Cyphre

Considering multiple Crescents, they might work like with local timelines, the weaker one gets absorbed and thats it. Well, we are the interceptor, and on every playthrough we kinda do different things, so she probably cant know what are WE gonna do, and the same is with the time boss. This is why she is reluctant to change much and is looking for a way to actually save us. But yeah, i dont have much to go on, except the Crescent room.

Not sure why you all just started thinking about her as motherly, i've never had this idea nor even indulged in that thought process. My post here was about her operating beyond the laws of a singular universe, going beyond timelines and being able to cross over versions of the game. What are you even talking about.

So, i've been thinking that as weird for quite some time now, since the v11 release moment, but now, when v12 is actually coming, i've decided to share my thoughts. There is one thing that striked me as particularly odd and unusual in the episode, and this was the Crescent room. Why did she have protagonists portraits that dont even exist anymore? How an in-game character could have this knowledge? Is it just a nod to the previous versions of the game or something much more? Well, i believe it IS much more. I have a theory that every version of the game thus far was an alternate universe, in which Crescent failed to accomplish her mission, which is still unknown, but is heavily implied that she wants to save either MC, or the children spirits or whatever that resides in him from the repetition of their fate. So while Madame X seems like a being that acts in accordance to the laws of the universe and can jump the timelines, it seems that Crescent got the power to travel the metaverse to an extent, probably going on equal with the being that controls Spacea and Tiempa. And yes, i do believe those 2 are also as limited to Madame X, being able to jump the timelines and known universe, but not going beyond. So in the end, i think there are at least 3 characters at this point that definetly have this power to go beyond the timelines. Time duo boss, Crescent, and The Interceptor, i.e. us, the player. I question the extent of the Puppet Master limits, but thinking this over, so far i think he knows about Metaverse travelling (will call it that for now) but knows he is confined to this reality, much like Sans knew about it in Undertale, but couldnt do much about it (just a good well known example). But hey, it's just a theory. Just an interesting thought, so please discuss.

Lets not get crazy with "git gud" comments, depending on the team used by the player until that moment, Crawli can easily be THE strongest rejuvenation gym leader. He is definetly in top3 people usually refer to as utterly broken, for good reason too, since there is an absolutely ludicrous amount of shit that tilts the fight in his favor. To the topic starter, however, you most likely used the single team for everything up until this point, which is fine, but Rejuvenation kinda discourage this sometimes, and to be fair, you can kinda-sorta train different pokemons fairly fast with Audino trainers and training centers. Take a break, think what can be done with this, maybe train a few additional members to specifically counter the things that plagues your existense. Sometimes its a matter of 1-2 pokemon entirely cockblocking your win, and you can pass by this by just cockblocking the cockblocker. If you absolutely cant win no matter what, post your team here, we will try to help.

Im fairly sure that besides what Myrrh said it's just an interesting tidbit or worldbuilding.

Im fairly sure V is Volta, dont think its even up to debate. However Risa probably also connected to Bladestar in some way. We will see.

I didnt watch it yet, but keep your chin up~ You can kick its ass next time. Would be pretty cool to see it on stream actually~ As a suggestion, maybe you could comment on what's going on? Would add a lot of personality to it. Dont feel obligated, just a thought.

I think it looks awesome, but... to be honest, i also think it does not fit Crawli's image nor his mindset. Those are just my thoughts and by no means i want to sound negative for the heck of it. First of all, Crawli by himself is a gentle person, he values life and kindness, and even if he can stand up and fight when needed, he is timid. The "After" sprites make him look cocky, aggressive, disregarding of his values. Second, the bug catching net is straight up bad for him, imo. When he fell down and was helped by insect pokemon, Crawli established them as his friends, as something equal to him. The net kinda points at the inferiority of the insects, at the fact that Crawli is not their comrade, but they are his tools. While i think technically sprites are fantastic, i personally think his old image fits him much more and the "After" one completely misses the character.

You can add any pokemon with a mod pack, the thread nearby. Instructions also there. I personally used it to add Vulpix to my starter team and change IV and EV a bit to not breed stuff for 700 hours.

I think there are different approaches to names. There is stuff like Ace Attorney, which makes punny names all the way, like the police pair Pat and Rola - patroller, basically. Its memorable and get some laughs, but its for comedic stuff mostly. There is a meaningful way, like Xenosaga does, for example, with Nigredo, Albedo and Rubedo, the parts of the alchemic transmutation process, which is appreciated and deep, but for that games need to have a solid theme its trying to unveil and follow it up. Then there is just something you find fitting and memorable, because "if it fits, it sits", which i think is this scenario and most adventure and fantasy games. Names like Venam, for example. Her rebellious teen spirit made her reject her original name, make up a nickname and it stuck to her. (i actually think in her arc in the end she will be okay with her mother calling her Veronica, since she appreciate her mother in her life. I hope this will be the case). We understand how it came to be, it has a history to it, its memorable. The other example is Melia and Marianette. Its the mystery behind them and their connection to each other that just makes it stuck in the head and so much more memorable. Then there is stuff like Crawli, which might refer to his crawling, while searching for bugs, crawling through life despite being blind, ir maybe even to esoteric legend that is Alistair Crowli. And there are laughably shoehorned named like Amber, CAUSE FIRE YO DAUG, which just add to the charm in my opinion. My point is there are many ways to make character names very memorable and fitting, and whether intentional or not, props to Jan and co for that, for i am able to associate Rejuv names with thing and find meaning behind them. So i personally think none of the names should have been changed and jan knows what he is doing. (well maybe not, but it still works)

Well, since you covered all the types with that team, its more up to preference, really. When you are out of ideas, get a Dragon. Nothing is cooler than a dragon. Altaria is a fun birb-tank to use, Noivern is a very fun glass cannon. Dragalge is a great nuke. If dragons are not to your fancy, i feel like you can benefit from Dark or Ice type. Destiny bond Frosslass would fit pretty well on any team, since it can shut one pokemon no matter what. Alolan Ninetales is my favorite pokemon period, self-setup Aurora Veil is god-tier. Hell, you can try to use Glaceon for fun. I like Glaceon. Zoroark is just a very fun guy to use in any situation. Also special Eelektross is a thing, elec type without a ground weakness. Viable option as well.

Since Reborn is closing to an end, and Rejuvenation now also took form and it's plot now going somewhere, i thought it could be interesting to compare those 2 games that are so similar, but so different. The games that, in my personal opinion, raised the bar for the Pokemon fan games and official releases definetly can take a lot from them (though they never will). I personally replayed both of them more times than i care to admit and there are 20-something years of playing games and JRPG's almost every day behind me, so i thought to share my opinion, just as something to read and discuss or maybe for devs to even take note. I will try to be as spoiler-free as i can, but obviously, SPOILERS. 1) The story and it's pacing. This is the first thing that kinda differentiate those games from all the rest, so i would like to focus on it first. Now, Reborn story is pretty strong on it's own, but it does have it's weaknesses. In short, In Reborn we are just a trainer, that arrived in a new region to kick ass and call names, but is quickly stuck in the vortex of events bigger than him, leading to a confrontation with an evil team. It introduces new conflicts and characters very organically, they almost never feel forced into the story (*cough* Luna), however the gym battles mostly felt a bit forced, since it's our primary goal, and everything regarding Team Meteor and Arceus cult is just a side trip for our character. Thankfully, the story flow and all the intrigue about all the events during the course of the story mask the barebones general plot structure really well. One other thing, Reborn feels very "fragmented" story-wise, if that makes sense, like it got those clear arcs, that start and end in a certain area with certain characters, that just can be gone for ages. The few choices that are in Reborn, like with Taka or ZEL or even in the cages, where you are forced to fight your friends, feel meaningful and made by your own will. Comparing this to Rejuvenation, it's protagonist stakes are much more personal, be it revenge, desire to know the truth of the events, or what is actually happening there. For out protagonist gathering badges is something that happens naturally during the course of events, and the story is driven by itself without a badge-crutch. Rejuvenation also considerably improved the pacing and traversing the region feels incredibly smooth, you are moving along with the story in a true flow without many stops, in every place you go a lot of events happen, characters appear and reappear and all make an impact on the story. However Rejuvenation, in my opinion, got 2 problems from the storytelling perspective. First one is time travel. Stories with time travel very rarely work, and this one is not an exception, the concept alone creates so many plotholes you cannot count and creates more questions the game can answer, also making it the cheapest plot device. Second one is that the much bigger focus on the story actually makes the main protagonist much less important, like you are not in control of events. Most of the time you only watch things unfold as a spectator, or because someone else doing something and you are tagging along. In contrast, Reborn's protag is what drives the events and make things happen. This is a very close one, however i pick Rejuvenation as a winner since it got much cleaner structure, much better eventing and flow of the story, also a better overall purpose and a direction. 2) The characters Hoo boy, now this is a tough one. Supportive cast and rivals and evil team are pretty amazing in both games, i would argue even the best part of both games. The Reborn rivals, Cain, Fern and Victoria are all great. We got a humorous troubled dude who swings both ways, an absolute flaming asshole and a kind and strong girl, torn up by her responsibilities. All of them influence the story and protagonist in major ways and push them in the moments of need. Gym leaders each have their continuing story arcs, fleshed out personalities and feel absolutely alive, the writing of their dialogue is absolutely the best. Ciel and Samson banter, mysterious fourth-wall-breaking Radomus, troubles of Amaria and Titania, all of the leaders are fantastic. All of them. Only when it comes to the evil team things fall apart, because while Team Meteor's admin doing great job and even more or less destroyed the city, ZEL, Taka and Solaris are all well written admins, however so far Lin is absolute garbage as a big bad villain. She just appears out of nowhere for no reason, appears to be sorta omnipotent and act as edgy as a character can. So far there was basically no build up, no connection to her, no nothing. Rejuvenation's characters are incredibly strong in it's own right, and while Reborn finds it's foundation in separate characters, Rejuvenation combines all of the main characters into one acting main group, which reshuffles it's roster from time to time during the course of the events. It keeps the characters interacting with each others, constantly opening new sides of them, which opens entire new dimensions of them. Leaders are probably the best out of any pokemon game period, well woven into the story and the events, all of them are compelling characters, playing their own role in the events. Shoutout to Kenneth, probably my favorite leader. The evil (?) Team Xen is a much better overall villain, however in this case situation is exactly backwards. Madame X is a fantastic leader, mysterious, strong, willful, having great interactions with heroes, giving us a heroes to both hate her and not hate her. I like all of the admins, Zetta, Geara, Neved, Anastasia, and Madelis, however all of the feel like they are playing second banana, it's clear that they all have their own agenda, stories to tell and reasons to be there, but after 1-2 confrontations they dissapear for tens of hours, in fact, for the second half of the game (GDC) they just pass the torch to the Bladestar, that dont even have memorable admins so far. While maybe it's not exactly fair to judge them while the game is still unfinished, in 100+ hours of playtime they could play a little bigger role in confrontations. In fact, i have to make it a draw here. Both games have similar strenghts and shortcomings, but the characters in both are phenomenal nonetheless. 3) Dungeons Now, let me explain. There are clear potions of the pure gameplay in both Reborn and Rejuv, be those ruins, mountains, caves, deserts, forests, e.t.c. Since those often take a lot of time, they deserve comparison too. This is, in my opinion, THE single biggest Reborn weakness. In it, those dungeons are nothing but those - dungeons. A huge open spaces with wild pokemon, some puzzles and nothing interesting happening. The subway is not fun, the forest is not fun, the desert is ASS even with repels, the mountains are ass, the dark valley with luna is not fun, e.t.c. They dont offer anything interesting or compelling and most often dont have any story significance at all, and worst of all, they overstay their welcome by a huge margin. They are not without their own benefits, like smart puzzles and clever usage of certain pokemon abilities to traverse certain dungeons, but overall the design is just bad. Rejuvenation deals with that so much better. Every dungeon you encounter is a place of some event, very major or not, and even some of the least eventful were greatly updated, like the additional dialogue in the water cave. Every route and dungeon keeps the story going, creating new events, giving new stuff and impressions, and even dreaded Valor mountain is great. it feels like this huge challenge you worked SO HARD for, and it basically serves as a final dungeon of a disc 1, if you know what i mean. It got this sense of finality of the current conflict, that makes you push forward no matter what. The other good point is they dont overstay their welcome and keep them relatively short and refreshing. Rejuvenation destroys Reborn in this department without any chances of comeback. 4) Difficulty Now, this is part of why we love Reborn and Rejuv, the battles are actually challenging and brutal. Reborn kick you in the balls and then spits on you. The gym leaders are prime difficulty spikes because of their fields, and can feel unfair at times. Especially in double battles, where enemy teams designed for this one double fight with you, instead of being an all-rounder pokemon setup. Overall it greatly challenges the player, forcing them to git gud and think of ways to change the field of counter the main enemy strategy. Honestly, it's great. There are some fights that can feel infuriating if you are not adequately prepared, like the Meteor assault on Amaria house, and partner AI is a dumbass. Rejuvenation is very similar in terms of difficulty and field effects, highly recommend playing it on Intense for better experience, but Rejuvenation feels much more forgiving with the Audino trainers. It always have some useful pokemon against the next leader next to him, and you can easily level up pokemons you need, and basically change the strategy on the fly. While it is much more forgiving, the challenge even on Intense also feels softened, because your strategy options are bigger and more easily accessible. This is just my personal opinion, but i actually do prefer it the way Reborn does it. Zero lube, no preparations, and i find it more challenging overall because of the pokemon placement. Close one. 5) Additional content Reborn is pretty dry with it so far, to be honest. There are some hidden pokemon here and there, very good sidequests you can encounter, and that's about it. Every extra dungeon you complete is just rare pokemon or a mega stone. Rejuvenation, on the other hand, handled it perfectly. Zygarde cells, help centers with obvious sidequests and more hidden sidequests along the road, a huge amount of extra events that enhances the world, unique gimmicky dungeons like the timed passage. This is exactly how you do it, good job, Jan and co. Without any contest, Rejuvenation annihilates Reborn in that department. Now, all of this for me show sme one thing: Rejuvenation improved over it's predecessor in almost every way. Does it make Reborn bad? Hell no, it's bloody brilliant, but at this point, comparing it to Jan work, it might feel barebones and empty from time to time. I feel like despite it's few shortcomings, Rejuvenation might be the current golden standart for any pokemon fan game. Now, my personal suggestions for both games. Reborn: 1) Fix the dungeons. Make them shorter but more filled with content and events. 2) Give characters more interconnectivity. With some exceptions, characters are in a vacuum and rarely interact with other than their someone important. 3) Give personal stakes to the protagonist 4) Actually write Lin into the story, dont make it Lin-ex-machina Rejuvenation: 1) Give protagonist more choices, more influence over the game events. We are the Interceptor, dammit. 2) More focus to the Xen admins and give us Bladestar admins. 3) Let time travel be just a side point for the plot, dont make everything spin around it 4) More small events with some characters that received very little attention would be appreciated, for example bonding with Amber (which i think is coming, since she is trying to tell us something for like 2 episodes, but oh so slowly) or actually talking to Saki and Erick. Just you know, would be nice to have a heart-to-heart with them and know them better. The board is kinda quiet before the new episode, so i thought to liven up place a bit and discuss. All i've said is just my personal opinion.

Not much, just a bit of interesting changed dialogue as far as we know.

Yeah, but if you have searched for items you have enough revives and if you are catching anything at all you 100% have something with Protect/Detect, what i mean is the amount of actual preparation specifically for this fight is fairly miniscule.

Not a lot, just get a 1 level sturdy pokemon and like 15 potions. Still kinda funny how level 100 Yveltal gets rect by a level 1 Geodude.

Yeah, as much as i like Desolation, it would be nice to see some clarity on the matter. I will be perfectly fine if he cannot continue, but i think we as fans have the right to know at least.

I personally ass blasted him with my Rhyperior on the swap. Sylveon phys def is not impressive to say the least, so even buffed its not a huge problem.

Yeah, i've been playing Intense for a few versions, and singles are not so bad at all, however Double battles can be an absolute torture and a Resetfest. They are clearly designed for one and one only battle, while your team clearly was prepared for a variety of situations, not for VGC doubles. One of the hardest walls i see on the forums is usually Spirit Keta, because he's got fully evolved team at level 25, while you cant really counter him with much, and pokemon variety is still not the best. I kinda wish Doubles would be more tolerable, but other than them i feel like Intense mode is exactly that - intense, and it is in much better place now.

I think it would be nice to have different pokemon for the Casino at this point, to be honest. Especially now, when you can find all of them and they are pretty common. They can all be for 9000 coins or more, or, if it's possible, maybe every player can have a pool of pokemon that can be in the casino corner, much like the Mystery Egg. Would add a bit more unique to the teams.

I mean, no offense to your work, but the document structures stuff better and is more coherent and available to everyone without a need to search for it on forums. I just honestly dont see, why this need to exist.

For Donphan you can get Budew in Gearen Park, and with some effort and walking make it into Roselia, her Giga Drain (on 25) usually can deal with him on regular basis without breaking a sweat. For Gallade, Flying or Fairy are equally viable for it. For the Pokemon, Natu -> Xatu from the Amethys cave works pretty well, although i think his Gallade have a rock move, not sure. You can also catch Dedenne on route 2, which is Electric-Fairy and can help you deal with both. Another way is to cripple Gallade in any way: Nuzzle on Pachirisu or Dedenne is a guaranteed paralisys, which lowers his speed and he can skip turns entirely. You can also burn him, which is equally effective and lowers his phys attack, or even poison. As for Lapras, for me Nuzzle + Force Palm from Meditite with Pure Power ability worked. You can even get him to level 28 with Rare Candy, i think you can find 3 at this point, and get him a High Jump Kick for annihilating power. There are other options of course, you can find a pokemon with a buff, cripple someone less threatening and setup on him.

Which ones are the most problematic?