I’m mad about Pokemon

 A digression from Breath of Fire Content:

I’m mad about Pokemon.

 

Like, I used to be mad about pokemon in the way where since 1998 I’ve caught them all, collected 54 Badges, 24 Master Medals, completed 14 island trials, photographed 277 pokemon, Capture-Styled 213 pokemon, and purified 130 shadow pokemon.  Like, if it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill, let me show you my doctorate degree in pokemon.  I loved/love? Pokemon. Now I’m conflicted.

 

Now I’m mad about pokemon in the way where I’m angry at the direction the games have been heading.  After years of being immersed in pokemon, it feels like a toxic relationship.  Like if you love your dog, but now that Arcanine is 25 years old it doesn’t play, it only bites. 

 

What is my problem with pokemon?

 

My problem is not surface level.  For example, the big talking point for both SwSh, and Legends was the poor quality of the graphics.  Graphics don’t solely make a game.  And while non-cohesive graphics do affect my immersion, I think they are an indication that something deeper is wrong.  For example, if your Pidgey returns home missing feathers and covered with cat-scratches, maybe everything is fine, but probably this is an indication that something serious has happened.  Or perhaps, multiple serious things have happened.

 

So, what is my problem?   Multiple things.  Like it really bothers me that there are empty landscapes, object pop-in, arbitrary ankle high barriers, and the hand-holding empty ‘chosen trainer’ narrative.  Since the transition to 3D, the pokemon world has felt empty and fake.  It feels too sterile and too safe.  It has lost the sense of danger that I feel is necessary for an adventure.

 

The core of my problem is that pokemon no longer caters to what I’m looking for in a ‘pokemon’ game.  And there isn’t a good alternative franchise.

 

Why do you play pokemon?

 

First everyone needs to acknowledge that everyone plays games for different reasons, and that’s fine; please play the games that fit your needs. 

 

Why do you play pokemon? Do you play to explore a whole new place with a brand-new attitude?  Do you want to be a master (of pokemon)?  Do you have the skills to be number one?  Are you a contest champ? Are you a fan of cute lovely smart amazing Rapidash?  Do you want to craft your own stories based on your personal experiences? Do you want to build secret bases, and play capture the flag with friends? Or do you gotta to catch ‘em all?

 

Why did I play pokemon?  What I’m looking for in a pokemon game is to explore and get lost off of the beaten path. To discover secret places and ruins and rare monsters.  Secondarily I want to catch ‘em all.  And pokemon just doesn’t offer that anymore.  Between Dexit and how paint by the numbers the games have become, players don’t really have the freedom to discover and explore optional areas and places on their own. 

 

Like in gen 1 you can basically do gyms 3 through 7 in any order, provided you get the Soul badge before the Volcano badge.  In Gen 3 there are a lot of optional areas, and paths that loop back to places you’ve previously visited from different directions.  The direction of your adventure was dictated by your decisions. Since X and Y, the player does not have the agency to make meaningful decisions about the direction of their adventure.  Black and White has this problem as well, but in X and Y the framing of your travel was changed from ‘ok, go explore’ to ‘Welcome to the guided tour of Poke-France, please proceed to the next landmark to initiate the next exposition dump’.  This is loss of agency is way worse in Sun and Moon because instead of being told where to go, you are told and then taken there. 

 

This loss of player agency makes for games that I’m just not interested in.

 

What has really changed?

 

There has been a shift in Game Freak’s design goals.  If you compare developer interviews from the beginning to more recent ones there is a clear change in their design goal.  From Satoshi Tajiri in the 90’s wanting “to make the kinds of games that he would want to play” to Junichi Masuda’s recent “without player feedback we are making a game we think children will enjoy”. 

 

There could be any number of reasons for this change.  From too much emphasis on focus testing, to the Pokemon company wanting to chase market trends, to focusing too much on a prefabricated story.  The end result is a shift away from a game that offers a unique multifaced experience for each player, to a game that is largely exactly the same for each player except for which 6 companions they choose to take with them.

 

So why write this essay?

 

If we properly name what I’m doing by writing this essay, I’m grieving a betrayal of trust after decades of being in a relationship built on an expectation of new places to adventure and monsters to capture based on a strange natural world. 

 

I’m mad that ‘Pokemon’ games pretend like they haven’t changed the experience in 25 years.  Modern games are drastically different from what they once were, and it really gets my Gogoat that modern pokemon games have replaced meaningful choices with a large quantity of quantum ogres. E.g., “Is your pokemon cool or cute? Doesn’t matter!! It’s both! You have no choice!!!”

 

So, what now?

 

Well publish this essay online as a means of coping.

 

Point out that Pokemon Home is a scam.  If you can’t have all of your pokemon in a format that you yourself own, and are not required to pay an external company money at a regular interval, under threat that they will delete your pokemon if you don’t pay, then that is by definition blackmail/ransom/extortion.  It’s disgusting.

 

Note that the ‘new pokemon snap’ has bad game design. Link?

 

Wait for someone else to make a game that fulfills my need for exploration and capturing monsters.  Or find the time to make it myself.

 

And try to find less stressful things to focus on.

Ciao

Image dump for rom hack box arts

Breath of Fire 2 Re translation

Breath of Fire War of the Goddess (re translation)

Pokemon Inverse Emerald

Pokemon 97 Gold Reforged

Pokemon 97 Silver Reforged

Pokemon Super Gold 97

 Image dump for rom hack box arts

Gold Fly Pudding Recipe

 

Gold Fly Pudding Recipe

While the Japanese text suggests that the Gold Fly and its counterpart the Blue bottle fly could be a reference to the family Calliphoridae making the Gold/Green-Bottle Fly Lucilia sericata a kind of blow fly found throughout the western hemisphere with its cousin Silver/blue-bottle fly It seems more prudent to use a fly that is actually gold to begin with and I might suggest using the Golden-backed Snipe Fly "Chrysoplius thoracicus", or the Sunflower Maggot Fly "Strauzia longipennis" instead.

This is a multi-layer baked pudding version of the classic Shoo Fly Pie

Fly Prep:

1 cup Gold Flies

Cornmeal

1 cup Amaretto

Prepare flies by Feeding them on moist cornmeal for up to 3 days, then drown flies in amaretto until ready.

Dry layer:

½ cup flour

½ cup sugar

¼ teaspoon baking soda

¼ cup butter

Wet layer:

½ cup molasses

½ cup hot water

¼ teaspoon baking soda

 

Preheat oven to 375 *F, and butter a 9 inch (both round and square would work).

For the dry layers: Mix flour, sugar, and baking soda. Cut in butter until a crumb forms. Then add half a cup of drained gold flies.

For the wet layers: Mix molasses, hot water, baking soda, and remaining flies (lightly drained).

Prepare by layering the two mixes evenly. Start with adding 1/3 of the wet layer mix to the bottom of the pan, then 1/3 of the dry mix, and repeat alternating wet and dry until done. Bake 40 minutes, then cool before serving.                        -JMWelker

Dizzy Deer Soup Stock Recipe

• 1/2 pound of white mushrooms sliced
• 1 Deer antler
• 1/2 pound of venison shank
• 1 large yellow onion quartered
• 2 potatoes quartered
• 1 Tart Green Apple cored and quartered
• 1 Ginseng root
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon cloves
• Salt to taste

Prepare all ingredients and add to large pot. Cover with water. Bring to a boil for 10 min. Reduce to a simmer, and simmer for 2-3 hours. Strain out solids, and allow stock to cool. Use for making soups, or cooking rice, etc. *Note, solids except for deer antler and bones from the venison shanks can be eaten or discarded as preferred.

-JMWelker 2020

 

Breath of Fire 'Wind Loaf' Recipe

 

Looking at the ingredients in #breathoffire III I concocted a 'Wind Loaf' recipe to emulate the Bread item. As Wyndia clearly trades in grains, and forest products a honey-wheat bread with seeds made the most sense to me.

D&D 3.5 Rules for a Breath of Fire 2-like Shaman System

For the Shaman system, I ended up trying to balance it across, all 11 races, where anyone could fuse for a +2 in a corresponding stat (+1 to their modifier), and then each race had a transformation pair that gave a new special ability. The shamans where scattered across my setting to thematically appropriate places with the side quest to find them initiated by finding granny, and they followed a couple of rules:

1) Any Fusion will end when the character loses > 90% of max HP unless will save = dc 10 + char level. Upon failing or if a player drops below 0 HP the fused shaman returns to granny’s location.

2) Any Player may fuse with no more than 2 shaman at a time.

3) Dragon Clan cannot Fuse

Also I tried to make Karn’s fusions work with everything but didn’t end up needing to use them. Basically anyone of Karn’s bloodline could fuse with another character (PC or NPC/hireling) to get HP = 150% of greater contributing HP pool. Stat modifiers between the two characters would be averaged. They would have access to all skills, special abilities, and feats. And they would use the better land speed of the fused characters. Imagery would be left up to the DM’s discretion.

Sana (Fire) gave +2 to atk, Seso (Water) +2 int, Spoo (Wind) +2 dex, Solo (Earth) +2 Con, Seny (Holy) +2 wis, Shin (Dark) +2 cha.

Grassrunners: (Sana) +4 atk. Transformation (Seny + Shin) Gain a robotic shape, ability Spray (ex) 1/level/day, the Grassrunner may make a single Ranged force attack against all targets in cone originating from the user, Damage = Grassrunner’s main weapon damage, Range increment = 30Ft unless the grassrunner’s main weapon is ranged then use the longer range.

Shell Clan:  Transformation (Seny + Solo) take an armadillo’s form, +20 tumble, AC +3, small size (additional +1 to AC).

Woren: Transformation (Shin), or (Shin +Sana), or (Shin + Seso) take the form of a black haired/furred warrior, ability Keep (ex) focus for one round, next attack is an automatic critical hit.

Windian: (Spoo) gain a green hue, +4 dex and if the Windian is a spell user +1 spell slot for each level known. (Spoo + Sana) or (Spoo + Seso), gain a red hue and shaman bonus is +4 instead of +2. Transformation (Spoo + Seny) take the form a great angel, ability Banish (su) 1/level/day Turn all enemies as is using turn undead.

Highlander: (Sana + Seny), gain a golden hue, and shaman bonus is +4. Transformation (Sana + Seso) Take the form of a fiery Djinn, ability Sway: 1/level/day make the DM reroll the enemies in a random encounter on the encounter table. (Possibly used against bosses with a 50% (or more) failure chance)

Creeping Clan: (Solo) gain a toad like appearance and shaman bonus is +4, Transformation (Solo + Seso) Gain the ability to turn into a giant frog (su) at will (I don’t have stats for this, I’d recommend leveling up an appropriate monster/ or using its stat block). Transformation (Seny + Seso) or (Seny + Spoo) take the form of a regal knight, ability Chop (ex): 1/level/day if the chop attack hits an enemy, they must make Fort save vs DC 10 + 1/2 your HD + your Strength modifier or die (unless the enemy is immune to critical hits, for bosses it was a 3x critical)

Grassman: Transform (Seny + Seso) or (Seny + Spoo) take the form of a mushroom person, ability Spore (ex) 1/level/day gain the ability to cast sleep or deep slumber according to your level. Transformation (Sana + Shin) take the form of a Trent +4 to all stats. Transformation (Solo + Seny) take the form of a bulb, ability Bud (ex): declare you are making a bud attack, make a single attack against one target, if successful the next attack against the same target gets +2 to the attack roll and causes double damage.

Manillo: (Seso) gain a bluish hue and shaman bonus is +4, Transformation (Seso + Spoo) gain the ability to transform at will into a giant whale (su).

Iron Ogre: (Sana) gain a redish hue, shaman bonus is +4. Transformation (Shin + Sana) take the form of a giant Iron Ogre, +1 size category, and gain the feat Break: The DC for your attempts at breaking objects is decreased by your character level.

Dirt Eating Clan: (Solo) shaman bonus +4. Transformation (Solo + Seny) gain the form of a Badger, ability Trap (ex) 1/level/day while burrowing under a target, you can entrap the target under the earth. Reflex DC = attack roll.

Bonus: At one point I had a player playing a lizard folk (race as is from the monster manual), and added shaman stuff for them: Lizard Folk: (Spoo) gain rudimentary feathers, shaman bonus +4. Transformation (Spoo + Solo) gain the form of a Tyrannosaurus, use T-rex stat block with HP capped to the player’s number of HD.

D&D 3.5 Rules for Dragon Transformation

Rules for Dragon Transformation adapted from the Wild Shape Supernatural ability. For Breath of Fire game comparisons, in practice this plays like a cross between how the transformations work in BoFI and BoFIV

Dragon Wild Shape (Su)

-Dragon Clans men gain the ability to turn herself into a Small or Medium dragon and back again once per day. You gain all the extraordinary and supernatural abilities of the dragon whose form you take, but not any spell-like abilities or spellcasting powers. Changing form (to dragon or back) is a standard action and doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity. HP in dragon form is capped at the same amount of hit die that the player currently has. Each dragon form has its own HP pool, each of which is not refreshed until a full night’s rest.

-The options for dragon form are affected by alignment. i.e. Good dragon clan cannot change into evil dragons.

-Any gear worn or carried by the clansman melds into the new form and becomes nonfunctional. When the clansman reverts to her true form, any objects previously melded into the new form reappear in the same location on her body that they previously occupied and are once again functional. Any new items worn in the assumed form fall off and land at the clansman’s feet.

A dragon clansman loses her ability to speak while in animal form because she is limited to the sounds that a normal, untrained animal can make, but she can communicate normally with other animals of the same general grouping as her new form. (The normal sound a wild parrot makes is a squawk, so changing to this form does not permit speech.)

-A dragon clansman can use this ability additional times per day at the 2^nd, 4^th, 6^th, and 10^th levels after gaining this ability as well as another time at 18^th character level.  In addition, she gains the ability to take the shape of a Large dragon at 5^th level after gaining this ability, a Tiny dragon 7 levels after, and a Huge dragon at 15th character level.

-The new form’s Hit Dice can’t exceed the character’s level.

-10 levels after gaining this ability, a dragon clansman becomes unrestricted to dragons matching his alignment.