Even if Sword and Shield's DLC was probably the best thing about that game, it was the best part of what I'd consider one of the most sauceless Pokémon games ever put out. Scarlet and Violet on the other hand, I actually really liked, which made me excited to see all the cool things they could do with it post release (if it was just fixing the performance, which they didn't). Unfortunately, I came out of this with another conclusion; the way they make these DLCs just pisses me off.

Let's get the biggest caveat out of the way; when are you even supposed to play this? The level scaling is super fucked up. If you played the base game at all after completing the main quest, there's no way your party isn't totally overleved. Do they expect you to catch new Pokémon and make a party out of those? Sure, I did that. It still doesn't work when things jump 20 levels from one area to another. And it's not like you'll ever grow particularly attached to these fucking nobodies you catch unevolved at level 60 something and use for 4 hours. That was already something I felt about the Gen 8 DLC and it undermines any enjoyment I could have playing this. It's not like these games aren't easy, but even if you use terrible underleved shitmons in any main series game just to make it slightly harder, you'll grow attached to them. That's the magic of Pokémon as a franchise, in my eyes. If I'm either plowing through the games with 0 effort or just catching "some guy" that I form no connection to, it makes me judge the rest of the experience way harder and take it at face value, as I do here.

The structure has been simple enough: provide players with a big area to explore, catch returning and a couple of new Pokémon, play some minigames for rewards, do a little story thing, add competitive QOL features that should have been there in the first place and catch a legendary that's slightly overtuned for OU but not so much that it gets banned immediately.

Kitakami itself is surprisingly big but there's not a lot in terms of landmarks that I'd consider particularly notable besides the FPS dropping crystal lake and some nice, hang-outtable parks. There's really only one "town" with a few NPCs. I'd normally consider that a downside but honestly, with how much they've already retreaded similar Japanese settings, it's not like it's anything we haven't seen or won't see done again in the future. If anything, there was an opportunity to do something closer to Paldea's real life inspiration but whatever. It's alright.

In terms of returning Pokémon selection, YMMV. What gets me is how much of the supposedly "new" Kitakami dex are actually just guys who are in the base game. I completed the Pokédex in the base game because it was fun to do so but here it felt really underwhelming since I already had half of the 200 entries done. 100 is a fine amount for new+returning Pokémon, I suppose.. but if they needed to pad it out THAT badly, it's not like 50 more returning ones couldn't have been crammed in just for the sake of feeling fresher.

Getting competitive Pokémon in Scarlet and Violet was already easy but the biggest complaint has always been how much grinding you needed to do for Tera Shards. Now you can get an item to grind them faster so.. cool? It really should have been like that from the start. Same thing with the new EV resetting mochi. It's not like this is the thing that'll stop players from just hacking in their Pokémon... but it's nice to have.

The story content is decent and about what you'd expect from this generation; teens traumadumping on you for 2 hours and uhh, a legendary is there. The school trip set-up is ridiculous when the only other students present are 3 nobody NPCs with no personality whatsoever, but you're not really meant to think about it. If they brought in the main characters from the base game, they'd steal attention from the new characters so that was the only way they could have done it,IMO. I'm interested at how a certain character's development is going to carry on to the next part of the DLC, which is something they've not attempted before.

I was disappointed by how lacking the photography quest was. Judging by the trailers, I was expecting it to be something like BOTW's or TOTK's Hyrule Compedium feature but nah,just a 10 minute section. That ties nicely into a complaint that'll be completely irrelevant in a few months but I really dislike how they promoted this DLC. Why show so much of the second DLC when you're still announcing the first? It ended up just confusing the fuck out of me in terms of what's were, specially since the second one seems to be the meatier offering. The fact that these two are even sold together comes off as a bit problematic to me because... this isn't worth even half the asking price. But there's a vague plot connection between them now, so "obviously" can't be sold separately.

Overall, it doesn't feel substantial enough on any front. If you're a casual player you'd probably tolerate the content at offer but feel ripped off until the second part eventually comes out, by which point you'll have forgetten everything that happened in this one. If you're a competitive player, you'll probably need to pick this up to make life easier but still feel ripped off because it's just not enough to not learn to pkhex better.

Fucked up. Evil. No character in media has elicited such a visceral negative reaction for me as this dumbass yellow entity. But you have to admire how the second game in the generation where Pokémon's popularity was crumbling is this weird repackaging of N64 era models, new models that might as well have been on the N64, a 20 minute anime short and a Gamecube tech demo as a weird virtual pet card collector trivia idle game type beat. That's probably giving it too much credit. It's not that deep and if anyone paid full price for this game back then they'd likely feel empty inside but you're not so... try this, I guess?

Growing up playing gen 3 means absolutely no critical opinions I might or might not have are completely invalid. I pretty much grew up in Hoenn. I used to pretend the houses in Rustboro were my house and the trainer school was.. a school. But that wasn't this game,it was Emerald instead. Later my mom got me a copy of Sapphire second-hand and words could not describe my fascination about how these games were actually pretty much the same, but this one had some stranger's savefile with a freshly caught Kyogre and a Blaziken instead of Swampert.

Eventually,early Youtube rolled around and by this point, I must have known Ruby was the same as Sapphire, but that's not what those early videos showed at all. Apparently Ruby was used as a base for every romhack made at that point so in my mind Ruby occupied every space inbetween hyperrealistic blood to a cutscene with Latias roaring in a puddle atop a white mountain tileset. You could catch Agumon, Weegee, Yoshi and other trainer's Pokémon in Ruby. There's probably a tech reason why Ruby was used over other games but in my head, Groudon was both cooler and all these fucked up and silly events happened ingame concurrently.

I did realize at some point that obviously, this was all made up. In fact, the exact same rumours were also made about the gen 1,2 and 4. And I beat the Elite 4 50 times and NO JIRACHI SPAWNED? Even if there's video evidence, everything online has to be bullshit. And why would anyone care about Ruby when Emerald was right there? It has all these amazing features like, uh.. your character wears green, a vastly superior colour to red. And the Battle Frontier, even if nobody actually beat it or really cared about anything other than its presence. I even picked up Alpha Sapphire instead of Omega Ruby; Primal Kyogre is just bound to be way stronger; remember how overpowered Drizzle Politoed was in Gen 5? Groudon might look cool,but it'll suck in comparison...

Years went by and wander was lost. Between all the fucked up shit,Covid and memory loss, I frankly don't know if I ever played Ruby version itself; I remember playing either it or Sapphire and being mesmerized at all the small changes Emerald had made me grow accustomed to. This playthrough was no different; it's death by a thousand papercuts to think about what they eventually improved,like how the contest halls are not in order so even if you'd like to invest time into this one feature they clearly wanted to be a big thing moving forward,it'd be frustrating to do so early game. There really is less of a point to play these games over the improved versions comparatively to all generations both moving forward and back... but in my mind and anyone who's grown up in a pre-Battle Frontier, early internet world, they're pretty special. After all, you can catch Agumon in this one.

Despite having rated the other Game Gear Sonics pretty low, it's not so much that I dislike those games as it is they just so happened to have some bullshit that really turned me off ever wanting to touch them again. There's some merit to these more compact experiences; fun-sized levels, weird powerups and overall a different vibe.

For as much as Triple Trouble 16-bit is discussed as if it were a remake, it's actually more of a reimagining that pretty much throws out both the good and the bad of the original and instead gives you Sonic 3.5.
On it's own right, it does so well; a lot of Sonic fangames try accomplishing the same thing but fumble the bag either on terms of level design or general game feel. It's super close! I'd even say it's legit better than some of the official, well-regarded Sonic games.

Unfortunately, for something that's based on the Game Gear games, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed at how safe and close to the Genesis games (well, moreso Mania to be honest) it plays. I'm on the minority on this; I'm sure any mentally adjusted human being would be perfectly content in playing a new...ish Genesis styled Sonic game that plays close to a real big boy game. If you do like the Game Gear games, you might feel similar to how I did. Either way, play this and you'll probably have a good time. Fuck,even I might play it again since there's other characters (which should have been unlocked from the beginning, to be perfectly real).

The first time I played this was the fanmade Vita port, which has abysmal loading times whenever you time travel. I just didn't engage with that mechanic at all and judging by a second playthrough, I was right to do so because time-travelling kinda sucks! It's an interesting idea for sure but not on these stages with this level design. And if you don't use it, most of the levels are too short and overall unmemorable. Bosses suck too, but the callback to Labyrinth Zone's boss in this game's water world was cute at least. This is someone's favorite Sonic, just not mine.

If Mr. Nintendoman prompted an AI to create a very safe sequel to Kirby's Adventure for the Game Boy, this would most likely be the default product. It's not really remarkable on its own, even with the new animal buddies (which don't actually change the game up that much, pretty much just splitting Adventure's abilities between them and adding a second health bar) but if you compare how good it looks, sounds and plays to most of the console's library? It is at least a little bit impressive.

The game is also notable for slipping in a naked lady as a block pattern in one of the later stages. I knew this before playing but what I didn't know was that they also gave her an hedgehog enemy around the crotch area so uh.. lmao

>looking for a new NES game
>ask the balding retro game youtuber if their game is playable or peak
>he doesn't understand
>pull out illustrated diagram explaining what is playable and what is peak
>he laughs and says “it’s a good game sir”
>downloads a ROM
>it's playable