Oh sweet. Thanks Keef
I bought the new Pokemon game for Switch. I opted for the Eevee version, and it came with the Pokeball Plus.
It’s okay. I’ve never played the originals (or any main series Pokemon game, for that matter) so I’ve got no grounding or nostalgia for Kanto. I’ve made it to Cerulean City, and so far the map feels like some loosely connected hubs joined by linear paths through the wilderness. It’s much smaller than I expected, so I fear some backtracking may be involved.
The combat is somewhat repetitive but I haven’t met any difficult opponents yet, so we’ll see. Battling gym bosses and Team Rocket is fun, though. It’s a bit more involved when you’re battling multiple Pomemen and trying to find the right critter to do the best damage, or have the best resistance to certain type attacks. And catching borrows the mechanic from Pokemon Go, so it’s super easy. It takes up a lot of time though, so thankfully they’ve made the mons visible while you’re adventuring so you can just avoid them.
The Pokeball Plus comes with a Mew inside. I’ve read that it’s too OP for early game battles, but it’s no more powerful than my starter Eevee. Right now that Eevee is Lvl.16, and I’m going up against trainers who are sporting Lvl.9 Rattata. Yeah… nah. The Pokeball is a neat curio. It’s part Joy-Con, part Pokemon Go Plus. You can put one of your Pokemon inside and carry it in your pocket; the device’s internal motion sensor will track your footsteps and deal out wads of Exp when you bring it back to your Switch. While out and about the ball can spin Pokestops and catch for you with the press of a button.
If you tap or wobble the ball when you’ve got a mon inside it’ll vibrate and play sound effects for that Pokémon. It’s cute. Syrupy, sugary cute.
The biggest draw to the game for me is it’s ability to connect with Pokemon Go, but unfortunately I haven’t unlocked that part yet. The Go Park replaces the original Safari Zone and that’s all the way down in Fucshia City, a bit of a trek from where I am. It looks like you can only send mons to the park, where you can catch them and add them to your team, but you can’t send mons back to Pokémon Go, which is a huge shame. It’s understandable, given that you don’t want to give Go players an advantage, plus there are a tonne of shiny variants that haven’t made it into Go yet. I’d love to bring my shiny Charizard to the Go Park and muck with it for a while, but it’s sadly a one-way trip. At least it’ll help fill out the Dex since I don’t have to trade with anyone to get em all.
If this had the ability to completely turn off motion controls, and supported the Pro Controller (in the same way setup that portable mode is), then I'd be all over this. But it feels silly to buy a $60 game where I'm going to actively not want to play it on my TV.
Yeah that’s one of the game’s biggest drawbacks. It’s fine to have motion controls as a gimmick, but for the love of Bob give people alternatives in the name of accessibility. THAT is one of 2018’s talking points, in light of Microsoft’s awesome effort to help disabled players with the accessibility controller.
Get that weak shit off my track
Did anyone get Smash today?
Yes.
Mortal Kombat 11 was announced with a prerendered trailer and is coming to Switch. April 23.
Fuck! Everywhere is completely sold out of GameCube controller adapters, and Nintendo has discontinued the item.
I shoulda bought one on Friday when I picked up Smash Bros.
Get the 8bitdo adapter?