Category Archives: Video games

My Impressions of Pokémon Presents 2025

Leave a reply

Continuing with tradition, The Pokémon Company has dropped a Pokémon Presents show on the anniversary of the debut of the first Pokémon games.

As one might expect, the Direct initially focused on a bunch of mobile games, most of which most fans might not care much about. Cresselia and Darkrai are interesting Pokémon to bring to Pokémon Sleep, and that’s cool for whoever is playing that. Pokémon UNITE is bringing Alolan Raichu to the roster in April. I might check that out, considering I like Raichu.

Pokémon GO is running a Unova-themed event, which culminates with Pokémon GO Tour Global, but it doesn’t seem the announcement told us anything new about it. A new season, called Might and Mastery, is coming up, and it seems to be themed around Urshifu.

Also, an event is coming up in Pokémon Cafe Remix. I played the game for maybe a couple days when it first came out, but I don’t really care much for it, now.

A new mini-set is arriving for Pokémon TCG Pocket, and it’s arriving tomorrow. That doesn’t give us much time to save up pack hourglasses. The mini-set is themed around Arceus, and the appearance of a new Raichu card suggests that Pokémon in the set might work together well with Arceus.

I don’t know how many players still care about Pokémon Masters EX, but I sometimes peek back in to see what’s going on. It seems there will be new versions of Brendan and May who will have Groudon and Kyogre respectively, both shiny and both capable of Primal Reversion. I may spring for the new Brendan, so I’ll have a strong Ground type that’s ahead of the power creep.

It seems as though Scarlet and Violet aren’t behind us, just yet. There are a few new events planned for the current core Pokémon titles, including redeemable codes for in-game phone cases, with the case available depending on the game version, and an upcoming Mass Outbreak event themed around certain red, green, and blue Pokémon.

What has me excited in SV is the announcement of new upcoming Tera Raid events featuring Pokémon which have the Mightiest Mark. So far, I’ve caught each Pokémon featured in Tera Raids with the Mightiest Mark, some of which were quite challenging, and I’m looking forward to more!

In my opinion, the biggest announcement of the Presents would be Pokémon Champions, which shows itself as being the next generation of link battles! The program is coming to Nintendo Switch, Android, and will also be available to those who haven’t gotten around to ditching iOS.

Pokémon Champions focuses on battles, according to the gameplay mechanics of the core games. But Champions looks to be encompassing, as it will connect to Pokémon Home, allowing players to battle with their own Pokémon, and include the major gameplay mechanics of Mega Evolution and Terrastalization, in the same battle!

Consider the implications of that!

Will every Pokémon be eligible? Maybe so. Will other mechanics such as Primal Reversion and Z-moves be available? Perhaps. It’s looking like there’s going to be a lot of potential for new and old strategies to emerge!

(EDIT: It’s been revealed that not all Pokémon are going to be in Pokémon Champions, initially. Kinda disappointing, but the implications of this depends on which gets left out.)

It’s been one year since the last announcement about Pokémon Legends Z-A (hereafter ZA, because brevity), and GameFreak finally has something new to say about it!

We got a look at the three starters, which are Chikorita, Tepig, and Totodile. Players are probably already forming factions. I’ll probably go with Chikorita this time, because I’d like to see a Pokémon that’s been getting picked on succeed, perhaps by reason of a great new form. And if not, then I’d probably be enjoying a challenging playthrough. If Chikorita doesn’t change, I’d at least have an idea of what to expect.

We got to see more Mega evolutions, but I didn’t notice any new ones. Still, it’s cool that we’re getting many of them back.

What I find interesting is the new battle style where moves have an RTS kind of element, where placement can influence outcomes, and moves have areas of effect. It’s interesting, and I look to seeing how it works in the game once it releases.

And I’ll have to be patient about that, as ZA is to be released late this year!

With Pokémon, it’s easy to be enthusiastic, as there’s usually a lot going on. This year’s Pokémon Presents reflected that well, and was easily among the strongest of them. But I’m still wondering how GameFreak will incorporate Switch 2 into their plans. Is it too soon to ask? GameFreak has historically been hesitant to develop for new hardware.

Is Microsoft finally failing out of the console wars?

Leave a reply

We got the sales numbers for Xbox in 2024, and they’re not looking too hot for Microsoft. If things continue on this trend, Microsoft might just fail out of the console wars, and it would’ve happened about two decades after I thought it might.

But then, Microsoft has an immense amount of money that they can throw at their problems, thinking that that might make them better.

Microsoft is kinda like the guy who bellys up to the poker table, and eventually beats out all the other players, not for any skill they’d have at the game, but because they have a small mountain of chips and can therefore just keep betting until the other players eventually fold.

Except that, in the console wars, that didn’t happen.

As reported by CBR, Xbox sold about 2.7 million Xbox units in 2024 in the United States. Considering that that’s their greatest market, those are not great numbers. In Europe, they moved only 290,000 units in that same time. In Japan, the Xbox brand gets a participation trophy.

The waning sales numbers of the Xbox brand comes fresh after Microsoft’s eyebrow-raising ad campaign in which they proclaimed that a variety of devices are Xboxs.

Here I thought that if I wanted an Xbox, I could buy an Xbox console. Turns out, I don’t have to. But when it comes down to it, who really does? If a variety of devices could fulfill the functions of an Xbox, then it’s hard to sell Xbox as a dedicated console.

If my smartphone is an Xbox, why buy an Xbox console? Would the games run better on the console by reason of being optimized? And if a phone’s hardware proves insufficient to run an Xbox game, then why not a gaming PC, or maybe even just a PC?

And maybe that’s the point. Perhaps the Xbox consoles are becoming just an expense for Microsoft. For a long time, console manufacturers (with possible exceptions) have been selling their consoles below cost, with the idea of making the money back through the games that gamers purchase. Perhaps Microsoft is realizing that they might be better off just selling software.

That’s one of the reasons why consoles are usually a pretty sweet deal for gamers; they often get better hardware than they pay for.

But I’m getting the idea that Microsoft is trying to bury the Xbox console, in an effort to keep the green brand in the green (assuming it was ever there).

I might come off as a fanboy, but that’s mainly because I don’t like Microsoft’s corporate image. There’s also the fact that Xbox seems to be marketed towards x-treme gamers, the kind that chug Mountain Dew, think that sports cars are practical, and think that graphics make games great as they play this month’s FPS, with a color pallate of gray, brown, and gun-muzzle flare.

I like playing games because they’re fun. Which is, you know, the whole point.

But it seems like I’m not the only one seeing through the crass marketing of a software conglomerate. The 2.7 million sales figure can be largely explained by the likes of niche gamers who buy everything because they have more money than sense, and speculative investors who aren’t very bright. But we probably have to rely on Microsoft to tell us how many of these things are actually connected to the internet, and aren’t just hacked to run Linux by hobbyists who are bored.

Before the Nintendo and Sony fanboys start high-fiving each other, it can be pointed out that having one less competitor in the console war isn’t necessarily a good thing. Competition discourages companies from behaving like monopolies. If you thought that the PS5 Pro was expensive, just imagine how expensive it would be if Sony had no competition. Then there’s how long Nintendo might plug away with decade-old tablet technology, if not for pressure from investors. We could call the Nintendo Switch 2 the Nintendo People Kept Begging Us To Make New Hardware So We Did.

I don’t like Microsoft, but I recognize that a Sony with less competition would not be great for gaming. Sony wants to integrate media under a monolithic name (their own). With less competition, they are closer to that. Sure, Nintendo is currently beating PlayStation in sales, but what Nintendo does doesn’t seem to have much effect on Sony’s decisions. Nintendo and Sony may be competitors in the console market, but they behave as though they are in their own separate worlds.

Whether Microsoft withdraws from consoles remains to be seen. But, at this point, they seem to be going the route that Sega once did. Except, in this case, they took a lot longer getting there.

Is this the future of slop?

Leave a reply

For those of you who don’t want to watch the video, I’ll explain what’s going on. A player is exhibiting gameplay for Moon Gaze, an open world action RPG developed by Wang Yue.

A quick web search didn’t find much information about the developer, aside from that he was maybe a lone developer in China, though it’s conceivable that he has the assistance of a development team. If someone has more information, feel free to share in the comments, and hit me with a “nice research”.

When I say that the game is heavily derivative, I’m not kidding. It lifts gameplay elements from Genshin Impact, Grand Theft Auto, Tears of the Kingdom, and there’s a creature collection mechanic that’s perhaps reminiscent of Pokémon.

As derivative it is might be, I still wanted to play it. But seeing it got me to thinking: Is this the future of slop?

When you think of slop games, you probably think of low-effort licensed games that are pushed out to make a quick buck, or derivative me-too games that are purchased by parents who can’t tell Pokémon from Monster Rancher. They’re not always bad, but they usually are. And sometimes, we like them, even if it’s just because we’re forgiving of it because it has our favorite brand stickered on it.

But it looks like slop is changing, and that’s because the game development landscape is changing. For one thing, because AI is becoming a tool that can be used in game creation, and a person might not even need to be a seasoned game developer to use it effectively. A person would only need descriptive prompts. People might even be able to generate games at home, using prompts issued to personal AI agents.

If it got to that point, game development studios might end up becoming mostly superfluous. Which could mean the end of the game industry as we know it. Game devs would be quickly replaced with something different.

What’s more, game development has opened up in the Chinese market, where the legal structure is apparently different as compared to the United States and Japan. Recently, Nintendo has gone after PalWorld over how derivative the game is, perhaps to the point of using assets from Pokémon. Both studios are based in Japan. On the other hand, we’ve seen the release of Wuthering Waves, which is basically the same as Genshin Impact, but with a more technological theme, and seems a bit more edgy. Yet Mihoyo, the company behind Genshin Impact, doesn’t seem to have plans to legally confront Kuro Games, the maker of Wuthering Waves. One studio is based in China, the other, Hong Kong.

If some small game studio in China wants to make some Android game that takes heavy inspiration from a Nintendo game, Nintendo might have no choice but to groove with it, especially considering that there’s nothing stopping us from side-loading it onto our Android devices.

Thus, the landscape of slop is changing, from low-effort licensed drivel to high-quality derivative games, perhaps monetized by microtransactions. In a sense, this shifting landscape reminds me of the “video game crash” from the 80s. The game industry speaks of it as though it was a disaster, because for them, it was. But for consumers, it was great, because it meant that we could score piles of games for cheap.

So it is with the changing of the game landscape. Users and small studios are starting to make the games they want, and share them with the world, which has been going on for a while with freeware games, but is now expedited with advanced tools and apparent immunity to legal interference.

Considering this, one might ask: why buy Nintendo games, or games from other developers? The answer is obvious: it’s because people like their games, enough to justify purchasing them.

That might just be what keeps these game makers going in the near future.

This is the most blatant media ripoff of all time.

Leave a reply
This is not Genshin Impact.

Yesterday, I finally got around to playing Wuthering Waves. After everything that I’ve been hearing about it, I was expecting my socks to be blown clear into the next county, and to have been lost in the chocolatey deeps of the most engaging gameplay to have ever been developed by the molecular gastronomists of interactive entertainment.

What I got instead was a Genshin Impact ROM hack.

That’s not to say that it’s a bad game. But if you think Wuthering Waves (WW) is a good game, you might have the same opinion of Genshin Impact. They’re basically the same game.

The controls, the HUD, the basic mechanics, they’re all lifted 1:1 from Genshin Impact. You’re wandering an open world in the same way, you’re switching between characters in the same way, and there’s a similar system to that of elemental skills and elemental bursts.

Even the gliding is the same. But at this point, are you really surprised? There are even monoliths similar in color to Genshin’s teleport points, for how much Kuro Games cares about having its own voice.

Supposedly, at some point, you get to double jump or run up walls. Okay? And this is supposed to make WW any less of a blatant ripoff?

Imagine if I were to take the classic Super Mario Bros., change the appearance of the assets, change the level layout, and then gave the plumber a double jump. Would I really be able to proclaim that I’ve made the better game, as though my achievement in game design would be one in which I could take true pride?

Also, the “Traveler” in WW is called “Rover”. Thankfully, “Drifter” wasn’t already taken, so some other enterprising Asian game developers can make their own Genshin ROM hack.

It occurs to me now that I was way too hard on Digimon for its similarities to Pokémon. While it’s true that Digimon bears similarities to Pokémon, at least Digimon tried to be different enough to be distinct. Wuthering Waves is so similar to Genshin Impact that I wouldn’t be surprised to find Genshin assets after datamining Wuthering Waves.

Also, the characters in WW don’t have any personality from what I’ve seen so far. Remember Amber and Kaeya from Genshin? They practically oozed personality. Even the Traveler had a personality. And voice acting that was actually emotive.

If you’ve played WW, don’t tell me to play more. Instead, tell me about a character you like, and why they were interesting. Convince me to care, or at least do a better job than WW. I want to care. But I don’t. I don’t care what the Rover’s deal is. The woman who held her hand at the beginning just didn’t inspire warmth, though the game seemed to try. The women who found him at the outset were as uncanny as the nymphs from Hylas and the Nymphs, attractive without question, but uncanny in the same way.

But you know what? Maybe WW just doesn’t suit my tastes. Maybe I prefer that anime-style characters be colorful and expressive. If you’re the kind of guy who has been spending the last couple decades trying to convince Nintendo fans that great graphics means that a game’s full color palette is gradients of grey and brown with intermittent laser-pointer red and gun muzzle flare, and that you have more fun playing the same first person shooter every year, then perhaps we’ve reached an impasse, and WW might just be dreary enough for you.

I know that it seems like I’m not giving WW a chance, but I gave it a try. When I see that WW has as many fans as it does, it occurs to me that perhaps I’m a little strange because I give a care whether the game I’m playing is a product of creativity or a blatant ripoff of someone else’s work.

But if you’ve plagiarized your way through college, I have a game recommendation for you.

A bit of advice to Niantic about Pokémon Go

1 Reply
From Serebii on X

Niantic has just announced a rewards roadmap for Pokémon Go. Just hearing the name Reward Road, you might get the idea that it’s a new way to reward participation in the game.

Nope. It’s just a way to encourage whaling.

Basically, the more players spend in the shop, the more points that players get. And, to make it clear, it’s not enough to spend the in-game currency of PokéCoins in the shop, the Reward Road feature rewards spending real-life money in the shop, for in-game assets like PokéCoins.

I don’t claim to know the particulars of how Pokémon Go is monetized outside of its in-game shop, but I would have guessed that Niantic had ways of profiting just from the fact that FTP players played the game. But if they’re trying to goad people into spending more money with something as blatant as Reward Road, then things are probably not going well.

I don’t expect Niantic to take my advice, considering that I’m just a guy who doesn’t have a deep understanding of how mobile games profit, and especially considering how obvious it is that Niantic hates the people who played their games. But assuming that they give a shit, then this is something that they may benefit from having gotten out there: People might want to spend money in Pokémon Go if Pokémon Go was actually fun to play.

And the fastest way to achieve this would be to make Pokémon Go a quality experience.

I honestly have no idea what Niantic’s philosophy is when it comes to making mobile games. But at this point, it’s apparent that it involves continually making poorly implemented features that sometimes don’t even work properly, and ignoring all player feedback as they move on to the next poorly implemented feature. And if anything gets rapidly corrected, it’s usually an oversight which has the potential to actually benefit the players who take advantage of them.

Even now, years into the game, players get falsely-accused of driving while playing, with the only way to dismiss the prompt being to tap “I’m a passenger”, despite merely sitting in their living room. Why is this even still a thing? Niantic should have figured out that GPS drift occurs, even when a person is standing still.

And while I’m complaining about Niantic, we can talk about the obvious honeypot events that are designed to catch cheaters, but can result in bans for players who somehow find a way to participate in line with the rules. Like with the recent Gigantamax raids, which can only be participated in in-person, but required something to the tune of three dozen players with optimized teams to even stand a chance of successfully completing.

How is that in any way reasonable?

And among the players who somehow got a raid train together to complete some of these raids, some of them have gotten their accounts banned. And for what? Getting a few dozen other players together to get the raids to actually work out? What a blatant disrespect of the real-life efforts of some of the most dedicated players!

And that’s just what grinds my gears. This isn’t just some game that players are sitting down and playing while completely stationary, Pokémon Go encourages players to “get up and Go!”. If a player goes outside and participates in a raid for an opportunity to catch a Raichu, it would be infuriating if the same player was banned after immediately going outside and walking a mile to get to the raid before it expires.

If Niantic can’t respect the time and real-life efforts of its players, then they’re not the company that should be running a game like Pokémon Go.

I really don’t have much expectation that Niantic is going to change for the better anytime soon, even under duress. It’s because of this that I think it would be better if The Pokémon Company were to somehow reclaim its IP, so that Niantic couldn’t further use it.

When it comes down to it, Niantic never learned to make a decent mobile game, they just benefited from getting their hands on an absurdly popular IP.

This Is the Most Legendary Pokémon Leak of All Time

Leave a reply

Sometimes, something happens that’s so huge, so massive, and so legendary that it will be talked about for years to come. Last Friday, the data from an immense GameFreak leak went live, giving fans the world over insights as to the internal creative decisions of GameFreak, the makers of Pokémon, the highest-grossing intellectual property in human history.

This post won’t go over each of the details of the leak, which is a developing story, with fans still combing over the gigabytes of information. This post is more about the implications of the leak.

For one thing, the leak is acknowledged by GameFreak as containing personally-identifiable information on a number of their thousands of employees. In saying so, GameFreak has indicated that the leak is authentic.

But it also adds to the potential legal consequences that could be faced by the hacker(s), which Nintendo is likely to hunt down like a shiny Pokémon.

To briefly touch on what the leaks contain, included are, among other things, documents involving the creative direction of the gens 3, 4, and 5 games, many images of Pokémon that were redesigned before release, many Pokémon that were never released, possibly-scrapped plans for a sequel to the Detective Pikachu movie, and some amount of data for upcoming Pokémon games, including Pokémon Legends Z-A and the 10th generation of Pokémon.

And there’s more, such as the internal name for the Nintendo Switch successor, which was referred to as “Ounce”.

Without question, as far as hacks go, this is comparable to the “gigaleak” of Nintendo data a few years ago. But this one is different, as it specifically concerns Pokémon. Again, Pokémon is the highest grossing intellectual property in human history, and it has a fan base in the tens of millions, possibly many more. In the gaming world, the impact of this leak is seismic.

Also among the documents are those concerning the creative direction of the anime, such as concept drawings for the characters, and the reasoning behind the choice to conclude the story of Satoshi/Ash, and take the anime in a new direction.

Personally, I would’ve liked to see Gorochu. But maybe that’s in there, somewhere. Still, having seen the creative decisions being considered for it, I kinda wanna play the Sapphire version, again.

But as for the content concerning future Pokémon games, it’s not a bad idea to consider that things are subject to change. And perhaps GameFreak will gain a desire to change them, now that certain elements that they intended to be a surprise have gotten out there. But considering that the leak has shown us elements of past games that did change, it’s reasonable to expect that unreleased games will be subject to change prior to release.

Also, this leak is massive for the modding community, as it contains full beta versions of games from the DS era, and it sounds like it contains editors for at least one of the GBA games. Beta versions and developer tools are kinda a big deal.

There are also some creative elements that were probably better to leave out of the final products, such as a story about a woman with an injured foot who was attacked by a Vigoroth. That goes to show that the creators of Pokémon considered a lot, including stuff that wouldn’t have fit the tone of the games well.

Out of the unreleased designs, my favorite would be the unreleased Hoenn starter, Warabito (apparently Warabbit, a portmanteau of “water” and “rabbit”). While Mudkip may have fit in more with the other two, I’d have probably picked Warabbit, if that was an option.

There’s likely to be more to the leak to be discovered, as fans are still picking through them. It’ll be interesting to see what they find.

Least Attractive Bar Graph on Social Media

Leave a reply

Okay, is anybody actually falling for this? Let me know.

What I’m talking about is a graph that started trending on X, which shows a bar graph of what is supposedly the most unattractive hobbies for men, “according to women”. The chart is as follows:

I ignored it at first glance, but seeing as people kept giving it attention, I’ve decided to take it behind the shed. Spoiler alert, it’s coming back with some teeth missing.

First of all, Online Trolling is listed among the hobbies. That should be a powerful indicator of what’s going on, here. Hopefully, I don’t have to spell this out. Okay, I’ll do it anyway, because no reader left behind.

It’s bullshit. Someone came up with this graph just to mess with people. And it worked.

But it’s not the first indicator that someone is messing with you. That would be the fact that there’s no citations. And if there’s no citations, this means that there’s no study, no survey, no polling, or anything of the sort. If someone wanted their study to be at all respectable, there would be a citation, so that a person could look into the methodology to ascertain that the data has any value. There’s no citation, so there’s nothing of value.

Instead, every indication is that someone just pulled all this information straight out of their ass, and posted it on social media knowing that it would push some buttons.

Notice something else about the data? Conveniently, every data point on the bar graph decrements by five. Sure, it’s possible that if you survey thousands of people, it’s possible for the data points, when arranged in the form of a bar graph, would form a neat decrementation by fives. But it would be strongly unlikely.

Having said all that, the point that really pushes people’s buttons is the one about playing video games. I call BS, because women I’ve met play video games. In fact, the last woman I was with played video games. She had a big stack of them. But she hid them from me, even though she didn’t have to, and I ended up finding them accidentally.

Look, I remember a time when video games were the pastime of hobbyists who frequented Radio Shack. Back then, I would’ve understood if someone regarded them as some nerd hobby. But a lot has changed since then, and now it’s something that pretty much everybody does. It’s been decades since it’s been regarded as a nerd hobby, and if anyone today said that they didn’t play them, I wouldn’t believe them.

People need to stop falling for this stuff.

Mihiyo doesn’t care that you’re offended.

Leave a reply

It’s time for another dose of basic observation of reality. And today, it’s needed because a bunch of professionally-offended social media losers are throwing a fit over the creative decisions of a Chinese video game company.

Recently, the game company Mihoyo revealed a new Natlan setting for their Genshin Impact mobile game. It was recently revealed that the setting for the region has elements of inspiration from the African and South American continent, and even though the game is a few years old and has been played by millions of players, people are just now realizing that there aren’t any black characters in the game.

Even though the number of African tribesman who give a shit about skin tones in a game that they’ve never heard of is probably precisely zero, a bunch of Reddit and Twitter users have proceeded to flood Mihoyo with complaints, because that’s pretty much all they can do.

What they didn’t count on is that Mihoyo is based, and stated that Genshin Impact is just a video game, that any character can look the way that the game’s makers want them to look, and that, because it’s a work of fiction, nothing about Genshin Impact has any bearing on reality.

Basically, a Chinese game company told them what their parents should have told them back when their ages consisted of a single digit. They probably also quickly figured out what was going on by sorting complaints by IP address, and finding that hundreds at a time are coming from the exact same device. And, having been at this for years, they’re probably aware that, when you work in customer service, you’ll encounter a bunch of people with mental illnesses who hide behind sockpuppet accounts, and are so crazy that they think media contains hidden messages from the government/simulation intended specifically for them.

Ask me how I know.

One could easily point out that if there were black characters in the game, then the perpetually-offended will instead complain about cultural appropriation. One might even get the idea that one just can’t win with them. But you can win. When one of them starts getting offended on someone else’s behalf, just don’t engage with them. Let them bang their pots and pans together, where they’ll accomplish nothing.

And while you’re at it, savor the sad irony of the fact that, even though they are connected to the summation of human knowledge, if they had spent even half the effort that they put into being offended instead learning to do something useful, they might have self-taught themselves a skilled trade, and our generation may even have already cured cancer. Or at least learn how to make their own video games. Or even learn to draw in the anime style, so they can beat off to something which they drew, rather than relying on other people to draw it for them. Instead, they are actually dumber than they would be if they had never discovered the internet.

I don’t know what an African tribesman would think of Genshin Impact if they were to learn about it. It’s easy to imagine that such an experience would be their first brush with the technology needed to run the game. Their typical concerns would more likely involve whether a neighboring tribe would invade them while they slept, forcibly remove their genitals, then sell them into forced labor (something that a dumbass neighboring chieftain may attempt to do just because he had a bad dream). There’s also the question of whether they can get enough to eat, something that a person who is aware that mobile games exist probably never has to worry about. An African tribesman cannot possibly give a shit about the skin tones of imaginary characters in a mobile game that they’ve never heard of, and if they had somehow heard of it, they’d probably join the Chinese in wondering just what the hell is wrong with anyone who would give a care. To become offended on behalf of an African tribesman is supremely pointless.

Genshin Impact is just a game, and nothing about it has any bearing on the real world. In that respect, it’s like any video game ever. If you don’t have fun playing that game, your solution to that problem is to not play that game.

If Mihoyo is going to be based concerning this matter, I might just support them. And not just because I want to add Nilou to my roster.

Some voice actors came out against Mihoyo on this matter. This is pretty brave, considering that it’s easier than it’s ever been to replace them. Also, it’s probably true that they’re under contractual obligation to not lay a steaming, fiber-rich loaf all over their employer.

One of them went as far as to call Mihoyo’s actions “unforgivable”. I get that people use that phrase to be dramatic, but they should think about what that means. If someone calls anything that I do “unforgivable”, what they’re saying is that I cannot possibly be reconciled to them, I don’t see any reason to waste any energy trying to impress them.

I look forward to the contributions of the replacement VAs. And if Mihoyo goes the AI route, that would go to show how impressive that the technology has become.

I was wrong. Sigewinne is great.

Leave a reply

Disclaimer: Primogems are a precious in-game commodity. I advise you to pursue multiple opinions as to which characters to pull for!

It’s been a few days since I wrote up an article claiming that Sigewinne from Genshin Impact was shortchanged. In the time since, I realized that a key aspect of her kit, a healing charge attack that heals the entire party, was just what I wanted for my party.

Before you go and wish on her banner, know that she might not suit your team or your play style. There’s also the fact that I had her signature weapon to give to her, which I obtained while pulling for Furina’s weapon. My experience with Sigewinne may have been influenced by that, which is something to consider if, for some reason, my opinion is what influences you to pull for her.

But hey, I was wrong before, such as when I wrote an article calling Sigewinne shortchanged.

Sigewinne is a bow user. I wouldn’t primarily use her for her bow attack, but it’s something that’s proven useful for my team, which otherwise lacked a bow user. Those are great, because when you happen upon a wild critter, you can get some extra cooking ingredients out of it. I’ve gotten so used to not having a bow user in my party that I’ve easily forgotten that I could do that.

But you wouldn’t find yourself cooking as often, because her charged attack heals your entire party with each “bounce”, (except Sigewinne, who gets a big chunk of healing when the attack duration expires). And using it again only takes waiting out a cooldown.

You don’t even need any targets to use this move, so if there’s any time that your party needs healing, just have Sigewinne blow bubbles. And yes, this does make the game much, much easier. And it’s made bosses that I’ve struggled with nearly trivial. Sigewinne can take an account from getting by to thriving.

Sigewinne’s elemental burst is a bit controversial, as she has to remain on-field for its duration. But that’s acceptable, as it’s comparable to a mini-Neuvilette. The damage output is amazingly high, so as I see it, it’s worth the inconvenience.

Building Sigewinne is simple in theory: if you’re in a hurry, just select artifacts to get her HP as high as you can get it. Whether it’s offense or healing, the major aspects of Sigewinne’s kit scales off her HP. A bow that increases HP (such as her signature) would do great. In fact, her bow was easily tailor-crafted around her elemental charge, which was already her selling-point.

Sigewinne with her signature weapon, Silvershower Heartstrings. Don’t look at me, I didn’t name it.

Sigewinne is a great comfort healer on her own. In fact, she would seem to be the best in the game in that regard. Yes, contrary to what I said before, Sigewinne is better than Barbera as a comfort healer (putting aside Barbera’s auto-revive at C6, which is great). Barbera needs her burst to do full-party healing, which is inconvenient when exploring, and her charge only heals the active character, who might get wet as a result, which could result in unwanted elemental reactions. Like getting frozen.

So, Sigewinne is a great comfort healer. She might even be the best comfort healer in Genshin Impact, so far.

And, before I forget, she can actually automatically heal characters that fall below 50% HP while they are swimming in the depths of Fontaine. She only needs to be in the party to do this, and the only catch is that the ability has a cooldown. So if you were already good at fighting in the depths of Fontaine, you’d become almost unbeatable. This is great if you plan on spending plenty of time in Fontaine’s waters, which is likely if you plan on leveling Sigewinne.

Truth in advertising: Hoyoverse marketing depicts Sigewinne gathering the flower needed to up her level cap.

As far as teammates go, I haven’t attempted using Sigewinne in any post-game content, such as Spiral Abyss, but I think it’s safe to say that she’d be one of the many who would want Furina’s company. And the two go together amazingly well. Furina reduces the party’s HP, while increasing damage input as the party’s HP changes, and Sigewinne adds more damage output with Furina’s ability by also changing the party’s HP, by bringing it back up. After those two, you could pick just about any main DPS and any sub DPS, and have a killer team. Because you’d have hydro application covered by Furina and Sigewinne (mainly Furina), you could pick your other teammates for a desirable elemental reaction that involves hydro.

My current team’s sub DPS is Xiangling, with the main being a C4 Gaming. Triggering vaporize for high damage is simple, and this team is super fun to play! The main flow is to have Furina’s troupe gang up on the baddies, activating her burst, if available. Then, Sigewinne activates her charge, and optionally, you can fire off her burst. Xiangling activates her burst, if available, and you can plop down Gouba, if desired. If all the bad guys weren’t already demolished, then Gaming can come in and clean up. Switch to another character and reactivate their ability, if desired. Just mind your HP, as Furina’s ousia charge can zap your party’s HP. But hey, don’t forget that you have an adorable nudibranch on your side to make the boo-boos all better!

It seems like Sigewinne is getting some undeserved hate from people who aren’t even giving her a chance. While I got swept along with that for a while, my experience with her has been very positive. To not run along with the crowd has its rewards.

But Sigewinne might put a sticker on you while you’re not looking.

This is the most shortchanged character in mobile gaming history.

1 Reply

I think we know what power creep is. But for the benefit of those who don’t, here’s my attempt to explain it: when a game with the potential for updates is introduced, an economy of power is established, and it’s often expressed to the player how characters compare to one another through attributes such as attack power, techniques with area of effect, efficiency of play with the given resources, and in many other ways. As the game is updated, new characters, equips, techniques, or what-have-you are introduced which tend to be more favorable when compared to what’s established. Thus, players tend more towards the new content, as it tends to be more attractive given the in-game resources available to the player.

Pokémon is one example of a game where power creep has happened. In the base games, the legendary bird Articuno was one of the strongest Pokémon, due to the damage output of its Ice-type moves. But in successive generations, more legendary Pokémon have been introduced with preferable abilities and moves, some of which play directly to the Pokémon’s strengths. The Pokémon Trading Card Game is even worse; players might remember a time when 100 was a lot of damage.

While power creep is often spoken of as though it were a bug in game design, from the viewpoint of the developers of mobile games, it’s a kind of feature. It’s a way that developers can introduce new content into their games that catch the attention of established players who may believe that they already have ideal setups, and give them more content to strive for that might be a more practical choice, compared to what’s previously available.

However, game developers must be cautious with power creep. It’s one thing to introduce a character with attributes that challenge the current meta, but if power creep is accomplished through raw stats, then previous premium content can be left in the dust, and there wouldn’t be much reason for players to concern themselves with it. But if a new premium character doesn’t have an advantage over other established characters, then there wouldn’t be much reason to care for the new character. Its a delicate game.

One mobile game that I can think of that’s been hit with power creep pretty hard is Pokémon Masters EX. My first truly OP premium character in that game was the sync pair of Leon and Charizard. I thought it was pretty cool that he had a really strong attack that can be used for free after using a setup move. That was a few years ago, and since then, we’ve been introduced to characters that pack such an absurd punch that even Leon has been overshadowed, despite him being the greatest trainer in the Pokémon lore!

To move closer to the topic of this article, let’s look at Genshin Impact. While power creep has occurred, it’s handled it relatively well. It’s true that some of the premium characters have been overshadowed, but none of the old ones have become an absolutely bad choice. For example, there are still players who main Klee, and get it to work.

Lately, there has been some impressively powerful characters that are relatively new. One would be Nahida, who combos well with other characters due to her Dendro element. Another would be Furina, which grants huge damage output as she decreases the party’s HP, but pairs well with full-party healers which further boost her damage output. Then there’s Neuvillette, a high-damage-dealing catalyst wielder. Arlecchino does a lot of damage, but with the drawback of not being able to be healed by teammates, but is still exceptional in the hands of skilled players. Clorinde is a fast-paced damage dealer.

These are all relatively new characters. Thus, it would be easy to make the case that Genshin Impact is being hit with power creep, even if in a slow, carefully-controlled way.

However, as it so happens, there is a character that one can point to to make the case that, while power creep may be a trend, it’s not a constant. And that character would be the newest one to hit Genshin Impact, Sigewinne.

It seems the train of thought with her is, “Make her cute, and hopefully, no one will notice that this poor girl is not worth their hard-earned primogems.” She’s a Hydro element full-party healer with some decent damage output, but there’s a problem: other characters can do what she does, but better. Among these is Barbera, whose charge attack steadily heals the active character, and whose burst attack significantly heals the entire party. And better yet, once she reaches C6, she automatically fully revives an active party member who faints, once every 15 minutes.

What’s more, Barbera is available to all players once they hit Adventure Rank 18 and complete a certain quest, something that players can do within a month of starting the game. And because Barbera is a 4 star character, getting her to C6 can be reasonably accomplished, even if it would take a while for most players.

Making things worse for Sigewinne is the fact that her debut banner is running alongside the first rerun for Furina, a character that should be preferred by just about anyone who hasn’t already obtained her from her own debut. Because Furina gains a lot of fanfare stacks from partywide healing, one can make the case that Sigewinne pairs well with Furina. But do you know who else can do that? A bunch of other healers, such as Jean. It says a lot about how Furina has impacted the game that a character that hasn’t stood out in a while is now quite viable.

The train of thought may have been to debut a character alongside another one she would hypothetically pair well with, but what ended up happening instead is that the rerun banner greatly overshadowed the debut! And this was a great disservice to the character of Sigewinne, who was obviously designed to be highly endearing. Sigewinne would have been considerable as a 4 star character, to be randomly pulled while pulling for a 5 star banner character. If that was the case, she could have made her debut within Furina’s rerun banner. But instead, here she is as a 5 star featured on her own banner, with a signature weapon on a different banner that’s competing for pulls with a weapon that players would rather pull.

I do like the character of Sigewinne. She has a beautiful and tragic story. Not as much as Aerith from FF7, but it’s comparable to that of Marona from Phantom Brave. It’s because of this that I would have preferred that she had a better kit, which would be viable in more than just a few hypothetical fringe cases. And even if the character was made to appeal to girls and women who play the game, don’t they deserve better?

But one thing that I can say about Sigewinne’s kit is that it does resist power creep. Well done.

Credit: Sentaun

But the joke’s going to be on us if it turns out that Sigewinne forms a game-breaking combo with a Natlan character.