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.