Gonna be the Very Best...Sort Of: POKéMON ALPHA SAPPHIRE

COORDINATING
I think is what they call it...everyone knows what Pokémon is about right? Battling- training up the ultimate team and taking them up against other people's ultimate teams, right?

 Ash Ketchum - The Art of Battle

WRONG! The true ultimate purpose of Pokémon...is Coordinating- the art of trainer and Pokémon acting in unison in contests to prove they are the most beautiful/clever/cute/cool/tough team out there!



Yes, that's right, not battling against each other but performing their skills in such a way that it...impresses judges...like a beauty pageant...yeah. The idea of Pokémon Contests was originally introduced in Generation 3, it was essentially a side-quest. The idea being that you could make your Pokémon more (see above list of adjectives and insert chosen adjective here) by feeding them Pokéblocks, small blocks of food made from berries, and then they could perform the same acts they normally used in battle on stage for millions to adore! This at first seemed like the stupidest thing on Earth to me, but by the time I was on my second play-through of Gen 3 (I believe that would have been Emerald Version) I was hooked!

 I think it's got your Pichu beat in cuteness, sir.

I specifically sat down and bred out a line of Pikachus to compete in contests, and followed that up with a series of other contest Pokémon. Sure, I eventually went on to defeat the Elite Four, but not before getting Master Rank in nearly every contest!

Why this all of a sudden, you ask? Well, I've beat the Elite 4 once already, cleared the Delta Episode easily, and collected most of the legendary Pokémon available in Alpha Sapphire. I'm working on breeding up a perfect team for the Battle Maison end game, and to take down the Elite 4 for the second time...but there are issues with that, particularly I need to get several Dittos with 5 or 6 perfect IVs (so far no good) and I need at least one Destiny Knot so I can breed those perfect IVs down. Where does one get a Destiny Knot though? There are two sources, one is to rebattle a pair of trainers over and over until they HAPPEN to drop it, or...a fan may drop it after a Master Rank Contest!

 It makes them fall in true love.

So...since I can't just rapidly rematch those trainers, I decided I would try my hand at contests...at first it seemed tedious, I used the Cosplay Pikachu the game gives you, which starts out with pretty good specks and a full Cool load out, so yeah I breezed through up to Master Rank, but then Master Rank became an actual challenge...and the more times I had retry, the more I started to enjoy the contests. Now here I am, trying to come up with a Pokémon for each of the respective contests to clear with. Current project: Beautiful Froslass. Most Ice type moves fall into the Beautiful category, and Froslass is far from the ugliest Pokémon in the game, so I figure she's probably my best bet both statistically and in preferences. I mean, we could go Gardevoir of course, but Froslass just sort of stands out to me.

 Endless Whispers' Froslass art, love Deviantart.

So, I got a Froslass today, as part of a trade with a friend, now I just gotta get her Beauty stat maxed out, grab a scarf for her, and come up with a good contest set for her. Yay! May upload some video of my contest runs to youtube, but it would be more shoddy camera work if I did...who knows though, maybe my mini tripod will work out great and I can steady my 3DS just right and I can get a decent voice-over going (not with as sick as I am right now though.) That's just one of many possibilities though. Can't quite be certain what Pokémon I'll run for my other contest types, but I definitely wanna master them all (I think that's how you get Lucarionite, and get to face off against the contest champion?)

Anyway, thanks again for reading this through, once I've got my Froslass perfected I'll be hopping online, maybe I'll see you there!

On-Rails Blogging: STARFOX 64

Miss me?
I've been absent for a minute, out of sheer laziness and procrastination I suppose. HEY! I have a job! Don't give me that look...I've just been distracted is all.

With anime and video games okay! Stop badgering me!

So yeah, let's get back on track, let's get a few blog posts up here!

TITLE: Star Fox 64 (3D)
Old...New!

Star Fox 64 is the On-Rails shooter game, without being fully on rails! It was my first experience with the Star Fox series, and basically the only reason I played the games that followed in its footsteps. Star Fox has kind of stuck around in my head since then, and even the games that I've had minimal exposure to I've enjoyed for the most part, but none have compared to the original (my original, not the SNES title that I've barely been exposed to at all.)

There's not a lot I can really say about this game, it didn't have a big compelling plot, super difficult levels, or even a lot of thrilling gameplay. It's just you, piloting the machine of choice for the level, and shooting down enemy ships. I say there aren't super-difficult levels, but then I never beat the "real" ending of the game, couldn't get past the Star Wolf team, but I beat the easy path of the game hundreds of times.

I can remember replaying the entire game a dozen times to get perfect medals on every stage, and then never being able to take down the final Star Wolf team, it was...really annoying to say the very least. I'd like to pick this sucker up for the 3DS just to give it one last try, really show Star Wolf what I'm made of! YEAH!

Can I Just Hide My Face: THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: MAJORA'S MASK

WHOOPS!
I wonder if anyone else who reads the blogpost prior to this one will realize what a huge mistake I made, I left out a key remake that I actually wanted to have remade longer, and desperately want to play, and may well do so in the near future: Majora's Mask! Come on now Caleb, isn't that rather obvious?

TITLE: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D
Old...New!

Okay, here we go, that game that I already have two posts about, why not tackle a third? Mechanics of the game, covered. Possible secret lore of the game...covered. So let's just tackle the sheer impact it had...wait...that's covered...sort of.

Anyway, this is one of THOSE games. Those games that I feel like were essential to growing up, like Kingdom Hearts and frickin' Banjo-Kazooie...wait...Kingdom Hearts didn't make my list? What's wrong with me?! It's like...I could do a whole second list on these games or something-hint hint. Onward, Majora's Mask is the quintessential Zelda title for me, sure, Ocarina of Time had more dungeons, a more complex set of items, and possibly a deeper story, but I just spent more time in Majora's Mask and frankly I feel like it actually challenged me less, while still being semi-difficult. I mean, not Dark Souls, don't misunderstand that, this is a pretty straight-forward game, easy enough to beat in four or five sittings if you don't want to complete the entire game, or even a single sitting according to speed-runners.



I actually just looked up a play-through of the new 3D game, and it seems to maintain the same wondrous feel of the original, and the graphics are delightfully well-updated. Not cell-shaded either, I can't explain my hatred for Wind Waker, but I do, and it's art style sticks with me as a sign of a bad Zelda game. So, it should be noted that I don't have a particular love of 3D, in fact I generally hate it, and I despise it on the 3DS. But, the graphic update itself appears to be worth it.

Did I mention I actually still own the original version of this game? Well not still own, I recently picked it up from Replays, and have started a 100% play-through, which you cannot view on youtube because my capture card won't capture it! I may have to get a new capture card and retry -_- at which point of course it'll hit the youtubez. Love it, just love it.

Can I rate this? Please? Cool:

RATING:
Nine out of Ten distressed souls trapped in masks would give this Six masks of enormous power, out of Five.

There, I rated it! This game is amazing and I simply cannot wait to pick up the 3DS remake, but even without that, I'm still going to enjoy the heck out of the original game.