Tag Archive for 'pokemon'

My Pokemon Ranch

Published
by
Michiko
on July 19, 2008
in Video Games
. 0 Comments

My sister and I pooled all of the Gamestop gift cards that we’ve accumulated over the years and bought a Wii, as well as an additional controller and twenty dollars’ worth of Wii Points. And man oh man, the Wii is just freaking awesome.

The first thing we ever bought with our points was My Pokemon Ranch. It’s surprisingly addictive, but not in the traditional video-game-addict sort of way. I can see why a lot of people out there aren’t impressed with MPR, but I personally think it’s enthralling.

First off, if you don’t have a DS and a copy of either Pearl or Diamond, this is not for you. You can still play with it by using Hayley’s (NPC) Pokemon. Every day she brings in several of one type of Pokemon, and you can influence what she’ll bring the next day by answering some vague questions. (Should I bring a white Pokemon? Fire Pokemon? etc.) Overall though, if you don’t have Pokemon of your own, it gets dull really quickly. Which brings me to my next point…

If you’re the kind of hardcore player who scoffs at the Pokemon side games and just want to get right to battling, this also isn’t for you. If you thought Pokemon Snap was stupid, you’ll hate this. There is actually very little user interaction: your main functions are to pick up and move your Pokemon, Miis, or toys around the ranch, and to take pictures. There are two camera functions that you can flip through, manual or auto, and there is the ability to arrange your Pokemon into a parade. But otherwise, the bulk of this “game” is to just watch your Pokemon hang out. It makes for a pretty great screensaver, but that still doesn’t hide the fact that it is indeed a screensaver.

The graphics have also been knocked for being PS1-ish in quality. It really depends on your preferences: my sister and mother love the cutesy style, and I find it tolerable. Perhaps our biggest complaint would be that they’re not to scale, meaning that our Igglybuff is 3/4 the size of Palkia. But it’s pretty understandable why that is: can you imagine 999 Wailords stomping around? Check out some of the screenshots below, and if you hate the graphic style, then yeah, don’t get this. But I mean, come on, cut Nintendo some slack: there are 493 different Pokemon, plus their various alternate forms (Shellos’ colors, Unowns’ forms, etc.). Multiply that by two to get all their shiny forms, PLUS render all their interactions with each other, the Miis, and the various toys, and then cram all of that into a 30MB download. I’d say that’s pretty damn impressive.

So why do I like this so much if there isn’t much to do? Because I’m not a hardcore battler, and I enjoy just hanging out and watching my Pokemon interact with each other. Surprisingly enough, each Pokemon retains their personalities from the games: if your Garchomp is adamant, like how mine is, it will go around and attack everyone around it. If your Alakazam is timid, it will be shy and stay away from others. Espeon, who is psychic and weak to dark, runs away from Umbreon and Tyranitar; meanwhile Milotic and Marill get along because they’re both water. There are different toys for them to play with, such as the microphone (if they talk into it, you can hear their cries from your remote speaker) and the pitfall (which is so squeeee adorable that I can barely stand it). They ride around on each other, pick each other up, use their various attacks, and run around and have a great time. Plus they can all interact with various Miis that you dump in your ranch. If Chiyoko dumps a Pidgey into the ranch, the Pidgey will have a tendency to hang around Chiyoko instead of Michiko. And every fifteen minutes or so, all the Pokemon and Miis on the ranch get together for some kind of photo op, which varies depending on how many and what kinds of Pokemon you have.

On top of all that, there is the Wanted Pokemon feature, which is where Hayley posts up on the BBS some Pokemon that you don’t have in your Pokedex. She asks for you to find them and then upload them to the ranch. This is a great way to motivate people into filling out their dex, as well as to add some variety to the ranch. Plus, there is a chance that she’ll ask to trade your Wanted Pokemon with one of her own, which often have hard-to-get egg/TM moves. At some point she’ll also trade you a Phione and Mew, which hasn’t happened to us yet, but we’re looking forward to it. I mean, a legit Mew alone would be worth the 1000 Wii points; everything else is basically bonus. There are some other minor features like Club Look-See, where you can visit another NPC’s themed ranch, and the ability to visit any of your friends’ ranches if they also have MPR.

In closing, no, this isn’t really a game. Don’t go into it expecting to do a whole lot. And if you don’t have the DS titles, then you should probably skip this one. If you do have the DS titles though, it’s a handy way to store an additional 999 Pokemon and get a legit Mew, as well as watch your creations romp around and act all adorable and whatnot. Graphics are okay, controls are basic, and interaction is minimal, but probably the worst limitation is that you can only withdraw Pokemon from the same cartridge that you deposited them from, which means no trading either locally or over the WiFi. If you have two carts but only one DS, sorry, you can’t transfer Pokemon from Diamond to Ranch to Pearl. Furthermore, if you erase the original DS save file, the Pokemon you deposited to the Ranch are there forever, as there is no way to withdraw them.

There are definite reason why this game is getting low scores from many major review sites. But if you can overlook all these flaws, you can get a lot of simple enjoyment from watching your Pokemon play together.

What worked:

  1. Legit Mew!!
  2. Mii integration
  3. Controls and functions are easy to understand
  4. 999 storage space
  5. Pokemon behaving in surprisingly unique ways, based on type, species, nature, etc.
  6. Wii-to-DS functionality is highly intuitive
  7. Picture-taking abilities and opportunities, as well as sending pictures to friends or to the Wii Message Board
  8. Able to pull from 8 different DS cards, so if you have other family members who play, you can see your Pokemon interacting with theirs

How it could have been so much better:

  1. Able to transfer Pokemon from different DS save files (a la Pokemon Box)
  2. Having even the most rudimentary of interactions such as petting, feeding, or grooming
  3. Gain some kind of reward for leaving Pokemon on the ranch, such as leveling up happiness or luster
  4. Some kind of trading, either GTS-style or among friends
  5. Having a mini-game or two
  6. Different environments for the different types, like a pond for the fish
  7. Better graphics
  8. If nothing else, at least make this title $3-5 cheaper to compensate for the aforementioned limitations

FINAL SCORE: 4/10 if you have the DS titles, 1/10 if you don’t.

The "Attention" photo op.
Another "Attention" photo op, focusing on Mii!Dwight.
Another "Attention" photo op.

Manaphy playing in the fountain.
Gathering around the fountain.
Deoxys and Aerodactly mugging for the camera.

Chimchar and Infernape running away from Palkia, who is part water-type.
Scyther going by in the parade.
Dwight Schrute striking a pose.

Hanging around near the mic.
Closeup of Leafeon.
Laughing. Or maybe exploding?


Pokemon! I choose you!

Published
by
Michiko
on May 21, 2008
in Anime and Manga
. 1 Comment

I bought my mother this DVD box set for her birthday. Secretly though, I bought it so that I could watch them too. I love love LOVE the first season of Pokemon. I know I’m always ranting about how anime series these days are pure shit, and I know that Pokemon isn’t exactly ground-breaking or thought-provoking, but COME ON. It’s Pokemon!

I’ll probably come back later to write a whole anal retentive review of the DVDs. But in a nutshell, I’m pretty disappointed by the overall lack of quality. These look and feel like bootlegs, and that just shouldn’t be the case. The price is comparable to, say, the Cowboy Bebop or Big O collections, but they completely lack their polished, professional look and feel. And on top of that, it doesn’t include the Japanese language track. I mean, what the hell? Plus this isn’t even the full first season. In fact, it’s only about a third of the way through. Why would you make a box set if it’s not even going to include all the episodes?

I better stop now before I get into full-blown anal retentive mode. :P

But anyway, I love these episodes. I’m not a dub-hater, and if anything I’d rather watch the dub than fansubs for these first episodes if only for the nostalgia. This is what my sister and I grew up on! So even though there are some really funky things going on in this episode (Pikachu’s voice alternating between a freaky-sounding American VA and the original seiyuu, noticeable shifts in the bgm, Ash’s VA still trying to get used to the role, everyone completely mispronouncing “Pokemon”) it’s still awesome.

First thing I noticed right off the bat is how obnoxious everyone is to poor Ash. :P His Pokedex’s voice is dripping with snark and sarcasm, Pikachu obviously doesn’t want anything to do with him, Gary is just the most repulsively obnoxious person ever, and Misty is a total bitch. Meanwhile Ash is just doing his best “Excuse me, I’m sorry, could you please help me” routine, which is just so adorable. Later on he’ll find his courage to stand up to assholes, and he’ll become even more sarcastic and arrogant than everyone else. >P

Kawaii Kon 2008

Published
by
Michiko
on April 22, 2008
in Anime and Manga and Life
. 0 Comments

Kawaii Kon 2008 was my first convention ever, if you don’t count the various auto shows that my parents used to drag me to see.

TL;DR version: Kawaii Kon is freaking awesome.

When I first got to the convention center on Saturday morning, though, I immediately wanted to go back home. :P There were so many nerds hanging around the entrance and being otaku. I know that sounds really stupid since after all it’s an anime convention and I should’ve expected it, but I don’t know, I guess I thought that anime fans would be quiet, dignified, and polite. You know, like how I am. :P But I was so wrong.

To put it bluntly, otaku are all out of their minds.

They speak in gibberish language that is neither English nor Japanese, but some weird disgusting blend of the two (with some Internet sp33k thrown in for the hell of it). They’re all cosplayed as the most disgusting things in the entire world. Do you know how many Akatsuki guys there were? Roughly ten billion. Not only was everyone dressed up as gross anime characters that I neither know nor care about, but they were also acting it out… or at least being immature goofballs, which scared the hell out of me. It was almost too much for me to take. I was secretly glad that I hadn’t finished my time mage cloak, because if I had cosplayed then I’d probably be considered a freak just like the rest of them.

They were rude. They had absolutely zero concept of personal space. If I was sitting on the side playing my DS, some pimply-faced nerd with a squeaky voice would literally push his head in front of my face and block my screen, and loudly proclaim, “Your Infernape is only level 38? NOOB.” When I was waiting in line to pick up my pass, I got bumped into and rammed and bowled over by all kinds of weirdos wearing huge costumes, and they didn’t apologize or even seem to care that they were disrupting other people as they passed. I didn’t see what was the point in hunting them down to tell them off since there were 245346456 other people doing the same thing.

So when I got my pass, I didn’t just sit around and wait for the convention center to open, I walked to Ala Moana to buy breakfast at McDonald’s and bitch to just about every one of my friends in my phone’s address book about how much I hate otaku.

When I felt I couldn’t put it off any longer, I walked back to the convention center, back into the seething throng of crazy insane otaku, and forced myself to try and enjoy myself.

After five minutes, I realized I was enjoying myself without even trying. :P

The first room I got swept into was the video game room. I have to admit that I was kind of disappointed at the selection of games. I think there were five Wiis set up with Smash Bros and Kart, two 360s with Halo, and a PS2 with Capcom vs SNK. I thought the selection would be better, or that there would be more units to play on. I made a mental note to write on the con feedback, “NEED MOAR GAMEZ.”

The next room I went into was the tabletop room. That’s when I saw row upon row of TCG packs of just about every series imaginable. There were also rows and rows of tables set aside for the specific purpose of gaming. It was… it was unbelievable. I stood in the doorway for a long time, just eating up the scene with my eyes. Delicious.

I decided to remember this marvelous place and come back because I could sense that I’d be blowing a lot of time and money in this room and I wanted to see what else was going on. The next room was the Dealers’ Room, which is also known as the Portal to Sinful Riches. You leave your soul (and your life’s savings) at the door and are then immersed in a world of explosive color. That’s the only way I know how to put it. There was just… there was so much to take in. The merchandise piled high on the tables, the people pushing and grabbing and bartering and haggling, money being thrown about, practically everyone except me in some ridiculous costume… there was just way too much to take in.

Twenty minutes and $100 later, I tore myself out of there, almost against my will. I had to fight some invisible force that beckoned me to remain there and continue frittering away my hard-earned money on little plastic trinkets and keychains and plushies and on and on. I hit up the video room for a bit, where they were showing the Kenshin dub. To be honest, I mostly just went in there to catch my breath and fix the contents of my bag. Not a big fan of the Kenshin dub voices.

I checked my watch and saw that I still had like two hours before the “Meeting of the Asukas” panel that I really wanted to see. I went back to the tabletop room. I ended up buying these two decks with the intent of giving one to my sister when I got home, but instead I opened up both decks and started playing with random people. It was so awesome! I got to meet a ton of cool people that way. And okay, while we were playing we were frequently interrupted by those same pimply-faced nerds who gave me such a hard time when I was innocently playing my DS before the con opened, but for some reason it was much easier to put up with them once I had some “normal” folks on my side.

The Asuka panel really sucked. I mean, I really did try to like it, especially since that was what I had really been looking forward to, but it was just so poorly planned and executed. The MC person didn’t really have any questions written out beforehand, so she was just asking stuff off the top of her head, which resulted in a lot of long, awkward pauses and “um, er, ah,” crap. I don’t know, overall it was pretty disappointing.

I sat through two hours of that. That’s how dedicated I am to Asuka and Evangelion. At the end of the panel, they told everyone to get in line so we could get autographs. That’s when I realized I had nothing for Miyamura to sign. :P Since the line was so long, I thought I could sneak over to the Dealers’ Room, buy something Eva-related, and run back to get in line. But there were a few glaring flaws in this plan that eventually resulted in failure.

I had anticipated that there would be a lot of Eva merchandise for sale. After all, Eva is arguably the most iconic and popular anime series in recent history, it’s “new” in the sense that the movies are just coming out, it’s still pretty relevant since Adult Swim premiered the show only a few years ago and it’s been rerun periodically since then, and I also figured that since the main event at the convention was a “Meet the Asukas” that there would be a lot of Eva stuff to tide over crazy fans like me. But instead, the room was almost completely devoid of Eva stuff. I was so shocked! Eva is something near and dear to me, and to see bullshit series like Inuyasha and Bleach get so much merchandise while Eva gets NOTHING was just insulting. What little Eva stuff I did find was almost exclusively Rei stuff. And you know, it’s kinda awkward to ask the Asuka voice actress to autograph a Rei doll, especially if the Rei doll has unrealistically huge boobs and is obviously made to appeal to perverts.

(In a related vein, I was disappointed at the lack of Gainax and Ghibli stuff in general. Maybe I’m just being a snob, but crap like Death Note and Bleach were wayyyyy overrepresented at the convention.)

I finally found ONE booth that was selling plastic Eva figurines, and at the very bottom of the bin I found a battered Asuka doll set. I was counting on the clerk to take my debit card since I had already used up my cash. And that’s where the second unforeseen flaw kicked in: the booth’s wireless signal was really bad. So I could either run to the bank which is inside Ala Moana, or I could wait on the side and hope that the wireless signal would stay stable long enough for them to run the transaction. I decided to just wait it out, thinking that it couldn’t possibly take THAT long. I mean, making sure the credit card machines work at a convention like this is probably their top priority.

I was wrong. It took HALF AN HOUR. In that time I could’ve run to Ala Moana and back at least three times, maybe more.

So I ran back to the main event room with the Asuka doll clutched in my hand… just in time to see the security guard tell me they’re not letting in any more people for autographs. “But… but why not?” I said. At this point I probably looked like I was going to cry or something, because he very kindly said, “We’re running out of time, and we need them to wrap it up already so Miss Miyamura can go back to her hotel room.” “But… but I… I was in line… I just, I ran to get this doll so she could sign it, and it took so long because the dealer had trouble with the wireless signal, and…”

He looked really really sad for me. I know this makes me sound like a manipulative jerk, but I was secretly hoping that if I looked sad enough then maybe he’d sneak me in.

No dice. He apologized again and said that if it were up to him he’d let me in, but it’s not and so he can’t.

I still have the Asuka doll. All sales final, after all.

But it was also kind of a good thing. It gave me a funny story to tell people. I went back to the tabletop room and resumed my card games. I got to meet a lot of people who were both new to the game, people like me who used to play but stopped and now want to get back into the groove, and a few people who actually play professionally. I played this one guy who is a pro and gets paid by Nintendo to play the game, and even though he kicked my ass, he went really slowly and explained everything so that I could pick up on some of the techniques he was using. He was also really funny and laid back and nice, and when I told him about the Asuka thing, he said he’d help me break into Miyamura’s hotel room and get her to sign it for me.

I think I have a crush on him. Too bad I’ll never see him again.

In between games I’d walk around the entire convention area. It wasn’t as big as I thought it would be, but at the same time there was so much STUFF crammed into those rooms that it was an overwhelming experience anyway.

And that’s pretty much how I spent my time until Bryan and Jon showed up in the evening. Jon was dressed up as Wolfwood from Trigun. And yes, he had that giant cross. It was pretty fantastic.

After those two showed up, I cycled between Pokemon battling, watching Hellsing OVA with Bryan, wandering around the cosplay strip with Jon and taking pictures of cool costumed people, going through the Dealers’ Room and blowing even more money, and popping my head into the main event room to watch the cosplay show. It was a blast.

Sunday was pretty much more of the same, except this time I had my sister with me. We bought two more decks, the Darkrai one (part of the same series as those other two) and this deck. We also bought a couple booster packs so we could do trades with some other people. Oh man. I remember buying booster packs and doing trades just like this, back in the day. I HAVE UNLEASHED A TERRIBLE EVIL ONCE MORE. Now I’m going to be tempted to buy 245346546 booster packs so I can do trades. WHY DID I OPEN PANDORA’S BOX ALL OVER AGAIN?!

When we went to the Dealers’ Room, we ran into Rikki Simons. That man… is very intimidating. I had heard on the Zim DVD commentary that he is an ironically gigantic man who voices such a tiny little robot, but that still didn’t prepare me for seeing this humongous and physically imposing guy. But once I got over the initial shock of “Holy shit, this guy could probably crush me with his thumb,” he was super cool to talk to. I asked him to sign my program (since I didn’t want to go through the whole fiasco of “OMG I NEED TO BUY SOMETHING GIR-RELATED SO HE CAN AUTOGRAPH” all over again) and I am EVER so pleased with myself. HO HO HO. I got at least ONE autograph, even if it’s not Yuko Miyamura’s.

We left early (~3pm) because my sister had to go to some kind of banquet in the evening, and plus I was absolutely freaking exhausted. I spent my evening playing Pokemon on the DS and contemplating whether I should pick up a part-time job so I can afford the Pokemon booster packs that I will inevitably be tempted to buy.

Sometimes, it sucks being an obsessive maniac with expensive hobbies. :P

I’m really sad the convention’s over and that I can’t go next year. Oh well, I guess I can always just go to the one after that. By then, I might even be able to afford a trip through the Dealers’ Room again.

I am SO BROKE now. Damn. Time to look for a part-time job to tide me over until the Aeon position opens up.