Pokemon BDSP: Play Like A Designer Episode 4, Forward to Floaroma!

[Music] Good time zone internet. Hello and welcome to design club the only game design show on the internet where my co-host forgets that I get a preview of what the scene looks like when we're on black. So I'm not surprised when he does goofy glasses things. I am your humble host Will. Joined as always by my pal Jeff. Say hi to the people Jeff. Hi to the people Jeff. Hey everybody I am Jeffrey Zakin the studio director of Extra Credits and Extra History and more importantly for this one I am a long time game designer who has actually never played a Pokémon game other than Pokémon Go. Yeah. And I'm exploring it with Will because he's been telling me extolling the virtues of the Pokémonness. I don't know that I would call them virtues so much as I would call them unique peculiarities of the the je ne sais quoi of Pokémon. Now if you're watching this live we know

that this is not the Pokémon game that most people are playing today and that's okay. We're watching this later we're recording on the 16th of October which is the day that Pokémon Legends ZA comes out which is just a lot right now. There's a lot of people who are very excited and I I think they should be.
Yeah they should be. Like it's I'm I'm glad that people are getting that game that they wanted to play and I hope that the launch is going well. I haven't heard anything bad about it but I did you know it's kind of interesting Jeff as a small side before we get started the um the number of people I saw with How many does it have? So many. Um Jeff has been distracted by a shiny thing stream derailed.
to turn it off. There we go.
Um the uh the number of people I saw post pictures of midnight releases for ZA was really high compared to other games. I think it's really actually kind of interesting to know that Pokémon is still capable of getting people out to a GameStop at midnight with other people

to stand in a line to get a midnight physical copy of a game. Like I I hate to do this to you Jeff but do you know that there are definitely people in our audience who have never played a game that had a midnight release like a physical release somewhere? Mhm. I remember camping out for games.
Oh yeah. Actually I remember camping out with my wife for Harry Potter releases.
Oh yeah no back in the day uh there were lots of big like that was the midnight release was sort of a thing. It was like for books and album like music albums for movies We should explain this. So technically every game book whatever movie has a release date. But 12:01 is an acceptable hey look it's this day. Yeah. So for it used to be a bigger thing but for a while if there was a big movie like when Terminator 2 came out or some of the others you know there'd be a 12:01 showing in

theaters across the city and there'd be lines of people waiting for that 12:01 to click around you know they would have you they let you in at like 11:40 or something and To get in line.
and 12:01 Yep.
picture comes on cuz they wanted to do it then cuz they might then try and do like a 2:30 in the a.m. showing as well. Yeah. And that's not that's well it's kind of a phenomenon still but less so especially because like 11:00 a.m. Eastern 12:00 a.m. like 12:00 p.m. Eastern is now like the the standard time for releases on Steam. So like some games do release at midnight but midnight where is a question.
I'm getting corrected from someone who used to work at a GameStop. Oh okay. Yeah it's just it's just it's just 12:00 a.m. So yeah it's it's kind of interesting to know that Pokémon can still do that and I'm kind of I'm glad for all the people who got their midnight copies and I hope you're all enjoying ZA. Do you know Will when I was working at

all of the various incarnations of Sony Online that were in the EverQuest one there was an acceptable rule that you could miss work if you were camping out for a movie if you were saving seats for like other studio members. That's amazing. I love that. Star Wars came out like episode 1 we had people camping in line for that like saving spots for other studio members. Yeah. And it was perfectly fine it's like where's Bill? Bill's camping in line for Star Wars. Oh okay. Never mind. That ain't Well I I think it's important to remember and this is kind of a weird thing cuz most we would probably be doing it anyway. But part of our jobs is to retain an like pulse of the cultural zeitgeist. Like we need to know what's going on right now because like here's an easy example. Final Fantasy XIV is full of so many cultural references and puns right? There are there like one of the weekly

quests is a joke about improving society somewhat. Like it's a reference to a meme right? And so that that is a part of like game development and content creation and all of that. So without any further ado or getting sidetracked shall we slide into the game? Let's do it. Will ah well I got small. Yeah. Where did we last leave our heroes?
We last left our intrepid heroes in Oreburg. Um actually let me let me do it like this. So we are we are over here in Oreburg. We got our first our first badge. Our next job is to head back to Jubilife City and then I happen to know that we're going to be heading north to Floaroma Town. Flo Is it Is it Floaroma Town? Is it Floaroma Town? Tell me how you think it should be pronounced in the game without Actually it's probably in the anime somewhere. Someone who's watched the

anime can tell me how to pronounce Floaroma Town do that. Um Yeah that's that's that's where we're headed. So we're we're going to get started and
And let's see what Actually the other big one is what Pokés do we currently have? That's a great question. Right now we have Chimichanga who evolved last time. We have the boy. We have a Starley. We have Constantine the Abra who is slowly working his way up to a level where he'll evolve into Kadabra to be useful. We have Bantu who is a Shinx with intimidate and we have a level 11 Onix. Onix. Yeah. Uh yes it's Oreburg not Oreburg. Yes. Uh Wait was she there last time we walked in? Yes. Okay. Oh that's right. This was the gauntlet of trainers of miners hanging out in a mine. Yes that's correct. Geodude. So we're going to we're going to breeze through a lot of these wild

encounters cuz this is backtracking. I do just want to go smash the rock up there because it's got that's a new thing that we can do. Uh Chimichanga evolved recently like last time.
Was it at the end of the last one? It was during the gym battle I believe. So actually tell me about the evolution. This is our first evolution that we've had I think. Yeah so my god. Bidoof Bidoof. Okay. So [Music] So it evolved into
I'm not hearing any sound. Ooh you should be. I don't know why you're not. If not it's not a big thing but Yeah I'm broadcasting sound so I don't I don't know why you're not.
Good okay so at least everybody else is hearing. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Um the big thing that there are two big

things. One the the base stats of the Pokémon go up and the second one is that in this specific case we got a second type. Yeah he's now fighting as well.
He's fire and fighting which matters a lot because we've been using his mock punch and power up punch to take care of rock type Pokémon and
told me even beforehand that he was going to evolve into having a fighting type. So as we were getting checking out moves and we were picking the ones that we that your foreknowledge told us we should be picking. Correct. Which is one of the things we're exploring here is the deep knowledge you need to well not that you need to play Pokémon but that they include into the game Mhm. so that it can be for people who know about it optimized. Yeah. Uh yes it can Nova's also correct they so base stats change the moves that they can learn and possibly change their abilities. In this case it didn't but it could change their abilities.

Sometimes Pokémon that radically change form when they when they evolve will change the ability significantly. So that's a thing to be aware of. Uh yeah plus we get yes and the big the big reason we care about fighting is now we have stab. Right same same type attack bonus. I love how
Which is basically and as you explained it to me earlier that means if I am a fire type and I use a fire move I do more damage than if I'm a say grass type and use a fire move.
That's correct. Yes that's exactly
a second type gives us a wider range of moves that we get the bonus with correct but it also opens us up to a wider range of people who do well against that type. Correct but it also gives that type's resistances. Right? And so sometimes there'll be Pokémon that have um

a secondary type that completely covers one of the uh one of the weaknesses. That's rude. Um of the um of the first type, right? So for instance, if you had a uh flying electric type Pokémon, Mhm. one of electric's weaknesses is ground, but flying types are immune to ground. [Music] So now uh the immunity takes precedence, right? None takes precedence over double. So uh I was about to ask it. What would have like So say it's not an immunity, Mhm. but say we had a um a Pokémon who is fire, so he's weak to water, and then it becomes a also picks up grass or plant type, which is strong against water. What happens then? [Music]

Say those words again. I got excited by the Psyduck. Oh, actually hold on. Can you capture Psyduck Psyduck? Yeah, yeah. We're We're getting We're getting the Psyduck. This is one of my wife's favorite Pokés. Yeah. Because we've been watching Indigo League with my uh young child, and so we get to see So uh if I'm understanding correctly, what happens if you pick up a secondary type that is resistant to a weakness of your primary type? Yes. They cancel out, and you are normal damage. Okay. Yeah, so um yeah, uh they the Okay, so basically
You sum their charts essentially, right? So we have that big chart of all the weaknesses and resistances. You sum them, and then that applies. Uh with no exceptions I'm aware of. Got you. I was just reading that in chat. Did we Oh, we did. We got We got a Psyduck. Yep.

So is Psyduck as useless as Misty makes it sound? No. Um yes. I think we have to name our Psyduck Misty. Okay. Uh we'll send it to box for now. I don't actually know what's down here, by the way. I just know that we couldn't get here before, and now we can, so I want to. [Music] Rock By the way, this is a fantastic example of Will has content plans, and then immediately gets distracted. Um so we probably You just want to go pick up that another Psyduck. Yeah, we only need the one. Actually when we are catching this one, will we be able to or fighting it, can we tell if this one is better than our previous one? Or do we have to catch them both and compare them?
There are ways we could tell on the surface. However, it's not likely that we'll be

able to do it here. One of the ways that we could tell, right, is that better can take the form of um which ability it has, right?
what I meant is should we be capturing a couple of Psyducks and then seeing which one is the best when we get somewhere else and then just keeping that one. That's a great question. We could. I I don't recommend it, but we could. Okay. Um let's see. I'll go with your recommendation, but can you tell me more about why? Oh, we get a replacement? Yeah, Fury Swipes is exists. I think I think my current my current feeling is that Fury Swipe exists. It's So it's very random, right? It only has 80% accuracy. It attacks between two and five times. And if it like the ceiling is very high, but the the floor is that we just miss five times, which is unlikely, but

possible, and will happen, right? Um So yeah, so you can, but also that's sort of like letting the enemy like letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, right? But for most things that we care about in a single-player playthrough, what we care about is that we have a Psyduck. [Music] Mhm. Like that's all we really care about. We don't super care about how good that Psyduck is. If we were playing competitively, right, if we had like a a big um Oh, Fury Swipes cancels five times cuz it cancels the whole move if you miss once. Great. Awesome. Amazing. I stand by my choice to not learn Fury Swipes. [Music] Um Got you. So is it good enough Yeah, right. Right. As long as it's good enough. Correct. We're not doing like a

super hardcore Nuzlocke where like, you know, we're really depending on that Psyduck to hit specific breakpoints in a specific fight to knock out a specific Pokémon in exactly one move before it can do, you know, the big you're going to lose the game move. Yeah. Um and So Ooh. What's that down there? Uh there's a an item. Oh, but who's that? Oh, that's a that's a trainer, probably. Oh. Star dust. Yeah, the games are I think Demon Works has it right. The games are balanced around the abilities of an 8-year-old. Mhm. Okay, we can't get there. Yeah, I'm always curious on that. Like if the game was harder, my natural inclination, based on what I've learned so far, would be to capture a couple of

Psyducks, or kind of what I do in Pokémon Go, where I'm basically of capturing hundreds of things and looking for the best one and kind of turning the rest into chowder. The big difference here is that there isn't enough Like catching Pokémon in Go Mhm. Um is all you do, right? Like the battling system is very rudimentary in comparison, right? Like the focus is on a different part of the loop, right? In Pokémon
focus really is the stats. Like a good stat You're the fighting is so minimal because you're just tapping, and at the end of the day it's a stat check. [Music] First off, I have entered the void. And second off, Staravia's evolving. Ooh. Staravia becomes Pom pom pom. Starlord.

Staravia. Oh, okay. Close. [Music] All right, and now we leave. [Music] Yeah, that's I think that's a very good thing. In the main games, battling is the main purpose of the game, and um the uh catching Pokémon is how you accomplish that goal, right? [Applause] Oh, check Staravia's ability. Okay. [Music] Geodude. Has cool mask, can shoot projectiles, can fly. Starlord. True. You're not wrong. [Music]

Yeah, I I think this confirms my hypothesis. Oh, sick. Staravia's also got Intimidate. Hype. So now we have two Now we have
on entrance. Correct. It is a free cast on entrance, uh which means that we could just um huh very rudely, if we would like to, uh continuously swap between Intimidate users. Um and the reason we would do this is uh because we're bad people and hate Joy. Um [Music] Let's do a quick heal up, and I'm on north. There's Joy. Yeah, uh Knuckles correct. Monferno's getting a ton of defense EVs uh from murderating all of those uh Geodudes in the cave. Um We've talked briefly about EVs, but the

the, you know, the two-second refresher is that um we're the stats you get when you level up are determined by the Pokémon that you fought during that you fought with that Pokémon. So we're gaining defense by fighting those Pokémon specifically. Have you considered getting a Gyarados for another Intimidate user? Yes. I could have a team that's all Intimidate all the time. It would fold immediately to a special attacker, and I don't know that I care. Anyway. Should I talk about the Gyarados rug that we just had delivered to the house? Ooh, very nice. Uh Impeccable timing. Okay. These miscreants are babbling utter nonsense that I just can't stomach. Show them some manners, if you will. Oh, Professor, must you be so difficult? We approach you strictly as businessmen. All you must do is provide us with all your research findings. In return, we'll see to it that your assistant doesn't become collateral damage. Dude. Welcome.
Welcome, Professor.

Meet Team Galactic. They suck. Jeff, let's battle together and teach these losers a lesson. All right, welcome to doubles.
This is big. This is actually one of the reasons that we picked this specifically, or that we picked this generation specifically, is the possibility space kind of her plodes. So, hold on a sec, Will. Yes. Didn't They didn't do the I didn't hear I don't know the sound, so did they do the to prepare No, no, they they they don't they don't get to do that. Only Jess
the people of our nation Only Jess and James get to do that cuz they're
To denounce the troubles and evils of truth and love. And extend our reach to the stars above. Do you know that my wife and I are going as Jesse and James for Halloween this year?
That's amazing. thing. I just got my purple wig delivered. That's fantastic. All right, I'm going to move us out of the way so that we can see this full thing. So, Man, we might have to change the thumbnail. Uh maybe.

We could do that. So, okay, so
Okay, so Team Galactic, so we got a double battle.
Correct. So, the way this works is that um This one's a little weird because our partner because we get all six. Um sometimes we
you mean by get all six? Yeah, we can choose between all six of our Sometimes you'll be given fewer. So, you see that the two There are two bars in the upper right-hand corner above the Wurmple and the Zubat. Right? They each only have three dots. So, each opposing team member can only have three Pokémon. So, it's possible, for instance, to bully one person out or one enemy combatant out so that only one is left, I believe. Uh But, the the big thing that I wanted to talk about here is that the possibility space kind of explodes. Because now, when we click battle and we do mock

punch, we have three targets, not one. So, this is kind of weird. There are cases and reasons where you would want to attack your partner Pokémon. This isn't one of them. But now, instead of having four, we have four moves using item, switch Pokémon. Right? Run if it's wild. Now, it's four moves times three potential targets for any single target move, and non-single targeted moves like surf or earthquake have additional value in doubles. Um And all of the switches and all of the um other choices are still intact, right? So, Um Hey, let's just ember this little bug. Let's see. Are bugs weak to fire, or are we just Whoa, okay.

Yes, they are. Look, he's bugging out. [Music] So, I'm assuming double teaming one Pokémon is a pretty standard um thing, as is things that can affect multiple Pokémon. Correct. Um it's also worth noting that um the If you're doing like you're controlling both sides of a double battle, that's actually the one of the big official competitive formats. Um and the the tactics change radically because you can have a Pokémon whose only job it is is to tank. In a way that tanking is sort of neutral in single battles, right? Because if I'm not taking any damage and you're not, I'm not doing any damage to you, then it's just like we're burning our power points until nothing happens, right?

Until someone runs out of power points and we have to change strategies. But in doubles, if one Pokémon can make you attack them and they not die, my Pokémon gets the the other the Pokémon in the other slot gets to attack freely, right? So, it changes the dynamic of battle significantly. Yeah. [Music] Uh yeah, I Yeah, okay, we we I think we're going to take Dragon Breath. Wait, who's this Wurmple? This is Onix. Um Yeah, I I feel like that's, you know, when you're offered a superhero and Batman's on the list, you always take Batman. Anything named Dragon Breath
Yeah, I feel like yeah, right. Dragon move. It's dragon dragon. Um I don't know that we're going to use bind. I don't know. We I also don't know how rock Rock Polish is is good, right? Cuz it's sharply

raises the speed, so it's two stages. I think we're going to swap out bind cuz it's also got I I can't I I am And and this is this is the this is showing of a long a long history of getting XCOM'd. If it doesn't have a 100% accuracy, it's like 50% accuracy. Like it just Yeah. I just hate the missing I hate missing so much. It feels so bad to me. Like I would rather do one point of damage than miss, right? [Music] Cool, we took their lunch money. Yep. Team Galactic Because Team Galactic is benevolent to all, we shall leave. So, they call themselves Team Galactic, do they? When Pokémon evolve, they seem to release some sort of energy. I

believe it's a mystic power far beyond our control. But Team Galactic seems to be trying to harness that power for something. Anyway, Jeff, well done. You battled quite capably. Seeing you trainers battle side by side with your Pokémon only makes me more confident in my decision to entrust you with a Pokédex. Jeff, did you know Professor studies the evolution of Pokémon, too? According to his research, 90% of all Pokémon are somehow tied to evolution. I guess that means some Pokémon must undergo startling evolutions. So, Jeff, let's keep working on our Pokédex project for the Professor. For the fans. I mean, the Professor. Whoa, what was that just now? That was amazing. Those guys looked awfully scary, but you sure showed them. Ooh, that was like a breath of fresh air. Anyway, my name's Phoebe, and I work as a system administrator in Hearthome. Is it Hearthome or Hearthome? Either one, city east of here. And as thanks for putting on such a good show, I'll let you access Pokémon boxes from anywhere. I'll also give these ball capsules to you. And ball capsules. Now, you can use the

capsule decoration feature in the ball capsules menu. You can customize your own capsule decoration by placing stickers on ball capsules. The stickers on your favorite Pokémon ball capsule will look pretty and it'll look really pretty when it bursts open. Stickers will also give you an edge in the super contest shows where I live in Hearthome City. [Music] It's Hearthome. Thanks, Steven works. Appreciate that one. Anyway, see you later. Okay, so now
are part of Pokémon canon. Yes. Actually, I just saw that cuz we met Richie. Yeah. Um
And he had to go who put stickers on his Poké Balls. So, now Okay. Uh and I can bring us back on screen for this. We don't need to go to a PC anymore, ever. To where? To a to a PC. Before, if we wanted to swap stuff out, we would need to go back to the PC in
the Poké Okay, Pokémon Center. Cor- uh sorry, yes. There is a computer, a PC, Oh. in the Pokémon Center.

Really? It's There's a PC in the PC.
Yes, that's correct. Which is why people never abbreviate Pokémon Center cuz otherwise it gets confusing. The There are PCs not in Pokémon Centers, and every Pokémon Center has a PC. Um Prior to this point, we had to go there to swap out our team lineup, and now we can just do it wherever, which is really useful.
Cool. Um Man, we have a lot of Swinubs. Yeah. Yeah, we do. Anyway, um thanks for reminding me how many tries it took to get
we have a Psyduck. That's right. Did I take any damage? No, I took zero damage. Great. Excellent. Ember. [Music] Oh, a weak-looking trainer. She didn't see the fight that happened like 20 ft away from her? You have one Pokémon and I have six. And you have a Bidoof. I'm sorry, buddy. I'm going to need you to go to sleep.

Going to need you I'm going to need you
and take her Pokémon. to go to sleep. I mean, her lunch money. Only sweet dreams. Oh, dude. I mugged your Bidoof right in the mouth. Go to sleep. Great. Anyway, You defeat Oh, she looks so sad.
Well, he shouldn't have battled in the first place. Correct. Give me your lunch money. Okay. Um so, we're just heading northish. So, I want to know if we should be bringing Psyduck into the party. Like tell me about Psyducks. We'll bring Psyduck in. We'll swap out the boy for Psyduck. We don't we don't actually need the boy because we don't
Don't we need him for Rock Break?
Nope. We get it from a wild um We get it from a wild There that's a sort of unique thing to this. You don't actually have to teach someone Rock Smash. If you use Rock Smash from your watch, a wild Pokémon that knows Rock Smash will come and use it for you.

Interesting. Yeah. It is a combat
a Pokémon out of the ether. Yes. What what moves does Psyduck have? I'll check this in a minute. Can you not want him in the party?
Okay. Is that our first water? Uh might be our first water. Um it has Cloud Nine.
not psychic? Uh that's later. Okay. It learns confusion. Water Gun, Confusion. It also knows Fury Swipes and Tail Whip. So, Tail Whip goes first. Um it has a neutral Yeah, it has a neutral um Yeah, what's Cloud Nine? Yeah, and the ability Cloud Nine, which means weather goes away. Hm. Um Could that be bad? [Music] It is anti-synergistic with some strategies that we might do. Right? So, we we need to be aware of it. That's not a

do an antidote.
That's not a good sign. So, like here, right? We get the message. And Bidoof just shows up. Yeah. What's this? [Music] I just realized that I've been deep dungeoning this. Um so, I've been playing a lot of the new Final Fantasy XIV deep dungeon, which is a rogue-like dungeon. So, I've been like subconsciously just skating past fights because I don't want to take them. We should be taking fights. That's my bad. That's a that's a bit of cross game stuff. I should work on that. Ooh, she's different. Yeah. She looks older. Oh, she underhand tosses it to you. Yeah. She played softball growing up. There There's a lot of different um [Music] There are a lot of different
Will. Mhm. I feel like we're a little overleveled.

What in the world would give you that impression, Jeff? The fact that you just turned that plant into pâté. Yeah, it's probably fine. Oh, she threw a second one out. Yeah, should do. Um unfortunately, this one is also grass type. Hey, I just caught one of those.
So, I I think this is a really good way of putting it. Um Magikarp says about a Cloud Nine to build around. Right? So, weather synergy, like we could put out a sandstorm and have a rock team that doesn't care about the sand or a steel team that doesn't care about the sand, right? So, we're getting free damage on our opponent and we don't take any damage from it. And Cloud Nine would be anti-synergistic to that. But, if we don't care about the weather and our opponent's like, "Haha, sandstorm." we can be like, "Haha, Psyduck." And now our opponent has to set up the weather again. Um which is And that happens when Psyduck comes out or just being in the party? Most

abilities only take effect when the Pokémon in question is on the field. [Music] Dude, we smell nice. Yeah, well, her Pokémon smell nice. There's two nice smelling Pokémon.
Am I going the right way? I don't know. Who can say? Yeah, we're going north. This seems right. What do you find in the grass? Starly. We can have someone else lead, too. [Music] Let's see. If they're all level six and seven. Yeah, we should probably have someone else lead. I'll probably have Psyduck lead, and if we need to swap out, we will. Sai sai sai. [Music] I also think that what Jeff is experiencing right now, and I do I do just want to call this out, is a prime example of why they bring some Pokémon back gen after gen. Right?

Like because people have a Pokémon that is definitely their favorite. Hey.
If there was a Gengar, I'd be making you put Gengar right up top. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right, right, right. What's your opinion on bug Pokémon? Dude. Does he have six? Uh I don't think so. I thought I saw the way the UI slid for a minute. Yeah, part of that's because you're getting a slightly framy version of it. Hm. Now. Okay, two. Oh, a cricket. Yep, Kricketot is a cricket. Evolves into Kricketune, a bigger cricket. Oh, so confusion does damage or Mhm. [Music] We should probably actually be using this cuz stab.

[Music] Yeah, and I think that people are in both chats are correctly pointing out that the National Dex was lost in some more recent games, and lots of people were upset about that. And I think that that that feels correct, right? And why people were so upset about the decision to lock mega evolutions of the starters behind competitive online play in Z A. Did I tell you about this, Jeff? No, tell me about it.
Okay, so the new the new mechanic for or the returning mechanic for Z A is mega evolution, which means that you can turn your Pokémon temporarily into a bigger, nastier version of that Pokémon to do cool things with during battle. Mini Kaijus. Correct. Um Not all mega stones are available in the game. Some of them are only available as rewards for succeeding in ranked online play. Hm.

Interesting. Correct. That's the best word to describe that choice. Um And yes, Go is currently the game with the biggest deck. By a significant opinion. There's at least 900 in the Go Pokédex. Yeah, and yes, [Music] to have a chance if you are successful in your online endeavors of getting the mega stone. Double battle. Ooh. We're the strongest in our class. We can one shot this trainer, can't we, Liz? That seems unlikely.
No, we will get to send out two Pokémon. Oh, okay. Liv and Liz. Oh, they're double Pachirisu. That's not a good lineup against double

Pachirisu. Hm. Also, intimidate
the intimi- Yeah. Intimidate gets extra value because it affects both of them. [Music] Well, we could do a swap for whatever you think is weak to bring in another intimidate. Uh correct. No, we're just going to um [Music] Is Psyduck on his way out? Yeah, both of them are. Hm. [Music] Oh, can you swap them both in the same move? I Yes, because each of our Pokémon would get a Oh, okay. Okay. So, two two in We have a double intimidate stack here. Yes. Now, unfortunately, I'm reasonably sure the Pachirisu's are going to be using special attack, which means it doesn't matter at all. Unfortunately for them, we have Onix. Oh, no, they're doing nothing because

they're quick attacking after being double intimidated. That's I'm not a good person, chat. You ever realize you just you look at look at where you are, and you're like, "Wow, I'm just not a good person." That's what I That's how I feel. Hey, you're using the game as it's given to you. It's [Music] Is there pretty much ever a time when you wouldn't for your actual damage be double teaming a Like since Pokémon don't get weaker as they take damage, it's like D&D.
Yes.
As long as they have at least one hit point, they are still fully functional. So, the reason might be if you're going to Actually, I don't want to see how much this does. Um The reason might be if you're going to if you think that you're reasonably going to one hit KO. Hm. Okay. If you think that you're going to

um If you think that you want to cause a flinch or other secondary effect from it. Right. So, I typed it in for kind of a pure damage standpoint. I could see it for like crowd control or buffs or debuffs or other things.
standpoint, no. Okay. You want to focus on one slot. Uh oh yeah, we're not doing great here. Um but that's okay. I don't think they can actually hurt us. We're just kind of in a slugfest right now. Double intimidate to start out is definitely paying off. Mhm, that's correct. Well, they have uh They have uh Baby-Doll Eyes. So, they're also debuffing us, but it matters significantly less. And because we started with Cherubi and Misty, they both got a significant chunk of XP from merely being in the battle. Right. And that is another advantage of

double battles, right? Is that if we start with two Pokémon
Oh, that's right. and we swap them out, because they were in battle, they'll get all of the XP from both of these Pachirisu. Or they'll get the the full possible share of XP from these Pachirisu, right?
So, Psyduck is going to have a jump here, cuz it was starting out as the lowest level and started in the fight. Correct. Yeah, they they can't be paralyzed and that's okay. I'm not throwing shade on Pachirisu. I'm sure throwing shade on this Pachirisu. It's not all Pachirisu, it's this one specifically. Dude, you're playing an Onix. You're so tall, you're throwing shade on pretty much every Pokémon. Yeah, someone mentioned in the comments of last one, right? When we talked about Onix, that Onix is less dense than a person because of the ratio between their size and weight.
I was saying. Yeah, right. And so, they

must be made of like some kind of volcanic glass or something, because they don't actually weigh enough. [Music] Uh why do we have Onix on the team? Cuz we can. We're we're just getting, I think, to the point where we actually have a significant number of Pokémon that we can really swap in and around.
We are just now beginning to be in a place where um we have reasonable choices that could be made. Also, uh agree, because Steelix is hype. [Music] Okay. We've hit town. Into the Poké Center. Hey, Nurse Joy. Well, we have a Steelix, hopefully. Will, I can't remember. Have you ever

watched the original Indigo League? Oh, which you mean the OG? Yes. Yeah, I grew up with it. I We just We just did like they got to the plateau, so they're doing the like actual league battles. And it's the first time they've deployed like five Nurse Joys at a time or eight of the police Jennys. Like they just a whole bunch of them show up as opposed to one per town. Yep. It's fun to see them actually playing with the Oh, no, it's canon that there really are a lot of them and [Music] there's a big scene that needs police. Yep. It's all Jennys. [Music] Okay, there are a lot of flowers. Yep. Oh. Galaxy. Aren't we Team Galactic? And aren't we assigned here? Sitting around among flowers. This doesn't seem all that cool. Hey, now don't complain. This is a pretty decent assignment, but bug and grass type Pokémon still creep me out. I

don't like being here, either. I believe that is the entrance uh to the meadow, meaning we cannot proceed until we've gotten rid of Team Galactic. Who? Don't know who whomst we have to talk to. Have we checked all the houses? Not yet. Okay. Yeah, there is a lot of implicit lore in Pokémon that's just sort of waved off. That's correct. [Music] Why, hello there. Looks like you played Let's Go in Kanto before. Would you like to go on an adventure in Sinnoh with this Pokémon? You obtained a Mew. Mew, whoa. Would you like to give Mew
to be super powerful? That's correct, Jeff. We're going to have a conversation here in a second. Would you like to give our Mew a nickname? Um Meow. Okay, I like that.

[Music] I'm sure it'll be a good partner to you. All right. And uh if you thought it was fun once, My god, you've seen a wishing star before. Would you mind taking this Pokémon? I think it would be perfect for you. You lost your mind before. You obtained a Jirachi. Okay, I don't know this one, so Uh this is another myth- mythical, very powerful, very legendary, extremely rare Pokémon. Yeah, correct. So, let's have a conversation about mythicals and event Pokémon. Okay. Hold on, let's give this one a name, so that we can close this screen out.
Yeah, uh chat,
know enough about Jirachis to give this one a meaningful name. Uh Yeah, uh what what are we what are we nicknaming the Jirachi, chat? Best name that I see first wins.

[Music] It's the wish Pokémon. I like Achoo because bless you. [Music] Hoshi. Cookie. Be careful what you wish for. Is that too long? [Music] Astro. Cow. Why cow? wish.com. Amazing. Now we can call it Star-Lord. That one gets it. Miguel gets it. It's Star-Lord. All right. So, Jeff. Okay. You know how you
happened, Will? We wanted to do a field and we got handed two mythical Pokémon. That's correct. Um I don't know who has mythical Pokémon sitting around and handing them to

children. Uh random old people, obviously. Okay. So, here's what's up. These Pokémon can't be obtained from normal gameplay in any game to the best of my knowledge. They're only available from events. Sometimes they're only available for limited time in-person physical events, where you have to bring a game into a store. Like you had to bring some games into stores and like do the event in store. There's been a long and complicated history of um handing out mythical Pokémon to children? Yeah. Um Yeah, Jirachi was originally a transfer from a GameCube spin-off that you needed to have the thing. Yes, correct. I have data on my save for playing on stream, Shield and Let's Go Eevee. Um and so, these two NPCs are here to give me these two Pokémon uh simply because I played other games in the franchise.

But Pokémon isn't pay-to-win. Pokémon isn't pay-to-win. Not at all. Definitely not. Certainly not buy two other $60 games in order to get Pokémon that were only originally available as part of spin-offs or limited time events accessible to you in every play-through of the game. Hm. That seems interesting as a choice. Is there a way to like transfer save files from Like is there a hot market for save files just so you can load up and get extra Pokémon? That's a big complicated question. The shorter answer is not that I'm aware of, and the longer answer is because it's simply easier to generate the Pokémon and slide it into the game Mhm. until it gets hack-checked at a com- at a competitive event. [Music] Uh
reading all the comments from the flowing through chat right now. Yep.

Competitive Pokémon is extremely pay-to-win. Correct. Um Okay, so we have we have Meow and Star-Lord. Yeah, uh So, I'm assuming these two are just going to go into our party. That's correct. [Music] I'm trying to decide what we're going to get rid of what's going to be the least useful. We can get rid of Psyduck if we need to. I You're so You're so Your sadness, Jeff, about that um indicates that that's simply not an option, so
No, I mean, it's more of a I was excited to see one. I know. Yeah, I know. I know, but um okay. So, like Constantine is interesting, cuz eventually Constantine will give us travel. Well, Constantine gives us travel right now, but also um do we need it, right? That That's a big question. Like yes, it's useful. Do we need it? Mhm.

Actually, I guess we could always slot Constantine in if we needed travel and then slot it out. Yes, we're going to go over what they do here in a second, chat. Were Were we not?
Okay. Okay, so uh let's go to Star-Lord and we'll check the summary. All right, so it is a steel psychic. Okay. All right, it's rash. So, it's special attack up, special defense down. Serene Grace boost the likelihood of additional effects occurring while attacking. I'll wait for someone in chat to give me what the actual what that actually means. And it currently knows confusion and the move wish. Mhm. One turn after this move is used the user or its replacement's HP is restored by half the user's max HP. Wow. Seems pretty useful. Which way it seems useful in a protracted battle. Mhm. Or as a way of not having to use potions if you're just grinding.

It's also extremely useful in circumstances where by rules you're not allowed to use potions or you're not allowing yourself to use potions, right? Mhm. But those same rule sets would likely ban the use of Jirachi um [Music] simply because of its stat totals. They don't look like it right now. Jirachi's stats are one of the thing that's really good about it. In fact, it's one of the things that's really good about most mythical Pokémon um is their stats. Um [Music] Serene Grace means that a move that you that flinches you 30% of the time flinches you 60% of the time. Okay, synchronize. Does it receive the same status if it inflicts a burn, poison Oh, if someone attacks Mew and gives it a burn, poison, or paralysis it is also given to the Pokémon that gave it to us. Now, that won't always be
Correct. It won't always be effective.

For instance, like Nova mentioned, electric types are immune paralysis. So, if we get paralyzed by an electric type, it won't do anything, but it might. Um And it knows pound, okay. Uh or reflect type. [Music] Which means that in the middle of battle Mew can just change its type. This will surely not have any long-term ridiculous So, this is one where you maybe targeting a buddy. Correct. In a 2 V 2.
Yeah. [Music] Mhm. So, both of these obviously need to get leveled up because they are um radically behind the curve. That is correct. What did we end up subbing out? What do we got right now?
Uh so, our team right now is Misty, Star Lord, Manchu, Onyx, Chimichanga, and Meow. So And we took out We took

Starley. We took out uh the Starley and we took out the [Music] I don't remember. Which means it wasn't important. Yeah, Mew can also learn all moves. That's correct. Mew is literally a build-your-own Pokémon.
Oh, do we need to Yes. [Music] Oh, we took out Constantine. There we go. Good job. Okay. So Let's also talk about long-term play. So, I just picked these berries, a Oran berry, and a Cheri berry. Cheri berry lets us if we give it to a Pokémon and it holds it during battle, it will of its own accord without using an action heal from paralysis. If we know that we're going to a battle

that uses a bunch of paralysis effects, it's very good. Mhm. I can keep two of them or I can plant one of them again Mhm. to get two more the next time. And these take real world time to grow. So, this is sort of one of those is Pokémon a lifestyle game kind of moments, right? Now, we could also hack the system clock, but like we're not going to do that right now um because later on we'll have a better reason to hack the system clock uh So, also like this is something where really should you be planting both of them? Probably. We'll we'll plant Well, would we would we plant? I think we'll probably plant one of each so we have them. Um Yeah, every berry has its own growth clock as well. Yes. [Music] So, what we need right now is also just

a couple of fights to get our low-level Pokémon boosted up to Right. Plant a berry. Okay, this is
Chesto berry. Chesto berries are uh no sleep. Til Brooklyn. Til Brooklyn, yeah. These are Pecha berries. [Music] So, do people just set up little farm areas so they don't have to keep wandering back? Actually, where can you plant them? In designated locations. So, it is I imagine not uncommon to find a series of spots that are in like a similar location that you can fly to. Mhm. Um so [Music] you will like in this case, right? We would fly back What once we can fly, we'd fly back to Floaroma Town and then we would get all of the berries, right? We'd have like a circuit that we would like harvest.

They made all the berries have different bushes. Yes, they're different shapes. There's a child. Help help, trainer, please. Can you get my papa for me? He works at the Valley Windworks, but the people dressed like space aliens are mean and won't let me in. Don't worry, child. I'll take on an international crime syndicate just for you. As one does. Yeah. Oh, this is the Valley Windworks. And that looks like someone dressed as a space alien, but first I need this item. I don't really need this item, but
Actually, we've seen a lot of them at this point cuz there were two more guarding that path just up above you. This is the point where Team Galactic like shows up. Don't you dare go into the Valley Windworks. I got orders to keep everyone out. I'm that not part of Team Galactic. You're all giving me a look that makes me think you're going to try to get in. Okay, then you'll have to battle me for it. [Music] Yes, I Drifloon still only spawns on

Fridays. That's correct. We'll have a conversation about that. Oh, go meow. Yes, yes, I. Also, uh you can't hear it. We have unique battle music. It'd be nice to hear it. I know. I don't know why you can't hear it today, but Hi, grass. Yeah, we need to talk about the honey tree. We need to talk about uh Drifloon's only spawn on Fridays. [Music] There you go, bump. Dude, you punched the cat in the face. That's right. Excuse me. That's why I That's why I swapped. Okay. Whoa. Five levels or one to five, so four levels. [Music] Yes. Yeah, these are much lighter in the

games than they are in like some of the other stories. Like Wait, what are much lighter? The the the weird Poké crime syndicates. There's a different crime syndicate for like every game pair. Right? Every generation has a different group of people who are like cool you know, soccer hooligans in Sword and Shield or like Team Galactic or Team Rocket or Team Aqua and Team Magma, right, chat? Am I losing my mind? Aqua, Magma. Tell me about your favorite team. Um Rocket. Obviously, it's Rocket. Skull and Alola.
up from that uh kitty cat had XP to hand out. Yeah, that's right. [Music] Defeated and lunch money. So, does he now run a what Oh, let's see. Manchu, what are you going to become?

This is why it's funny. Uh it's not funny yet. It will be funny. [Music] Luxio. Still just electric. [Music] Just can't do a thing. If I lock myself in my works key, that's right. The other works key is not here. My cohorts in the flower patch have the only other one. Haha. In that sense, I'm no longer the loser. Perchon. Okay. Guess we're going to What a bad loser. Yeah. Team Yell cuz Marty's team rocks. That's true. [Music] Rocket, Aqua, Magma, Galactic, Plasma, Neo Plasma, Flare, Skull, and Aether, Yell, and Star. There's one named Yell? Yeah. Star seems like it should be nice.

Dude, those googly eyes. Do Diamond Pearl Platinum have the most JRPG plot lines? Uh yeah. In that we've we've established this before that um a JRPG uh is any game in any form of control or play style in which you kill God with the power of friendship. That's my definition. That's It doesn't matter how you do it. It doesn't matter what the battle style is like. No, none of that matters. If you kill God with the power of friendship, it's a JRPG. That's what I I have decided cuz we can't have an agreement about it otherwise, so I've given everyone a hard and fast rule that will leave no doubt as to what is and is not a JRPG. So, all of the Pokémon games where you fight gods, JRPGs. The ones where you don't, not JRPGs. Problem solved. Hey, these two, JRPG. Divinity, JRPG. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, correct. Death Note?

Sure, we'll go with that. Also, we got a Pachirisu because I wanted one. Ooh. Cuz it's cute. I see. You didn't give it a name, Will? Yeah, I don't What kind of monster are you? Uh an efficient one. An efficient one, Jeff. Who is keeping an eye on the time. [Music] We, Team Galactic, are conducting research in Eterna Forest. This is as far as we'll go. Our research involves catching Pokémon in the flowery meadows of Floaroma Town. We're also using the energy of the Valley Windworks for something, but that is of no concern to you. Now that we've told you exactly what we're doing, go away. All right, all right. Thanks for telling the kid who definitely has JRPG protag energy. Yeah, you kind of do. Won't lie. Ooh, they moved. He did. Up the stairs. I'm not fighting. Hand over that sweet honey. Do as we say. Team Galactic will have

that honey. Must have it to attract Pokémon in great numbers. Huh? Oh, honey. Hey, this kid's a witness. What do we do? Let him sleep with the fishes, boss. We can't have the brat running off to get help. The solution's simple. We must ensure the brat stays quiet. We're part of an international crime syndicate, but still obey the rules of Pokémon battles. It's fine. We're not going to worry about it. It's fine. It's just part of how the world works, Will. Just like, you know, asking what are they eating on the hamburger. Right, yeah, no, that's fair. It's valid. We do have certain conceits. There the This is not nearly as funny to me as Have you ever played the GameCube game Custom Robo? I don't think so.
Okay, so Custom Robo is a phenomenal game. It is a uh robo fighter in which you customize all the parts of your robot, but the battle style is like uh sort of

an omniscient third-person view, and you can you can do first-person, but like don't. Uh and you fly around and you you defeat people, but the conceit of the game is that you are a bounty hunter who uses and and Custom Robo like the robots are like this tall, and they're in like you fight in like little tiny digital arenas, but that's how you stop criminals is that you have a Custom Robo battle in the tiny arena cube? It gets weird Like all I'm saying is Pokémon is not the weirdest way to do this, but it is definitely a weird way to do this. Also, if you have a GameCube and can find a copy of Custom Robo that won't cost you an arm and a leg, highly recommend it as a wild ride. I will say nothing more about the story, but um Yeah, uh goodbye, Tail Whip. We we do not need you.

[Music] It's not Medabots. It is not Medabots. [Music] Wormpole.
Yeah, we just have a card battle during a motorbike chase. Exactly, that's also true. [Music] Uh yeah, criminals technically use robots outside the arena, but they still have robot battles like [Music] You can also get like illegal parts, which aren't allowed in sanctioned play, but you'll need them to beat the final boss and like all this stuff. Ooh, what is that one? It's the evolved form of Wormpole. Ooh, that's a new attack. Psyduck is getting some power. [Music] Man. By the way, you see now why I'm like very down to talk about Custom Robo or other stuff while we're just like

breezing through all of these. Yeah, correct. Wormpole can evolve into two different things randomly? Right? Random, chat? The Wormpole flip is 50/50? Yeah, the funny part is that the grunts still give you money if you beat them after you witness them doing a crime. But they follow the rules of Pokémon battles, so you want a Poké battle, you get the money. It is time of death. How the world works, Will. [Music] Thanks to the weather, disappeared. Goodbye. Simp What if I simply crit, chat? Jeff, you ever play Final Fantasy Tactics? Oh, yes. So, I started my Tactics playthrough on the channel yesterday because they got the remake. It's very good. It's fully voice acted. All of the

cutscenes and um and all of like the pre-battle like mini animatic cutscenes, all fully voiced. Voice acting is great. Um it's got a lot of quality-of-life features on like uh party management and um in-combat stuff. Like you can see the turn order. It's great. It's phenomenal. Uh I got to the Dorter Slums. Okay. Right, which is a notoriously difficult fight if you've never played Tactics. You are essentially I've actually solved it three times, I believe. Twice on the original console
Yeah. and then once later on my iPad.
Yeah, so it you are boxed into a tight alleyway, and there are opposing black mages who will just level your entire team if you don't move. Anyway, one of them targeted my knight. I managed to move the knight around behind their knight. The fireball splashed onto their knight, killed him, and my knight parried. Nice. And that's how you win one of the harder late-game fights. You just simply parry forehead. I will simply crit. That is my

plan. I remember there's another one like that where you start out low and there's like archers all up high just raining arrows down on you.
Yeah, Dorter Slums also does that cuz there's the building up to your left when you start that's got a couple of archers where uh Delita and um Argath just immediately book it up the building and run away to punch an archer. I also have fond memories, and tell me if this is still true, of getting to a point where everybody has learned rock throw because once you eliminate most of the opponents, you throw rocks at your party for a while. I've no idea what you're talking about, Jeff. I certainly haven't begun throwing rocks at the back of Argath's head whenever possible. JP is hard to get.
Final Fantasy Tactics gives XP for every executed attack move. Some other moves, but every attack move. So, if you pick up the low-powered throw rock attack move, you can throw rocks at party members and get XP every single turn even when you couldn't do things or

possibly even delay winning the battle just so you could all decide to have a friendly rock-throwing contest at each other. Correct. Correct. Anyway, the game is wild. Uh if you like turn-based tactical games, Final Fantasy Tactics remake
It is one of the original OGs. Yeah. Along with some of the original OG badass summons. That's true. Uh anyway, this brat's tough. Like really, really tough. Tougher than I can put into words, and I know a lot of words. But that's enough for now. Let's get back to the Valley Windworks. Take his key. Oh, what's this thing? They seem to have forgotten it. It's a works key. It must be for the Valley Windworks. It's of no use to me. You may as well have it. You obtained the works key. You put the works key in your bag's key item pocket. Thank you. You surely saved me. Those goons were trying to rob me of my sweet, sweet honey. They sure were weird though. You saw they were dressed. What they were saying didn't make a whole lot of sense either. Oh, I need to thank you. Will you take this as my thanks? Are you about to get honey? Yep.
You obtained a jar of honey.

Put the jar of honey in your bag's other item pocket. If you slather that honey on a sweet-smelling tree, it might attract Pokémon. Also, this is just really pretty. Oh, this is where we got our screenshot from. There is a sweet scent in the air. Slather the bark with honey? I'd see what shows up. [Music] Is it now or later for honey trees, chat? No, it's in the house. Nova, can you data dump for me real quick? I don't want to screen transition in case that undoes it. It might attract a Munchlax. The honey tree will generate a Pokémon in six real-world hours. That's what it was. Okay. So, we need to come back here next time.

Yeah. But we're also beginning to see So, there is also a thing which we'll begin to talk about now as I run back to the works to defeat a Galactic boss. Um is that we're beginning to see in this segment all of the real-world time-gated stuff. So, we have We had Pokémon that we we kind of knew that there were Pokémon that were only available at the day and at night. That's not There haven't been many, if any of them so far, but those do in theory exist. Now we've got berries, we need to plant and come back later. Honey trees, which we need to slather in honey and come back 6 hours later. And there's a Pokémon which will uh begin appearing in this area after we defeat the boss of the zone um who we're headed towards right now. Uh who will only appear on Fridays. So we're about to start setting up your checklist, Will. Like you need to come back in sometime in before 24 hours to get that Pokémon. Possibly check the

bushes. Right. And that's sort of the one of the big, I guess, interesting choices that they've made towards moving Pokémon into what is fundamentally a lifestyle game. Right? Mhm. You know, if it's checked for 24 hours, it loses the Pokémon. Right. Okay, I'm going to This is going to go alert the commander. Has super secret ultra hidden ability and you have to level it up between 5:00 and 5:59 p.m. Amazing. All right, come here. Fight me. How do people find these things out? Some of it's data mining, some of it is um an incredible persistence. There are people who are fanatical in their devotion to the Wait. But if this is a game meant for 8-year-olds. 8-year-olds don't find it out. Mhm. I just I just I just
I

Yeah, that's true. Every gen they add a new time gimmick, they add a bunch of stuff related to ID. True. Amazing. Its only move. [Music] It's mostly data mining. For instance, in Sword and Shield, right chat? Is that the That's not the first appearance. There is a Pokémon where you have to turn your device upside down to evolve it. Oh, they have that in Go because I discovered it the other day. It's in Go, too. It's any It's any game with a gyro. Inkay, yeah, you have to turn upside down. It was on the DS originally. To turn into Malamar, you have to flip your device upside down. As an example, right? My son and I were sitting in a coffee shop doing a Poké date, and we got to that one to evolve, and I had to go look it up on the internet. Yeah. And

I turned my phone upside down for him, and he thought it was the coolest thing. That the evolve button then lit up. [Music] Okay. So, here's Nova's data dump. There are 21 honey trees in the game, 17 of them have a 90% chance of summoning a Pokémon. Four of them, chosen at random when you start a new save file, have a 91% chance, with the 1% being a Munchlax. Munchlax trees are not visually distinct from normal trees in any way. In the OG game, this is the only way to catch a Munchlax. Suffer. Also, we just took this Team Galactic grunt's bonus. I Pokémon can't battle anymore. They're going to take away my Pokémon for messing this one up. Mhm, just you wait. Our commander will smoosh you. [Music] Is this commander? This is the commander. I'm one of Team Galactic's three commanders. We've been trying to create a new world that's better than this one, but people have shown little understanding about what we do. You don't understand either, do you? It's a little saddening. So, let's have a battle to decide what we should do next.

If I win, you leave. If you win, we, Team Galactic, will leave. Okay. [Music] Yeah, I think that that's I think that that's true. Snackin's correct. The part of what gets Pokémon it's called following is the high amount of urban legend that crops up, right? Who tried to get the truck to move so you could get Mew? Right? If you were that age, you probably tried to get the truck to move, right? [Music] So, this is an example This I think is the first time we've seen U-Turn. U-Turn is a move Mhm. that lets you switch. [Music] What do you think I'm doing to my Pokémon? Okay. [Music] What are you doing to their Pokémon?

Hours wasted on the truck. Missingno, though. True. True. So, I I can see vaguely why I can understand conceptually why the Pokémon Company is against hacked Pokémon. Mhm. My big problem from a player standpoint is that it feels to me disrespectful of player time and resources to have things that matter beyond such uncapped RNG cycles. Right? Like you're not guaranteed to get Pokémon of any specific type um from or with any specific ability, for instance, in many cases. Right? You need to go through a breeding thing, and then you might miss. Right? There's all kinds of like

[Music] time-consuming things that need to be done to develop a competitive team. And I understand that there's some amount of mystery that they're trying to preserve, but there's no balance, in my opinion, struck between the competitive scene and [Music] like the casual scene, right? Like it's cool to have like the casual thing, but like it it does in some ways feel a little like Smash competitive, which is they don't really want there to be a competitive scene, but now there is one, so they have to do something about it. And I I guess, but like do you have to? Right? Um And that's fair. Mhm. [Music] Tony, I think the most extreme version of this I ever saw was when uh Star Wars Galaxies original came out, the first Star Wars MMO. And Lucas had basically or the Lucas team had basically, when giving the license out, had said this is the time period it's set in, which was after

I I think it was after movie four, so the original movie, but before movie five. I think. It's somewhere around there. Which meant that there's basically no Jedis. Yeah. And the team that we know of. And the team was like, "Hey, people are going to want to play Jedis when it's Star Wars." And they're like, "Well, okay, you can have a, you know, a couple per server." And so the team had to figure out a way to allow a couple Jedi per server when tens of thousands of people would be on each server and would want a Jedi. And they ended up with just like this weird kind of seeding thing based on your character, you know, and certain events you might witness in game. Like it was because they they couldn't let everybody who wanted to be a Jedi be a Jedi. And it couldn't really be earned cuz people would eventually go through all the hoops to earn it.

And it was just it was like so I understand the base problem that they want some things to be rare. Yeah.
And it's not like that bad of the problem, but they also like if every 8-year-old could get it all competitive teams would end up with whatever the best perceived Pokémon of max level were just standing there because if it's 8-year-old earnable, somebody at an adult who's grinding is going to get it all. Yeah, right. Okay, so we defeated Team Galactic or we defeated Commander Mars. Team Galactic has left because she made a bet with a child on the outcome of the Pokémon game, and she only has two Pokémon. Seems like a poor choice. No one has credited Team Galactic with an overabundance of brains, Jeff. Not a single person. Anyway, Team Galactic
What was her name, the commander? Mars. They were saying they had to gather Pokémon energy no matter what. It's for creating a new universe, or so they claimed. Nothing they said made any sort of sense to me. Anyway, I can't tell you how grateful I am to you for saving me.

I can finally see my little daughter again. [Music] Papa! Yuck, papa, you're stinky. Go shower now, stinky. Oh, sorry. Haha. They had me working nonstop. Thank you, trainer. You made those bad people go away. Maybe the balloon Pokémon will come visiting again. This is horrifying. This seems like an innocuous line until you catch a Drifloon and read Drifloon's Pokédex entry, in which Drifloon kidnapped children by pretending to be balloons. Horrifying. Absolutely ho- We're not going to catch a Drifloon on stream, so I just want to bring that up, but this is a horrifying line in with that context, right? We have Oh, so basically Team Galactic is the good guys. They are driving away That's not necessarily
to make a better universe.
I don't think that's what they were doing. I think that was a side effect. Hold on. Cat doing weird things. Be right back. Yeah. [Music]

It's not strong enough to lift them, so its existence is a joke. True. Yeah, Drifblim can lift them. [Music] Actually, I have a question, chat. Of those watching, and if you're watching later and you've gotten to this point, do leave a comment below letting us know, have you ever seriously played competitive Pokémon? I don't mean like, "Hey, I've got my team and my siblings got their team where I'm going to play with my friends." Like, gone to a tournament. Like, an official sanctioned tournament. Have you gone to one of those? Because I am kind of curious what the overlap is between people who are just like watching a playthrough that's more crunchy focused and competitive players. [Music] For the TCG. Okay, I don't mean for the TCG, but that's a good That's a good point. I mean, for VGC.

Ready to shiny team for online competitive, never been to a real tourney. Going to a Vancouver regional once. Nope, nope, nope. We're talking about uh competitive, Jeff. Saying who in chat has ever uh been to a um uh who has ever been to a tournament. Just playing ranked in tournaments on Showdown count. No. Because Showdown isn't real. That's the short version. There's a more complicated nuanced version to Showdown and Smogon, but like I just wanted to come back here cuz it's pretty. I Can you clip dive? Do we have to come back with the bike that can bunny hop? I think we have to come back with the bunny hop bike to get up there. Jeff was present for a tournament you were drunk. Okay, cool, that's fair. Valid. Reasonable. Um

Yeah, that's correct. Pokémon tries really hard to pretend that uh Showdown doesn't exist and we should absolutely work to keep it that way. What is Showdown? Showdown is a website that uses uh data data mined from all of the Pokémon games to do cross-generational Pokémon battling because you can read out all of the everything. Um how many of these do I have? I have like none of these. I'm just going to grab a couple of things. Um and so it's a case where like you can use different generations like move sets against each other and it's a common online way to do competitive 1v1 battling. Um as opposed to the official way that um competitive is done, which is 2v2s. Um it's not an official uh it's not

official, it's not endorsed by the Pokémon company. Pokémon company could take it down at any point. They haven't yet. Uh and that's that's about it. Yeah. Champions will be like a legit Showdown. Kind of. We don't know the extent to which show Champions will emulate the full functionality of Showdown. We also don't know if Champions coming out will be the point that Pokémon lets all of their rabid um shark lawyers um off of the hook off the leash and just tells them that Showdown tastes like barbecue sauce. Um cuz that's a possibility. I do want to inject into people's minds that when we're talking about that that that is a possibility. That the only reason that Showdown exists is because there's no direct competition with a with a product made by Pokémon, so it's not worth their time and energy. With Champions coming out, it might be worth their time and

energy to take down Showdown. I actually will. Let me add on top of that. Yeah. Okay, so like what was the place what was the battle or the Showdown is the unofficial one, Champions is the official one.
Okay. They might be using Showdown as our research. Yeah, absolutely.
Watching what they've done and watching what people like about it. And being like, "Oh, cool. Okay. Let's go make our own official version now that is um [Music] better.
I'll just say better.
Yeah, better. Yes, better in the ways that Pokémon company wants it to be better, right? Which is monetizable, for instance. Right? Or yeah, more more strictly controlled on which uh on how different mechanics interact, right? I think, by the way, that this is probably a good place for us to wrap today. We could we could keep going, but we've defeated Mars, we've freed Floaroma
to make a whole new thumbnail, by the way. I want either Team Galactic or Commander Mars in it.
that's fine. I I I That was originally

my guess. I wasn't sure how long it was going to take to get there. Um Yeah. Uh I think this is I just wanted to to to circle back around real quick to these time-based mechanics. Jeff, why do you single-player games Hm. And we're going to pretend like this is a single-player game in its purest sense cuz you could completely ignore the online. Why do single-player games put time-based mechanics in like this? There are different reasons. One of which is um I'll just call it a joy factor. So, pretend Will that you're a normal person who goes to work every day, comes back and then gets, you know, talks to your spouse, your family, your friends, whatever, and gets in an hour or so every night to after all of that to go play games. Sure. First thing that happens when you log

back in is you have a whole bunch of treasure waiting for you. Sure. Like, it's treasure that's not going to break the game. It's that you kind of like you you literally sowed the seeds for. And it gives you a small set of things to do that are happening kind of on your schedule. You come back in, you get a whole bunch of free berries, you go and you catch that Pokémon on that's licking the tree and with its tongue stuck to it. It gives you some kind of immediate directive Mhm. to go after that feels fulfilling and not random. It's not like a jackpot where you come in and you're like, "You get one free spin, kid." It's, "Look, you planted berries. Look, you put some honey on the tree. Look, you did these other couple things. Come get your rewards for it." And so, that's the most kind of benign version Right. of all of these is that it it's giving you a loot when you come back in. So, the your beginning of the experience feels nice. Yeah. And because like this isn't, say, FarmVille where they need you to keep keep coming in to buy microtransactions.

Yeah, this is I'm I'm very being very specific about the the the bounds of this being single-player games because you're absolutely right, Jeff, that like the multiplayer FarmVille-like dark patterns thing is very real in other cases, right? But here less so, it feels like.
They're not making money from you doing this. In a tiny way they are because they're also extending the duration of your game in some ways. But the real one for this is you're giving players the ability to basically reap rewards every time they come back in and play based on all what I'll call is a standard playing pattern, which is somebody who only gets a little bit of game time each day. Yeah. And for kids as well, like you come back from school, you know, you've done your homework and mom's like, "Yeah, you get, you know, and I you get your 1 hour of screen time to split between your

Switch and your, you know, YouTube and your whatever else your Roblox. And you get to log in and be like, "Cool, reward, reward, reward." That one borders a little bit on it cuz then like you're setting up the expectation that every time you log into a screen for like you're getting that big dump of dopamine, right? The big like, "I get all the rewards and all the shiny things." But yes, and yes, chat, the turnip price network is so real. Twitch chat is currently talking about turnip prices in Animal Crossing. Um It's a sort of collaborative weekly check-in thing. Um I think for me I said like that's the benign one. Yeah.
You're setting up things to give people nice stuff when they come in. Yeah. Also, I like the cloud moving across the sun. Yeah. Um The shadows are nice. Yeah. It's very well done. It's very pretty. It's a very pretty Pokémon game. Um From a streamer perspective, it drives me up a wall. Oh, sure.
Right? Cuz like and this is um

this is this is not a uniquely Pokémon thing. Time-bound real-world time-bound mechanics that aren't like there's an event that's up for like this 2 weeks drive me clean up a wall, right? Because um MMOs have fish that are only up at certain real-world times. If you're familiar with Final Fantasy XIV, I have caught every fish except for one ocean fish in the entire game. I have it's impossible to stream that journey with any kind of consistency. Here, because we're streaming this, we can't catch a Drifloon on stream, which is weird. We're not going to be able to set up and catch a Pokémon from a honey tree on stream, which is weird, right? So, it's a particular
just part of the game. Yeah, correct. It's a partic- I understand that it's a unique group of like com- complaints, I guess, that I only have as a streamer, but whenever we talk about time-bound mechanics, I'm I I feel uh

I feel badly about them because I see that way that it impacts me, even though I understand and fully expect that I am in the ultra minority of people for whom Pokémon will have that friction, right? It also discourages um binging on games. Yeah. Like if you were like hey cool I have today and tomorrow off I'm going to see if I can go finish this Pokémon game with you know 20 hours of gameplay. It means you're just going to miss stuff which is not a good or bad it's just but I think in a lot of cases They're just they're setting up a thing like It is a very honestly certain type of designer mentality to be like cool let's set up things that happen later. Yeah. Yeah and I think DWB C's got a great got a great point right that in the same way that nocturnal Pokémon that you can only catch at night creates a kind of harmony. Right?

That's a lunar narrative harmony. I have to play the game at night to catch Pokémon that only show up at night. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense right? I think there's a difference there's a small but important difference between that and come back in 6 hours from now. Um but that's
And it's also weird because or not weird Pokémon could have made it where you know every 20 minutes a day passes in the game.
style. Mhm where they're just they're pegging day night cycle to a real world time. Yeah. But that's also in some cases like for a game you can pick up and put down at any point that also can feel punishing in a different way. Yeah, I agree. I agree and chat I'm not saying that other people don't have problems with time bound mechanics. I'm saying that my problem about not being able to make content about it easily is the problem is my problem. Right? I am I am whining professionally about its impact on my

ability to make cool content out of it. That's a different very specific concern to be clear. Right. Yeah. So I think this is a good place for us to leave. We've defeated Mars. We've freed Floaroma Town. Next time we're going to be on the way to Eterna City which is right up here so we have to go north through the Eterna Forest and across Route 205 to get to Eterna City to catch up with our rival Will. So that is that is where we
He's going to have his mind blown when we show him we have a Mew. Yeah that yeah we also talked about that. Do you now that now that we've sat with it a bit do you have any thoughts on the whole idea of just hey you've played other games in this series have this incredibly powerful Pokémon as like a thing that occurs? I mean I've seen other kinds of games do things like that in franchise and I've seen it for pre-orders you know pre-order Mass Effect with the Commander bundle and get you know this cool you know N7 uniform and extra gun and like

video games handing out extra stuff or pre-orders collector packs like franchise etc. is just part of it. So it's it's not surprising just cuz I've seen games do this for over 30 years. Yeah. Or at least over 20 years but it's I could also see some kids being really disappointed. How did you get the Mew? Well I had this other game. And the kid's like I want a Mew. Right? But you got the one game. Right? We we often so there was another study that came out that confirmed that we're still in a space where about half of gamers purchase or people who would self-describe as people who play video games Mhm. purchase one or fewer games per year.

So it's not unreasonable to assume that if that wasn't that kid's that one game they may simply not get it. Right? And so there is
how much that's getting thrown off by the way free to play games. Free to play mobile yeah. I I think the data needs to be more unpacked. It's an interesting data bite like but I do agree that there is more nuances that needs to be massaged out of the data to see a little more finely what those groups mean. Cuz say they captured a lot of people that um play League of Legends and Clash of Clans
Yeah. and a whole bunch of others. Their their data sample might include a whole bunch of people that actively play games and pay lots of money Yeah. but are playing a free game. Yeah. Like there was no purchase price. Yeah. Uh and uh yeah I I have so many thoughts. We're going to

save them all for next time. Chat thank you so much for joining us. I have one small administrative announcement to give to all of you before we wrap for today and that is this. If you're still here or you're watching this this far in means you probably like our content. If you like our content and us being ridiculous together please stop by October the 25th. It's 9 days from the day that we're recording this. We're going to have my birthday party here on YouTube and Twitch. Um we are going to be doing some rock and stone for charity. Matt and I are going to be hanging out while I play some Deep Rock Galactic with friends and mods. Crowd control will be on. It's a wonderful extension that will let you do things like spawn hideous monstrosities or give us ammo to deal with said hideous monstrosities or whatever with all of the donations to charity letting you trigger those effects. It'll be a really good time. We're going to be going for 12 hours. We'll have guests. We'll have a a public domain movie break for dinner. It's going to be a great time. Please mark your calendars October the 25th

noon Eastern to midnight Eastern. Please don't miss it. We'll be back here of course as well on Monday with a games for breakfast and we'll be back next week with another design club. We think we know what that one's going to be on but I need to see how the servers for a game that just launched are doing next week cuz right now the hamsters are eepy so there may be some obstacles for that.
are clamped on and just doing the circle on the wheel as it goes. Correct. The hamsters are hanging on for dear life. So until next time please take care of yourselves. Please take care of each other. Jeff do you you want to say bye to the people? Bye the people. Thanks everybody. [Music]