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Showing posts from January, 2018

Improving Pokemon: New Moves Challenge - Water Type

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Today I'll be taking a look at ways to improve Water-types in Pokemon while only focusing on introducing new move concepts. Water Pokemon in general hit the right notes. The type itself has a respectable amount of advantages and weaknesses. As far as its move choices, the type already has a variety of offensive options, including multiple special and physical attacks as well as a reliable priority move. Also, the statistical breakdown of Water-type Pokemon is respectably diverse, with a refreshing selection of defensive, offensive, and support-based Pokemon to choose from. Interestingly as well, the Water-type is one of only two types that has been paired with every other type in the game at least once --  a unique honor that adds to its versatility. Despite that range of diversity, however, I would be remiss if I didn't mention "bulky Water-types ." While there is variety, Water is largely dominated by the sphere of influence that is the defensive Water-type

Improving Pokemon: New Move Challenge - Dark Type

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Dark-type used to suffer, but it is actually quite good in the current meta. When it was introduced in Gen II, it was useful for its immunity to the signature moves of Psychic-type powerhouses. However, there were few Dark-type Pokemon introduced and even fewer moves to take advantage of all the typing's benefits beyond this immunity. In the generations that followed, even with better moves and Pokemon being introduced, it was pointless to run a Dark-type Pokemon or move when Ghost-type had essentially the same offensive benefits and better defensive coverage. Ghost was offensively strong against the same two types as Dark , Psychic and Ghost, while having a resistance to a type Dark was weak to, Bug, and being straight up immune to Dark's other weakness, Fighting. The only thing Dark-type could do that Ghost couldn't do was block Psychic-type attacks. That was pretty much and literally it in Generations I-V. Also, while many Dark-types wield physically oriented sta

Black Mirror "High" Concept

Ever see Black Mirror ? If not, check it out. The first two seasons are old by today's standards, being a mere cult show until about a year ago when Netflix bought the rights and ordered more episodes. Now the show is quite popular and you can easily watch the original two seasons, the Christmas special, and the two Netflix series back-to-back to catch up. Essentially, Black Mirror is a modern Twilight Zone . Sort of. The name refers to the black screen on most electronic devices we use in the modern day. All of the episodes revolve around realistic and futuristic technology run amok, so the settings for the episodes can be a little limited compared to other anthology shows with broader concepts like Tales from the Crypt and The Outer Limits . However, the themes and twists of Black Mirror are quite prophetic for our technology-addicted modern day and, sometimes, they can be a total punch in the gut. It could be argued Black Mirror is what's called a "high concept&q

Don't You DLC?: Zelda Breath of the Wild

A continuation of my ideas for DLC on games that I love, this time for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. While I could go into how much I absolutely love this game, all of the things that are so special to me, and all of the things that would make it that much more special , I am instead going to limit myself here. Today, I will only be talking about one thing as it pertains to DLC for Breath of the Wild: new characters . Like many people, I was surprised that the development team didn't take this game as the opportunity to finally unveil a playable Princess Zelda. Honestly, if there was a time to do it this was the perfect game to introduce it. Without getting too much into my thoughts on the matter, however, I'm going to keep the intro simple and just go into my thoughts on completely imaginary and hypothetical DLC characters for Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Improving Pokemon: New Moves & Abilities Challenge - Ice Type

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In my continued efforts to offer improvements to the current Pokemon types while avoiding touching the type chart, I decided today to tackle the Ice-type . I think it can go without saying that this is the one type most Pokemon fans want to see receive a buff. This is probably because the Ice-type only resists itself and has a weakness to a whopping 4 types (Fire, Steel, Fighting, and Rock) -- all of which are very common attacking types. Offensively, however, Ice-type actually performs excellently and has all of the tools it needs to deal reliable damage. Ice-type holds the honor of being one of the few super-effective weaknesses for Dragon-types (the other two weaknesses being Fairy and Dragon itself), while also being able to hit Flying, Grass, and Ground for super-effective damage. It also helps that many, many popular or powerful Pokemon just so happen to be 4x weak to Ice-type , including the likes of Salamance, Landorus, and Dragonite. This means the move Ice Beam is incredi

Don't You DLC?: Mario Odyssey (Rant Warning!)

Here I want to share some ideas for possible DLC or "additional content" that would be really cool to see in some of my favorite games. Does this mean any of this is a possibility? Of course not. And, in some cases, DLC is pretty much already guaranteed to not be included . But a man can still dream! Today I am going to focus on Super Mario Odyssey . For many people, this was their GOTY, and I can't blame them. The game hit it out of the park in many ways. However, while it certainly cracked the top 10 for me, Super Mario Odyssey didn't leave me walking away 100% satisifed with what I played. I've been playing Mario games for a very long time, and so while a game like Odyssey certainly felt refreshing it wasn't the complete experience I had hoped it would be. I have this theory that Nintendo keeps trying to "reinvent" Mario every couple of years. If you haven't noticed already, each release of a major mainline Super Mario game seems to "re

Improving Pokemon: New Moves Challenge - Steel Type

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I'm taking a self-imposed challenge to come up with ways to improve each of the currently existing types in Pokemon without altering the type chart in any way. The type I am focusing on today is widely considered to be the best defensive type in the game. And with the addition of it being super-effective against Fairy-types starting in Generation VI, it has become near essential to include Pokemon of this type onto any competitive team. This presents a particular challenge today as Steel-type really doesn't need any improving in either direction; it's not fair to say that Steel-types are overpowered or underwhelming! However, since the type's introduction in Generation II, it can be said that Steel-type has leaned more on having Pokemon that take advantage of their typing with impressive stat distributions or abilities rather than impressive movepools. I mean, moves like Iron Tail and Iron Head were the only go-to offensive options for Steel-type STAB for

Improving Pokemon: New Moves Challenge - Bug Type

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Continuing my ideas for how to improve Pokemon, I'm taking a self-imposed challenge to come up with ways to improve each of the currently existing 18 types in the game without altering the type chart in any way. What follows is a list of moves that I think would benefit the chosen type and create new strategies for already existing Pokemon without being overpowered. Without further rattling on, today I will focus on the Bug-type .