[Struggeling Today...]

@CodeCass You're more than welcome.

[Struggeling Today...]

I've been through your situation as well; I've also been sick with fever for the past two days and during that time, I was miserable and had no energy to do anything due to a high temperature and a bad stomach. The medication I was taking, while helpful in the long run, didn't make it any better since I was constantly weary from it. All I wanted was for those days to end and a better day to begin.

 

Sickness and taking medication to heal it, does disrupt one's daily routine and mentality which can be aggravating because all the things one planned for a particular day must be pushed back to another.

 

There is no shame in being miserable from sickness; its normal to have mood swings from it.

 

As for how I cope with sickness, I stay at home to rest while looking ahead, believing that the next day will be better, as someone once told me "Time heals all wounds". Take as long as you need to heal up, there is no rush.

 

When it comes to the Reborn community, although I haven't been here for long, they are quite a close-knit group who look out for one another and make your contributions or messages worthwhile; something I rarely see in other communities.

 

 

 

 

[Accelgor or Escavalier?]

I also prefer Escavalier; it has a great typing and I enjoy the fact that its arms are jousting lances and it has a complimentary coloring with its majority of grey and red armor blending well its blue and yellow body underneath. Accelgor has a cooler design its with ninja theme and the way it crosses its arms makes it look like a pissed off ninja, but its coloring clashes. So I'd pick Escavalier since it has a more well rounded design.

[Have the fan-games exceeded the official games?]

When it comes to story, then yes, Pokemon fan games such as Pokemon Desolation, Pokemon Legends of the Arena, Pokemon Postcriptum Fated Epistle and Pokemon Reborn (despite it being considered by many to be "edgy") have far better stories overall than the core series; the only core series game with a competent story enough that can be viewed as good is Pokemon Black and White.

 

As for gameplay, Pokemon Reborn is one of the few fan games that have taken full advantage of the Pokemon battling formula and pushed it to its limits.

 

Overall, Pokemon fan games are more suited for veteran players of the franchise when it comes to story and gameplay since they push the Pokemon formula much further than the core series. Of course, I'm not discrediting the core series since they still have charm to them; buying a new Pokemon game and traveling around to catch and train new Pokemon in a new innovative region doesn't get old; there are also fan games out there that are far from good. If the core series actually took advantage of its battling formula, Pokemon Reborn wouldn't exist. In all, I guess both the core series and fan games have this love-hate relationship that co-exist side by side; the core series giving out new mechanics for the battling formula and new story ideas with the fan games making better use of them.

[Phoenix Rising Discussion]

I've finished playing up to the end of the demo which wasn't very long; It took me round about 4-5 hours to finish it.

 

The graphics that got people into this fan game in the first place does live up to its expectations; admittedly, they are excellent including the Pokemon sprites and trainer sprites which are clean and crisp as well as some cool animations in the overworld.

 

Strangely enough, the graphics were not the aspect that caught my eye; If there is one aspect Phoenix Rising excels at is having a flexible, customizable interface (i.e, menu and battle interface). In battle, there are items that are automated and can be selected by the touch of a key such as when your Pokemon is poisoned and you have a Pecha Berry, a key will show up and allow you to press it if you want to heal your Pokemon of poison, or if you want to capture a Pokemon a key will always be there, so you don't have to select the Bag and go into it every time when you want to use an item. Speaking of catching Pokemon, you can choose whether you want to keep it in your party or send it to the Box. This level of interface is something I haven't seen in other fan games, so I'll give the developers credit in their understanding of user interfaces.

 

The dialogue is fine; everything has some form of interesting quirk it wants to say, making exploring worthwhile and as for the story...its nice, I guess? The story is a traditional adventure similar to the first Pokemon game (Red and Blue) going around the Hawthorne Region where the player does quests in towns and villages while slowly learning about the region's history. I can't exactly say much in terms of the story since this demo is just setting it up. However, what I can say is that you have control and choice over your adventure during the story; you can choose to keep your Pokemon in their Poke Balls or let them walk around with you. During quests, you can choose to help the bad guys or choose to report something to either of two parties, or you could even do some of the quests in whatever order you want. As for the characters...they are also nice, but somewhat lackluster.

 

I've never liked hype; Its this psychological train of thought that raises your expectations but when they are not met, you are left disappointed. I usually go into anything with zero expectations so that I don't disappoint myself. Phoenix Rising does somewhat live up to its hype but at the same time it doesn't; apparently, it took 6-9 years for this demo to finally be released and I don't believe it will be worth waiting another 6-9 years for the second demo (then again, who am I to complain since I was waiting for the latest Legends of the Arena demo to be released).

 

So currently overall, Pokemon Phoenix Rising is a pure, elegant and traditional fan game where you have control over your adventure throughout the Hawthorne Region despite its short length (in the current demo) and, while seemingly promising, short chunk of story and characters. Its worth playing and recommending to play through for the completely customizable interface and having control over your adventure, even though its story and characters is nothing to write home about and you'll end up wanting them to have more meat on their bones.

[Phoenix Rising Discussion]

So the legendary Pokemon Phoenix Rising is finally descending after, apparently, nine years of development...hopefully the hype doesn't end up with a community like Insurgence. As for whether I'll play it...well, I have exams next week but I could use one of my breaks to play it for a short while...as long as the servers don't overload when I'm about to download.

[What got y'all started?]

I have been a Pokemon fan since its inception, all the way back with Pokemon Red and the Original Series of the Pokemon anime...ever since then, the fire never died down.

[Who do you think deserves an evolution in future?]

Dunsparce definitely is the top candidate for an evolution; has been the laughing stock of the Pokemon world for generations.

 

Lapras is perfectly fine the way it is; I don't see any way to make a Lapras evolution design as iconic as it is.

 

It would have be interesting to see a Solrock and Lunatone evolution...too bad this didn't happen in Pokemon Sun and Moon; wasted opportunity -_-

 

Audino doesn't need an evolution since it has a Mega Evolution.

 

As for the Generation VII Pokemon, its too early for them to get evolutions.

 

 

 

 

[Misconceptions]

Effort Values, Individual Values and Breeding. At one time, I always thought IVs and EVs didn't mean anything and they were purely numbers, until I started losing competitive battles in Pokemon Black and White. As for breeding, I didn't think it served its actual purpose; I thought it was just a mini game that determined if Pokemon were simply friends, friends with "benefits" or in love that decided to leave their kid behind so that the player character wouldn't get lonely while they went on their honeymoon.

[Favorite not so popular pokemon]

Druddigon...Its design is so misshapen along with its misuse of color that I find to be appealing. I guess its bad design sticks out like a sore thumb to me.