Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

Still catching up on far too much around the site after far too long away!

I have to say I'm liking Sw/Sh. It has some stupid things to it. Why are there trains (HA!) if there's fast travel air taxis? The wildlands seem kind of poorly integrated with the routes - it's possible to level up too much and catch too big a party early in the game in the wild before you ever get to gyms and routes, which makes those too simple. Plus, the gyms are very cool, but so far by gym 3 I have to say they're very short and simple, mostly seeming designed to showcase dynamaxing - a one-shot gimmick for the most part. Maybe the gyms get more interesting later on. The game is going by too quickly, though, which only goes to show it's quite fun. Despite some of those stupid decisions, I don't get what all the complainers were on about. Maybe they want harder games, and I admit, so far, (so far!) it's maybe too easy, but so is Kirby, and it's always good fun.

So...

Just out of curiosity: anyone joining the dry January band wagon, or what?

@NEStalgia Well, I hate to (re-)start something, but the two biggest complaints apparently were that the Pokédex is "incomplete" and that the game is "horribly ugly", with "character animations ripped straight from the 3DS version", so that's about it, basically.

And then people will quite easily amass more than 200 comments while discussing/whining about these exact two things and all it's connected and interwoven intricacies. Or actually, just their own delusions of how the game "should" have ended up being, if they would have been at the helm of the development team...

Oh, and welcome back, and a Happy New Year, train nerd...

@ThanosReXXX 😂
@tyranexx sometimes its even like having more kids with how needy they are lol

@Octoguy That’s neat! I still wish there was a method of sharing Garage creations with friends. If they made it password with friends only, that’d minimize the chance of wild phallic creations.

@NEStalgia The game picks up in the gym challenges later, and Dynamaxing becomes less of a one shot kill. I completed 5 or 6 so far.

Just took forty minutes to get the starter motor off the truck. Gotta rebuild it after it finally gave out. I cleaned it out last year and got quite some more time out of it, so I’m pretty confident that just a rebuild will do it. I ain’t spending $150 for a reman unless I have to. I may wait till the morning to crack it open, though. I need to dive for the rest of the elite plans in Black Flag.

@ThanosReXXX the dex thing i can at least understand even if i don't agree with the wining since it's at least objective that every monster ever isn't in the game (even though it's impractical to expect that it ever would have been.). I don't really understand the graphics complaint on any level though. It looks good, it's consistent with the series design, nothing stands out as particularly good or bad. Yes the wildland isn't exactly xc2 or botw, but it looks fine for what it is, and GF has never once had enviable graphics so it meets expectations there. IMO the complaints I had above make more sense to wine about if they want something to whine about, at least make it on point whining . At least that is something that impacts progression in the specific game, and is a game specific criticism rather than complaining about what it isn't...

Btw, so far, there's no multiplayer focus. The dynamax dens are easy, single battles. If you don't play with others it just gives you 3 ai trainer partners. Maybe later on it matters, but in the first portions the ai doesn't even matter. Maybe if you're doing legendaries and such later on, it becomes painful alone, but i think it's safe for you to get the game if you haven't already... It's plain old Pokemon as you know it, but with some open world area bolted on almost after the fact (cool open world, i like it a lot, but it's clear to me they added it after most of the game had already been designed and is probably why the fast travel was added even though it broke the whole point of the train stations.)

Happy New year to you as well!

@NintendoByNature Haha, I'd definitely think so! Though I think a lot of kids are cleverer than adults in their own way....

I had this mysterious device show up randomly. It seems to be begging to be broken in....

I caved for the Spyro Reignited Trilogy bundle that Walmart was running the weekend before Black Friday. I got both the game and a V2 Switch for $289 USD. Due to a couple of constraints I placed on myself (short answer is I wanted something paid off first) as well as a busy holiday period, I've just recently gotten everything set up. The amFilm protectors arrived yesterday, so I'll attempt to put them on in a little while.

Most of the games were obtained over time. A couple were bundles, but others were gifts or were obtained via sales or discounts.

I'm leaning towards either Ori or SteamWorld Dig 2 as my first game. Or I might just give Mario Kart 8 Deluxe a spin.... :thinking_face: #FirstWorldGamerProblems

@Tyranexx haven't played swd2 but I did play thru ori..knowing how much you like metroidvanias I'd give that a try..but swd2 is also one 😋. So either will do ya..oh and congrats!!!

@Tyranexx SMASH!!

@NintendoByNature Thanks! The fact that Ori is a Metroidvania really appeals to me, but I'm also a huge fan of the first SteamWorld Dig. We'll see which one strikes me first lol. I'm about to start a longer game on the 3DS, so I want to belt through a couple of shorter games on another system while I'm at it.

@HobbitGamer Y'know, it wouldn't hurt to get sucked into World of Light in Smash Ultimate either....Hmm....

@Tyranexx Make sure to give us your friend code.

@NEStalgia Thanks, hope you had a good one. Probably a lot safer one than over here, where loose fireworks are rampant, coming from just about every street and/or home...

As far as the pocket critters are concerned: all the whining ever represented to me, was entitled people having unrealistic expectations, based on nothing. Or rather: based on the opposite, because like you said, the games were never top notch where graphics are concerned, so suddenly expecting a massive boost in that department based solely on a new and more powerful hardware platform alone, is kinda dumb, really. Oh, well... people on the internet, and all that...

@Tyranexx I was about to say something along the lines of "Wow, someone got a BIG Christmas bonus", but then I already saw you explaining your rather extensive starter catalog away, so good on you.

As for not wanting to be sucked in: better leave Breath of the Wild alone for now, then. I still quite vividly remember the day, or rather: the loss of the day when I first tried it out. I just wanted to give it a little spin, to see what all the fuss was about, but it completely drew me in, and before I knew it, I had to remind myself to start making myself some dinner, before the evening was over as well...

Oh, and welcome to the club. Finally...

So, now that this particular bridge has been crossed: about that Blu-Ray player...

I know @Ryu_Niiyama knows what my new avatar picture is
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190708.html

I have bought two Ratchet games last Thursday. 😉

Since i'm not a good at shooting, i played Into the Nexus in Cadet level. 😅

@Woomy_NNYes lol Galactic center. I clicked on your name by accident when it brought me to the thread and I was looking at the larger image like “I’ve seen that before isn’t that the galactic center?” Then i hit back to get to the thread and clicked your link. Yup! Nice one.

@Tyranexx dig and dig 2, especially, is great, but so short . Sign of a good game if it keeps you wanting more though... You really get into it and then it just ... Ends...

Ori is a great, but brutal game. It's depressing though, which always keeps me from picking it up! I mean the story isn't exactly FF, but the opening and tone just feel so depressing. I opened it for my birthday years ago and was excited and then just kind of sat they're, jaw hanging, thinking.. Well..... That was a downer to cap an otherwise nice day...

@ThanosReXXX we have that problem too, unfortunately. Though it was a bit tamer this year now that the grade A (holes) moved that would blow up mini bombs that actually shook The house and lit the whole sky orange in a flash, and rained embers on like a dozen houses.
Unfortunately the 4th of July gets the bigger fireworks nuts going here with full illegal antics, and they run until September. Barney Fife never seems to notice though... Even if you report it. Annually. Ironically one of the people i thought was doing some of it actually isn't and is also sick of it.

Never had these problems anywhere near this degree until the past 8 years or so. Not sure what changed other than the influx from ny.... But ny is actually uncommonly strict on that stuff, so it's not like it's something these people were used to there. It's weird. Right after e3 it becomes a warzone. New years is somewhat frustrating with it but now is more tame. The 4th is the 4 week period to dread now, with secondary events at memorial day and labor day. Nothing like honoring veterans like triggering their ptsd!

@Anti-Matter I'm jealous of those games. If I had a playstation, I definitely would have gotten Ratchet & Clank. Played some on my friends PS4 last year, and it looked so great.

@NEStalgia Yeah, I've heard about those fourth of July celebrations. It was actually in the news the other day, where our own America correspondent, who lives and works in the States for one of our largest news channels, explained the difference in how New Year's celebrations go over there. And that's when he himself said that the biggest bang of the year in general, was the fourth, not New Year's.

Either way, we all came out alive again, at least: I don't think we're missing anyone, right?

I went to my beer store shortly after they opened yesterday, and found the store manager dismantling a seven foot Sierra Nevada Christmas tree advertisement piece. The tree looks like it’s made of hops, and it’s decorated with bottle caps. He said he didn’t know what to do with it, and I offered to help him carry it to my car. So I have one of those now. A giant, cardboard Sierra Nevada Christmas tree made of hops. It went straight to the crawlspace, and I’m going to try and not think about what to do with it until next holiday season.

@Tyranexx - Woohoo, congrats on setting up your Switch and jumping into an immediate, massive backlog. So you actually bought it on Black Friday? What an incredible show of self restraint. Well done. That’s monk level discipline.

@ThanosReXXX - We’re going to do 30 days of alcohol abstinence starting this month. Probably Monday. We’ve had it planned for a little while. We still had time off this week, so we weren’t worried about starting it on the first as a resolution. We’re doing it more as an experiment in economics, and to examine the overall physiological affect on the body. I’m not too worried about it. I have to pick up my monthly beer club six pack on Tuesday, but I don’t think it will be a problem having it in the house while abstaining (hoping I don’t find myself hiding in the basement in two weeks pouring the six pack on my face).

@bimmy-lee Abstinence, really? The beer and rasslin' guy? Oh, dear. That's going to be something to behold, for sure...

All kidding aside though, a bit of non-alcoholic living every now and then certainly isn't a bad thing. Gives the liver some time to recuperate, reset and optimize itself again, and depending on the usual intake, it will also have its effect on the blood flow and stamina, something the missus might approve of...

For me, there's not going to be any dry January. Unless there's a party or birthday, I only drink on Saturdays anyways, and never more than 3 or 4 glasses, so I don't reach the yellow or orange zone of averaging 2,5 glass per day, let alone the red zone of "and/or more". And besides, most of these birthdays and parties are also in the weekend, so during the work week, I simply don't drink alcohol. Well, unless of course the holiday festivities happen to be on week days, like it was this December, but that isn't always the case, obviously.