The mantra of the development team behind Pokémon X and Y was simple: Bring back lapsed Pokémon players from different generations by capitalising on the headline that the Gen VI pair would be the first Pokémon games to be rendered in full polygonal 3D. To maximise this, an intimidating number of new Pokémon was not necessary – instead the developers decided to give special attention to older generation Pokémon wherever possible, while introducing fresh ‘mons at a nice steady rate. And they started to put this design decision into action very early on in the story. On the first long grass route in the game, you can catch an astonishing six different Pokémon, both old and new, and by the time you hit the first Gym, that number has almost tripled. While this may seem unremarkable to some, it means that Gen VI achieves the exact opposite of the problematic situation I outlined in my Gen IV post – odds are your team will be different from those of your friends in the early game. Ergo, early multiplayer encounters are exciting. And that is a titanic plus in my book.
Games
Pokémon Black Version
Pokémon White Version
Pokémon Black Version 2
Pokémon White Version 2
Platform
DS
Region
Unova
New Pokemon
156 .
+6.Generous seasoning
I wanted to make an entry devoted solely to the auto-prompt that pops up when you run out of steps on a Repel item in Gen V and beyond, but I definitely don’t have the space.
In a rare example of consistent visual iteration within the Pokémon main series, Gen V built on the significant attention to day-night cycles that Gen IV exhibited so thoroughly by introducing a seasonal cycle. Not quite one-to-one, the cycle saw the region of Unova change seasons at the start of every real-life month, changing up the look of several pivotal routes, slightly altering the encounter rates of certain Pokémon, changing the appearance of Deerling and its awesome evolution Sawsbuck, and even granting/removing access to certain items or events. I kind of wish the developers went even further than they did with the concept, affecting more than just isolated areas, but I’m still very happy it was included. Continue reading →
Games
Pokémon Diamond Version
Pokémon Pearl Version
Pokemon Platinum Version
Platform
DS
Region
Sinnoh
New Pokemon
107 .
+6.It’s all in the details
I remember quite vividly the day I brought home my copy of Pokemon Diamond to play. It would be an understatement to say I had followed the game’s Japanese release rather closely, and yet I was still surprised, not to mention floored, by the sheer number of tiny yet noticeable changes the game brought to the series as the first entry I could enjoy on my already treasured DS. From the way my Turtwig appeared to physically eat a berry in battle, to the slightly randomised animations of certain moves, to the vastly improved bag and PC Box structures, to the way buying 10 Pokeballs would just grant you a free Premier Ball, completely un-advertised, all these small touches added up to give me the same wide-eyed feeling of wonder I had experienced four years prior with Gen III. And at that point in my life, I had not thought that was possible.
Games
Pokémon Ruby Version
Pokémon Sapphire Version
Pokemon Emerald Version
Platform
Game Boy Advance
Region
Hoenn
New Pokemon
135 .
+7.Starker contrast
When a new generation of Pokémon games is announced, said games inevitably come in pairs, and there is inevitably very little difference between the two versions. While it may not quite be an exception to the rule, out of all the main series releases Gen III arguably brought the loudest suite of differences between its corresponding games. The third generation arguably has the single most robust lineup of version-exclusive Pokémon in series history, and they begin to show up very early on. What’s more, Ruby and Sapphire are still the only games to offer a version-exclusive villainous team, which changes the flavour of the story, the types of Pokémon you face in enemy battles, and even the type of natural disaster that befalls the region late in the game (not to mention its accompanying music track). Only Gen V even comes close to that level of contrast.
Games
Pokémon Gold Version
Pokémon Silver Version
Pokemon Crystal Version
Platform
Game Boy/Game Boy Color
Region
Johto/Kanto
New Pokemon
100 .
+6.Ooooooh shiny!
Ever found a shiny Pokémon in the wild? There’s no feeling quite like it, is there? You can thank Pokémon’s second generation of games for that very feeling. The design idea was so simple – give every single Pokémon a colour scheme variation, however slight, make the odds of encountering that variation astronomical, and watch human nature go to work. Introduced via a story-integrated red Gyarados, the thrill of seeing that trademark flash before a wild encounter would go on to become one of the most consistently treasured experiences in the entire franchise. Continue reading →
Games
Pokémon Blue Version
Pokémon Red Version
Pokemon Yellow Version
Platform
Game Boy
Region
Kanto
New Pokemon
151 .
+6.Straight lines, good times
You won’t catch many people pretending any iteration of the original Game Boy was a powerful piece of hardware, even for its time. And yet walking around the world of Kanto in Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow still set off a generation of kids’ imaginations. Sure, part of this was due to having the anime as a point of reference, but even playing the game nowadays, it doesn’t look all that ugly (at least outside of the battles – see below). And that’s because its art direction is on point. Everything that can follow the natural pixel lines of the screen, does – and all those right angles and all that charming sprite art adds up. Not exactly pretty, per se, but not distracting either. Just a canvas for building a world inside the player’s mind. Continue reading →
OK, Oscars are done, our stupid movie release schedule overlap with the USA should be catching up, and the dry months of videogame releases are coming to a close. Let’s get hyped.
Well, here we are at the real beginning of a new commercial year of entertainment media, and it is astonishingly clear in terms of confirmed release dates or windows, particularly in light of the murky waters of the last two uncertain years. If I see one theme running through the suite of upcoming movies and videogames, it’s “Anything 2014 can do, 2015 can do bigger”. Yes, there are some real giants waiting to be awoken in 2015, most of which have not reached saturation point with audiences just yet. And they look positively mouth-watering. The question remains, however – will bigger equate to better in 2015? Here are my top ten most anticipated movies and games for this year.
NOTE: Because I’ve already devoted an entire post to Nintendo’s 2015 lineup, I’m going to disqualify them from my games list. Because, well, that wouldn’t be fair.
MOVIES
10. Chappie
Might as well start with a movie that’s actually really close to coming out in cinemas – next week, in fact. I certainly wasn’t alone in enjoying Neill Blomkamp’s Best Picture-nominated science fiction racism metaphor District 9, and I was more positive on his wealth gap themed follow-up Elysium than most people. But I do have to admit that the movies had a very similar feel, and from the looks of things Chappie is very much cut from the same cloth. It will need to do something pretty cool to stand out, and I look forward to finding out if it does.
9. Ant-Man
As the only superhero movie of 2015 that isn’t a sequel or reboot, Marvel’s Ant-Man could go one of two ways – it could expand Marvel’s ever-expanding Cinematic Universe with yet another breakout character, or it could flop and finally give the anti-superhero subsection of film critics some real ammunition. Losing a director as unique as Edgar Wright must not have been easy for the production, and it has everything to prove. Yet Marvel Studios has yet to really let fans down, and so Ant-Man well and truly has my attention.
8. The Good Dinosaur
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCVzj4f38_Q
After three consecutive years of huge (and really good) Boxing Day releases, Disney Animation Studios is taking a well deserved year off in 2015 to let Pixar take the 3D animation spotlight, with a pair of films to boot. The Good Dinosaur is half of said pair, and it seems to be taking an unorthodox approach to the well-worn prehistoric setting of animated family movies, asking the question of how things might have gone had dinosaurs lived alongside early humans with sufficiently less intelligence than themselves. It’s the less interesting of the two 2015 Pixar outings for me, but I’m ready to be optimistic about Pixar again, so bring it on.
7. Tomorrowland
Speaking of Disney, George Clooney’s Tomorrowland is also coming this year.Intentionally shrouded in an advertising campaign that seems to be giving nothing away, Tomorrowland is refreshingly mysterious for a Disney movie at the time of writing – scratch that – it’s refreshingly mysterious for any big movie in today’s day and age at the time of writing, and it seems poised to deliver a wondrous fantasy experience. I just hope that was the last of the trailers.
6. Jurassic World
Though I wouldn’t call myself the world’s biggest Jurassic Park fanatic, I definitely enjoyed the movies as a kid, and fourth film in the series Jurassic World is generating so much hype at the moment that it is taking on “event movie” status, and therefore attracting me like a moth to a flame. It hits right around the middle of the year and seems to be filled with set piece moments ripe for discussion. Oh, and Chris Pratt. count me in.
Turns out I couldn’t do my normal Oscars thing this year because of work commitments, which saddens me. Nevertheless, as pathetic as it might sound, I’ve been waiting for this very day for years now, just so I could put this article up.
The original model – A thing of stunning beauty that made you want to throw up a little with just one look.
It is truly astonishing that a decade has already passed since the release of the Nintendo DS in Australia. On this very day in 2005, almost three months after its American release, the Big N bestowed a truly ugly yet quietly revolutionary portable gaming device on the PAL region for the first time, with a European release to follow a few weeks later. This hefty silver beast came packing not one but two screens, one of them touch-enabled, along with an unassuming microphone for voice input, more buttons than Nintendo had ever put on a handheld before, a built-in instant messenger app and full backwards combatibility with Game Boy Advance games. It was a thoroughly weird hunk of plastic and metal (this was still years before the iPhone, after all) that initially appealed to little more than Nintendo’s faithful.
I was one of said faithful, and my sister and I were there on launch day to pick up our first run versions of the DS, complete with that bundled-in demo cartridge of Metroid Prime: Hunters tantalisingly known as “First Hunt”. Between such a tasty graphical showcase and the joy of Super Mario 64 DS, Nintendo’s fresh console represented a huge step forward in graphical muscle over the GBA, and my teenage eyes lit up at the prospect of what experiences could possibly be on the way for the bizarre clamshell. Many of my friends were bewildered at the very sight of the monstrosity and my attempts to explain its appeal initially sucked, but I didn’t particularly mind if the system wasn’t popular, visually pleasing or particularly comfortable to play for long stretches – I knew it would bring great games to the table.
Well, I was right about that last part at least.
After all, just shy of 18 months later the DS Lite was released. Bringing with it brighter screens, a much smaller form factor, swathes of games with a wider range of appeal than ever before and some deviously clever marketing, the infinitely better version of the DS grew steadily in popularity until it exploded into the mainstream alongside the Wii in the latter half of the decade. The rest is history – the DS became Nintendo’s highest selling console of all time and the success of simple touch screen games paved the way for a smartphone gaming revolution. And unlike with the Wii, the release of so-called “casual” games on the DS did not affect the ongoing creativity and quality of meatier games on the system. All throughout the console’s life cycle, from the original model to the Lite to the camera-enabled DSi to the supersized DSi XL, great games just kept coming out. Some of my favourite videogames ever made their home on the DS, and so without any further rambling, here are my personal favourites. No less than 20 of them, in fact.
.
20. Trauma Center: Under the Knife
I’m going to start with the entry on this list that I’ve most recently discovered. As good an argument as any for the extraordinary staying power of the DS’ unique library, I started playing this gem only a few months ago after picking it up for dirt cheap on a whim. And it’s awesome. Though typically weird for an Atlus game and just as typically difficult, the first in what is apparently a series of Trauma Center games is engaging and rewarding in a way I’ve not seen in any other videogame. The relatively unique stress of performing surgical tasks while your patient’s vital signs rapidly tick away, all against the backdrop of an insane science fiction story, feels fresh even in today’s wonderful climate of creative indie experiences. .
19. Metroid Prime Hunters
Though I have much stronger nostalgic feelings for the aforementioned demo of the game, the full version of Metroid Prime: Hunters was certainly nothing to sneeze at. Arriving over a year after said demo, Hunters built on the experimental foundations of the Gamecube’s Metroid Prime 2: Echoes to deliver a gorgeous competitive multiplayer-centric title where the campaign was just the thing you played when you had no buddies around. With a diverse selection of alien bounty hunters from which to choose, each packing a different transformation for mobility and stealth, Metroid Prime Hunters was crammed with ideas way ahead of its time, and honestly represented a concept too ambitious for the limits of the DS hardware. I’d really like to see a sequel on a console with more than one directional input. People who claim the controls of the 3DS’ Kid Icarus Uprising stopped them from playing probably never owned Hunters. .
18. WarioWare Touched!
A quirky launch title for the DS, WarioWare Touched! was my entry point into a Nintendo franchise I now regard as one of my top five of all time. I was positively floored by how much fun could be garnered from a stack of basic-looking microgames lasting mere seconds with only the vaguest of instructions to point the player in the right direction. Touched! was one of the absolute best indications early in the DS’ life of the insane potential of touch screen gaming (it even did Fruit Ninja before Fruit Ninja) and its incredibly bizarre personality shone through every manic twist and turn. There are better WarioWare games out there, but this one is really special to me.
So I normally take a break from blogging around this time of year, and I probably still will, but it doesn’t look like Nintendo of Australia is taking time off at all, kicking into their 2015 right away. So I feel like I have to throw out this post right now.
2015 is going to be a pretty special year for videogames, with an impossibly exciting lineup of titles on all platforms slated for release throughout the whole year. And for the first time in a long while, it looks like Nintendo will be mixing it with the best of them consistently throughout the year on both of their primary game consoles. It has been a really long time since we’ve reached the start of a new year with such a clear picture of what that year will look like for Nintendo, and for the Wii U in particular, this one looks absolutely packed with the good stuff. And so it gives me great pleasure to present no less than twenty reasons why being a Nintendo fan is going to rock in 2015:
time that .
1- Captain Toad Treasure Tracker (Wii U)
With Captain Toad‘s January 3rd release, Nintendo is getting out ahead of every other major game publisher in 2015, and it’s honestly a very strong opener to the year. I’ve only played a small percentage of the budget-priced retail game so far (which, admittedly, came out about a month ago in the US), but it’s absolutely adorable and can get deviously challenging when trying to find all the hidden diamonds and constantly-changing optional objectives in its bite-sized “puzzle box” levels. The game is impeccably well designed and a real joy to play.
When will it come out? It already is! Go enjoy this amazing game right now, you lucky things. .
2- Splatoon (Wii U)
I played a few rounds of Nintendo’s first-ever entry into the realm of competitive shooters at the EB Games Expo last year, and I immediately wanted to play more. The choice to emphasise territory gain rather than kills, and then to turn that territory into an actual physical advantage in a firefight (paintfight?) by having it improve your range and speed of movement makes for a deceptively deep competitive experience that is simple to understand but tricky to master. The gameplay flow of Splatoon is hella fresh, and I’m excited to see what its single player component holds to complement it.
When will it come out? It’s slated for the first half of the year in all Western territories, and from what Nintendo has shown it looks mostly done, so my guess is March if not even earlier. .
3- Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate (3DS)
When I was in Japan in late 2013, the super-popular Monster Hunter 4 had just launched, and it just seemed like everyone was playing it – businessmen, old ladies, children, couples, you name it. I’ve experienced firsthand the highly addictive qualities of its 3DS predecessor Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate and have amassed quite a few friends who are ready to dive in to a new monster-slaying, armour-tweaking sinkhole when 4 finally comes west, fairly soon no doubt, in upgraded “Ultimate” form. Brace yourselves.
When will it come out? Something about this one screams “first quarter of the year” to me, but that might just be because the last Monster Hunter game released in March over here.
2015 is off and kicking, already delivering quality movies and videogames right here in Australia less than a week in! It’s going to be an incredible year for entertainment media, but if you missed any of my countdowns wrapping up the year that was 2014, here are the links to every one:
Vagrant Rant 