But now this… Black or White? I am very torn. Very, very torn.

I got Red over Blue because I like the color red better, and because Charizard is more awesome than Blastoise… even though I started with Bulbasaur. Unfortunately, I have neither FireRed nor LeafGreen, but given that choice, it would have been LeafGreen. The version differences between the earlier generation games were pretty basic — just a handful of Pokemon exclusives, and for Red VS Blue, I didn’t really pay that much attention. In retrospect, I kinda wish I hadn’t missed out on Sandslash, Meowth, and Ninetales, but I’ve long since figured out that none of them were going to make my team anyway.

Similarly, I got Silver over Gold because I like the color silver better, and because Lugia looked more badass than Ho-oh. The version exclusives were again, just a handful of Pokemon, but some of the Pokemon I had missed out in choosing Red over Blue were in my version of the game now. Ninetales is mine, hurray! So I missed out on Ariados. I got Skarmory instead.

For Ruby and Sapphire… despite liking the color red over the color blue, I prefer sapphire gems over rubies. I wasn’t particularly sold on either Groudon or Kyogre, so the spotlight legendary was less of an influence, but Water-types are cooler than Ground-types, right? Other than that, Sapphire is the game from the only generation I haven’t finished, so I don’t have much else to say there.

In the fourth generation, I had no color preference. Choosing Pearl over Diamond was based almost entirely on the fact that Mismagius and Houndoom were both Pearl exclusives. Tyranitar was a Diamond exclusive, which tempted me for a bit, but since I figured Larvitar would be a late-game acquisition anyway, I went with Pearl. (Besides, it seemed like everyone I knew had Diamond.)

As colors, Black and White are equal to me. I love dualities and will never be able to pick one over in that manner. Instead, this generation is again making me choose again between Pokemon I like… But this time with Mismagius and Houndoom on opposite games.

Both have appeared regularly on my teams since they were both introduced in Gold/Silver (well, Misdreavus was introduced in G/S; Mismagius was in D/P). Mismagius is my favorite Ghost-type, and Houndoom is definitely a contender for my favorite Dark-type (the other being Tyranitar for now, though I expect some of the new B/W additions to get into the running soon). I’d like to think that I like the two equally, but if I’m honest, Mismagius has always battled better for me. Houndoom’s weak defense and average speed sets him on a lower tier even if I love his Doberman hellhound design and even if he’s one of the few Fire-types I actually care for. Mismagius is exclusive to White; Houndoom is exclusive to Black. The rest of the Pokemon exclusives are:

BLACK	VS	WHITE
	VS
I mentioned previously that I liked the design of Reshiram, Black’s legendary, over Zekrom’s. That is +1 for Black, but Zekrom is Electric/Dragon where Reshiram is Fire/Dragon. I like Electric-types over Fire-types, so that’s +1 for White as well.
	VS
Beedrill can break the heavens with his drill. No contest here. +1 for Black.
	VS
I was always kind of indifferent to Paras, though he is kind of adorable. But Shroomish is grump, and grumpy things always win with me. +1 White.
	VS
There is no contest here. Mismagius wins, and White gets +5 because Mismagius is more important to me than pretty much all of the other Pokemon exclusives..
	VS
Again, no contest, though I might have had a chance to like Mightyena more if I had liked third gen more. +4 for Black — not five, because as much as I like Houndoom, I decidedly like him less than Mismagius.
	VS
Negative is better than positive… though I’ve noticed I’m pretty inconsistent in my picking red over blue or vice versa, lol. +1 White.
	VS
I dislike both of these Pokemon. No points here.
	VS
Ahhh! I can’t decide! They’re all so cuuuute~! Though… I think I may be leaning more towards Cotton Ball Guy because its evolved form looks like some kind of crazy ram thing, omg. ♥ +1 Black
	VS
The more humanoid a Pokemon is, the creepier it is. So naturally, the plasma dude wins +1 for White here.
	VS
A lot of people seem to really like the new eagle, but I hate its colors… Really, the vulture doesn’t seem that great either — its pre-evolution is fat and ugly — but it’s still better than the eagle. +1 Black.
	VS
This entire line of legendaries is hideous. The one for Black is the only pure Flying-type in the entire game, while the one for White is the third Electric/Flying, after Zapdos and Emonga. Normally, the Electric-type would have an advantage with me, but these are just so ugly. No points here.

And that marks the end of the Pokemon exclusives. Score so far is 8 for Black and 9 for White, but we’re not quite done yet because the fifth generation kicks things up a notch with a few other major differences between the two versions:

BLACK	VS	WHITE
	VS
Black and White introduces triple battles, which, in all honesty, is kind of overkill to me. Double battles allowed for the birth of some interesting strategies since many moves were made to attack multiple targets or to somehow benefit your partner. Upping it to a triple battle intensifies the need to strategize more, but I feel like its setting the path to eventually have six-way battles, which would just… break the game. Or something. There is a subset of triple battles called rotation battles though, where you still have three Pokemon in the fight, though only one can attack at a time, and you can only attack your opponent’s “active” Pokemon of their three as well. The way it remains different from normal single Pokemon battles though, is that you can rotate to one of your other Pokemon at the beginning of each turn without losing that turn; a Pokemon’s speed is also factored in after the rotation. Since this at least seems like a bigger innovation from the previous double battles, I am slightly more interested in this. The trainers in Black offer more rotation battles while the trainers in White offer more standard triple battles. Thus, +1 Black.
	VS
Black and White both feature an exclusive area with special properties. In Black City, you’ll be able to catch in the wild the fully evolved forms of various Pokemon, including Ampharos, Gardevoir, Aggron, Flygon, Salamence, Luxray, Electivire, and Magmortar, among others. You’ll also be able to purchase a collection of rare items, including some of those that normally only appear once or twice in each game, such as the Dawn Stone, Dusk Stone, and Shiny Stone. In White Forest, you’ll be able to catch the low-level, pre-evolved forms of the same Pokemon available in Black City, so Mareep, Ralts, Aron, Trapinch, Bagon, Shinx, Elekid, and Magby. You will also be able to simply find a variety of rare items, and while there is significant crossover in the kinds of items available (including the three aforementioned stones), there are a few differences as well. Black City and White Forest play on the human VS nature motif that will apparently be playing a big part in the games, so the differences make a lot of sense. I am really torn as to which aspects of each exclusive area I like better though. On one hand, being able to buy all the evolutionary stones is awesome, especially since I will probably have tons of money by the time I get to that part of the game. Wild, high-leveled evolved Pokemon would also provide good training, though I probably wouldn’t catch any of them to put straight on my team. On the other hand, being able to just find all those rare items in White Forest is also awesome; you just don’t have as much control over what you get, but theoretically, you’d end up with everything anyway. Being able to catch low-leveled rare Pokemon also saves a whole lot of of breeding and hatching Pokemon looking for the right nature and IVs. You can just catch and check. So much easier! In the end though, I think I’d rather just buy items than depend on luck, and I don’t actually spend as much time breeding for natures as some others might. So, +1 to Black it is then, eh?
	VS
The final difference between the two versions is the 8th gym leader, which is Shaga in Black and Iris in White… but they both have the same team lineup, so who cares? It is a superficial difference, though I do kind of like Shaga’s design better. So uh, +0.5 to Black.

And the final count for me? 10.5 for Black and 9 for White. Not a big margin… but I guess it’s still a margin. Black it is, then?

I am still going to be very upset that Misdreavus and Mismagius will have to be traded into my game, which means that if I want to be the original trainer of my Mismagius, I will have to breed one, and who knows how far into the game I’ll need to be before that happens? All the other Pokemon are basically just entries in the Pokedex, hahaha. The battle system and the gym leaders aren’t that important to me, but I suppose I’ll live without being able to catch Lv.5 Trapinches everywhere… I mean, I don’t actually use many of those Pokemon’s evolved forms anyway.

Black it is, then.

Still, there are a whopping 44 type combinations that still haven’t been used, which is ridiculous considering there are only 153 possible combinations of the 17 types (136 two-type combinations + 17 single types). This number can be reduced to 32 if we take out all the missing half-Normal types, like Normal/Dark, Normal/Electric, etc., but that’s still a big percentage.

I always figured that non-Normal, pure-type Pokemon had “Normal” as their de facto second type anyway. It wouldn’t change anything as far as weaknesses go, as a Normal/Electric Pokemon would have the same weaknesses as a pure Electric-type, so whatever? In fact, most half-type Normals probably shouldn’t be half-types to begin with. A vast majority of them are Normal/Flying, and considering we didn’t have a pure-type Flying until just now, I wonder why all they all weren’t just pure-Flyings to begin with? Also: the only two half-type Normals that weren’t Normal/Flying prior to the fifth generation were Girafarig (Normal/Psychic) and Bibarel (Normal/Water).

The former could be considered a legitimate hybrid, but Bibarel only ever learns one Water move. Fifth gen introduces a Normal/Grass line and two legendaries — Normal/Fighting and Normal/Psychic, though the two legendaries have the same moveset and might just be two forms of the same legendary, except they have individual ‘dex numbers, so I have no idea. Still, they could have easily made them a pure Psychic and a pure Fighting, so I’ve yet to see anything particularly creative done with Normal half-types. That’s probably why they’re “normal.”

Of the thirty-two other combinations, Poison is involved in the most with seven unused combinations — Dragon/Poison, Electric/Poison, Fire/Poison, Ice/Poison, Psychic/Poison, Rock/Poison, and Steel/Poison. Of those, Psychic/Poison and Steel/Poison are probably the most interesting since Poison is weak to Psychic and Steel is impervious to Poison. It’s kind of surprising that Poison seems to have gotten shafted so much considering it’s more an ability-describing type rather than a form-describing type like Ghost and Dragon, meaning it can theoretically be applied to any variety of Pokemon.

Psychic/Poison would be easy enough to come up with something for — Psychics, also being an ability-describing type, are pretty all over the place as far as physical form, so giving them an added poison attribute is easy. Steel/Poison is harder to imagine since they are opposites… Maybe some kind of machine-looking thing with syringes? Hmmm. Malpracticemon! Okay, so I guess it is a bit difficult to match Poison with some of the descriptor-types like Rock and Steel… it doesn’t make much sense for a thing of Rock or Steel to be able to poison you. …But the others have no excuse!

Electric would also have seven unused type combinations if you don’t count the alternate Rotom forms (Electric/Ice, Electric/Fire, and Electric/Grass, above), which I kind of don’t since they’re only obtainable through a Wifi event item and are, you know, alternate forms. The other four missing Electric combos are Electric/Fighting, Electric/Poison, Electric/Psychic, Electric/Rock. Electric is another ability-type, and all of its combination partners except Rock (and maybe Grass, if we’re counting that) are also ability-types. Therefore, Electric has also been unfairly ignored for way too long, though I’m probably a little biased because Electric is my favorite type. But seriously, how hard is it to find some unused animal base — like, say, a dimetrodon — and decide that it can invoke the powers of fire and electricity? That would be badass. Or hell, if you made the dimetrodon Electric/Rock and just axed the fire part since all prehistoric-based Pokemon are part Rock (for reviving fossils), that would kill the trouble of needing to fit it with a more literal Rock-type!

Next on the Most Shafted list is a five-way tie between Ice, Fighting, Ghost, Psychic, and Rock, which have five missing combinations each, unless you want to disclude Rotom alternate forms, in which case Ice comes out on top with six, and Fire is added to the five-way with five. This kind of surprised me since I expected Dragon to be higher up, but apparently there are only four missing combinations that include Dragon — I guess I just haven’t been paying much attention since I don’t like Dragon-types, usually. Ice, Fighting, and Psychic are ability-types and should, again, be easy to just attach to anything.

Rocks are hard to mix types with since they are in direct conflict with a lot of other types (Rock has the most weaknesses of any type). Still, if we continue the trend of all prehistoric-based Pokemon being part Rock, this gives us a lot of options because there are a ton of prehistoric animals we don’t have Pokemon versions of. I already mentioned dimetrodon, and without even getting too esoteric, there’s also stegosaurus, parasaurolophus, and ankylosaurus. Four dinosaurs. Let them be part Rock and part Electric, Ghost, Ice, and Dragon, and then the only thing you have left is Rock/Poison. Okay, a ghost dinosaur is kind of weird — they are all kind of freaky revived fossil ghosts, I guess, but I’m sure you can find some kind of creative explanation. Rock/Dragon wouldn’t be hard to do outside of straight up dinosaurs since Dragon is a form-type, so maybe if you cross one of those dinosaurs with a scorpion you could do Rock/Poison. In fact, why not do that with stegosaurus or ankylosaurus? They both have the tail for it. There. Problem solved!

Ghosts are kind of weird. The missing combinations are Ghost/Grass, Ghost/Psychic, Ghost/Rock, Ghost/Steel, and Ghost/Fighting. I think technically, it would be passable to just pick any kind of base form, ghostify it, slap on another element and call it a day, but Ghosts are always more fun when there’s some kind of story behind them, no matter how silly, like the idea that Driftloons are the ghosts of popped balloons. I don’t think it’d be hard to ghostify a plant, so Ghost/Grass should be easy. Ghost/Rock was already kind of touched on above. Ghost/Fighting could be the ghost of some breed of fighters, I dunno. Fighting Pokemon all seem rather similar to me anyway. Ghost/Psychic and Ghost/Steel seem to have the most potential for weird origin stories; Ghost/Psychic also being a combination of opposing types makes it even more fun, especially since they’re doubly weak to Dark. I hope the eventual debut Pokemon of that type combo isn’t disappointing…

Though I’m not a big fan of Fire-types, there’s also really no reason for the missing combinations to still be missing because Fire is yet another ability-type and all of its missing partners are also ability-types. Leaving out the Electric/Fire Rotom form, we’re still missing Fire/Grass, Fire/Ice, Fire/Poison, Fire/Water. Three of those pair Fire with an opposing type and are therefore of immediate interest. Opposing type combinations are always great since it automatically knocks out a weakness — Fire/Grass, despite being part Grass, would obviously not be weak to Fire. It would also not be weak to Ground, despite being part Fire. Think of the team strategies we’re missing out on here! Also, Fire/Water is the only combination involving Water we’re still missing. Apparently there are shrimp that live near underwater volcanoes. I don’t think we have a shrimp Pokemon. Crab, yes, but no shrimp! There you go!

Tied with four missing type combos are Dragon and Bug (and Grass, if we disclude Rotom). Both are form-based types (and Grass is weird and kind of both form- and ability-based) and the missing pairs are: Dragon/Grass, Dragon/Poison, Dragon/Rock, Bug/Dragon, Bug/Ice, Bug/Psychic, and Bug/Dark. Dragons are easy. Start with a generic dragon form and pimp it out with its element. None of its missing types are particularly clashing, except maybe Rock, but it’s not that hard to imagine a golem-like Dragon. Dragon/Bug is also kind of weird, and it’s a shame they’ve already typed out the dragonfly-based Pokemon to other combinations, but it still shouldn’t be that difficult. Bugs are kind of monster-like already, so dragons shouldn’t be far off. It also shouldn’t be hard to give some random bug psychic or dark powers, so the only challenge here is Bug/Ice. Hmm.

Hanging out at the bottom of the list are Grass, Dark, Ground, Flying, Water, and whatever else I’ve forgotten. Most of them have already been covered as the second half of aforementioned type combinations, and none of them seem particularly difficult to come up with something for. Really, a majority of the types involved in the missing pairs are ability-based types; thus, a many of the combinations involve two ability-based types, which are easy to attach onto anything. Of the form-based types, Dragon and Bug are easy, as is Fighting (which could be disputed as an ability-based type anyway), and Rock can be knocked out almost completely with dinosaurs. Steel is kind of problematic, but it’s only involved in three combos anyway.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that it shouldn’t be hard to come up with Pokemon for these missing combinations, it will probably take another two or three generations to cover them all because there are a lot of type combinations that seem to be covered as part of tradition more than anything else, including slews of Normal and Water-types, of which there are more than any others. Let’s assume no new generation adds more than the third generation did (135 new Pokemon). Let’s assume that we’re never going to cover any new type combos with the starters and their evolutions (-9). Let’s assume two or three evolution lines of basic Normal-types that harass you at the beginning of the game (-10), two lines of Normal/Flyings (-5), and a couple of bugs (-6). We always seem to have a handful of pure Grass-types (-8), a couple of pure Fightings (-2), and a bunch of new Fish, and Water only has one missing type combo left (-15). That’s 55 Pokemon out of the way already. If the generation only adds about a hundred new guys, that’s half your possibilities gone. If they add the max of 135, that’s still more than a third. Throw in all the repeat combos and you aren’t left with very many.

Still, I guess it’s a good defense for when people claim that Nintendo is “running out of ideas.” They still have 33-45 type combinations to cover. That is plenty of justification for another generation! Not that they really need it though.

I am so excited.

Seriously. For me, the build-up to Black and White has been very similar to the build-up to Gold and Silver, which, as the very first new generation, was the Most Exciting Thing Ever. Sure, by now — generation five and almost fifteen years old — the franchise’s new additions are pretty predictable: new island (based off New York City, baby!), new trainers, new attacks, season changes, three-way battles, more Wi-Fi stuff, and of course, new Pokemon. But as tried as the formula is, I am still most excited about the new Pokemon. I like having new things to collect. Monsters were cool when I was eight. Monsters are still cool, dammit.

Not surprisingly, the starters were among the first Pokemon revealed after Black and White was announced back in April. I am starting with Grass again for sure. (He kind of looks like Excalibur, doesn’t he?) Tsutaja, though he’ll undoubtedly be renamed for the overseas release, actually doesn’t look all that different from Treecko, but instead of being gecko-based, he’s apparently snake-based… ’cause his final evolution looses all limbs. It has always, always bothered me when Pokemon loose appendages when evolving (Kadabra’s tail, Graveler’s arms, Zorua’s tail, etc), but snakes are freakin’ awesome, so I guess I’ll get over it. Firepig is cute, but I’ve never really liked Fire-types. His final evolution looks like he’s gonna be best buds with Infernape though. Otterthing got a lot of hate originally for looking so damn derpy, but his popularity has grown over the months, and he’ll probably get even more popular with its awesome second evolution, though I reaaaaally don’t like his final form.

Progressing through the new ‘dex, we have the new versions of the Pokemon we get repeatedly: new annoying Normal-type for early on in the game based on some rodent (#504-505), new dog- and cat-based Pokemon (#506-510), new Normal/Flying bird based on a pigeon (#519-521). I usually don’t care all that much for these, but despite already having the Pidgey line, the new pigeon Pokemon is adorable and I like it so much better than the Starly line of the previous generation. We also have a new Pikaclone to join our army of Pikaclones! Emonga (#587, right) joins Pichu (2nd gen), Plusle, Minun (3rd gen), and Pachirishu (4th gen), and is probably the most adorable of the lot. It’s also Electric/Flying, making it the only non-pure Electric-type of the group, and the I am ridiculously excited to have another Electric/Flying aside from Zapdos because having legendaries on your team is lame.

There’s actually another new Electric/Flying for Black and White (#642); it seems to be part of a trio, along with a Ground/Flying (#645; the third of that type combo, after Gligar and Gliscor), and a straight-up Flying (#641). Aside from seeing more Pokemon fitting into certain type combinations, I am also really, stupidly excited to see some of the brand spankin’ new type combos, including Fire/Psychic (#494), Ground/Steel (#530), Ground/Dark (#551-553), Dark/Fighting (#559), Bug/Steel (#589, #632), Bug/Electric (#595-596), Grass/Steel (#597-598), Ghost/Fire (#607-609 — left, dude, it freakin’ looks like you set Driftloon on fire!), Electric/Ground (#618), Ground/Ghost (#622-623), Dark/Steel (#624-625), Dark/Dragon (#633-635), and a ton of others.

I am so glad they are finally adding more mixed type Electrics, Ghosts, and especially Dragons because Dragons are ridiculous with their single-type weakness, Ice, which is a pretty rare type to begin with. Pairing them with another type will hopefully make them a bit less overpowered. Then again, one of our box-cover legendaries, the white dragon that’s on the cover of Black, Reshiram, is Dragon/Fire… which means they probably aren’t weak to Ice, which means it’ll join the Dark/Ghosts (Spiritomb, Sableye) and have no freakin’ weakness! Maybe it will be weak to Water, but I kind of doubt it, even if Water is neutral to Dragon. There is also a new Dragon/Ice (#646)… which is definitely not weak to Ice. Tangentially, I’m still waiting for a Grass/Fire type, which would presumably not be weak to Fire, Ice, and Bug. Single-type Grass Pokemon have the second most disadvantages in the whole game (after Rock), and while there are already a lot of mixed Grass-types, I’d like to see more because I love Grass Pokemon and it sucks that they’re weak to everything!

But back to Reshiram… I am having a terrible time deciding whether I should get Black or White. On one hand, I like how Reshiram (above left; cover of Black) looks a lot better. On the other hand, even though Dragon/Fire would theoretically not have any type disadvantages, I much prefer Electric-types to Fire-types, and Zekrom (above right; cover of White) is Dragon/Electric. But I also like Reshiram’s name better, and I feel they’ll keep both names in the translation since they’ve kept most other legendaries. Other version differences thus far revealed include an exclusive area in both games — White gets White Forest and Black gets Black City. Kind of indifferent to this since I don’t really know what we do in each. Other than the legendaries, the only version-exclusive Pokemon known right now are two Psychics, #574-576 for White and #577-579 for Black. The latter trio (final form to the left) looks much better.

I guess I still have another half year to figure that out though, since the North America/Europe release is set for sometime Spring 2011. Oh, there seem to be no new Eeveelutions! I am not particularly surprised, considering they also skipped third gen. So I guess that means we’ll get another pair of new Eevees in uh… three years or so, when sixth rolls around. (I’m hoping for Ghost and Ground; how about you?)

But yeah. All in all, I am incredibly pleased with the new Pokemon for the fifth generation. The fandom, as always, seems to be very conflicted for the moment. Some people love them all; some people hate them all. A lot of people feel the new designs resemble Digimon a lot more than Pokemon, and while I can definitely see why — Reshiram and Zekrom in particular remind me a lot of Digimon because of how needlessly complex they are (and maybe also because they both have generators on their butts) — I don’t see why that’s a reason to be upset? It isn’t really as if all Pokemon before this have been entirely consistent in style. Just compare, I dunno, Pikachu with Machamp with Magnemite. All first generation originals; all very different Pokemon. Besides, you can’t simultaneously complain that we’re repeating too many animal species (pigeon-based Pokemon, tadpole-based Pokemon, bat-based Pokemon, etc) and that we’re diversifying too much.

Some people are also upset at the number of inanimate object-Pokemon like IceCreamConemon (#582-584) and Coffinmon (#563) and Gearmon (#599-601). Admittedly, I didn’t used to like animate object-Pokemon either, but they’ve kind of grown on me, especially after having used Bronzor/Bronzong in Platinum… and especially because Lawnmower!Rotom exists and is adorable (right). As long as they manage to make the designs either 1) badass, 2) adorable, 3) reasonably aesthetically pleasing, then I’m all right. You won’t like every single Pokemon in every single generation. I am personally not a big fan of most of third and fourth gen, and there are certainly Pokemon I don’t like in the first, second, and fifth, but hey, you win some, you lose some.

As such, I am preeeetty tired of people whining about how the first generation how the best Pokemon designs by virtue of being the first gen. Really, guys?

It’s a TURD WITH A NOSE, a RACIST DEPICTION OF A BLACK PERSON, an EXPLODING INVERTED POKEBALL, a PUDDLE OF SLUDGE, and THREE MAGNET BALLS STUCK TOGETHER. You cannot convince me that they are more awesome than:

So there. I can’t freakin’ wait until this comes out Stateside. In the meantime, I really need to finish up SoulSilver. <_<

Naturally, the Pokémon community exploded today with this much, much anticipated announcement. It’s something that pretty much everyone knew was coming, but I guess I was always one of those cautiously optimistic ones. I don’t like putting too much faith into things until they’re official, and even then, sometimes announcements don’t follow through. I probably should have known better though. After all, Pokémon is never going to die! So no worries! HeartGold and SoulSilver are now official! And it will have a lot of new/updated features and other awesome things that will make people want to buy it more than they already do!

It’s like the anticipation for the original Gold/Silver all over again. The glorious nostalgia returns! I think keeping up hardcore with the news back then for G/S is one of the reasons I consider G/S my favorite generation and one of the reasons I have the fondest memories of my Silver game. Even though all the rumors didn’t follow through in the end (no male/female choice for instance), there was just such a huge upgrade between the second generation and the first generation that it was hard to be disappointed.

I don’t expect that things will be quite as drastic this time around, but consider this: the original G/S (and Crystal) were the only games that featured the lands of the previous generation. Can you imagine how amazing it would be if the remake featured all four major islands? Kanto, Jhoto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh, and probably a few extra feature islands too? I think all Pokéfans everywhere would just shit themselves with head-exploding happiness if that happened. Man, oh man. It’s highly unlikely considering the complex map shenanigans they’d have to pull, but we can dream, right?

As of yet, we don’t seem to have a projected release date or any hints towards what the newly added features might be, but I don’t doubt it’ll be fun following this news for the next however long it takes.

I absolutely cannot wait to have Totodile as my starter again, holy crap. You don’t even know!

More than a decade ago, when I was collecting the Pokémon TCG along with every other kid in the neighborhood, my father told me that these sorts of hobbies were just money-wasters and that Pokémon would be dead in five or ten years. The holographic Charizard that was going for $75+ on eBay wouldn’t be worth a dime then. Well, it’s been more than five or ten years later. That holographic Charizard still goes for about $10+ if you know who to sell to; all things considered, I’d say that’s damn good. It’s quite a bit more than a dime, at least. The first edition holo Charizard will still fetch you $75 at least, if not $100+. And as for Pokémon being dead? Ha! Sapporo just got a brand new Pokémon Center, and even in the US, Pokémon’s presence in stores is being expanded once again. I don’t think it’s unlikely to think that the Nintendo World in Manhattan might actually be turned back into a Pokémon Center — I mean, it isn’t like they sell much else there anyway.

Satoshi Tajiri really did have a breakthrough idea when he came out with Pocket Monsters. Considering Japan’s already rampant collector’s attitude, creating a franchise based around collecting is just… genius. To some extent, maybe collecting runs in my blood — being a huge pack rat also contributes — but I think that everyone’s got at least a little bit of collector’s urge to them. Few things are as satisfying as having a completed collection, but each little piece along the way is a great milestone too. It’s true even for things that might never be complete — stamp collections, video game, manga, and DVD collections, whatever. And so, Pokémon has become very much the same. You will likely never “catch them all,” but that doesn’t make the games any less fun. It doesn’t make you feel any less triumphant every time you hit the current monster cap.

Currently, that cap is 493. A lot of people are shocked when I tell them this because they stopped paying attention as soon as the number got bigger than 151. That’s fine. Really, there’s nothing wrong with having lost interest a long time ago, but I must say I’m a bit tired of people adamantly insisting that it should have stopped there. To them, I ask, why? Why should it have stopped?

From a business point of view, there is no reason to stop as long as the games keep selling, and they have kept selling. They have sold amazingly well again and again and again. Every successive generation of Pokémon has seen the two games at the top of sales charts for at least a month after release. The third game of each generation goes simiarly. My Gamestop manager friend told me today that Platinum was sold out by noon, not including the dozens of preorders that were also picked up. Pokémon’s appeal has proven to transcend generation as well. My seven year-old brother (there’s kind of a big age gap between us) loves Pokémon just as much as my other brother and I did ten years ago. And hell, I still love Pokémon. That’s a different kind of generation-transcention. I have just as many friends now, if not more, that still love and actively play and collect Pokémon as I did a decade ago. This may just be because I have a nerdier circle of friends, but the fact remains. Pokémon has kept selling to new and old fans alike, so why should Nintendo stop?

From a fan and gamer’s point of view, things are a little different, but the bottom line is mostly the same: the fans keep buying it. Obviously, this means they still want to play. I remember when all the rumors of the 2nd generation — Gold and Silver — were fresh on the Internet. (Oh, I love remembering the Internet of the 90′s.) It was a huge. There were fake screenshots and outrageous speculations abound, but everyone was excited for it. Sites like PsyPoke and Pokémon Village were teeming with information and some of the most active fan communities on the web (is it sad that I remember these sites’ names?). I don’t think there was a single fan of the original game that wasn’t piss-their-pants excited for G/S.

G/S did not disappoint, but there was a slightly longer lag between the 2nd and 3rd generation, as well as a platform jump. To be honest, I was excited for Ruby/Sapphire also and really wanted Sapphire for months and months after its launch. There were upgrades and updates that hadn’t made it into the 2nd generation, and I was eager for more. I had just filled my Pokédex with the 251 (with some help from Gameshark for that Serebii), but I was eager for more. Unfortunately, as my parents were unwilling to invest in a new game system and as I was unable to get it on my own at the time, I lost interest in Pokémon for a few years. In that time, I suppose I got a little bitter towards the franchise — I also thought a lot of the new additions to the lineup were retarded-looking. The games should just end because I can’t play them anymore! But that was just me. Meanwhile, everyone up was eating it up all over again, game magazines and the ilk included. They all said that it was essentially the same game with fancier features, but dammit, it was still fun!

When FireRed/LeafGreen released, because I wasn’t really paying attention anymore, I perceived it as a pure business greed. They’re out of ideas, I thought, now they’re just re-releasing old games! (Though money was probably indeed part of the equation, there is also the very logical explanation of wanting to have a way of getting first, and some second, generation Pokémon on the new Advance generation platform since R/S wasn’t backwards-compatible.) When Diamond/Pearl released in 2007, I didn’t have much of an idea what was going on anymore, but even then, whenever I heard about it in passing, I wanted to play it.

Long story short, I bought Pokémon Pearl that September and borrowed my friend’s DS to play it on. For two weeks, I spent 3-6 hours a day playing it until I finished the active storyline and beat the Elite Four. It is still an amazingly fun game. Yes, a lot of the newer Pokémon designs are silly, but hey, there were a lot of stupid designs in the original if you think about it. (Seriously, Mr. Mime? Jynx? Racist Pokémon of the century! Golem? Muk? Exeggcute?) Some designs are just rehashed ideas, and I think that’s my only quip with Pokémon at this point — there are thousands and thousands of animal species in the world to base Pokémon off of, we do not need another Pikachu or Pidgey clone! Nevertheless, there are still a few gems: Rotom, especially Lawnmower!Rotom, is probably the coolest thing ever. XD

The interaction-centered gameplay is charming enough on its own, really, and a lot of people don’t even pay attention to the “gotta collect ‘em all” mantra, but those that do, like myself, really have fun with it. I felt good passing the 100 Pokémon caught mark; I felt good catching 200 of them. I felt good catching 300. Currently, I am just short of 400, but I’ll probably feel good passing that too. It doesn’t get old. I don’t really know why. I suppose a lot of collectors lose interest after a while, no matter what they’re collecting. But adding a hundred new targets every few years somehow does manage to keep Pokémon interesting. It’s very simple. It’s like the post office doing special releases of stamps every few months. It is the simplest tactic ever, but it works.

Pokémon isn’t confined by its games either. There is an amazing among of Pokémon merchandise out there, especially in Japan, where they are still very much in love with their little critters. I really find it interesting just how much that country obsesses over all of its pop culture icons, not just Pokémon. Doraemon, Detective Conan, Hello Kitty, Gundam – so many things retain worship-worthy statuses within their culture decade after decade. If there’s only Japan to consider, it’s easy to say that Pokémon will last forever, but that its still got International momentum, that’s even more amazing.

Back to the merchandise though, the market for various Pokégoods is pretty incredible. According to Gin, its main maintainer, tens of thousands of dollars change hands on the Pokémon Collectors community on Livejournal every month. Collectors are from all over the world and the general mood is obsessive. Very obsessive. Most collectors like to focus on a few specific Pokémon. More ambitious ones will go after certain types. Since most Pokémon merch is sold only in Japan, and since many items are promo-only or otherwise retardedly hard to find online, its common for deputy services to be used. Collectors of Eeveelutions in particular face daunting prices for some very sought-after items. Says Gin, “[T]he person using brianjapan just paid about 220-240$ (after fees) for a one centimeter long [U]mbreon.” Collecting Pokémon is SERIOUS BUSINESS, for real.

Collectors are crazy. I know because I’m one too. And that is why I also know that Pokémon is not going to die. Sure, there are collectors for almost every franchise in existence, but are they as widespread as they are for Pokémon? How many collectors of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles do you know? Of Evangelion? And what other franchise has the sheer volume of things to collect? It’s hard to collect if there are only a few items available. But with almost five hundred Pokémon and at least a dozen pieces of merch for each of them (even the random, unpopular ones. I’m not kidding!), Pokémon will not die. Not as long as people are willing to catch them all over and over again and to shell out some thirty thousand yen for a tiny figurine. I don’t mind anymore. As long as it’s still fun, Nintendo can keep at it as long as they damn well please and it’ll be all right with me. ♥ I, for one, would really love to see an Advance generation remake of Gold/Silver to go along with FireRed/LeafGreen.

In closing, I’ll leave you with some of my collection, though honestly, it’s very modest compared to most I know.

The bulk of my Lapras collection. I am missing a lot of plush releases of Lapras, but I’m working on it. :3

Below is every TCG card of Lapras except one (Misty’s Lapras, Japanese-only card), including three versions of the card from the Fossil expansion (holo, first-edition holo, and first-edition non-holo). Also, some miscellaneous stuff likethat Lorelei card? Dunno, lol.

And here’s where the collection actually sits on my shelf, along with my even more modest collections of the Totodile/Croconaw/Feraligatr evolution line and Ivysaur. Also: random other figures and crap I have.

Honestly, aside from the money issue, the only reason I don’t have more toys right now is because of lack of shelf space. Poor Knuckles has to sit on the lower shelf along with that random Agumon and my DS.

And for good measure, here are my keys. Haha.

And awesomely enough? Just as I was wrapping up this post, my roommate walks in and hands me a copy of Pokémon Platinum, which I hadn’t planned on getting because of time/money deficiency. I love my friends.

I can’t decide whether I should be confused, perplexed, amused, or exasperated. Or all four at once!

Strangely enough, despite the fact that this movie was announced a year ago at BLIZZCON, there still isn’t very much information on it. It’s labeled as being in pre-production on IMBD, but they still don’t have a director or anything resembling a plot. I’m somewhat surprised that they’re going for a “war story” rather than a Lord of the Rings-type thing as I’m sure many of its players are into the genre, but eh… I dunno. Of all the uninspired game-to-movie ideas that have been tossed out there, I would have expected better from Blizzard (or maybe I just want a Starcraft movie instead because damn, that’d be awesome).

It’s been a year full of dead news already though. At this rate, I kind of expect this WoW movie to not make it out of production if it ever even enters it — WoW’s appeal is that you create your own character and your own adventures, more or less. I don’t really feel as if that would translate well into a movie that was removed from yourself and your character. Oh. Look. This guy agrees with me. If this movie’s made, it’s not going to make money. At all.

I never did like the idea of companies venturing into different fields and medias without first mastering their primary one — seems a bit stupid, doesn’t it? Why should Microsoft venture into gaming when its software has so many problems? Why should TOKYOPOP create a new division for movies when they can’t even handle their comics right now? Why should Blizzard try to make a Warcraft movie when they have games to finish making (oh, that’s the Starcraft-fan in me being pissed again, sorry)? I’ve only ever see one company take on multiple disciples extremely effectively and that’s, of course, Google. This isn’t to say others haven’t succeeded, I’m sure some have (how about that Xbox, eh?), but most of the time it doesn’t work that way.

It’s a hugely risky venture in hard economic times. Give up that movie, Blizzard, you’ve got more important things to do.

So my first thought was this:

Then again, considering all of the madness that Sunrise has put on the Code Geass drama CDs and sound episodes and the over-the-top, blatant fanservice they put in magazines like Newtype, maybe this Geass-Pangya association is supposed to be taken with that same grain of salt. It isn’t like any of it is canon anyway. And I guess it really isn’t that hard to imagine that Ashford has a giant golf course tucked away somewhere that they take occasional field trips to, and Lelouch is really the only character that would fail hardcore at it anyway — I guess golf isn’t all that physically extraneous, but I still like to think he would fail utterly at it.

I wonder if they’ll give Suzaku some kind of mad hax golf ability. I wonder if there’s a golf course at Clovisland! I wonder if I would have noticed these sorts of weird anime-game hybrids earlier if I actually played games? Ah, well… I guess I don’t really have much else to say. This is just one of those passing WTF moments, which seems to happen way too often with Geass. Speaking of which, how about that R2 review huh? …Oh, right, haven’t written it yet. :X (Hattip: CG LJ comm)

First of all, think of all that untapped revenue! Kingdom Hearts has become a gigantic cash cow for Square-Enix in the few short years it’s been around (oh, crap, has it already been seven years?), but before they came up with the brilliant idea of making three more spin-off semi-sequels, they turned down the bid to release KH2: Final Mix+ overseas. Why? What possible logic is there to cutting the rest of the world off from that title? The original KH: Final Mix was understandable. There was logic behind that one. The overseas kids already had the extra footage and knick knacks in their normal release, so it was only fair that the Japanese kids get a version with Sephiroth — and throw in some extra keyblades. Nothing too substantial, really. But KH2:FM+ was an entirely different ballgame.

Unlike the first Final Mix, it not only added a billion new cutscenes, features, and other bells and whistles, but it added a 3D version of Chain of Memories! Considering the Japanese, US, and European releases were nearly identical this time around, that just seems a little unfair, doesn’t it? Now consider that KH is arguably equally popular in both the US and Japan (sorry, Europe, I don’t have stats for you!). Japan shipped about a million copies in the first week of KH2′s release. The US shipped about that much in the first month. Fair enough, but over time? The US obviously has a bigger population. This means more fans. This means more sales. This means more people pissed about the fact that KH2:FM+ is a Japanese exclusive.

I don’t have sales numbers for KH2:FM+ in Japan, but if the ratio of sales remains the same, Squeenix and Disney would definitely get a bigger chunk of change from the US than from Japan if KH2:FM+ was also released in the US. (And even more with a European release!) So why cut off the rest of the world? Why spit in the face of all that potential money? It would have been much easier than developing three more games, anyway. I don’t get it. Clearly, Squeenix is more than happy to milk the shit out of Kingdom Hearts, so why not?

Now, in December, they’re releasing Re:Chain of Memories in the States, which means the most unfair part of the KH2:FM+ package will finally be available to the poor fans over here, but I still feel like there are significant additions to the KH2 part of the special edition to warrant the whole damn thing to be released Stateside. I want those cutscenes, dammit. I suppose it’s smart of them though — this way, they fill at least some portion of the overseas’ gaping void, but they retain some bit of their exclusiveness, and all the Japanese kids can still laugh and feel special. I don’t really know why they’re entitled though.

And really, Japanese companies can’t not know that some fans will just import the games and import the console and/or mod the one they have so they can play it. There are plenty of copies of KH2:FM+ that’ve fallen into grubby American and European hands, but no one officially supports that kind of roundabout madness, right?

I’ve said before that I don’t really play games much anymore, so I don’t know whether this exclusive release bullshit happens often with other games, etc. If it does happen, I’d be interested in knowing whether other games’ logic (if there is any) for only releasing certain games in certain countries is as ridiculous as KH’s or if there are actually any legitimate reasons. (Laggy development times, as in the case of some of the early Final Fantasy games, would be one of those legitimate reasons, but these days, no one can really use that excuse anymore.)

The site, Overclocked Remixes, among other video game titles like Super Metroid and Chrono Trigger, features three Sonic-centric remix albums. They are albums for music from Sonic 3 & Knuckles (best game ever), Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and… an entire 18-track project album dedicated to the music from the Ice Cap Zone in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, lol. All the tracks also stream for free on last.fm. It’s all very awesome.

A ton of really talented people have contributed to these albums, and I really love the variety, especially on the S3&K album. My favorite tracks right now, I think, are “Dead Batteries,” which is remixed from the Flying Battery Zone, and “Scrambled Eggman,” which is remixed from the boss music. Some of these remix titles are really hilarious too, lol, like “Caution: Echidnas May Eat Your Brain” for Knuckles’ theme, since he was a bad guy for much of the game. :P Really freakin’ love this remix for Lava Reef Zone too (“Lava Passion”), though there’s a slightly more awesome remix of it by someone else that wasn’t included on the project.

The sheer number of tracks on the ReCapitated Ice Cap Zone remix album is really impressive. The music for the zone is nice, certainly, but I personally never liked it as much as Lava Reef or even Hydrocity. Still, I might change my mind after I make it through all eighteen tracks!

I’d really love to see similar remix projects for Sonic CD and Sonic 3D Blast. The former was a really underappreciated game in my opinion, since not very many people bothered with the Sega CD platform and the PC version wasn’t nearly as awesome. It had great music all around; after all, it was where the “Sonic Boom” theme debuted. And really, as far as the Japanese/American soundtracks go (they are completely different), I prefer the American version. The main reason is because of the boss music. Sorry, guys. Sonic CD’s boss music was just 100% better in our release. ;3 Sonic 3D Blast wasn’t really nearly as a great a game, but it still had some pretty awesome music (more awesome boss music!). Besides, all its isometric goodness was a first forray into the 3D realm, and I still remember the commercials on TV raving about that, haha. There’s no official project for either game, but individual tracks can be found on the site. Check them out~!

Why don’t they make gold farming legal?

There is such a huge market out there for it, bridging the gap between lazy people who have too much money and poor people that have too much time. Both sides are just perfect for one another, neither is going to disappear any time soon, and there are apparently more than $500 million in underground transactions every year. Half a billion. That is a ton of untapped, potential revenue.

Yeah, yeah, the most obvious answer is: unfair! People who can’t afford to pay other people to level up for them are going to get demolished by those that do, but honestly, this is already such a big problem anyway that I don’t think it matters much. There will always be hardcore gamers and casual gamers. The former will log 60+ hours a week on WoW while the latter will quit after two months because assholes keep raping them for minimal gold and the lulz. This divide is not going to go away. People are not created equal. Some people have more resources than others, whether it’s time or money. Does it really matter if a person actually accumulates all the power themselves or if they paid someone else to do it? End result is the same. That night elf is going to skewer you and then prance away on its limited edition, flying, rainbow unicorn. Just to rub it in.

Just divy up the newbs and the lv. 70′s like in a real RPG.

Instead of trying to limit gold transactions so people won’t be inclined to make real-life profits, why not facilitate it? And grab a percentage of said profits? Throw up an in-game auction service, charge a small fee, take in a bit of that $500 million. Having a legitimate place to do the trades should also cut down on the number of scammers floating around.

Games like Second Life are, unfortunately, only doing this half-way. You can buy lindens with real money, but you can’t trade back. Of course, their logic is that it keeps the money in the game, thereby benefiting the company, but it isn’t as if linden-for-cash trades aren’t happening anyway. Once again, install a legitimate service. Take out a percentage of transaction if you’re so inclined so the trade-back isn’t 100% — most people use Paypal and that takes a fee anyway. Why not take that fee and make it your own?

Of course, Second Life isn’t exactly an MMORPG, but if its cash-for-in-game-stuff model isn’t considered unfair, why should cash-for-gold be? In a roundabout way, maybe it’ll get more kids out of the house for a job so they can buy more crap in the game. …Maybe.

Mine isn’t really an informed argument, I guess. Like I said, I don’t play MMO’s, but making gold farming legal just makes so much sense to me.