Philosoraptor

Bullet Hells are one of my favorite genres. I'm a huge fan of pretty much anything made by Cave and Treasure, the Strikers series, Psyvariar, Parodius, and Touhou to name a few. I'm also a fan of unique SMUPS. The most unique ones I've played, outside of the ones covered above, are Shippuu Mahou Daisakusen: Kingdom Grandprix (SMHUP Racing game), Twinkle Star Sprites (a vs. SHMUP), the Pocky & Rocky series (and other games like it), and Dimension Drive (you teleport your ship between two separate screens). Edit: Forgot to add Rabi-Ribi, a metroidvania with bullet-hell-esque boss fights, and Rym 9000, which probably has the craziest visuals I've seen in a SHMUP to date. Rym 9000 (epilepsy warning, for reals):

VGS is throwing a postContainer error when I initially view some threads this morning. After I refresh my browser, it displays correctly. I don't know if it's anything to be worried about, but I figured I'd let you know regardless.

I enjoyed the review. This is a difficult game to track down, but it's worth it. Glad you managed to track down a copy and gave it a spin.

Well, if there's one positive, it's that the game is getting pretty good reviews from critics, all things considered. It currently sits at an 81 Metascore, which is comparable to pretty much every other critic score of the mainline games in the series. The highest Metacritic score for any Pokemon game has been an 88. Most get low 80s. I preordered both versions and took time off to play them this weekend. After the cuts and today's more concrete examples of the criticisms, I'm probably getting one instead of both. I enjoyed Let's Go Pikachu, XD, and even the PokePark games, which certainly do not have the depth of the mainline games. Maybe if I go into this one with that mindset, i can really enjoy it more than I'm expecting to. However, going in with that mindset is a significant lowering of expectations from what I'd hope for in a mainline game. Similarly, I'm not upset by everything in the infographic, but the bad draw distance, texture loading problems, bugs, removed moves, scaling issues, lack of post game (again? Didn't they learn anything from X/Y and S/M releases?), small map, and short playtime are the ones that stick out to me. Maybe some of the issues I'm most worried about just affect review copies. Maybe Nintendo releases a huge day-one patch. It wouldn't be the first time that kind of thing has happened. We'll see Friday, I guess.

None taken, it's not mine. That's the reaction now that people have gotten review copies and more information has come out about exactly how the games play. The Pokemon fanbase, especially on Twitter, is why #thankyougamefreak became a thing. The negativity was actually starting to affect morale at Game Freak. @MrWunderful Honestly, it's been hard being a Pokemon fan in since #Dexit started gaining traction. I've had to unsubscribe to r/Pokemon and unfollow most Pokemon-related Twitter content because of this stuff. Some of their points are valid, but most of them are overreactions. I really feel for the devs.

Things aren't looking good for Friday... Even though I said that no game for 2020 might be a good thing, it sounds like we're probably in for another US/UM-style game that is a remake of this one.

Welcome! Good to see you again.

Ha! I guess we share more in common than we thought.

It is, but I'd also put $65 billion in total revenue in the "too big to fail" camp. I used Star Wars as an example because I don't think most people on this site have as strong of opinions about Hello Kitty, Winnie the Pooh, or Mickey Mouse & Friends.

Do you think they could? Seeing as the cards and games combined account for about 30% of their revenue and and the merchandise alone accounts for over 65% of their revenue, is Pokemon more like Star Wars in the sense that it's too big to fail? I'd love to when they make a good game.

Wow. Didn't expect Tails' Adventure or Tempo Jr. Great choices. Have you had a chance to play Master of Darkness (SMS)?

Honestly, this is a good take. Since 2008, they've released a mainline series game every year but two (2011 and 2015). From 1998 - 2008, they only released seven games. Since 2008, they've released HeartGold/SoulSilver, OR/AS, and Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee. From 1998 - 2008, the only remake they released was Fire Red/Leaf Green. X and Y were rushed, as were Sun & Moon. Taking a year off from mainline releases could certainly help the remake fatigue and give the devs some time to come up with more great ideas. I'm excited for Sword and Shield, but I think not getting a game in 2020 may be a good thing.

Wow. No one has mentioned Rune Factory 4 yet? That game is fan-freaking-tastic. The two River City games are absolutely worth it, too.

Nicely done! I love the Game Gear. What's your favorite game in the library?

That guy was great. Hopefully he makes his way over here.

I thought about voting for the Saturn, but it's hard to justify voting for anything but the Genesis considering we got 95% of the great games on the console versus 60% or less for the SMS or Saturn. Also, it's not close how many more good games the Genesis had on it than any other Sega console.

It's a lollipop with a Pokemon attached. I added it as a placeholder when I joined NA in 2012, but I'm lazy and never changed it.

The only things I regret selling are all of my childhood Pokemon cartridges. Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, and the Trading Card game all went to the local GameStop in exchange for SSBM basically straight across. I've since replaced them, but that's not the point. I had all 151 on both Red and Blue, and all 250 on Gold and Silver, and I sold all that hard work and love to GameStop for $60. I still have all of my holos from back in the day, and they're still my most precious cards, but I miss those games every time I look at my Pokemon stuff.

Ah! You got to me before I could get my edit up. Most people use Pokemon Bank to transfer Pokemon for fun runs (like a type-specific run), for bringing their competitive Pokemon into the new games, for extra storage when their boxes get full, for living dexes, or to fill out Pokedexes with Pokemon you couldn't get in the current-gen games.

It is completely game breaking, aside from the usual "your level 97 Charizard might not listen to you a couple of times during the battle because you don't have enough badges" thing.

You'd have your Pokemon game in the cartridge slot and open Pokemon Bank. If you have the games digitally on your 3DS, It'll give you the option of selecting whichever one you want to manage. Pokemon Bank pulls up whatever is in your PC/Pokemon storage, and you can choose which Pokemon from the cartridge/save to transfer to Pokemon Bank. If the Pokemon has any held items, that item gets put in the bag of your trainer in the game. All levels, EVs, IVs, and moves are kept. Pokemon with illegal moves or stats cannot be moved into Pokemon Bank. The limit is 3000. To prevent Pokemon from newer gens from being imported into an older Pokemon game, Pokemon Bank only allows you to transfer Pokemon from an older generation to the newest one. So, for example, if you put Pokemon from X/Y into Pokemon Bank, you could only withdraw them in Sun/Moon or Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. It's kinda convoluted how you get what you want into a specific game:

I'm also partial to Pokemans.

As someone who got a living dex on OR/AS and a living dex on US/UM, I honestly couldn't care less that they aren't putting all of the 900+ Pokmeon in Sword & Shield. It took over 400 hours to get the living dex on OR/AS and about 150 on US/UM. The writing was on the wall when they didn't put the national dex in S/M and US/UM. On top of that, mythicals are almost always tied to some event that may or may not take place in game. GameStop had codes last time they were available, and you had to go get them from the store to have those 'mons (or trade for them on the GTS). They weren't catchable in game. There was no way a national dex was going to happen considering mythicals and the removal of the national dex from S/M. Let's be honest. People are upset that their favorite or one of their lesser favorites are not going to be included in the game. But every person I've ever talked to who plays the card game or the video games doesn't play the game with only one Pokemon and refuse to use the rest because they're not their favorite. People have many Pokemon they like, and they use their favorites. Besides, people who competitively battle already know that most of the popular 'mons suck competitively, and are only competitive in certain restrictive tiers. You're not going to play the game with 900 Pokemon. You're going to play with maybe 50 and box the rest. Here's my take on it: if leaving a few hundred Pokemon out would mean they can polish the experience more and improve the graphics to be even last gen, I'll be happy. Considering that they have to release this game on time to not delay the arrival of all the other Pokemon merchandise they release alongside a new game (TV shows, cards, plushies, other toys), I'm cool with it. Sun & Moon did a good job revitalizing the formula, but the last two big releases have been remakes. Arguably, they should have just waited to release US/UM and not released S/M, since they're basically the same game and the rush job shows in S/M's paltry postgame. Since they've now started releasing a main-line Pokemon game yearly, I want something that's going to capture the magic that Sun & Moon and to a lesser extent X/Y did, and if I have to sacrifice some Pokemon for that, so be it.

I just checked my copy of Thousand Arms, which has never been buffed. My disc 1 and 2 have those spots as well.

Awesome! Thank you!