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Chronische
Aug 7, 2012

U.T. Raptor posted:

For reasons I've never understood, the actual monster capturing is usually awful in monster-capturing games, and Pokemon is probably the one that does it the best out of all of them. There's much less RNG involved, it's not a once-per-battle chance, there's no tedious minigames involved, etc.

Dragon Quest Monsters Joker had a pretty good capture system, and one that made it easier for the first example of that species you go after too. That said, I wish it had a more detailed elemental weakness/resistance than simply having abilities that make you resist it or not.

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Cardiovorax
Jun 5, 2011

I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.
Shin Megami Tensei's demon negotiations are pretty fun. In Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon, they even make for a pretty good method to stock up on rare materials or to resupply in a mission, if you know what you're doing.

It's not that they're always bad, it's just that the average mon game is made for children and making it too complex would really be counterproductive.

OgretailFood
Oct 9, 2012

Recommended by 10 out of 10 Aragami

I love World of Final Fantasy but catching monsters can be awful if you don't know FF stuff, like giving an elixir to Magic Jar to get a capture chance, or your party lacks someone with aero or something that inflicts a status ailment. Doesn't help that capture is still RNG.

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

Cardiovorax posted:

Shin Megami Tensei's demon negotiations are pretty fun. In Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon, they even make for a pretty good method to stock up on rare materials or to resupply in a mission, if you know what you're doing.

It's not that they're always bad, it's just that the average mon game is made for children and making it too complex would really be counterproductive.

yeah, and I love how RK vs KA that you can trigger special conversations depending on what demons you have have out (Pavarti and Shiva for example would cause the non-party pair to leave since they don't wanna fight each other, angels tend to heal each other etc)

Cardiovorax
Jun 5, 2011

I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

Robindaybird posted:

yeah, and I love how RK vs KA that you can trigger special conversations depending on what demons you have have out (Pavarti and Shiva for example would cause the non-party pair to leave since they don't wanna fight each other, angels tend to heal each other etc)
Yeah, it's really great. The first Raidou Kuzunoha game was distinctly mediocre, but I genuinely think that King Abaddon is one of the best SMT games ever made. It's everything that made its predecessor good with none of the things that made it bad, plus plenty of good stuff extra. If anyone here loves SMT games or PS2 action-RPGs, you owe it to yourself to play that one. It really is that good.

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

yeah, they were trying to find their feet in the first game, and unfortunately the mechanics make certain boss fights completely luck-based - there's one that spams charm. Status effects paraylze Raidou, while it procs normally on demons, so that boss you can end up with Raidou stunlocked while the boss and his own demon wails on him until he's dead.

Thankfully second game tighten the mechanics and don't throw you against a boss where you can get completely get shut down like that.

Cardiovorax
Jun 5, 2011

I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.
I managed to kill the Red Fiend (for those who haven't gotten there, you'll know what I mean when you see it) one time on sheer pattern recognition and dodging skill - about 20 to 30 hours before you're actually supposed to do so. The game is literally just that fair.

It really doesn't get any better than that.

DoubleNegative
Jan 27, 2010

The most virtuous child in the entire world.


Hello everyone and welcome back! When last we left off, Audrey had kickstarted the apocalypse by having Lugia flood the world. We should probably put a stop to that.



Yeah, she's kind of a dick.



Talking to Anastasia was a mini point of no return for Kepler City. We're "locked" into finishing this bit of story before we can enter any of the houses. The pokecenter is open, at least.



Despite Kepler City presumably being a flat area, some parts of it are flooded and require surf to navigate. :shrug:

ultimate goal.





Translation: Anastasia is a coward who is afraid of a little water, and so it's up to us to take care of business.



Pfft. Okay that's actually pretty funny. It's just Kepler City that has flooding problems. Indeed, the whole rest of the world is fine as far as I can tell. This upcoming bit is a bastard if you're unprepared, so I'll take whatever small mercies I can get.



You know, while making portraits for this update, I looked into this. The "surf" sprite in the "characters" folder is perfectly fine so there is zero reason that the Lapras should be turning into a half naked lady.



There's some pokemon wandering around down here, like Carvanha, Relicanth, and Wailmer. You can also get into random battles in the kelp tiles.



It's pretty neat, but there's not much to see.



Southeast of where we dove down, there's a little cave. (As an aside... dove? dived? This page says they're both correct, so who knows!)



This looks like the spot...





Hint hint! Remember something Damian gave us before Nora decided to scream at him.





Transforming into other people has to be the weirdest feeling. I can't imagine suddenly being 2 feet taller and in an entirely different body.









Just generic cultists, so skipping their intros. I do like that the game frames these battles as practice between cultists instead of normal high stakes matches.

I do not like that there's no source of healing down here. There's no ready access to Chanseys or stolen pokecenter devices. So if you need to heal, it's either items or a very long backtrack.



Even better, it's a goddamned teleport maze. My first time, I spent close to an hour trying to mentally map the place out, and I never did succeed. There's like 8 rooms and a bunch of teleports going back and forth between them.

This time I just followed the walkthrough on the wiki because gently caress that. Taking the East teleporter here.











Going in the teleporter behind Amy. The northeastern one.



This is as close to a hub room as you're going to get.







Pictured: Your average Abyssal Cultist.



South teleporter this time.







Audrey is just to the north of us here, but only she can pass through the purple barriers. You can probably see where this is going.









Back into the pool room, and this time we're going east.







What, you mean using a diverse team to cover weaknesses, and not going all in on an easily exploited theme?



Only one teleporter past this person.



Go north again from here.



Green barrier means scientists!





No battles in here. This would make a pretty nice recovery point, but sadly no dice.







You remember that red computer back in the scientist DNA room? Yeah, this goes to that. So let's return there...









Uh... sure.



Back to the pond again, and now we're going back west.



And again.









Only one unused teleporter here, so north we go!



Gross.



There's something over there, not sure what though. Looks like a copy of Audrey's clothes? :psyduck:



Those are Audrey's clothes, by the way. So now we can go all over the base!





Snitch.





Back in the red computer room, we can finally progress past the Audrey barrier. Most everyone in the base has special dialogue for Audrey-Amy, but :effort:





According to the wiki, there's Sharpedonite in here somewhere, but we can't actually access it until the postgame because Pokemon Insurgence.



Oh good, Kyogre is here.

: ... ... ...Did you know that 97% of the ocean is unexplored? It covers the majority of the planet, and we barely know anything about it. We know more about the moon than the seas on Earth. What kind of awesome pokemon could exist down there?



: About thirty years ago, when Kyogre was first summoned by Team Aqua, the weather went wild. Tons of things were raised from the depths of the ocean. Most of it was unimportant. Bottles, shoes, maybe a few gems or peals...



: A squid that looked similar to Tentacruel, but with vastly higher stats.

Gonna be honest, if I comment on every mention of stats in this game we'd be here forever.



: A pokemon with stats that rivaled legendaries... and further research shows that there are hundreds and hundreds more. Of course, this was kept hush-hush. It would be awful if everyone knew what creatures the oceans held. Everyone would be trying to catch these monstrosities, and with good reason.

as they are in it.

: Do you know why we're after Kyogre? It's incredibly powerful, and with a Blue Orb, it becomes one of the strongest pokemon in the world. But do you know where its true talent lies?



: That's not an honorary title. Kyogre is the king in the most literal way. I'm not sure how, but it has the power to control and command the creatures of the sea. Sure, having Kyogre would be great. But having an entire army of deep-sea pokemon, all with the strength of legendaries... We would be undefeatable.



: With the surface flooded, my army will be stronger than ever. Kyogre is slowly calling forth the first of my beasts from the ocean even deeper than where we are.



: I couldn't start until today. Not until I had a power source strong enough to power both Kyogre and Lugia. But now I have a shard of the very same crystal that once powered the Augur.



: My life, my child, and more.







Showing this again because it's the very last time we'll ever see it. I've cut it out of all the others, but it's shown up before every fight with the Abyssal Cult. This is the final battle against Audrey, so it seems only fitting to show it one last time.





Yes, that's a loving Primal Kyogre. It's the reason I wanted to use Poliwrath/Politoed. Origin pulse loving hurts and being healed by its hardest hitting ability would have gone a long way to helping out. But it also has a perfect accuracy Thunder...





Snorflax gets ready to lay down some hurt. Lanturn wastes its turn by paralyzing an already slow pokemon.



I also realized that Leftovers doesn't stack with Ingrain. So once I find the move tutor for Giga Drain, I'm teaching Snorflax that instead.



Lanturn decides it's a capital idea to use Volt Switch against a pokemon that resists thunder. Sure...?



Ludicolo gets sent out into a waiting full-power Wood Hammer.



I didn't pay close enough attention to what her Alakazam knows. So I sent Dracolich out against one of the strongest pokemon in the series that knows an extremely powerful move that hits Dracolich for supereffective damage.



It's faster, and hit Dracolich for more than half its max HP. So he goes down on the second turn.



Ahem finishes the job, but he takes a supereffective Focus Blast on the chin for his efforts.



Mega Crawdaunt is back, and Knock Off finishes off Snorflax.



It don't matter how strong Mega Crawdaunt thinks it is, HenryDavid is stronger.



One hit KO!





Generator is my best chance to resist Primal Kyogre.



This little effect in particular makes Thunder that much more dangerous to stuff that doesn't outright resist it.



Water is neutral to Steel/Electric, and so the only reason Generator survived Origin Pulse was its Sturdy ability.



Thank you 30% paralyze chance on Discharge!



Discharge KOs Kyogre before it can run roughshod over the rest of my team. The fight is finally over... just gotta make it official.



Soft Serve can take care of Lanturn and Kingdra both.



Audrey just damned her Kingdra. Volt Switch would be a little more annoying if my team didn't resist its damage.



Kingdra was dragged out to face down a 4x supereffective Freeze Dry. It went down before it could even react.



And then Lanturn follows suit because it doesn't have any other meat shields to run and hide behind.





: It doesn't matter, though. I can see the water stirring already. My army will soon rise. And then, Amy, and then...



The screen shakes.

: What on earth was that?







Oh wonderful. Malde has arrived.

: W-who are you? How did you get in here?
: Your Alakazam fainted. The barriers are gone.

Malde doesn't have a proper battle sprite despite being a principal antagonist. So I had to make do with his field sprite instead.

: Who are yo... wait a second. Aren't you that man from Sonata Hills? The Leader's father? I guess your treatment didn't go well.
: You couldn't be more wrong. I feel better than ever. I've been improved. Empowered.



: I extend to you the same offer, Audrey. Forget this ocean army... join me. All I ask in return is that crystal.
: All you ask is... Are you insane? You want me to release the only thing keeping Kyogre in check? I don't know how you got down here, but you better turn your weird tentacle-covered tail around and leave.
: It wasn't me that wanted you to join.
: What? What are you on about?
: I want to help heal the world. You want to rule it. Our goals differ. You would not be of help to me.



: Things are revealed. You remember things that were... suppressed.







gently caress.

: Damian...? You mean...?





Damian took a step forward. Audrey took a step back.

: ...you're all grown up now. You're like him. You're one of them. What happened to you?



: This is what he wants. Just give him the crystal.
: But... why would you want that?
: The crystal is a power source for pokemon. And we're just as much pokemon as human, now.













Kyogre body slams her into the ocean...



And then body slams her into the ocean.



: Mom...
: You did the right thing, Damian. Everyone thought you were going to snap... But you're going to help me heal the world.







: That's horrifying. It's appropriate, but still. That's seriously incredible, Amy.



: You're the first person since the First Augur to pull that off.



: ...I heard about your friend. If whatever's affecting Malde is affecting him too, then I promise we'll find a way to help him. I've been doing some research into the pokerus virus. I'll tell Nora about it, and we'll work on finding a solution together.



: The decisions he's making... they aren't his. Don't do anything rash, ok? I'll leave you here, I have a Gym to run. And from what I hear, you have one to visit! Anastasia should be ready for you in Kepler!

friend again.





: One down. The Mistress will be most pleased. The shards will return to us.





NEXT TIME: Gym #5

DariusLikewise
Oct 4, 2008

You wore that on Halloween?
The stats.... are... so... greatttttt

Kikas
Oct 30, 2012
Holy gently caress Damian :stonk:

Dallbun
Apr 21, 2010
You could have just said "... but vastly stronger" or whatever. Why "higher stats?" Why do you do this thing, Insurgence?

Also, this plot is all over the place, but I'm looking forward to seeing what Mr. Megaman Villain's deal is.

SirSamVimes
Jul 21, 2008

~* Challenge *~


Y'know that's a pretty solid supervillain plan. Especially when she's not even the principal antagonist.

Jen X
Sep 29, 2014

To bring light to the darkness, whether that darkness be ignorance, injustice, apathy, or stagnation.
The deoxys people are so, so dumb, and I think it’s in a bad way

There were so many routes to take with a super-similar plot, but them growing pokeparts because of the exp virus was not one of the good ones

Blueberry Pancakes
Aug 18, 2012

Jack in!! MegaMan, Execute!

SirSamVimes posted:

Y'know that's a pretty solid supervillain plan. Especially when she's not even the principal antagonist.

Yeah, I was gonna say.

Too bad she's loving dead. :v:

Kitfox88
Aug 21, 2007

Anybody lose their glasses?
You think that Deoxys wanted to be a pokemon? No pokemon makes it a thousand miles through Torren! No, you don't understand! That Deoxys wanted to be US!


So do they just like, walk in or warp or show up from above or what? I'm confused how they got into the base. I also think I'm alone in this being dumb as poo poo in an enjoyable way still, although Damien basically murdering his own mom after suddenly being Converted To The Cult Of Dumb Plot Devices was dark in the dumb edgy way.

hopeandjoy
Nov 28, 2014



Kitfox88 posted:

You think that Deoxys wanted to be a pokemon? No pokemon makes it a thousand miles through Torren! No, you don't understand! That Deoxys wanted to be US!


So do they just like, walk in or warp or show up from above or what? I'm confused how they got into the base. I also think I'm alone in this being dumb as poo poo in an enjoyable way still, although Damien basically murdering his own mom after suddenly being Converted To The Cult Of Dumb Plot Devices was dark in the dumb edgy way.

No, this is still enjoyably dumb in that "baby's first Pokemon fanfic they wrote at age 13" way.

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



So... Johm Carpenter's The Pokething?

Radio Free Kobold
Aug 11, 2012

"Federal regulations mandate that at least 30% of our content must promote Reptilian or Draconic culture. This is DJ Scratch N' Sniff with the latest mermaid screeching on KBLD..."




Jesus christ :stonk:

Haifisch
Nov 13, 2010

Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!



Taco Defender

Oh boy, I can't wait for what dumb plot Giratina Guy's angling for. :shepface:

At least there's a chance they're running with the mirror/Reverse world thing instead of "GIRATINA IS POKE-SATAN :byodood:"?

ChrisBTY
Mar 29, 2012

this glorious monument

Audrey's "I wanna use Kyogre to command an army of eldrich Deep-Sea abominations" is better than the plans of most mainline Pokemon Teams.
She just explained it in the worst way possible.
Of course if you tell the player in a mainline Pokemon game that there are a bunch of deep-sea pokemon nobody's seen before they'll want to encounter/capture them.

LiefKatano
Aug 31, 2018

I swear, by my sword and capote, that I will once again prove victorious!!
I mean, poo poo, I want to encounter/capture them anyways. Sign me up.

DoubleNegative
Jan 27, 2010

The most virtuous child in the entire world.

Kitfox88 posted:

So do they just like, walk in or warp or show up from above or what? I'm confused how they got into the base. I also think I'm alone in this being dumb as poo poo in an enjoyable way still, although Damien basically murdering his own mom after suddenly being Converted To The Cult Of Dumb Plot Devices was dark in the dumb edgy way.

Malde and Damian both walked in from below, the same way that Amy approached. I think it's implied they both have whatever powers Deoxys has, so they can probably survive a quick trip underwater no problem. Audrey, however, got bodied by a leviathan pokemon out of a moon pool and into the deep ocean. So yeah, she's probably dead as poo poo.

BlackPersona
Oct 21, 2012


...Huh. When did Damien get Deoxys'd again? I'm legitimately forgetting when that happened.

...Also how does Audrey exit stage left in the mode where no one dies, or whatever?

MightyPretenders
Feb 21, 2014

BlackPersona posted:

...Huh. When did Damien get Deoxys'd again? I'm legitimately forgetting when that happened.

...Also how does Audrey exit stage left in the mode where no one dies, or whatever?

Offscreen. This is the big reveal of it. So the entire scene, you're thinking "Oh crap, so that's how Damien becomes a villain! I thought the Deoxys guy was just going to be another minor subplot."

MightyPretenders fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Dec 20, 2018

kw0134
Apr 19, 2003

I buy feet pics🍆

Manufactured drama? Pointless death? Complete reversal of personality/motivation at the drop of a hat? I think I hit fanfic bingo just now.

Radio Free Kobold
Aug 11, 2012

"Federal regulations mandate that at least 30% of our content must promote Reptilian or Draconic culture. This is DJ Scratch N' Sniff with the latest mermaid screeching on KBLD..."




I'm pretty disappointed that Damian got geek'd. I was hoping it'd be the other, more dickish girl who goes turncoat in a fit of paranoia.

Randalor
Sep 4, 2011



But Damien hasn't joined the Infernal Cult (yet) though, has he? I thought it was the Perfection Cult that Deoxyfied the old man.

FoolyCharged
Oct 11, 2012

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Somebody call for an ant?

He hasn't joined a cult at all, he's been possessed by a monster and turned into a freakish abomination against his will. To the best of my knowledge, mutant buddies here are free agents of evil.

Blueberry Pancakes
Aug 18, 2012

Jack in!! MegaMan, Execute!

MightyPretenders posted:

Offscreen. This is the big reveal of it. So the entire scene, you're thinking "Oh crap, so that's how Damien becomes a villain! I thought the Deoxys guy was just going to be another minor subplot."

I blame Nora.

Kitfox88
Aug 21, 2007

Anybody lose their glasses?

hopeandjoy posted:

No, this is still enjoyably dumb in that "baby's first Pokemon fanfic they wrote at age 13" way.

I mean, I'm mostly on board other than the whole DAMIEN'S HER KID part, but I should have suspected it since they both had the same hair color. :v:

DoubleNegative posted:

Malde and Damian both walked in from below, the same way that Amy approached. I think it's implied they both have whatever powers Deoxys has, so they can probably survive a quick trip underwater no problem. Audrey, however, got bodied by a leviathan pokemon out of a moon pool and into the deep ocean. So yeah, she's probably dead as poo poo.

No body no proof they're dead, I'm familiar with anime.

limeicebreakers
May 1, 2017

Randalor posted:

Johm Magikarpenter's The Pokething

Verant
Oct 20, 2012

Go on an adventure ordained by fate?
-->Okay.
-->Eh.
Huh, so Malde went from screeching zombie to maniacal sorta-kinda cult leader -slash- zombie in the space of, what, 2 updates or so?

Kitfox88
Aug 21, 2007

Anybody lose their glasses?

:prepop:

Nissin Cup Nudist
Sep 3, 2011

Sleep with one eye open

We're off to Gritty Gritty land




Some kid who just wanted to be loved selling his soul for PokePowers. I can buy that, I guess


And killing off the crazy cult leader who wants to rule the world, more protags should do that

BlazeEmblem
Jun 8, 2013

Uh oh. Do I use Ariadne thread or Goho-M?

I actually like the twist that Damian is her son.



This game keeps dumping on Damian and I keep feeling sad about it. He's a nice guy that doesn't deserve everything that keeps happening to him.

Snipee
Mar 27, 2010

BlazeEmblem posted:

I actually like the twist that Damian is her son.

This game keeps dumping on Damian and I keep feeling sad about it. He's a nice guy that doesn't deserve everything that keeps happening to him.

Same although I’m not thrilled about the Pokémon human hybrids.

Draxion
Jun 9, 2013




Verant posted:

Huh, so Malde went from screeching zombie to maniacal sorta-kinda cult leader -slash- zombie in the space of, what, 2 updates or so?

Sure. I mean he probably just got used to it. Or the deoxys virus took over his brain since then, either works.

Kikas
Oct 30, 2012
I just imagine this as a Venom/Carnage type deal, suddenly youre infused with something but after the initial shock you discover that it starts talking to you and pushes your mind closer and closer to a very directed insanity.

Black Robe
Sep 12, 2017

Generic Magic User


Disappointed that Audrey was killed off, the idea that the Hoenn fuckery dragged up some new awesome pants-shittingly terrifying stuff from the deep oceans is actually really cool. Because deep ocean wildlife is awesome and pants-shittingly terrifying and we've got no idea what most of it is and there are still places we haven't explored yet. I'd like to see another game explore that slightly more seriously. (But only slightly because I'm still enjoying the goofiness.)

I think for the big Damian reveal to work he'd have had to be missing for longer than this and we'd need to have been told that Malde's doing stuff offscreen. Last time we saw him he was a gibbering mindless freak, and less than half an hour later he's a sinister slightly alien antagonist who's warped our friend. It's too sudden a jump, too quickly. If we'd seen or heard about him gradually becoming more villain like and had time to worry about what that meant for Damian it would have had more of an impact.

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TheKirbs
Feb 16, 2018

True reality is on this side of the screen

Does Audrey still die explicitly in the non-edgey mode?

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