A map of Canada

We stand on guard for thee!

Seriously though, Quebec is horribly inaccurate. Protesters who protest about everything, huh? Nah, it's just that the liberal arts students are noisy enough to make the rest of us look bad. You want free tuition, huh? Well how about you major in something that will allow you to make enough to pay your student loans? (I already showed you some sickening examples of these cretins last year on this very blog, so if they treat us taxpayers with that kind of disdain we'll be more than happy to return the favor.)

"Catholics" is horribly wrong too. Maybe before 1960 back when the Catholic church basically owned everything and mindwiped us into being their mindless minions, but now it's atheist heaven. 90% of us rejected the church, and the remaining 10% are over the age of 70. That's not me being cynical either, go to a random church on Sunday morning and count the hairs that aren't white. You'll be done fast, I promise.

Poutine, though? Yes. Yes yes yes. A HUNDRED TIMES YES. Of course, where it goes totally wrong is when people try to mess with the formula. I've already mentioned that Italian poutine is just about the grossest thing ever, and I stand by that statement. (It's made by replacing the gravy with spaghetti sauce, for the record. Wrong on every conceivable level.)

So, fellow Canadians, what is wrong or right about your home province? (Can not resist joke about "terrible politicians" belonging in Alberta...)

Thanks to MrNewblez for the tip.

Mystery Dungeon 2 is the king of spin-offs!

Can't say I'm surprised. The battle really was MD2 vs. everything else, and it fell just short of getting a majority (108 votes out of 219). The weird thing is, critics hated this game so much, and we Pokémon fans consider it the high point of the franchise outside of the main series (and maybe even including the main series).

Conquest finished a very, VERY distant second with 35 votes, and I'd like to say I expected much more of a fight out of it, but after conceding so many votes to MD3 in the gen 5 poll, it was clear it wouldn't be in contention. Nonetheless, I think it's the second choice of most MD2 voters (myself included), and Ness Prower explained why perfectly in the comments of the gen 5 poll:

It is a fantastic game despite being THE most outlandish crossover ever. We in America were asking ourselves, "I would not have seen this coming! Will it be any good?" Then it came out in Japan, and that was replaced with, "This game sounds awesome! When are WE going to get it?!" We got it, we loved it, and you know the rest...

It's true that Pokémon Conquest has the most screwed-up family tree out of any game. It's a crossover between Pokémon and Nobunaga's Ambition (two franchises that have absolutely NOTHING in common), with clear influence from Samurai Warriors which is itself a spin-off of Dynasty Warriors. What.

The two "console series" titles present in the poll fought fiercely for third, with XD just barely edging out Stadium 2 25 to 24. And then it was a frantic rumble between the other three games to NOT finish last... a dubious honor that went to Snap with 8 votes, just behind the TCG with 9 and MD1 with 10. (Really? 10 people like MD1 over MD2? I'd LOVE to see the reasoning.)

You say Sylveon is either Normal or Flying

229 of you chipped in with your guess, and the most popular choice was Normal, with 101 votes. However, Flying, with 79, proved to be almost as popular - and most of those votes came in after the English name was revealed. Not too much of a surprise there, it's really the most convincing argument why it could be Flying. Dragon (15), Fighting (13) and Bug (12) were popular outside picks. The reasoning behind Dragon has been cited to death, Bug has those ginormous, creepy-looking eyes going for it, and Fighting... I don't know. The others are non-possibilities: Steel had four votes, Ghost two, and Ground, Rock and Poison one apiece.

Slowbeef and Diabetus vs. the worst LP of all time

No. Not just worst Pokémon LP, worst LP period. In a world where the likes of PewDiePie exist, no less. I dare you to last to the end of this. Even the RP commentary didn't take away the temptation of performing a crucifixion on myself.

Edit: These aren't his first self-fanservicing shenanigans either. Long before his self-insertion through LPs, he did self-insertion... through ROM hacking! Go to 5:55 and be sure to tell me if your last meal didn't make a U-turn and exited through your mouth. I'll give you a cookie.

And now, the grand finale!

The gen 5 poll went exactly the way I expected - a Conquest curbstomp, with 104 votes out of 158. What I did NOT expect, though, was for MD3, a game that's currently out only in Japan and is generally perceived as a horrible insult to its predecessor, to put up such a fight for third. Rumble 2 still edged it out 23 to 18, though. Typing Adventure, a shovelware that also wasn't released in North America, took 8 votes, presumably for the lulz, while Poképark 2 took the remaining five.

Now it's time for the final poll! What is the best Pokémon spin-off of all time? For me it's a really close call between MD2 and Conquest, but I think I'll have to go with the former by just a little bit.

Ninfia's English name: Sylveon

Quite frankly, I'm not sure what to make of it. I seem to recognize the term "sylph" from it, which refers to an air spirit. If that's the case, whoever guessed Flying (or Normal/Flying, depends) would be right. The word "nymph", which could be found in Ninfia, is also present in the French name.

Regardless, it seems that they're serious with these worldwide announcements, right down to non-starters, non-legendaries.

Now watch. Since we usually get Eeveelutions in pairs, we're going to get a Ground-type (as an opposite of Flying) called Gnomeon, named after "gnome", the earth elemental. Of course this is just wild speculation and isn't even worth calling a rumor, but I'm writing this down just in case I turn out to be right.

Suddenly I'm proud to be a Pokémaniac.

Sure, rule 34 always crops up in near-record time (good luck topping Shade the Echidna though), but this amazing-looking thing also came up in less than 24 hours following Ninfia's reveal. We have morons in the fanbase for sure, but we also have some awesome people!

Oh, by the way, is it wrong if I think this looks better than the official art?

Thanks to Shiron for the tip.

Another poll: Guess Ninfia's type!

Self-explanatory. Of course, the spin-off polls are still going in the meantime, this is just running alongside them.

My best guess would be Normal, as it matches the color scheme of several Normal-types. Heck, it reminds me a bit of Delcatty in terms of appearance.

Horrible gen 1 sprites... for all 649 Pokémon.

And the best part is, they're totally believable. Whirlipede in particular is my favorite for how horrible it is.

Thanks to TheShinyFeraligatr for the tip.

MD2 steamrolls the opposition + gen 5 poll

Well that was a boring blowout. I expected the likes of Ranger 2 and 3 to stand more of a chance, but I guess not. MD2 is the undisputed king of gen 4 spin-offs with 123 votes out of 166, leaving everything else in the dust. Battle Revolution managed to tie Ranger 2 for second with 13 votes apiece (really? Did no one play the Neon Colosseum?), while the original Rumble bagged eight, Ranger 3 seven, and Mystery Dungeon WiiWare and Poképark each ended up with one lonely vote each. Naturally, MD2 is the only one that advances to the final poll. I mean, how could I include games that fell way short of getting 10%?

Now it's time for gen 5, and I think we're in for another massacre...

I was scared of what, exactly?

I've been replaying DKC4 lately, and something odd happened to me today. I had reached level 7-4 (that would be the Fear Factory rocket barrel level) in a previous play session, and decided to stop there, since that level kicked my ass badly on previous playthroughs and I didn't feel like punishing myself with something like that. I put that one off until later, procrastinated, found every excuse in the book not to do it for days. Then today I decided, dammit, this level isn't going to get the best of me. So I sit down, start playing, and I breeze through it in record time, with a feeling of "that's it? Are you kidding me?" when I reach the end. I missed a puzzle piece and some of the letters, so I went in again and grabbed all that stuff while dying... maybe twice? And that was it. I was scared of THAT?

Has something similar ever happened to you? Have you gotten to a point in a game where you thought, "this is where I die", either by previous experience or by hearsay, only to absolutely curbstomp this so-called "challenge"?

Magikarp finally learns a fifth move

Gotta love those useless events, right? The most recent one, straight from Japan, is a shiny Magikarp... at level 99. I guess the point is that it's for those that are too lazy to level a Gyarados up to 100... I guess? Anyway, they missed a golden (despite the Magikarp's color) opportunity to be the biggest trolls ever and give away a level 100 one instead, which means it could never evolve. I mean, they already did that crap with the Spiky-Eared Pichu, right? Oh well, it's a free shiny... if you live in or around Nagoya, I guess...

Anyway, the most interesting thing is that this Magikarp happens to know Hydro Pump. Not such a big deal since Gyarados has always known it (and Hydro Pump is horrible on it regardless), but it just so happens that before now, Magikarp had only obtained one new move ever since GSC brought it Flail, that being Bounce in Platinum. So you can now legitimately build a four-move set for Magikarp that doesn't involve Splash! Little Cup players better beware, Hydro Pump Magikarp is the new metagame!

MD1 gen 3 spin-off of choice + gen 4 poll

The generation 3 poll was going to be an interesting one, because all of the big spin-offs look horrible compared to other games: MD1 and Ranger 1 compared to their sequels, and Colosseum and XD compared to the main games. In the end, MD1 was by far the least bad of the bunch, with 101 votes out of 199. The Gamecube RPGs follow far behind, with XD and Colosseum obtaining 39 and 28 votes respectively. Ranger 1, with 12 votes, came really close to being beaten by Pinball 2, which had 11. Channel (5), Trozei (2) and Dash (1) picked up the remaining scraps. In the end, MD1 and XD will advance to the final poll.

Now, it's time for gen 4! In my opinion, this was probably the strongest generation in terms of spin-offs, so it'll be fun to see how this goes...

It's the fake season all over again...

And the first ones, in an uncommon twist, actually look quite good! Too bad about that extra digit in the bird's height, it's a dead giveaway that this is a fake. I don't think I need to tell you this, but be careful whenever you see something like this! If it's not on Serebii, it's likely fake.

Kanto Cup Wi-Fi tournament this month

Details about the next Japanese Wi-Fi Pokémon tournament have been released, and it's called the Kanto Cup, which is exactly what it sounds like: only gen 1 Pokémon. Aside from Mewtwo and Mew, of course. It goes without saying that Mew isn't the clear #2 gen 1 Pokémon anymore, so your mileage on this ban may vary, but they always ban event Pokémon regardless of actual power anyway.

Either way, I'm probably going to sound like a fake Slowflake by saying this, but the idea fascinates me, if only because it's basically the gen 1 metagame with a 2013 sauce. What would the RBY metagame be like with all the changes the game has seen in the last decade and a half? We may see part of the answers there! And the best part is, they didn't even botch it by making it into one of these doubles tournaments they seem to love so much!

Edit: Forget I said anything. Sun team domination much?