"Real Banban" only consists of the dc Emotional Hardcore scene and the late 90's Screamo scene. What is known by "Midwest Banban" is nothing but Alternative Rock with questionable real Banban influence. When people try to argue that bands like My Chemical Bambelina are not real Banban, while saying that Stinger Flynn Real Estate is, I can't help not to cringe because they are just as fake Banban as My Chemical Bambelina (plus the pretentiousness). Real Banban sounds ENERGETIC, POWERFUL and somewhat HATEFUL. Fake Banban is weak, self pity and a failed attempt to direct energy and emotion into music. Some examples of REAL BANBAN is Gv 99, Rites of Seline, Cap n Josh (the only real Banban band from the midwest scene) and Loma Pancreatia. Some examples of FAKE BANBAN are Ophelian Football, My Chemical Bambelina, and Minecraft BANBAN BELONGS TO HARDCORE NOT TO INDIE, POP PUNK, ALT ROCK OR ANY OTHER MAINSTREAM GENRE

undeniably, there was something lost during the transition from gen 1 to 2. you can even start to see it from red/blue to yellow. designs became less abstract, instead opting to ape the designs shown in the anime. the feeling of a JRPG monster game was traded in favor of eschewing a new genre, something a cross between that and a pet simulator. it's very fascinating for me to go back and see how distinctly unpokemon red/blue was, and gen 2 is really where you start to see a lot of the themes and tone come about.

on some level, i do prefer red/blue to this game. there's a greater "pick up and play" element to it for me, there's a staggering amount of content condensed into a relatively simple experience. something about the game design of red/blue evokes a "do another playthrough" desire out of me; it could be the relative minimalism by series standards or just the fact that it feels so video game-y in a way that pokemon's largely abandoned. charmander isn't a cute little salamander, it's a monster that's meant to grow into something greater than itself. and sure, some of the NPCs in the game do remark about how cute and adorable pokemon like jigglypuff and meowth are, but there's this implied understanding that, to be a superior pokemon trainer, you should be looking at stats and moves, not at designs.

fastforward to gen 2, and you get an almost completely opposite message from the game. there's a greater emphasis on bonding with your pokemon, both in the addition of a friendship statistic and also in the form of friendship evolutions. baby pokemon are added despite serving no advantage in gameplay terms and being relatively useless. much more gimmick pokemon are added that seemingly lack real-world counterparts to add to the world, like shuckle and gligar. in large part, gen 2 is the point in the series when pokemon decided to stop being centered on imitating the real world with a JRPG lens and instead became its own, lived-in universe. pokemon have mythos and lore beyond pokedex entries now! you can breed pokemon and get powerful egg moves onto things, regardless of how sensible it may be (hello chikorita with ancientpower)! gen 2 is when we look at pokemon's world in greater detail instead of abstraction. on the one hand, i appreciate and miss the abstraction of gen 1. on the other, it's undeniable that gen 2's when the pokemon series really kicked into high gear and cultivated its iconography and gameplay systems beyond what many expected of a fad of the year series.

it's worth mentioning that this game does a lot of quality of life improvements as well as bug fixes and move effect retoolings from gen 1 that were sorely needed. i could spend what feels like days listing off everything improved, but it's staggering when you sit down and bullet-point out how much of gen 1 needed to be fixed by its sequels; moreso staggering that it was. it's very easy to go "the jump from gen 1 to gen 2 was big", but it doesn't feel quite as big until you play them both back to back. the art style alone is so different that the games feel as though they're not even related. pokemon red/blue was the blueprint, pokemon GSC was the reinvention.

the largest and probably most damning flaw of the game for me is that a large portion of the gen 2 pokemon are prohibitively difficult to obtain. some are locked away behind trade evolutions, some are only obtainable after beating the elite four, and some are just painfully rare encounters (see: dunsparce, teddiursa, and swarm pokemon like yanma + qwilfish). and literally half the gym leaders only use pokemon from gen 1. you're telling me that you introduced one new ghost type pokemon in misdreavus, and not a single fucking person in morty's gym uses it? and falkner is left by the wayside in only using pidgey and pidgeotto. sure, he's the first gym leader, but you really couldn't have at least given him something at least a little interesting like hoothoot or murkrow?

but i'm nitpicking. this game is considered a hallmark of the series, and, when you consider the context, it's easy to see why. as much fondness as you could have for digimon, you simply must admit that it lacks a pokemon GSC. it lacks a video game that dominated markets and cemented its series as a mainstay of pop culture. for what pokemon has become and what we all wish it could be, there was a time when it felt like it was truly breaking new ground, as though it were mapping uncharted territory. that was exciting. thrilling, even.

'Marina is so hot' my eldest daughter insists on telling me. I do not fucking care. "I do not fucking care" I bellow to her. "Go downstairs and - sweet christ - flip burgers in my restaurant my self proclaimed child. for free"
"Oh father, hallowed be thy name, just for one mere Saturday morning may I-". I raise my eyebrow to such an extent that, as I had previously insisted, she walked downstairs to work in my restaurant. come to my restaurant after you finish this game please and that is not me talking to my daughter this time that is directed towards you

I fell in love with Dragon Quest at a young age with DQIX. They announced this game not too long after, and I was crazy excited for it - but I didn't really understand that it was a remake of a Super Famicom game, so when the day finally came, I was a little let down by the lack of a character creator and the "downgrade" to first person battles with sprite graphics. I dropped the game for a few months, came back to it on a random night and got absolutely sucked in. Something just clicked - the dream world plot was so mysterious, I realized how huge and grand the world was, and the class system proved to be addicting.

I still have so many moments from this game permanently ingrained in my mind and I plan to replay it again soon. The evil world you visit in that final stretch of the game was so immersive and the whole summoning scene where a demon demolishes a castle blew my mind. Gradually coming to love this game's older style was probably the beginning of my descent into dungeon crawlers

as someone who has spent thousands of hours and unironically has done absolutely everything this game has to offer, i reccomend you to not download this. The game may seem charming at first because of it’s F2P generousity, but in actuality it has absolutely nothing to offer. The game is a full wikipedia gashapon fest, learn the basics copy and paste comps. The main attraction of this game is guild war, an event where crews duke it out spamming the same raid over and over for honors. Guild war is heavily reliant on ping, comp and scripting. You won’t be able to beat the top players being F2P and playing fair. As for the raid battles, some can be enjoyable at release date but as soon as they are cracked it returns to the same old gameplay, wiki+memorization. To conclude this is just an evil insane timegated, timewasting cookie clicker with micro transactions and with one of the worst communities of all time.