a bunch of asks answered below the cut (some dating back a good 2 months i’m so sorry 💔 i’ll answer more soon)

he’s not, sorry 😔 regular age daithí is going off to be in a bc soon so it’d be kinda weird to have younger him running around other peoples games

the answer to both questions is i don’t know! i would like to do gameplay with them again and i love all the contestants that i chose, but i just hated bachelor gameplay 😫 and i find it very difficult to get the time for / be invested in more than one gameplay at a time so

as to who they would’ve ended up with, i can’t say! they didn’t even get the chance to meet a good chunk of the contestants that i had accepted (sorry omfg) if you’re really interested i can load up the save and show you the relationship statuses with everyone from where i left it off

vupiiii you’re so sweet thank you so much 😭😭 all the same back to you!! @sweetpyxels​ ❤️❤️

ANON HI I LOVE YOU you’re so sweet, thank you so much 😭😭😭

no it honestly makes me so happy that you actually read it once let alone reread it omfgg. you make me feel something anon. please ignore the fact that i didn’t know how dof worked in the first half of gen one 🤦‍♀️

these next few were from the ‘why did you follow me’ ask game i reblogged a while ago, sorry i never got around to them

ILY ALL AHH!!!!!! you’re all so lovely omfg ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ thank you for sending these in they really made me smile ngl. and thanks for sticking around 😫

would you ever do a rant what each generation or your preferred ones did better then the others?

im an Emerald stan at my heart but hearing your shinnoh thing was very interesting

I mean my preferred gen is Gen 4 all the way- IMO No games before or since have matched The Peak that was Platinum and HGSS and I've played almost every single mainline game mutliple times- but I think every generation did at least some stuff better than other gens or have something to love about it.

As for RSE, I think the whole dive mechanic was fun as well as having two bikes, the Climax of the story is great in the way it envelopes the entire game world, and May is one of my favorite pokemon heroines.

RBY Has maybe the most exploits you can take advantage of, both bugs and combat system wise (Wrap+T wave or Toxic are ridiculously op) and as someone thats been playing since Red its impossible to beat for nostalgia.

GSC Is notable for having just a ton of content, and being the first to actually expand the lore of pokemon with the legendary beasts and pokemon tower and such. Fighting yourself from the prev game is still the basically THE hardest fight in mainline pokemon and an absolutely epic inclusion. Crystal specifically is where we got the gender select and is one of the most responsible parties for transing my gender.

To further expound on Sinnoh, besides just how immaculately designed it is as a region, the way it included and explored the religion of the pokemon world is just... *mwah*. So good. Cynthia is the hardest champion fight in the series and claiming the title from her makes you feel like you really earned it. Also HGSS is possibly the Ideal pokemon Experience. Whenever I think of the best of pokemon it is Platinum and HGSS.

Gen 5 had fun low hp music.

I think XY and ORAS had the hands down best addition to the combat system since DPPT's Phys/Spec split with Mega evolution and while XY's story was a bit lacking, Kalos was a legitimately fun region to romp through!

I loveddd how different the Islands felt in Alola and the trials were nice change of pace. Alola is honestly some of the hardest games to Nuzlocke due to them. Theres also an immensely diverse selection of pokemon even right from the get go that enables a lot of fun and different runs. The unique Z moves and Z Moves in General were a great counter part to Megas. Lily, Gladion's and Lusamine's dynamic in SuMo specifically were really intriguing, though USUM shat all over it instead of expounding on it.

The Open area in Galar was really cool to see and explore! I really like how Leon was basically a mainline protagonist himself. The Fossil pokemon were absolutely Hilarious.

As for Paldea... I've yet to get my hands on ScarVi actually! But Im sure I'll find plenty to love there as well~

A recent article with the Platinum Games CEO got me curious. How difficult are games as a service for a small developer to make/maintain?

It talks about wanting do it for a steady income since their monitization is project to project basis for now.

I have not worked on one, but I would say that while every game is different, live service is extremely difficult to pull off, especially PVP titles.

Every live service game needs to have a constant flow of content that can never, ever let up, which is difficult enough on its own, but then others make it REALLY hard for themselves and also make their game multiplayer online PVP. That opens up a huge can of worms.

Not only is your game now reliant on a constant flow of content, but you better be able to combat the inevitable tidal wave of cheaters that will descend upon your game WHILE keeping servers stable WHILE keeping the game balanced, WHILE also justifying your existence among the many other games competing for your audience's attention.

If you slip up even once on any of these things, your player population can drop like a rock, and once that happens you also stop getting new players as they join, wait in a queue for 3 minutes, realize no one's playing, and uninstall. You have to combat such player drops by combining a big new update designed to draw in players while also putting advertising on full blast, and once you DO get that spike, you're back to hoping your player retention is good enough to keep going.

This is extremely difficult, and I've seen way too many of these games just die despite their promise. One of the fastest crashes I've seen recently is probably Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodhunt, a battle royale being done by a new indie studio given the VTM license by Paradox. They exploded into the scene in April, couldn't stop awful behavior from players (lots of teaming), then couldnt stop the waves of cheaters that arrived soon after, and now the game's on life support population-wise.

Standard game dev is hell already. Live service titles would be even harder. Online PVP multiplayer games would maybe be the hardest for a small studio to keep alive.

Just saw the Bayonetta Origins trailer and, honestly, I have one big question:

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK ARE THEY DOING TO THE BAYONETTA FRANCHISE?!?!??

It's bitter. I'm bitter. Bayo 3 made me hate Luka and Viola and Cereza-Bayo, so I will not be consuming the franchise anymore because it is clear that Platinum Games doesn't give a shit about the people who gave a shit about Bayonetta as a character ever since the original game came out in 2009. And you know what, that's okay with me. I have bayo 1 and the modding community on PC. I've played bayo 1 thousands of times and will continue to do so bc it's just that good of a game. And if PG continues with the active dilution of the franchise, man, I'm not gonna be losing anything by not playing the new releases.

Can I just say though that it is insane for PG to abandon not only the Bayonetta character as she was known and loved, but also the Bayonetta playstyle that gave the game so much staying power. It feels like they are using Bayonetta's name and face in order to sell out ideas that would have been rejected by publishers if they were standalone titles. They seem to be banking on the fact that the loyal fandom who waited so long for 3 (and who is made of a bunch of toxic special snowflakes that DARE to get attached to Bayonetta as a character, according to Kamyia) will eat up every scrap they deign to throw at us. That, or they are actively trying to push us away in order to sell the shell of what was once Bayonetta to the kiddies.

Either way, I'll end my (probably final) rant with a bittersweet

Goodnight, sweet Umbra Witch...

... it's been a blast.

Find the Word

I was tagged by @saltysupercomputer to find a given set of words in my writing and tag others to keep the game going. Thank you for the tag, and the chance to play my favorite writeblr game!

My Words: pen, nature, ecstatic, cold, down

I'll tag: @aohendo, @crypticcodexcreations, @eli-writes-sometimes, @on-noon, @writingpotato07, and as always anyone who wants to join in can use the following words and say I tagged them!

Your Words: explain, answer, scheme, avoid, dismiss

Also as always, the excerpts themselves are under a cut so they don't take up too much space on people's dashes.

I found pen in my novel WIP "Apricots":

"Do you keep any note paper around here? A pen? Do you just type everything, and do I have to borrow your phone or something?"

"There are note cards and pencils by the teapot, same as always. I haven't moved them since the last time you came over. Are you okay?" Ian starts to get up to show him where they are, but Noah impatiently gestures for him to stay. Noah's legs are a little longer than Ian's, anyway, so the strides he makes across the apartment get him to the kitchen and back in barely any time at all. He complains along the way, mumbling things to himself that Ian can't understand, but there isn't a chance to ask him if those mumblings are important or not before a stack of lined notecards is being slammed down onto the coffee table and a cup full of pencils slides in right next to them.

I found nature in a rough draft of a short story titled "A Question of Time":

"That's better. Now. I am a piece of time itself. I am a cog wasp. You who have plucked time from the air and set it before you in a makeshift chair in a summoning circle. You who have asked for the knowledge of the world from a piece of its own sprawling existence. Ask your question once more, and time will answer," it speaks formally this time, as if greeting him properly for the first time. Was its slightly flippant yet refined nature before not how it's supposed to act when summoned? He shoos the thought from his head, focusing instead on what he'd worked so painstakingly to recover.

"Thank you again for responding to my summons and agreeing to hear me out. My question is this: how do I know how much time it will take to heal from a wound that wasn't inflicted on my body, but on my mind or heart? Do you know the answer?"

"Thank you for your kind and generous methods in summoning me and your careful thought about your question. I do not know the answer."

"What?" he slaps his hand across his mouth more aggressively this time, shocked by his own outburst when his voice rises several octaves into what can only be described as a squeak.

I found ecstatic in a bit of backstory writing about the villain for a D&D campaign I tried to run (scheduling conflicts forced a permanent hiatus) titled "Shifty Business":

If the kobolds can fill the innermost cavern where the dragon sleeps with gold, in a pile so high that the dragon can only barely fit to sleep atop it, then they will have earned not only permission to live here but a place of honor which other kobolds will come to envy for generations to come. Ecstatic, Ironjaw readily agrees to these terms. All he has to do is earn gold and platinum, and he'll catapult up to the position every kobold wishes they could occupy: borderline dragonhood. He even knows how to pull this off, after a little thought. Gathering money means bringing it in consistently and in large amounts, right? He's seen how other races do this, and he's confident he can follow their example. He just has to start a business. He'll be a legitimate business owner, and his entrepreneurial enterprises (he may not be an inventor like other similarly intelligent kobolds, but Ironjaw is and always has been an innovator in many senses of the word) will bring in all the gold and platinum their awesome and benevolent dragon could ever want.

I found cold in several excerpts I've already shared, and also in the intro to a rough draft of a short story tentatively "Puddles & Lakes":

I don't think I dislike being human... but I get up before the sun's fully risen for a reason. The shaky back door shudders into place as usual, the silent cold in the air making its slight reverberation against the house feel like a deep and endless echo. It almost feels like it rattles out from the house itself. An easy wind shakes the skinny limbs of half-dressed autumn trees. I shiver at the sound as much as the chill of the air itself. My breath reaches out ahead of me in the shy morning half-light -- toward the dirt path just down the slope of this tiny backyard. I push past the edge of that little cloud of oxygen, mentally tracing my path. Gliding across damp soil, between dew-touched blades of grass, briefly touching the gate to the yard itself before dashing off to my usual places. I let the scene swirl around me for another breath or two. If I could be the sound of the shuddering door or the gust of the autumn wind or the fence of the yard itself, it might be nice.

I found down in the current draft of a short story titled "Hidden Talent":

"You don't have to believe me. I know it sounds pretty ridiculous. I don't even believe it sometimes. I just figured I... shouldn't hide it from you anymore," Vance shrugs, hyper-aware of how the motion affects his shirt. The wrinkled cloth shifts, tugging existing folds taut in some places and rolling loose fabric in on itself in others. Smoothing out old shapes. Creating new ones. Altering his entire image into something new, at least on a symbolic level. It feels like that change in his shirt is somehow symbolic of the change he's inviting by being honest about his weird ability. His friendship could be broken in a few seconds, or slowly molded into something unfamiliar -- a shape that doesn't quite fit into the space it did before, making Rowan so uncomfortable that the two of them start to drift apart. It could move two folds in the fabric of their relationship that were close to each other, transplanting them to completely new areas. He sets his head against one of the blue swirls and drops his eyes down to the ground, "You can forget I said anything. We can just start the show -- that was the plan, anyway. You're already three episodes behind me, you've gotta catch up. Sorry. For distracting you with... for distracting you."

I found every single word this time, and only one was in a fanfic. If I was keeping better track of how often those things happen, this would probably count as some kind of record. Thank you again for tagging me, I always have a lot of fun with this game!

The best single-player games you can play right now.

GhostWire Tokyo

Ghostwire Tokyo is the first game title that has made me happy enough to buy a PS5. Unquestionably, that's a little compliment that comes from me. Although I was fortunate enough to get a PS5 at the start, if I'm truly being honest, I've barely played this since that time. Apart from a few short spurts here and there, such as in Hitman 3 and Ghost of Tsushima, it's mostly become my primary Ratalaika Platinum person, which is not what I had in mind when I first got it. Though I've spent more time in Ghostwire: Tokyo than nearly any other diverse game title on PS5, the reason for this is that hardly any gaming titles available on the system have captivated me. An important part of everything that makes it so amazing is the fact that, as I described in my first impressions of the entire play, the entire world seems so animated even though there are no people. Everywhere you go, you can get indications of energy, whether it's heaps of clothes, awkwardly parked cars, or even random stuff littered all over the place. This Tokyo is likely to be a literal soul area, but it seems like you missed observing everyone.

The pets, of course, are the most fun little things that give Ghostwire: Tokyo its uniqueness. When I was trying to entice dogs with treats, or hearing cats dismissively talk about how much they miss people, or even shopping at stores owned by cat-like demons known as yokai, there wasn't a point in the game where I would stop what I was doing to pet an animal. Even though they rarely provided much entertainment value, they were frequently adorable enough to make the detour worthwhile. The spirits, are what give Ghostwire: Tokyo its narrative weight and make the game truly feel alive. Ghostwire: Kanazawa keeps track of the souls you've saved and will give you a total number to look for; these are usually the rewards for the numerous side-quests you'll come across all over Tokyo. Furthermore, all of the side-quests contain a story about the person's past, which ranges from the serious to the mundane (for example, a gardener whose forest happened to be infected by the spirit spilled by angry demons) to the still. Take all of this, and you'll have a compelling incentive to go exploring the city and seek out signs rather than remaining solely focused on the primary goal. That's not to say that the most important quest just isn't stellar as it is. Your character is two characters, and the two of them attempt to right wrongs from the past, and they're on the trail of a creepy religious commander. It is quite compelling; it just happens to be flanked by plenty of interesting things. There were so many things to do in Ghostwire: Tokyo that I was frequently distracted from the main story. The experience of playing is admirable. You have a fantastic selection of strikes based on firing, liquid, and breeze. and you can open upgrades fast enough that you never feel overwhelmed by the challenges that lurk around every corner. It's also possible to make use of the fact that you will be a ghost that can fly from roof to rooftop, with a flightthath is so quick that it feels like you're flying. Even the stealth areas in the game are entertaining, and I'm a person who hates stealth. It's also worth noting that I'm a person who hates terror, but I did enjoy the monsters in Ghostwire: Tokyo. All of these—from the headless children to the crazy businessmen with umbrellas and the large girls who carry huge scissors to the various demons you discover—are memorably terrifying, and they're all incredibly enjoyable to fight.

Truly, everything about Ghostwire: Tokyo is great and makes me satisfied that I own the PS5. There are few gaming titles to justify going out and picking out an entire system, but you can present a convincing argument that this is among them all. Odds tend to be Ikumi Nakamura's infectious introduction of Ghostwire: "hakone" is precisely what inspired you to first be interested in the name. After that, it promised an action-filled adventure through the roads of Tokyo. Toss in an awesome quantity of Japanese mythology, allowing players to play with all the animals in the play. It has features such as climbing to the tippy top of 109. This certainly appears to be a winner in the hands of Tango Gameworks. And when my current addiction to searching for every obscure item found in this video game signifies anything, I will be capable of attaining the awards. The moment we get to meet Akito as well as K.K. It's just after a massive fog has swept through Tokyo. Shibuya Crossing is usually full of activity but is now empty of any activity. All those who were affected by the fog disappeared. When you look at the wreckage of a car crash, an individual is searching for a human body it could inhabit. There are few bodies, and the moment encompasses the entire core. which is normally why the spirit of an ex-detective is brought to enthrall a young man known as Akito. K.K. explains that he is just the thing keeping Akito here. Once they cooperate and identify the culprit, they can end his evil plan to merge the universes of the living and the dead.

They're not completely isolated. A handful of K.C.'s former companions are still around. Ed's telephone system collects the souls Akito can save in hopes of reuniting all of them with a specific corporeal form. Rinko aids them by analyzing the data and observing any events. Ed is truly only a phone call away, but the knowledge that Ed is watching many of the souls you send him can be reassuring in some ways. Rinko's keeping some baggage, which keeps her connected to this entire world. The task of helping Akito, along with K.K., take down the guy in the Hannya mask, drives her right now.

Kena Bridge of Spirits

Kena: Bridge of Spirits is the game that PlayStation 5 desired, and a lot more important, it's an enchanting and rewarding imaginary platform-game quest that visually is perfect on this new gaming console. It also features an extremely relatable and likable hero called Kena, the young spirit guide who bears the ability to aid spirits in moving forward. Supporting the narrative, the game is influenced to a certain extent by Japanese culture, especially its creative forms and the way spirits are generally handled, which is an interesting and refreshing alternative to what's available on the market today. As an action adventure, Kena: Bridge of Spirits allows players to explore a lush and varied environment to battle malignant spirits and rid the kingdom of corruption. Armed with a staff and capable of drawing on her soul stamina, Kena is truly versatile in the things she can accomplish.

Consumers could buy cheap PS4 Games.

Story

The storyline is very well told through fully voiced cutscenes, some of which utilize the game system while others use fully animated CGI, all of which blend like something definitely from Pixar as well as Dreamworks. The visuals are stunning, thanks to the spiritually charged universe that borrows from historic Eastern culture. While you lift the spirits of one group, additional sequences follow the very same powerful narrative motifs suitable for an entire feature film. This is a world that's easy to get lost in, and the cast is captivating as they traverse a path of love and loss in their unique style.

Combat

There will be an astonishing amount of combat, and for the most part, it truly is great—but when you're playing on something other than the "story" problem, it's becoming more difficult. Average adversaries will go along without a lot of trouble. However, more difficult enemies and top dogs—which you'll get more of than you can count—need precision and expertise. Fortunately, Kena has a sizable arsenal, and you'll notice powerful abilities early on in the game. The staff she uses lets you perform heavy and light blasts. You will eventually be given a bow, which allows anyone to attack from a selection. Add to that the capabilities you can unlock for your current Rot, such as the capability to transform it into a powerful "Rot Hammer" that gives you an extraordinary array of songs to keep your adversaries under control. It is critical to remain vigilant and use your current guard, a magical bubble that encases Kena for a brief period - from the correct moment to parry. There are a variety of quests and jobs you're performing quickly some as simple as having the Rot set the staple, and ack in place while others take a step up by trying to test your accuracy using bows in a shooting challenge that unlocks one of my favorite features are the cursed chests, which are locked to a specific battle (across the prompt place) that you can complete unlocking them all. Nothing is in Kena: Bride of Spirits is going to be as intricate as the typical Fallout quest, but all so rare things are aligned and align with those items you have in other completed games, such as Sly Cooper or the previously mentioned PS2 classics. In addition, there are a ton of souvenirs, and luckily show you the ones you certainly need to obtain across the globe.

Consumers could buy cheap games.

Before we dive into the battle of Kena, let's talk about the fact that I mentioned in the previous paragraph. These small black blobs are adorable, plus the method in which the game utilizes them is fantastic. While you have these blobs, you will find them useful in numerous approaches. The greatest thing about them is that you're not going to have to spend a lot of time with them since they don't suffer the same fate as other NPCs in combat circumstances. "They're terrified little beasts, and anyone needs to increase their courage by fighting to earn the meter," explains the author. This is an excellent way to explain the superpowers they truly possess. The use of these techniques can do a great deal of damage but is beneficial in situations where your state of health may be low. What makes the Rot more and more advantageous is assisting with lifting very different items to find more and more Rot, moving statues straight back into their place, and even moving the box to help Kena access difficult-to-reach segments. There is also an extremely powerful rot ability that gives them the liquid from a flower, transforming them into a swarm of rots that resemble their original shape. They're in a position to take out the corruption, not to mention unlock and heal various areas. They aren't completely powerless in your absence, however, because they can feed on corruption flowers once you've cleared the adversaries far away, purifying the area you're in.

Button line

The action portion of the entire action-platformer is shrewd; the platform-game half shines less in comparison, namely the bouncing. Invisible structures are awkwardly present when players jump toward internet platforms or rooftops; they are not intended to climb, and the jumping, particularly the double-jump, appears fluid; however, the design and style decision to make it especially vertical was misguided, not only because this doesn't feel well and makes you believe you'll be able to reach certain surfaces, which the invisible structures eventually push people fa Kena: Bridge of Spirits might draw upon some aged inspirations; however, just how this assembles all the pieces of the mystery creates a very modern feel in the best way possible. It will entice you into this delightful world, only to smack the player around with its violence. The gameplay is the weakest component; overall, Kena is a very great time that's simply not to be left out of.

How are you feeling about the newly announced pokemon game? Came out a bit fast tbh, but it looks good to me.

It looks alright but I think GameFreak employees should unionize, demand slower production cycles, better pay, and more staff.

It's simply not healthy or sustainable for a company with under 200 employees to be working nonstop on producing new content without time to let the old content breathe and take on a life of its own. This pace of releases isn't sustainable and is showing in the quality of the games being released. Numerous assets zoomed in on in the trailer released the other day have low resolution textures stretched over large planes, which is a game development canary in a cole mine for rushed work.

GameFreak is unsustainable, and at this point if it weren't kept afloat by the massive Pokemon Company it helped start and the franchise that brings in money from merch, it wouldn't last. They operate like it's still the 1990s, where games are produced by small dev teams on a regular basis, and yet no longer put in the effort they did back then. Where's the tenacity of the company that fit the original Red and Green games onto Gameboy cartridges so tightly the code has to juggle memory space to accomplish everything on such a simple gaming system? Where's the company that admitted defeat and asked for help with Gold and Silver, and were rewarded with Satoru Iwata finding a way to not only fit the code in better, but also freeing up space for a whole second region? Where's the company that loved its old games so much, it made remakes years later that didn't just update the look of the old games, but rewarded players on this return journey with expanded and extended content, Pokemon, and story? Where's the company that pushed the DS system to its limits with Black and White 2's animated graphics and 3D elements, and delivered 2 brand new, emotionally complex stories with older protagonists? Where's the company that, when switching to 3D, decided to future proof the series by creating high fidelity models for every single Pokemon, not just the ones found in the new region, and in ORAS and Gen 7, produced some of the most beautiful and colorful worlds on the 3DS?

I know I have nostalgia for these titles, but Gen 7 came out when I was already an adult in college. No, not all of their older titles were perfect, but they used to take time. There was a year between Gen 2 and 3, a year off in Gen 3 between Ruby/Sapphire and the second three titles, a year between Gen 3 and 4, another year between Diamond/Pearl and Platinum, a year between Black/White and their sequels, and a year between Gen 6 and 7.

There hasn't been a year between releases since 2015, when GameFreak releases used to come in 1-3 year spurts. To match pace with their past releases, GameFreak should have taken another year with Sword and Shield after Let's Go. Heck, they could have taken a year after USUM. But for 7 years now it's been non-stop releases, and now they're pushing to get two major releases out in the same year.

It's important to remember that games take years to develop. This means that when a game company releases games yearly, they are dividing their workforce up to work on multiple co-current projects, and this means they don't have their full effort going into one project. And for a company like GameFreak, this means dividing into teams of 70 developers or less, which makes an already tiny team even smaller.

While I got Legends Arceus and Briliant Diamond, I've hardly had time to play them with work and other interests occupying my time. So that, combined with my above frustrations, means I'm already not planning to get Scarlet or Violet later this year, if ever. I do not trust this company to make lovingly made games anymore, and I don't trust them to give me enough time to enjoy them before they toss something else at me. GameFreak needs to catch up with modern standards of game development, expand their team, and slow their production cycle, or eventually they're going to wear out their good will with both fans and employees for good.

Tbh repetitive tasks and same-y looking areas are just the nature of open world games. I've been playing open world rpgs since I was a kid, and they're still my favorite, so I'm on board with Legends, but idk if a lot of pokemon fans are ready for that

Yeah...personally, I like more “focused” single player games or stuff like Bloodborne where the area is huge, but it isn’t open-world huge. I don’t mind open-world games though.

I just hope Legends won’t be super empty like BOTW is (pretty game, but if you’re not into exploring/messing w/ physics mechanics, it’s a pretty “mediocre” Zelda title considering Zelda is known for puzzles). I’m not saying BOTW is an irredeemable title ofc, but it departs a lot from what makes Zelda “Zelda” in terms of beats, so same concept as in Legends.

It’s gonna be a really different experience from what Pokemon fans expect/“want” once people start playing it.

But yeah, I feel like both DPPT and Legends are gonna get a ton of heavy criticism once the honeymoon phrase wears off. It’s also Pokemon ya know? No one is ever happy. I think criticism can be cool, but not “100% I love this/I hate this” if it makes sense.

Like...people are already complaining about how Pokemon Masters has better Trainer models/the tree in Legends/etc. and both games aren’t even out yet.

Tbh, I’m kinda worried about how they’re gonna remake Diamond+Pearl since those two games are also known to be badly paced and Platinum was the one to fix it.

But also I can’t wait to find another husbando/waifu in Legends...it’s tradition at this point for me to pick a new one for every game...

So, time to log my feelings for the Presentation. I was actually wrong about what all would be in it but I'm about the same level of hype to underwhelmed.

1. Nostalgia bait

Interesting vid, but kinda pointless after every direct and presents had one. Next

2. New Snap

Looks amazing, I can't wait to play it

3. Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl

I'm gonna get death threats for this lmfao, but I felt nothing at all. Like I'm used to some excitement but I just felt nothing. I guess it's better than nothing, but the chibi style isn't how I pictured it at all and kinda feels cheap. I appreciate the polish, but still, it could have at least been like the SwSh DLC. And it sounds like they're going to be focusing more on DP, which... sucks, ngl, since Platinum were the games gen 4 fans probably really wanted. Let's just hope they aren't TOO faithful to DP or else we have half the Sinnoh dex locked to post game and 8 annoying HMs, and at least have the Platinum fire types

Still, ILCA has me somewhat hopeful. They had involvement with the development for Dragon Quest 11, a fantastic game more people should play, so I have slight more hope. I'm not too happy about Junichi "kids and their smart phones are too busy for the Battle Frontier lol" Masuda co directing, but at least they probably can't make it worse than the originals with the other guy there.

Maybe with the new engine we won't be waiting 4 hours for a Pokémon to faint or level up

3. Legends Arceus

Now THIS is what I pictured. I'm surprised at many things, but this looks so fresh! Not to mention

They got all three of my favorite starters! Fucking finally, what took you so damn long? (Oh right, Home subs)

The open world aspect should have been was SwSh was to begin with, and even in alpha the games look better than base SwSh in the final product, but better late than never. This is an interesting approach to a Pokémon game, and although I'm not fond of the JUST THROW A BALL mentality inherited from GO and Let's Go, it looks like you can still do wild battles so it works out.

I could stand to revisit past regions like this. Probably healthier than releasing 60 sub par designs every 3 years and then being expected to work on remakes and a new gen at the same time. The Legends title implies that this is going to be a series, perhaps? I'm okay with that, let's just make this game fun though

Also NGL, I've always wanted to explore a Pokémon region in a non modern time. I swear I either had a dream or falsely remember a scan of DP but it's like feudal or Pre Victorian Era, and you hop off a very old looking boat. Plus there was always the whole thing involved with Samuel in the 4th Movie, so the thought has always been in the back of my head. I'm kinda bored of cities all the damn time, so maybe finally seeing Pokémon in PROPER nature is what I needed

I think the most interesting aspect is definitely Arceus. Will we finally unlock wtf it exactly is (other than god) after 15 years of mystery?

Now, I'm cautiously optimistic. The game looks good, but this is Game Freak we're talking about. They can find any number of ways to screw up and probably will, and if it's Ohmori at the helm, corners will be cut. Not to mention if it's like SwSh, the Alpha footage will most likely be the exact same or close to the same product we get in the end.

Still, cautiously optimistic. Don't fuck it up. Please don't. I wanna pick my Cyndaquil buddy and go explore and fight everything in peace. Please just be good.

Happy Anniversary “What I've Done”!❤ (April 2, 2007)

"What I've Done" is a song by American rock band Linkin Park. It was released as the first single from their third studio album Minutes to Midnight (2007). The song is composed in the key of G minor. The song was released as a radio single on April 1, 2007, as a digital download on April 2, and as a CD single on April 30. The live version of "What I've Done" from Road to Revolution: Live at Milton Keynes was nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 52nd Grammy Awards, but did not win. It also serves as the main theme of the 2007 science fiction film Transformers and also appears on Transformers: The Album (2007). Being certified five times platinum by the RIAA, it is the band's most commercially successful song, though not necessarily most well-known, due to the fact that singles in the US used to have higher sales in general during the second-half of the 2000s.

"What I've Done" was featured in the video game Guitar Hero World Tour. In January 2011, it was released in a Linkin Park DLC pack for Rock Band 3, along with a PRO mode update, which allows use of real instruments such as guitar, keyboards and electronic drumkits. The song is also a B-side to the UK single of "Iridescent". An instrumental version of the song is currently used by Sky UK as background music for their interactive services.

Chester Bennington described the track in a March 2007 interview with MTV:

Joe [Hahn] came up to Mike and me and asked us to take the whole idea of Minutes to Midnight and apply that to how the band has changed. So, in a way, it's us saying goodbye to how we used to be...The lyrics in the first verse are 'In this farewell, there's no blood, there's no alibi,' and right away, you'll notice that the band sounds different: The drums are much more raw, the guitars are more raw and the vocals aren't tripled. It's just us out there .... and that's how Rick Rubin wanted it.

The single and video appeared in the iTunes Store shortly after midnight EST on April 2, 2007. It became available the day after on iTunes in the UK and Australia. On April 2, the song was featured streaming on the front page of their official website, with the video being added to the site shortly thereafter.

The song starts out with a short 3-second guitar part and then a piano motif, before adding a hip hop-inspired drum line, and then introducing a raw-sounding guitar riff. When the song is played live at Linkin Park's concerts, Mike Shinoda plays the piano intro and the guitar after that. This song differs from most of Linkin Park's songs from previous albums in that it features almost no lead vocals from vocalist Mike Shinoda, with the exception of a brief "na na na" refrain at the end. "What I've Done" was the last song written for Minutes to Midnight. The song also has a downbeat exactly once every second, consistent throughout its entirety.

Mike Shinoda created a remix of the song, which is called "What I've Done (Distorted Remix)", which is included as a b-side to "Bleed It Out". The remix was then included in the international tour edition of Minutes to Midnight, as well as a track in the Linkin Park Underground-exclusive CD Underground X: Demos.

The music video for "What I've Done" was filmed in the California desert and was directed by Linkin Park turntablist Joe Hahn. It features footage of the band performing in the desert, interspersed with stock footage reflecting on a variety of social and environmental issues including pollution, global warming, racism, Nazism, the Ku Klux Klan, abortion, starvation, terrorism, Holocaust, warfare and nuclear warfare, deforestation, poverty, drug addiction, obesity, destruction, rising gasolineprices and crimes committed by humanity. The video also features brief depictions of important historical figures, such as (in order of appearance) Leonardo da Vinci, Mother Teresa, Robert F. Kennedy, Mahatma Gandhi, Gautama Buddha, Mao Zedong, Abraham Lincoln, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Adolf Hitler, Saddam Husseinand Benito Mussolini. Some cutscenes, such as the traffic scene and the napalm exploding. The video premiered on April 2, 2007 on MTV and Fuse. It premiered on MTV Asia, MTV Germany, TMF Netherlands and Canada's MuchMusic on April 3, 2007.

The video starts off with some grass sinking down into the dirt, causing it to turn wet. It then cuts to a scorpion walking to where Linkin Park are performing. It explores the many ironies of humanity and its ill-effects on the earth and the environment (see above). It juxtaposes various pieces of footage: a large, well-fed man eating fast food, a woman measuring her waist and a man who is so malnourished that his ribcage is visible through his skin; African Americans being hosed down by the Ku Klux Klan; nuclear explosions, the World Trade Center collapsing as a result of the September 11 attacks, children waving American flags (one of the children being Brad Delson), a Middle Eastern child holding an AK-47, clips of oil tankers torn in half and birds covered in an oil slick. The video ends with the same grass at the beginning growing out of the dirt, causing it to dry up.

The video clip was featured and won on MTV's Battle of the Videos against videos by Evanescence ("Sweet Sacrifice") and Lil' Mama ("Lip Gloss"). The video also marks the first appearance of a Linkin Park video in the #1 spot on MTV's TRL, hitting #1 six times so far. The video has over 350 million views on YouTube as of July 2018. AOL currently has a live performance of "What I've Done" on their website. MTV's James Montgomery called "What I've Done" the "biggest, baddest and best Linkin Park video of all time," praising the visuals as well as the numerous political figures and events occurring within the video. He summarized the video's message: "Hahn was smart — or brave — enough to inject a message here: the destructive power of man versus the unyielding beauty of nature, and where it all will undoubtedly end (hint: we lose)."

A second video, made exclusively for Australia, features a considerably different scenario from the first; instead of clips of human sin and the grass sinking clip, the video tells the story of a woman (played by Emma Mullings) working at a government-run pharmaceutical company learning of a plan to develop a deadly new virus for "social control", and – with the help of several people dressed in black hooded sweatshirts with Linkin Park's logo on them – smuggles out several blood samples of a human test subject of the virus to expose the conspiracy. The video can be seen on YouTube and Linkin Park's Australian website.

The song made big debuts on the US charts during the chart week of April 21, 2007. The song debuted in the top 10 of the US Hot 100 on April 10, 2007, at #7. It is the band's second highest debut to date on the chart (this title was previously held by "Somewhere I Belong" which opened at #47), earning "Hot Shot" debut of the week, and subsequently becoming the third highest position for a Linkin Park single to date on the Hot 100. The song was their highest debut until they released "New Divide" in May 2009. At the time of its debut it was only the eleventh song since 2000 to debut at #7 or higher on the Hot 100, and only the third song to do so by an artist not from American Idol. The song was partly fueled by digital sales, debuting at #4 on the digital chart. The song was certified 2×Platinum by the RIAA on November 13, 2008. It reached 3 million downloads by early 2011, making it their most successful digital song in the US. As of January 2015, the song has sold 3,700,000 copies in the US.

In addition the song became only the third song ever to open at #1 on the Modern Rock chart, also becoming the band's seventh number one on the chart. It held the #1 spot on Alternative Songs for 15 consecutive weeks, at the time tying it with Marcy Playground's "Sex and Candy" The song also reached #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart, where it stayed for 8 consecutive weeks. In the iTunes music store, the song had reached number two. It was kept out of the top spot by "Give It to Me" by Timbaland. The music video is the first to reach the number 1 spot on TRL for Linkin Park video history. It has also become a moderate hit on the Adult Top 40, and Pop 100 Airplay charts, peaking at number 21 and 17 respectively on those charts. The song hit #6 in the UK once the physical format was released, making it Linkin Park's highest-charting UK single.