VGC: The Other Half of the Coin Part Un

Exactly the title: The other half of the Pokemon game franchise.

The Pokemon Video Game Championships (VGC) or in Japan, World Championship Showdown (WCS), have been running since about 2008-09. Before then, there would be an occasional tourney, or ones such as Journey Across America (JAA) back in '06, and another called the Pokémon Emerald Ultimate Frontier Brain Battle. What a mouth full.

Unlike the TCG where you have to fork out possibly several hundreds of dollars getting the right cards to make a deck which could possibly be beat by someone who payed half that, or in some cases, a few hundred more, the VGC involves having the Pokemon game of choice, and of course the game system needed to get the best d*mn team together that you can.

Let's talk strategies. Unlike the TCG, I actually know alot more about this.

PEUFBB: I have no clue, I didn't even know there was such a thing till last year. It was back in '05 to commemorate the release of Emerald.

JAA: Mewtwo, Groudon, Lugia, Kyogre, etc...

VGC '09: Rain Dance was huge. It was the strategy of the World Champion, and many other winners at Regionals. Trick Room was a big contender, but while it could beat Rain, it also loses out to it. Goodstuffs, which is the use of generally good Pokemon, was also big back in the day.

VGC '10: Read above. The use of (some) legendaries such as how it was done in JAA made weather big. Rain Dance was still good, thanks to TopOgre (Technician Hitmontop and Kyogre). Sunny Day also shined, and Trick Room was just as big as before. Goodstuffs also did well. However, it was a combination of the two that had won Worlds '10 for Ray Rizzo.
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VGC '11. In the current state, it consists of Trick Room, Sandstorm, Tailwind, and the rare Sunny Day and even rarer Rain Dance. Goodstuffs still exists, and works quite well. With the Mental Herb buff, Trick Room is almost always able to be set up, and with the vast number of abusers this time around, is actually the most common of teams floating about.

Common mons:
Sazandora/Hydreigon
Burungeru/Jellicent
Morobareru/Amoonguss
Gigalith
Reuniclus
Urugamosu/Volcarona
Erefuun/Whimsicott

Among others.

That's not all though.

Stay tuned for Part Deux!

Cards, Cards EVERYWHERE

Upon a boring night, when there isn't too much else to do, I pull out some cards. But it's no ordinary deck that most are familiar with, that with aces, kings, queens, jacks, and the numbers one through ten. No, it is -gulp- Pokemon cards.

The Pokemon TCG is the card game version of the Pokemon video games, however, with several differences. It follows the same, "Defeat your opponents Pokemon" but with cards in lieu of the pixellized creatures that people such as myself are familiarized with. The game is played with 60 cards, one deck per person. You lay down six cards, dubbed "Prize cards" which are obtained whenever you "Knock Out" the other persons card. It doesn't seem too complicated now, but it gets more confusing. In addition to the Pokemon, there are "Trainer" and "Supporter" along with the occasional "Stadium" which are added to the mix. Trainers can be played multiple times in your turn, while Supporters can be played once a turn, and only one Stadium can be played at a given time. These cards may either help look for cards, deal damage, et cetera...

Confusing yet? To be honest, I got a little lost at first. But I figured it out at one point.

In addition, some Pokemon may have PokePowers or PokeBodies which can do various things during the game. Some can be very useful, such as Rain Dance (Feraligatr HGSS) which can allow placement of Water Energies on a card more than the usual once per turn. Energy cards are the staple of a deck. Without them, you generally cannot attack or with some, retreat.

So let's recap:
There are:
Pokemon
Trainers
Supporters
Stadiums
Energies
PokePowers
PokeBodies

Okay, this is getting to be a bit much. But it gets even worse.

Some are nearly unusable.

In the TCG, there is massive overcentralization in the types of decks used. Upon writing, "LostGar", featuring the Lost World stadium, is one of the biggest decks in the current format next to the long running "LuxChomp". There are of course some rogue builds floating about, but they have to be able to handle the mass majority AND the possibility of your opponent running a deck that rolls all over you.

tl;dr TCG is crazy.

Birth By Sleep: Unraveling The Mystery

In the original Kingdom Hearts, there wasn't really too much mystery. The Heartless were spawned when somebody or something lost their heart. Ansem is the main villain.

But when Kingdom Hearts II rolled around, things became more confusing. Nobodies were introduced, apparently the side product of something becoming a Heartless. If their will was strong enough, the Nobody takes more of a human form, instead of a distorted oddity. Organization XIII is a bunch of humanoid Nobodies, headed by Manse- I mean Xemnas, who is, you guessed it, Ansem's Nobody. But wait?!

...

There's another Ansem.

So the original Ansem is a fraud, being the Heartless of someone who stole Ansem the Wises name. Xehanort or something, just Another with No Heart. -badumpssh-

Speaking of Nobodies, Sora has a Nobody, Roxas. All of these X's. Bleh. Sora has a Nobody simply because when he unlocked his heart to save Hollow Bastion or something, he became a Heartless. But Roxas looks nothing like Sora. Hmm...Lucy, you've got some 'splaining to do!

So Birth by Sleep rolled around, and while just as confusing, actually makes a bunch of sense outta this mess. Xehanort is actually an old man who decided to become evil so he could take over the worl-

Xehanort is a Keyblade wielder who believes darkness is good, and tries to make people evil  take their body for his own evil purposes. get this object called the x-Blade and unlock Kingdom Hearts like every other villain in the series. He tries to turn Ventus evil, but Ventus is too good, and what darkness was there got ripped out of him, and was turned into Vanitas. Ventus' heart was seriously weakened, and eventually was put into the body of a young Sora. Interestingly enough, Roxas looks like Ventus. Thusly Ventus became Roxas when Sora became a Heartless.

MYSTERY SOLVED.

Why are there so many Ansems?

Xehanort was successful in taking over Terra, who was succeeded by Riku (lastly Aqua who was succeeded by Kairi) and as a result of taking Terra over, became young again after tossing Terra into a suit of armor which is dubbed Lingering Will. Terranort, now just a young Xehanort (Instead of "Master Xehanort") became the apprentice of Ansem the Wise, (The good one) who studied the heart. Note, he cannot perform cardiology.

Eventually, Xehanort steals Ansem's name, becomes a Heartless, Ansem the Seeker of Darkness, and brings out the Nobody Xemnas. Xehanort is presumed to be the Unknown, has the suit of armor No Heart.

MYSTERY SOLVED.

So what of everything in between? Square Enix doesn't care It'll eventually be explained.

Return From the Different Dimension?

Okay, so my move was delayed.

I'm still here.

I still do what I do.

So what shall I do now?

Approximately every two weeks whenever I feel like it, this blog will still do reviews, but may also cover such topics as the VGC's, various games in development, etc...

Why did I decide to do it here?

To be honest, I'm lazy.

NOTICE: Changes to be Made

It has come to my attention that my final days at PCHS are drawing closer. As this was originally designed as just simply a blog for a Creative Writing class I am enrolled in, it would seem as if this would become dead. Well, even though it has been slowly dying its death, it is due partly to a lack of motivation and decent games to talk about.

And for some games, it is more or less just a lack of words to say that has already been said.

With my transfer to a different school drawing near, I feel as if there is a change to be made. Rather than try to keep this blog alive and change it to the direction I see fit, I'm going to let it continue on its path to being defunct, and start a new blog, link to be posted soon (here)

Wanna find out what it's about? Well, go and find out ;D

The Legend of Zelda CDi Games

Oh boy, this was fun. It was in fact so fun that I nearly started drinking trying to even play the game.

The three CDi games were rather difficult, and annoying at times. However, the popularity of it stems from the cutscenes. In fact those cutscenes summoned forth many internet memes, which are rather funny. (Though getting a tad old)

One of the three released was Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon. This game featured Princess Zelda on her quest to save her father, King Harkinian. I could go on trying to explain the plot, but it rather confused me. Rather, I'll talk about some of the many flaws with it.

The bosses are ALL ANTI-CLIMACTIC! Each one takes ONE hit from each respective weapon to kill them. One such boss defeat leads to a cutscene where he melts into a pool of a blue substance (not water, at least I don't think) leaving his heart behind, saying "YOOOUU'VEEE KILLLLLLEEEEEEED MEEE!!!!", in which Zelda responds with a weird, rather goofy smile, "Good."

At which point I stopped playing. This game simply was atrocious enough with the terrible controls and mechanics, but that?! Wow. That's messed up.

But the cutscenes are simply hilarious because they're just so bad, that's the thing. Those cutscenes brought some notoriety to the series, but it still didn't convince anyone to spend over $600 just for the system, and the games are about $100 each! F*ck that noise man.

Even Gan(n)on dies to one hit from the Wand of Gamelon (Book of Koridai in Faces of Evil).

Which brings me to Faces of Evil, featuring Link. It had a similar concept, only saving Zelda and conquering the Faces of Evil. But one character standing out in my opinion is...Militron. Not only is it a possible Transformer reference, but it sounds like he says "Worthless Korean, you must be hardened with fire! Go and Kill!" rather than Koridian. HAHAHAHA! This is so appalling it's funny, no joke either.

In fact, both games are appalling, as if pretty much no time and effort was put into them. The cutscenes are hilarious because they're THAT bad. That's the only reason they have any notoriety, even if for a bad reason. Hell, Nintendo refuses to acknowledge their existance.

Before I go on about how terrible most of it is, I'm going to end it with 2 Triforce of Wisdoms that are nothing like the actual Triforce out of 5, only for the cutscenes providing humor.

Mega Man II (NES)

Back in the good old days, before the advent of such terrible games like Gears of War, and other related titles, there were good games. And the late '80s/90's brought some of the best titles out there.

Back in '87, Mega Man was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It followed a robot known as Mega Man as he ventured out to stop the evil Doctor Wily. (of course, it has to be a German villain, but I digress) Doctor Wily stole eight of Doctor Light's creations, reprogramming them to follow his orders. Wily and Light apparently worked together long ago, as friends, but things went downhill for the group, specifically Wily. But that's another story. Upon defeat of a "Robot Master" as they're called, Mega Man obtained their power chip, gaining their special ability.

Mega Man eventually went to Wily's Castle, one of many in the series, funny how he always manages to build a castle in between games. In the main series, he's had ten castles. Each different in design, to some extent. Wily was defeated, and the world saved.

About two years later, Mega Man II was released, also for the NES. While I was disappointed with the gameplay of the original, Mega Man II was far more better.

It opens up in a city, nighttime setting, telling a brief story of the first game, and a brief bit of the plot of this one, such as Wily creating eight more Robot Masters to defeat Mega Man, rather than steal them from his old companion. It seems to me that Wily has so much time on his hands, creating a new castle each game and creating eight Robot Masters each new game. It's no wonder the man's crazed; he doesn't do anything but try to stop Mega Man and take over the world, rather than living life with a woman, living by the beach.

But I digress.

Mega Man II, as with most if not all other titles follow the similar plot of "Wily's at it again with eight more robots. You gotta stop him!", with this title pitting you up against Wood Man, Air Man, Metal Man, Heat Man, Crash Man, Quick Man, Flash Man, and Bubble Man. Wood Man summons deadly leaves, Air Man summons whirlwinds, Metal Man sharp round metal blades, Heat Man lobs out molten lava, Crash Man shoots bombs, Quick Man throws boomerangs while darting about, Flash Man stops time and shoots you to death, and Bubble Man shoots...bubbles..-.-

And the boss fights follow the same pattern of each one being weak to another. Metal Man kills himself with his own weapon (only exploitable later in the game), Wood Man jams Air Man's fans, Air Man whisks Crash Man to Oz, Crash Man doesn't hit any primary weaknesses (but still somewhat hits some opponents for decent damage), Flash Man slows Quick Man to dust, Quick Man is in a similar vein to Crash Man, Heat Man incinerates Wood Man, and Bubble Man takes out Heat Man

Wily's Castle is a "long" five stage journey, defeating Wily's creations, as well as all eight Robot Masters again, until finally you face Wily himself. Three phases, one being a large mecha, the second that very same mecha, until finally you reach his inner sanctum, and he turns into...ET?!

...

Well not exactly, he appears to turn into an alien floating in a predictable figure eight, and is only defeated by Bubble Man's weapon. It may take awhile, but finally once its health is reduced to nothing, you discover that the alien was in fact a robot, and Wily is there, on his hands and knees begging for mercy.

(..Not until he scrubs all the floors in Hyrule, THEN we'll talk about mercy.)

So that's it, really. Mega Man II was probably the reason why we have so many of them now. It was a great game with great music, and that's why I give Mega Man II 4.5 Wood Men out of 5.