collectors are coming from, find a way to get there, go there and stop them. In between, build up your team. This is where I would say simple isnt necessarily a bad thing, which it isnt, but I confess that I was slightly disappointed by how simple it ended up. I think the reason for my disappointment is that the intro to the game promises more intrigue than it ends up delivering. Shepard allying with Cerberus seems like it should make him have to work as a fugitive behind the scenes, juggling various factional allegiances while slowly building up a loyal force. Well, for how often it matters that Cerberus is seen as a dangerous terrorist organization, Shepard might as well still be in the Alliance. He just sets down on a planet, chats up the locals, helps them out with their problems and leaves to do the same in the next star system. The only time in the game you working with Cerberus ever has actual consequences is when Ashley/Kaidan shows up, and that is one brief scene that amounts to nothing.

And speaking of setups without payoffs, what about the council? Its the one of the first things youre directed to, but it never comes up again after that, not even in passing. What are they doing against the Collectors? Against Cerberus? What does Udina have against Shepard? What is Anderson trying to do? Political intrigue is the bread and butter of RPG worldbuilding, and theres a huge missed opportunity for it here. And speaking of political intrigue, it seemed like there was something weird going on with Miranda, with her executing that guy in the facility at the start of the game and tipping off Jacob about his father, but that didnt turn out to be anything either. Maybe I was reading too much into that but it seemed weird.

And speaking of machinations within your squad, interpersonal conflicts between squadmates come up randomly and have no more significance than raising or lowering your loyalty values. Why does Jacob only distrust Thane one time before it never comes up again? Why isnt anyone other than Miranda concerned that Jack could be unstable? Why does Grunt have literally nothing to say to Mordin on his loyalty mission? It feels like everyone in the galaxy exists only in relation to you, Shepard. And speaking of which, whats the deal with Harbinger? What does he have against you, Shepard, specifically? Why is he the only Collector that talks? Whats the point of him surviving into Mass Effect 3 when he did nothing of importance in this game?
(cont'd)

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(cont'd)
Quitting ranting for a second, I should mention that I really liked the suicide mission. Its the only time where you actually get to see all your squadmates together, and it gives the various members a decent amount of lines to make it feel like theyre all contributing. In fact its a better execution of your choices mattering than most of the rest of the game: you pick a squadmate for a task, they do it alongside you. Simple and effective. The cutscenes were put together well enough to make me unsure as to whether my squadmates would survive, particularly the one at the end of the biotic segment where I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen to Thane. I think its good that characters can die even if youve done all the obvious stuff like loyalty missions and upgrades, since the finale should be high-stakes and not solvable before its even begun.

Last thing: there are two major plot twists and neither are handled well. The first is that the Collectors used to be Protheans. So what? The Collectors are so undefined as an enemy force already, and the Protheans are barely in the game at all, that, as Shepard literally says himself, it changes nothing. Then theres the big endgame twist that the Collectors are creating a Reaper made out of people. First of all, theres no emotional reason to have the twist considering weve already seen the Collectors terrorizing innocent people (including our crew) and therefore have plenty of reason to want to stop them. But from a narrative perspective, it makes even less sense. The given explanation for this twist is that each new generation needs to make new Reapers out of whatever the current species is. But the entire point of this series is to stop the already extant threat of the Reapers. Why are the Collectors working to build a new version of something they already have a million of? It seems the only reason this twist is there is to have a crazy final boss, which wasnt even fun to fight anyway.

Phew that's done. Part 2 will be more fun since it covers the single best aspect of the game: the characters. Ill tier squadmates, go over their loyalty missions, and speculate on a Bioware of an alternate dimension.

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Tbh Mass Effect kinda feels it's the skeleton of a Fallout game. It's a really cool universe with interesting characters, but your very limited in your exploration and interactions with characters.

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Hmm, my Fallout experience is limited, but Mass Effect definitely puts a lot more focus on characters than Fallout does, especially with giving them their individual arcs. Fallout I think is more about exploring the world and discovering weird locations and lore.

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Oh yeah ME's crew members are way better. However Fallout goes for a Quantity > Quality mentality there. Seeing how a bunch of different characters handle the apocalypse is really fascinating. But yeah my comparison was mostly in response to how restrictive ME's choices and exploration are.

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I'm very positive that you got the best ending of Heavy Rain.

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LinkMarioSamus posted...

Honestly the game just feels like an excuse to string together a series of setpieces.

Granted, you could say the same about most games, even more plot-driven ones like Metal Gear Solid, but for something sold as an interactive movie...

I've heard that Naughty Dog admit the Uncharted games are exactly that, but I think (not having played them much) that they at least have fewer plot holes than Heavy Rain.

Gall posted...

So here is part 1 of my final thoughts on Mass Effect 2. This part covers all the negative aspects of the game, which is a lot of stuff. I promise part 2 will be more positive.

For what it's worth, I think you did a good job summarizing the main problems with the game, and we agree on several, including the monotony of the shooting, how the "social boss fights" are undermined by the highlighted paragon/renegade options, and the small hubworlds. I didn't really touch on the lack of broader consequences for player choices in this thread, so I'm glad you brought it up.

BetrayedTangy posted...

Tbh Mass Effect kinda feels it's the skeleton of a Fallout game. It's a really cool universe with interesting characters, but your very limited in your exploration and interactions with characters.

The old Fallout games are miles ahead of Mass Effect in terms of RPG mechanics, sidequest structure, and individual areas, that's for sure. The more modern Fallout games do share the problem with ME's charm/intimidate unfortunately, since you can always pick the options with visible speech requirements.

ctesjbuvf posted...

I'm very positive that you got the best ending of Heavy Rain.

I quickly looked it up and I think you're right. Apparently Ethan can spare Scott if he arrives to the final confrontation alone, but that results in Ethan himself getting killed by the police.

Final Analysis: Heavy Rain

What I Thought of Heavy Rain: Funny, when it isn't merely boring
Would I play Heavy Rain again? Sure. I'm curious to play it in French, too.
Did it deserve to lose round 1? Absolutely.

It's easy to talk about how much Heavy Rain's reputation has tanked over the years. It seems like no one is prepared to defend it as a serious story any more. At the same time, its release began the rise of the "interactive drama" genre (for lack of a better term.) There are a few more games in the contest which could cite it as an influence, including The Walking Dead, Life is Strange, and possibly Night in the Woods, which I don't know much about but am looking forward to playing. That being said, all three of those examples easily surpass it by most accounts, and I would even argue that Cage's own Detroit, while utterly ridiculous in terms of plot and world-building, is significantly improved upon Heavy Rain.

Video game narrative doesn't meet a high standard of average quality, I have to admit, but I've played few games with more unbelievable character actions, poorly considered plot twists, and hilariously brute storytelling than Heavy Rain. This game maintains its own suspense by frequently contradicting itself, and for the sake of its divergent story paths a lot of scenes are just absurd. If Ethan or Scott fails to avoid police pursuit under the player's control, they will escape through insanely silly methods afterward. This doesn't just undermine the logic of the story, it also removes the impact of the different outcomes. Neither of the aforementioned things change the narrative - they just add extra scenes to get the plot back to its predetermined path.

What sets Detroit apart from this game is the dynamic between Connor and his partner Frank, which at its best is legitimately compelling and made me care about those two characters. Heavy Rain's characterization is about as shallow as it comes. Detroit at least had the decency to tell the player that Frank likes Jazz, but we learn nothing about the interests or dreams of Heavy Rain's Ethan. That character just spends the whole story getting the shit kicked out of him. His son Shaun is even worse - he's little more than an object designed to motivate the main character, which is all the kids in David Cage's stories ever really are.

I'd say it's best experienced with a friend, and best regarded as a source of unintentional comedy. The raw mechanics often conflict with the serious tone and thriller plot, because the player can willingly transform any of its characters into awkward, stumbling losers at any given time, and the resultant laughter is often more rewarding than taking the game seriously.

I found myself wishing for more substantial game mechanics. Much of the experience of Heavy Rain involves bumbling around waiting for enough time to pass that the game finally relents to progress, including such inane tasks as taking a shower, opening and closing the fridge, or going to the bathroom. Realistic perhaps, but the point of art is to remove the unnecessary and the uninteresting.

That isn't to say it has no good ideas. It directly involves the player in tasks like talking down a man with a gun, a situation where a player character is forced to mutilate himself, and an ethical dilemma about whether to kill a man to save a child. In those moments, Heavy Rain justifies itself as a video game, and gives some insight into how it became influential.

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Yeah there's a world of difference between Uncharted cribbing from Indiana Jones and Heavy Rain doing so. Heavy Rain is basically a pulp pot-boiler masquerading as a gritty crime thriller.

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After finishing Heavy Rain, I have an itch to move onto a game with interesting and involved gameplay. But instead of that, I'm just gonna move onto the next game on the list:

Pokmon Heartgold
Previous Experience with Pokmon: Played most generations, played the original Gold, never tried Heartgold
My Expectations for Pokmon Heartgold: A Pokemon game like any other.

I still post on GameFAQs, so it wouldn't take Norman Jayden to deduce that I played Pokmon growing up. In fact, I think Pokmon Yellow was the second game I ever owned myself, after the Game Boy Color port of Donkey Kong Country. I have fond memories of hunting down a copy of Blue whose battery save still worked as a schoolboy, and of battling with my friends on Ruby when one of us finally acquired a link cable. I've played every game in the first four generations multiple times over and completed Pokmon Moon a year or two back. People say that one is the worst, but I really couldn't tell you why.

There came a point when Pokmon lost its magic for me. I particularly remember playing through Diamond with Infernape, Gyarados, and Luxray, and destroying just about everything with the same two moves on each. I couldn't help but notice, after that, how the combat was shallow and repetitive and the difficulty too low to really be engaging.

But if it isn't magical anymore, that isn't to say Pokmon is unbearable to me. That playthrough of Diamond was not my last willing experience with Pokmon. I find it's a nice series to unwind with when I don't want to strain my mind much. My twenty-fifth birthday is ten days away, and the apparent milestone has made me feel nostalgic - and renewed interest in Pokmon has been a part of that. I've snuck in some time with Emerald, and some with Heartgold, since I started this project, and I'm looking forward to diving into the game in earnest.

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Very well said on Heavy Rain! It was no doubt influential and was definitely something unique back when it was released, but better games have since come out and really showed how flawed Heavy Rain was all along.

I have similar feelings about Pokemon. It's always hard to get a new adventure going, but it becomes pretty relaxing once you get past the intro. Also I'm sure you've already thought about this, but I've found the best way to keep Pokemon fresh is by crafting unique teams with Pokemon you haven't used before. It really helps you grow an attachment to them.

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BetrayedTangy posted...

Very well said on Heavy Rain! It was no doubt influential and was definitely something unique back when it was released, but better games have since come out and really showed how flawed Heavy Rain was all along.

I have similar feelings about Pokemon. It's always hard to get a new adventure going, but it becomes pretty relaxing once you get past the intro. Also I'm sure you've already thought about this, but I've found the best way to keep Pokemon fresh is by crafting unique teams with Pokemon you haven't used before. It really helps you grow an attachment to them.

I think it's a combination of trying new teams and making sure to use Pokmon you really like. I spent a while thinking of which Pokmon to use before I started, so hoping that works out!

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This Pokmon game, of all things, has been the hardest game of the project to get my hands on thus far. I was unlucky that Heartgold and Soulsilver were the ones to ultimately make the bracket. If it had been Black/White or Sun/Moon, I could have simply played on the cartridges I already had lying around. X/Y and OR/AS are easily available on Nintendo's EShop. This game, though, I had to find. I picked Heartgold because I had Gold as a kid and I like Ho-Oh. Gen II is actually the early Pokemon game I know the least. I could tell you without consulting Bulbapedia that Red gets Bellsprout, Growlithe, and Psyduck while Blue gets Oddish, Vulpix, and Staryu, and like wise that Ruby has Mawile, Zangoose, Solrock to Sapphire's Sableye, Seviper, Lunatone, but I don't really know what the exclusives are in Gold and Silver. Murkrow in one and Misdrevious in the other?

Anyway, the whole situation collided with good old COVID-19, since my local game store was closed down for a while during the early days of this project. When it re-opened, eager gamers bought up so much of the used stock that they didn't have a copy of Red Dead Redemption, let alone any DS Pokmon games. On the day I was supposed to start ME2, I tested a certain method of playing this game, and immediately realized it would be a very inferior way of experiencing it, which would be unfair to myself, the game, and its seemingly numerous fans on Board 8. This left me with no recourse but to order the game online - and the cheapest Amazon price was $150! Were it not for this project, I would definitely have waited until I found it locally or a more reasonable price was posted (and as I type this, there is an Amazon listing for $50.) But since ME2 was drawing to a close and I knew Heavy Rain would be short, I bit the bullet. Let it be known as an expression of my dedication that I shelled out one hundred and fifty smackers for a bloody Pokemon game. Of course, the lesson of this experience is that I need to keep far ahead on my games purchases.

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For all that struggle, there was a distinct advantage to buying a proper DS cartridge of Pokmon: I can play it with an old friend. To this end, there came Ronald, an enthusiastic kid who picked Chikorita as his starter. He themed his Pokemon names around U.S. presidents, with his initial partner being Teddy. He made it to Goldenrod, traded his three Pokemon to my buddy, and then retired to spend more time with his stamp collection. I really just picked the name Ronald because I feel a certain whimsicality in the name. I wish I had saved it for my proper playthrough, because once I started playing with it I realized no other name would feel quite as right. I know that makes no sense.

My decision to play as a female Shepard might have given the impression that I'm one of those kids who plays the girl in Pokemon despite being a boy. Without meaning any disrespect to those kids, that's never really been me, but I especially wouldn't do that in this game, because I think the male player character in HeartGold looks way cooler than the girl. He probably has the best Pokmon-specific fashion sense out of any playable character in the series, even if he does wear his hat backward. This time around, I choose the name Dylan. I imagined the character as a sort of wannabe Bob Dylan who names his Pokemon via literary references. My friend likes Totodile so I picked Cyndaquil to complete the trio despite sharing a preference for the little gator. I named him Romeo. It seemed funny to go with a reference to a passionate lover because this Pokmon is eventually going to get bred like a prize stallion, since that is the only way to acquire more of the starter species. Fire starters are usually a good pick anyway because decent grass and water types are available early on but fire tends to show up late.

One facet of the Gold/Silver intro that feels iconic to me is seeing your rival skulk outside Prof. Elm's lab and then him shoving the player away once noticed. Otherwise, it's the standard structure for the start of a Pokemon game - you get your starter, walk through some tall grass, fight your rival who only has a level 5 starter of the type yours is bad against, and then return and finally get Pok balls. This process is longer than ever in this game, because the path to Mr. Pokemon's house is a bit of a hike and Heartgold extracts whatever expedience the original game had - this is one of the most immediately apparent traits of the game, along with the very DS-oriented interface, which was mostly reverted by the time Black and White came around. Now whichever player character you didn't pick has a presence in the plot, meaning extra scenes, and tutorials like the old man showing you around Cherrygrove city and the capturing lessons are now mandatory. So it was a while before Dylan made his way back to his hometown and got a chance to name his rival. I wanted to call him Morrison, but the character limit forced me to reduce it to Morris, so it evokes the IT Crowd before The Doors. The prof suggested that Dylan visit his mother before starting his journey, but instead he was eager for some independence and left home in a hurry. I made a point of catching a Hoothoot, since I wanted to use it for a while, and suspended the literary references to name him Cedric, for one of the great video game owls. That was last night, when I didn't have the energy to write my Heavy Rain finisher, and with that task done I went to bed.

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Yeah Pokemon games are pretty notorious for being insanely expensive. I saw SoulSilver at a local game store for 100.

I will say though Gamestop has really improved with used games recently, especially online. They have sales pretty frequently too. DS games usually don't come with an actual case though, if that's important.

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Diamond felt like a low point of the series to me. Mostly because of how slow it moves technically, but also just because it could use some more touch though. Platinum, however, is a high point, which shows how similar the games are, but also how important quality of life changes are.

HGSS are really good imo. Starting from Platinum and until Black 2 and White 2 are Pokmon perfection to me, where they really nailed the formula.

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BetrayedTangy posted...

Yeah Pokemon games are pretty notorious for being insanely expensive. I saw SoulSilver at a local game store for 100.

I will say though Gamestop has really improved with used games recently, especially online. They have sales pretty frequently too. DS games usually don't come with an actual case though, if that's important.

Amazon's DS prices in general are a bit wonky these days. I bought Dragon Quest IV and V for a like $40 a couple years back but now they're in the over 150 range too.

ctesjbuvf posted...

Diamond felt like a low point of the series to me. Mostly because of how slow it moves technically, but also just because it could use some more touch though. Platinum, however, is a high point, which shows how similar the games are, but also how important quality of life changes are.

HGSS are really good imo. Starting from Platinum and until Black 2 and White 2 are Pokmon perfection to me, where they really nailed the formula.

Yeah, I remember not liking Diamond as much when I first played it as a kid myself. The addition of Rock Climb and Defog was one thing that bugged me, because they made it difficult to have all the necessary HM moves around without sacrificing a lot of combat power. I've actually never finished Black, but it does seem to have made some smart adjustments to the gameplay, and from what I've played of Heartgold the same is true of that game, though I prefer the Gen II graphics and the extra cutscenes are a bit of a sticking point for me.

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I was essentially right outside Cherrygrove when I started today, so my first task was to make my way to Violet City. This meant walking through some tall grass where I found a lot of caterpie, battling the two trainers whose battle was blocking the way earlier,and then taking a phone call from Dylan's mom, who was slightly disappointed that he hadn't come home to say bye to her. I stopped to poke around the Dark Cave for a while and caught a Geodude and Zubat, though I don't intend to use either. What I am using for a little while is a Bellsprout. The obvious name for that Pokemon is Venus, but since mine was male I decided to go with Cupid instead. I caught a second Bellsprout to trade for the NPC-given Onix named Rocky. If you like Onix or its evolved form, this is a good idea for the benefits of extra EXP that traded Pokemon receive.

My next task was the tower of level 3 Bellsprout. Romeo knew ember and could make short work of everything there, but I used it as an opportunity to train Cedric instead. Unfortunately, he didn't learn peck until nearly all the Bellsprout were dealt with. While here, I caught a Gastly, and though I haven't invested any training into it yet I'm considering using it. I don't think I've ever had the chance to use a Gengar before. The first name I thought of for it was Hamlet, for Hamlet the first, but I wanted to diversify my references a little and called him Sawyer instead, for the story where Tom Sawyer was active at his own funeral. Between the tower's EXP and the gym trainer battles, I managed to evolve my Cyndaquil before I battled Faulkner, which made his Pigeotto easy enough to deal with. I took out his Pigey using Hoothoot with Hypnosis tactics, though the Hypnosis missed thrice in a row, so it would've been better just to peck it to death. Faulkner's signature move used to be mud slap, but in Heartgold he has the much more threatening roost, a healing move that temporarily removes the user's flying type (meaning it can also be used to reduce the damage of a rock, ice, or electric move.) This makes him more challenging but the rest of the game easier, since he also gives a TM for Roost now, and healing moves are generally quite good in Pokemon. I decided to use it on Cedric right away.

I found the HM for Rock Smash, gifted by an NPC, whose location I had actually forgotten, since it's been a while since I last played Gold. I taught it to a Rattata that I'm using as an "HM slave" and trained Cupid on the high-level Geodude you can find by breaking rocks.

In general, the most important traits a Pokemon needs are decent stats and a reliable attack move of the same type as themselves. Bellsprout is nice in that it begins with Vine Whip, while a lot of otherwise-good Pokemon like Mareep and especially Sandshrew struggle with only normal moves for a good while. This allowed the Bellsprout to take out much higher level Geodude on its own, sometimes netting two level-ups in a single fight. I also visited the Ruins of Alph and caught Unknown A and I.

Continuing south of Violet, I stepped onto Route 32, and had the good fortune to quickly catch a Wooper. That's another Pokemon that starts with Water Gun instead of tackle, and I like its evolved form, though I don't think I'll actually use it this time around.

Current stats:

Pokedex: 20 seen/14 caught

Current team:
Egg
Cupid (Bellsprout) lv. 9
Romeo (Quilava) lv. 14
Cedric (Hoothoot) lv. 10
Sawyer (Gastly) lv. 3
Rattata lv. 4


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Definitely use Gengar if you haven't before. It's very good. The physical/special split makes it a lot nicer for ingame playtroughs.

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Finally finished Heavy Rain.

• Disappointingly, the story never gets quite as goofy as David Cage's other stuff. There are some fun elements like Jayden's stupid-looking VR glasses, Ethan's ridiculously high tolerance for pain, and Madison ripping off Indiana Jones, but nothing that compares to the likes of ghost armies and helicopter kicks.
• So most of the entertainment value comes from the uncanny 3D models (especially the kids), the bizarre accents (especially the kids), and the overly long QTE-riddled action scenes.
• One thing that really jumps out at me, and that has already been mentioned in this thread, is how David Cage just loves making "scenes" but has no idea how to coherently put them together. Whenever they're not interacting with another main character, you could rearrange all the Jayden, Shelby, and Madison segments and they would make about as much sense.
• Overall, given how much this game dragged on and how repetitive it was, I wouldn't even recommend it on a so-bad-it's-funny level. Beyond Two Souls > Omikron > Detroit > Heavy Rain.

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that's quite the David Cage ranking

i never played Omikron past the intro (I have the dreamcast version and I just can't do it) but here's my rankings if you count watching the TBFP LP of Omikron twice as "playing" it:

1) Detroit
2) Indigo Prophecy
3) Heavy Rain
4) Omikron
5) Beyond


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For me Beyond strikes the perfect balance of absurd and infuriating for maximum comedic value. Omikron was too absurd and Detroit too infuriating.

And full disclosure, I've only watched LPs of all of them. I usually do that for story-focused games anyway, and for David Cage in particular I think the best way to experience his games is with the Best Friends laughing over it. I kind of want to watch Indigo Prophecy but I feel like I've already had the best parts spoiled.

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ctesjbuvf posted...

Definitely use Gengar if you haven't before. It's very good. The physical/special split makes it a lot nicer for ingame playtroughs.

Yeah, I know it's a consistently powerful Pokmon in just about every generation. I think I've used Haunter a couple times on the Game Boy games, but didn't have the means to evolve it. That was over a decade ago in any case.

I can only say Detroit > Heavy Rain as far as ranking David Cage goes. I might play Beyond with a friend soon. That was also how I experienced Detroit. Beyond is generally considered to be the worst, but that could also make it the funniest.

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I'm gonna try out a more role-play based approach to my Pokmon write-ups. Tell me if it's too cringe-inducing.

Dylan woke up under the shade of a tree on Route 32. He was hungry and his arms ached from the confined bag he had slept in, but he got up quickly and cleaned up his makeshift campsite with a smile. He was looking forward to a day in the open air, making his way forward on his own.

He thought back to the day before, when he had won his first gym badge. It didn't excite him. When Prof. Elm had suggested that he take the gym challenge, he saw it as an excuse to leave home more than anything else. Faulkner was a funny character. He was so focused on his gym because his father had loved bird Pokmon. Didn't he have any desires of his own?

The first trainer he encountered was a girl named Liz, who used some kind of rat called a Nidoran. After the battle, she asked for his phone number. "Now this," thought Dylan "is why I became a Pokmon trainer."

Up ahead, he met a boy who used the male version of the same species - he and Liz were counterparts. Dylan tried to ask the kid if he had ever met Liz, but all he would say was "If you don't want to battle, just avoid eye contact."

At the Pokemon center, someone offered him a fishing rod. Dylan accepted and eagerly went to the bridge to try it out. All he could reel in was a pathetic little fish called Magikarp. He caught one anyway. Maybe he could cook it.

Union Cave made a nice change of scenery. It was pleasant to get out of the sun on a hot day, but most of the wild Pokmon were rock types easily dispatched by Cupid's vine whip and the only new Pokmon he caught was a Sandshrew. He was getting bored of rodents. Inside the cave walls he met a fat firebreather and a man in a t-shirt and a dinosaur costume, and he drew caricatures of both in his notebook.

He had spent so much time looking for Pokmon in Route 31 that his egg hatched. It was something called a Togepi. It knew a seemingly powerful move called Extrasensory, but Dylan was still not impressed with it and left it in the PC storage system. Prof. Elm kept calling him until he finally answered. He was excited about the hatched Egg and asked Dylan to come show him the Togepi, but New Bark Town was a long way back now and that wasn't happening any time soon. A kid named Joey also called him twice and told the same story about how his Rattata was above average for a rat.

He reached the end of the tunnel, and Azalea town was just ahead.

Current Stats:

Pokedex: 32 seen/17 caught

Team:

Cupid (Bellsprout) lv. 18
Romeo (Quilava) lv. 16
Cedric (Hoothoot) lv. 13
Sawyer (Gastly) lv. 3
Rattata lv. 4


---

So I actually wasn't going to play through Pokemon, but seeing you guys post about has made me choose otherwise.

I too chose Cyndaquil, as I used Totodile last playthrough and there's a different Grass type I want to use. I just used Cyndaquil/Quilava up until Azaela Town where I picked up a Slowpoke before defeating Bugsy.

On my way to Goldenrod I picked up an Oddish, however I wanted to put off the fight against Whitney and traveled north to do the Bug Catching Contest and grind a bit. I also intended to pick up the next member of my team, however I hit a slight roadblock.

The Pokemon I wanted was Yanma, however it only has a 1% encounter rate! I sat there for like two hours trying to find one to no avail. So I resorted to some other methods. I was already going to have to do this with the final member of my team since it's a SoulSilver exclusive so I don't think it's that big of a deal, but I went into my copy of Platinum and caught a Yanma. I decided that once I trade it over, I'm breed it and use the baby one on my team to sort of balance out the method I used.

Before going into Platinum though I decided it was time to fight Whitney and man is that Miltank built to be frustrating. I thought I had gone in fairly well prepared, I was wrong. Clefairy wasn't a major problem as Oddish poisoned it, allowing Quilava to knock it out incredibly easily. My plan for the Miltank was to put it to Sleep with Slowpoke's Yawn, then have Quilava Smokescreen it to death, so Rollout was less potent. This didn't work out very well at all. First of all I didn't realize Miltank came equipped with a Lum Berry, so I had to take extra hits just to put it back to sleep, but the second time it woke up after two turns. Still though I got three Smokescreens off and thought I'd be okay. Nope! Its Rollout hit every time, knocking out all three of my useful Pokemon, thankfully Togepi hatched so I used it as a sacrifice to Revive Quilava and finish the battle.

Despite how frustrating her fight can be, Whitney is actually one of my favorite gym leaders. Her fight requires actual strategy, she's easily the most memorable fight in the Johto games. Anyway I ended up heading north and defeated Sudowoodo before calling it a night.

---

On the outskirts of Azalea town, two men were fighting. One in a black uniform struck the other and sent him running, and then stood outside the town well blocking access. Dylan just walked past him.

He wanted to buy some water and something to eat, but the only store in town sold Pok balls and potions but nothing else. He ended up doing some work on the local kiln in exchange for a meal. The charcoal workers wouldn't tell him where they'd gotten it from.

Another black-uniformed man was blocking the way to the Gym, so Dylan decided to move on and tried to walk through Ilex Forest to the west. Eventually he found his way blocked by a small tree, which someone told him could be cut by a Pokmon whose trainer had the Azalea Gym Badge. He doubled back to town.

A local man named Kurt offered to help fight the black-clad gang, which he said were called Team Rocket. They had formally disbanded three years ago after a boy named Red (what kind of name was that?) had defeated them. They were in Azalea town cutting the tails off Slowpoke to sell, presumably to fund a rebuilt operation. Kurt successfully scared away the man guarding the well, but once Dylan reached the bottom of the ladder he found the man standing still and complaining of back pain. He insisted that Dylan fight the Rockets instead, which he was not enthusiastic about considering they were full-grown men and he was ten years old. Finally, he convinced himself to try - he didn't want to be stuck in this little town for the rest of his life. He went into the well, fully expecting the beating of his life, only to find that the Rockets challenged him to Pokmon with weak and untrained critters and then quietly left town when he won. He saw a Slowpoke with an intact tail wandering around and caught it just to keep it safe.

With the town settled down, Dylan was free to challenge the gym. He had heard it was a simple maze with a leader who specialized in the weak Fury Cutter move, but there must have been some renovations recently because instead he found a set of puzzles based around redirecting a mechanical spider by lowering strands of its rope web via levers. The gym leader was a kid named Bugsy who talked for a while about his studies before the battle. Dylan couldn't help but imagine him getting bullied at school. He used a Scyther with an impressive moveset of Leer, Focus Energy, and Quick Attack, but it went down easily to super-effective damage from Romeo's ember.

As he prepared to leave town, Morris walked in and challenged him to a battle, ranting both before and after about how he despised the weak. He seemed strangely curious about Team Rocket having been in town. This was a chance for Cupid to shine, easily taking down Morris' Croconaw with Vine Whip. Morris also used Zubat and Gastly, which tried annoying strategies with supersonic and hypnosis, but not to much success.

In Ilex forest, Dylan helped the charcoal guys deal with their disobedient Pokmon and they gave him the Cut HM as a reward. He caught an Oddish and a Paras, and then made his way to Goldenrod City.

Pokedex: 47 seen/21 caught

Team

Sawyer (Gastly) lv. 11
Romeo (Quilava) lv. 20
Cupid (Bellsprout) lv. 19
Cedric (Hoothoot) lv. 16
Rattata lv. 4
Slowpoke lv. 6

---

I really like the reworked Bugsy fight. He actually beat me the first time I tried by KOing Quilava with a quick attack crit after leer. The use of U-Turn is an interesting way to make his Metapod and Kakuna slightly less irrelevant. The change to the Farfetched capturing was also welcome, since the original method was kind of tedious.

---

Did a bit more HeartGold today

I traded over and bred the Yanma, made sure to get one with Speed Boost and actually taught it U-Turn that we got from Bugsy. It's making switch training a lot easier.

I also put Morty on hold so I could get the next member of my team. I skipped ahead to Olivine to grab the Good Rod, then went all the way back to New Bark and caught a Chinchou.

While I was grinding, my Oddish evolved to Gloom. Which I then evolved to Bellossom immediately. I also took the time to buy some TMs. I got SolarBeam for Bellossom and Thunder for Chinchou.

I also considered heading back to Platinum for some TMs not available in HG (specifically Toxic), but opted not to when I saw how many TMs I would want to use (Flamethrower, Psychic, Sunny Day and Protect, among others)

Feeling pretty confident otherwise I went to take on Morty. While his trainers weren't an issue. I highly underestimated his Gengar which swept my entire team. So I've got some leveling to do.

Current Team:
Quilava Lv. 27
Slowpoke Lv. 22
Bellossom Lv. 22
Yanma Lv. 16
Chinchou Lv. 21

---

On Route 34, Dylan caught a strange Pokmon called Ditto, which could transform into a perfect replica of anything else. He thought it was kind of frightening - he imagined it impersonating his mother and then attacking him. He left it in the PC and then took his time to explore Goldenrod city. He spent a long time battling the trainers in the city's underground as well as the nearby routes. Everyone seemed to want him to have their phone numbers. The police were strangely jumpy and confrontational, which made him want to leave town.

The department store was the first place he had found that sold anything fit for human consumption. He bought a bottle of lemonade. The man at the bicycle shop gave him a free bike, on the grounds that it would help with advertising if he rode it around. Dylan didn't think that would work, but he took the bike.

There was a swaying tree blocking the way onward to Ecruteak City. A woman in the flower shop said she would give him a watering can that could somehow get rid of it if he managed to defeat the local gym leader. He decided to prepare a little more and then challenge her.

He caught a male Nidoran and called it Oedipus, which he thought was funny, and a security guard lent him a well-trained Spearow provided that he deliver the mail it was carrying to his friend.

The memory of the Slowpoke Well was still in his mind. The image of a Pokemon with its tail lopped off and bleeding was jarring to him. He had written down a few phrases like "the butcher's well, "the butcher's cove" and "Hell well" in his notebook. He crossed that last one out. He wanted to talk about it with someone and called up Liz, who babbled about her Nidoran and then hung up before he could get a word in. He deleted her phone number and decided to call his mom instead. He told her that he didn't know how people could do something like that. She told him that maybe it just showed how important whatever they were trying to accomplish was to them.

Pokdex: 59 seen/24 Caught

Team
Sawyer (Gastly) lv. 18
Romeo (Quilava) lv. 21
Cupid (Bellsprout) lv. 20
Cedric (Hoothoot) lv. 18
Rattata lv. 4
Kenya (Spearow) lv. 20

---

Beat Morty, Chuck and Jasmine

Morty: His Hypnosis spam was pretty obnoxious, but I countered with my own sleep and used Smokescreen to blind his team. Allowing for an easy win

Chuck: Dude almost wiped out my team with just his Poliwrath. I tried to Sleep/SolarBeam it with Bellossom, but he outsped me and hit me with a Hypnosis/Focus Punch combo. Then did the same thing with Quilava and Slowpoke. Chinchou managed to get off a Thunder and Paralyze it, but it only dropped to yellow health. He retaliated with several Body Slams that Paralyzed Chinchou leading to several turns of paralysis for both of us. Eventually Chinchou fell. Thankfully despite being low level my Yanma had some great moves at her disposal. Thanks to Speed Boost, Paralysis and Double Team I was able to avoid damage and beat it with U-Turn. Also Chinchou evolved afterwards.

Jasmine: By far the easiest. The Magenmites were no match for Quilava and Lanturn decimated Steelix with Surf.

I ended the session by returning to the Slowpoke Well for the King's Rock and Rain Dance. I Evolved Slowpoke into Slowking and gave RD to Lanturn while buying Blizzard for Slowking.

Current Team:

Quilava Lv. 28
Bellossom Lv. 27
Slowking Lv. 25
Yanma Lv. 22
Lanturn Lv. 27

---

Loving the write-ups so far

---

Going to start wrapping up Mass Effect 2 with the squadmate tierlist, starting from the top.

Top Tier
Thane: Everything about this guy is great. Being the only member of his race in the game, he has a uniquely appealing reptilian design and gimmick with his flashbacks. The battle-weary, repentant assassin is an old trope, but tying it to his religion and terminal illness is an interesting new spin. His loyalty mission is the best part of the whole game: it involves multiple characters with conflicting interests, family drama, political intrigue, worldbuilding, and a really cool role-playing scenario in the interrogation scene. AND his voice acting is excellent.

---

More squadmates, not on Thane's level but still great.

Great Tier
Grunt (1/2): Did I mention that I love krogans? Because I do. Its an old trope to have a member of a normally violent race get adopted and raised by a more peaceful one (Worf is a major example), but having you be the father is a fun twist. I loved being a good example for my krogan son and helping him through puberty by killing a giant monster. Plus, I didnt exactly test it but Im pretty sure hes the best squadmate in battle.

Mordin (2/2): Perhaps surprising considering my labeling him as a coward and hypocrite, but the thing is I like my characters flawed. Mordin isnt a monster, but hes done a horrible thing and has difficulty reckoning with himself about it, and that makes for a good, complex character. That aside, his personality and manner of speaking are quite entertaining.

---

In the Goldenrod City underground, a shop offered to give haircuts to Pokmon. Dylan asked them to give one to his Gastly as a joke, but they accepted the request and charged him anyway. He left feeling like he'd been had.

He caught a female Nidoran. He had heard she could into a ground-type called Nidoqueen, so he named her Isis.

Before he could challenge the third gym, he had to find its leader, Whitney, and the radio station, and answer a quiz that she couldn't figure out, even though they were yes or no questions and they let you try as many times as you wanted. Her gym trainers all used normal types, which made it a good chance to train Isis, who knew double kick. She evolved to Nidorina before the battle and took care of Whitney's Clefairy. Against Miltank, he switched to Sawyer and had it use curse. Miltank's stomp and rollout took down Sawyer in short order, but with the curse applied Cupid could switch in and hold out until the Miltank fainted. Whitney started crying and he had to wait until she calmed down to get his badge and get out of this overwhelming city with its noise and bright lights. He wasn't going to miss Whitney, he was confident in that.

Up ahead a girl dared him to soak the weird tree that was blocking his path, which enraged it and made it attack. It turned out to be a Pokmon called Sudowoodo, which he caught. The girl thought it was funny, and gave him a packet of berries as a reward for amusing her. That thing could've hurt him if he didn't have strong Pokmon! He was convinced that town did strange things to people.

First he went back through Violet City to deliver the Spearow and its mail to a fat, sleepy man who paid him with a TM for the move Rest, which could put his own Pokmon to sleep. Maybe he should've just held onto the Spearow. He realized that he was close to home and now would be a good time to go visit, but decided just to go on.

In Ecruteak's Pokmon Center, he met Bill, the man who designed the Pokmon storage system on PC. Someone came by and told him it would be worth the trip to visit Bill at his home, and when he did so Bill gave him a rare Pokmon called Eevee. He named his Alyosha.

Dylan needed to come up with some ways to make money. He was tired of eating mainly Magikarp. He thought about writing some tips on Pokmon and seeing if anyone would pay for them. He had another idea: he had yet to see anyone else with a Cyndaquil, which made him think it was rare. Pokmon could lay eggs, and Ditto could transform into any Pokmon. He decided to leave Romeo and Ditto at the day care together and see what happened. If it worked, this would be one tip he wouldn't share with anyone else.

First excerpt of Dylan's Pokmon tips:

Today I battled a trainer who used three Magnemite and an Electrode. This is a terrible team because they're all the same type. If you went up against a Ground type with these Pokmon, what could you do? I see a lot of trainers use teams like this. It just doesn't work. You need multiple types so you can face different threats. Besides, it's boring for the other trainer. I don't want to just repeat the same moves I used on your last three Pokmon, so show some common courtesy.

Pokdex: 74 seen/33 caught

Team:
Sawyer (Gastly) lv. 20
Cedric (Hoothoot) lv. 18
Isis (Nidorina) lv. 18
Cupid (Weepinbell) lv. 21
Alyosha (Eevee) lv. 5

---

I like your description of the Pokemon world. It's dreamlike, full of weird little occurrences.

Mass Effect 2 has a lot of good squadmates.

Good Tier
Jacob (1/5): Whenever theres a cast of quirky characters, I often find that I have an affinity for the normal one. I like having someone with a more close-to-home perspective, both for Cerberus and for the galaxy at large. His loyalty mission was quite shockingly grim, but now that I think about it maybe that was the point: an optimistic guy encounters a situation that is unambiguously the result of horrifying evil, perpetrated by his father no less. Really made me feel bad for him though.

Tali (2/5): Yeah, shes nice. It felt like her/the quarians story should have been given more importance than it got, its not really in this game other than her two missions. I like her accent. No complaints.

Garrus (3/5): Yeah, hes cool. Its a bit of a copout that his pressing guilt over the death of his old squad is totally assuaged just by killing that guy. Still, the loyalty mission was fun and he and Shepard had good banter. I understand why hes popular but IMO he lacks depth.

Jack (4/5): I was definitely not a fan at first, but her loyalty mission really turned me around. Watching her struggle to come to grips with what really happened to her as a child was very interesting, and while going from I have to kill everyone to I guess I wont kill this guy is a pretty obvious method of character development, it works well enough. Her design is still ridiculous though.

Legion (5/5): Unfortunately I missed out on a lot of time with it thanks to recruiting it right before the end, and the geth-quarian conflict is underdeveloped, but I cant complain about what I saw of Legions character. I always like a good self-aware AI story and this ticks the boxes.

---

Evillordexdeath posted...

Today I battled a trainer who used three Magnemite and an Electrode. This is a terrible team because they're all the same type. If you went up against a Ground type with these Pokmon, what could you do?

This is hilarious to think about. Monotype teams are fun, but just imagine attempting a playthrough with that particular team.

---

Monotype is one thing. The exact same Pokmon is another.

---

ctesjbuvf posted...

Loving the write-ups so far

Gall posted...

I like your description of the Pokemon world. It's dreamlike, full of weird little occurrences.

Thanks guys, that means a lot. I wasn't sure about approaching the game this way, so it's reassuring to know you're at least getting something out of it.
Gall posted...

Going to start wrapping up Mass Effect 2 with the squadmate tierlist, starting from the top.

I admit I was surprised to see Mordin high up on your list. It seems like we ultimately agree in our assessment of the strength of his character in terms of writing, at least. It's cool to see someone rank Thane first, I definitely thought he was a good character. Your list is a little less cookie-cutter than mine was I would say. Recruiting Legion earlier probably was worth it for some good dialog. Have you thought about looking up his scenes on Youtube or anything like that?

BetrayedTangy posted...

This is hilarious to think about. Monotype teams are fun, but just imagine attempting a playthrough with that particular team.

It might actually make for an interesting challenge run. Maybe you could get by with different elemental hidden powers on your Magnemites or something. It's definitely one of the common concepts in Pokmon that becomes funny when you think about it much though.

---

Since I wanted to breed Eevee, I realized it would make more sense to name my first one Fyodor, and then have it beget four sons to round out a full themed set of all the Evolutions that existed in Gen II based around my favorite Russian book, The Brothers Karamazov. Consider it a kind of retcon. I just took the Eevee straight to the name rater when I started playing today. The names will be assigned as follows:

Flareon: Dimitri (hot-headed = fire type)
Umbreon: Ivan (the most dark-minded)
Espeon: Alyosha (the "lighter" sibling to Ivan)
Vaporeon: Fyodor (What's left, lol)
Jolteon: Pavel (Good against Fyodor)

---

The man from the day care called Dylan and told him that his Pokmon had an egg. He went back to Goldenrod feeling pretty clever - until he learned that the day care lady had replaced Romeo's only fire type attack with defense curl. He had to spring for a Fire Blast TM to try and fix matters. He left Fyodor in the day care next and spent a while cycling up and down Goldenrod to hatch eggs, while the Eevee made more at an alarming rate. Soon he had five Eevee with matching names. He talked to people around town until he found someone interested in buying rare Pokmon and they set up a deal, but then he realized that he couldn't bring himself to part with any of his Pokmon. He called off the sale and went on with his journey.

It was Saturday, and there was a bug catching competition being held in the park. Dylan ran into a rare Pinsir, but an unwanted critical hit from Romeo's quick attack took in down when he was only trying to weaken it. That was so discouraging that he settled with a Venonat just for the new species and accepted a consolation prize.

Ecruteak was his kind of town. He especially liked how there was no immediate obstacle forcing him into a gym battle. He was free to go onto the next city, Olivine, whenever he pleased. He visited the city's houses and the dance studio, where a pink-haired Rocket grunt heckled the Kimono wearing dancer and then did his own dance. Everyone else in the building asked Dylan to make him stop by challenging him to Pokmon, but Dylan didn't really want to. He thought the Rocket Grunt's dance was funny. Eventually, he succumbed to the peer pressure. An older gentleman who watched the fight then gifted him the HM for Surf. A random hiker to the east of town bumped into him outside a cave and apologized with one for Strength. Now he could go almost anywhere, with just one catch - he needed more gym badges.

There was a burnt down old tower in Ecruteak. He stood outside and just looked at it for a while. He imagined how much work the builders must have put into it, and now all their effort was reduced to a shell that barely stood. No one told him what it had originally been used for, but he imagined it was something important.

He met Morris in the wreck. He was his usual self, ranting about power before challenging Dylan to a battle and making excuses when he lost. They both led with a Gastly, but by focusing on Night Shade Dylan's managed to win. Further down the tower were three big dogs. They ran away as soon as Dylan came close, and a strange man told him that one of them had been the legendary Pokmon Suicune, which he claimed to have spent years chasing. He must not have been very good at it.

Dylan was using three poison types, which made Psychic a problem. He spent a while training an Eevee to like him so that it would evolve into Umbreon, which was the rare dark type. Someone told him that his Pokmon would like him more if he spent a lot of time biking around town, so he tried that. It seemed to work. As he trained for the local Gym Leader, Sawyer evolved into Haunter and Cedric to Noctowl, which learned Confusion.

The Ecruteak gym was a good chance for Cedric to excel, since he was normal which made him resist Ghost attacks and his confusion was strong against Gastly due to its poison type. This strategy worked quite well until the lader Morty used his Gengar, which proved too much for Cedric. Ivan weakened it a little more and then Romeo came in to finish off with Fire Blast. Morty admitted defeat with surprising maturity and gave him the TM for Shadow Ball, which he immediately put to use.

Pokdex: 86 seen/40 caught

Team:

Cedric (Noctowl) lv. 25
Romeo (Quilava) lv. 26
Cupid (Weepinbell) lv. 22
Sawyer (Haunter) lv. 25
Ivan (Umbreon) lv. 17
Isis (Nidorina) lv. 19

Dylan's Pokmon analysis: Noctowl

Noctowl is really cool looking, but not very strong. It is normal flying, so it doesn't get the same type attack boost on the psychic attacks it learns. Its main strategy is to use hypnosis and then attack while the enemy sleeps, but one of its better attacking moves, Uproar, will just wake the enemy up. It doesn't seem to move fast or hit particularly hard, but its mental attacks are at least stronger than its beak. I wish there was some kind of Psychic and Flying Pokmon. I would probably train it.

---

Evillordexdeath posted...

I wish there was some kind of Psychic and Flying Pokmon. I would probably train it.

*Xatu cries in telepathy*

I really like how in depth you went with the Eevee names. Hell even just the nicknames in general. I've tried to do them several times, but end up just hating them and resort to going back to their default names.

---

Looked up more Legion stuff. Someone at Bioware really likes the intelligent guy deadpans snappy comebacks trope, but they do pull it off well. Okay, time to finish off Mass Effect 2.

Okay Tier
Miranda (1/2): A strange personage, to be sure. Shes genetically engineered to be perfect but feels angsty about it, which has always been a weird trope. There are a few hints of her crafting her own schemes, but it never develops into anything (Mass Effect 3?) I like that her loyalty mission fleshes out her backstory, but its very disappointing that Niket still dies even if you talk him down.

Samara (2/2): Your first impression of her is watching her throw some poor sap through a window, brutally beat and murder them, and have her justify it as part of her code. Naturally, this creates the expectation that she will eventually face consequences for her actions and reflect on her morality. Then that never happens. Then you seduce her daughter so she can murder her. Pretty messed up, NGL. The reason shes still Okay instead of outright Bad is that she does occasionally express remorse for her actions, and her circumstances are conceptually interesting even if they are pretty messed up.

Its obvious to me that Biowares greatest strength is not their storytelling, worldbuilding, or certainly not their gameplay, but their character writing. No squadmate is truly bad, most are a cut above the average video game character, and a few are excellent. I wonder about a Bioware of an alternate dimension that devoted their writing talent not to video games, but television. They may have bitten off more than they could chew in trying to create an entire world that youre meant to explore and impact, but it seems like they could have excelled in an episodic structure in which they could focus on a few character or plot arcs at a time. Most of the loyalty missions already feel like episodes of Star Trek, with the team landing on a planet, encountering a moral dilemma that they each have differing views on, and talking out a resolution. For all I know, maybe some Bioware writers did work on television, or do now. Either way, I do understand the love people have for Mass Effect. I just think it exists in the wrong medium.

Now I know Im early but I feel like playing an entirely different space-based sequel from 2010.

---

BetrayedTangy posted...

I really like how in depth you went with the Eevee names. Hell even just the nicknames in general. I've tried to do them several times, but end up just hating them and resort to going back to their default names.

Thanks! I've had that experience too. If I go back to my old Pokemon games and read the few nicknames I do have on my Pokemon, I feel really embarrassed by them. I guess that naming them after characters from existing stories has helped, for me.

Gall posted...

Now I know Im early but I feel like playing an entirely different space-based sequel from 2010.

Poor Samara, always near the bottom. I'd agree that characterization is the main strength of the game, followed by the world-building which I thought was mostly solid. Have fun with Galaxy 2! Or Starcraft 2, or Halo: Reach, whichever it actually is.

---

I played for a while and beat the next 2 Gym leaders tonight. I'll have to write the update out properly tomorrow, because I'm heading off for an overtime shift at work.

Pokedex: 110 seen/50 caught

Team:
Isis (Nidorina) lv. 22
Cupid (Weepinbell) lv. 27
Wooper lv. 6
Rattata lv. 4
Ivan (Umbreon) lv. 22
Sawyer (Gengar) lv. 28

---

Cleared the Rocket Hideout and Pryce

All those battle really helped get my team on equal levels, so I decided to get my final member. It was going to be Skarmory, because I wanted a Steel type and Spike setter, but the only way to get one was to go into Platinum and catch one, but to do that I have to beat a double battle where the opposing team is in their 50s and I already transferred my Platinum team out so I settled for catching a Pineco instead!

Pryce: This gym was pretty funny. I was expecting Quilava to sweep, but he was pretty much useless! The only Pokemon lines in the gym was Piloswine, Dewgong and Cloyster all which resist Fire. Thankfully Lanturn and Bellossom wound up being the all stars again. Rain Dance/Thunder and Sleep Powder/SolarBeam slaughtered everythi ng expect Piloswine which outsped and was strong against both. Slowking then had to finish the job, but got crit before delivering the final blow. Thankfully Yanma has great speed control, so we were able to finish it off pretty easily.

Team:

Quilava Lv. 29
Slowking Lv. 29
Bellossom Lv. 29
Yanma Lv. 29
Lanturn Lv. 28
Pineco Lv. 18

---

Morris was waiting in Olivine City. They didn't fight this time - he just complained that the Gym leader was away taking care of a sick Pokmon, called her weak, and walked away.

There was a caf in this town.The second he saw it, Dylan felt an intense feeling of excitement. He sprinted to the front door.The joy faded an instant later when he luarned the caf exclusively sold seafood. He decided to order what they called Magikarp la meunire out of curiosity regarding who it compared to his own cooking. It incorporated butter and flour, but there was no masking the distinct taste of Magikarp. He struggled to finish the meal.

The city's lighthouse doubled as a popular training spot. He took the chance to catch Isis up to speed by battling the trainers there. One particularly annoying guy named Theo used five Pidgey. In the light room, a girl named Jasmine was nursing a sick Ampharos back to health. She asked him to travel to Cianwood city across the lake, where a pharmacy would give him some medicine. None of his strong Pokmon could learn surf, so he withdrew the Wooper he had caught ages ago to do the job. It wasn't very comfortable hanging off the tiny Pokmon as it swam along. Nearly his entire body was submerged, and his clothes were soaked when he got to the shore in Cianwood, which left him cold although it was a warm summer day. He had to admit he was impressed the Wooper even had the strength to do it. He gathered some old driftwood and asked Romeo to start a fire, but its Fire Blast incinerated the wood in an instant, leaving only ash.

The man at the pharmacy seemed concerned about the lighthouse Pokmon and didn't charge Dylan. A man gave him a rare Pokmon called Shuckle and told him to return it later. He wasn't sure he would.

Suicune was standing on the island. As Dylan approached, it stood still for a moment, almost as if observing him. Then it turned and ran across the water at alarming speed. Eusine arrived and talked about how beautiful Suicune was. Dylan was inclined to agree. Eusine observed that Suicune seemed impressed by Dylan and challenged him to a battle, to try and win the Pokmon's favor. That didn't seem very reasonable, but Dylan made sure to win just in case. The guy had a super-fast Electrode with Thunder, but his other two Pokmon, a Drowzee and Haunter, were completely defenseless against Ivan.

Before he made the trip back, he challenged the Cianwood gym. He left Ivan behind since it was a fighting type gym, and replaced him with a Mantine that had given him a struggle when he tried to capture it. Cupid had hurt itself in confusion five times in a row trying to use sleep powder, to the point where it had to switch out to avoid fainting. The gym leader's name was Chuck and he obssessively trained his body under an artificial waterfall. Dylan had to shut the system off to get his attention. Chuck's Primeape never tried to attack, but it used double team until taking it down was too obnoxious. Dylan resorted to having Sawyer use curse, which left him low enough in health that Poliwrath's surf brought it down. The Poliwrath had a long struggle with Cedric, whose confusion took around 15 turns to bring it down with Chuck using Hyper Potions. The Poliwrath would often fail with Focus Punch, but that presented a threat that denied Cedric the chance to use roost. To boost the owl's chances, he had his other Pokmon paralyze and confuse the Poliwrath. Chuck was a weird guy, but Dylan respected his dedication.

Outside the gym, a woman gave him an HM for Fly, which would let him quickly travel to any town he had visited. He didn't really want to teach it to Cedric, so he tried a Pidgey instead. He had to hang onto its leg as they flew. It was a terrifying experience. He would have to catch some larger Pokmon.

Jasmine accepted the medicine and it worked wonders. The Pokmon got better right away and the lighthouse lit up again. Jasmine went back to her gym. Dylan liked her. He was impressed by how much she did for that Pokmon. He just wished she put up more of a fight. His Quilava took all her Pokmon down in no time with Fire Blast. Steelix took two hits, but used Sandstorm on its only turn.

He happened upon Raikou in the wild. It stood there crackling with immense electrical energy, proud and fierce. He was afraid of it. He imagined it would make short work of his Pokmon and then attack him. He threw a Pok ball at it and watched it effortlessly break free. It glared at him for a moment, then ran away. It vanished beyond the horizon before he had a chance to blink.


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Dylan met an anonymous trainer, who helped him trade to evolve Sawyer into Gengar. The evolution made him ultra-powerful, capable of taking down most opponents with a single Shadow Ball. The trainer also gave him three Pokmon from a trainer named Ronald:

Andrew (Sandslash) lv. 23
Abe (Pidgeotto) lv. 18
Teddy (Bayleef) lv. 17

There was a letter attached to the Bayleef, which read as follows:

Hello!
My name is Ronald, and I'm a beginner Pokmon trainer. I've had a few adventures already, but I think I've reached my limit. I just can't beat Whitney. I've tried so many times, but she's just too strong. It's not fair to my Pokmon for me to keep letting them get hurt like this, and I know there are lots of trainers much stronger than Whitney, so this must not be my calling. I'm going back home to figure out what to do with my life. If you're reading this, I hope you will take good care of my Pokmon.

Dylan read the letter over a few times. There was something about it that struck him, and it took him a while to realize what it was: this kid used to have a dream, but now that dream was dead. He left the Pokmon in the PC.

He made his way through Mt. Mortar, catching a Machop and naming it Gilgamesh, and onto Mahogany town, which was said to be the home of ninja. He wanted to see a ninja, but as he asked around town it became clear that if there were any, they were in hiding. Team Rocket were in town, though. They had set up a phony souvenir shop and were doing something with a radio antenna disguised in a tree. He tried to challenge them to a battle, but they denied that they were Team Rocket, so he didn't know what else to do. He headed north, and a thick rain started to fall as he stepped onto the Lake of Rage.

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There was a massive red Gyarados at the center of the lake. Dylan surfed out (on Mantine this time) and prepared for a long fight. After weakening it with Sawyer's Night Shade and paralyzing with Stun Spore, he captured it with his very first Pok ball. It was almost disappointing. Since it was a big, unusually-colored sea creature, the obvious name for it was Moby.

A man with spiky red hair was standing on the shore when he returned, alongside a cute, almost goofy-looking dragon Pokmon. He said his name was Lance and then congratulated Dylan on taking down Moby Dick. They decided to go deal with the Rocket Base together. Lance wasn't like Kurt: he actually helped. His Pokmon was called Dragonite and it was fearsome.

It was a lot less scary fighting Rockets now that he knew they would only fight his Pokmon. They used swarm tactics. There were Persian statues with hidden cameras that would summon a few grunts. Dylan started tripping them on purpose for the easy EXP.

Morris appeared in the middle of the base, and talked about how Lance had beaten him and given him a lecture on the need for love in Pokmon. He was angry that he lost to someone like that. They didn't battle this time - Morris must have been content with losing once in a day.

One strange man dressed up as Giovanni, who was apparently the old Rocket leader, and tried to imitate his voice. He had a pet Murkrow which was much better than him at impressions, which was handy because Dylan needed his voice to get through the base's security system. The Murkrow's imitation was good enough.

There was another Rocket Executive guarding the generator for the radio signal that was supposedly causing all those problems at the lake of rage. She talked for a while about how Giovanni was missing but she assumed he would approve of what she was doing. Dylan and Lance worked together to beat her, which was a nice chance to see Dragonite in action. It mostly used fly. Then, with all the guards out of the way, they shut off the generator.

Pokdex: 120 seen/54 caught

Team:
Cupid (Weepinbell) lv. 28
Ivan (Umbreon) lv. 28
Cedric (Noctowl) lv. 29
Romeo (Quilava) lv. 29
Isis (Nidorina) lv. 28
Sawyer (Gengar) lv. 30

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Couldn't play much today due to a splitting heading, but what little I did play was pretty eventful. I managed to clear out the Radio Tower.

One thing I've started noticing is this game loves its status effects. I mentioned Sleep earlier, but this time Confusion was really getting frustrating. Notably on the Rival fight here. Not only was his Golbat pretty fast, but it had a pretty great strategy. It would use Confuse Ray followed by attacking with Bite. It actually reminds me of the frustrating (but admittedly fun) Para-Flinch strategy used in the meta game. Thankfully his Golbat used a weaker version of it and we were able to overcome it after a couple of attempts.

The fight against Ariana was also a lot of fun, she had me on the ropes near the end. Her Murkrow managed to finish off Lanturn and Slowking, however my Yanma hit level 33 right before and was able to use Ancient Power to crush it underneath some rocks, before evolving into Yanmega. Which made the fight against Archer a cakewalk.

Team:

Quilava Lv 31
Slowking Lv 31
Bellossom Lv 31
Yanmega Lv 33
Lanturn Lv 31
Pineco Lv 21

On a side note I went out looking for a copy of Dead Space 2. In 2018 my friend and I started a tradition of playing through a horror game every year and I figured Dead Space 2 would be a great pick since he's a fan of it and it's on the challenge.

Prior to this I got some good deals on RDR, MGSV and Dragon's Dogma. The former two were free and Dogma was only ten bucks. However upon receiving them, they didn't come with the original case or box art, and I couldn't even play Dogma, because I forgot to check if it was backwards compatible on the Xbox One.

Thankfully while I was out today, I found the upgraded editions of all three of them for pretty cheap, so that was pretty nice!

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Got carried away with another game today and didn't have much time for Pokemon. I beat Pryce and am up to the Rockets at the radio tower. Update tomorrow.

Pokedex: 126 seen/61 Caught.

Team:
Leviathan (Horsea) lv. 20
Romeo (Quilava) lv. 30
Isis (Nidoqueen) lv. 27
Ivan (Umbreon) lv. 28
Sawyer (Gengar) lv. 32
Teddy (Bayleef) lv. 17

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Beat Pokemon HeartGold today. I'll save my overall thoughts for after Exdeath completes the game, but I do want to post my team ranking.

1. Lanturn - Honestly Lanturn was probably the Pokemon I wanted on my team the least. I never found its design terribly interesting, I just wanted an electric type, but used Ampharos in a previous playthrough. Thankfully Lanturn defied those odds and managed to be both bulky and capable of dishing out some good damage with a great moveset

2. Bellossom - So I've got a pretty big affinity for Grass types. The Sceptile line is my end all favorite and I've used Victreebel, Roserade, Leavanny and Tsareena before and all of which ended up being great. I'm happy to see Bellossom can join their ranks. She was probably the most useful member during the first half. Her access to Sleep Powder plus Magical Leaf's good damage and ability to not miss made her incredibly useful. Unfortunately late game was not kind to her. The only way she could do much is if Sunny Day was up or Typhlosion had blinded the enemy first. It kinda sucks she didn't see more action later on, but she was still awesome

3. Yanmega - Yanmega could've easily been number 1 if he learned Air Slash and Bug Buzz earlier. Now don't get me wrong, his Detect/Speed Boost was incredibly useful because it guaranteed a free attack and switch, but when are only real options were U-Turn and AncientPower she really didn't to topple that many foes, but I do look forward to eventually leveling her up and having her join my other strong Pokemon

4. Forretress - This placement surprised me a ton! Usually my late team additions don't accomplish much and I usually drop them from the team. But Forretress persevered, her incredibly Defense and HP really helped in terms of support. She could use Spikes or even set up Sunny Day for Typhlosion/Bellossom. Would love to see one at full potential.

5. Slowking - Ugh it was really hard to decide between the bottom two, but Slowking at least ended being useful to the team at the end. However he was easily the most disappointing member. I knew he'd be slow, but I figured his SpAtk and bulk would make up for it. It didn't. He was supposed to be my ace in the hole against Lance. But his Blizzard wouldn't one shot the Dragonites and I couldn't survive more than one hit to get a Nasty Plot off so he ended up needing support from the other mons and items to succeed. So sadly he was pretty frustrating.

6. Typhlosion - I'm sorry but he was useless after we caught Lanturn. Sure he helped really early on, but his Level Up moveset is garbage and I wound up using him to take hits or set up Smokescreen and that was it. He'll probably get better as he levels up.

They all at least got some use in, but I likely won't be using the Bottom 2 for anything


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Today is my birthday. I'm 25 years old! My siblings came over to celebrate, which left me without much time for Pokemon. I only really played on the bus home from work this morning. I'll have to delay the next update another day.

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Happy 25th birthday ExDeath!! By the time you're done with this topic I'll be wishing you a happy 30th birthday.

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Happy birthday dude!

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Happy Exdeathday!

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Wait you're YOUNGER than me? I'm also 25.

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Happy birthday!

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