Lyumia

May 3, 2020

Spoiler

In the older versions it used to be after Luna, but now it's after badge 12 or 13.

May 21, 2019

Probably because Reborn isn't the player's story but rather the the one of an RP group the game is based on, and the player is a voyeur to the events. Hence why they literally just stand there when people take the four mcguffins from them. As for being able to kill people...

May 18, 2019

Some concerns I have of the game, sectioned below in spoilers for organization...

Graphics

Spoiler

A lot of the sprites don't translate well in game. The male over world sprite, and the female battle sprite stand out to me in particular, but there's also a few sprites from the game files that I find concerning. A few suggestions on how to fix these with an example below...

-Don't just use graphicsgale if you're going to recolor sprites. Try MS paint too.

--GraphicsGale is good because it's free and Ame has a series of tutorials with the program. It's easier to manually do some areas with MS paint. Here's a brief tutorial I found on MS Paint. Owning a drawing tablet can help out a lot with MS paint. The body erase one is very helpful because that's actually how a lot of sprites for gym leaders are made for reborn.

-Use a color guide

--It's really easy to go overboard with colors. There are many examples of artists using four or five colors in a work, but they still have an understanding of colors to make them look visually appealing. In the sprite below you have red and green as the main two colors, and they both feature very heavily. I would tone down either the reds or the greens here and de-saturate the green. A lot of colors you use are really saturated which does't look pleasant with other pure colors. I suggest muting the tones a little. Especially on over world sprites, because the white lines on the boy trainer sprite stand out horribly.

Now, I've never actually made sprites before but this is a darker color scheme for this trainer sprite. I would recommend keeping it simpler, since a lot of detail will be lost on the small window screen anyway.

Gameplay

Spoiler

-The starting selection of wild Pokemon is really nice. Unfortunately there aren't enough resources to actually enjoy the availability of Pokemon you normally don't find until later in the main games, like tangela.

-It doesn't seem to be using gen 6 mechanics/data. Like the move sets for some Pokemon are set for gen 5. So Pokemon like torchic, mudkip, and treecko won't have the ember, water gun, and vine whip they were given in ORAS

-Use smaller maps. There's little reason for the maps to be so big, and moving around on long maps is tedious without faster ways to go back and forth between areas. Wihtout cheating and increasing the speed even going back to the pokemon center is a miserable affair. Tip: if you can't see anything other than grass or sand tiles in the middle/ walking through a part of the map. It's too big and doesn't have enough landmarks.

-The weather system. I have no clue why it would be hailing in a seemingly flowery, temperate area but it seems to generate almost randomly.

Story

Spoiler

-An editor would be really helpful

-- there's a lot of lines from single characters that could be made more concise.

-- a few characters sound the same, and making them sound different would make them more memorable in the long run.

-Story wise, there's many moments where it would make more sense to demonstrate something than to tell it.

--For example, while I normally don't recommend immediately throwing players into an unwinnable/difficult battle, it would actually establish team Ace as an organization with a lot of powerful trainers if Victoria had one Pokemon one or two levels than you or more Pokemon around the level of you (or the same level as the mons in the area). Alternatively, if you beat her it would show how she's mostly just talk.

-- It would also make more sense than Tate battling you. Especially because the situation was supposed to be urgent, but it comes off as not urgent enough for a battle.

That's everything that immediately stands out to me. Otherwise it wasn't too bad or too difficult other than managing resources like money and potions.

Edit, about my comment on landmarks: This is perfectly fine

Spoiler

I can see where I am and where I need to go. Standing in a screen of grass, however, is really bad map design.

May 11, 2019

Basically this is something I spent waaaaay too long on this for characters I'm not too fond of. Despite that, the hint of a metaphor that deals with a relationship dynamic based on fairy tale tropes was really interesting to me as it holds some merit. Considering the two character's different perspectives. From Titania's view, Amaria is the dragon to her tower. The tower being their relationship, and the dragon being the threat of Amaria's emotional and mental state deteriorating. I found the notes within Titania's gym incredibly ironic, for as much as she derides the princesses within those stories for not simply trying to leave she can't even manage to get out of her situation on her own. In a story with much more focus, finesse, and a smaller cast this could have been a wonderful character study on someone in an emotionally abusive relationship pretending to be the strong Knight and Shining armor when inside she is the Princess. She calls her gym a free world but it in itself could have been a symbol of her prison.

But I've rambled enough. It's not very pretty, but there's four versions in the tag below.

Spoiler

In This Tower Version

Dragons Version

Titania Only

Toxic Love (No Pokemon)

February 26, 2019

On Monday, February 25, 2019 at 5:42 PM, Commander said:

Oh I miss the old days where I'd be was more aggressive and more into this stuff. I'm just going to advise you to save your breath with responding since you really don't agree with how I'm doing stuff. You wouldn't be the first and you certainly won't be the last. I've learned to stop trying to argue since every time there is one it's just a circle. But here's the neutral stance of the Vic Mignonia situation:

I have no idea if this man did these acts or not. These could be true. These could be false. There is nothing on the table to confirm any of these are true. We have enough on the table to speculate and create judgement. We cannot say these allegations are false. We do, however, have evidence of Anime News Network performing slander on Vic Mignonia. These cons and companies acted on allegations that are not concrete. This is not illegal to do under normal circumstances, however, we do not know the contracts behind this. We do know Vic Mignonia was fired from Funimation due to sexual harassment. We can hold Funimation accountable to that and they'd need to prove it to be true. These are the facts.

We can throw everything at each other as their is possible evidence put on both sides, but the only thing we have proof of is evidence of actions of illegal action against Vic Mignonia in a Civil Court Case. Evidence is not facts. Evidence is a trail that leads to truths.

I'm going to start by saying I think you've got that last comment backwards mate, and that you also don't really understand how court cases work. Usually court cases last years and they're settled out of court. Most of the stuff done it is is for the records and due process and all that jazz. You're right though, that evidence is not facts. But it supports facts, and gives them solid ground to be facts.

It's also naive to think that only a criminal convictions would make it gosepl, as there are notable cases were people who had committed crimes are not convicted. The affluenza case where a drunk driving incident killed four people, and the evidence made it clear that the boy committed the crime, but he wasn't convicted for it. Justice systems are not perfect, as there are plenty of cases of wrongful convictions (there's a public record of miscarriage of justices available if you are interested in the subject), as well numerous acquittals that should've been a guilty verdict.

Anyways, I don't think he's going to be brought to court by any of his victims, as there's a precedent of these kinds of claims being dismissed even when you call the police, like stalking and abuse cases where the victim doesn't end up with life threatening injuries. The process of gathering evidence that would qualify (which already in itself is hard), and would outright be ignored unless the victim literally looked like they were violently assaulted, despite the accounts from staff and other voice actors.

On funimtion: The thing is that companies don't like to associate with people who have been labeled a sexual predator regardless. If Vic took it to court, funimation wouldn't be required to do anything as it's Vic's responsibility to prove that he was unlawfully fired on some kind of malicious defamation, sex, race, or gender discrimination.

Anyways, you keep mentioning ANN falsifying evidence (which I can't find any article on and a couple of comments on other websites popping up when I tried to research it mentioning the claims saying it's false are fabricated), so I'm going to finally address this point and say that's there's no evidence that show that those or other testimonies are false either other than screenshots from literally just one person. Even if all the allegations are false (which I doubt, because that's a lot of smoke for there to be no fire) it doesn't change the fact he already has this stigma attached to his name. Even if you gave him the benefit of the doubt he's bad at reading body language and can't sense personal barriers, that doesn't change the fact that he shouldn't have done it or been in that situation in the first place. Don't engage an event that requires you to be in close proximity to minors /when you don't know what's appropriate or professional behavior/. And for the inevitable "why didn't they come out sooner argument" that comes up, consider that the repercussions of admitting the fact you've been harassed or made uncomfortable by a man who has more standing than you might be more than intimidating, self esteem ruining, and extremely nerve wracking when you have people that will support this man regardless of whether he's guilty or not and are even giving him money for it. (Even if the funds are going to salvation Army, that fact has its own numerous issues.)

Finally to address your first statement. Maybe if you've had arguments multiple times with people about the way you present your argument, it's because there's an actual issue they're responding to that is present in it and that you should do some introspection. I get it, I do. I used to be the "big brained" skeptic, and was neutral on a lot of issues until I realized that there are inherent problems with a lot of aspects of that kind of thinking one of which being that it's very dogmatic and closes the discussion off to anyone who disagrees with you because they're just out to ruin a man's life or something "in the name of justice".

Edit: So I did some more digging and wow it really has been a open secret for the pas 10 years as there's warnings about im on sites like livejournal and something awful forums. And it's only being formally addressed /now/. Not only that but it can't be covered in depth - not because lack of evidence because it's anime, and like gaming, very little journalism or investigation actually goes into it. The pedantic romantic did video on this but the tldr; is that nobody wants to risk getting cut off from their resources for naming some big time creep.

February 24, 2019

There's webpages where you can use sliding block solver. But a good way without one is to go in the game files, or a walkthough and find the picture.

A general rule is to start with the first row and then work down, or so im told.

February 24, 2019

10 hours ago, Commander said:

I'll at least give you some relief that many of the allegations used tactics in which in a public mass work in favor of people, but are complete garbage and useless in court. We actually just recieved some nice sweet additional evidence for Funimation performing wrongful termination very recently. And if I heard right, Sony had involvement meaning they'll have to be involved in the lawsuit. Take this with a grain of salt, but Funimation conveniently had a site update which conveniently added a change where canceling subscriptions was broken. If you want to feel pity for someone, I would probably say Marxgirl (I think that's the right spelling). These VAs are absolutely going to throw her under the bus to try and save their own tails and she probably won't have much afterwards. I can't tell you how it will all turn out, but I will tell you it ain't going to be like "Oh these women said that he conducted sexual harassment therefore I charge you with sexual harassment."

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@Lyumia You're a liar.

Yep, I know what you are all about to say and that's where the problem is and why I am the way I am. Do I believe that? No, but they are a liar. Why are they a liar? It's because I said so. Because I am a bigger more well known user my word is more credible and has more worth and that there are only two outcomes for this statement, mind is true.

I'm going to put it out there now: a vast majority of you think "Lyumia is not a liar." This is a very understandable mindset and a very human nature thing to think. Guess what, you're wrong. You're also thinking logically which is the other problem. Replace "you're a liar" with "This is an apple". Based on what you see the only logical thing to think is that "This is an apple" as there's nothing to disprove that it's not. I intentionally wrote it in this confusing very hard to like way with the intent you don't believe me. It's honestly rather jarring and very hard to really like what I said to agree with a negative perspective of someone. I hold no ill will against Lyumia nor do I have any right to challenge there character, but that is one of a number of people I think we're on a boat of misunderstanding where the stances are.

I'm at fault here so please do not really think too much of it. I'm sure there are many people here who first heard about Vic Mignogna through these controversies. Of course based on the information you know you'd jump to the victims' side because they are the people hurt in this situation. I did it. I'm not going to hide the fact I thought Vic was a bad person. What if I told you that images of proof were photoshopped to work worse than they were? What if I told you that there are leaked DMs (and a Facebook page) that people of these allegations should alter these images to make Vic look worse? What if I told you that all of these allegations have eerily similar stories with vague information that cannot be proven or disproved? What if I told you that every single allegation was from a left wing activists or what most people refer to as an SJW? What if I told you that one of the members of the Funimation investigation faked a swatting and blamed Vic fans for it? What if I told you that none of that probably matters to you?

Your view of Vic was more than likely skewed. If you had an opinion before and it remained unchanged, good for you. What was done are acts against the law. This is what the court cases are about. They are using evidence to prove that people did what they did to make you view Vic a certain way. It'd be near impossible for me to even try to persuade your mindset toward anything else. Just know that it could have been anybody in that seat. It would not have stopped there. One name that was dropped was Johnny Young Bosch (I probably misspelled that horribly) in a discussion video I listened to. He could very well have been in this seat if #StandUpForVic did nothing. Vic's career is permanently damaged and there's no full recovery from that. This court case prevents anyone else from being in that position because trust me, someone would have been. Someone would have. It doesn't matter if Vic is innocent or not.

Now let's see on things I do need to respond to on your post. First off, I was saying Vic cheating on his wife would be a ridiculous way to go, not the reason he was fired from Funimation. Funimation's first investigation on the matter was inconclusive. Same issue and same situation except this has now blown up. So funimation let him go. We don't know why. There's the theory people threatened to walk away if he wasn't fired but rumor mills are rumor mills. Personally, I think the fact that a lot of the people in the investigation hate the guy and wanted him gone on top of PR was the reason. How much do you want to bank on that Tweet? I simple used it for the hypocrisy of Funimation with it.

Look, I know you and others have thrown sexual misconduct into this and that Vic is going to be labeled for this, but law isn't simply there's a law and therefore somebody is going to be punishable for it. It's been a long time since I studied the basics of law and if you want to pull out your defense attorney credentials (or that you're studying law) by all means I'm all ears. One of the youtubers in the vids I've posted is a lawyer. He's covered the persecution side of the matter. The window of opportunity to act on these is out the window as he put it. It's a lot of spoken very hard to credit word vs cold hard evidence and facts taken. Though I suppose that is a bit of an ignorant statement as I don't know what these defense attorneys who nobody can really afford to pay have to use to defend themselves. Except Sony. Sony will be fine. Unhappy, but fine.

----------------------------------------------------

So something I could do is make a full recap of everything that transpired up until the court case in something like a COGA. I say that not for attention because this thing is long and fact check hell. (I do need to make sure to account for valid #KickVic information that at least can still be uphold as at least accountable...don't even get me started on that io9 article). Let's just say it'd probably take a week to get done kind of thing.

But for those who want the tl;dr version: An ANN article gets posted which the girl calls out about her pic getting used without her permission in a situation that happened entirely different. This got people starting to question the truth after RT and Funimation fired Vic. Monica mentioned she was on the investigation team and then came the storm of questions people wanting evidence to these claims that suddenly came out of nowhere. More evidence pops up that images were edited to look bad, leaked PMs, and then anyone who supported #StandUpForVic getting their twitter banned. Also lots of blocking but just assume they blocked basically everyone who didn't share their opinion. Some harassing and some who weren't. More evidence pops up, Pensacon threatens to arrest any #StandUpForVic supporters who visit the con, a fake swatting post from someone on the Funimation investigation, VAs saying stupid things they'll regret later, and then a lawyer/youtuber creates a GoFundMe to set Vic up for a lawsuit. It's doing very well and the prosecution is taking action.

*their

I think you're conflating too many ideas that aren't even relevant to the discussion. You already did this with your murder analogy. It's funny, because your own analogy doesn't work. You're right, it's hard to prove someone is a liar because it's more subjective than objective and can apply to a specific situation or be a general trait. It would be reasonable to say that I have lied at some point in my life, as I'm only human, but whether I'm a dishonest person is up to debate. But you can easily prove an apple is an apple with well known qualifiers, like whether its a fruit, is it round, what it looks like on the inside, and whether it came from an apple tree. If you pointed at an orange and said "this is an apple" it would be easy to prove it's an orange. The same way you can look at various testimonies and evidence and come to the conclusion that someone has committed one form of harassment or misconduct.

Also, I'd like to point out that the term SJW, unlike sexual harassment as you claimed, has even looser meaning today than it did a few years ago. It's an umbrella term that essentially sums up people who have different opinions and creates an "us vs them" mindset, by creating a crude caricature of the opposition. And you're trying to take away the credibility of the points I made by suggesting that I'm part of this opposition and backtracking and stating that you wrote it to be purposefully convoluted or that you didn't say that he was fired for cheating on his wife, even though:

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I will say that cheating on your wife isn't something you should be fired for.

My personal opinion on whether he's guilty or innocent is something I don't have to explain or justify as that's not even what I was discussing in my last comment. I was explicitly explaining how you arguments are misleading and attempting to downplay the whole debacle, and how it's disingenuous to say the things you did like how sexual harassment is a loose term.

You can't paint yourself as less biased or "skewed" when you're deliberately writing to make your opinion seem the most reasonable and right. It a level of intellectual dishonesty I just can't resonate with in a civil discussion.

February 23, 2019

15 hours ago, Commander said:

Sexual harassment is a very loose term and quite honestly he probably would've gotten what he deserved if people shut up. If two men shoot and kill each other at the same time, does that make neither of them a murderer? They're both criminals in the end. Vic isn't randomly going to bounce back and have his career back to normal. Far, far from it actually as he'll have to work to recover from this even if it were all false and lies...which it doesn't seem likely the case.

I'm not here to condemn anyone who sides against Vic. He is no saint. Am I simply to believe what is told to me to be true though? I have seen the actions of the opposite side which my neutral stance was pushed towards Vic's. I will say that cheating on your wife isn't something you should be fired for. If factual evidence is indeed brought into the court of law that Vic is sexually harassing someone in the terms of the court, then I will accept that with no question.

I'm so completely and utterly flabbergasted by your initial statement and how incorrect it is my eyes actually glazed over as I actually tried to comprehend your thought process. Sexual harassment and misconduct are not umbrella terms invented by some SJWs on tumblr like the internet likes to think, but actual terms that are very well defined and have been gone over in numerous court cases and debates. To quote the Wikipedia article (if that doesn't illustrate how dismissive the claim that sexual harassment is a "loose term" is, I'm not sure what will) the term sexual harassment can go as far back as 1973 in a report called "Saturn's Rings" by Mary Rowe, and allegedly goes back even farther than that. There's even various categories for types of harassers and the kind of harassing they tend to do and what kind of situation they commit the act in.

To go even further, the equality act of 2010 has a passage about sexual harassment, which includes: indecent or suggestive remarks, unwanted touching, and of course sexual demands and favors. If you had elaborated on that it becomes difficult to determine the difference between a bit of banter/compliments or harassment, I would have conceded. However, its awfully clear that his actions aren't ambiguous at all, as there's even photo evidence of him kissing 14 year old girl on the cheek and him putting his hand on her waist under her hoodie for a photo. This is not acceptable, professional, or appropriate behavior between an adult and a 14 year old. (https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2019-01-30/far-from-perfect-fans-recount-unwanted-affection-from-voice-actor-vic-mignogna/.142212)

"The opposite side" and whatever they have done still doesn't negate the initial problem. A misandrist claiming all men should die and women are better doesn't erase the fact that there are legitimate sociological and economic problems that predominantly affect women that need to be fixed, and this type of argument used is meant to demean the significance of the cause. You see this often from blogs or accounts like The Persistence, in a recent video where three men throw a bottle at him for going through a neighborhood holding a Trump sign. The Persistence says at one point "this is the democratic party" while the men are swearing and dancing away. Obviously those men are not the whole of the USA democratic party or the people who support them, but the comment's you can see followers creating a strawman out of that interaction. So, someone against Mignogna committing a crime or stating amoral things they are not a reason why the accusations are any less false or severe, or make the people who don't support Mignogna make their opinions any less valid.

Vic Mignogna was not fired for cheating on his wife. He was fired for sexual misconduct. Saying otherwise is misleading and tries to obfuscate the existing facts and accounts of people who have been made uncomfortable or witnessed the events.

February 23, 2019

Except, that sexual harassment doesn't just mean groping or assault. It can be verbal. It's not only unprofessional to make such remarks, to young women no less in an environment where they're supposed to feel safe. It's degrading and always unwelcomed, no matter how innocent the comment or action may be. Not only that but the numerous accounts of lecherous behavior at conventions, his coworkers calling him out, combined with his homophobic comments on anime news network paint the exact opposite of a "good man" with flirtatious tendencies.

And having a wife and a daughter wouldn't stop a someone from "fooling around" with girls. People cheat, they lie, and they do terrible things to others. It's naive to not consider he possibly of such a thing.

November 12, 2018

2 minutes ago, Supreme said:

Thanks for the patience : )

NP, and ditto

November 12, 2018

Aaand I have a black screen. Lovely.

November 12, 2018

Yeah, accidentally pressed x a bunch cause I'm a dumb dumb lol, but I sent the request

November 12, 2018

Sorry, didn't see the edit, but yeah go ahead

Edit: Oh that was my bad, I'll send u the request

November 12, 2018

Sure dude, do you wanna trade it to me and then trade back? My user is Sky02

October 25, 2018

19 hours ago, Commander said:

but at the end of the day Pokemon Reborn is Ame's dream and nobody should stop her from doing what she wants. And many people have thrown their thoughts and helped Reborn and Ame improve over time.

Umm, but it's not... Exactly. Ame didn't work on most of the concepts, mostly the field effects are hers and some other mechanics and events (notably the most controversial ones). She didn't even come up with the region. The game is mostly straight from the roleplay, which again is why theres so many problems with the plot being nonsensical. Her stuff, like Fern being more dickish and dissing Corey who committed suicide even though it's a "tribute", including that fact that Luna's owner had a custody dispute and disappeared, etc. My point is that I don't really care about the censorship of her ideas because they're generally disrespectful and poorly written. The attempts to make the game more challenging aren't even relevant because Pokemon already has ways to prevent you from over leveling and keyed up AI for gym matches and elite four battles (which is already in Pokemon essentials). Of course, because it's a fangame people like it (including myself). It isn't hard to get a grasp on Pokemon though because it's meant for kids, even as the series matures (note that mature does not mean grimdark), so even then the difficulty doesn't work because people can come up with other strats that have existed in the series (like Moody bibarel, which is banned on smogon for a reason).

Edit: Technically, all you'd need to do to make the game more difficult is turn off shift and apply the battle tree AI to like... Everyone. Then the game really would be impossible to beat for like 80% of the players.

I also don't see how making the map better would hurt her "vision".

Especially the part of taking out Mons because they don't slot into the very specific solution they want the player to use which is Squenix levels of petty. (Plus fact this makes Pokemon feel like tools to collect and then dump in your PC rather than, idk, living beings that you like and want around. This is somewhat improved by the follower mod, but then it just reminds me of my copy of soul silver that someone's stole and makes me a little dead inside.)

Even if it's a fan game, I'm not going to grade it on a curve. I think every dev should ask themselves "If I sold this game, and it didn't have this label attached to it for appeal, would people want to play it?"

Here's the interview that mentions how the plot came to be btw. Interview

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Also, don't a lot of people love Riverdale?

They do, but the show's queer baiting, bad writing, plot, cartoonish villainy, an poor portrayal of mental illness really made it unbearable to watch. I'm told it also doesn't even resemble the original comics, or the more mature reboot, but I never regularly read Archie personally.

October 24, 2018

On Monday, October 22, 2018 at 1:26 AM, Commander said:

I'm going to say that while exposition dumps are usually considered the worst part of a game, they are a necessary evil. So something you get jammed into your face as a writer is show, don't tell which they leave off the "but you can't do that for everything otherwise it'll take half a century to walk a single step" The reason exposition dumps exist is due to getting it done and getting it down fast on top of not having to resources to properly execute it well. I'm also going to say that the void segment is not an exposition dump and is at the same time. It's a cooldown time after a brutal battle and you could tune out quite a bit and be fine. I also feel like this is just giving small insight to events we shall find out about later (though if they are postgame or not is a different story). Nothing here is needed which could storm up a great debate.

I'm gonna counter argue with the fact that we actually already knew most of the information within the segment if you remember dialogue lines. For me, the only new information was on Kiki and Aya, which easily could have been hinted at earlier in the game rendering the whole sequence null. To be honest, maybe in other fiction, but video games are capable of telling a story in ways that movies can't, like through the environment. Which is why I appreciate the fact the graveyard includes the names of all the people the characters have had died.

Additionally, exposition dumps are really unnatural, so it's generous to consider them a necessary evil. IMO as a general rule, unless the character is new to the rules of the universe the characters should only discuss that in a way that makes sense and flow naturally in a conversation not what they already know if it has to be done, otherwise it can be alluded to. Mind you, I don't agree with the narrative against show don't tell, but Reborn really suffers from it and struggles with less is more too.

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Remember Dittoceus?

I had repressed that.

But, on the subject of long sequences, the whole game is long - like, I forget if I mentioned this but I follow a let's play where they copy/paste dialogue from the game and holy crap, the sheer number of paragraphs hurt before text skip came out.

I haven't played fire emblem or trails in the sky but tbh they sound more fun than Reborn.

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Gonna say it's kind of irony that you would praise Sun/Moon when Reborn does the same thing. Both sets of characters are tropey and pretty much rely on that trope through both their dialogue and their actions. Julia still acts like a high school cheer captain which many of her lines are peppy and whiny when she doesn't get her way. Shelly has trouble getting her words across so she'll often use "...Uhmm.." and characters will tend to ignore her.

Yeah, but those are a few of the most tolerable characters in the game. While I know it's the fault of the RP, (which as someone who does role play I'm painfully familiar with) there's Anna who's psychic and that's basically it until her arch gets a little further in episode loving 18, nearly 50 hours of gameplay later. While Sun/Moon characters are tropey too, some of them change real quick or get layers added too them. Like when gladion is introduced he seems like a sasuke character but his arch shows that he really cares about Pokemon and isn't the edgelord he was first made out to be. Like the fact almost his entire team evolves based on friendship.

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This is not said in words, but it had a major impact on a certain character. Cal uses a Medicham the next time we see him. It's a small detail that speaks a lot about his feelings on the events that went down there

I meant for the audience, at that moment in time. And, yeah, that sequence is really nice for both him and Shelly because their teams reflect their development, but again that doesn't really address the problems with the Medicham scene and really makes me wonder why Cal ended showing how he felt about that rather than both him and Victoria.

But that's a tangent so....

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So this is false. Many RPGs have a cast the size of this game...it's just how it's handled. I think Fire Emblem is a great reference on getting a barebones idea of how to handle it, but Reborn has a special problem, it didn't handle balancing the cast right. Every character getting treated equally and getting roughly the same amount of screentime on paper sounds good, but oh boy does it not end well. And then jam all of the reveals and development until the very end pretty much is why everyone thinks this. For what Reborn does is technically fine, but it does too much in too little time and it's WAAYYYY too late to go back now.

Maybe we just play different games, cause fire emblem is the only one I know of with such a large cast of major players. Either way, at that point will be hit or miss in how memorable they are, especially to the casual fan.

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I find it funny people say they have no time when I managed to mod hardcore while working 60 hour weeks (glad those days are over).

Teach me your ways.

But like, seriously. On an average day through I usually end up putting 200-300 hours into reborn, maybe 400+ if I'm breeding pokemon which caused me to take three months to finish a play through. (Didn't help that episode 16 came out then too, so I was spending extra time trying to remember stuff for my next play through.)

And probably, because they're doing other things in addition to work.

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Wait is he still working on that thing? Seriously, there's no reason it should be in development still as it's a rather simple game.

"Working" yeah. The whole thing is a money scheme and I imagine he'll go out like Spoony or uh movie critic guy from youtube whom I currently can't remember the name of. But again, that's a whole nother bag of worms.

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We actually only see one single church in the entire Pokemon series and I think a lot of that got cut in the English localization. I'm not sure but Gen IV is a mess to follow given the censorship war was still going on. (And still is but it's not as bad). So basically, Arceus created Pokemon as I've come to know and I've used that idea before when messing with the lore and stuff, but let's just treat him as "God". But "Oh, Nintendo is Japanese and they never had any games with worshipping god"

>Dragon Quest

>Fire Emblem PoR/RD

>Actually pretty much all Fire Emblem

>I think Golden Sun (I know the Wise One)

>Final Fantasy (VI I want to say)

>Xenoblade Chronicles

I'm familiar, but I think you misunderstood because I wasn't saying that "it's Japan, and they can't have a singular god" but "it's unlikely to be comparable to Catholicism for these reasons, in addition to the fact that the knowledge of the existence of Arceus is limited to such a small town that it's unlikely that people would even know what you mean when someone says "arceus bless your home". Basically "can't compare apples to oranges. I was specifically addressing why this interpretation of it is unlikely.

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I want you to take a minute to reread what you just said. Reborn would need a lot more than a studio to fix its issues. And for every good game that comes out, there's a least 20 godawful ones. Even some great and well known companies publish terrible games such as Camelot's Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (I still liked it, but it was pretty bad). I'm not here to ridicule you other than pretty much completely disagreeing with that being a good solution.

Any concept can be salvaged and improved on, but that's just my opinion. A Pokemon region set in an urban setting where you need to do events to find good pokemon is a really interesting concept at its core, Reborn just goes a too far with it and doesn't give any indicators for its event flags.

I'm familiar, as someone who likes the dumpster fire that are more recent final fantasy games but I still think a studio won't make some of the mistakes that Reborn - especially with some gym fights (cause, let's be honest Shelly's ability to murder you brutally if you don't prepare a very specific strategy to counter all the bases she has covered is really at odds with her insecurities. And really hilarious.)

Especially with its code for early releases. Idk if you can still get a game crash when your pokemon survive poison, but damn that was infuriating.

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So while what you are saying is true, you are attacking Ame for using the meme for it known by the Pokemon community instead of being "correct." I know Ame does know a bit of Japanese (I know some things but I can't read Kanji to save my life), but most NPCs are just pop culture and references. It's flooded with it so is it really a problem with the localization or being over reliant on memes. Personally, I don't think they add or take anything away so I'll leave it at that.

I'm not "attacking" her, I was giving an example, that I personally found pretty funny.

Also, I think you're forgetting about some really uncomfortable early game lines (which I know Ame has mentioned before but it's not like she went back and edited them, so yes I'm mentioning them) for poc. Yeah, while there's pop culture references there's also awkward writing trappings like "I ain't afraid to smack a bitch" that I'm definitely sure a studio wouldn't do, unless they wanted a PR nightmare.

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think you really disagree with Ame's game devphilosophies in which if she laid off of certain traits (such as silent protags) and did certain things the game would feel much more enjoyable to you...at least. I disagree with the use of a lot of the Pokemon tropes and standards used in Reborn, but mostpeople who pick up this game are going to bePokemon players and not RPG enthusiast such as myself. It has lead to some jarring and questionable choices and many turn offs, but no dev is immune to it. Even Intelligent Systems who botched the Paper Mario series (likely due to some back door publishing demands and executive decisions). And the irony here is that Ame is putting more focus into the game than before and it has shown in the progress and changes in the game to improve it. So if you say that now, I don't think a dev team would change much of how Reborn looks or the story.

What you're calling philosophies, I'm calling mistakes. I actually love silent protagonists, I just think it's handled poorly in this game because the player as no agency. And because they're only watching other characters do awesome things, it feels like the only reason you player is the is to find the fish that was stolen from them in the beginning of the game. And yee, I read her interviews, so I remember that.

I think it would change a lot if a studio got a hold of it, and the biggest changes would be the maps, characters, and dialogue. Sirius doesn't even talk like a real person to the point that he's on Riverdale's level of bad writing, half of the designs look terrible partly because a lot of the redrawn sprites need to be fixed. Some of the maps are too large, causing it to either be tedious or have weird graphical effects like sprites to disappear or become partially obscured. The desert in the game has areas where there's nothing but massive patches of sands making it annoying to navigate if you're looking for things in between the borders (like the ruins with all the garmchomp). Also, the reborn map itself has both a top down perspective, and a bit o a forward one, which is awfully confusing to look at and mostly useless. Probably cut out a lot of stuff in general, like bring down the number of badges from 18 to 8 so the game doesn't have to pad itself out with things like the strength quest where you go through 3 badges without accomplishing anything (except moving a rock).

Edit: The story too. Mostly because the whole orphanage sequence makes very little sense when you think about it for longer than 3 minutes, which I know Ame has mentioned.

Edit: And Corey's suicide. That desperately needs to be edited, because some "tribute" that was.

And a whole lot of tonal problems, like a bunch of people being murdered in a terrorist attack and then Julia coming in like "explosions are soooo cool!"

And most importantly, u get to ride the giant steelix. Suck it Saphira.

October 21, 2018

On Tuesday, October 02, 2018 at 9:28 AM, GGLL said:

So this is coming way out of the left field, but is anyone else really frustrated with Shofu after the latest episode Pokemon Reborn ? I went ahead to try and watch his latest video, but once I saw his comments and what everyone else says, I just gave up. His logic for why the game's story is bad and doesn't make any sense is not only baffling, it's also false and makes it apparent that he has clearly misjudged the nature of the episodes. First of all, he complains about an hour long cutscene that's supposed to explain character backstories and hint at later events near the end of the game. The point where all key exposition takes place (especially for lore heavy games like reborn and metal gear),that usually takes about 10 minutes to 1 whooping hour . Then he talks about how it's impossible to get invested with characters he practically just met because the episodes are released infrequently and that the scene shouldn't be long because no one will remember all the characters that exist, thus they can't get invested. Then he complains again saying that nothing makes sense, even though he skipped the dialogue (incorrectly, mind you, since he was pressing the A button and not the skip-the-dialogue-option X button, which should have been mentioned in the read me section before the you boot the game and would have been much faster).

There is so much wrong with everything above. Since I already gave my reason for why some of his arguments are not good, I'll move to the one that I haven't. I want to clear something up, since everyone in the comment section seems to have it all wrong, the game's "episodes" are not really episodes,at least in the sense that a game like The Walking Dead uses that term. They are only called episodes for the thematic flavor. In reality, reborn's episodes are more like demos for the real game. That's because, apart from the fact that you are not required to download all of the episodes individually for you to play through the story, each episode not only adds content that continues the story, it also changes, adds or removes elements from already existing content, that may even reach as far back as episode 1. Field effects, new event pokemon, changes to event pokemon, changes to already established battles and even to the story at some points, new game features with each passing update are all examples of this. Such a process is very similiar, if not out right the same, to the way a game goes through it's development circles, where stuff might change, things maybe added or even removed for the sake of a more polished game and a better overall experience. The game isn't meant to be played episode by episode, else we would all have to download every single one of them separately, which doesn't happen since every release gives you the full game along with the added story and gameplay content. The reason the game is released episode by episode is because :

It is much more convenient for Amethyst to release it that way since she can get better feedback about the game and make the according changes, instead of having to release the entire game, having it be full of bugs and unpolished gameplay, and then have to start from scratch to fix it, instead of doing it little by little like she does now.

Amethyst was not actually planning to make it this far. She herself has admitted that reborn had started at a whim, to test out her skills with RPGMaker and that she wasn't actually expecting to stick with it this far, hence why the game was released as an episode, namely episode 1. It is only later that she decided to turn reborn from a short-lived side project to whatever it is now. The game being released like this is a result of what Amethyst originally intended to do with it and she ended up sticking with it.

Reborn was, up until recently, supposed to line up with the newer generations of pokemon, as far as pokemon availability was concerned. Likely that meant that Amethyst may often had to hold back on release date both for the episodes and the whole game so that she could integrate the newer pokemon and mechanics into it.

In short, the game is now released part by part and not all at once, but it's not meant to be experienced like this by the time it is completed. That's why calling that part of the game in EP18 bad writing because of the game is released in episodes and they take a long time to be completed is just wrong, no matter how you slice it.

What personally gets me, though, is the fact that the developers haven't claimed that it is completed, yet Shofu still insists that it is their fault for the above reasons. This is gonna be really offensive but, newsflash, that is not the developers fault, that is your fault and your problem. If you as the player decide to start a game that you know is incomplete and doesn't seem to be even close to the end, then you run the risk of forgeting what has happened down the line between the last time you played and the next time you start from where you left of from the new release. Whether or not you will eventually remember or you decide to do your research on the events that took place is the player's, and only the player's, choice. If you don't want to do that, that is perfectly acceptable. Don't be suprised if you get lost, though, and if you do, then you have no one to blame but yourself, since it was your choice, as the player, to continue like so.

I got carried away and wrote alot so I'll try to summarise the above. Shofu's arguments are incorrect because an hour long cutscene that you can skip in an RPG isn't uncommon, he got lost and confused because he kept skipping the text (not even the right way to skip ahead), the game's episodes are more like glorified demos and it is not meant to (exclusively at least) be played release by release, especially once the final episode is released, so holding that against it is plain wrong.

Feel free to argue or correct me if I'm wrong and I'll try to respond to the best of my abilities.

I literally wrote an essay, and then had that all erased by having notification pop up on screen, so I'm just gonna abridge what wrote in a less formal way. I'm also gonna preface this by saying that I love Pokemon reborn, but it is by no stretch of the imagination a perfect game. I've got way more gripes with this game both mechanically and narratively than I can shake a stick at, but still adore it after playing for so many years.

1)Exposition dumps are really terrible, in any work of fiction.

a)they maybe character feel like they're being talked at rather than talked to. These a reason people hate that 40 minute long episode in the Fate series that's nothing talking. It's boring, and it doesn't give the main chapter the chance to have a personality in a video game. Sun/Moon does this well in contrast, and our always get the impression that the main character s an easy going and nice person rather than a camera with legs to watch other characters do awesome things, like watch someone ride a giant steelix. Granted, this is because the main character doesn't /exist/ within the RP the game is written from, so there isn't much agency or choice in the first place.

(Random Tangent: Illusion of choice exists in any media - games, books, doesn't matter. It's not a bad thing, but Reborn struggles to make things matter a lot with it.

Wanna keep everyone from getting kidnapped? Too bad, someone does anyways.

Wanna become a student in a Zen Academy? Too bad, go back to your month long quest of moving a rock. There's like no special sidequest if you say yes to Kiki about being a new student, or nothing that's tangible yet.

Spoiler

An example of this is in Detroit Become Human, where when you're playing as Markus and want to stay with Carl, you'll have to leave anyways no matter what you choose.

All these issues sort of complicated lead to other questions, like "why does your main character even want to do this?" (Which I think Ame has voiced in the past, about giving a silent character personality.)

b) reborn kinda sucks at characterization. Normally you're supposed establish ths stuff immediately (https://www.writingclasses.com/toolbox/tips-masters/kurt-vonnegut-8-basics-of-creative-writing Kurt Vonnegut is a famous author with multiple award winning books, and known for his unique style). Again, Sun/Moon does this really well. The main character gies off a friendly, easygoing vibe. Hau is friendly, but worries about his Kahuna relative. Gladion and Lilly cope with their abuse/neglect differently, and Kukui and Guzma juxtapose each other. Some might say that Pokemon doesn't cover real issues enough but then they must not have seen Po town. It's implies that because it doesn't have the same tourist appeal that it's residents live (The Skulls) in poverty, so much that even the pokemon center doesn't have power. It also implies that if you fail the island challenge, that people will stop caring about you (Guzma) and even if you finish it, it doesn't matter because you'll have to we to pay off a mortgage anyway. As someone who just graduated high school, has to move out and pay taxes, have a crap job etc, that's a huge dose of existential terror that apparently not even pokemon games are free from.

c) a glaring issue of this is what happens to Kiki's medicham. Ame assumes you are because it's her lead pokemon, but it's no developed at all, and could've all e a sword and make no difference.

d) Reborn has way too many characters. There's a reason why JRPGs limit their major characters to 7 or 5. It's easy to remember when you haven't been playing the game regularly, and keeps them memorable. Basically, I'm saying it's not Shofu's fault he can't remember 20 different characters and all their back stories, it's just that the game itself suffers from clutter. You only really interact with Kahunas/Gym Leaders for a little while and mostly cause, yknow it's not their story. It's yours.

2)I agree with you on episodic releases, but I also don't.

a) reborn is way too big to be released in one go. Maybe an indie studio with professional programmers, artists, and a good director could do it no problem, but fanprojects are a much different can of worms.

b)episodic releases suck @ss. And yeah, you're not technically incorrect, but you're not correct either. Episodic usually refers to something that is self contained and doesn't really connect with other episodes. And the fact that you can go back and play through the entire game with an update doesn't not make it the telltale variety of episodic - which really, is a fancy way for updated by chapters (which is what reborn does) cause evening you've done does carry over and the story continues.

c) Pokemon games get progressively short and have smaller more recognizable casts because they know not everyone has the time to put 200+ hours into a game like "the good ol' days" and if your like me, and have no free time, coming back to reborn after a long hiatus it can be a tall order to ask someone to remember every little plot detail and throwaway line ever written. (But sadly, I do remember, because I'm a terrible glutton for punishment I guess.)

Anyways.... There's a reason tell tale gets (got, I suppose) so much flak, and that's because it's easy to forget and completely redo essential plot details that can make it either really meh or frustrating for a player. Kenny from Walking Dead is a really good example of this, but you could argue that it's a character flaw rather than an oversight how quick he is the murder ppl that aren't his family.

c)to quote a joke "there are 99 bugs of code on the wall, 99 bugs of code, take one down patch it around and there are 394 bugs of code." A good example of this, is the game YandereSim where the dev states that every update to the game causes new bugs. Granted, Yandere is absolutely terrible at coding and even a noob like me cringes at the mess that is his code. And calling YandereSim a game is generous when it's really a con.

Also did you no gleam anything from the aftermath of that infamous metal gear cutscene? Everyone /hates/ it, and when you can have a bout of diarrhea in the middle of it, come back and have it still going it's a sign that the story need to get to the loving point.

Not to mention, that japanese story telling is really different from western story telling, which shows in a few translation issues and inconveniences. I mean, you totally /can/ have a long info dump, but that doesn't mean it's good or engaging. (Plus, it's usually really clunky and awkward if it's translated badly, leading to long sentences that use way too many words to covey a simple idea.) Especially if you can turn the volume off and starkly notice that it's literally just two 2d lips flapping. You can make this more interesting in a movie or anime with lighting and visuals, but it's harder in a game where writing is the bulk of the the narrative. And holy moly, that's a hole nother can of worms. I've been writing for nearly 6 years, and some characters still make me cry a little inside.

A good example of this translation error (literally) is actually in the game itself, and really freaking funny. There's youngster Joey that's referenced for his "top percent ratatta" except when it's referenced Ame translated this to reference strength/levels when in reality Joey is talking about having a "top breed". Basically a kid bragging, naively, about their pure bred dog.

This carries over to the main plot, in regards to Arceus (and the other legendary Pokemon which I won't name here BC I know it's gonna be a plot point). In the main games they don't actually /worhsip/ Arceus. Which is really similar to a lot of irl practices of Japan, where unlike in the West, in Japan it's more about practicing rituals and values than having "faith" in them. Really, the town only knows about it because it's "keeping with the old ways" which is a really japanese ideal when (I could be wrong) there's a lot of paranoia about globalism making traditions irrelevant. So as a result, it reads like a biblical God or Jesus/Vs Satan story (which the director of the first two Thor movies fell into as well, making them less Norse and more Christian. Which is why the third one is so much better and truer to the mythos.) So when he's saying the story has issues, he's not completely wrong, he's just touching on the wrong points.

Tldr; Reborn is a fan game with issues a studio or someone with more experience wouldn't really have made, and writing mistakes/trappings that only someone really familiar with various kinds of storytelling to spot.

Edit: Before I forget, it wouldn't be that difficult to implement a log system. Diamond/Pearl had a journal, but even then it wouldn't take much effort to put in a script that looks for flags between chapters that says "you're starting ep#, would you like to review?" because technically it's already there at the end of the eps, just only for the most recent one.

September 19, 2018

10 minutes ago, Lucky98 said:

don't know about pichu, but for mareep make sure you have pokesnax in your bag

Thanks! I guess I never knew because never ran out of pokesnax on any of my other runs, but I got both.

September 19, 2018

I'm currently replaying through the game with a mono fire team, and while I don't particularly need these pokemon I'd like to have them for completion. Normally I wouldn't post on the forums but there's no actual indication of where to go or what to do - neither are there any other posts on the subject - and was hoping someone would help.

I'd also like to note that on my mono water playthrough on e18, I got the two just fine - the same way they were obtained in the previous episodes.

Firstly, instead of being by a tree Pichu is running across rooftops. I tried changing the weather, time of day, and walking back in and out but it only really hopped between the buildings each time I did that.

Secondly, Mareep isn't in its building. I talked to its previous owner before hand, cleared out the tangrowth, changed the time of day, weather, reloaded my game etc but it's not there.

Any help would be appreciated.

September 18, 2018

13 hours ago, Lucky98 said:

I think I remember reading fully EV’d Pokémon start appearing around Kiki or Aya though I could be completely wrong about that. I haven’t EV trained any of my Pokémon and have gone through multiple runs of Reborn, so it really isn’t a requirement to beat the game

In E17, they're around 85 in all stats at that point, according to a let's player who has RPG maker that I'm following. I assume it's similar for E18.

August 20, 2018

18 minutes ago, Dan82 said:

hey guys i was wondering where i can find a lurantis/formantis?

Malchous Forest and/or Rhodochrine Jungle, if I'm remembering that correctly.

August 19, 2018

36 minutes ago, rumps said:

It seems I've been missing some TM's that are said to be in the game, if you guys know where they are I'd be super grateful. I'm missing: 7, 15, 17, and 29.

Hail is in the North Aventurine Woods, you can reach it by clearing all the spider webs and logs from the area. Hyper Beam is received by talking to the uncle in the DJ archligh quest. That's pretty much all I know, other than psychic being ep18 content. Unfortunately I don't remember how I got it, and the forums don't have an an answer either.

December 6, 2016

I think Mudkip can only be obtained when you pick your starter. May have been changed (since I'm sure you could have found Mudkip in the wasteland at some point) but since I can't access the obtainable pokemon list I'm not sure.

Edit: Yeah, so I got the list and I'm pretty sure you can't get Swampert unless you pick Mudkip as your starter, since it has the coloring for Charmander who is also only available when you pick your starter to my knowledge.

July 30, 2016

You can't get ditto until you get to seventh street, those trapped pokemon are just for a puzzle but you can get them all later if you have the shards

July 30, 2016

So I'm guessing you didn't get the growlithe... those are all the right places, but usually you talk to the chief after finding all five so if it isn't a bug then it might just be you missed the timeframe to get the growlithe because the police chief is gone around the time you get to route one if memory serves correct. I would have to check to be certain though.

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