My opinion of Pokemon: Let’s Go

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Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee.jpg

It’s been over a week since Nintendo announced the next main Pokemon games which will be for Nintendo Switch. I think that’s enough time to consider what we’ve been presented with, pondering the implications for the Pokemon series and allowing the information to gel in our minds.

Here’s the trailer for those who haven’t seen it yet:

While one might imagine that I’d be among the most critical of a Kanto retread or of the mechanical changes that the trailer showed us, I’m actually quite optimistic about the new games, and I’m looking forward to them.

I think it’s obvious that GameFreak is looking to make a game that is appealing to as many people as possible. It’s a safe move, but it comes at the risk of alienating a few who might miss some of the game mechanics that they were familiar with for a long time, or who might have wanted a new region to run around in with fresh pokemon.

First, of the fact that this is a Kanto retread, I would have been skeptical of the idea of another Pokemon game that tread through Kanto. After all, as I’ve pointed out already, about one-third of all Pokemon games have included the Kanto setting, so it’s easy to make the case that this setting is over-represented. In fact, I’ve only just last week continued playing my eShop copy of Pokemon Crystal, which I left off after having beat the champion, right before the journey would have continued with the Kanto region. I’ve been through the region so many times, so going through it again kind of seemed like a chore.

However, I would have been in favor of a Kanto retread if GameFreak had some ideas that would make the experience more interesting. By the looks of it, they certainly have! I would have liked seeing what Kanto would have looked like with 3D models, which is just what they did.

Another point of contention among the fans would be the art direction. I know that some might not be fond of the idea of returning to a deformed chibi art style for Pokemon Let’s Go, considering that we’ve had more proportioned characters in Pokemon Sun and Moon. However, the art style in Sun and Moon was very much the exception. Overworld characters were done in the chibi style in nearly all Pokemon games, so it’s very much appropriate that Let’s Go uses this style. It’s certainly the style that was used in the Pokemon Yellow game that these games are based off of, which makes it even more appropriate.

pokemon pikachu red.pngWhat a Pokemon game looks like.

Another point of discussion is the Pokemon Go style capture mechanics. This is a bit of a risky move, as the wild pokemon battle has been a series mainstay since the very beginning. However, it’s a move that simplifies the game and makes it more approachable to casual gamers, particularly ones familiar with Pokemon Go.

This is a bit of a tangent, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about, and this seems like an appropriate place to bring it up: I find it kind of funny when someone complains about a major game mechanic change in a new installment in a franchise, saying that it somehow makes the game less hardcore.

Fast Fact: There are no hardcore games. Hardcore is a designation of a person who plays video games, and is not a category of the games themselves.

Hardcore gamers play the same games that the rest of us play, including the casuals. What makes hardcore gamers different is that they play these games consummately, putting a large amount of play time into their games, and they tend to play their games until the point that they beat them, possibly much more.

While one can point out that the average hardcore gamer spends more on games than your typical gamer, non-hardcore gamers make up the overwhelming majority of gamers, so it stands to reason that ordinary gamers make a majority of game purchases. This being the case, what point would there be for game companies to pander to the hardcore audience, especially if they’re going to play the games anyway by virtue of the fact that they’re hardcore?

Returning to the main point, Pokemon Go capture mechanics aren’t anything that players aren’t already familiar with, considering just how many people out there are familiar with Pokemon Go. This site lists several statistics for Pokemon Go as of just last month, with the following being the main ones I want to bring to your attention:

  • Daily active players: 5 million (amazing for a game nearly two years old)
  • Number of active users: 65 million (this number alone exceeds the total sales of any generation of Pokemon games)
  • Number of downloads: 800 million (about 1/10th of the world’s population)
  • Total revenue for Pokemon Go: $1.2 billion (from a business perspective, this game is doing something very, very right)

So, who exactly is being alienated by the new Pokemon Go style capture mechanics? Pokemon Go is familiar to just about everyone with a smart phone, and the capture mechanics are just about everything there is to that game.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t concerns. After all, in times past, one could level grind off of wild pokemon. That can still be done if your party still gained experience points off of pokemon captured. But for late game level grinding, nothing beats going up against the Elite Four. Trainer’s pokemon give more experience for battles, so they’re a better choice for level grinding.

The two-player co-op seems like an interesting idea, but the challenge might be to find another player to give it a go. There are several people in my family who play Pokemon, so it wouldn’t be much problem for me to find someone else who plays. But not everyone is in the same situation as me. There are players out there that don’t know many people who play the game, so they’re likely to have a far harder time giving the mode a try. One thing they could do is try to incentivize playing the mode with some strong rewards for players that try it, but that would risk making players that have a hard time finding other people to play with feeling further excluded. There’s the obvious fact that you can 2v1 some in-game opponents, which doesn’t seem like a fair fight, but it can help players overcome some tough opponents.

Now for my favorite feature: there are no more random battles. Wild pokemon appear on the overworld, and you can see the identity of the pokemon as it wanders about. If you want to try to capture it, you walk up to it.

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This is something that I’ve wanted to see in a Pokemon game since the very beginning! And they did it! They actually did! Finally, trips through caves are no longer a chore! No frequent interruptions when you have to travel through grass! You can avoid the pokemon you’re not interested in if you’re looking for a certain kind! Everything is right with this!

I don’t know a single person who is just fine with being annoyed by random Zubats every few steps in a cave, so I think that just about everyone is okay with this change. Let’s move on.

Another neat new feature is the Pokeball Plus controller. It’s a bit of a gimmick, but it seems okay. It can work as an optional controller for playing Pokemon Let’s Go, and can add more authenticity to the experience when doing the Pokeball throw. It’s also notable in that it can act as a Pokemon Go Plus device when used with Pokemon Go. I don’t imagine I’d be getting much out of this, and I’d think that anyone with an Apple Watch would have preferred using the Pokemon Go watch app over using Pokemon Go Plus. It’s gimmicky, not really necessary, but I might still give it a try.

What I’d like to see is how creative the modding community gets in making custom pokeballs with the Pokeball Plus.

Pokeball-Plus.jpgPaint me.

The next games are supposed to have a transfer compatibility with Pokemon Go. The transfer process seems to be one-way from Pokemon Go to Pokemon Let’s Go. There are some interesting implications to this.

One of which would be that completing the Kanto pokedex will be a snap if you’ve already made huge progress in Pokemon Go. It’s better news still if you’ve managed to obtain Mew in Pokemon Go, since it means that you’re going to have the rarest Kanto pokemon on day one. But I do wonder whether the stats would be recalculated when transferred. I managed to get a Mew that is statistically flawless in Pokemon Go, so if the stats would change, I’d be a little hesitant to send it over.

So then, if the transfer process is one way, would that mean that Pokemon Go might at some point be phased out? I doubt it would happen any time soon, considering that, as shown above, Pokemon Go still has a huge player base, and still makes huge money.

What’s more, would this also mean that Johto or Hoenn pokemon might be in Let’s Go, considering that these pokemon are available in Pokemon Go?

So far, there hasn’t been any word about compatibility with Pokemon Bank or any Gen 7 game. Does this mean that Pokemon is undergoing a hard reboot, and all the old pokemon are going to be stuck in the past? If so, that might not be too bad a thing. After all, online trading from 4th to 7th gen has been plagued with hacked pokemon, and preventing them from being traded up might keep them from continuing to influence the game. Nintendo has been doing a lot more to discourage cheating, such as banning players that do it from using Nintendo network services. Obviously there’s cheating in Pokemon Go, but we’ve been seeing bans there, too.

Another roadblock for cheaters would be the fact that Switch will have paid online features. A paid online feature would act as a deterrent to those who would take the experience less seriously and might drag it down for the rest of us. What’s more, it would ensure that everyone using the feature will have invested something into it, so they’d have a financial loss as a penalty for breaking the rules. Putting the online service behind a paywall might be what it takes to filter out those that misuse it, and bannings can take care of the rest of the undesirables.

The pokemon-following thing has also made a comeback, which has been absent since gen 4. It does include the option to ride pokemon, which might be a variant of the ride mechanic in gen 7. How this will be implemented is something I’m interested in knowing, as I wasn’t a big fan of HMs in most Pokemon games, which forced players to keep certain pokemon in their party and dedicate moveslots to ensure that progress isn’t impeded by roadblocks.

But even if there are still HMs, it won’t be a big deal, since players now get a PC box that they can access whether they’re in a Pokemon Center or not. I’ve wanted to see a feature like that for a long time, so it’s great to see it finally happen!

The end of the trailer mentions a special pokemon that you’ll meet in Pokemon Go after having connected with Let’s Go. It’s already confirmed that this will be a new pokemon, and is not the Alolan Exeggutor that became available right after the trailer was shown. That would mean that there will be one new pokemon in these new games. But would Let’s Go be a 7th generation game, or 8th generation? Are we getting to the point that the generation designations are arbitrary?

And speaking of Alolan pokemon, those will be in Let’s Go, as well. I don’t know how they’ll be implemented, but I suspect that they might be available in certain areas in the game. The previous remakes for the 1st gen games, FireRed and LeafGreen, included extra areas called the Sevii Islands. If those islands function like the Alola region as far as Alola variants are concerned, that would answer the question of how they could implement these variants in future games.

That’s what I think of these games so far. More information will be available next week, when they’ll be playable at E3. But at this point, I’m really looking forward to them, and they might just be the change that the Pokemon series has needed for a long time.

If you’re planning on getting physical copies, you might have a difficult time of it by the time November comes around. As of this writing, Amazon has already sold out of preorders for the Let’s Go Pikachu version. I’ll more likely get a digital download, which I’ve been doing for most Switch games up to this point. I might get both versions, and which one I get first will likely be decided by version exclusives.

Let’s Go? Bring it.

Comb your hair.

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comb.pngGive it a try.

Have you ever met someone who went all out to try to impress you, but they missed something completely obvious to everyone around them? It’s likely that you met the kind of person I’m talking about; it’s the guy who memorizes facts that he learned from listicle sites and YouTube countdown videos, but something is off about him which indicates a crippling lack of self-awareness, like bad hygiene.

What I’m getting at is that you should comb your hair. If you expect me to accept that you’ve become a great intellect but can’t be bothered to spend a moment each day combing your hair, what I’m really taking away from it is that you have some misplaced priorities.

As I see it, the main people who are excused from having to comb their hair are:

  • Bald people. If you don’t have hair, you don’t have to comb it.
  • People with buzz cuts. It’s a low-maintenance hair style, and combing it doesn’t make a difference.
  • Cavemen. Cavemen make it their business to look unkempt. This sounds awesome, until you realize that cavemen don’t have video games, the internet, or smart phones.

If you have the hair of a caveman, what you’re telling the world is that you want to live like one. Living like a caveman sucks, so naturally, you’d want to avoid regressing into one. I like technology, so I don’t want to live like a caveman. I also avoid looking like a caveman so I’m not mistaken for one. If you actually do like science like so many kids pretend to, then you should want to avoid looking like someone who doesn’t.

I once met a kid who was in such a hurry to convince everyone that he’s super smart, but his hair looked like a tornado hit a loom. Nice try kid, but your hair prevents me from taking you seriously. Have you seen yourself in a mirror lately?

114.pngThis thing has better hair.

The kid had a head that seemed huge, not because his head was significantly bigger than usual, but because the rest of his body was scrawny. On top of that, his hair was such a mess that it only added to the illusion of volume. He’d stand to benefit from combing it, even if his first time would take a while.

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He’d end up looking like a cult member, but at least he wouldn’t look like a total wreck. And that brings me to my next peeve. Combing your hair is a step in the right direction, but men are expected to get a haircut more than once a year. Whether it’s done by you, a stylist, or even your mom, getting your hair done as needed shows that you care about the rest of us enough to not drag down the atmosphere with your gross head-mop.

Don’t think that just because you’re ignoring it, the rest of us will, too. We laugh at your hair, whether you know it or not.

The 5 Worst Revisions in the History of Media

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By now, you’ve probably heard about the recently-announced Thundercats reboot, Thundercats Roar. If you first heard about it from me, I’m sorry. And if you grew up on the first Thundercats cartoon, I’m sorry again for what happened to it.

thundercats.jpgI did not edit this.

Seeing this travesty spurred me into making a list of the five worst revisions in the history of media, because this kind of thing really isn’t anything new. It’s a little early for Thundercats Roar to make the list, but I suspect that it would easily make an updated list of the six worst revisions in the history of media.

#5 The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

The year 2000 was among the most optimistic in the history of video games. At that point, we already had Sega’s Dreamcast, and it was in that year that Sony would release its PS2. Even Microsoft wanted to get into console gaming, which it eventually would with its Xbox system. Naturally, everyone was waiting to see what Nintendo would bring, and when they revealed their Gamecube at Spaceworld 2000, they didn’t disappoint. Not only did they show their system, they also showed a short montage of game clips to demonstrate what their system was capable of.

If you’re wondering what Spaceworld was, that was Nintendo’s own tradeshow where they marketed their own upcoming products.

You can watch the demo for yourself here, but just be warned that you might want to have your volume down:

It might not look like much by today’s standards, but at the time, it was proof that the future of gaming was going to be bright. What caught everyone’s attention in particular was this gem:

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At that time, I was only just starting to get into Zelda. But if that’s what The Legend of Zelda was going to look like on Gamecube, then as far as I was concerned, Nintendo had more than earned my money. I knew that I had to get a Gamecube on launch day so I’d be ready to play that game hardcore. And that’s exactly what I did.

Then, the following Spaceworld, Nintendo showed gameplay footage for Zelda on Gamecube. And it looked substantially different compared to what we had been shown the previous year. Substantially different.

zelda19ign.jpgPhoto from IGN, as though the watermark didn’t already say it.

When I first saw how The Wind Waker was going to look, I thought someone was playing a joke on me. But then, when I found out that this was how the next Zelda was really going to look, I felt betrayed.

After a little while, I decided that I was going to give it a chance. As it turned out, The Wind Waker was a pretty good game. In fact, it was among the best in the series. Too bad most gamers wouldn’t know, considering that humans are pretty superficial creatures. But can you really blame them for thinking something was going to be low quality because it looked low quality?

Nintendo really shot themselves in the foot with The Wind Waker’s artistic direction, considering that The Legend of Zelda was one game that people were looking forward to playing on Gamecube, and people had a certain image that they associated with The Legend of Zelda. Tampering with an established work can have the effect of alienating an established base, and companies can’t really count on being able to replace the existing fanbase with a new one. But, for that matter, why would they want to?

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People buy Nintendo systems to play the games Nintendo makes. And if Nintendo stops taking their own products seriously, then gamers move on to something else. The radical artistic direction of The Wind Waker came at a terrible time for Nintendo, as it came early enough in the Gamecube’s life cycle that many gamers were still on the fence as to whether to buy one. Many gamers jumped ship in response to seeing how Nintendo was treating The Legend of Zelda, effectively turning that time in gaming into one where just about everyone and their dog owned a PS2.

Eventually, Gamecube would see a Zelda game in the style that gamers were familiar with in Twilight Princess, but by that time, the damage had been done. Sometimes, all that’s needed to make a successful game console isn’t to have the most capable hardware, but for your greatest competitor to make the biggest misstep with their own product.

#4 SD Gundam Force

If you know about anime and somehow don’t know about Gundam, please tell me how you did it. Gundam is one of the most popular and well-known anime in history, and certainly the most famous of giant mecha anime. Numerous spinoffs came about due to Gundam’s influence, even if it was far from the first mecha anime.

5c8e195c.jpgAwesome.

In fact, mecha anime were huge in Japan during WW2, when the appeal of overcoming a powerful adversary while piloting a giant machine was easy to understand. When the Gundam franchise rose to prominence, it would come to bear some massive cultural significance. Even American audiences were captivated by Gundam.

It certainly helped that Gundam was appealing on so many levels. It had the fantastic elements of space battles with giant robots, but it also had well-developed human characters and excellently-written story arcs with commentary on the costs of war.

So, what’s the most appropriate way to celebrate the 25th anniversary of an anime known for mature themes and taking its audience seriously? How about some cheap chibi CG slapstick?

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If you thought that that’s a terrible idea, you’re not alone. I did too. But it’s not like anyone behind SD Gundam Force so much cared what anyone who liked anime thought of their show as much as they acted on the understanding that they had millions of die-hard fans that would buy anything they pumped out with the Gundam name, even if the product was rectal waft.

Twenty-five years of a space opera with giant robots and mature themes? Make way for some boy in a suburb and his robot friend. I know that the Japanese are in love with cute stuff, but there are some things that you just don’t mess with.

I’d have more to say about this show, but I was never really seriously into Gundam. That this show aired when I was considering it likely had something to do with that.

#3 Toonami: TOM 4.0

The Toonami programming block may not have been a show or a video game per se, but it was still pretty cool because it had its own host with a backstory. Originally, Toonami was hosted by Moltar, a former villain from Space Ghost. Eventually, Moltar would hand Toonami off to TOM, who would host the programming block from then on.

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I thought TOM was pretty cool. He, along with SARA, ran the Absolution, a space vessel from which the Toonami block was broadcast. TOM immediately appealed to me, considering that it was one of my childhood dreams to broadcast my own pirate radio station (though the legality of going about it may have been a prohibiting factor). Not only that, I appreciated his somewhat sardonic tone and emphasis on heroism, which made him a dynamic and interesting character.

While the Toonami block mainly focused on anime, TOM sometimes reviewed video games. While it might not have been the main focus of Toonami, TOM’s interest in video games did flesh out his character in a way that worked surprisingly well. By indicating his preferences and how they extended beyond his career, the character of TOM became more relatable.

And it gets better, still. Not content to just sit down and throw his commentary out there, he sometimes had interactive adventures that viewers can influence the outcome of by participating in online games, as was the case for a “total immersion event” called “The Intruder”, which actually saw the destruction of part of the Absolution, and of the old TOM, necessitating his transfer to a new body.

That’s right, fan participation had a lasting effect on the history of TOM and Toonami, and it was entirely possible for participants to goof it up and have TOM pay the price. We had an effect on TOM’s character, and it made the stakes of these total immersion events even higher.

So, imagine how excited I was to learn in 2007 that TOM was going to undergo another redesign, independent of any total immersion event. Each revision of TOM became cooler than the last, and the same could be said of SARA and the Absolution. But it wasn’t until it aired that I found out what would become of TOM:

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I wasn’t happy.

I could tell you what’s wrong with this picture, but you see it. TOM’s mysterious appeal was taken away by removing his helmet. For some reason, his neck was a couple wire harness tubes that came out of his two shoulders, and somehow supported the weight of his head. Also, everything else about the new TOM looked ridiculous.

Worse yet, we didn’t get any back story about why TOM looked like this. That’s just how he showed up one day, with SARA gone, the Absolution gone, with a bunch of weird robots broadcasting from the surface of some planet. Being left to fill in the blanks, I would have guessed that TOM had an epic battle against an evil vacuum cleaner that sucked out coolness, and TOM lost pretty hard.

Fans referred to this new TOM as TOM 4.0, but it was my guess that this was how TOM looked in the distant past, meaning this new TOM wouldn’t supercede TOM 3.0 in the in-universe narrative. It was my own head-canon for his appearance, which was what I could manage without any official explanation. He was also referred to as Thomas the Tank Engine.

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Even sadder still, this TOM 4.0 was the one that gave us the send-off when the Toonami block finally came to an end. TOM’s farewell speech was moving…

…To the point that I was willing to remember him for being the hero he was before, not the caricature he ended up becoming.

Eventually, Cartoon Network did make things right by bringing TOM back as TOM 3.5 on Adult Swim, and we’re currently up to TOM 5.0 on a resurrected Toonami. And it’s great to have him back.

TOM 5.pngLet the good times roll.

#2 Metroid Prime Federation Force

The Metroid franchise has historically had an excellent image. For years, the main character Samus wouldn’t so much as make a cameo appearance in a game that wasn’t excellent. In fact, the Metroid franchise is a great case study in building on the original source material. The first game was called “Metroid”, which was short for “Metro Android”, so a player could have assumed that the game was about a robot navigating an abandoned subway system. So imagine the surprise of players around the world when it was discovered that Samus was actually a woman in a power suit.

Metroid_Prime_01.jpgSex discrimination in video games means choosing to play as a strong woman.

When you think of strong, independent women in video games, who do you think of first? Many gamers say Lara Croft, but Lara is about as fanservicey as it gets. On the other hand, you see Samus kicking butt, and because she wears a full-body power suit, her appearance won’t be a distraction and her deeds speak for her.

When we found out that Metroid would be a first-person shooter made by an American company (Retro Studios), we were skeptical. But not only did Metroid Prime turn out great, it went beyond expectations.

Things started to go downhill when Nintendo teamed up with Team Ninja to deliver Metroid: Other M. Other M did a lot to flesh out the character of Samus, and what we discovered was that our imaginations were far kinder to Samus than those who wrote for her. Not only that, Other M was plagued by a number of flaws. While it was okay for a video game, it was far below what many of us considered a Metroid game. Nintendo blamed Team Ninja for how the game turned out, and Team Ninja blamed Nintendo. In any case, it seemed like Nintendo thought that players weren’t interested in a new Metroid game, because we wouldn’t see another for a while.

And when we did, we thought that Nintendo lost their minds.

metroid prime federation force samus metroids

When Metroid Prime Federation Force was announced, I was not happy, and I was quite vocal about it.

And, without question, I was right to be upset. After all, when the Metroid franchise has been built a certain way and with a certain image, that’s what an experienced Metroid player comes to expect from it. Metroid games starred Samus as the main character, who independently explored alien landscapes and space stations, and found that the titular metroids were somehow involved.

So then, interested in a Metroid game where Samus is put aside? No? Well, how about if it starred some faceless, personality-free Federation troopers? Still no? Well how about if we make it a mission-based affair with emphasis on multiplayer, because we all know how well that worked out for Metroid Prime 2? Still not interested? Well how about we make it a low-polygon atrocity done in the chibi art style? Why does it seem like you’re having a stroke?

I honestly have no idea how Metroid Prime Federation Force made it all the way to production without having the vast majority of the people involved calling it a stupid idea that totally should never have been considered, or how it happened to a franchise that is otherwise known for exceptional quality. What I do know is that the game was intended to stoke interest in the upcoming Metroid Prime 4.

If anyone from Nintendo is reading this, I hope you’ve discovered by now that this is not how you do it.

Finding this game’s connection to Metroid Prime 4 can’t be done unless players make it all the way to a secret ending, where Sylux sneaks onto a Federation facility and hatches a Metroid egg. We didn’t need an entire game to build up to that, and that game didn’t have to be terrible.

Now you don’t have to play the game.

Eventually, I decided to give this game a try, several months after it was released, after finding it on clearance at Gamestop. Even going in with lowered expectations, I was still disappointed. It’s almost as though the developers knew that everyone decided that they were going to hate their game before it was even released, and they gave up trying.

That would have been a pretty solid choice if it came with the decision not to release the game at all. But they did, and it stands as a stain on one of the finest franchises in gaming.

We got this far on the list. But before getting to number one, let’s get some dishonorable mentions out of the way.

Dishonorable mention: Tom & Jerry Kids Show

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The original Tom and Jerry was intended for kids already, so one can wonder what the idea was behind making the Tom & Jerry Kids Show. Until you realize that this show was born in a marketing meeting in an attempt to make an old franchise appeal to a younger audience, replacing an audience that was seen as losing interest in it.

Here’s an idea for cartoon execs: If you think kids aren’t interested in Tom and Jerry anymore, just make a different cartoon.

Dishonorable Mention: A Pup Named Scooby-Doo

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Another attempt at revising an old franchise to make it more palatable for a younger audience. The biggest problem in this case was that Scooby-Doo was never interesting.

Okay, we’re on to number one. You probably already know what it is.

#1 Teen Titans Go!

I admit that when Teen Titans aired on Cartoon Network in the mid-2000s, I was a bit skeptical. I saw its artistic direction as being a little odd. But when I gave it a chance, it grew on me. Not only did these superheroes kick some butt, as you would expect, but seeing how these character’s personalities interacted with each other when they weren’t fighting conveyed strong characterization which made the action scenes seem like there was even more at stake.

teen titans.pngWhat a great cartoon looks like.

The balance of conflict, drama, and levity was just right. The result was one of the best superhero shows that I’ve ever seen, right up there with Batman: the Animated Series. If you haven’t seen the Teen Titans cartoon from the mid-2000s, you’re missing out!

When fans found out that the Teen Titans were making a comeback, they were excited. Then they found out what they were doing with them.

Vlcsnap-2014-10-10-07h19m55s124.pngSomeone out there got rich by ruining your favorite brand.

Heh, that’s a good one. Now, show us the real one.

Wait… That’s the real Teen Titans Go? That’s what they’re really going with? How… How did this happen?

The team behind Teen Titans Go is fully aware that legions of Teen Titans fans hate the product that they produce. While you’d imagine that this would be followed by profuse apologies, it’s instead the explanation for numerous episodes that take passive-aggressive jabs towards fans of the previous Teen Titans show. When you criticize them, you’re only adding fuel to the dumpster fire.

Contrary to our own better judgement, Teen Titans Go actually became Cartoon Network’s highest-rated cartoon. This would seem an anomaly until you realize that CN pretty much dumped Teen Titans Go onto every available time slot in the US, and ran frequent marathons of it. This might seem counterproductive, but the low production values of TTG indicates low production cost, which makes it low risk programming that benefits from the strength of brand recognition. Which also does a lot to explain the new Thundercats cartoon.

You can complain to CN, but it’s not going to do any good. Cartoon Network isn’t going to care what you think unless you buy their toys. What’s that? You don’t want to reward mediocrity? Then you’re not the target audience.

And who is the target audience? Kids. And that’s a problem. Cartoon Network is feeding into the notion that it’s acceptable to present children with inferior products. While this is used as an excuse to coast along with a minimum of effort, it backfires in the long run by the principle that you reap what you sow.

Children weaned on inferior products think it’s acceptable to produce inferior products. For examples, look up children’s artwork.

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Bad children’s artwork (from Pixshark.com)

Have you ever seen children’s artwork that actually looked good? Me neither. And there’s a reason why this happens: because children have a terrible cultural frame of reference. They see adults producing terrible artwork, so they think it’s okay for their own artwork to be terrible, as well.

Teen-Titans-Go-press-TBS-2017-billboard-1548Bad grown-up artwork, presented unedited

Cartoonists, step it up. If children are drawing better than you, it’s time to consider doing something else for a living.

Nintendo starts rolling out bans for Switch hackers

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As a prominent Switch hacker called “Shiny Quagsire” just found out, Nintendo has begun rolling out bans for those who hack the Nintendo Switch. What the bans come down to is removing the most significant online components of the affected consoles. While banned consoles can still update their games and access news channels, they may not access Nintendo’s eShop or access any online component in games or participate in social media through them.

Ouch.

Shiny Quagsire thought he could circumvent the ban by using a different Switch console, and entered his Nintendo Network account credentials. However, the ban was extended to his second console, as the Nintendo Network account associated with his hacking activity was banned, meaning he can no longer use the account to purchase any new games.

Wow, it’s almost as though Nintendo doesn’t want anyone hacking their consoles or using them to play pirated software.

Here is what the ban message looks like, as shared by Shiny Quagsire himself:

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The notice contained an invitation to contact Nintendo’s customer support, which Shiny Quagsire did. This was the reply that he got back:

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TL;DR: “You’re the kind of person we don’t want using the online component of our system, so we don’t regret banning you at all. Please refer to the EULA where you agreed that if you hack your system or put pirated games on it, you’d be aware that we could totally wreck your system (though, this time, we merely settled for disabling the funnest online components).”

It’s kind of amusing how resigned to the outcome that Shiny Quagsire turned out to be, as though this wasn’t the worst of all possible outcomes, especially if pirated software were involved.

Personally, I think that the prospect of hacking Switches seems pretty awesome, provided that a person isn’t doing anything illegal. If a person can hack a Switch to get Linux running on it, that’s pretty awesome.

What grinds my gears is hacking software to give one’s self an unfair advantage in online multiplayer games. As I see it, if a person spent $60 on a game to participate in the online experience, hacking to give one’s self an advantage in online play takes something of value from the other players. A prime example of this would be the Global Trade Station (GTS) in the more recent Pokemon games. In the Diamond and Pearl days, the GTS was flooded with pokemon with request criteria that was impossible to fulfill, and players were doing this to take advantage of an exploit that could duplicate their pokemon. Because players would often leave their pokemon up for trade, the GTS came to be filled with pokemon that remained until they were automatically removed.

Things are even worse in online FPS games where a person could activate a hack that could make their character invincible so that no one else can do anything about them. There are many other exploits as well, and they each have the effect of ruining the online experience of the game in question, and game companies should care about this because it damages the reputation of the game franchise as well as the game company itself.

Considering this, it’s great that Nintendo is doing something about cheaters and hackers, because it means a better experience for the rest of us. When I see people getting banned that actually deserve it, it makes me not regret buying a Nintendo Switch at all.

I know that some in the hacking community may take issue with my assessment. What I’d have to say would depend on what you’ve been doing with your game system:

  • If you use your system to play pirated games, you have no reason to be upset. If you steal your games to begin with, why do you want to access the eShop? Besides, just be glad Nintendo didn’t notify the FBI (though, if they did, you might end up getting a visit).
  • If you cheat at games and want to play them online, Nintendo was right to ban you. If that’s how it happened, then I find the outcome refreshing. If you upload an entitled tantrum to YouTube, I might find it and get a laugh out of it.
  • If you hack your Switch just for fun, it’s unfortunate that you got banned. But, if you were smart enough to hack your Switch, you should have been aware of a banning as a possible outcome.

Have you ever tried to convince a cheater in Pokemon that cheating was wrong and that they shouldn’t do it? I have, and you’d be impressed at their capacity to avoid acknowledging the obvious. After a while, I just stopped attempting to reason with them and left it to Nintendo to deal with them appropriately.

For those who are planning on hacking the upcoming Pokemon games for Nintendo Switch, this latest round of bans is your warning shot. Even if you avoided getting sniped this time around, the latest bannings are like that bullet that whizzes right by your head, perhaps taking out a few hairs as it goes, as if to say, “Rethink taking another step forward.” And if Nintendo is going to start charging to use their online services, it’s only expected of them to clear out anyone that’s going to subtract from the experience.

I know that there might be some cheaters reading this that would be triggered by it. If you’re one of them, just get over yourself. You’re not the only person who plays games online, and the rest of us want you off. When you get banned, we get what we want. End of story.

A Kanto reboot might actually be a great idea.

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There have been rumors of a Kanto reboot for the upcoming Pokemon game on Nintendo Switch. At first, I wasn’t very fond of the idea, but the more I think about it, the more it seems like it might actually be a great idea.

It’s true that there would be a nostalgic element to it, which is pretty obvious. While Kanto may have been done pretty heavily in Pokemon, it’s been a long while since the Kanto region appeared in a Pokemon game. It last appeared in a 4th gen game as a post game area, and it hasn’t been a central focus since 3rd gen, and right now, we’re moving on to the 8th gen. Therefore, while Kanto may be heavily represented, it hasn’t been overplayed in recent times. There might be some merit to returning to the region if there were some way to represent it that hasn’t been done in a long time.

A recent interview revealed that there was a pokemon that was scrapped before the release of Pokemon Red and Green, which was intended as an evolution to Raichu. It would have been called Gorochu, and it would have had fangs and horns. Not only that, it got into the original design concept for Pikachu, which was originally intended to be a squirrel pokemon that resembled a daifuku bun with ears.

Sometimes, game developers share their thought processes for character designs after a game is released. But this information comes so far after the release of the original games and is so specific to their iconic mascot, there might just be something to their decision to share it, especially considering just how tight-lipped they’ve been about characters that didn’t make it into the game.

If GameFreak were to make a new Pokemon game rebooting the Kanto region, what’s an obvious way to make it interesting? By using ideas that were considered for the original game, but might not have made it. There are quite a few elements that were considered for the original games that didn’t make it to the final version, and here are just a few we know about:

  • There were originally intended to be as many as 190 pokemon in the original games. When Red and Green were released, they had only 151 of those pokemon, with some of those pokemon included in the Gold and Silver versions, and we know of Gorochu as a pokemon that hasn’t been included in a game, yet.
  • There was originally intended to be a plotline putting trainers that were kind to their pokemon against the ones that were harsh. The harsh trainers carried whips on them. While the plotline wasn’t included, the sprite art for some characters in the final games still depicted them with whips, including Tamers, Team Rocket, and even the gym leader Sabrina.
  • Early art revealed a slightly different roster of gym leaders, with a young boy being pictured before Brock, and Giovanni being excluded from the roster. This boy may have been the original gym leader of Viridian City.
  • Data for Pokemon Red and Green contained trainer data for Professor Oak that wasn’t used in the final version of the game. His pokemon were top-tier, and their levels were high, suggesting that he may have been available to battle right after the champion. In the final games, he does appear in the champion room, but not as a trainer you can battle.

On top of this, there are new regions and game mechanics that can be used to make the game more interesting. In terms of gameplay mechanics, mega evolutions and Z moves are already a part of the more recent games. For new areas to explore, the last Kanto remakes included new areas called the Sevii Islands. Not only that, there’s the fact that Johto is located right next to Kanto that can make it a convenient inclusion.

Considering all this, there is certainly plenty that GameFreak can do with a Kanto reboot that would keep it interesting. The nostalgic elements would appeal to those who remember the original games, and might even draw some old players back in. The inclusion of elements that weren’t a part of the original games would guarantee that everyone playing the game would have something new to do.

Of course, it’s possible that the upcoming Pokemon game for Switch won’t be a reboot. It seems sensible for a new Pokemon game on new hardware to offer a new region with new pokemon, as has always been the case until now. One way or the other, it might not be a bad idea to avoid getting one’s hopes up for a certain outcome. Whatever it is that GameFreak ends up doing, they’d likely do it after carefully considering how they could give us the most interesting experience.

Having said that, Gorochu sounds like an interesting concept.

What is it about Arby’s food that makes it so terrible?

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Arby’s is an enigma of food. No one expects high quality from fast food, but there’s something about Arby’s that makes it consistently disappointing every single visit.

Take their roast beef sandwich, for instance. As far as I can tell, it’s not made of anything I don’t like. Thinly-sliced roast beef on a toasted, buttery bun? Sounds great, right? Yet, when your order arrives in your hands, you know you’ve made a mistake. The roast beef is a strange kind of grey that roast beef is not supposed to be, and the bun itself limps as though it were on its way to the unemployment office.

In an effort to salvage the meal, one takes it to the condiments bar so the sandwich at least doesn’t taste the way it smells. When you see that the condiments are dispensed by pumps that likely weren’t cleaned for 12 days, you contemplate just throwing your sandwich away, and accept the fact that you lost the few dollars you spent on your sandwich. But after a moment, you cave in and choose between condiments.

You can’t win.

You see “Horsey Sauce”, and think “horseradish”. Unless you’re a quivering wussie, you like horseradish and give the Horsey Sauce a try. But you notice that there’s something wrong when it comes out all creamy. If you ignore this visual warning, you discover that this Horsey Sauce tastes like a concoction of mayonnaise with horseradish flavoring.

The alternatives aren’t much better. There’s ketchup, but fast food places can hardly be trusted to avoid adding sugar to their ketchup. There’s also Arby’s Sauce, which seems like a mixture of ketchup and BBQ sauce. I don’t know what it is exactly, but it has a kind of artificial tang to it as though it were chemically flavored.

You could try something other than a roast beef sandwich, such as a cheddar roast beef sandwich. The prospect of an onion bun sounds great, until you see that the onion bits are like thin shavings, and it’s like some imitation onion flavoring was sprayed directly onto the bun. Something about it just ain’t right. And do I have to say anything about the cheese? It’s cheese in the same sense that the nacho dip from the gas station is cheese, except without what little personality that the nacho dip has.

If you’re one of those knuckle-draggers that thinks bacon makes everything taste better, Arby’s swings low enough to have something for you. Also, you’re wrong. Bacon was never a big screaming deal to begin with, so give it a rest. And while you’re at it, don’t make a fad out of steak, either. I like steak, so do me a favor and don’t make it the official food of mouth-breathers.

Arby’s has the worst sides. You have the choice between grease and greasier. Paprika usually isn’t so bad, but the curly fries are so drenched in it, that it’s actually unappetizing. I don’t know anyone who actually likes those curly fries, so I have no idea why Arby’s boasts about their gross curly fries every chance they get. At one point, they offered regular french fries on their menu. Not ideal, but I went for that because it was better than the alternatives (aside from deciding to eat somewhere else, which would be a great choice). But after a short while of that, Arby’s took the regular french fries from the menu. Were they trying to spite me, or what?

If you think your arteries are evil and must be destroyed, Arby’s potato cakes (hash browns) are a flavorless and insipid way to go about it. If you were to get these (don’t), get a bunch of napkins. Then set it on top of several layers of napkins to see how many layers the grease soaks through. The answer: a lot. I once smooshed one of these potato cakes between two layers of several napkins each, and they’d still soak through. Why does Arby’s offer these hash browns as a side? What kind of sense does that make?

It actually seems as though the sodas from the fountains are the healthiest things on their menu. Consider the implications of that. But if you’re feeling like a lousy food connoisseur, Arby’s sometimes offers a french dip and swiss, which is like one of their roast beef sandwiches, with a different bun, swiss cheese (maybe), and onion dipping sauce. Then, for one moment of sad delusion, you can convince yourself of a vapid sense of culture for eating an imitation gourmet item at a fast food joint. As you sit there with your flimsy pseudo-french sandwich at Arby’s, you can ponder just where your life went wrong. Then you can use your fountain soda to wash down the pills the doctor gave you to make you happy.

About a month ago, David Hogg (yes, that guy) took shots at Arby’s because he objected to the fact that they advertised on a Fox News program where the host was critical of him. Because, you know, we live in an age where if you take issue with how someone expresses their protected freedom of expression, you snipe their income.

David-Hogg.jpgA face you can trust in journalism.

I’m not fond of either of them, so if Arby’s and David Hogg were to go at it until there were only one of them standing, I’d feel better regardless of the outcome.

You might be asking, “If you hate Arby’s so much, why do you still eat there?” I really don’t know how it keeps happening. Oftentimes, I’m on the road and want something to eat, and Arby’s is there as a better alternative to McDonald’s and Burger King, and enough time has passed for me to forget how much I disliked it before that I actually consider it. It’s like Arby’s has carved out a niche by taking advantage of that weird kind of amnesia. It’s almost clever enough to be admirable. Just not quite.

Humanity has a mind that enables it to contemplate the mysteries of the cosmos. The math, science, literature, and technology available to us are the culmination of thousands of years of critical thinking. And as fascinating as all of this is, the zenith of human achievement is yet to be seen, as we make more discoveries that are each collectively waiting to be found. And yet, we still sometimes accidentally visit Arby’s.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Hackers arrested and fined millions for PUBG hack

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Fifteen hackers have been arrested in China for a PUBG hack. News titles for this story are clickbaity, and would lead you to believe that the arrests occurred over cheating, which probably is illegal anyway, since it involves defrauding other players in an online gaming community of an experience that they pay money for and involves tampering with software programs that are protected by federal laws and international treaties, but I digress.

The arrests occurred over a Trojan horse in the cheat codes distributed, which then proceeded to mine that person’s computer for information. Most of us probably know someone who thinks that they are some kind of genius just because they can use the internet to download movies, video games, music, and lots of other stuff without paying for it, not knowing that those who provide these files illegally take what they can from them, as well.

Let’s get real here: hackers don’t do what they do out of the goodness of their hearts. What they are doing is highly illegal, and if caught, they can face some heavy penalties (millions of dollars in fines and years in federal pound-me-in-the-stinkhole prison). They’re taking an extraordinary risk in distributing something illegally, which they wouldn’t likely do unless they got something in return that could make it worth the risk of spending years in jail, where there are no video games, or much fun to be had at all, for that matter. We’ve already established that they have no problem with stealing from multi-million-dollar companies, which have legal teams that could retaliate against them big-time. Why wouldn’t they also steal from you, someone who can pretty much do nothing about it, if they can get away with it? If someone is taking the risk of going to jail for years, they’d likely take anything that they can to justify the risk.

Of course, your kid brother probably thinks that they’re safe because they also downloaded free anti-virus programs from the internet, which are just about the digital equivalent of placebos when it comes to locating, removing, and preventing Trojan horses. Then, after having illegally downloaded some files, connections for everyone else on the network slows down the moment that they open their cheap laptops as they unwittingly send piles of information to people who benefit financially from their illegal activity.

People who cheat in video games ruin the online experience for the rest of us, and people who download stuff illegally ruin the bandwidth for everyone else on the network, so I feel like laughing a little when they get what’s coming to them. They really can’t expect much in the way of sympathy if they get caught.

Pokemon vs. Digimon: Why does it matter?

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A few years ago, I asked the question of which came first, Pokemon or Digimon. After exploring the matter, I shared my findings in a post which eventually came to be the most visited post in this blog.

It didn’t take long for the comment section to light up, with visitors taking sides and some heated exchanges taking place. My referral logs revealed that the post was being discussed elsewhere, such as this DeviantArt entry.

One question that comes up when asking which came first between Pokemon and Digimon is “Why does it matter?” While the question could be easily rephrased as “Who cares?” or “What difference does it make?” and retain much of its intent, it’s plain to see that it matters quite a bit to those who have participated in the discussion. Each person could only answer the question for themselves, as would I, as each person may have differing reasons as to why it matters to them.

One reason that’s evident to me as to why feelings are so strong concerning whether Pokemon or Digimon came first or which one has the better games or anime or characters or what-have-you is that people develop a strong attachment to what’s a source of happiness to them, and when that source of happiness is somehow challenged, people feel inclined to either defend their source of happiness, or go on the offensive against whatever they perceive as challenging it.

This is especially evident when one observes nerd battles in what’s called the “console wars”. People develop a strong attachment to the game console that they play with, particularly the one that they play the most. When that console is challenged, people tend to react strongly. It’s actually surprisingly easy to be drawn into the so-called “console wars” and end up defending your favorite console against the fanboys.

A variation of this phenomenon can be seen when you look at so many people who are passionately against Apple products such as Macbooks and iPhones. If someone considers an Apple product and decides it’s not for them, their solution to this is to simply not buy it. But those who hate Apple with a passion seem to think that they are going to take over the world or something. Sometimes, it can be quite amusing to find a tech reviewer who’s so dead set against Apple that they compare just about everything to their products, such as in this video.

Pokemon and Digimon have fans who tend to play their favorite games extensively, which is why there’s a strong attachment to these games. In fact, there’s a bit of a feedback loop in that players like the games so they play them some more, and as they play them some more, the attachment becomes stronger. And these games happen to be very deep, which enables some involved play.

So, that’s the explanation for why there seems to be a strong reaction. But when it comes down to it, a person is not wrong for liking one game or the other, even if one came before the other or one was inspired by the other. The fact is, both franchises exist, and a person can enjoy a game that they play regardless of anyone else’s opinion of the same game.

That’s why the topic seems to get a strong reaction from others, but what about me? Why did it matter enough to me to demonstrate that Pokemon came before Digimon to make a post about it, and make subsequent posts going into other aspects of the topic?

The answer has more to do with the fans than with the franchises themselves. A sizable portion of the Digimon community strongly insists that it was Digimon that came first, and that Pokemon took inspiration from it. I’m not entirely sure where this idea came from, but I suspect that it has to do with the fact that the Digimon Tamagotchi came to American shores before the Pokemon anime first aired on American TV. As explored in the which came first article, both franchises first appeared in Japan, where Pokemon came long before the first Digimon product appeared, and I authored another article which provided proof that Pokemon was in development as early as 1990.

While the claims that some Digimon fans are making are demonstrably false, I suspect there’s a little more to it. I vaguely recall that there was a magazine from the late ’90s that made the claim that Digimon came first, a claim that may have been subsequently parroted by numerous Digimon fans. I don’t remember for sure what magazine it would have been, but I suspect that it may have been an early issue of Beckett Digimon Collector. Whichever magazine may have irresponsibly made the misleading claim, the apparent response would speak to the tendency of the public to take at face value information issued by a publicated source, even if they themselves may be misinformed. (Does anyone out there have the magazine in question? Help would be appreciated.)

Because I understood the claim that Digimon came first to be false, it didn’t sit well with me. I know that it takes work and creativity to produce something that’s novel, so I find it a bit irksome when a me-too product comes along and, not content to bask in reflected popularity, show disrespect to the original by claiming superiority and even claiming the idea as its own!

In this regard, the issue isn’t with the Digimon IP itself, as it does nothing to disrespect the franchise that inspired it, and is simply another take on an idea that happened to be popular at the time it was conceived. Rather, the issue is with certain Digimon fans who are claiming that Digimon came first and Pokemon stole from it! It’s important to note that it’s not all Digimon fans that make this claim, and I see nothing wrong with enjoying both franchises.

While the Digimon fans that insist that Pokemon stole from Digimon are passionate about their position, it remains that the foundation of their position is a great misunderstanding. The antidote to this misunderstanding is to provide clarity, which can be done by doing honest research into the history of both IPs, and using the information found to make a determination as to which came first. When I did this, I found that it was Pokemon that came first, without a doubt. Using this information, I wrote up an article to publish on my own web space to get the word out.

Another reason it mattered to me is because I care what the truth of a matter is, whether or not it happens to be the accepted consensus of a community. It’s better to be alone in being right than to be wrong with the majority. But in this case, it’s not necessarily the majority that’s wrong, so what gives? Why go as far as I did when it’s just a couple JRPGs that we’re talking about?

It matters because there’s a slippery slope effect when it comes to accepting even a little bit of falsehood. If we’re willing to overlook small falsehoods, this tends to enable us to accept greater falsehoods later on. If we accept a falsehood about a piece of entertainment on the mere reasoning that it’s more comfortable to accept, it becomes easier for us to accept for comfort falsehoods about our careers, society, religion, politics, and numerous other topics wherein the choices can have serious, long-reaching consequences.

Even when we’re talking about games, a false narrative is still a false narrative. It should matter to us what’s true and what’s not. Otherwise, there’s no telling what we could end up accepting at some point down the road. There was a misconception that I saw going around, so I looked into the matter and shared what I learned.

When it comes down to it, the truth matters, regardless of the scale of the issue.

The Worst Pokemon Gen 8 Clickbait Thumbnails on YouTube

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They say that you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. It’s an expression that implies that the content of the book’s pages aren’t to be dismissed just because the cover itself isn’t terribly appealing, as an allegory for how a person’s character can be far different from what their appearance may imply. Sometimes, a literary masterpiece is disguised by a drab cover.

But what if the opposite is true? Could a garbage book be cleverly disguised by a cover which describes it as something it’s not?

For YouTube content creators, the thumbnail image is among the most important parts of the video. It doesn’t just identify the video among the sea of videos in someone’s recommendations, it says what your video is really about. Ideally, anyways. In some cases, the thumbnail is flat-out misleading.

Sadly, that’s the kind of crap that the Pokemon community has to deal with, as speculation about the upcoming 8th gen of Pokemon is building, and numerous YouTube content creators are out to fish up as many views as possible so they can benefit financially from the ad revenue.

Therefore, I’ve made a list of the worst clickbait thumbnails that are currently going around on YouTube. Because there are a lot of PokeTubers out there that are obviously motivated by greed, I have a lot to work with.

Eryizo.jpgBy Eryizo

I wonder how Eryizo was able to make a list of the top 5 new pokemon in gen 8 if the grand total of them revealed so far is zero? I don’t know, because I didn’t watch his video, and I’m not planning on it.

Also, his thumbnail will be the first of many on this list that attempts to pass off fan art as a newly-revealed pokemon. When I see thumbnails on YouTube of pokemon I’ve never seen before, the first thing I usually do is check a reputable news site such as Serebii.net to see whether it was revealed there. If so, the news site would be the best source of information for reveals outside of official sources. Then maybe I’d watch someone’s video about it if I were interested in their opinion.

Also, I liked Eryizo at one point, so it’s a shame to see him turn to the dark side.

NGameTheCube.jpgBy NGameTheCube

Hey look, more realistic looking graphics! What could that mean besides that some random guy on YouTube called NGameTheCube found some footage that, for some reason, only he has! Or it could be some fan mockup, which you see just about everywhere. What I want to know is, why did he choose a picture of two pokemon standing around being bored? Pokemon is about battling, so they could at least be facing each other.

Twintendo features needed.jpgBy Twintendo

Would you check out how fresh and exciting this new game on new hardware will be by reusing official art a decade-and-a-half old that’s been doctored with an outfit to an evil team that we’ve already defeated? How new and fresh! Put aside, of course, that this implies yet another Hoenn remake when we’ve had one in the last gen.

Of course, there’s the obvious question of how this person was able to make a list of 5 features in gen 8 when absolutely zero are known to the public so far.

Burlingtone leaked.jpgBy Burlingtone

Burlingtone claims that he gained access to a leaked gameplay trailer for the next Pokemon games. The idea that some rudie poo YouTuber was resourceful enough to abscond with such a valuable resource requires quite a hearty suspension of disbelief. What really seals it is that he says that they’re called the Violet and Rose versions.

Yeah. Violet and Rose. Lame.

Jimmy Tumor lamest looking Eeveelution.jpgBy Jimmy Tumor

One of the easiest templates to use when crafting your own fakemon is to make an Eeveelution, yet another evolved form for Eevee. If you’re already using a template, then a large part of the creative legwork has already been done for you, leaving you with less of an excuse to make something that looks lazy.

While we’re at it, can we just stop idealizing ancient Egypt, already? I know it’s weird and mysterious, but it’s far from the only ancient culture that existed.

Some Northern Guy.jpgBy Some Northern Guy

We don’t know whether the next games will introduce new regional variant pokemon, but the escape clause for this thumbnail is that it doesn’t expressly state that they’re guaranteed to be included, only that that’s the subject. This makes this the thumbnail equivalent of that kid that rests his middle finger on his temple, but insists that he’s not flipping you off when you call him on it. It’s as dishonest as the kid is cowardly.

But could he have at least used a mock up variant of a pokemon that anyone cares about? Unless there’s some huge Noctowl community out there that managed to elude detection for 18 years.

WiiUGamer12.jpgWiiUGamer12

Thankfully, the answer is “no.” I’m glad that those aren’t the actual starters, because if they were, they’d be the lamest ones in the history of Pokemon. I’m not kidding, look at that cow. Someone managed to make a cow that looks stupider than the real thing. That thing would make the derpiest hamburger in history.

If you’re wondering what a Wii U is, believe it or not, Nintendo released a system between the Wii and the Switch.

ThePokeRaf.jpgBy ThePokeRaf

Wow, forget Eryizo’s lame 5 pokemon list, some random guy managed to find 10 pokemon that weren’t revealed yet! Imagine the blatant violation of non-disclosure agreements that that took! If real, Nintendo would take this video down as soon as they noticed it!

But it’s still up. Awkward.

On the bright side, we don’t have to worry about that lame legendary appearing in a pokemon game. But I get the idea that if COPPA were vigorously enforced, we’d be seeing fewer fakes like this going around.

Jimmy Tumor calling it fanmade doesn't get you off the hook.jpgBy Jimmy Tumor (again)

Jimmy has been spamming YouTube with these fakemons. While he does call them fanmade in the video titles, they come in the tail end of the titles, after a cutoff occurs on the main page. This, along with the thumbnail, makes you form your own first impression which hopefully leads to another view, and more ad revenue for having led you on.

Maxx Ezzy lame legendaries.jpgBy Mazz Ezzy

These gen 8 leaks look suspiciously like they came from a grade schooler’s sketchbook, where a couple failed drawings of animals just had random stuff drawn on them and then a sad attempt was made to pass them off as leaked legendary pokemon. If you’re going to try drawing legendaries, they should at least have a sense of majesty.

This is what you’re competing with:

ultra necrozma.jpg

Which is an actual legendary in the most recent games. Because this is what’s being called a legendary these days, making a cover legendary that looks lamer than any other cover legendary is like challenging people to care less.

Jimmy Tumor yet again.jpgJimmy Tumor (yet again)

Please Jimmy, just stop.

There’s more. Lot’s more. To find it, just type “Pokemon gen 8” into the search at YouTube, and see the sad state of the Pokemon community.

Making clickbait thumbnails isn’t just a dishonest way to generate ad revenue, it demonstrates that their makers don’t respect our time, which is what we consume to see nothing but speculation and pointless discussion passed off as “leaks.” Such videos are a waste of time and bandwidth, and are a money making scheme that, sadly, works.

As a community, we have the solution to this problem: Instead of clicking on these videos, just open a new tab and check for Pokemon news to see whether it’s being discussed by reputable sources. If not, then it’s just some kid or NEET out to make a quick buck off ad revenue, and you don’t need to see his video at all.

Perhaps in the future I’ll make fun of some more thumbnails. Just because I posted this doesn’t mean that the clickbaiters should feel safe that I didn’t include their thumbnail or that they’ve “fallen under the radar.” As long as stupid stuff is posted on the internet, I’ll have plenty of material to work with.

The Worst Kinds of Customers in Retail

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If you really hate yourself and want to reinforce a dim view of humanity, there’s no more effective way to accomplish this than to work in the grocery or retail industry. There’s a lot to it that makes it some of the worst soul-crushing misery that man can impose on his own kind without violating the Geneva Convention, such as the fluorescent lighting, the destitute pay, and the mindless, low-skill busywork. But what really drives the misanthropy home is the customers.

I’ve worked in the grocery and retail industry for years, and was happy to get out. From my experiences, I can name some of the worst kinds of customers that one can expect to have when they have to work with the general public.

To be fair, I’ll point out that most customers were pretty normal, and therefore weren’t very memorable. This list is more about the ones who, if I were to take over the world, you’d have to thank if I were to usher in some kind of global police state.

The Litterbugs

Once you’ve wiped your nose on a tissue or finished your free sample of coffee in those little Styrofoam cups, you’d have to use the wastebasket. Sometimes, this involves holding onto your trash until you find one, which is the procedure when you’re in any public place. One store I worked at was nice enough to have a small trash bin at the end of every aisle.

Apparently, this still wasn’t easy enough for some people. These would be the litterbugs. They’ll ignore the trash receptacles or pretend that they aren’t even there, and simply leave the trash in their carts, even after leaving. In doing so, they leave their problem for the next person, who blames the staff for not noticing it before they did. So they just ignore the cart with the trash in it, or they just throw it into a different cart, even if there’s a trash bin right by them.

Worse yet are the ones that just drop their trash on the floor when they think no one is looking, or, even worse, the ones that stash their trash among the merchandise. I kind of wonder how filthy their homes are, because in public they’re total slobs.

The cart not-returners

So you’ve gathered up everything on your list and paid for it without incident, and loaded your order into your car. After having gotten this far in taking a trip to the store without making a dunce of yourself, you have one thing left to do – just one thing – before having accomplished the bare minimum of being a decent customer. You put the cart into the cart return.

You can do this, right? That’s what they’re for. They’re designed to streamline the process and make it as easy for you as it can be. But there are still people out there that find it too hard.

If a cart is left anywhere outside a cart return, such as next to a signpost or propped against a curb, it could inconvenience a customer that might have to maneuver their car around it. Or worse, the wind can cause it to drift into a vehicle. This doesn’t just cause dents and nick expensive paint jobs, it can necessitate the need for an expensive coating that needs to be done soon before rust can set in.

The customers on this list aren’t just bad for the workers, they’re terrible for other customers.

The dog walkers

Too many people who go to the store don’t think far ahead, and pet owners are some of the worst offenders. I suspect that their logical progression of thought goes something like this: “I’m going to the store, may as well bring the dogs with me. I’ve arrived, but I can’t leave the dogs in the car, so I may as well bring them in with me.”

I suspect that this is used as a pretext to show off the wimpy little inbred mongrel that they consider a dog, considering that if you’ve met a dog person, you know that they’re proud of their degraded wolf and won’t stop talking about it.

But there’s a problem with this: People are allergic to dogs. Stores don’t prohibit non-service pets just to be mean, they do this because some of us really can’t be around them. Put that on top of the fact that there’s so much else that can go wrong with bringing a dog to the store, and it’s evident that those who bring their pets with them have left their brains at home.

The shoddy-stockers

If you change your mind about an item in your cart, just put it back where you found it. Easy, right? Yeah, it’s so very easy. It’s hard to imagine how anyone can mess this up. But there are those who still manage to.

Hanlon’s razor aside, we know that the reason people do this is because they are either lazy or they think that making the place a mess for the staff or their fellow customers is funny.

What’s more, some of them get creative with it. There are times when there gets to be a rancid smell near a certain spot, and it can take a while before the workers find out where it’s coming from. When they do, it turns out that it’s coming from a leaky, sopping pork roast that’s been set behind boxes of cereal, and has long since spoiled.

The look-in-the-backers

You knew these guys were coming, the ones who can’t find what they’re looking for or found an empty spot, so they ask an employee whether there’s any more in the back.

As much as you’d want to tell these guys what they can put in their back, this isn’t standard minimum-wage procedure, so it’s on to “assisting” them. Usually, the first thing I’d do is check where the item is kept on the floor, because I’d sometimes find what the customer is looking for, and relish the awkward pause as it dawns on the customer, at least in part, that they aren’t as diligent as they thought they were.

In grocery and retail, the back rooms are mainly for unloading stock from trucks, which are then quickly moved out to the floor. Product that remains in the backroom doesn’t sell, so management wants the staff to get the product on the floor quickly. Because of this, very little product is actually in the back, and finding it back there is a long shot.

This takes a while to explain to customers, and if one were to go to the trouble, they’d probably insist that the employee go check anyway, or they wouldn’t get the idea, or funnier still, they’d say that they don’t believe it even though they have little choice but to take the employee’s word for it.

So, what can an employee do about it? Usually, they just go to the back, take a short break, then return in a few minutes saying that they couldn’t find it. At this point, the customer usually resigns himself to the inevitable, but in some cases, they’ll fall into the next group.

The ones that call for managers

There are some people out there who just can’t take an honest statement of fact, however tactfully delivered. So they move on to inconveniencing the next level up on the ladder: the managers.

Customers seem to have the expectation that employees get in trouble the moment management is involved, because when I’d nonchalantly agree to go get management, it seems to surprise them. Believe it or not, employees don’t necessarily have an adversarial relationship with management. They work together, and have pretty similar goals. Besides, making enemies with someone you see every day is stupid.

When I called management over, they pretty much always agreed with me. After all, most people in management are bright enough to understand that giving someone something that they don’t have is physically impossible.

For all the threats that I got from customers saying that they could get me fired, I actually worked in grocery and retail for about a decade without facing termination once. Which was probably worse to endure than collecting unemployment, all things considered.

Miscellaneous checkout shenanigans

As simple as the process of checking out is, it’s surprising just how much can go wrong, and how many customers there are who find ways for it to happen. One would think that customers would be extra careful at this step in the visit, considering that this would be the point where they part with their money. But, it somehow turns out to be when they make the most mistakes. I suspect that there’s some science that the retail industry has mastered to make their customers’ IQ drop by 30 points during their visit, while the sanity of cashiers is the collateral damage that companies are willing to pay.

I’m not kidding, I hated working register with a passion. I’ll just go over a rapid-fire list of dos and don’ts to keep things nice and tidy.

  • Don’t make a point of paying with exact change. You’re slow at it, and the cashier is faster at it because it’s the cashier’s job.
  • Don’t attempt to use expired coupons. Do your due diligence.
  • Don’t hit on the cashier. The setting degrades the experience.
  • Oldie but goodie: Don’t enter the express lane with more items than permitted. Customers and cashiers alike make fun of you for it.
  • If your debit or credit card breaks, don’t be lazy, get it replaced. Cashiers hate it when you waste their time by having them punch in all those numbers, and the customers behind you don’t like it, either.
  • You’re not the first one to joke that “it’s free” when an item doesn’t scan right. If the cashier bothered to pretend a laugh, you have no idea how much effort it took.
  • If an item scanned the wrong price, it was likely you who made the mistake. Cashiers are seriously annoyed when things have to come to a halt just to do a price check, and so is everyone in line behind you. Take care to read the price tags to reduce the likelihood that you look stupid in front of the other customers.

There’s a lot more, but those are the main ones that I can think of at this point, possibly because my brain isn’t permitting me to recall too much about my grocery and retail work because of some internal mechanism that protects my sanity. Therefore, I’m concluding this list at this point and being glad that there’s life beyond retail.