#oneaday Day 183: Plague day with Mario

Felt particularly rough this morning when I woke up with a raging headache and a cough that could wake the dead. I was hoping to get some The Dagger of Amon Ra recorded this weekend, but I rather wisely decided against doing any today; we’ll have to see how I feel tomorrow.

Instead, I spent a significant chunk of today playing the Super Mario RPG remake for Switch. I’ve never played Super Mario RPG in any form, so I’ve been curious to try this for a long time, and something in my head makes an inextricable association between the holiday season and Nintendo games, so I thought I’d start it up and see how I got on with it. After all, what was originally a collaboration between Squaresoft and Nintendo was sure to be fun, right? And people always seem to be making references to both the game and some of its unique characters.

I’ve been very impressed so far. It’s a lot of fun, and it moves at a brisk old pace, as RPGs that originated in the 16-bit era tend to, but that doesn’t mean it feels like it’s rushing things. Rather, it’s paced well so that you’re constantly moving forwards, exploring new areas, meeting new allies and discovering new items. And, pleasingly, the game is a lot more than just running from story trigger to story trigger; there are some actual puzzles along the way to solve, too, along with some light platforming. The only thing I’m not a super fan of is the Hidden Treasure system, where equipping a particular accessory just tells you that there is a Hidden Treasure somewhere in the room you’re in, and then you just have to flail around hoping you headbutt it by chance.

As one would expect for a modern Nintendo title, the soundtrack is fantastic. I don’t know the original Super Mario RPG soundtrack all that well — aside from a couple of MIDIs I downloaded in the late ’90s to use in Klik and Play projects — but we have a fully reorchestrated version of the full soundtrack to go along with the updated visuals and the re-translated script. No speech, of course — it still doesn’t feel quite right to have a talkie Nintendo game — but the writing so far has been concise and pretty witty. Perhaps not to the same degree as Paper Mario, which is a series that essentially built off the back of Super Mario RPG, but I wanted to play this one first before I jumped into the Paper Mario titles for the first time. Yes, believe it or not I’ve never played one; my wife Andie has played most of them, however.

Anyway, Super Mario RPG helped make an otherwise fairly unpleasant day — the weather has been awful here today, too — fairly tolerable. And I even made some time to get all my Christmas shopping done earlier, too. So that’s good. But now it’s probably a good idea for me to go back to bed, and here’s hoping I feel a tad better in the morning. Not only do I want to record that The Dagger of Amon Ra playthrough, but I have the work Christmas do in the week, and I’d rather not still be coughing my guts up and feeling like a roasted dog turd by the time that rolls around.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

#oneaday Day 11: Direct to You

I did not manage to get up early and go for a swim today, but I wasn’t really expecting myself to. Suddenly doing some exercise after a long period of… not doing that left me feeling a bit stiff (eyy) so I thought I would take today off and make an effort to go tomorrow. Easing into it and all that.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today. Today was the latest Nintendo Direct, a presentation that many have been assuming will be one of the last big shows Nintendo do while the Switch is still their current platform. The Switch’s as-yet unnamed successor has not yet been announced — and a clearly increasingly irritable Nintendo has been repeatedly pointing out that it has nothing to announce aside from the existence of a successor as yet — but it’s clear that the console is currently doing its victory lap ahead of graceful retirement.

That does not mean there’s nothing interesting coming for Switch, however! On the contrary, there were some really cool things showed at the Nintendo Direct, including some long-awaited news on Metroid Prime 4.

As always, the reaction to the show on the Internet has either been breathless enthusiasm or varying degrees of “well I never liked Nintendo anyway“, but taking as balanced a viewpoint as is possible from someone who likes the Switch and probably uses it as his primary gaming platform, I thought it was a good presentation. Nothing earth-shatteringly amazing, but lots of things that were good. And, to be honest, that’s absolutely fine.

A notable highlight from the show was definitely the new Zelda game, in which you get to play Zelda herself rather than Link. It adopts the same tilt-shifted toy-like style seen in the Link’s Awakening remake from a while back; it’s nice to see that applied to an all-original game rather than a remake.

One thing I’ve been puzzled by is the number of people who seem to just want “Zelda where you play as Zelda but she’s just swinging a sword around like Link”. This is not what we’re getting with Echoes of Wisdom, as the new game is known, and as far as I’m concerned that’s a great thing. Instead, we have the ability to capture “echoes” of objects and monsters in Zelda’s wand, then summon these for various purposes. I can see this potentially being a very interesting mechanic, and a factor which sets Echoes of Wisdom apart from other Zelda games. I’m mostly just glad we’re not getting another Breath of the Wild-style Zelda, though; Breath of the Wild was great and I’m sure Tears of the Kingdom is also, but Zelda is at its best when it’s being experimental, interesting and notably different from one entry to the next.

Outside of Zelda, I was also thrilled to see the announcement of Ace Attorney Investigations for Switch, including the first ever official localisation of Ace Attorney Investigations 2. I was particularly pleased to see the game features the option to play with new high-res sprites or the original pixel art; that’s a nice touch indeed, particularly as Ace Attorney Investigations has actual character sprites walking around as well as the animated busts seen in the rest of the series.

What else? Dragon Quest III HD-2D or whatever it’s called looks great. I’m all for Dragon Quest being remade and made more generally accessible. It’s curious that III appears to be coming out before I and II but I guess they had their reasons. I’m looking forward to giving it a go, and hoping that IV, V and VI get a similar treatment; I’m lucky enough to have copies of the DS versions (they’re pricy these days!) but I would like to play them on the big screen.

The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy looked very cool. I like the art style of the Danganronpa guy whose name I can never remember, and this looks like quite a different style of game. I dig it, but I’d like to see more of it.

The new project from Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu, aka the Final Fantasy grandaddies, looked a little underwhelming visually, but potentially mechanically interesting. I have faith that they can pull something cool out of the bag, based on their past post-Final Fantasy work together — The Last Story is a wonderful game, for instance.

Mario & Luigi getting a new entry in the form of Brothership is welcome news, even if I have never managed to get caught up on any of the Super Mario RPG-adjacent series. I do have a copy of the Super Mario RPG remake and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door on Switch waiting for me to play, but it’ll be after Final Fantasy XIV’s new expansion Dawntrail before I get to those.

Metroid Prime 4 I’m excited to see on behalf of everyone else, even though my experience with Metroid pretty much starts and finishes with the excellent Super Metroid. I have the Wii version of Prime Trilogy to get to at some point, so I’ll have to make the time for that. I liked Super Metroid a lot, so it’s a series I’ve always been meaning to delve deeper into.

You know, the more I think about the Direct as a whole, the more I feel like it actually was a pretty strong one. I’m struggling to think of any games that were shown where I felt “ugh, this isn’t for me”. Sure, some certainly appeal more than others, but I’m pretty sure I could have some fun with absolutely everything that was shown off today. This is a good thing, and makes me feel like whenever the Switch’s successor is finally announced, the good ol’ Switch is still gonna be kicking for a while yet. And if Nintendo has any sense, said Switch successor will be backwards compatible. Here’s hoping; sometimes they have sense, sometimes they do not.

So yeah. They did a good. I’m looking forward to finding out more about all the games they showed — not just the ones I remembered to talk about here — and feel pretty confident Switch will continue to bring the hits for quite some time to come yet.

2537: Treasure Tracker

I started playing a game I’ve been meaning to check out for a while today: Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, a spin-off title from one of the Wii U’s best games, Super Mario 3D World, and a fantastic game in its own right.

For the unfamiliar, Captain Toad is based on the occasional levels in Super Mario 3D World where instead of controlling Mario, Luigi, Toad and/or Princess Peach, you take on the role of Captain Toad, an intrepid explorer from the Toad race who is carrying so much crap in his backpack he can’t jump. Consequently, his means of navigating levels is very different from the relatively conventional platforming of Super Mario 3D World’s regular levels, and his stages tended to be rather more puzzly in nature.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker takes the idea of these stages and builds a whole game out of them. With each stage being formed as a three-dimensional diorama, usually in a cube shape, you need to carefully navigate Captain Toad around and rotate the camera in all directions to find hidden items and passageways as well as determine the best way to proceed.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker features a great deal more variety in its stages than the Captain Toad stages in Super Mario 3D World, and in true Mario game tradition there are a wide variety of unique mechanics and gimmicks that are introduced and explored in a couple of stages before being set aside before they wear out their welcome. Powerups from Super Mario 3D World put in an appearance, too, most notably the cherries which spawn a clone of your current character, which you then control simultaneously with your original one. You’ll then be tasked with navigating these characters together in such a way that you do things like simultaneously press switches or proceed down two separate routes at the same time.

In true Nintendo tradition, there are several degrees of depth that you can play the game in. At its simplest level, you can make your way through Captain Toad by simply determining the path to the star that completes the stage. Then there are three hidden gems in each stage, and finally a hidden bonus objective. Not all of these objectives need to be completed at the same time or even in a single playthrough, but they add a great deal of depth and replayability to the levels.

Most of all, though, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker is simply an utterly charming game that doesn’t have a drop of maliciousness or cynicism about it whatsoever. It’s endearing, cheerful, colourful and relaxing to play, and already, after just 11 stages (out of a reported 70+) it’s becoming one of my favourite Wii U games that I’m very much looking forward to getting stuck further into.

2536: NES Remix and the Art of Good Game Design

Still on a Nintendo kick at the moment. I’ve been playing a fair amount of NES Remix on Wii U, a rather peculiar package that consists of an enormous number of bite-size challenges based on a variety of Nintendo’s old 8-bit NES games.

Structurally, it’s rather like a mobile game in that each level tends to take less than a minute to complete, and upon completion you’re graded between one and three stars, which are subsequently collected and used to unlock further challenges.

The rating system isn’t needlessly complicated, however; you get one star just for clearing the challenge, even if you ran out of lives and had to continue partway through a multi-stage task; you get two stars for clearing the challenge without using a continue; and you get three stars for clearing the challenge without using a continue and within a (hidden) par time. (You can also attain “rainbow stars” for each challenge by beating an even tighter par time, but these are purely for your own satisfaction; they don’t count as extra stars as far as the game is concerned.)

The genius of NES Remix is that it teaches you to play all of these old games as you go, and it does so without using any hand-holding tutorials whatsoever. Rather, with each of the games in the package, it starts you off with simple tasks and gradually advances you to more complex, multi-stage challenges. And once you’re done with all that, the “Remix” and “Bonus” stages provide their own twists on the classic NES games in all manner of ways, perhaps by mashing up characters from one game into the levels of another, or by doing weird things with the visuals, or by making you play the game upside down or back to front.

What NES Remix successfully does is revitalise every game it incorporates — even those which, when played in their original forms, would look a little tired and primitive now. By trimming the experience down to less than a minute rather than expecting someone to play, say, an entire round in Golf, or a complete game in Baseball, you get a feel for the solid base mechanics of these games without having to invest a lot of time in them and risk them outstaying their welcome. NES Remix instead tasks you with, to use the same examples, simply getting on the green in less than 2 hits from a variety of situations, or winning a game from its final innings.

NES Remix is also interesting from a historical perspective to see how far we’ve come in certain genres. As you may have surmised from the examples I’ve given so far, this is particularly apparent in the sports games. Tennis, for example, requires far more split-second timing than its more modern counterparts. And while Golf features an early version of the classic “two tap” power-and-accuracy meter that many modern equivalents still use today, the lack of features such as the ability to put spin on the ball or estimate the maximum distance a given club will hit makes you realise how much we take for granted today.

It’s not just true for sports games, either. Ice Climber makes me incredibly grateful that Nintendo finally got the hang of jumping controls with the Mario series, because they certainly didn’t in Ice Climber. The Legend of Zelda will make you miss the ability to move diagonally. And Donkey Kong will make you glad that modern platform game heroes have significantly stronger knee joints and don’t die if they fall more than the length of their own shins.

As infuriating as some of these old games can be, NES Remix embraces their foibles and quirks and turns them into simple but compelling and addictive challenges that have kept me very much entertained over the last few days. And when you’re done with Nintendo’s oldest games, NES Remix 2 then moves onto later titles such as Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3, Metroid and Zelda II as we see a company getting more adventurous and attempting to refine their craft further.

For some, there will be no substitute for playing the original games — perhaps even on original hardware — but NES Remix is a great way of revisiting a wide variety of Nintendo classics and having a bit of fun with them. Plus I can’t help thinking it would make a hell of a great basis for group competitive play.

2535: A Very Nintendo Christmas

Familial duties for Christmas Day are all done and dusted, and the wife and I are back home. After giving a bit of fuss to the cats — who got an impressively large haul of gifts, because everyone likes to buy presents for cats, and cats are easy to buy gifts for — my main plan for this evening is to sit down in front of the Wii U for a whole bunch of Nintendo gaming.

I’m not entirely sure why my brain has made an unbreakable association between Nintendo games and the festive season, but I get this feeling and this desire to binge on Nintendo games every Christmas.

I suspect it’s a combination of factors, beginning with the fact that one of the most exciting Christmas presents I ever received as a child was a Super NES — the first console I’d ever owned, as up until that point we’d previously been a computer game-only household thanks to our collection of 8- and 16-bit Atari computers.

During that Christmas, I spent a great amount of time between the three games I had at the time: Super Mario World, Street Fighter II and Chuck Rock. (The latter two were American imports for some reason, necessitating the use of one of those enormous and unwieldy “converter” cartridges in which you had to plug the game you wanted to play in the top, and an English game in the back.) Consequently, I have very fond memories of that Christmas, and notably, the original Street Fighter II is one of the only fighting games I’ve ever felt like I actually “got”.

I think it’s more than that, though. I wrote yesterday about how I have generally positive associations with Christmas thanks to generally pleasant family gatherings growing up, and Nintendo as a whole prides itself on its family-friendly output. Now, to be honest, my parents were never particularly ones for playing two-player games with me — though my brother would join in when he was present — but the association is still there. First-party Nintendo games in particular are wrapped in a wonderful feeling of warmth and friendliness — a feeling that they’re designed for families to gather round and enjoy themselves with, even if it’s only one person playing at a time while others look on and enjoy the cartoonish silliness.

Then there’s also the fact that Nintendo games are generally very “pure” experiences that often — not always — forego ambitious, thought-provoking storytelling in favour of extremely solid gameplay, and as such are the perfect fodder for those times of year when you don’t want or need to think too hard about things, such as, say, when you’ve eaten several tons of turkey.

Whatever the reasoning behind it, I can’t break the association between Nintendo games and the holiday season, and nor do I want to. So the remainder of my Christmas day is going to be spent in the company of Mario and all his friends.

2533: Future Collector’s Item

You’ve probably seen me mention my friend Chris on these pages a few times. (You might even be my friend Chris, in which case hi.) Chris and I have differing opinions on a number of things, but one thing we both agree on is the importance, value and general sense of satisfaction inherent in archiving and collecting games and gaming hardware for the future.

The other day, Chris and I were discussing Nintendo’s Wii U. We’re both a fan of the console and many of the games on it, and find the self-fulfilling prophecy of its “failure” rather frustrating; had people been a bit more willing to celebrate its most interesting and exciting titles rather than playing the usual “lol, Nintendo got no third party support” game things might have turned out a bit more differently. Or perhaps they might not have. Either way, it doesn’t really matter; it’s on the way out come March when Nintendo launches its new console, the Switch.

Chris raised a really interesting point about the Wii U that I hadn’t considered before: it is a new TurboGrafx or Neo-Geo.

“Tiny library of mostly excellent stuff?” he explained. “Check. Very short lifespan? Check. Innovative tech that was received poorly? Check. The Wii U in general is going to be a hardcore collecting legend in 5+ years.”

NEC and SNK’s consoles weren’t bad at the time they were released; they were simply competing with more popular (and particularly in the Neo-Geo’s case, more affordable) alternatives from Sega and Nintendo. In 2016, Nintendo finds itself in a similar position as these “second-tier” console manufacturers were in back in the 16- and 32-bit eras: the market is dominated by two more popular, more widely supported consoles (not to mention the endless sprawl of PC gaming) and is perceived as a “failure” despite having a small but beautifully formed library of games, most of which are not only excellent, but markedly distinct from the big-budget affairs that make up the frontline of the PS4 and Xbox One’s respective software libraries.

For the last few years, I’ve taken the attitude that, with a few exceptions — the most recent being Final Fantasy XV and Pokémon Moon — I will prioritise buying games that will more than likely be difficult to find in a year or two. (That said, old copies of Pokémon appear to absolutely skyrocket in value after a few years, so I’m certainly glad I grabbed that one, and especially glad I grabbed the apparently considerably less popular Moon variant.) Since I have an enormous backlog to get through already, I feel that the next few additions to my collection will more than likely be Wii U titles in an attempt to fill out an “essential” catalogue of games that I will be proud to keep alongside the console once it leaves the market.

So far I’ve got quite a decent selection: Bayonetta 2, Hyrule Warriors, Lego City Undercover, Mario Kart 8, NintendoLand, Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed (multi-platform, so I sort of don’t really count this one, as fun as it is), Super Smash Bros., Super Mario Maker, Star Fox Guard, Star Fox Zero, Super Mario 3D World, Wii Party U, Wind Waker HD, Xenoblade Chronicles X and ZombiU. (The latter has been subsequently ported to other platforms, but the Wii U version features a unique local multiplayer mode that is a surprising amount of fun.)

I also have digital copies of Pikmin 3 and The Wonderful 101 that I’d like to replace with physical editions at some point in the near future, and I’ve ordered copies of Rodea the Sky Soldier and Captain Toad Treasure Tracker. The game I’m most concerned about becoming difficult to acquire in the near future is Tokyo Mirage Sessions, so I’ll likely grab that in the new year, and I think I’d also like to round out the Mario collection with Mario Tennis and Mario Party 10 at some point, too.

At that point, I think I’ll be satisfied with what I have; I don’t feel the numerous Lego games (aside from Wii U exclusive Lego City Undercover) have much value due to their multi-platform, cross-generational status, and likewise for stuff like Ubisoft’s dreadful but inexplicably popular Just Dance series and yet another port of the inescapable Minecraft — although I must confess I do like the idea of Minecraft making use of the GamePad’s touchscreen for its interface.

The prospect of the Wii U becoming highly collectible in the next few years is quite an exciting one, because for once, I not only have one, I have a good collection of games to go alongside it, too. It’s not exciting from the perspective that I’ll be able to make a lot of money from it — on the contrary; I don’t intend on letting it go anywhere — but rather because it’s a tangible piece of collectible history that I’ll be able to look back on fondly in the future.

2530: Pokémon’s World of Colour and Joy

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One of the things I tend to find pretty consistently appealing about the types of RPGs I enjoy playing is the fact that they’re typically set in rather colourful places, even if the stories told in those places sometimes veer into dark territory.

It occurred to me during conversation with my friend Chris last night that this is one of the things that I’m finding particularly enjoyable about Pokémon Moon, too. Except in Pokémon’s case, it arguably goes a little further: everything about that game is designed to make the player feel like they’re special, like they’re valued as a human being and like they’re loved.

Although the game has its antagonists — mostly the entertainingly incompetent Team Skull this time around, who are channelling the attitudes of youths desperately trying to be “gangsta” — the emphasis is not on any great conflict. Instead, it’s on your protagonist’s journey across the islands of Alola, gathering Pokémon and growing in strength and confidence as a trainer.

The way the characters interact with your protagonist is endearing and warm. You’re welcomed to the game as soon as you start, and in the early stages it feels like the game is “holding your hand” but not in an obnoxious way. After a certain point, it feels like it shakes you by the hand and invites you to explore more freely, but always wants you to know that “safety” is never far away. Your achievements are recognised and celebrated, and even your Pokémon act in ways that emphasise your bond with them — “[name] endured the hit so you wouldn’t be sad!” is the one that tugs at the heartstrings the most as you see them cling on to consciousness at 1HP after taking a particularly heavy blow.

To put all this another way, Pokémon Moon is one of the most endearingly “Nintendo” games I’ve played for a long time. It’s a game that invites all its players — regardless of their actual age — to remember the joy and wonder of being a youngster. It’s a totally inclusive game that has something to appeal to everyone — and best of all, without any sense that it’s either attempting to fulfil a “diversity quota” or frantically virtue signal about how progressive it is. It has cute girls and hunky boys; it has people of all manner of different skin colours; it has cool Pokémon and cute Pokémon; it has an enjoyable story and mechanical depth; and it has this all-encompassing sense that everyone involved with the project simply wanted all the end users, regardless of age, race, gender or any other characteristic that people like to divide themselves up by, to have a really nice time playing it.

At this time of year it’s exactly the sort of thing I needed to play to forget about the cold, dark nights of winter and the increasingly exhausting debacle that is Christmas.

2527: One for One!

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I completed my first couple of Pokémon trades over the last couple of days, giving me all three of the “starter” Pokémon from Sun and Moon to add to my Pokédex.

Since Pokémon is essentially a well-disguised trading card game (and a not-at-all-disguised trading card game in its Trading Card Game format, but that’s something else entirely) a key part of its appeal is working with other players to collect the things you want to collect.

This is an aspect of the game I always felt like I was obliged to miss out on in the earlier installments, particularly back in the Game Boy days when it was direct link or nothing. Although I had a number of friends who were big into video games, I didn’t know anyone who had a Game Boy and a copy of Pokémon, so I was denied access to what I understood from the beginning to be a significant part of the experience.

This has all changed with more recent platforms and widespread access to the Internet, meanwhile. Using Pokémon Moon’s Global Trade System (GTS) I managed to find a Rowlet that someone wanted a Pokémon I had for, and subsequently I listed another Pokémon I had and indicated that I was interested in acquiring a Popplio. The first trade was immediate, since the Rowlet owner had already listed the little owl for trade, and the second trade was complete within a day. As a relative Pokémon newbie, I wasn’t familiar with what is apparently a widespread Eevee trafficking market, but it seems as if evolved Eevees make for pretty reliable trade currency, so I’m probably going to have to farm some of those at some point.

Dipping my toes into this side of Pokémon is helping me to further understand the appeal of the series. Although the main game is a single-player adventure and there’s a significant amount of content to play through, both during and after the main story, a core part of the Pokémon experience as a whole appears to be the social aspect of it. And while Nintendo’s heavy-handed approach to online safety and privacy means that it’s literally impossible to communicate directly with another player — all communication is asynchronous, using a wide selection of preset words and phrases that auto-translate into different languages — there’s still a surprisingly strong feeling of “interaction” with other players when you successfully complete something like a trade or a Festival Plaza mission.

To be honest, I think I kind of prefer Nintendo’s way of doing things online these days — at least when it comes to playing with strangers. Playing with friends is a great laugh if you get on voice chat and indulge in some light-hearted banter, but when playing with strangers, there’s a fairly high probability you will run into at least one insufferable arsehole during a play session. With Nintendo’s approach, said insufferable arseholes are completely neutered and will never bother you or disrupt your enjoyment of the game. Of course, with Nintendo’s approach, your friends are similarly neutered, too, though chances are if you’re actual friends with those people you have alternative means of communicating anyway.

Meanwhile, my Pokémon Moon adventure is going pretty well. I’m onto the third island now with a strong team of Pokémon that cover a variety of different types, though I think I’ll be needing to train up some Ground or Rock types next. I also have an outfit that I’m pretty pleased with for the moment — big love to Nintendo and Game Freak for providing the option to purchase thigh-high socks in the very first clothing shop you come to — and I feel like I’m deepening my understanding of the overall metagame with every hour I play.

So yep. Think it’s safe to say I’m in this one for the long haul.

2521: Super Effective

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I’m continuing to enjoy Pokémon Moon. I’ve found myself on more than one occasion being keen to get to the end of my working day and be able to play it some more. I’m getting a feel for the shallow end of the overall metagame — most notably which types of Pokémon and attacks are strong and weak against other types — and I’m also getting curious to see what a Pokémon endgame is like after you’ve finished the story.

Of course, I’m a long way off the latter aspect in particular so far, since I’m still only on the second island in the game, coming up on that island’s second Trial. I am making good progress on the Pokédex, however, being roughly around 30% complete on the first two islands, and I’ve assembled what feels like a solid team of well-leveled Pokémon that feel like they’re pretty good for “general purpose” wandering around.

With the Trials on the second island, types become a lot more important, and the game drops a few hints your way as to which types of Pokémon you might want to make sure you have on hand for the upcoming challenges. The game seems to be well-paced in that the Pokémon you can catch in an area are of a suitable level to be reasonably competitive against both the local wildlife and Trainers, so grinding doesn’t seem to be too necessary unless you want to take a Pokémon you caught much earlier into the Trials. Even then, however, just making sure a low-level Pokémon is in your party while your stronger team members deal with the wild Pokémon of the area allows them to get caught up reasonably quickly, at least across the early levels.

One thing that occurs to me — and I thought this with what little I played of X and Y as well — is that Pokémon has quite a bit in common with MMOs these days. You don’t play in a persistent shared world with other people, but many aspects of the game are similar, particularly with regard to character customisation and competitive play. Of particular note is the “fashion” feature where you can adjust your avatar’s hair, makeup, eye colour and clothing and then share that avatar online through the Festival Plaza system. Your avatar can then be further customised through the text-based words and phrases they say when other players interact with them — asynchronously rather than in real-time, because this is a Nintendo game for kids, after all — and, later, you even get the opportunity to buy clothes that you see other characters wearing.

I haven’t tried the online trading and battling systems yet, but I understand they’re both fairly active. The trading facility in particular is a godsend when I think back to the early games; possibly one of the things that meant I bounced off Red and Gold back in the Game Boy days was because no-one else I knew was playing any of them, and thus I had no-one to trade or battle with. Nowadays, however, trading and battling is a simple case of visiting Festival Plaza and using the appropriate options — or, for someone in the same room as you, using the excellent Quick Link feature to quickly do something together.

Some 15 hours into the game so far, I remain curious as to whether it will hold my attention into its endgame and beyond, but I’m having a blast so far and anticipate I will continue to do so for quite some time yet.

2519: Chicken-chan x Lillie, OTP

One of the things that attracted me to try out the new Pokémon game was the amount of fanart it was generating even before its release. The Internet, it seemed, was particularly enamoured with Lillie, a major character in the story.

This animated GIF was the first time I noticed her:

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Said GIF is from the Pokémon anime rather than the game — and interestingly Lillie looks considerably younger in this than she does in the game and her official artwork, perhaps to ensure she is in keeping with the perpetually young Ash — but I found her immediately striking and endearing with her distinctive outfit, cute haircut and adorable reaction to Tauros. She doesn’t react at all like this when the player-protagonist encounters Tauros in the games, suggesting that her anime counterpart may be depicted as a slightly different character.

Anyway, I digress. Lillie caught my attention for some reason, initially with this GIF and subsequently with a considerable amount of fanart that started popping up around social media and suchlike.

lillie_pokemon_pokemon_game_and_pokemon_sm_drawn_by_mei_maysroom__sample-3411f81deea614fcf976aa1afd62e77b — Source

Here Lillie is seen closer to her depiction in the game, including her bag, in which she carries “Nebby”, a Cosmog Pokémon that she… “acquired” for reasons that are not yet apparent with my progress in the story. This somewhat pensive pose is also more characteristic of her depiction in the game; she’s shown to be a rather sensible girl who cares for Pokémon, but dislikes the world’s love of Pokémon battles because the participants often end up hurt. She’s constantly down on herself for not being a “proper trainer”, and attaches herself to the player-protagonist when the two develop an immediate connection by chance early in the narrative

You can play a male or female protagonist in Pokémon Sun and Moon, but with the Internet being the Internet, the fanbase of video games with Japanese origin loving a bit of yuri and the female protagonist being pretty cute in her own right, much of the fanart depicting Lillie with the game’s protagonist has focused on the same-sex pairing to varying degrees.

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The pairing is immediately appealing because the two characters are strong contrasts with one another. Lillie is blonde, pale and depicted as lacking in self-confidence, while “Chicken-chan” — so dubbed by a few people here and there owing to her silly hat — is dark-haired and shown to be curious, self-assured and more than willing to poke her nose into all manner of things. Even the way Chicken-chan walks in the games presents an air of confidence; she struts with great pride, while Lillie kind of saunters along, often looking like she’s hoping no-one will notice her.

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Naturally, there’s a ton of fanart out there suggesting that Chicken-chan and Lillie are more than just friends, such as this lovely image that looks like it’s straight out of a visual novel. And of course, there are plenty of images that take things… um… a little bit further, shall we say, but I’ll leave you to investigate Rule 34 for yourself if you dare.

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I really adore seeing the community as a whole get so wrapped up and invested in a fictional (and, one would argue, non-canonical) relationship between two characters in this way. It’s touching to see everyone “rooting” for these characters, and for so much of the artwork (explicitly lewd stuff aside, obviously) to just be so good-natured, positive and accepting that you can’t help but feel good when you see it.

I mean, obviously a lot of the appeal of the Chicken-chan x Lillie pairing is the simple fact that it’s two cute girls being cute together, but in a world where particularly vocal critics are constantly complaining about the “toxic” culture of gaming, the sheer volume of high-quality fanart of this kind — and the keenness with which it’s shared — is a reminder to us all that perhaps things aren’t quite as bad as the world’s perpetual whingers might want us to believe.