Commander

The reason people hated Blue wasn't because of their attitude but because someone like that was better than you. Have you ever noticed Blue always had his name on the statue. And no matter how many times you beat him, he still was in the lead. If that's not a motivation to want to kick a guy's assI don't know what is. He doesn't have much time to develop because he didn't need to. Let's go to two other rivals: Barry and Huey. Barry doesn't work because all he pretty much does is run off and is hardly present. Platinum helped him out, but there wasn't much rivalry between you two. Huey was a much more fitting rival, but his goals really pushed to be more like a friend then someone you are competing against. We actually had a better rival than both Blue and Silver. Do you know his name? It's N. In is a perfect example of what a rival should be. His goals conflict with yours and while he doesn't want to be your enemy he has to be due to your beliefs clashing with his. When he finally won, you want to take him down. More like you need to take him down in one final clash. The problem with most of the modern day rivals isn't personality but the fact there really isn't much behind said rivalry. Wally had potential but he just isn't seen much. I think a relation like Sora and Riku's rivalry from KH would go a long way. Riku was just better than you. That's why you wanted to beat him in the beginning.

Gonna butt in and say some people missed the point. This is meant to kind of be a discussion board so sometimes things will go off topic. Just try to keep it within reason and cut down the OMG percent hype posts. You can talk about progress but don't make like a three word post on it. That's not why this thread got locked...well the main reason. Two of our mods had to constantly come in and delete posts or say to stop. If they say to stop, you stop and try your best to avoid doing so for a few days or even at all. Often times they will give warning points if you ignore them. Mods are users just like the rest of us and it isn't fair if they have to babysit a topic because people weren't willing to listen. Anyways, the long wait is almost over but I am not sure if Rejuv will be out this year. Janny's been a good boy so he's getting lots of toys to play with.

So I have been powering through Redux over winter break and managed to get phase 1 of the testing done. I just think people would like knowing I have a functional mod sitting on my desktop now. As for what I need to get done: The party system needs a bit of changes adding in any mons that were added BUT I'm not going to remove any of the old ones so consider those bonuses except for one voltorb on Julia. That will take a day. Then there's some map edits that need to be done and one event segment as well which will likely take a day. The last thing is the synopsis. I don't know how long that one will take. It likely will be a couple days. There is also one last secret project I'd like to consider taking on before a release which some of you might have an idea on what it could be. No promises it will be in a release though.

@Ainz Ooal Gown Silvally is fine. I treat it the same as Rotom who I thought was a legendary originally. Phione is not okay but nobody wants to use that awful creature. Haven't done the q ue but I have been reading them.

Guess we can't say nutter...okay, okay I won't joke. Just tried to avoid any offensive words guys as just because they same them doesn't mean you should. It's more to replace them with other words such as Biker, Humus, or my favorite what the duck? Ame pretty much is use whatever you want to win to she's fine with anything...more than me actually. Most of the mons that get axed or moves are due to popularity over how broken they are such as Gardevoir. She's one of the most easy going people in the community.

Ninetales Delcatty Charizard Aggron Infernape Rotom(fridge) ...I never said I wanted to win

What you guys came for (Download Link) I decided to spend a day to throw this together as it's been something people have been asking for every once in a while. Back during the League season, some leaders were given special Christmas sprites to celebrate the holidays. For all those wanting a good cheer, I resized them so you can add them to your game if you want (you may want to rename the old sprites to keep them) and now your favorite* character can be suited for the season just like this: *I tried to make them all correctly positioned but I did have to take a guess where one would look good at. Also as a note, not every character has a Christmas sprite, but if you are in the mood to hat someone up, just ping me in the sprite edits and I'd add it to the collection. The following characters don't have a Christmas sprite: Additionally, these were made by Ame if you hadn't figured that already.

That's a lot of art. Take care of your hand as I would love to see you do more.

Note: This says the same thing as the old thread (with a few edits) except the old one was archived and I didn't want to mess with that. If you made a team there it's in the game and counted for so don't worry. Everyone is free to make another one if they want. Hello fellow players and yes, this is what I think it is. So one problem I've come across is that the rebattable trainers in the grand hall are...hard to scale and are very unreliable. So since this is a smaller mod, I decided to open this up a bit. Basically, feel free to make a team under these conditions: 1. No Legendaries 2. No early evolution mons (not a hard rule, but let's avoid level 20 Garchomps) 3. Sprites used can't be unique trainers (aka bosses) or any villain trainer class So how you go about creating your app is a little different from most people. I'm actually going to ask forms are going to be submitted mostly in PBS style format. This saves me hours of work, but don't worry about if you don't understand a certain part because it's easy to correct minor mistakes. So here's the format of the application: Now I'm sure half of you are wondering what the heck this Chinese I showed you is. Don't worry, I was like that when I first started working on HC back in the day. I'll break it down into parts now (I'll also provide an easier to follow example, but this is to let you know what all of those represent). Pre battle dialogue is self explanatory. It could be something like "Hey, I want to battle you." Before starting the battle. You could also give players a choice whether or not they want to challenge you. Not a big deal either way. If you don't put something there, I'll likely do something generic. If you want to do something special with your fight that's okay to and I really shouldn't need to explain those two categories. Now for the more complicated stuff. Trainer Class So to determine the sprite or who your character is, it's actually defined by a certain variable. That's basically what the first line is. The options are the following: Trainer Name Whatever you want to call yourself. If you want to be bob...fine. If you want to be called NorwayKing525...weird but okay. Number of Mons/Items Basically you have to put in how many mons are on your team which can be a max of 6. If you REALLY want items on your trainer, you'd need to put a common on it and a comma after every item otherwise omit the comma entirely (aka just put 6 on that line). Items have to be all uppercase and no spaces like SUPERPOTION,HYPERPOTION,POTION Pokemon Name This is really easy. Just the name of the Pokemon in all upper case. So SQUIRTLE JIGGLYPUFF MUK for some examples. As a side note, each of these categories are followed by a comma. Pokemon's Level Now this is one to pay attention to. So I'm accepting a certain number of apps per episode range. If you submit a team for a certain range, it needs to be in the following level range: Just check back with this section to see what slots are still open. As an additional not if you are making a team and someone posts in the last slot, just submit it anyways as I'll accept it. This is more of a soft limit over a hard one. Once these are all filled, you can submit one without worrying about the level. Pokemon Item A majority of hold items are perfectly okay and easy. Light Ball is LIGHTBALL and so on. Z-moves are a little bit more complicated. Rockium-Z for example is ROCKIUMZ2. Anything with a hyphen(-) simply exclude just like spaces. All upper case as well. Pokemon Moves This is exactly like items. All upper case and a comma in-between each move. WILLOWISP and SPLASH for example. Hidden Power is a tad bit trickier as you need to insert the element in like HIDDENPOWERFIR (the first three letters of the type) for example. Just let me know if you want to use that move as I don't even remember all of them off the top of my head. Pokemon Ability, Gender, and Form Pokemon Abilities are confusing. There's no easy solution around it. MOST abilities follow the same form a Bulbapedia so that's a good source to use. 0 represents the first ability, 1 usually the second ability, and 2 is the hidden ability. Following this is Gender which 0 and M (you can use either) represents Male and 1 and F represents female. Then we get into forms. If you really need a certain form just let me know but most mons should just use 0 as the default. If it only has one form, just make the number 1, but if it's something like Rotom, I don't know that off the top of my head. I'll post it here when I look it up and find it though. As an additional note, any Alolan Pokemon would have a 1 as the form. Shiny, IVs, and Happiness If you want your pokemon shiny, make that section true, otherwise keep it false like the default. IVs are whatever you want them to be from 0 to 31. When in doubt, go with 20 is my rule of thumb. Happiness is kind of worthless unless you want to use Return which the max is...255. Default is generally 70 which I usually just put in so it's easier to read and fix. Nicknames and everything before EVs If you want your Pokemon to have their nickname, you can by putting it in that section. If you want Walter the Walrein, you'd put Walter there. I can't remember the max character limit but if the name is too long, it'll cross into the UI and look messy. As for the rest, I know the false is for Shadow Pokemon, but don't try being funny there. Just keep it false. I also can't remember what those spaces even do. I believe the first one is for Poke Ball type but iirc it doesn't work. If you don't want EVs, you can omit anything after the final false. EVs If you really want to add specified EVs on a Pokemon, just follow the format I listed in the template. The only weird thing about this format is speed is in the middle instead of at the end. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, I know some of you might be overwhelmed, but don't worry as I believe examples are the best way to figure and follow this format. I'm doing it this way to actually cut a step of work from my side which is basically reading what people submit then converting it into that. One other note, I'm invoking a one month rule for submissions. If a month passes and a large number of slots are still open, you can make a second submission. Okay, now example time: Note: While some additions have been made I am NOT accepting reedits of older applications to change the class or add a weather type. Common Mistakes made during previous applications:

The E17 version goes up to Aya but doesn't have all the features. The next version will be the whole thing which at the rate I'm going should be early January. Battle QA has been going rather smoothly with the main issues being leveling up. I've been trying to smooth out the post Aya areas but you may still be slightly underleveled for a couple gym battles. I am doing everything in my power to not have to include exp all. I've also been testing individual mons to make sure nothing is too op and nothing is way too weak which with a few techniques I can shorten the process and fix things like Blake's Glalie will now explode. Radomus I might have to hack to and fix though. A couple of his fights had some AI issues. Also, I'm at Ciel now if you're wondering. So when I get done with QA testing it's a release, right? Not exactly. When I get done with my edits and polish I'll make a build to have someone check to make sure all the master fights are beatable within reason. While that is going on I'll finish up the last bits if eventing and additions. It will mostly be Synopsis stuff. When that phase is done, then it's time for a release.

About the Pyroar event... It was originally a Growlithe event where the lady dropped a Fire Stone which was rather fitting and made for a rather crazy fight of the equivalence of basically fighting a legendary as an early game superboss. You still had a lot of things to use against it. I kind of wish Jan went with some other Pokemon like maybe Pikachu and Raichu to keep the stone idea...over that. It's more of a gripe trying to stretch logic to the extreme than anything else. Though I don't really think you should really gripe about a powerful optional opponent early as it gives off more of a boss vibes which can be fun. The big point is that it is optional and while extremely hard for some teams, it still is within reason to beat it since you not only get rain, but the other two aren't really going to be much of a threat. It being doubles is kind of the important thing here since it cannot take out both your Pokemon in a single turn. As for the Jenner part in the spoiler:

When I said I wouldn't make another update...I apparently lied. I just finished up testing Luna and I had to pull a few little extremes but I managed to get one of her league strats working in the game and it's honestly really cool (hint: it's her ace). I'm really happy with how both Radomus and Luna turned out. Also here's a new little QoL addition to the game: Disobedience is no longer in the game You read that right. A Pokemon will not disobey you no matter what. I know people really hate using Common candies since it weakens their Pokemon. This feature in Redux has so little significance due to the level limiter I figured I may as well just remove that tiny hassle to make life a little bit easier. There is a catch though. You can only rare candy the Pokemon up three level above the limit. Yeah, there's probably loopholes for it, but this is just to make sure people don't try to power level the opponents. There is a slight hiccup with this feature (which I will make good documentation in the Readme and in-game) along with the autoleveler. Due to how I had to go about scripting these (hooray for calling badges being a pain), you need to win a battle before the limit is changed to a new limit. It can be a wild Pokemon or a trainer though I think it is fine as long as you defeat a Pokemon. I HATE having little bugs like that in a game so it probably annoys me way more than it will you, but I'd rather have these features with a minor issue than no feature at all. I'll try to get this little hiccup fixed, but it's highly doubtful right now.

What can I say? I have a way with words. Hmmm...let's see nominations: That's a lot of categories.

I mean...I have been doing that already...

Someone else doing a run of Rejuv and this time doing the Intense mode: As for tips and tricks, don't be afraid to talk about future plot points that you know of but put them in spoilers if you want to make sure not to spoil people who haven't played the game yet. I kind of glazed over the intro in my own run as I didn't expect many people to be interested or even at all as I wanted to cut corners as much as possible to get to a leader every 2-3 chapters...I say as I haven't even reached number 9 at chapter 40. Just do the run however you like though and eventually you'll figure out what works for you. As for the fairy tale, I'm pretty sure it's an old folklore told in Garufan times given the importance of the two Pokemon in their shrines including a Zorua hidden in one. I'm not sure how important the story actually is or if it was a historical event but it likely was something similar to Welsh mythology given how Loki is quite the trickster. There is a character who uses a Zorua and one who uses a Pangoro but that more likely is a coincidence over anything and not symbolism. I'd have to reread the story to see what actually happens to remember it all. This has been a pointless analysis with Commander. Just ping me if you ever want to test my memory on stuff and what it could be foreshadowing if it hasn't happened already.

I'm going to grind a few facts down for you to understand. Everything might be simple to you but even Pokemon players may struggle to get into a game if it's too deep into the mechanics. Let me lay down some facts: it's actually asking too much for a normal person to know about all 800 or so Pokemon. 800 Pokemon. This is on top of your knowledge of the metagame and abilities. There are thousands of little things players would need to know to actually be really good at Pokemon. Most people who play this game won't even know half of them. Hell, I don't know the nature table off the top of my head and I just learned about Catsup berry's existence (I know little about berries). When you know a great majority, Pokemon will be easy to you. That applies to pretty much any RPG. Even SMT can be easy and those are known to be brutal. As for the things you said: Keta: It's the first true doubles boss battle so throwing too much too early may end up stinging more than helping a game's enjoyment. Better to be a bit on the too easy especially since this isn't a badge. I thought the original fight was perfect in this since. I don't know the team so I can't speak much else. I don't think it's bad showing fight formats can change though. Revenant Keta: Lapras, Ninetales, Lucario, Roselia, and Gabite. Every single one of those is a major earlygame threat. Roselia is a scary mon and can be ace worthy but it is pretty pathetic compared to the other Pokemon here. Ninetales is fast, tanky, and has a respectable attack stat WITHOUT the sun. Lapras is the famed early game tank since it's so hard to dent. Lucario is a nuke but pretty easy to balance. Gabite is...what the hell. Do you want Doubles Florinia in Redux look easy because this is how you make that look easy. This is a designer's worst nightmare scenario as you have to tone down everything and sometimes gut what makes a Pokemon good to make this even balanced. No idea why the original 6 fighting type Pokemon was cut though I haven't finished WLL so what do I know? Marianette: So Ambipom can even be a late game threat so that's to no surprise. Normal is a weird type to work with as it's so varied and full of surprising Pokemon. You can definitely throw a lot of interesting surprises to the unprepared. One thing to note is that you can't really prepare for a normal type leader because the game doesn't really forecast that well. Definitely important to give good forecasting early on in a game. Valarie: Marianette you can at least have somewhat of a guess, but Val you are given no time and it's the most inconvenient and random. Something I did was ease up on the difficulty for the Devon Corp PoNR (Point of No Return) as you can't do much if you're stuck on this segment. But you are thrown into a new map with little need to explore. The first time going through the game (back in V6) this was hell. I didn't have a team to even handle Water types since Water is one of the strongest typings in the game. You have to take into account that people are going to have very, very unoptimal teams given the fights they went through. Crawli: The issue with Crawli is that he has a lot going for him that if you don't know about it ahead of time, it can be a bit too much. Nobody likes fights getting nerfed but there's a point where you just need to be reasonable. Crawli has rain, a near perma sticky web, and some solid Pokemon with hard hitting moves plus rock slide flinching. I had a team made to hard counter him and I was struggling which...that's not a good sign. The average person would just sit the game right down then and there if you put too many tough fights too early because it's just draining. If you lowered the IV stats and removed Thunder from Galvantula then that fixes the main issues. I mean I'm not trying to fight an argument but we're not on different sides. You people should focus on intense mode and help give it adjustments to make it more enjoyable for the fandom. There's no reason for me to say much on it as it's not something suited for me. Let's flip it on the opposite scale though and say a fight is too easy on normal mode. Who loses then? The "players" because it wasn't super enjoyable? They just say it was a bit too easy and move on. There's very little negative effects for one fight feeling too easy. If things just become too hard, then it pushes someone to drop. Erring on the side of too hard benefits nobody when a hard mode exists. Believe me, it's one of the biggest mistakes even AAA titles have made. (Shudders about Tales of Vesperia's early game). I haven't finished WLL only getting chapter 1 done. I am doing a run on it eventually but I felt getting the main story done first should be a priority. Maybe I'll jump back if I'm getting real sick of this like Blacksteeple. I would've guessed Mr. Blakeory played a role in it. I'll find out about it eventually but for now we venture forth into the next chapter of Pokemon Rejuv --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 49: I Wanna Be the Very Quest Like No Quest Ever Was So today is Mander's random game of the day which is Yoshi's Wholly World. I can't believe I've been putting it off for so long as it's such a fun game. I did not really like Kirby's Epic Yarn, but this is that but better and an actual challenge. Platformers could really take notes from this as while there's no lives system, dying means you have to restart at the checkpoint BUT you need to recollect everything after the checkpoint again leaving the same consequences of dying but without the lives. Also just picture me failing hard at World 1-8 because of stupid Burts with their jump mechanics. Also, I play as Robin Yoshi who looks amazing. Anyways here's some random things that will be important later: (Uhhh...I just never did this for some reason until now...still not going to use them) And now for a mix of two quests at the same time just to confuse you which one I'm on: (Yes, yes I can....is that a talking squid?) (Seven last I checked. Unless Jan's going to pull a Life of Guardians on us) (...Pretty sure that's the...whatever magical stuff from the Garufa. Or the radiation from the mountain. How am I not dead yet?) (...Mothers of the world, never name your child after a military rank) I blame Gai because now I'm thinking about the name Daddy for the protag. Still better than my suggestion...Mah Boi! (...That's what I've been doing so fair's fair) (I see your lie in your name) (I needed someone to suffer and I couldn't think of a better suited cave for the job. It's got Digglett's and everything) (NO, WE ARE NOT GOING TO USE MORE MAGIC! I've suffered enough as is) (...Given what we just went through, this can't end well) (You should not do that. It wouldn't do any good) (Sigh...so they sealed legendarys to protect their ancient artifacts) (Excuse me while I take out my frustrations on this door due to my stupidity) (You don't happen to have a magma stone on you, do you? I'd help you out in exchange for it...no? Okay) (I actually don't know where it is) So I did see bits of this in Derog's run and one of the coolest little details got axed sadly. Like that was such a fun and smart little reward for exploring. Anyways we pick up this: (I don't remember what it is but it's probably bad) And we run around looking for stuff when we come across this: (I...didn't realize I found it that quickly_ I'll talk about the April event later because we have the bigger sidequest to deal with. (Wait hold up!) So I noticed it said J and R and I figured that meant Jenner, but I don't actually know who the R would be. Don't particularly care though but maybe it gets explained. I don't really even remember how this event went down in V6 but you could do these fights rather early. (Oh look another legendary I can't have.) (That...is the Madelis thing to design. Why do people have an obsession with blowing stuff up?) (And why are there so many drill down here? Oh right Amethyst. Guess those are kind of valuable) (I'm probably known as random whiny guy who doesn't shut up otherwise known as McWhiteHaired Le Doofus) (Pretty sure I met your brother. He died a hobo....you're going to get me killed, aren't you?) (...How do you get fired from a terrorist organization...especially that terrorist organization. They make Team Flare look competent. You had to pay to work for them) (Don't lie. It was the porn, wasn't it? It's always the porn when it comes to these things) (Sure you didn't, buddy) It's probably some Pulse or Melia's doing. Or Crescent. Pick your poison. (I am able to locate the classiest of walls at ease. I guess it's better than a door) (...The heck is an it? Some birthday or something) (...This sounds like Xen's work.) (...Are you implying it still isn't? Seems pretty linear to me) (Well looks like we have to keep flipping all those panels. Good thing I've been doing that all this time) (We're just going to skip that) (Only Regice and then I should be home free) (I want to check something) Huh. The both say A362. I was wondering if it'd get changed or not being a different robot. I guess not. (Oh, that's what those blue things were for. I thought it was just blue for the sake of being blue) (Well that's not a good sign) (Why would you bury someone here of all places? Yes, I know about THAT one) (...Something tells me this is a bad idea. Touching buttons doesn't do anyone any good) (If you touch that, I will kill you if whatever happens doesn't kill us first) (...I know this is asking a lot from a dumb grunt, but DON'T touch that button) (YOU MOTHER FU...) (I just hope it's a wild Pokemon) (Please let it be a Porygon) (I'm fine with a roggenrola) (That's...not good) (Turn this damn thing off) (YES! Can you not understand the silent protag yelling at you?) (...I'm getting too old for this crap) (Yes, it'll come out of that dog house just like a good dog would) (...Yep. Today is the day I die) (...Though if this is a clone, I might be able to...) (Gee...what was your first clue) (Where did this smoke...oh right Snoop Dogg. Can't be around Xen without smoke) (Do not inhale. You will begin to see questionable things) (It's too much. I can't breathe) (Great, did we find a way to revive the dead?) (....What even are the grunts getting out of this? Money? Was that ever explained?) I mean I really don't remember what Team Xen is and what their goals are. Kind of pathetic given they are the main villains of the game. They want souls and something about Melia likely linked back to the past with Indy which their costumes are based off of. The J and R people likely are what made Madame X since this could be the machine that created that copy. Maybe to revive the dead. I don't know. (He can't even take an L to be Manly) (Oh hi mom or daughter. We never did establish that) (You really need to get you facts straight, faker) (This imposter does not know what a sacrifice is, do they?) (If you can fix the burning fire I went through, yes please) (Pretty sure nobody even remembers who you are. You had like 1 hour of screentime. Then again, that's more than most) (Yeah...) (Not yeah...) So it's battle time. (Loewe proves he's the best with Razor Shell and Aqua Jet combo) (Yeetder will eventually be renamed, I promise) You probably can guess what happened here. (This is my only steel type so that's probably bad he's almost dead) (...Good job for being worthless, Walter) (Time for the backup plan) (When in doubt, sweep them out) So Nancy's team isn't too bad. I am a bit overleveled due to preparations but it's pretty good for a random surprise fight. I did kind of know about it ahead of time otherwise I probably would've struggled more. Points for Walter not doing a damn thing. (You were the one who challenged the very best to a fight...) Hold on, I want to go back and look at something: That's a little disappointing that she's not the same level as the partner team was. This could've been changed in V10 but I don't think it was. Kind of a bit disappointing we don't fight her at full power. (Is this supposed to be a horror move because it looks like it) (It's about time we dealt with another one of those. Just let me heal up and...) (I said let me heal!) (Well...this is awkward) I also knew about the no healing thing. I didn't realize it was level 70. Yeah, have fun with this if you aren't prepared. And cue what was almost one of the most hilarious victories ever. (I didn't know what hidden power I had and thought it'd kill) I don't know why it spammed Fire Blast but I'm not going to question when the RNG blessed me with luck. Let's just say Sir Pearl won this, okay. (Yep, I still have that move on it. Never know when it'll come in handy...perhaps sooner rather than later) (Well that happened) (Tell me about it. I just saw...what looked like an Undertale boss) (Came, Jan. Came. It came...just like your mum) (I don't know so probably) (I better get a nice reward out of this, buddy) (...Is that a coincidence?) So I'm going to tell you my thoughts before doing this segment and my thoughts now. Before, I thought this was a really cool event being a surprise boss battle with a back to back dimensional rift and it was so nice to be able to actually face your mother and her team. Going back and looking at it a second time, I kind of realized it's very lacking which is why I was very quiet the whole time. The idea behind it is actually, really, really good, but it's just the wrong sidequest at the wrong time. Let me explain. We literally just experienced a grunt being booted off of Team Xen and learned nothing of interest from them. Now we have it again and haven't gotten any further. I know Manny came first due to V6, but neither really has much to add when this had so much potential to be interesting. Traitors or deserters of the opposite side are often the most interesting characters in a storyline giving a perspective you normally could not see. And both act idiotic to boot. I don't mind dumb grunts, but these are grunts being dumb for the sake of being dumb. It gets old and we're not even done experiencing it yet. That was a minor issue. The bigger issue I had was that this was pretty much a surprise factor and going back really didn't have much substance. What this is supposed to be is haunting memories of the grunt and the player which the player likely still had their mother on the mind. You'd think it'd try to be a bit more emotional and get into the feelings haunting the player, but it pretty much is just "you let me die, now battle!" It's not bad, just disappointing. That was a really big and emotional event and I would've liked to see it tied in and represented better here. It's kind of a waste not to give the player some development. This is why I hate silent protags. Just because a character cannot talk does not mean they have to be an empty husk. Let's move on. (WLL players probably will recognize this place. I haven't seen too much, but I know what this is) (Now that's a name I haven't heard in a while) Vivian was the name the elder mentioned before. I don't know much about her but I think she's the purple haired girl Kenneth is searching for in Episode 1 in WLL which is who he leaves to search for. Don't spoil that for me. (Huh, I never noticed the pot of flowers. That's a rather nice detail) (.........Wait, then whose grave is in Keta's...let's go back in time) By the way, anyone is free to use my pics to reference or show an event to explain something or whatever. You can't really forge and say they are your own given the white haired man in them. That's the nice thing about written runs is that they have a lot of the story and dialogue documented and easy to remind yourself what happened. I tried going back but it didn't seem I screencapped what the sign said. I'm guessing it's either just a garden shrine or one made for Taelia since I believe her grave is in the cave shown above. That's a little disappointing. But thinking on that, why is there such a big emphasis on poliwag and frogs? I never really understood all those statues. (I have no idea who this belongs to) (Is that Narcissa's?) Narcissa = Narcissism. Huh. I wonder if that was intentional for the name choice. Fitting for Goldenwood if not exaggerated to the extreme. We'll get back to this in a minute. (She died at age 50. Damn, she died young and she looked good for her age) I'm not sure if this is a reference to a real life person or someone Jan knew. Sometimes game devs make small acknowledgements to people who passed away such as what Super Mystery Dungeon did for Iwata. Another famed one was in Avatar the Last Airbender's Leaves from the Vine. It's a fun thing to talk about but I didn't do my research or even think to ask about it at the time I was playing through. That's like one of the best questions to ask people about to see if it meant something more. (And your mother's name is Larissa) (...This is going to get weird, isn't it?) (Funny how my enemies appreciate me more than my friends) (...I walked right into that one) (IT WAS WORTH IT!) (Thank you for that...) (Did he just...what? What just happened?) Funny how we learn one tiny detail that really didn't add much, but that's not what I want to talk about. This is another time that a grunt randomly vanished upon us. Is that a coincidence or is it tied to being with Xen? I really hope we get an explanation on that because I didn't think he was a spirit like Keta was. This is what I think happens when you join Team Xen: you pretty much sell the soul to the devil. If you betray the group, you die and your spirit disappears. This would tie in to the other grunt's death which is why he tried hurrying back to the Garufa temple. That would also explain why he didn't pass out or lose his soul...that's why he didn't think much about the second part. He didn't have a soul. If the Xen grunts are tied to this contract, I applaud you Jan because that's some actually nice attention to detail for drafting a plot. I don't think it is, but that actually makes sense. Rejuv is making sense, guys. I swear it's these sidequests. Anyways, the death scene was nice and fine, but only if we find out more about that "it" later. (And now we go under) (...Hello there) (What does this game have against mothers?) (And now I have a Litwick) I'm debating if I'll use it or Midreavus since I have really used either all that much. There's not enough Dusk Stones to pass around sadly and I don't think they are minnable. And do you remember that magnet? Yep, we're doing that next. (Yeah, who would have guessed a magnet would be a pain in the ass to find) So I'm going to have to think @DemICE for telling me that artist quest gave you a Magnet otherwise I never would have done this event which would have been a damn shame because it's one of the best. If I every forget a quest with a bit of lore to the world, please let me know but don't tell me the contents. I do like doing sidequests in games but I'll skip some if it's really tedious. (Finally I get to have my own Ralts) (Why is it still purple?) (It's going to kill us, isn't it?) (This is a bad idea) (Oh thank god we're both alive) (I'm just glad we both have our limbs) (...Great roaming Pokemon. Those our my favorite) (...........Pass.....) I really get around because next I did the April quest: (Seriously, I just kind of randomly do stuff on a whim) (...Do I finally get to have my own legendary?) (Am I going to get a Nebby? Oh happy days) (...Isn't this like that Necroza thing or something. I haven't played USUM) (Wow, another person making me do all the hard work for them) Speaking of Moon Dial, where the heck is Regice? I don't think there's anywhere else to explore in Amethyst cave so did Jan really just cut it? I think in V6 you faced all three but my memory is a bit hazy since I never really did finish all of that quest. (So...you praise me for running around. That sounds like somebody I know) (Just so we're clear: you're going to be the sacrifice if need be) (.................It took you years to...I shouldn't be talking given how long this run has been going on) (Hey ho) (Please be a Solgeo...please be a....) (You're kidding me, these two? I caught them like 30 chapters ago) (Well this was a very disappointing quest) (Maybe they just wanted levitation. I think it'd be cool to be able to levitate) (...Can you explain Team Xen to me then?) (What is it with things made of rocks having an attraction to me?) (If they want Rock Hard Bods to become a thing, there's been a minor setback) (Go ahead. I got nothing to lose) (This probably is not a good idea. Still better then pushing flashing buttons though) (This calls for some random music) (How can you tell? They don't have mouths) (Well that escalated quickly. When did this become date night?) (...We never speak of this ever again) (...what if you're an empty husk?) (Well that was certainly something I don't want to talk about) (......I'd like to go back to the dancing part now) (Sigh...of course the aren't) (This is that thing you see in nightmares) (................................................That's it?) (Great we can now play Pokemon Fusion with this game. Fantastic) (...I don't want it either but...I do have a Lunatone and Solrock sitting in the PC) (You have a sister. Is she as crazy as you are?) (...Wut?) (That's what we call partner or companion. Weirdos) (...I probably shouldn't answer that) (I prefer the crazy one, honestly) (Uhhh...she's alive. Is that acceptable? Not my fault nobody could protect a statue) (I'm not sure that's a good idea) As for the April event, it's nice and really does its job well introducing the fuse mechanic through dancing. It's kind of a clever way to explain it. As for April, I'm not too fond of her but that's because we don't know much about her. We did get a little background information on Nim, but so little that it doesn't particularly really have much to go off of. They are probably descendants of the Garufa or some branch/tribe still around and active. Okay, let me explain something and it's not related to this event as it's honestly one of the better scenes in the game. Here's why I don't care particularly too much about this info. We have a very weak base getting bits of the lore explained but it's so little that my interest can only last so long before I don't care. It's why I dislike it in Reborn and it really bit the game in the back holding off answering so many questions. I don't know much about Aevium, the Garufa, or Team Xen so throwing a tiny bit of info just doesn't make something we don't know much about interesting. I'm going to break it down a little bit more though. The Garufa had such a strong introduction using the sidequest at the start to introduce it and then give us a bit of info little by little. It was a good pacing until around Marianette's segment where it just kind of gave us one more thing before stopping until now. Like we were building up to a good base and possibly making the prophecy interesting and then it gets ignored. Adding too how long it takes to make chapters means I'm going to forget and then have to look back to make sure I really understand what's going on (it's not that complicated) and less connections are built. They aren't mysterious yet the game is now trying to make it that way which is confusing. I just think we needed to know a little bit more a little bit earlier to keep it interesting since it's now been kind of stripped down to dark magic users who seal and preserve their history. Get a stronger baseline for these people and I think it'd be fine imo. Are these people good, evil, corrupted, wise, or simply curious. Pre fates Fire Emblem Dark Magic is a good bit of lore to read up to kind of see what I'm kind of talking about. Aevium doesn't really need much but I've kind of stopped paying attention to what kind of region. I just know it's random islands where we go around to collect badges. I know we get history of a lot of these places and why they are the way they are but that kind of stopped right after Goldenwood. I don't know much about Kakoriki Village, the Resort, or any place on Terajuma other than it's hot and has a lot of rangers. The first island was honestly rather good because it gave us a little bit in each town like Gearen is kind of the capital where a lot of trainers live and quite a number of businesses and production goes there which in return causes a lot of waste in the sewers. Sheridan is a peaceful village but is slowly dying and people leaving due to Keta's actions and his betrayal for reasons I kind of forget. Goldenwood is very unfriendly towards visitors due to events that happened long ago. These places did have a conflict but they just felt more alive over any place in Terajuma which I can't even remember how to spell Kristillite and Kako...Crawli's place. And it probably needs it to help break up all the story driven stuff going on. Maybe there's NPCs who say stuff, but Kristillite I definitely know they mostly talked about Angie and the cold. Then there's Team Xen. They want energy from Shadow Pokemon and humans called Quinessence (cough FE7). It's not really that much to go off of as we have all these random people working on the same side really being vague for the reasons they do what they do. It doesn't help that Madame X is nothing more than a warmonger giving all she does is kill and throw fear. They only key we have is that it has something to do with a prophecy which really doesn't get explained or really explain why killing people coincides with what they want to do. Sorry to bring Reborn in but we know exactly what they've been doing right from the get go: driving people out of the Reborn region. They were terrorists and that was their goal and why we needed to stop them. It was simple. Xen has all these little things stitched together not very explained to the point I only recognize them due to their over the top idiotic grunts. That's not really that interesting. Now I'm not saying reveal the whole plot or keep it an open book, but it's best to leave at least something of an impression or to perk your interest in the mysteries to be revealed later on. Though it has to be set up in a way that you know the question will be answered and not like the Xen grunts who vanished since that's more a "WTF" then wondering what happened reaction. There's a lot of those when something of importance gets revealed and the others we just get more and more questions. We should have a strong understanding of Xen and why they are targeting Aevium at this point, but we don't or really even a good understanding why. We have good guesses but guesses aren't factual proof. Also here's the fusion: I'm indifferent to is actually since Levitate would've made this so useful since that ability helps combat ground types but we'll have to wait and see if I use it because I kind of have Walter and Joker who do the same jobs this thing does. I also originally didn't like the sprite but now it's only okay. Lunatone's nose doesn't really work for this. I'm going to keep this next part brief since not much happens: (How the heck did you guys get down here?) (...It's a ghost town. I'm surprised locals would be interested in this place given that) (You've clearly never been to Lavander Tower then) (...Play Eternal Darkness. I guarantee it's scarier) (Oh look, a Gen 1 reference) (Oooh spoopy. I'm scared!) (If you live in Goldenwood, this place is safer) (...Okay...) (Oh good story time!) (...No thanks, I already got one) (Yet you need 7 to get down here) (Lame.) (I already used Scraggy so into the box you go) (Please be a dusk stone.) (That's 'cause her name isn't Melia) (I'm suddenly getting Beowulf vibes from this. Wasn't the monster's name Grindle?) (Did anyone learn anything from the Tower of Babylon?) (What a bunch of worthless filthy peasants) (...well that's a shitty reward) Really, Jan? A consumable items very out of the way. Sure it's good for the one use but is it really that valuable given it can be only used for one battle. No like we don't have other ultimate cheating devices. So these next two pics need explaining. (You see that NPC in the corner) (That's where she was standing) I get that it's a nod to the Gen IV haunted house but that was creepy due to things happening at random or even not at all. I think the little girl leaving a room off screen was the creepiest of all. The game really made use of fourth wall breaking there. But it is a nice little detail for those who paid attention. (I wasn't expecting this so I didn't save) (And the Poke Ball has yet to fail me) (And an obscure game character reference nobody will will get is fitting given I forgot about you) (...Thanks game. Couldn't have remembered without ya!) Being serious, I wish more games did this for long sidequests when you complete an important part as it's pretty easy to forget about them. A reminder never hurt anybody...unless it's constant. Then it's annoying. (I totally couldn't tell from the Pokedex entry) (Hey, we can actually go inside his house) And let's read personal information because we can: (Huh. Looks like he made a current diary) (I'm guessing it's this place) (...That's kind of sad) (...Remember the name Sheridan Wetlands? Seems like Crawli wasn't the first to know about it) It's a very minute detail but that does explain why Xen knew about the location and built the backup lab there. (What isn't uncharted territory at this point) (...That name seems familiar) (Is this guy related to me?) (...) So I made a strawpoll just for kicks: https://www.strawpoll.me/17034825 Don't let me down, readers (It's a Cozy place) (I...need to visit the wetlands now that I have Rock Climb. Wow, there's a lot that I missed) (Oh good a geo...why does this game like to troll me the minute after I rant?) (Time for me to whip out the dictionary) I mostly do this so I remember what the heck the word means when I go back and look at older parts. I probably used to know what this word meant when I was younger but I haven't taken a geology class in 10 or so years. (Ugh...this is giving me a headache) So let's back this up a little bit. So we're on an island which water from the sea goes around the Sheridan Wetlands, into some type of river which then splits into a couple streams here...I think. That I'm pretty sure is not an estuary but someone can correct me there. https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/thesaurus-category/american/parts-of-lakes-rivers-and-streams Someone use that and tell me what exactly the water layout of this place is because I'm going to go insane trying to remember stuff when I was like 13. (That...is a nice name and not confusing)) (I hope the other journal isn't as much of a headache) So I had actually forgotten about that journal which is a nice explanation of this place and ties in a little bit with the plot. We still have a lot of unanswered questions which is a damn shame since Matthew likely could have helped fill us in on more...but wait, there's more! (Don't mind me continuing to mess with your stuff) (I wouldn't use lovely in that sentence) (We can take a guess who won that argument) (This still gets me every time) So a while back I made a status using that pick which I think that is one of the funniest lines in the game. I totally wish that was her middle name because that would make this even funnier. And looking at Poscriptum, Matt is like the future successful version of that character which makes me rather interested in that fan-game. I may livestream it, but I don't think I'm going to do a written run. It's such a shame I overlooked the thing because pics really don't do it justice. (That's a name I haven't heard in a while...actually we heard it a lot. But since Melia hates him we're supposed to hate him for being "evil") (Did Jenner drop her on her head....that would explain so much) (Veronica Hellonearth uhh...whatever her last name is makes me cry on the inside) (Yeah! Party at Jenkel's) And continuing to the next entry: (This is why I don't want to have kids) (Something tells me he was forced into this marriage) Seriously, Matthew is like my favorite minor character in the game now due to this and Hellonearth. (Gee...you should see her now) (Trust me, sir. It just added more problems onto my plate, but at least she's not my number one priority) (That's a name I haven't...wait...it's those assholes) (Another name I so love and cherish) Okay, Saki isn't that bad. She just doesn't get proper development being stripped to a gag character which I think is a bit of a shame. (That...definitely wouldn't bring balance to Gearen. It'd be quite the opposite) So it probably is saying that Amber and Veronica had quite the strange relation. It either means they were besties or forced to get along with each other, but I think it's the former based on their story. They just likely fought a lot due to their personalities so Saki would be a voice of reason to calm it down. Doesn't matter that much. (...I wonder what kind of surprise they'd throw) (Okay, maybe I should explain some stuff) So this actually ties a bit into WLL which it actually hit me who each of these characters were: (Matthew died his hair, nice!) (Well, I can certainly say they didn't leave the r&r behind after that) (Uhhh...which one is Maddie? I'm guessing that's Saki's mother) (That...actually is touching and really thoughtful) And that would be our happy ending...but there's one more passage: (That's not good) (Someone had a fire extinguisher, right? RIGHT?) (...Let me guess: magic) (...at least the kids were safe) (I hope nothing important was in there) (Just like a forest fire) (Probably was Garufa magic knowing this game.) (...All this just from one equipment fire) (...Well we at least knew Jenner made it) (He must've wrote this soon after the incident given his words) Let's just break this part down for a moment: I assumed Cas was short for Chasity but it could be someone else. Maddie is a character I have not met in WLL or Rejuv yet so I don't know who exactly that is. You just have to imagine what Matthew is feeling as he was the one who suggested the idea which kind of would make him feel like he burned down the city. On the flip side, he literally risked his life to save the three kids grabbing and pulling them out of there. Now let's continue: (You don't say) (Goldenwood, grow a pair because Gearen suffered a hell of a lot more than you did and you don't see them attacking people) (Something tells me this isn't going to end well) (Let you go and try to recover from this tragedy?) (I have no idea why this one is tiny. He must not feel as important as the others) (Don't tell me you...) (Damn. Like damn, dude) (...Ouch! I don't like the look of that) (...Well this was obviously a setup) (Well, looks like Matthew got screwed for nothing trying to be the hero. That really sucks) (That's what banishment does) (Maybe she's a Tales protag in the making) (Was this council full of idiots? Banning people due to an accident. Permanent community service I'd understand, but banishment. This really is a Tales game) For those who don't know, most Tales games have the protag banned from the village due to an attack of some kind on it. I know it happens in Symphonia, Graces f, and I'm pretty sure Phantasia at the very least. Xillia and Vesperia banishment were for a different reason. (That...clearly didn't work out for the best given what happened in the Villa) (And somehow she's here with us. You can have her back) (And she's been throwing Venam through the roof ever since) (You gotta feel sorry for the guy. He really had nowhere to go) (...That has to hurt saying good-bye and never seeing your daughter ever again) (Man, this is going to be a great character analysis) (...if there is a next time) (And that's the end of the story) Actually, there's one more passage but ho boy we have a lot to talk about. When writing the Amber analysis I actually didn't know about this which it would be fun to look back and see how close I got towards reality. (I wouldn't want to touch this either after everything that happened) (Yes, yes it does. With or without your parent) (She...probably did) So I just want you to imagine something. Imagine being told your father left you as I'm not sure Veronica even knows the truth. It would make sense it was never explained but I'm not sure if it's ever going to be explained to her. You just have to imagine she really despises him for leaving and being selfish. At that point, she probably wants nothing to do with him. (....That's not eerie. But hey, the 3 of them are okay which is all that matters) (Did you guys bro fist? You need to do that) (...When did he get married? I don't remember that part of the story) (So Melia was two years younger and now they are the same age...guess we can add that to the list of things we didn't need to know but are relevant) (At least Jenner isn't forever alone now) (How the hell did Venam not figure that out? Like, she saw Jenner before and now he has a 10 year old child) (I probably would too.) (Too bad that wasn't the reason. Probably was forced upon him) (Well at least they have tourists to make a business and a living. Was Tesla rich before she moved? I don't remember) (No, you totally should) (I shall bid you good day, kind journal...and you got me) I am going to wait until the end since we are pretty much there for the chapter but I will say that my reaction was pretty much "Holy shit! What the heck did I just witness?" We have a lot to talk about. (You live on a couch. I actually feel sorry for you) So I had to sleep on a couch for a month. It kills your back after a while. Though how does he afford a train when he can't even buy a bed? Probably government funding for his banishment. (That looks about the kind of house I'm bound to eventually live in) (We don't care about this) (And history lesson over...whatever did happen to that third one? I haven't played Gen VII) (And the Phione Army in Terajuma doesn't?) (I hope he likes boxes because he's gonna be living in one) (At least he's still proud of his daughter) (And I may or may not have forgotten this detail and had to run around like an idiot finding him later) (And becomes a Silvally) (And I did figure that out and even had it on me) And that's it. There's still bits of sidequests and miscellaneous things left but that's all I'm cranking out from V10 since I'm told I should fight Amber in V11. Funny how I say a run is on hiatus yet I still crank out chapters, but I have the patience of a badger when it comes to waiting and putting stuff off. These were actually pretty fun segements but I think we all know what took the cake given I thought the Silvally quest was going to give me pretty much nothing but a Pokemon. Matthew is one of the best characters in Rejuv and what I would argue on of the best written character in Pokemon Hacks/Fan-games. I could go into an in-depth analysis but this is the first time I really don't have to for a good understanding of the character. So when you first meet this guy, he seems rather questionable being this guy who got banished from the town he lived in and in a very isolated location from anything. This is on top of a highly secured lab. If that doesn't ring any bells as suspicious, you need to play more RPGs. I think what really surprised me is how selfless of a person he really is to the point he puts others before himself. While it was an accident, he took the blame because he did make the suggestion, but also to make sure none of the others' lives were ruined due to it. Saki did have other places to go, but none of the others really did. He was left with nothing and alone which actually usually leads to depression especially given how downhill his life went. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed and this actually really defines his character and why he isn't depressed. He tends to make the best of any situation even finding peace and enjoyment in a little part of the world he calls his own. He was even nice enough to assist us in reviving this Type: Null. He was also really good buds with Jenner and kept in touch or tried to, at least. He's what I'd call a nice guy with an actual character really making the best of any situation. Even knowing his daughter likely despises him. Now the other thing I want to talk about is the actual banishment of these people. It was an accident, yes, but that doesn't change the fact a bunch of people died due to it. Just imagine one day your brother, father, and three good friends died due to a simply accident on top of many citizens you know. People need to direct their blame at something which was either at someone or the fact the city was poorly structured. They decided to throw it against the ones at fault which they never wanted to see again for doing a terrible thing even if it meant a false conviction like Amber. While it may be extreme, it's not actually that unbelievable something like this would happen. It's actually a pretty realistic situation though it would not likely resort to banishment. It would probably still be a good idea to leave nevertheless given not very many people are going to like you and you may bring harm to your friends and family. This actually got me thinking and I feel the WLL cast and family being the focus and pretty much the only important characters in the plot probably would have made it much, much better. They tend to be the ones that are very established and the more interesting characters to talk about and analyze. Though I would say to ax Melia and rewrite the plot not to include her. That would leave more focus on Jenner who is rather interesting and we could actually get more story around him instead of Melia shutting him up all the time. One of these days, I'll do a Jenner analysis since he's always been a character that interested me but he felt nothing more than a near worthless extra. And now I want to play WLL some more, but I should at least get to the end of V10 before doing that.

@Alilatias I think the funny thing is that up to Venam is basically the perfect setup to a really good story since it really did nearly everything right give or take a couple minor things. It just completely shifts after chapter 4 (the Goldenwood segment) and while it is improved the mapping, the story kind of still had the same issues as before but now with more scenes. The overhauls brought more good than harm but it is a bit baffling that all this effort went to improve the game when the thing I care about the most I felt got worse. I will defend it as sometimes it actually does do some things from a lore and story perspective right but I don't think those make up for the bad. It's hard to keep track of all the changes so I just assume everything gets redone eventually at this point. And huh. I hear those names get suggested to me time and time again, but I'm going to wait until either one gets completed before trying it out. Generally, I like the game to be around the 75% mark before even picking it up as the dev usually has really refined their skills to give a package that is a great experience and I don't have to wait a long time before only playing little bits of the game at a time. LotA I haven't touched since it used DPPt graphics which I will admit is a tad off-putting but the dialogue in that game from what I saw was great. Postscriptum looked weird but it's on my radar if it gets completed I may try it. I don't think it's a mere coincidence that the protagonists talk in those games.

So when it hits 100%, that means the beta testing phase is over. There might be some bugs that'll be last minute fixes or tests but give it a day or two and the new version will be out and ready to go...usually. I'm going to be real with you though as this whole % hype business pretty much doesn't mean anything as the release could be next week or it could be two weeks. It could be a month if all hell breaks loose.

Commander's Opinionated Gaming Articles Sharing the Spotlight When One Protagonist isn't Enough Hello. It's been a while since I've done this. This article is going to be slightly different as it applies a lot of my personal struggles when learning how to deal with and help balance this type of situation out. I'm no award winning author and merely do it out of a hobby over anything else, but I'm sure you could ask anyone who writes novels, novellas, books, epics, poems, and songs and you likely will hear similar stories come off of them. Games are actually a bit different which ties into an article I wrote a while ago. We do actually need to bring up a game and since we're a Pokemon centered site, I don't think there's a lot of games that people would connect to and I'd have to explain the entire plot and that's boring and a review, not a good discussion so we'll be using a fan-game today. And since I have it in me to play through Full Moon, we'll talk about a different game in a similar situation: Pokemon Rejuvenation. I know this game gets a lot of love and praise. There is one hot topic that pops up here and there due to the segments in Terajuma where the focus suddenly shifts onto Melia over the player character. We'll grind down the key details why this is usually disliked and often one of the biggest complaints on. But on a random tangent and the only time I'll talk about it... Please stop praising the game for map design. If that's why you're playing the game, why the hell are you playing that game? Let me just break down what a map is. The first part of a map is the properties. Basically think of walls you can't go through, how a stairway works, and what you're able to move around on. This does not count NPCs and such. The next part would be the graphical properties. It'll be models or tiles depending on the game. Personally I think 3d modeled graphics catch my eye more than sprites due to the oversaturation of sprites in games. Basically whatever an artist designs in a palette is what appears in the game. The last part is what we call events. These are anything a player interacts with including doors and NPCs. With all that explained, I find Rejuv's maps above average in terms of graphics, but maps feel lacking or empty in all other departments. They're only memorable due to the graphical design. Sure there are some interesting NPCs but that's a dozen in hundreds of NPCs. It's not really out of the ordinary since many RPGs keep a generic design as there's not much to experience on these maps so why put too much effort into them. Tales of games are quite similar as the cities and towns look fantastic and unique but it's so hard to recount their names. Katz Corner in Graces f is the only one that comes to mind. Not really mad about it or anything but I feel so many people forget the event aspect when talking about maps. And with that we go back to our normal program. So let's start with a basic scenario. We have a classroom with a bunch of kids where one of the kids' hair is blue and another is green. Everyone else has black, brown, blonde, or red hair. "Commander, why are you bringing this stupid anime trope up?" Well sir or ma'am, I bring it up because it is not a stupid trope. Something humans like is color and when something stands out, we take note. You'd likely guess that those two different hair colored character are protagonists in this setting. Every creator uses this technique. Maybe it's just the only characters who get detailed in a story and the others are just merely shadows. You should make the characters stand out and probably nice to look at. The characters who play an important role really need to stand out and if someone has to look the best, it should be your main character. This is a good old debate but the tried and true method is to make the character stand out as important as their role is. It's simple and most people do this including Rejuvenation. I don't think I need to go into much detail. Here's another basic piece of common sense: you need to make the characters likable. Personally, I think that's the most boring and unhelpful way to teach people to design characters. It's one of my pet peeves when someone says you need to do something using a generic phrase you've heard time and time again. The implies that either they understand it or are capable of doing proper research do discover the issue on their own and fix it. My way of phrasing it is this: make the character human. That does not mean make them weak or not have powers or anything. It's more like because we can understand them, we can feel for what they are going through and want to root for them. That's the first half. The other half is to make them fun to be around. I think Marvel Cinematic Universe is a good point to look at since those movies are meant for a good time to watch with people. Dante from the Devil May Cry series is another good character to references. Never played the game but that pizza scene made me want to try them. Are Rejuvenations main two protagonists likable? That's actually some shaky ground, but we're going to say yes. Let's start with the player. They're a silent protagonist. They aren't a simple doll, just very quiet yet these leaves some very conflicted issues. The character has a defined backstory but basically tries to forget or neglect it all the time. It's like trying to make Lucas from Mother 3 be emotionless and not a citizen of the city in reality he's quiet because he's depressed and why we never see him smile. It's playing this tug-of-war of trying to be a blank slate to convey the player in the game and yet tries to define and involve the character making them their own character in the story. It's quite baffling the resistance of making them a character when most of the great silent protags step away from the immersion aspect in exchange for making a defined character who does not speak. As for Melia, that's a tale. She started off with some very jarring qualities which were dropped on her return with no explanation. Liked or disliked these were rather important qualities to her character and a writer cannot simply expect a read to simply forget about them. As for the rest of her, it's actually a pretty good idea as she's the hero with an ego blinding her from reality to the point she locks up many of her other emotions to appear what she thinks is strong and powerful. It's a very good setup and even similar to one of my own favorite protagonists I've thought up. At the end of the day, this character dynamic should work in a plot setting. Don't worry so much about silent protags as I've seen stuff with two such as Gwain Saga work out. I love that Youtube series as it's filled to the brim with game references. So the design of the Rejuv characters are fine and the characters are "likable" so it has to be the writing, right? The writing...isn't even that bad. The dialogue is fine even if jarring at points and was better written than most other parts. The scenes aren't even that bad going back on it. Something did change and a lot of people don't like this change for good reason. It's not Melia being the main character or even the driving focus of the plot. That might have actually started making the game even more interesting. It's not so much the lack of control either. It's the lack of relevance. The plot of the Terajuma arc would have nearly stayed the same with or without you in it. The player is an irrelevant force and the game makes you feel that. You have to be told what to do and feel like baggage the whole time. Sure you were a hero, but Aelita or Venam could have just as well did your job since they were there. There are actual characters in the party in that situation some of which even defect or fight against you. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but it does normally leave an impact of uselessness on a character. The player filling this role isn't always a bad thing as it all grinds down to the premise of the game as being a simple soldier a part of an army is one take you don't see everyday but could be quite effective (then again I don't play fps so I wouldn't know). So how do you make a good protagonist and deuteragonist relationship? The answer is simply in the question. You build a relationship with them. A lot of them end up in that kind of relationship, but we all know that's not what I meant. Ike and Elincia from Fire Emblem Path of Radiance is one of my absolute favorites to use as an example not because it's the best, but because it's so simple. Ike at the start of the game is a boy who eventually is forced to become a man against his own will. Elincia is a sheltered princess who is helpless at the beginning of the game and the last of her line. Neither of these two were good fits for leadership roles. Ike was the first one to make a step and he rose to the challenge of helping his client (Elincia) get help to get her country back. When they couldn't find help, Ike didn't back down and continued to search for aid in the Bengion Empire. Ike does speak out and almost gets them into deep trouble, but he then learns to control his tongue in front of Bengion's Empress. Stuff happens and they eventually take the kingdom of Crimea back. Ike wouldn't have shaped into the strong leader if it were not for Elincia's quest to retake Crimea, and Elincia wouldn't have developed into a strong leader were it not for Ike taking up the work after his father's passing. And I think this ending cutscene does wrap the relationship up very well: So this is some pretty big Rejuv spoilers so I'm going to post what happens in a spoiler box and I actually had to go back and reread parts of the game just to make sure it played out that way. I know it's easy to assume I'm just making it look bad but I tried to stay as neutral as possible. I especially relooked at all the heart-to-heart scenes to make sure I didn't miss anything. It's easy to try and make assumptions at which the creator was trying to convey as it is later slapped in front of our face that Melia is scared and feels helpless. Hmm...that oddly sounds like a certain Crimean princess we talked about earlier. I think the amusing thing is if you said the protagonist and dueteragonist were good friends, I wouldn't have believed you other than it was said in game. Now, I would understand someone using the argument that the game is fast paced and doesn't have time to really flesh out an idea like this, but...that's not true. There were plenty of times and most of them are easy fixes that might take an hour in total to do. Maybe 5 or 6 if you really want it done well. Trust me, I didn't pick this to show it being a bad thing, but how it can be such a good thing to a story. The first is to establish a relationship. I know it's said they're friends, but it's not really shown. It's kind of funny considering the reunion with Venam had a completely different reaction. There are three big ones I can think off the top of my head: the lovers/friends, the rivals, and the torch passer. The first one is the most common since it means they are in good standing and have a strong trust with each other even willing to let the other do something risky that they otherwise wouldn't. The second is the rivals who one really doesn't like losing to the other in which they end up making the other stronger or a better person. They do not have to be on opposing sides, but they have clashing ideals so they don't always get along due to that. The torch passer is my favorite (probably not the proper terminology) because it is a simple shift in focus from one character to another. The most important key is that the original character CANNOT retain the main role due to an event in the story in which another character is burdened with the task. Death is the most common reason. This usually helps form a bond between the two characters or maybe even a form of respect. Think of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure in which each season stars a new Jojo as the lead. You can't just say something is that way though and you have to show it. It could be a brofist, a change in characters tone, or even crack a joke and not be so serious. Why is this important well... The next thing to do is to show weakness in a character. Nobody likes a Superman. The weird thing is that this is kind of a misunderstanding of what Superman is. A lot of people don't like him as he's portrayed as this guy who basically invincible and lives with a disguise to try and be human as well. He's just too perfect and people's eyes and perfect can be boring. That's also why DBZ fans get salty every time Goku loses to the Soup Man. Then you have Justice League Superman (the good animation one not...the movie) and he feels so natural. He's the strongest but doesn't feel perfect or invincible and there are some great episodes about him. He literally has an episode where he kicks ass without his powers. Batman really, really helps ground him into a more believable and likable character since the two are good friends (even if the Bats won't admit it sometimes). Melia is kind of in a similar situation where she's just too good and she really hasn't made any faults in the world with its rules. She really needs someone to counterbalance that...someone that isn't the best or the smartest, but still capable. Someone with dead parents who lead to their depression. Okay, okay, it's the player character. So how does this work considering the character is a blank slate? They can't work, right? So remember the events in the past. That was the first time Melia was in danger and a certain someone was there to save the day when nobody else was. That was you. This probably left a rather big impact on her as you were something she dreamed about: a real hero in the making. That was on her mind for the whole time you were separated as she was trying to become like you. You were here role model in which she trusts you so much she thinks of you as a good friend in such a short time. This would require changing the dialogue between the player and Melia though to reflect the relationship. Maybe instead of treating the player's mother like a necessary casualty, she regrets the player not being able to bury the mother but admits she's relieved you're still around and it was your one deed that helped Melia push through her trials and tribulations up until that point. She doesn't want to burden you with her mission which is why she'll drop you off at Gearen. Then we get to the bridge scene and a slight change is that she wants you to lead the group in which you get a few choices to respond all of which get a different reaction but all of which keep the story continuing on the same path. It's really a simple change and most of the dialogue and plot points could be preserved if needed or wanted. Why is such a simple change so important? I have a counter question to that first: why is Persona such a beloved series? Persona is a game with a silent protag which is 50% dating sim which for most of the story you are presented with dialogue that doesn't affect the game at all. Yeah, the dialogue is more or less meaningless. I know Fire Emblem Awakening does get a lot of hate for how meaningless the choices are, but I am kind of glad they included them. While they don't do much, they at least give you a small say in the story. You caused the event to play out slightly different from your choices. Which goes back to the Rejuv scenario. You made a visual difference to Melia which explains why she trusts you so much. You are shown helping and doing things despite not being the main character and that is just far, far more engaging. It also sets up character dynamics much, much easier. Having a character with almost equally importance can do so, so much to a game and even save the story. Believe me, a quiet trainer traveling across a region to save it and become champion will eventually become boring to you if that's all you see and experience. There's a reason the Gen I & II rivals are so well liked. I've been going into what you should do to make this work, but this isn't so helpful to you. The why you should do this is though. Why should you have a dueteragonist with almost as important of a role or even make the player character that role? You don't need a bachelor's degree in writing or even be a writer to know. Characters work better developing in pairs. You will be hard pressed to find many favorite characters of people where another very, very important character didn't have a significant impact on their character at the start or down the line. It also is easy to compare how different they are when looking at Yuri and Flynn from Vesperia. The two were soldiers but Yuri had his reasons for quitting and the two turned out quite differently. We humans tend to make note what is different about characters over what is the same and it's such a useful tool to differentiate one from another. It's a very useful tool and if one gets a tad tiring to see the other can have more of a focus with little risk of harming the story of pacing. You can also do quite a bit such as perspective changing. Are there drawbacks though? Yes, yes there are. Something I didn't talk about is that characters need to be able to stand on their own. That doesn't mean they have to be alone nor need to depend on another to even do mundane tasks. It simply means another character can't defy that one which actually is really easy to do. It's basically the character telling us what the other one is like. It might not seem like something easy to screw up, but casts are often bigger than two characters and it's easy to lose track. You cannot balance a large cast well so don't try. Instead, it's better to make time and use of little screen time quite effectively. You can make a really well done and fleshed out character in 2 lines of dialogue. You can actually do quite a bit with a single line of dialogue such as: "My student...don't...let your ambitions take over...like they did for........me.........." It's pretty simple death scene and probably no longer than a minute worth of play time. The time to build characters can be scarce with all the world building, plot driving, and transition dialogue it's easy to neglect other important aspects such as building the characters. The solution is pretty easy. It's called creating a form. Basically you break the game planning into parts and decide what should be conveyed and experienced as well as developed during that portion. That'll be the characters to focus on and develop. You will then set the other characters in the background. This includes the game plan for the protagonist and dueteragonist since they develop and change over time. Maybe they don't shine and grow in one part but another may play an important impact on one and start a chain effect. I may have been critical on Rejuv's use of it, but at the end of the day Rejuv tried something a bit different than what the Pokemon format which being the first to do something rarely goes over well. People don't like change nor do you have a good form to follow. One person has to make mistakes for progression and for others to learn and improve upon a concept. I know a lot of games are influenced by Reborn but that game pretty much set the standard as the best hard fan-game. You can only have an experience like that once and it really divided the hack/fan-game community in half. The reason is because other creators can take the experience and reactions from that fan-games format and simply improve upon making a better experience. Watch in a decade after Reborn is done people will only look at it as an okay game which has slowly started to happen. But Reborn's style if used won't change that much and likely many aspects will disappear since it is kind of the peak of the design. Rejuv is a little bit different as it's a faulty game which does a lot of aspects which have peaked people's interest which devs who pay attention to the backlash could improve upon the ideas and create an attractive game. Learn from the mistakes of others. After all, Sony did it... And I'm not trying to make Rejuv look bad or something not to play as it's worth trying out and maybe a new version will fix some old issues. The idea though that the main character role shifts from one character to another is pretty new to me in gaming. I don't actually think I've seen too many games have an outside of your control character drive the plot leaving you more as a spectator. I think it has potential to create better and more interesting plots, but I can't really say if it's what people would really enjoy or see more of. Maybe the form of just going through to collect badges, stop a crime group, and become champion is the number one thing people want and investing more is a waste of time. Personally, I'd love to see the idea played with for a trainer on a journey to collect badges, but design gym badges to be unsatisfying in which you follow the guy who talks about a world where the real strong trainers go revolving the story around underground illegal fight clubs. And the guy shows you around and then drives the story and gives you missions to do. It could be an interesting way to design a game. Maybe you're a simple kid slowly getting wrapped into something bigger breaking the law. That really wouldn't be possible without someone driving you and pushing you towards the darker side of the game.

Wait...are you saying Leon F. Kennedy wasn't our 35th president? You think Ame is bad but this is the first thing that came to my mind seeing that title: So let's just take a step back towards Joker. The DLC theme they seem to be going for is crossover characters from new series just like with Ryu and Cloud. So that eliminates Metal Gear and Final Fantasy out of the question and Reggie kind of confirmed that in his own way. There's no Sephiroth or Raiden. If you want to blame someone's chances for Leon not getting in, blame Snake. If it weren't for him, I'm rather positive Kennedy would have been in as a playable fighter. I don't think there's anything they could include into him that would make him an interesting fighter to buy or pick up which you'd only buy out of fan-service, unlike all the other new DLC characters we've seen.

You should watch the new Ducktales as I hear a lot of people say it's kind of like Gravity Falls. Personally, I think people are judging Let's Go the wrong way. The problem isn't the game, it's the fandom. Pokemon knows they could put out the cheapest and crappiest game and a good chunk of the fandom will buy it. I've given up on Pokemon after Gen VI as I'm not a blind idiot who can't ignore the soul that was Pokemon is now gone and we have something almost as good, but just not as special. I'm not one to really say others weren't involved but I feel this change in direction was happening for a long time and Mr. Iwata was pushing against it. That was a man involved with HGSS having so much content. With that said, I likely will pass on Gen 8, but I am actually thinking about picking up Let's Go. I should probably explain behind that. I'm not buying it at full retail price. That's a rip-off and they'd make a decent profit even if it was $40 which is a much fairer price. First off, it's still Gen 1 which is super easy for all the experts but retains pretty much the difficulty back then except you have an OP Pikachu. Not a big deal as you can just set it in the PC. It's kind of a balance thing as your starter is your strongest Mon, but I think they went a little overboard with the mechanics. There's a lot of nice conveniences like shared Exp across the whole party (a much needed change) which seems like it's more balanced over the Gen VI and VII one. A lot of the Let's Go mechanics were combined which seems to have brought more good than bad removing many tedious aspects. For a game to get people into the series, it's such a thought out design with the only thing wrong is they touched that which is sacred. They removed Blue simply due to not being "kid friendly". If they made Oak the Champion (which is what I thought they'd do), this would have made sense, but nope. They should've just made a toned down Blue the rival but logic. It's still a good Gen 1 remake so if you liked Gen 1 you would like this game. And here's the problem and why I'm not buying Gen 8: The game is lacking in content. This is the third generation of Pokemon we've gone through this song and dance. When is enough enough? We've been seeing less spin-offs, less postgame, and really less new Pokemon. We haven't had any new evolutions which was replaced by this new Mega evolution mechanic purely for nostalgia and pandering and it brought a lot of problems to the meta. The new dev design in Pokemon isn't to make a great experience, it's to make an experience only worth as much as the price tag. Post game doesn't matter since most players don't care about a full experience in that. USUM is a bit of a middle finger since that's what should have been the original game or DLC. "But Commander, you don't know what you're saying." Yo-kai watch. Yo-kai watch did it and gave a discount price for people who played the original game. Why couldn't Pokemon? Money, that's why. Gen VII was a little bit better, but then we look at Let's Go and we're back to square one. It's Blue and Red, but with a couple bonus battles for Postgame and the padding Master Trainers which wouldn't be bad if not for the 1v1 for the same Pokemon. That probably didn't take them much effort to make palette swapped trainers and high level Pokemon. It would be ridiculous to think they spent a hefty time on that over a battle tower or something. This most likely was a tech demo for Gen 8. We'll likely see a lot of the mechanics from this game be implemented. No, they aren't getting rid of EVs, but I could see that catching mechanic and the exp gaining methods be implemented. And being able to access your box anywhere. Maybe the new move changes will be implemented and maybe not as Go was it's own standalone thing. I think the thing that baffles me is that Gen 8 is going to magically be different and so much better than this. It's likely going to be pretty similar to this experience and rivals will be friendly and it'll just be as hand holdy. The fandom is going to blindly keep buying games instead of trying to look for something else so why try to aim or appease them too much? This has been a trend for like 5 years and gripes we've had have only been getting worse and worse. There's been a lot of good things, but the same could be said about Let's Go as there's things that perk my interest as it could really shake the formula and actually bring out a new game. People are buying these games and it shows people like the direction the games are getting taken perhaps better than the older titles. I've already accepted that Pokemon is no longer a good fit for me and I think the people frustrated with a spin-off of all things should really just quit Pokemon and find something else. There's Yo-kai watch, Shin Megami Tensei, Ni No Kuni, DQ Monsters, and a number of other games. And I'll simply go back to the old matter: why shouldn't Game Freak want to make more money? If cutting postgame is an extra 100k in your pocket and cuts down dev time, I don't think too many devs would turn down such a shortcut. It also means they can be experimental with basically no risk. Again, that's a good spot to be in. Not a lot of franchises have the luxury and even Square Enix sweats a bit if FF gets a bad reception. If a game series takes a massive dip in sales, that's when people start to take notice and issues start to get fixed though.

None of it is real and you really don't see characters die from cigs in stories. You'd die from where I came from as about every 1 in 5 people you came by is a smoker. That stuff smells nasty yet I don't mind it in storytelling. Cigars are actually a form of tool for a few different things. A famed one is a setting in the olden days since it was common place. Another common one is simply to make the character more tough or bad to the bone. It's always the tough guys that smoke. I'm kind of bothered Charlotte lost her cigs in her sprites but what can you do. It's more of a stylistic choice to represent a character or setting over encouragement or onto the subject of smoking. Probably a very interesting research topic for a paper.