Costume Quest Hit or Miss?

This will be very short as there really isn't much to explain here an I'm trying to pump this out for Halloween (Its Halloween right now as I'm writing this. A recent NBC video on how gamers facilitate the Alt-Right might've put me on tilt when I was trying to write this on the 30th so I put it of till now to get myself off tilt.)

The story of Costume Quest isn't much but, its enough to keep the player moving forward. You and your kid sister (or brother as you get to choose which kid you play as) are going trick or treating when you come across a real goblin raiding a house for candy. The Goblin sees your brother/sister dressed s candy and throws them over a gate to be collected and counted as candy for their leader. You go on a mission to rescue him/her since if you were to return home without your sibling you' would probably get grounded.

Costume Quest is  Halloween themed turn based RPG with the popular battle style of action commands (button prompts for attacks and defending.) Your attacks in battle depend on your costume with you start out with one and build more as the game progresses. You can also add battle stamps that can increase your stats or add extra effects in battle or even add entirely new command to your character. They're essentially the badges from Paper Mario but, you only can have one on at a time.

While nothing Costume Quest does is new or innovative the themeing and the solid gameplay hold it up and make it unique.Its short as I clocked in about 5-7 hours with breaks for one of the two campaigns. There is also a sequel with will probably be the Halloween special next year. So yes this was a hit for me. It's nothing new but, its a fun Halloween themed RPG that while not even nearly as deep as games like Paper Mario or the two recent South Park games it hits the atmosphere perfectly and is short enough to not overstay it's welcome. Costume quest is on steam here and goes on heavy discount during the Halloween sales and even comes in a bundle with the sequel..

Pokemon Johto Hit or Miss? (Part 2) Heart gold/Soul Silver

Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver are the 4th gen remakes of Pokemon Gold and Silver. They are direct remakes so the only thing that changed is the engine it runs on and the amount of Pokemon available (The original games have 19 unobtainable Pokemon out of 250 while the remakes have 42 unobtainable Pokemon out of 493.) I originally was using an Ampharos but, I ran into Raikou after getting my Masterball from Professor Elm while I was grinding on Route 45 to prepare for the Elite 4. It was pretty good timing since next  up on the training list was the Ampharos.

With that out of the way here was my team

Generation 4 is my favorite generation of Pokemon. Not only did it produce the first Pokemon game that I bought with my own money, that I earned with weeks worth of chores (Diamond) but, it also remade the Pokemon game that I spent the most time with as a kid (Gold) with the gen 4 engine and mechanics. Yeah, its nostalgia overload for me when I play this generation or generation 2. Pokemon Diamond and Gold are the two strongest pillars of my childhood playtime.

Gen 4 introduced the biggest game mechanic that pushed Pokemon into what it is today battle wise. Gen 4 introduced the physical special split. This changed how Pokemon worked entirely. Before this change all moves were put into the category of physical or special entirely based on their typing (List of typing splits found here: Physical Special.) So yes before generation 4 Fire PUNCH was a special move, meaning that the elemental punches that Hitmonchan learned used its SPECIAL ATTACK STAT not its Physical attack stat (which makes sense since they always seemed to do shit damage even when super effective.) This was generally good for most Pokemon and listing all of the examples of how many Pokemon this fixes would take a century or two but, I'll post some examples.

First, the example I already noted, the elemental punches, are now Physical moves meaning they now DON"T SUCK on Hitmonchan. Second, some Pokemon from previous gens had typings that didn't agree with their stats. For example, Gengar is a ghost poison type that was the only ghost type evolution line in gen 1 which had high speed and high special attack but, before gen 4 BOTH ghost an poison attacks were exclusively PHYSICAL ATTACKS. Meaning that Gengar's moves that could get the same type attack bonus pulled from his miserable attack stat and that his best move was psychic. Another example of these contradictory stats and types are the two water dark types that were introduced in gen 3 named Sharpedo and Crawdaunt. While both have OK special attack stats their physical attack stats are much higher but, both water and dark attacks are exclusively special before gen 4.

Pokemon Heart Gold an Soul Silver also added the pokewalker feature. Brand new copies of Heart Gold and Soul Silver came with a pokewalker (essentially a glorified step counter) that you could send your Pokemon into the pokewalker and as you walked with it in real life it gained watts to power the pokeradar and dowsing machine in the pokewalker to find items and other Pokemon that you can catch to then transfer back to your copy of Hearth Gold or soul Silver. It was a neat adition back then but, doesn't really matter nowadays and picking one up is around 50-100 bucks new.

Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver also has been the only game since Yellow to have a Pokemon walk behind you. Yellow only had Pikachu doing that but, Heart Gold and Soul Silver have you're first party member follow behind you in sprite form. It's a nice addition that hasn't returned since Heart Gold and Soul Silver probably because of how they've really been pushing the DS and 3DS line to its limit with the last couple releases but, I would like to see it return if possible at some point.

So if it wasn't obvious Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver are a MAJOR hits for me. They take what was my favorite Pokemon game (Gold/silver/Crystal) and gave it the updates that gen 4 introduced AND gives you the additional feature of walking around with your Pokemon. I give my highest recommendation to fans of RPGs to try these games as your first Pokemon game if you aren't already a fan of Pokemon and even going back to Gold/Silver/Crystal today is still worth it. One small recommendation however for Heart Gold/Soul silver, try and buy a copy instead of using emulation because, for whatever reason, ONLY Heart Gold/Soul Silver have a a lot of issues during emulation from slight graphical issues to sprite changes after transitions to the entire world going dark to crashing/deletion of save files. Heart Gold and Soul Silver go for about 60-85 bucks used online and new with a Pokewalker are around $255 or more.

Pokemon Johto Hit or Miss? (Part 1) Gold/Silver/Crystal

Gen 2 is the generation that I spent the most time in as a kid. Most of my gaming back then was playing Pokemon and gen 2 (specifically Crystal) was what most of that time was spent on. So as best as I can, I will try and remove those rose colored glasses to be as objective as possible. I once again use Emulators so i could capture Screen caps of my teams.

Pokemon Gold/Silver box art

Let's start with some mechanical changes an balance fixes that gen 2 applies to the Pokemon formula. First, the busted special stat has been split into special attack and special defense. Meaning special sweepers are no longer also special tanks. This also means that Pokemon who specialize in physical attacks are no longer super weak to special attacks by default. Second, two new types are introduced that make psychic types more balanced. Steel types resist psychic attacks and Dark types are entirely immune to psychic attacks. This plus the new damage dealing ghost move Shadow Ball nerfs psychic types from god tier status to manageable threats. These or 3 gens were the only new types ever added until gen 6 added Fairy types. Finally, as with all generations, 100 new Pokemon to take into account when building your team. As each new generation comes out and more Pokemon get introduced teams your options get more and more expansive making team building more complex.

Pokemon Crystal box art

I've played gen 2 so often that making a team for it with Pokemon I don't use often was pretty difficult but, I took the liberty of making a swift change after having already thought up my team. I originally wanted to use an Espeon as one of my special sweepers but, it wasn't until after I was in goldenrod that I remembered that the Eevee gift from Bill is only in Heartgold/SoulSilver so i had to change up my team composition. Thankfully it was early enough that I only had 2 Pokemon at that point and hadn't caught any Pokemon that I was gonna shuffle out when making the team change. My Pokemon choices didn't affect what version I was picking for the gen 2 version and I stuck with Crystal (Check out Gold/Silver version exclusives here. Crystal doesn't have exclusives and instead has some exclusives from each of gold and silver you can find which Pokemon isn't in Crystal here.)

I picked Crystal because it's the first of the third versions that keeps the starter choice and it has extra features that would latter become standard. First, Pokemon Crystal introduced the choice of being a female trainer (while not super significant it's a neat touch for those who  want to play as a she.) Second, the drop down sign signifying entering a different area. Thirdly, animated Pokemon sprites made it's first appearance in Crystal (this would become standard Emerald onwards.) Finally there were some small storyline changes regarding Suicune (The box art above shows Suicune.)

The story is your standard Pokemon fare. You travel the region on your quest to become the very best that no one ever was, collect 8 badges, beat down the underpowered Team Rocket, and defeat the Elite 4 to prove you're superiority. I could (and probably will) copy paste this to most Pokemon reviews as the story really shouldn't be why you're playing Pokemon.

The 100 new Pokemon, as usual, range from as bad as the Noctowl line to as good as the Ampharos line (my favorite evolution line from gen 2.) Some of those 100 Pokemon are include some baby Pokemon (Elekid, Magby, Smoochem, and Pichu) which are pre-evolutions to some of the gen 1 Pokemon.

I didn't make much if any mention to the Pokemon of gen 1 during it's review mostly to avoid the internet douche bags of the Pokemon community the genwunners (and yes I'm aware that just by mentioning their name I have somehow, summoned one, or a troll, to somehow find this tiny blog and call me a traitor or something else retarded.) Genwunners (for whatever reason) only believe that the original Red/Blue/Green/Yellow are masterpieces and that every other Pokemon games released afterwards are unplayable garbage. They are (obviously) massively incorrect (otherwise Pokemon wouln't be the massive franchise it is today) and should be laughed at whenever they try to pry their nonsense.

The reason these reviews have been taking as long as they have are two fold:
1. My Grandpa recently passed and that completely halted all progress on writing and playing these games.
2. Both the Gen 2 games and the remakes do something that hasn't been done since. They include the region from gen 1 (Kanto) as a post game REGION to explore complete with all of the gyms there for you to battle with revamped gym leaders.

So after conquering all 16 gyms you gain access to Mount Silver which has one final challenge the BLEW MY MIND as a kid. On the top of Mount Silver is Trainer RED. Yes the past you is now fighting the present you to see if you really are the best. It's an epic fight that even in speed running goes wrong more than it goes right. That and the revisit to Kanto was an amazing touch and still have not been bested in terms of post game content.

So with all that said here is my team for Pokemon Crystal:

There is however two small gripes I have with Gold/Silver/Crystal. They're really only problems when you've played the later games and get spoiled rotten by them but, I thought I would mention them here anyway as a sort of balance to all the praise I've been lobbing at Gold/Silver/Crystal. First, as I've mentioned before, this is before gen 4 (Diamond/Pearl/Platinum) so there is no Physical/Special split yet. Which means that all attacks of a type are either Physical or Special depending on the type (Click the links to see the lists of types that are Physical and Special.) This is slightly annoying but, can be abused to make some Pokemon better but, also inherently make some Pokemon worse. For example, Gengar is a Ghost Poison type with high speed and special attack however, both Ghost and Poison (Gengar's STAB, Same Type Attack Bonus, types) are both physical meaning that what would be Gengar's best moves, in gen 4 and beyond, in Shadow Ball and Sludge Bomb pull their damage from Gengar's garbage Physical attack stat. The other small problem is that this is before gen 5, Black/White 1 and 2, so Tms are one time use. So you have to really choose carefully which TMs you use on which Pokemon. These are again, small gripes compared to the massive amount of praise i coul sing all day for these games.

So, if I haven't been smashing you over the head with this enough, I had a great time going back and playing Gen 2 again. Nowadays, there really isn't a reason to go back and play the Gen 2 games since HeartGold and SoulSilver exist but, going back and playing these and remembering the much simpler times to a Pokemon fan, I feel at least, is well worth the majorly small issues I have with them. You can buy a Physical cartridge for the Gameboy Color or using the Gameboy player extension on a Gamecube on Amazon or ebay (prices range from around $28 to $35 for Gold or Silver and $45 to almost $60 for Crystal which has never been re-released) or on September 22 Pokemon Gold an Silver are coming to the 3DS eshop (Which will be $9.99 for either version.)

Next up will be part 2 which will cover HeartGold/SoulSilver and all of the changes there.

DLC Quest Hit or Miss?

This is gonna be a short one. Thankfully it's a breath of fresh air after writing the Pokemon gen 1 review for probably almost 24 hours for all 3 parts. But, lets not waste time and get to this cool indie title that I didn't see much buzz about when it was released and that I think is a great title that should've gotten more attention.

DLC Quest is a 2D side scrolling platformer indie title made by Going Loud studios. You are set on an epic quest to save the princess from that bad guy with the mustache. BUT, to do that you'll need to buy some DLC. Before you exit out of this and decide that the game isn't worth it if you need DLC to beat the game know that this is a satirical game. The dlc is purchased in game with coins you collect by doing the platforming.

The whole point of DLC quest is to take a satirical stab and what at the time were trends that the AAA games were starting to take hold. Cutting parts of the games off and selling them later as a separate package (sometimes even on day one which was even more of a shitty move) and pre-order bonuses. Today we expect these things but, back in 2011 (original release date on the Xbox 360) this was still a new thing and many think that DLC and pre-order culture is what made AAA titles lackluster and kept their companies greedy. This, I believe, to be correct and most games, when DLC was becoming a regular thing, either had outright bad DLC or had DLC that was not worth the price of admission.  Today, however, ... okay it's not that much better. There are still many games that come out with bad or overpriced DLC but, many games in the recent past couple years have also used DLC very effectively (Payday 2, Mass Effect 2 and 3, Outlast, and Bioshock Infinite to name a few.)

I originally played DLC quest way back in 2012 and at the time it was a small 20 minute game that was a cool jab at those trends. But, in march of 2013 DLC quest came out with a free expansion that added a second campaign to it. The Live Freemium or Die campaign is a longer more expansive campaign with a different story to it. There is a village that has been experiencing a spike in mysterious death recently and the hero must get to the bottom of it ... by buying some DLC. The Live Freemium or Die campaign has a separate set of DLC packs and has some different mechanics. While i still remembered some of the original campaign I had never played the Live Freemium or Die campaign.

It's Overall not a long game but, I think that works in it's favor. I think that because of its satirical nature making it longer than it is would end up being a detriment. It's just long enough so that it doesn't overstay its welcome. The Live Freemium or Die campaign was an excellent addition that I like more than the original campaign. So yeah, DLC quest was a great time. Its short length makes repeated playthroughs easy and with the in-game timer function speed runs and easily accessible. You can purchase DLC Quest on Xbox 360, Windows, or Mac HERE

Pokemon Kanto Hit or miss? (Part 3: The review Pokemon Fire Red)

I'm glad to report that I get to be a lot more positive for this last section of the review. While i do still love Pokemon Red/Blue/Green/Yellow their glitches and balancing problems can be exhausting to deal with. Pokemon Fire Red however fixes ALMOST EVERYTHING! Pokemon Fired Red is based of the Gen 3 (Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald) engine. This means all the glitches, bugs, and balancing problems are fixed in Fire Red/Leaf Green. This also means that Pokemon now have abilities which makes Pokemon like Weezing and Gengar better since they have levitate making them immune to ground attacks which they were previously weak to. Lastly the gen 1 special stat is Split from Gen 2 onward into Special attack and Special Defense which means that Pokemon with high special attack (like Alakazam) no longer have high defense against special attacks which fixes the balance of Psychic types. Finally, the Gen 3 engine means natures now exist. Natures are combinations of one stat getting an increase while another stat gets a decrease (ex: Modest nature decreases physical attack while increasing special attack.) This lets you either push a Pokemon's best stat higher then before or you could use it to cover up a Pokemon weaker stat.

Pokemon Fire Red also adds a new area to the Kanto region called the Sevii Islands. They are introduced after getting the volcano badge from Blaine when Bill shows up outside the gym and invites you to go with him to the islands. There is also an after Pokemon league story section that takes place in the Sevii islands that extends the game's length a tad. As a bonus after getting the national dex by obtaining 60 Pokemon in the Kanto Pokedex the Sevii islands have some Gen 2 pokemon show up (some notable examples are Heracross, Skarmory, Larvitar, and Mantine.) Finally, after doing the Sevii islands content the Elite four has a second round where they have leveled up their teams and revampingthier teams with some from the national dex (for example: Lorelei has a Piloswine from gen two instead of a Slowbro from the first League challenge.)

With all that said here was my team for Fire Red:

There really is only one small issue i have with Fire Red and Leaf Green and its an issue that has was around Pokemon until gen 4. In Gens 1 through 3 there is no Physical special split for moves. What that means is that in gens 1-3 attacks are divided into physical and special by TYPE instead of a case by case basis. This means that thunderPUNCH is a special attack because it's and electric type attack. This is really only a small complaint and it is fixed gen 4 onward. You can also take advantage of that like I did for example as you can see above. Bite is a dark type move which in gens 1-3 is a special move which is why it was on Vaporeon. It let me deal with Pokemon like Alakazam by hitting it with Vaporeon who could take psychic's from it really well.

I did sadly stop Fire Red after the first Elite four run because i had still intended to finish the reviews of Blue and Fire Red during June but as the deadline crept closer I realized that there was no way that it was going to happen. Hopefully all there of the parts together got my point across. I really love Gen 1 but, its bugs and balancing problems take a bit of either getting used to or research to abuse yourself do lower its enjoyment for me and make it hard to recommend to anyone that isn't a Pokemon fan. The remakes however I FULLY recommend to any RPG fan who thinks the premise of gathering a team of monsters to battle for you sounds interesting or fun. Even if not I'd still encourage you give Fire Red a try at least to see if you like them. After all you never really know until you try. Pokemon Blue can be bought on the 3DS E-Store or as a GB cartridge (It'll cost you a lot though) and Fire red is only available as a GBA cartridge (it can be expensive depending on where you find it.)

Pokemon Kanto Hit or Miss? (Part 2: The review Pokemon Blue)

Pokemon Gen 1 has its fair share of problems however (specifically the original releases of Red, Green, and Blue.) There were numerous glitches and overall balance problems that can hinder your enjoyment or (if you take advantage of them) can lead to a better experience.

Since there are too many to mention the graphic

< there is a compilation of some of the glitches and bugs in gen 1.

Additionally, the Psychic type is immensely overpowered for a few reasons. First off in gen 1 there were very few good bug types (really only Pinsir and Scyther.) Secondly, the only Ghost types in gen 1 were the Gengar line which are also part poison which is weak to psychic. Thirdly, there were no good bug or ghost type attacks that do damage (the best bug attack is a toss-up between twineedle and pin missile and the ONLY damaging Ghost move is lick because Night shade deals fixed damage based on level.) Fourthly, in gen 1 the pokemon's offensive and defensive stats are divided differently. Pokemon attacks can be either physical or special which pull offensive power from either a pokemon's physical or special attack respectively and take damage based of that pokemon's physical or special defense. In gen 1 however, there was no special defense stat instead there was a special stat that was BOTH special attack and special defense so, psychic pokemon (who specialize in special attacks) had high special attack and defense. Finally, (and this is something that i didn't even know until researching this) there is a glitch in the game where Ghost type damaging attacks(which to be fair is only Lick), that are supposed to be super effective, DO NOT effect Psychic types. This was so bad that Gen 2 had to introduce two new types (Dark and Steel) that would check Psychic types and make them more balanced.

So with all that in mind here was my team of champions:

From first hand experience I can now say the psychic types are overpowered as fuck. Scryfish came to the rescue multiple times when another one of the party fell and could tank hits like no other pokemon on the team could. 

As a Pokemon fan going back to gen 1 to relive the roots of the franchise was super fun and gave me a lot of nostalgia moments of when first playing gen 1 back when it released. I do however recognize that a rpg fan jumping into Pokemon Red, Blue, or Green with no prior knowledge would probably have a generally miserable time as the glitches and general failing of balancing could just turn off general rpg fanatics.

So I've been generally pretty mixed here mentioning a lot of negatives and a couple of positives and that generally sums up my feelings on Pokemon Red/Green/Blue. While I still love them as Pokemon games because of how thankful I am to them for introducing me to video games I do recognize that the games has aged really poorly and has many flaws to the point where i would only recommend them IF AND ONLY IF you are a fan of Pokemon and want to see how the franchise began. Otherwise i would strongly recommend that instead of Red/Gren/Blue you play Fire Red or Leaf Green instead as your first Pokemon game.

Since there really isn't much story to all of the games outside of just going on a Pokemon journey and occasionally getting stopped by team rocket its not much of a draw. To me the draw of Pokemon is trying different compositions of Pokemon  teams to see which combination work well together and which don't. This is why I play so much Pokemon. Because of how many Pokemon there are that leads to so many different team compositions that even 20 years after release this is the first time I've used a Starmie in a playthorugh of a Pokemon game.

Even though these games have aged really poorly, I'm sure this won't be the last time I play gen 1 of Pokemon. Even through all of the glitches and broken balancing I had a really good time reliving gen 1.