Tuesday, June 10, 2014

ORAS/SSB4 thought dump

Surprise! The English designation for Kyogre and Groudon's "upgraded" forms is "Primal". Didn't see that coming, because there's already such a thing as a Primal Pokémon, namely Dialga in MD2. Guess they really don't care about spin-off canon all that much, huh? Now we wait for the concept to be expanded to Dialga and Palkia in the gen 4 remakes, at which point the universe will collapse upon itself.

Perhaps more importantly, screenshots of the two behemoths in battle heavily suggest those Primal forms are functionally the same as mega evolutions (because of the presence of a similar icon next to the level), but have distinct lore flavor. Because, you know, when you think of Pokémon that needed megas, you think fucking Kyogre and Groudon. Funnily enough, Primal Groudon is Ground/Fire. Yes, it now has TWO TYPES THAT ARE WEAK TO KYOGRE'S. I don't think they could make Groudon into Kyogre's bitch even more if they tried. Oh well, at least it's a bit better at abusing its own Drought with that. It should at least pick up Flare Blitz, because settling for Fire Punch... nope. There's another silver lining: aside from the terrible 4x weakness to Water, Ground and Fire have decent defensive synergy, with weaknesses to Grass, Ice and Rock all cancelled out. The end result is a Pokémon that has only two weaknesses (the other being 2x to Ground), an immunity to Electric and a very respectable five resistances, which include Fire and Fairy. I guess resisting Steel and Poison might be worth using in combination with Xerneas or Fairy Arceus, too.

Now, on to SSB4. It's no surprise that we can play as our own Miis, but the thing that caught my eye is that each of its three variations has twelve special moves it can pick four from. Which of course means the best four are going to be used over and over, and as a result they're going to reach Meta Knight tier. Okay, maybe not, but the more options you give to a character in just about any genre, the better that character gets by default. No other character in the game gets that kind of versatility, especially now that they separated Sheik and ZSS from Zelda and Samus, and gave Ivysaur and Squirtle the axe.

I also found it very odd that Nintendo would release the 3DS version so much earlier than the Wii U one, since the latter really needs a hand in terms of sales (although MK8 has granted it a decent, and may I say unexpected, reprieve). Well, the 3DS version was pushed back to October, while the Wii U one is now confirmed to be out by the end of the year. Their excuse? The 3DS version needs more testing. Maybe that's true, but I want to believe they heard the voice of reason.

20 comments:

  1. Or maybe they could create a physical Fire type equivalent to Water Spout... But I guess it wouldn't be fair if Groudon gets a new signature move while Kyogre doesn't.
    About the Miis in SSB... Remember, they said in a earlier trailer that custom movesets for regular characters couldn't be used online unless you're playing with friends, so I don't think you'll be able to use them over there. Or hopefully not in the "For Glory" mode.
    And the fact that it comes out for the 3DS only in October will make it much easier for me to hold out until the Wii U release. Thank goodness.

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    1. Fair enough. I wonder if Miis will be an exception, since they're not custom movesets in the same sense as the other characters AFAIK.

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  2. And from looking at the inventational, it seems like we got Brawl 2.0 as Smash 4 ((from a competive sense(yes, I am competive smasher in all 4 games,mostly melee)). It fixed Brawl horrendous slow speed somewhat and got rid of random tripping. Thats about it thou. Still campy and sort of slow with no combo if you have any good di/ or air dodge. You see why some people don't find Brawl that interesting to watch. It has a relatively low tech skill ceiling/ campy/ slow. While melee/64/PM have combos, fast paced, have tech skill ceiling equivalent to starcraft (well, at least melee does). I still like brawl, don't get me wrong. Kickass soundtrack, loads of stages, and subspace. Hell, it was the game that I found out about the competitive smash scene from. But, is still objectively the worst from a competitive stand point.

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  3. IMO, the tiny-ass platform Groudon stood on fighting Kyogre in Emerald is a metaphor for Kyogre owing it through and through.

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  4. If Primal Kyogre's typing hasn't been revealed yet, I'm willing to bet it's going to be Water/Electric. Not only would that complement its ability to use Thunder, it would also at least give Groudon something to exploit to make it more balanced.

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    1. Plus, from a lore standpoint, Kyogre is known for its thunderstorm (not just rain), so it fits rather well.

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    2. It's still mono-Water, actually.

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    3. Please tell me that wasn't sarcasm. The last thing Primal Kyogre needs is a fucking Electric secondary typing.

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  5. Also, you call this a thought dump, Slow? You eat snippits like this for breakfast and eject novels. I haven't forgotten your end-of-year Pokemon thought dumps.

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  6. Actually, it seems like other fighters are getting other attacks as well

    http://ssb4dojo.com/post/88440752081/character-creation

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  7. I thought Nintendo had gotten over releasing games in Europe later than the rest of the world, but what do ya know.

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    1. I think it's NoE's decision when to release games in their territory. Lately, Europe has been getting some games later, some games at the same time, and some games earlier. I do think that for big releases like Smash, it should be released everywhere at the same time.

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    2. I'm from Europe and I don't care. To be fair, maybe you were intending on getting the game at launch while I'm waiting till Hanukah.

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  8. So apparently, they revealed in Nintendo Treehouse Live today that Amiibos figurines in SSB will have AI that goes beyond the 9 levels of regular CPUs and they will "level up" and get smarter as they are used. But they still seem pretty pointless because even for training purpose you'll basically only be able to train against such advanced AI only for one character per figurine you own.

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  9. Breaking News. Nothing known about ability and such at the time of writing but we have a new Mega Evolution: Mega Sableye. All we have right now is lore though.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhBSCthYTLE

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    1. Where's the Slowpoke news meme when you need it?

      In more breaking news to this blog, Pac-Man and Palutena in SSB4. That's interesting. I saw Palutena as a possibility, but Pac-Man was out of fucking nowhere.

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    2. Serebii posted about this at 4:56 PM Eastern. Looneyman made his comment at 5:04 PM Eastern.

      That's eight minutes.

      EIGHT MINUTES.

      What kind of unrealistic standards do you have for what qualifies as "breaking news"?

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    3. ...Oh, wait, I thought that was AFTER you posted.

      Whoops.

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