#Marked Shiny Dex
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MASTERPOST
@harmonytre (She/It) here! I've enjoyed shiny hunting for a long time and want to try something special. A shiny living dex, of marked pokemon! The challenge will be streamed over on Twitch and edited videos will be added to Youtube. And the audience can gain PRIZES!
CHECK OUT THE CURRENT HUNT HERE!
How will this work?
I am searching for only personality marked shinies (not including the Uncommon Mark). I have both the shiny and mark charm, but currently only have Scarlet (and Sword). The hunts will include forms and gender differences.
The hunt will be randomly decided between: pokedex order, randomized pokemon line, hunt of my choice, and hunt of YOUR choice (recommend in the askbox).
I will make a post announcing who I am hunting and how. It is likely guesses will need to be in hours/minutes/seconds. You can guess on either the post or the discord. (Note: the discord is my art discord, but it's okay if you join only for the shiny channels.)
Below are the prizes:
CLOSEST GUESS (phase): YOU get to name the pokemon for the future giveaway
CLOSEST GUESS (target): 1 illustration of you with the newly caught pokemon (will be featured on the video)+ 1 shaded fullbody commission of your choice
SPOT-ON GUESS: a shaded commission of a full team of pokemon and trainer (or a commission of similar value)
Have fun!!
Tag system
#MSLD Hunt: Hunt announcements and where the guesses go.
#MSLD Stream: Live Twitch announcements.
#MSLD Prize: Finished prizes.
#MSLD Video: Finished videos in the series.
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sooo just curious but what happens when you reach the 100% mark and make coords of every existing mon?
So for starters that meter doesn't measure my progress for Megas so I'm not as close to the finish line as it may suggest.
But that being said I have thought about this and have a few options for continuing the blog:
1) I start focusing on shinies (I do have a dex started on the same website calculating how many shinies I have done and it is far less)
2) I focus on pokemon trainers/Important NPCs (I have a few trainers designed already)
3) If I finish the first 2 (which is unlikely considering new pokemon games are bound to come out) I'll make coords invocative of elemental types or regions.
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Also I completed all 3 dexes.
If you're wondering the rewards for each
Paldea: Shiny Charm
Kitakami: Shard Charm- increases tera shards earned through raids
Mark Charm: increases the likelihood of encountering a Pokémon with a special mark
Also if you complete the BB dex you'll get a Master Ball
Out of the three of these I'd say the Shiny charm is easily the best, with Mark next. Kitakami was probably the easiest to complete due to a lot of overlap with Paldea.
Was any of this worth it?... well, I did it, at any rate.
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my scarlet/violet to do list as of right now in no particular order
- permanently save walking wake/iron leaves raids on another switch profile
- finish catching the snacksworth legendaries (already have the treats, just haven’t caught any other than glastrier)
- do all the coach battles and trades for the rewards and shiny blitzle
- beat scarlet AND violet all the way thru again for some spare legends in premiers for my dex and stuff
- finish my destiny mark jangmo o hunt… i know my bday ended a while ago but i still want it
- i really want to hunt shiny sprigatito... :sob: i was gonna wait for premiers but that might be years...
- start building a reg F team for regionals (i reaaally want to use serperior)
- catch all the titan mark guys in the main game that i literally just forgot to catch prior
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Can you do Dunsparce please? Can't believe you haven't gotten any requests for the best tsuchinoko baby yet!
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Dunsparce is, objectively, perfectly designed. The tsuchinoko is not even known for being particularly striking looking as far as I'm aware, but the way they handled the colors and markings here are perfect.
First, the shape of it is just really nice. The way the tiny wings branch off the shape of the head, which then help contain the stripes on the back, which are then paralleled by the drill lines on the tail, work perfectly to draw the eye through the design, and give it some excellent flow.
The colors also help with this. The blue and yellow have good contrast, both in terms of brightness and in terms of hue. I've found that using a color on the jaw/underbelly to separate the jaw always looks good, and Dunsparce is no exception. Then you have the eyes, which have blue rings around them to compensate for a lack of color in the actual eyes. Finally, you have the stripes on the back, which help to balance and pull through the colors. It's good stuff.
Aside from all that, I also really like the face here. It's not only distinctive and well-balanced (like how the eyes sit perfectly in the dip created by the underside of the jaw), but it also gives it such a gentle expression. It just looks so calm and chill I can't help but want to give this lad some chin scratches.
My only complaint here, which has nothing to do with the design itself, is that it really could use an evo. Single-stage Pokemon work best when the Pokemon has a gimmick or a crazy concept; something to really make it stand out. While Dunsparce is a charming lad, it tends to slip from people's mind because it doesn't really do all that much, even though it has potential to.
I see a lot of fan designs try to turn it into Magikarp 2.0, but I would prefer a design that keeps the mellow vibe and round tsuchinoko body. Maybe something that's just bigger around, longer, and with bigger wings and different markings; make it part flying-type, seeing as the 'dex mentions it used to be able to fly but the wings are mostly vestigial nowadays:
Another possibility would be to add poison-typing, seeing as the tsuchinoko is said to be extremely venomous in some texts; or perhaps ground, seeing as it burrows.
So overall, Dunsparce has a great design and a lovely sweet personality to match it. It just needs to be able to do a little more to make it stand out; hopefully Gen 9 will be the one to give our favorite tsuchinoko some love.
Also, Dunsparce has a very pretty shiny. This has nothing to do with anything, I just wanted to mention that.
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2024 Games: Pokemon Scarlet
This is certainly a weird game for me to look at. This wasn't a game I went into with much of any negative bias, unlike Sword, where I skipped it due to the negativity surrounding the game at the time, I did actually buy Scarlet on day 1. But I didn't get too far into it before falling off because of other stuff. So I ended up sitting on it for over a year until now as I needed to complete the game to get the ribbons and marks needed to complete my Ribbon Master Quest. And what I got from it was one of the strangest games I've played yet one I've enjoyed a lot. This is gonna be another really long read so keep that in mind.
So when I initially picked up the game I didn't so that much in terms of Game progression. What I did do however, beyond the basic intro stuff leading up to the school, was at the very start of the game when I saw a Riolu at the edge of a cliff and was like "hey I wanna catch that" but I couldn't get over because I didn't have Korraidon yet. But my experience with Legends Arceus kicked in and came the thought of trying to throw a ball to initiate a battle from the other side of the cliff. Turns out this idea got me way more than I bargained for because doing this warped me to the other side of the gap, letting me break out of the area I was supposed to be and explore the whole region before ever entering the school. I shit you not by the time I was done I had almost half the pokedex and a lvl 40 Skeledirge. It was incredibly funny ngl.
But after that when I eventually got back on track I basically just did the remaining intro stuff until you were set free to explore. At which point I wasn't really feeling it, so I put the game down. DLC flew by, stuff happened and it all led up to a couple weeks ago when I had to pick it up again to complete my Ribbon Masters. I initially didn't really vibe with the game. My first day back playing it was basically just me wandering aimlessly, avoiding the main objectives because I wanted to put together a more substantial team beyond Skeledirge and Tinkatuff and I also just wasn't really feeling any of the mons I had in the box. I also do tend to make a conscious effort to use team members I haven’t used before, but a lot of more interesting stuff available in Paldea were mons I had used before. I think it's a combination of this, almost the entire dex being available to you from the outset if you really want it and me being slightly overwhelmed by that that led to this feeling.
This train of thought hilariously led me to awakening and actually catching Chien fucking Pao with no badges, though I never actually ended up using it due to not beating all the gyms first so it was disobedient til near the end of the game.
This first session ultimately ended when I went to take on Great Tusk and subsequently capturing it. I opted to do the Teal Mask DLC from here, this is where the game started to pick up for me. It was a whole new area to explore, tons of new mons to find and use and a nice little side story to get invested in. By the time I was done I was way happier with the team I was using, including a random full odds shiny, so that was awesome.
The Teal Mask was also where the story really started to click with me I think. SV story is very much a character focused one, with the plots mainly being centered around how the player character helps and interacts with the other characters around them. And to complement that, SV probably has one of the best main casts of human characters in the series. Teal Mask brings in Carmine and Kieran who I both really like. Kieran needs Indigo Disk to be fully discussed but most of Carmine's character is here.
I really like her, she has a really good character design and her character arc, while short, is compelling. She goes from someone who is, almost xenophobic for lack of a better term to someone who grows far more accepting as she helps you recover the masks from the Lousy Three. She's hard on Kieran, in a way that I feel like she regrets as they drifted apart on Indigo Disk, but she does care about him. She does also have a bit of smug bastard energy that I do enjoy when it's done right.
Teal Mask also has... H e r
I'm gonna be real here, I think Ogerpon is genuinely the best legendary we've gotten in general, which is saying a lot in a generation that knocks it out of the park in that regard. Her design is simple but adorable, she has one of my favourite stories of any legendary, not just her backstory but also how she bonds with you and how that plays into Kieran's arc, and her gimmick with the masks is incredibly fun to use in a playthrough. Especially so if you play like me with a rotating team of more than 6, Ogerpon can slot in anywhere with how you can change her type to fill any holes you might have in terms of types.
I think Kitakami was really what I needed to get myself in gear and get back into the game. When I got back to the main game, the path I was inclined to follow most was the Titan path with Arven. This was partially for practical reasons as that's how you upgrade Koraidon, but also because of Arven.
I think Arven's story is amazing. He starts out as kind of a dick, pawning Koraidon off on you and wanting nothing to do with it. But you come to learn this is more from frustration towards his mom, feeling like she cared more about it and her research in Area Zero than him growing up. And also because she's given him basically no help with his current goal, healing his partner Mabosstiff. In a series that focuses on all these grand adventures, which this game definitely still has mind you, Arven is incredibly down to earth. At the end of the day he's just a guy who wants to help his sick dog, which is incredibly relatable.
To get a little personal here, I've basically spent my whole life around dogs. We've had plenty across my family growing up. Of course, most of them passed away as I grew up. They were treated well, it's just how it goes. But it does suck, seeing them grow old as their health deteriorates. So I completely understand Arven going so far to help Mabosstiff doing literally everything he can to help save him. And at the very end, when you get the last Herba Mystica, Arven takes a breather. He seems almost resigned, with motions that feel like he's saying he's done all he can do, and now he can only wait and let whatever happens happen.
There are very few things in anything that make me very emotional, but seeing Mabosstiff get up and bring his pokeball to Arven, and Arven being so overjoyed seeing him healthy again, genuinely gets me a little teary eyed. It's genuinely one of the sweetest scenes in all of pokemon. I think the titans path is also helped overall by having the most ties to the final story, it leading into the reason we go down to Area Zero to begin with, thereby giving it an edge in importance over the other two paths.
Speaking of the other two paths, I think they're also pretty solid.
I actually ended up liking Team Star a bit more than I expected. I like that ultimately they just boil diwn to friend group who found solidarity in each other. But they went too far and were too stubborn to back down, because they don't feel like the school did anything to fix their issues. So Penny has to have you step in to dismantle the whole thing so they don't seriously harm their futures. It's a neat story honestly. Not sure how I feel about their postgame side story. It's neat helping them get back on track with things, I think my main issue is that some of them are hard to recognise. Like Mela and especially Eri look like completely different people. One thing I do really like about Team Star though is all their music is canon and composed by Giacomo. It's genuinely really cool. Especially imagining him just going off when he made Penny's one.
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The gym path was probably my least favourite of the three paths. It's not bad by any means, it's just the typical song and dance we've come to expect from pokemon at this point. I do enjoy most of the gym leaders, they're fun with plenty of personality. Iono and Larry were personal highlights for me. My issue is that I think the gym path highlights a notable issue with how the game doesn’t really lean into it's open world structure very well. Despite a major selling point being you can do the badges in any order, there still is a set order to do them with the levels they're at. While I think it's a good idea for the start of the game, with some badges being objectively easier than others, I feel like this structure would benefit a lot by having weaker gyms scale up to match where you are if you beat a later badge first. Say you beat Larry first. You could then have Katy, Brassius, Iono, and Kofu scale up in levels to match whoever would be fighting next, so you don't just steamroll everything below the gym you beat.
The real highlightof the gym path is unquestionably Nemona. I think she's a really interesting take on the typical rival in pokemon. Instead of going on the same journey as you, she's already become a champion. She is a savant in terms of battling and she worked hard to get to that point, it's like a hyperfixation for her. But she's reached a point where she's far beyond any of her peers and it leaves her almost alienated from them cause no one else is as into battling as her. It's an interesting way to take the phrase "It's lonely at the top".
That's of course where you come in. She follows you on your journey, starting fresh with a new team, even intentionally picking the starter weak to yours for an extra challenge, I love how they actually have a reason for it this time. All the while along the way she helps you to get stronger offering advice in the gyms and helping you keep sharp in battles. All so that you can become a worthy challenge for her. And when you do beat her at the end when she's not holding back, she's ecstatic because she finally has a true equal, or potentially even a new level of strength for her to work towards. It's a genuinely really cool way to handle the rival here. My one gripe is that I don't think we ever see what Nemona's original team was. Maybe she used Orthworm and Dudunsparce as she only uses them in her final fight when she isn't holding back, but everything else is from the team she trained along the way.
Then there's the final story, and the true ending of the game. Where as the other stories were focused on your friends, The Way Home is Koraidon's story. It's in the name, as the story has you delving into Area Zero, the place Koraidon came from in the first place.
Area Zero is easily a standout location in the game. It has an absolutely perfect vibe. It has this pure, untouched feel, not just as if no one has been there in a long time, it feels like somewhere people are outright not supposed to be. And the music conveys this feeling absolutely perfectly. It's especially great because it's motif is heard in other places like Tera Raid dens, and later it's subtle part of the Terrarium themes in Blueberry Academy and the Crystal Pool in Kitakami.
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The vibe of the track, especially the vocal parts, give it a similar feel to stuff from the Xeno series. It's so perfect.
I think it's really interesting to me how Sada, basically the closest thing to a main antagonist this game has, is already dead when you arrive, and has been for some time. But you need to fight through to her machine to shut it down and prevent more Paradox pokemon from coming to the present. It's a pretty simple plot held up by how the characters experience Area Zero itself. All of this culminates in the final fight against Sada's AI. It's a really neat fight that is genuinely difficult. In no small part because she uses exclusively Paradoxes, many of which you could literally have never encountered at this point, giving you an unknown element to contend with. The battle concludes with you taking down her Koraidon with the pokemon you've bonded with throughout the entire game, the one pokemon not affected by Sada's pokeball lock due to technically being owned by her, your own Koraidon, who got you this far to begin with. It's a genuinely great moment as Koraidon overcomes it's fear and takes down it's counterpart who drove it from Area Zero to begin with.
This concludes the main plot, with an Ed Sheeran Jumpscare for some reason, but the story does continue in the Indigo Disk where you become a transfer student for Blueberry Academy. Blueberry is an absolutely fantastic location. The Terrarium is really cool area to mess around in, with tons of new pokemon to find and use, the blueberry Quests are a great addition too. On paper they seem like busy work, but they're so easy to passively complete with solid rewards that they make for a good thing to do in between objectives in the Terrarium. Which really helps for the other main draw of Indigo Disk, the League Club.
I think the League Club is a super underrated part of the DLC. There's a bunch of stuff to do with it by customising the room itself, developing the Item Printer, a great addition in itself, and upgrading the biomes in the Terrarium, letting you get all the starters from Gen 1 - 8, genuinely really cool. The best part of the League Club though is all the character interactions. Initially you'll only meet the BB League E4 in there. But as you play through you'll get the ability to invite basically every notable character in the game there and eventually Carmine and Kieran will appear there too. It's great for fleshing out their characters, and also facilitates special interactions between characters who wouldn't get the chance to meet otherwise.
I love all the little Easter Eggs and references in this DLC too. There's the League Club rooms, specifically monochrome and futuristic, being massive call backs to Unova, each of the biomes being references to old locations like The cliff biome referencing the Nature Preserve, The Savannah Biome references the Kanto Safari Zone, and the Coastal Biome explicitly references Alola. Idk if the Polar Biome references anything, maybe Mt Lanakila? And the Meloetta event? Which requires you to open the camera app with the sepia filter? An amazing call back to the guy from Castelia who remembered Meloetta's Relic Song in Sepia Colored Memories.
And now I get to the story of Indigo Disk. Just as the main game did with Nemona, the DLC went a really interesting direction with the rival trope. You first meet Kieran in Kitakami and while things start out well, your encounter with Ogerpon puts a rift between you and him. He always had an affinity with the Ogre and wanted to meet it for so long, and when he finally meets her, Ogerpon doesn't trust him, despite hearing about her story and admiring it his whole life, she favors you. All the while everyone around him seeks to exclude him by hiding the truth about Ogerpon's story. Even when he goes the extra mile and reveals the true story to the village, leading them to finally accept her after decades, potentially centuries of them rejecting her and her former partner, she still favors you, leading you to fight him for who gets Ogerpon, which you do eventually win.
This kind of breaks Kieran, feeling like you took his place in his story. And in the time between then and Indigo Disk, he kind of goes off the wall a little. dedicating everything to becoming stronger all just to beat you, even becoming Champion of the BB League in the process. But in turn he starts lording over the other members, kicking out anyone he deems too weak despite how arbitrary that might be. This man is literally going insane, twitching about and smiling like a maniac. Part of it is just an act but it's hard to say how in his own head he is.
And when you do eventually fight him, he has an absolutely busted team even including competitive monsters like Incineroar and Grimmsnarl. Yet despite that it's a team that fits him so perfectly. I love when they delve into characters with the details behind their teams, like N using new pokemon from the surrounding area each time you fight him or Ghetsis Hydreigon knowing Frustration and actively hurting itself with every attack. Kieran's team is absolutely perfect in this regard. Every one of his pokemon says something about him all the while putting up one hell of a fight. That's another thing, I genuinely love that that this DLC actually puts up a challenge. BB Academy is called this elite battle school and the trainers sell that idea very well. Every trainer actually uses held items and have actual strats for the most part. The bosses actually have full teams of 6 which is shockingly rare when you're not looking at Champions for some reason.
Once you take down Kieran he and Carmine accompany you to the deepest depths of Area Zero to help Briar search for Terapagos. The under depths are also a fantastic location atmosphere wise and probably the best visual treat the game has to offer. Kieran's encounter with Terapagos is genuinely great, how it's just this tiny little guy that goes up to you because it's the first thing it sees. But Kieran's in such a bad headspace as it is, and after what happened with Ogerpon the very notion that he'd lose another legendary to you causes him to freak out so hard that he immediately Master Ball's Terapagos, which was genuinely fantastically foreshadowed by a Master Ball being the prize for champions in the BB League.
The Terapagos fight is neat enough, very funny that it can outright cheat to kill Carmine's Sinistcha and Kieran finally jumping in to help is great. Terapagos as a legendary is interesting in it's inspiration. It's possibly based on Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island tortoise of the galapagos islands. Much like George, Terapagos is seemingly the last of it's kind and despite internally having a 50/50 gender ratio, the Terapagos in the underdepths is always male. Honestly it's wild that a pokemon that can just casually manipulate time and become the source of terastalization used to be a regular species of pokemon.
That being said it's also very vague about what it and the terastal phenonmenon are supposed to be. It can time travel to some extent which is definitively shown with the secret scene at the crystal pool, but also there's all the weirdness with the paradox mons. Some seem to be genuine ancestors to present mons like Roaring Moon but also stuff like Brute Bonnet which just make no sense to have existed millions of years ago. I also find it strange this same phenomenon allows for pokemon to channel different types which is a kind of random pair of traits for terastalization tbh.
Speaking of, the Stellar Type. It's weird. Defensively you basically don't change at all bar gaining a weakness to Stellar Type moves, all three of them. Offensively however, you gain a power boost for every move type, 2x for the users' regular types and 1.2x for everything else, but unless the user is in a Tera Raid or is Terapagos, it only gets that boost once per type per battle. It's kind of underwhelming for something that is supposed to be using every type at once, and feels weirdly outclassed by normal terastalization in most situations.
Once you beat Terapagos, there are two major things available to do afterward. The first is the aforementioned Crystal Pool event, which has Terapagos bring Sada back in time.As a result of her conversation with you, you become inadvertently responsible for Koraidon's name, giving her the white book that led her to the underdepths in the first place and with the right dialogue options, you give her the idea for the AI, effectively making the entire game one giant bootstrap paradox. I think it is actually a pretty neat idea honestly. And it fits pretty well with all the paradoxes in the game already.
Then of course there's the secret third dlc chapter, Mochi Mayhem.
Mochi Mayem is pretty interesting though I have mixed feelings on it. It's a special third DLC focusing on Pecharunt who is the Mythical Pokemon for Gen 9. What I like is that it seems to be a return to form for mythical pokemon in game. After three whole generations of mythicals just being handed to you by a pokemon center guy, Pecharunt actually has a proper event in game that has you catch it yourself. Mochi Madness is also far more elaborate than any of the previous mythical events having a whole extra story that nicely ties up the main game, Ogerpon and Kieran storylines. It's a fun little story that gives us some great interactions between the characters. On that front it's especially nice to see Kieran and to a lesser extent Carmine interact with the main game trio after the two groups being cleanly seperate for the game before now. While I do enjoy all of this, I do have two notable issues with it.
1: Pecharunt
Now I like Pecharunt. It's essentially the trio master for the loyal three, their equivalent of Arceus or Regigigas for comparison. I think it has a neat design and story but here's the issue with that. None of it's story was in the game. Instead Pecharunt's backstory was revealed in a short animation uploaded to pokemon's YouTube. This video revealed Pecharunt was under the care of an old couple who loved it dearly, but, wanting more of their affection, it fed them it's binding Mochi to secure that for itself. But in turn, Pecharunt's possessive nature turned the couple into the worst versions of themselves, making them greedy and seemingly only having Pecharunt around because it would bring them what they wanted. Turning what seemed like genuine care into something far more superficial. This is what sent Pecharunt to Kitakami to take Ogerpon's masks, and we know how that turned out.
It's not that this is a bad story, quite the opposite honestly it's a pretty good one that explores how despite Pecharunt having a lot going for it, with a loving family and comfortable home, it's own toxic traits ended up leaving all that a shadow of what it was. But it all comes back to that one issue that it isn't in the game itself. Now look, I'm a Mega Man fan, I'm more than familiar with important or beneficial information or stories being tucked away in external sources, many of which are far more obscure and inaccessible than a YouTube video. But I do wish they included at least part of this somewhere in the game itself. As it is Pecharunt basically has no story presence beyond being the present threat for the story at hand and being the master of the Loyal Three, a logical assumption with its music and use of the toxic chains.
The other issue however is not actually to do with the the story itself but rather how it's accessed.
2: Mystery Gift
The most common and understandable criticism of mythical pokemon is that they are limited by design. In the past they have always been available exclusively through limited time events available through Mystery Gift. On the surface Pecharunt actually seems to be an improvement in this area. It's distributed the same way but at this point in time, there is no definitive end date for the distribution and that is good. But I'm not sure how long that is going to last, while that isn't an issue right now, eventually the servers it uses will almost definitely go offline. Maybe that's just because that's something I'm thinking about more with the recent closure of 3ds and Wii U online servers, but idk, that eventual but pretty realistic possibility rubs me the wrong way. In this case I think it's especially egregious due to the fact that unlike other mythical events, there is more content than just the mythical event locked behind the Mythical Pecha Berry. Once you beat Mochi Mayhem, Carmine and Kieran will start appearing in the League Club and you gain the ability to invite Arven, Penny and Nemona as special instructors. So without access to the berry, you lose access to all of their interactions in the club room, their true final rematches and their special trade mons, something you definitely want to be aware of if you want a Paldean Tauros, Sinistcha or anything from the Skwovet, Eevee or Applin families with the partner ribbon. To be fair, this logic could well be applied to the DLC as a whole but that at least could still be accessed via cartridges that have it built in.
Before going into the final conclusions on the game as a whole here's some miscellaneous stuff I couldn't really mention before now.
The Partner Ribbon: A massive part of the League Club that I glossed over was that it is the gateway to postgame rematches with every character that can be in the room. That alone is fantastic but if you interact with a charater in the clubroom enough times They'll trade you a pokemon with the newly added partner ribbon, which when it's assigned as the mon's title, they'll be sent out as "Drayton's Duraludon", "Kieran's Applin", "Nemona's Tauros" etc. It's really neat for ribbon collectors honestly. I hope this becomes a staple for future titles, it'd be really cool for stuff like N's pokemon if we ever get BW2 Remakes that properly reimplement them.
I appreciate the new evolutions in this game. Some are kind of odd and arguably unnecessary, like Kingambit or Archaludon, but I still like them. A lot were definitely well deserved like Dudunsparce and Farigiraf.
Continuing Gen 8's train of thought, it is incredibly easy to properly optimize a pokemon for competitive play, it's certainly worked, I'm more interested in competitive than ever. The changes to Ability Patches letting you change between normal and Hidden Abilities freely, Hyper Training now only requiring a pokemon to be level 50, and the easy availability of however many bottle caps and vitamins you need letting you train a pokemon however you want in the span of like 10 minutes tops all help with this. The mirror herb in particular is a fantastic addition here too, letting you essentially copy egg moves from one pokemon onto another meaning you can even get otherwise unavailable moves onto a pokemon. I've already made extensive use of it to get stuff like Sacred Sword on my Samurott or Fake Out on my shiny Incineroar from Wonder Trade (Thanks Evil Cal Zone). Effectively any pokemon can be made optimal for competitive use at this point, and relatively quickly too. Really the only thing you don't have control over is getting lower IVs, which realistically you'd only want for speed if you plan to run a Trick Room team, which to be fair is a somewhat valid critique as I can say from experiencing it on both sides that Trick Room is a very powerful strategy. Everything else though? You're good. If a pokemon you're attached to from your playthrough is good for the team you want to run, you are completely able to build it almost however you want and that is fantastic.
Union Circle is one of the single best multiplayer mechanics ever implemented in a pokemon game. It's already a lot of fun to mess around with your friends in the world itself, but it is also fantastic on a functional level as with the exception of the Box Legends and the DLC Paradoxes, a Scarlet player can naturally catch every violet version exclusive and vice versa. It reminds me a lot of BW2's key system that let players access select version exclusive content like the Regis or White Forest/Black City. For better or worse, version exclusives probably aren't going away any time soon, so if they are to stick around, Union Circle is a fantastic way to handle it.
There are also some miscellaneous negatives as well unfortunately.
The technical issues. It cannot be denied when discussing SV that on a technical level, it is a trainwreck. To be fair to it, it is nowhere near as bad as it was at launch, I never encountered anything too crazy, but it's still not great. Graphical bugs are everywhere, it is very common for pokemon to go into their low detail models and low frame rate animations despite being very close, there's a lot of pop in and the game lags a lot in areas where it really shouldn't, like menus. I distinctly remember going to the Peachy's shop in Kitakami and the game just straight up freezing for a solid minute as it tried to load the menu. A lot of people attribute this to the game being rushed as a result of the strict dev schedules pokemon games are subject to, and that is part of it no question. One thing I will always be firm on is that there was absolutely no need for this game to come out the same year as Legends Arceus. That game could have easily carried pokemon's holiday release with SV coming out the November after. Both games definitely would have benefitted from the extra time. That being said I think attributing these issues just to the tight schedule is oversimplifying it somewhat. I feel like these issues are a result of a perfect storm of variables in tandem with this. To Gamefreak's credit this was a pretty ambitious game for what they've typically done and something they've clearly been building to with SwSh and LA, but that also means that they are likely inexperienced with this kind of game. Combine that with the fact that this game would have started development in 2020, smack in the middle of a major pandemic, which undeniably affected the output of almost all game development studios? It does make sense that it turned out this way when all of these variables are considered. I'll be clear that I have no idea on the specifics that go on internally with Gamefreak during development, I'm only making the best assumptions I can with what I already know and very surface level research. I do hope that with future releases something like this can be avoided. Pokemon Z seems like it could be a step in the right direction being slated for 2025 and I do recall an article discussing how even the CE of the Pokemon Company acknowledged they may be going way too fast with their output and that changes could be considered. Granted being the head of a massive company like that, his word should rightfully be taken with a grain of salt. But still, it I think there is room for a little optimism at this point.
I think Shiny Pokemon were handled pretty poorly this go around. Shiny Hunting is one of my favourite things to do in pokemon so this aspect is particularly important for me. For the third time now shinies appear in the overworld which I have no problem with. But unlike previous instances like Let's Go or LA, shinies are not accompanied by any special particle effect or sound effect on spawn, instead they are just there and it is up to you to notice. On paper this honestly does not sound that bad but as many hunters know there are a disgusting amount of shinies that have barely any change or the changes are very subtle. This is awful for hunting in this game and requires you to be very aware of everything that spawns if the shiny you're looking for doesn't change much.
On the note of subtle shinies, it is an especially big issue for Gen 9. There are so many shinies that barely change for no good reason and it feels like there are far more than any game before now. For example:
Tatsugiri on paper is ok, but the Yellow form's shiny is orange which creates confusion between it and the normal orange form.
All of the future Paradoxes have a chrome color palette which is a mixed bag. It would be a fine color on paper, if not a little boring because they're all the same, but several future paradoxes already have chrome in their color palette leading to the shiny not changing much. Iron Treads is the worst offender but others like Iron Moth or Iron Boulder are pretty bad for this too.
There are of course the several shinies who just barely change for no good reason, making them incredibly difficult to notice in game, either from the lighting or just because the pokemon is so small to begin with. But none of that compares to:
Like come on what the fuck is this? I don't even know what to say about this like, someone saw Gholdengo, changed the color of it's grooves and just called it a day? I really don't like using this word in regard to game development or design but this is just lazy. It's less than that really because this honestly feels like they went out of their way to make a bad shiny. Like you could have just made it like silver or copper or literally any noticeable change to the gold and that would have been way better. But no, just the barely visible grooves. What is even the point of giving it a shiny at that stage?
Though honestly you could argue Gholdengo's doesn't matter that much because:
Shiny Locks! They are arguably the worst they've ever been. I have and always will, despise this mechanic. There is almost never a good reason for preventing a pokemon from being shiny if it is catchable. Recent games have been very bad for shiny locks. This list includes the starters, which is a god awful decision, arguably the worst mons to shiny lock, the various titans, all wild Gimmighoul for some reason, all gift pokemon except for Salvatore's Meowth, and all legendaries, including the ones brought back in the DLC. That last one in particular is awful as a large batch of returning legendaries has become standard implementation mid generation since ORAS, and we've always been allowed to hunt them, so seeing that changed is a really bad precedent for future games. The Pokemon Company know full well that a significant portion of their playerbase enjoy shiny hunting. It's a side of the fandom that is more acknowledged than ever with the official Twitter even recently putting out a very comprehensive guide on all the ways to boost shiny odds. So I really don't understand what they have to lose by not letting us hunt this stuff, it's not like they're doing anything with those unavailable shinies anyway. Literally none of the Gen 9 legendaries have received shiny distributions yet, hell we're still waiting for most of the Gen 8 ones. Imagine how cool it would be to hunt a shiny Koraidon and ride it during your playthrough, or hunting the gift Sinnoh egg and getting a random shiny Sinnoh Starter or even hunting the Meloetta event. So many cool hunts that we just aren't allowed to do because GameFreak said no. This is absolutely not a dealbreaker but it is a really annoying practice that I wish they would just stop doing.
All that being said, I think that about covers my thoughts on Pokemon Scarlet and Violet by extension. There may be more to say, such as how one could criticize how important the DLC could be to having a fully experience with how the game is lacking in some areas, namely post game content without it, effectively making an already expensive €60 game into an over €90 game, the lack of a battle facilty or the general quality of the pokemon roster this time around but I think I've said my piece.
I think overall this game gets a bad rep. One that isn't entirely undeserved. It has many issues which exist for a number of reasons, be they technical, structural or narrative, and those should be critiqued. But that also means a lot of the good parts of this game get overlooked or underappreciated. It's strong enough that I honestly think that if you just fixed even just the technical issues, this would be one of the best pokemon games. But even as it is I can't say I hate this game. I still enjoyed it quite a lot actually. I think given the way recent releases have been experimenting with open area type gameplay, this style of pokemon is likely going to be the new norm. If so I hope they do take a proper look at what SV did both right and wrong to properly refine it. We can only wait and see on that front, with how much cynicism has taken root in the pokemon community, I hope I can be right on that front.
As for where this game ranks on my ongoing tier list of games, I think smack in the middle of B is a good place to put it with how much I enjoyed the game.
#2024 games talk#my stuff#pokemon#pokemon scarlet#pokemon violet#retrospective?#finally got around to finishing this
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How to make someone happy on wonder trade/surprise trade (or, Random Trade Etiquette For Experienced Players of the Core Pokémon Games)
We’ve all been there, trading on WonderTrade or its newest iteration for the Pokémon switch games, Surprise Trade. You want to see what you’ll get, so you send a level 3, Route 1 normal type like Bidoof out into the ether and in return you receive…another level 3 Bidoof.
Nobody wins here.
The primary demographic for Pokémon games is young children, of course. A first grader playing their first-ever Pokémon game is probably going to keep sending level 3 Skwovet, and Patrat, and Pikipek, and Wurmple, and Lechonk. That’s the game as intended and there’s nothing wrong with that. But for the rest of us, in particular experienced adult players, have the chance to do something very cool here.
We can send out GOOD Pokémon. Pokémon that will excite anyone who receives them. Rare, high-level, or competitively valuable Pokémon. Here are the rules I abide by.
It has to be something I’d be happy to receive
It has to be something I can’t easily catch myself on a casual play-through of my own game.
That’s it.
If you want more concrete advice, you might follow these suggestions. Since I specified that this guide is for experienced players, I’m assuming the reader can easily acquire plenty of the suggestions below via breeding, or chaining, or grinding away on the Dynamax Adventure for legendaries. What I am NOT suggesting is using glitches, bots, programs, etc to create fake Pokémon. The “market,” as it were, is already flooded by shiny, 6IV, level 100 Pokémon that are completely illegitimate. I have received quite a few myself all nicknamed things like FAKEPOKEMON.COM and such. Very annoying. Use my guide to send out legitimate Pokémon or don’t do it at all.
Things to send out
STARTER POKÉMON!!!! The most sought-after Pokémon in any game are the cute starters. Even better if it’s a game that allows the full national dex on it so you can breed and send starter Pokémon from any generation
Leftover level 1 Pokémon hatchlings with several perfect IVs. Personally I’m building a Pokedex of 5-6 perfect IV Pokémon for my own satisfaction. Along the way I’ve bred hundreds of hatchlings with just 3 or 4 perfect IVs, and these are good “fodder” for Surprise Trades. Be sure to MARK the perfect IVs using the 🖤⚫️◼️ etc or else nobody will realize the Fletchling you sent them is actually a competitive battler.
Shiny Pokémon. I’ve only done this in one game where I was grinding special attack EVs on dozens, hundreds of Golduck in SunMoon using the feature where Alolan Pokémon call for help when distressed. With the increased likelihood of finding a shiny the longer you kept the battle running, over the course of several weeks I encountered like 10 or 12 shiny Golduck. I kept one and WonderTraded the others. I’ve definitely hung onto, well, every single other shiny I’ve encountered or bred. Needless to say this is a RARE gift.
Hidden abilities. Pokémon with their Hidden Ability are harder to get, plus the HA is often just. A better ability LOL
Silly nicknames. If you like to give Pokémon joke names before sending them out, you might just make someone laugh on the other end. That’s worth it even if they don’t ultimately keep the Pokémon.
Legendary Pokémon. Especially from other games, or at least not the legendaries from the game’s box art—those are all practically given to the player with no effort during the course of the story.
Version exclusives. Each pair of games contains a few Pokémon that are available in one version but not the other. Breed a box of Pokémon exclusive to your game and send them out to help people fill their Pokedex.
Rare Pokémon. The ones that have a 1% chance of showing up in the grass. If you can spare someone else from slogging through hard-to-reach areas and spending hours looking for a rare Pokémon, do it.
Evolved Pokémon with difficult evolution methods. Pokémon that evolve with stones, at extremely high levels, in particular locations, with rare items, etc.
Pokémon that evolve through trade. If you send out a box of Haunter, each one will evolve into Gengar when it’s received. It’s nice. :3 An amazing gift would be a Pokémon that evolves when traded with a rare item, like Scyther + Steel Coat + trade = Scizor, but you’d have to be willing to part with the item.
Very cute or popular Pokémon from other generations. Unfortunately this is no longer….a Thing now that the switch games do NOT have the national Pokedex. It sucks. One of my favorite things to do was send out boxes of Pokémon from earlier generations that you could never catch in the current generation. Well, if they update SV with the full national Pokedex, we can all do that again.
Themed calendar Pokémon. Pumpkaboo in October, Luvdisc on Valentine’s Day, Solrock nicknamed “Sunscreen” in summer. I always breed a few boxes of 4-5IV, rare, powerful Pokémon (like pseudo-legendaries) with Christmas names and send them out on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. My assumption is that a lot of little kids are getting the newest games for Christmas and they could use a powerhouse in their corner for their playthrough.
That’s really it! Happy trading! Go make someone happy!!!!
#pokemon#pokemon surprise trade#pokemon etiquette#pokemon games#pokemon sv#pokemon swsh#I saw a guide like this in like 2012 and it’s stuck with me ever since#I don’t send out junk
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SHINY CYNDAQUIL HAS BEEN FOUND! THE NIGHTMARE IS OVER!
That was...an ordeal. Someone at TPC either really hates or really loves Cyndaquil to make shiny hunting it so stupidly difficult compared to literally every other starter. The only saving grace is that you can, in fact, set up picnics in its cave thanks to janky collision.
It's like...sure, this is fine, but a puddle will prevent me from sending out a crocodile, a squid, a sea otter, and a diving bell spider.
Final Boss does not have a mark. I wish something I went through so much trouble over was at least worth putting on my team as a trophy, but I don't actually like Typhlosion. I just wanted this for completion's sake and I am NOT doing a living dex. One and done. All 24 starters in the Terarium have now been shiny hunted. Okay, fine, I never hunted Grookey, but what happened was even better.
Watch me get a Cyndaquil outbreak tomorrow, I swear to god.
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Chapter 5
Using attract on my partner in confusion GONE WRONG
When you’re. When yo. You’re. Gay.
But why do I keep getting borderline NSFW chapter titles, send help
“Local fairy type wreaks havoc, breaks laws of spacetime to transform a lively forest into a frozen feudal estate: more at 11″
Yeah, I know! Scary, right? Honestly, just send Mewtwo in: one glare at Togetic and he’ll fix the problem in no time flat.
Team Heavenly gets our first real assignment! (Ignore the reflection on the screen, I do not wish to be Perceived)
To recruit Pokémon, you say? Sounds great! How do you plan on doing it, Dusclops?
“Its body is hollow. It is said that those who look into its body are sucked into the void.” -Pokémon Diamond/Pearl ‘Dex entry
...Oh. Okay. *inches away slowly*
Here’s Team Slacker, with Venusaur as Slowpoke and Steelix as Slakoth. They’ve clearly grown too old for this exploration nonsense.
Okay I guess I was wrong about the Outlaw jobs being out of commission! Or do they only show up after Waterfall Cave?
Uh, what’s that? Sure, I’ll do some... but not today. Why? B-because I’m a cow- uhhh I mean, because of the waterfall mission! That’s totally why.
More Team introductions! Team Flame being made up of Grass types... how ironic.
Uh. No. I can’t imagine that. Sorry ._.
Aw, the dialogue belonging to Sunny Form Cherrim fits so well here!
So, Shiftry is obviously Bellsprout. The other two I wasn’t so sure of, but a quick search on the internet helped me out. Here we have Combee as Camerupt, and Cherrim as Ponyta. Has a real woodlands vibe if you ask me.
Eevee?! Good to see you, lad! (For those curious: Eevee is standing in for Zangoose, Stunky for Scyther, and Croconaw for Sandslash
I mean, all three of you do have claws, so... Randomizer, you’re off the hook this time.
Some other updates in Nautical Cottage:
👀 Ohhhh, gimmie gimmie gimmie! I already have tickets to redeem!
Rotom: ???
Remember the Dojo? Good news: it’s open!
Kinda weird to hear him talk about his marrow though... my guy, you’re boneless.
“Secret Waterfall” isn’t randomized, it seems. Ah well, we’ll see the new name soon enough.
*insert temporal flashback shenanigans here*
I noticed this when our first Time Gear was stolen, but Pokémon that are shown as silhouettes in the base game... well, that doesn’t show up here. You’ll see what I mean in a later photo.
Another thing I thought I noticed, and this confirms it! Despite Andrea being marked as female, she’s using one of the male tone styles. (I’ve always seen girl partners say “Use all your courage!” here.) Interesting!
Oh boy, here we go. After the fresh hell I’ve faced the past few chapters, I wonder what awaits us now...
Woah, funky neon noodle cave! AKA the Luxurious Moor.
As it turns out, my fears were unfounded! For once, the team marched through the 8 floors without facing a single Monster House or activating a devastating trap. In fact, I only have one real item to discuss: recruitment. Unfortunately no one new joined us, but I wanted to take a peak at the variety of Pokémon between floors.
It’s about what you would expect for, well, a randomized list. Note to self: get in the habit of checking potential recruits every floor so I don’t get jump scared by a freaking Palkia or something.
Noooo Andrea, don’t get distracted by the shiny things... you’re so sexy pretty, aha...
Andrea. Andrea, no-
Real time footage of what happened next.
With the reminder that Horsea is Teddiursa, Toxicroak is Vigorith, and Linoone is Ursaring, we add to the crew Ralts as Mankey and Barboach as Primeape! (Yeah I know they don’t really show up after this but still.)
The... huh. Well, I guess it could feel like a “brilliant fire” to your muscles.
I just found this discrepancy funny.
I’m howling that elder Torkoal shows up as a Riolu. Who the heck are you calling a youngster, little dudette?!
The next two shots showed some funky text placement, probably to adjust for the character length of Brilliant Fire:
Alright, here’s the promised photo from the flashbacks:
When they take away the non-existent shadow, the animation shows Totodile basically doing a somersault and getting up. It’s pretty comical.
What’s left is basically a montage of story-related things, but nothing new per se.
“Yeah man, I’m telling you! This whole ‘Secret Waterfall’ business is just a giant cover up from Big Government! Next they’re gonna take away our right to bare iron thorns!”
...That physically hurt to type.
Rip to all of Andrea’s hopes and dreams, they did not live long 😔✊
🥺️💖
I wonder if the name of Teresa’s ability is gonna be randomized 🤔 I really hope so because that has the potential to be immensely funny.
And lastly, the initial Expedition announcement from Totodile.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading 😊 Chapter 6: (Insert nonsensical title here) has just been processed. Please allow 3-7 days for your order to be shipped.
#pokemon mystery dungeon#pmd explorers#randomizer#chapter 5#I WISH I could have embedded the linked video into this post but tumblr wouldn't let me sljdsfkhfgjf#Too many images I guess#anyway I feel like I really struggled with the humor in this one#Besides the video I mean; that was a stroke of genius
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I've officially hit the 1.3k mark on Froakie eggs in my quest for a shiny. At this rate this endeavor may very well surpass my quest for shiny Charmander, which took me a little over 1.4k eggs to accomplish. Maybe RNG will finally be kind to me and crack a shiny between tomorrow and Wednesday when Teal Mask drops. I've been doing this so long I don't even remember what shiny hunt was next on the docket after Froakie. Rowlet, probably. I am so far behind in shiny hunts.
And that list will just get longer with the Dex updates. Ah well. Just means that I will have more hunts to do, to get shinies from older gens that I have always wanted but never had. And, you know, I'm looking forward to what kind of shenanigans Araceli will get up to in Kitakami. Surely it won't be anything as bad as what happened with the whole Sada ordeal. It's not like she has nightmares about the lab or anything l-lol.
(Still need to figure out if I want to include Uva Academy + Turo + Miraidon somewhere in Araceli's 'lore'. I had ideas about how to include them but it would entail fleshing out a second set of characters. Uva Academy could easily just be a rival and/or sister school but there is the matter of where to put it. Keep it in Mesagoza, with Naranja and Uva being at opposite ends of the city? Move it? Make Naranja and Uva technically the same school but with different areas of study? Hm.)
I should be in bed right now because I have to get up early to get my windshield repaired after a truck sent a rock into it. Instead, I'm mulling all of this over.
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Mark Collection
Thanks to Home's SwSh Pokedex counter, I've decided to recollect the SwSh Pokedex as a Living Dex which means I have an opportunity to collect the Marks in the game! Marks give your Pokemon a title, and bypass shiny locks so some people will Mark Hunt Pokemon, instead of shiny hunting!
Serebii Link Here You can find marks under the Ribbons page on a Pokemon and they're only on Pokemon caught in the wild, not in raids.
The feature, and ribbons as a whole didn't return in Pokemon Legends Arceus*, so I wonder if they'll be in Scarlet and Violet or if they'll be cut like the Shiny Leaves or movie star status.
When I first played SwSh, I usually did raids online because they were a ton of fun but that meant I couldn't collect many marks. But now that I need to find Pokemon reliably, I can have better odds. Plus I have the mark charm now! I've got my checklist below the cut
Lunchtime Mark - Ralts the Peckish (Will be a Gardevoir)
Sleepy Time Mark - Wailord the Sleepy
Dusk Mark - Palpitoad the Dozy
Dawn Mark - Diggersby the Early Riser
Cloudy Mark - Grimmsnarl the Cloud Watcher
Rainy Mark - Barbaracle the Sodden
Stormy Mark - Chewtle the Thunderstruck
Snowy Mark - Snover the Snow Frolicker
Blizzard Mark - Delibird the Shivering
Dry Mark Gastly the Dry
Sandstorm Mark - Sudowoodo the Sandswept
Misty Mark - Ralts the Mist Drifter (Will be a Gallade)
Fishing Mark - Barraskewda the Catch of the Day
Curry Mark - (Authentic) Polteageist the Curry Connoisseur
Rare Mark Duskull the Recluse
Uncommon Mark - Phantump the Sociable
Rowdy Mark - Snover the Rowdy
Absent Minded Mark - Blipbug the Spacey
Jittery Mark - Sandygast the Anxious
Excited Mark - Morgrem the Giddy
Charismatic Mark - Hisuin Zoroark the Radiant
Calmness Mark
Intense Mark - (Galarian) Slowbro the Fiesty
Zoned-Out Mark - Zubat the Daydreamer
Joyful Mark - Lycanroc the Joyful
Angry Mark - Noivern the Furious
Smiley Mark
Teary Mark
Upbeat Mark - King Koopa the Chipper (Shiny Drednaw!)
Peeved Mark - Bounsweet the Grumpy
Intellectual Mark - Happiny the Scholar
Ferocious Mark - Slowpoke the Rampaging
Crafy Mark - Zubat the Opportunist
Scowling Mark - Nidoqueen the Stern
Kindly Mark
Flustered Mark - Wimpod the Easily Flustered
Pumped-Up Mark
Zero Energy Mark - Torkoal the Apathetic
Prideful Mark - Roggenrola the Arrogant
Unsure Mark - Toedscruel the Reluctanct
Humble Mark - Carkol the Humble
Thorny Mark - Ditto the Pompous
Vigor Mark - (Galarian) Slowking the Lively
Slump Mark
*Okay, there might be a secret ribbon in Pokemon Legends Arceus when you take a picture in the photo studio. The game adds data to the Pokemon file for a Pioneer Ribbon but no Gen VIII games support it so no one knows if it will become a ribbon or not.
#Pokemon#swsh#sword version#shield version#galar#mark hunting#shiny hunting#shiny hunters#drednaw#pokemon home#nintendo switch#polteageist#authentic
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twitch_live
Marked Shiny Living Dex is going live! (hopefully, been having technical troubles for over an hour) Remember to throw out your guesses HERE!
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General life update:
Today my daughter turned 3 months old. It really flew by.
I’ve been gaming on my switch more than on my laptop, which runs on widows 8.1 I don’t know all the specs but it’s old enough that it doesn’t support windows 10 or 11. Been wanting to get a new one but I can’t afford it and that’s a me issue.
Playing pokemon go occasionally, Still playing animal crossing but not as much, Playing pokemon Scarlet... well I finished Scarlet created a living dex which I’m Passimian and Miraidon for. Mostly trying to shiny hunt now and the Mightiest Mark tera events, which I’m terrible at.
Trying to learn to adult still which is always fun. Mental health took a dip earlier in the week. Started journaling back in February used a thin journal so as to not overwhelm myself and it’s basically full. Spending a lot of time on discord talking to only 2 people XD I don’t really have many friends, gotta try to be more social, I don’t really talk much.
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I finally manage to hunt my favorite pokemon of this Gen with the best mark for him. 😁
Gen 9 Shiny living dex : 19/108
#pokemon violet#pokemon games#pokemon shiny hunting#shiny pokemon#pokemon scarlet and violet#yes I know this shiny is shit because only his eye color change#but I still love him !
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Can you do a minior review? I've been really into it lately for some reason
I always kind of felt like Minior should've had a bit of lore relating it to Lunatone and Solrock, seeing as they're both strange floating outer space rocks. Just me?
Regardless, Minior's case form is neat, if for no other reason than it has no real eyes and no mouth. It's also pretty nicely designed—a neutral brown to contrast with the core colors with just the tips of the core peeking out, and a few well-placed triangles for good measure.
The only thing that bugs me about it is that random circle by the right eye. Like, why is that there, exactly?
Also, side note: I always thought it was weird that the 'dex says that the core can die without its shell, but also it breaks out of its shell whenever its health is down to less than half. Like, how is the shell getting back on it, exactly? Feels like one of those things that's neat in theory, but doesn't quite work out in terms of mechanics.
However, I do like the mental image of Minior falling to earth like shooting stars and people rushing out to save them by catching them. That's just sweet.
Speaking of sweets, Minior's core form is based off Konpeitō, a type of sugar-based star candy:
Which is a pretty neat thing to reference without being too overt about it (the fact that most Western audiences wouldn't even recognize what it's referencing shows its solid regardless of theme). It kind of feels like a Kirby enemy or something.
In terms of design, I like Minior's face a lot. Instead of actually being static, it's instead separate from the face entirely, staying still instead of rotating with the body. I think I could've done without the mouth, but it's a fun way to handle things regardless.
I also do like the line's color gimmick (especially with how it's based on diet) and how it makes for a fun surprise because you don't know the color when looking at the meteor form... though admittedly, I feel like it's missing something. I think it just bugs me that the body is really just mono-color, making each of the forms akin to a shiny recolor. It makes sense due to the konpeitō thing, but I don't feel like it's as striking as, say, Vivillion, which changes pattern as well as entire palettes.
Speaking of shinies, making the shiny for it black with colored markings looks fantastic, and is a really nice way to handle a palette swap for a Pokemon that already has a palette swap gimmick. Plus it fixes the monotone color thing that kind of didn't sit with me with the regular core colors.
My only nitpick (outside of the color thing, and like I said, that's understandable because of the gimmick) is that random circle on the left side. Like the circle on the meteor form, I don't get why it's there.
Anyway, as a whole, this is a charming Pokemon with a fun gimmick. Definitely worth the extra effort shiny hunting this one though.
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Didn’t get my Destiny Mark…
Guess that means I’m waiting another year!
I did get these two goobers though! Melissa has the Intense Mark, so that’s pretty cool!
This puts me at 70 Pokémon across all Pokémon games (including spin-offs) for my shiny living dex!
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