Pokémon Top 5: Favorite Flying Types

Konichiwelcome everyone to yet another amazing list of amazing little creatures called Pokémon. In the previous top 5 we discussed my favorite five bug types. Lets swoop from the sky as we are super effective against bug types.. with the flying type. This list was super easy to make unlike some others. While I love the flying typing, I don’t really like flying type pokémon all that much. I don’t hate them either.. I just feel very neutral about nearly all of them, those who remain make my list!

Rules and Honorable Mentions

We have been over these rules for a few times now but for any newcomer, here is my set of rules. I always use them to point out two honorable mentions as well. The key in this all is diversity. So a dual type will only make it on ONE  lists of it’s typings. Say I like Slowbro than it would be on either my water list or my psychic list, never on both. Since the flying type is primarily used as a secondary typing this applies to SOOOO much pokémon for me. Charizard will be in my top 5 fire types.. since I find it more a fire type than a flying type so it is disqualified here. Rowlet is one of my favorite starters ever.. but I count it more as a grass type since it is the grass starter.. so it will be featured on another list.

Normally I will go by their primary typing as their main type.. but if I think a pokémon is more akin to it’s secondary typing.. like Corviknight  it will not feature here either. The biggest honorable mention and yet another spoiler for a future top 5 is Ducklett. A Water flying type.. with a pink shiny! I love ducks, I love pokémon.. I love pink..it’s perfect!

Another rule would be that I can only use one entry per evolutionary line. While I am allowed to pick my favorite of a series, I will take their entire line into account. For example I really like Ledyba, but I really dislike Ledian.. since the line has no future it will get a demerit and Ledyba will not make it on this list. I want to showcase pokémon in multiple situations.. which is also why legendaries do not make it on this list very often.

The final rule is that the pokémon has to actually feel like it’s typing. The biggest offender in this for the flying type is Gyarados. While I love Gyarados I can NOT see him as a flying types. Sure he can fly in some games and he can conjure up storms and such but the flying type is not the AIR type. With the most iconic storm (early gen)  storm moves being twister…which is a dragon type move. Gyarados is NOT a flying type it is a Water Dragon.. not a water dark either .. a water dragon.. Game Freak can tell me all it wants.. but Water-Flying is just wrong.. so obviously it doesn’t go on the flying list.

Flying Type Number 5
Chatot

For whatever ungodly reason The Pokemon Company’s policy on flying types goes a little something like this? “Is it a bird? “  If your answer is yes that pokémon is a normal/flying type. In some cases I agree, like pidgey, spearow, hoothoot and Pidove.  They are very basic animals and that gets the normal type for it. Sure! However my beloved Chatot has the head of a music note, and the tail of a metronome. It’s super colourful and has this neck collar like those coats those testosterone boys and fake tan girls wear during winter. You know the one with a dead Zigzagoon in the neck area?! Nickleson?! Not sure.. I skipped that trend. Chatot is such a weird pokémon that did such a unique thing in the world of pokémon that because of it’s sheer quirkiness quickly conquered my heart.  It is also one of the pokémon that makes the strongest case to the sound type.. a typing I hope will someday come to the game.

Chatot’s design is based on music stuff crammed onto the body of a parakeet and the design does feel truly unique and really like a pokémon. It has terrible stats and according to it’s pokédex entry is a true pacifist. It has a tongue in its beak that the same as a human tongue, having the same level of control over it as well. Thus it can mimic human speech or other pokémon cries. Which it does to befriend the pokémon to make sure it doesn’t get attacked. However this action would become one of the strangest moves in the entire pokémon series. At least for Gen IV and V. In Diamond and Pearl , Platinum , Black , White and their sequals Chatot could mimic YOUR voice. It’s signature move Chatter allowed you to record your voice and based on it’s volume it would have a better chance to confuse. 

Of course this led a pokémon with only a 410 base stat total to be banned from pokémon competitions because people used it to make it should racist slurs and curse words in tournaments which is a big no no! Which lead  to Chatot being one of the weakest pokémon ever to be banned. Nowadays the move no longer has the ability to record your voice but just confuses 100% off the time.. A confusion that bypasses substitutes with a moveset that is completely catered to getting around those pesky plushies.

It has decent speed, and decent special attack and with some EV’s in those stats Chatot can become something your opponents have difficulty dealing with. I have only used it during some Romhack playthroughs but I was amazed at how good it was for Nuzlocke like situations where it can come in to confuse your enemies, set up some stat boosts during this and then keep on confusing it’s opponent. The set I enjoy playing most is with Chatter, Double Team, Work Up and Synchronoise with a healing berry. Usually with a spore or paralyse user on my team as well.

Flying Type Number 4
Noivern

In Kalos we could basically find a better version of Chatot in the form of Noivern. So this once more is a pokémon I think should get the sound typing rather than it’s Dragon Typing.  The Dragon Typing does make it very sturdy and gives it some good resistances it also becomes super frail to ice Offensively it has about the same stats as Chatot but Noivern gets a lot more speed and a lot more moves, so it is a better monster.. without the iconic move. Bat dragons are also kind of cooler than a Parakeet.. yet at the same time it is kind of edgy! I do like myself a bit of colour and cute.. but I really gotta admire this design regardless. It looks strong and fierce and like a flying type! It feels like it could be a Jojo Stand if it had some mechanical parts.

Noivern has a great roll in the X&Y anime or XY&Z I guess but  that always helps make a pokémon more coveted. We see so much of it’s personality and Noivern is great. One of my favorite Ash Pokémon ever. The Kalos Region was my favorite when it comes to Ash adventures and him having cool pokémon like these really helped. While the one Mister Ketchum owned seemed sweet enough it looks mean so let’s look at the pokédex entries.

Apparantly nothing can defeat it when fighting in the dark, it can use echolocation to find you.. these waves are so strong they can turn boulders to pebbles. These same waves can be use to weaken their opponents as it will use it’s fangs to finish it’s prey off! That’s more like it! However ONE pokédex entry makes it seem like a sweetheart yet again. While it is always being described as cruel and vicious giving one a nice ripe fruit of the flavor that it likes will make it instantly tame… nawwww who is a big hungry night sky killer!

Now in combat Noivern is a bit weird. By far it’s best ability is infiltrator. Which allows you to bypass substitutes. However it’s moveset is mostly soundbased.. which bypasses substitutes.  I mean I still run it with BoomBurst because it offers a nice guaranteed neutral move, Draco Meteor, Hurricane and Dark Pulse with Choice Specs as a item. When it’s available to me in playthroughs of Rom Hacks or Fan games I prefer to give it an assault vest so I can capitalize on the Dragon Type resisting just about everything except for Dragon Fairy and Ice. Dark Pulse can be replaced by Flamethrower so it can cover its main weakness, it WILL outspeed virtually all Ice Types but I found going with the dark pulse to be nicer so it can deal with psychic types or ghost types that outspeed it and deal neutral damage.

Flying Type Number 3
Ho-Oh

Ho-Oh is my favorite legendary bird and one of my favorite legendaries ever. There is just something about the way it was build up from the first episode to the anime before meeting it in Pokémon Gold at the top of Tin Tower. I am not sure why, but Moltres never really felt like a phoenix to me.. I love phoenixes, is that the corrupt plural? Phoenixci ? Just Phoenix?So I was happy to be given a proper one! Pokémon Gold is my favorite pokémon game so I am sure that helps as well. It doesn’t help it is the rainbow pokémon either! And just look at the design it is so much cooler than Lugia’s! Who wants a white fish bird when you can have a phoenix.

It loves other pokémon and brought back to life the three legendary dogs, it is said to bring about happiness to everyone who own one of it’s feathers. It is even said to live near a rainbow! It is so cute!  Fire and flying is an excellent defensive typing only being weak to water, electric and rock type moves. Resisting Steel , Fairy and Fighting type moves  it resists some of the most competitive typings being immune to ground which is yet another dominant typing. Another sign that this pokémon can play nice with a lot of people! It doesn’t seem to like rock types very much though, being 4x weak to them. His weakest stat his physical defence is also exploited by the fact that rock type moves usually are physical. I guess there is no brown in the rainbow! Does that also mean anime girls never throw up rocks? In that case I might be doing something wrong.

Ho-Oh as a legendary really benefits from the very healthy post game in pokémon Gold and Heartgold, there is still an entire region to run through so the legendary is actually useful for more than the pokémon league alone. Which makes it al lot more viable than other pokémon. The fact that it is a physical fire type also distinguishes it from its peers. Sacred Fire, Brave Bird, Recover, Zen Headbutt is a nice set to run on this beast, yet because it is physical it is also one of the best fly users. You can take the HM to zip around and still have it deal massage damage. It has superb special defence and it it’s special attack is also good enough so you can run it as a special attacker.

Flying Type Number 2
Togekiss

A slightly less amazing special tank of the sky is my penultimate favorite flying type. Togekiss. Togetic was a lame evolution of an adorable pokémon that just felt lackluster, keeping the pokémon off my team during my Gold playthrough. By the time I obtained a Heart Gold Cartridge .. things changed though because now the little bugger could evolve. Togekiss is the perfect little Egg-Angel a girl could wish for.. Maybe it’s more an Angelic-Egg than the other way around though. It’s design is rather unique and feels adorable trough all three steps, the fact that it evolves to friendship and shiny energy .. really make it a pokémon I really dig. The white red and blue composition with its abstract shape make it feel like a Mondrian painting. It has the lamest shiny though.. instead of white with a blue gloss it is white without a gloss more pure white. 

It’s one of the happiest Pokémon in terms of lore as well. Misty eventually leaving Togetic behind was one of the saddest moments I saw in the anime but reading Pokédex entries warms my heart again. So Togekiss is such an improvement.  The Jubilee Pokémon is the pacifist pokémon. It will never show itself to people seeking conflict. Yet when you respect other people and animals rights it will share it’s blessings with you. How cute! It will even bring you gifts if you are a sweet person. Think of all the gifts we good get just by being nice to each other! So not only is the design is sweet, this pokémon would actively make you a better pokémon. I am pretty sure that pokémon battling counts as conflict though so .. it gets a bit confusing from there! Since it is actually quite useful in battle and it needs battle to level up.

Like I said before Togekiss is quite tanky on the special defence side of things. Equipped with the abilities like  Serene Grace and Super Luck you can build some various sets build around landing critical hits or special effects. Mostly Serene Grace and Special Effects make this pokémon quite nice to use. Land Flinches more easily with, Getting a Burn to half your opponents physical attributes. It can become really good with moves like Ancient Power and Stored Power combined with Serene Grace as well. Moves like Wish to give it reliable recovery are always good on it as well. You can have a lot of fun with this Angelic Egg! Fairy Flying is a great offensive typing  and no slouch defensively either. It has a fair few weaknesses but it’s immunity to Ground and Dragon can get you a long way.

My Favorite Flying Type
Archeops

With distance Archeops is my favorite flying pokémon! I LOVE this pokémon. It is my favorite fossil Pokémon ever, it would be my favorite rock type but I chose to elect this as flying type rather than a rock type. While I get classifying dinosaurs as Rock types, the fact that all fossils except for the Gen VIII ones are all rock types makes me distinguish them by secondary type. Thus Archeops to me counts as a flying type. It is based on the first bird and is a mix between dinosaur and a bird and I love that design. It makes for such a good fossil pokémon. It is really funny to me as well.

So while this pokémon is the predecessor of all birds it isn’t a strong flyer. It can’t take off at will it needs a running head start, it can run up to 25 miles per hour and flies slower.  So .. down hill you might be able to catch up to it on a bike.. else on a simple scooter. However with a speed modifier of 110 this thing is quite fast in game. It’s best move is a flying type move which according to it’s lore is a weaker attribute of the pokemon. I like my clunky pokémon and this to me is the pinnacle of clunky . It’s fly animation also is so adorably choppy! It is the perfect way to amalgamate types like Rock and flying! It’s shiny is bad but that goes for most things on this list.  I like Ho-Oh’s and Chatot’s fine but the rest is meh. Archeops I really love for how it battles though.

Archeops is one of those negative ability pokémon people can make fun off. Along with Slaking, and Regigigas it has one of those as well. As a result it’s base stat total is a very respectable 570 though , but in Archeops case it’s stats get cut in half as soon as it gets under half HP. Before that moment it has an amazing 140 attack stacks and 112 special attack.  Which means this barely flying bird can hurt! It is usually run with the move acrobatics. A base 55 power move that grows a lot stronger if Archeops doesn’t hold an item. This essentially means that in normal playthroughs this thing is a monster! I had an Archen (the pre-evolution) named Flock in Black and White. Flock was named because it was a flying rock. I loved Flock so much that I actually bred it’s offspring to use in Pokémon Y.  It’s son Minairal became was the first level 100 pokémon I ever had. I just had so much fun using it naturally leveled up to level 100. Acrobatics, Rock Slide, Dragon Claw and Fly made this pokémon nearly the only one I used. If Minairal is so fun to level to max.. I bet it deserves my number 1 spot.

Yet another type has been charted! More pocket monsters received love! We are now only at 1/3th of the pokémon type list journey! Next week the Electric type will go up! Who is your favorite flying type?! Do you use this type a lot?
Tell me all about it in the comments! Until then! Fly you fools!

My Geeky “Firsts”

I originally wanted to talk about board games with you today.. but then I realised those aren’t really relevant right now.. So I was beginning to crack my poor brain to stuff in my past that I could use for a blog!  Before I could even start I was like! Oh I could talk about my first steps as a geek!

My First Cosplay
(sort of)

I do not remember getting my NES or Ducktales so in my memory it was always there… at least my years of sensibility. I know I was still of the tricycle age so I assume I was about 4, when I got Turtles 2 the arcade game. It was the first game I remember getting. It could not have been my birthday because I was playing outside, grandpa came over to visit and he had a gift for me. A turtle bandanna (the purple one) , with a turtle horn for on my trikey a compass and even the turtles NES game. It was nice weather outside and I was still horrible (AKA) a child. So I wanted to play outside first. Now that I had the turtle headband I was like a turtle.. but I needed a shell as well. So I made myself one. I found myself a dish tub below the sink and got my colouring pencils out and made green blocks which I pasted on the tub.. they did not stick very well but it half looked like a shell.  I am pretty sure I had help from someone though because somehow the tub got four holes in it with some string or ribbon so I could now wear it as a backpack. 

Now Donatello had a big Bo staff so of course I had to go out and find a stick. Luckily I lived super close to a park so off I went. Navigating with my new compass! But not Really I just knew where the park was. I think my uncle came along.. I do not remember. What I do remember is finding the perfect stick! It was just laying their in the pushes so I climbed in.  Now I forgot to mention this but at first I just rode my trikey with a mask and the horn for about an hour or so , I think I got the idea of making the shell after my parents got annoyed from me honking all the time. I was kinda tired in my legs and unstable so I fell. Into a big pile of Poison ivy. Turtle Ouw’er. I managed to roll onto my shell until I was rescued. Maybe it was my aunt..because I remember a woman. I do vividly remember coming back home and grandpa trying hard not to laugh at my misery.  Which made me angry! My first quest for cosplay ended in failure, and mom needed a new tub to do her hand wash in as well! Luckily when I was covered in cooling cream, I could play Turtles 2 the Arcade game ..which made up for my first cosplay attempt.

My first cosplay
The Real One

My first actual cosplay would not come until way , waaaay later. My first actual cosplay was just about 6  years ago. While I planned to go maid, my awkward dutch size made that kinda hard. So I ended up with a Yukata version of Megurine Luka, while my friend cosplayed a Yukata version of Hatsune Miku. It was a cute cosplay but I was a bit flat for Luka. So I had to stuff.  That didn’t go to well initially. I overstuffed which led to several wardrobe malfunctions as well as causing me to drop about a  half a toilet roll worth of toilet paper in the pond like stuff in front of Europol headquarters. Whoops! Luckily I managed to clean most of it up and go into to toilets of the con to restuff and dry my wet yukata.


After that I stuffed less and I had a blast in the cosplay, it was super weather appropriate, my foot was stepped on only once that hurt, and I could walk on those Japanese slippers I bought surprisingly well.  It was so good I cosplayed it again the next day. I had a weird golden sort of nail polish with it cause I thought it really matched the cosplay well.. what I did forget was that I did not plan on putting on nail polish through the weekend, I thought I would be a maid so wear gloves after all… so I ended up without nail polish remover on a Sunday! My friend also did not have any on her since she wore a normal colour. So when we sat at the restaurant on the way back, I sat there with tacky nails that matched with my outfit as well as my personality matches with a Gothic lifestyle. It shined so much I kinda liked like a Bottom Bitch or something. 

My first time in a game store

I was a bit of a loner kid after the bullying started, which meant I never really had a nice shopping experience for games. I had no one to browse with and compare with. Mamma Pinkie usually went with me. Well I would go shopping with her and as a reward I would get a game or a toy.  On rare occasions I got a great report card at Pappa Pinkie would go with me to look at games in another city. He was the only one he could drive so he was the one who chauffeured me if I did something deserving a reward. Pappa Pinkie was not a very patient man though, I should pick and run out.. he gave be about 4 minutes to browse because he wanted to be in and out in five minutes. Which did not really work. One time I got sold something really sucky in a toy store.. just by listening to them. We returned the game the next day and Dad suggested to me I would look at a store called Game City.

This store was run by a woman named Patricia and she is the one who gave me Pokémon Gold before it even launched here.. It was not region locked or something or she got it ahead of europe launch. I had it before everyone else. Beside for everyone who shopped at her place. However the first time I got there was in the days of the SNES. I had no idea what game to get and as usual Dad was very impatient and I was getting flustered, saying I did not need a game I could not find anything so fast. Yet I was close to crying for losing something I really wanted . Dad went more annoyed saying Mom would not allow that so I had to pick when Patricia stepped in. She asked me which games I liked to play and she recommended Mickey Mania for SNES. I followed her advice and it quickly became one of my favorite games. Patricia was a great sales person as she was the one that got my dad into racing games and flight sims. She did not really sell the hardware he needed and he ended up pirating a lot of the games instead of buying them but in her store I could finally look around a bit for games while she could talk to him about stuff he liked as well.

Such a great store far until into the Gamecube age I got nearly all my games there . Nowadays it doesn’t exist anymore. It got competed away by a big second hand game retail franchise. While in some towns the service is great.. they clearly do not always hire gamers for the job.. or at least no Patricia. She was our patron saint of gaming in our local area! Now.. there is just a random guy in a green shirt.

My first geeky romance

I did not have a lot of Geeky romance encounters, though I got a few romantic interests to play Mario or take a look into gaming which was nice but never did i really have a romance who was a geek as well. One day Pinkie was in one of her grocery stores as she saw a beautiful girl with hairs as black as ebony and eyes as blue as the tropical seas. Her name is to difficult for non dutchies so my friend the Multifaceted Ocelot dubbed her Lauren..which is the name we will use for her. I giggled and stumbled in front of her cash register and was trying to figure out where I knew her from. I could not figure it out for a while, back then I had PonPonPon said up as my ringtone which she recognised. Suddenly she recognised me from seeing me at a Con and we got talking. We started meeting after a few talks and just geeking out. I had known I might not have been into guys before but I never had a female love before either and well Lauren. . made me feel things I did not feel before. Especially when we decided we would do a pokémon act together. She said we should make it kinda Yuri.

She came up with an act with a loving Sylveon trying to win the heart of a cold Glaceon. As she explained what I should do things we get a bit flirty. Eventually we went a bit of scene and I kissed a girl. A short romance blossomed up it was fun and it felt way better than another relation in terms of.. well it was more right.. yet that did not last to long. As I become more and more infatuated with Lauren, she become more and more obsessed with the cosplay act. In the end I was more a means to an end to her to give her the act she wanted.. but she cared about me enough to realise this. Eventually Lauren recast me with a straight friend she had. She also broke up with me after about two month’s being a thing. She was more into guys and with me it was something more spontaneous for her. While I do occasionally talk to her she has since become a bit preoccupied with what other people think of her and things and can very much not be herself. I know her and this isn’t her and that hurts. We still bond over new pokémon stuff from time to time or talk about cute stuff..maybe one day I can defrost her icy heart!

My first geeky stalker

On the opposite side of the spectrum at a Con I also met my first following admirer. My first follower, even before I had a blog. Apparently I talked to him about Power Rangers on either an earlier con or an earlier day but on a con saturday I was suddenly approached by a guy in a Harry Potter Cosplay.  It was one of those awkward “Hey it’s you again “ talks and me just going “Harry Potter, It has been to long,  the last time I saw you you did not have that scar yet”.. which probably was true since he laughed He totally fell for my bluff! He just talked over it. He brought Power Rangers up again which is why I know I talked to him about that before.. still I could not remember it.. In fact I am not even sure he had the right person! I mean I DO like Power Rangers so its plausible.. but either I was drunk before or not very interested.. based on what happened next I would guess the latter. Though since it was at a con.. probably both!

Harry began asking me how I have been so I stuck to events of the day to keep safe and when I asked how he had been he suddenly kept complaining. I am in a hotel room with some random con people! Can you believe they want to  stay up after 11 at cons?! They keep playing cards after that. Meanwhile last night I stayed up until 3 with some friends visiting various events on the con late at night and then drinking and playing cards in our airBnB. I said “Well sometimes I do that do.. you only live once right?” He suddenly completely agreed with me before he went complaining that one of them played western music in the house which annoyed him. I don’t care for music either way so I just shrugged and gave him a backpad. “There There”. I should not have done that.

After that he kept meeting up again the entire day and the day after. He wanted to buy me lunch, he wanted to talk between the two of us and while I had no issue with him following me it did not take him very long to become possessive and demanding. I was oblivious to his interest I was just thinking he was a bit socially awkward before that.  I told him I was into girls.. but he did not believe me.  Things grew a bit scary as I asked him to back off a little he apologised and backed off. Then suddenly I began getting texts. Apparently he followed a friend of mine and asked them what my number was since he lost his old phone.. like he completely lied. He began sending me texts that he hoped I was not to mad. Way past his self proclaimed bed time.

I wanted to resolve things because I felt like I did not want to block him. The guy was nice enough so on the con I took him apart just before I went home and told him it was never going to happen but that I liked talking geeky with him. We ended up taking about our favorite power ranger villains and we even parted with a hug! Yet after the con the texts kept coming. Growing increasingly delusional , eventually constantly mentioning.. If only would be into guys. We had a real moment there! He never met someone who understood him as much. He hoped that we could still be friends and eventually one day.. things might happen.

He found me on Badoo, which I had to delete because of that, by pretending to be a girl and some other red flags. At one point he started adding all my Facebook friends and asking them if I had a new number.  He always used geeky references because I said I liked that in him…. in a friendly way but eventually he pissed Pinkie off. I told him I would block his number and never wanted to talk to him again. If he bothered any of my friends or me I would press charges.  Two years later he comes up to me again and apologizes and he has a partner. Very clingy but a cute couple. I talk to them occasional if we walk past each other but only if they are together… For all you potential stalkers out there feel free to talk.. but if I say no it’s a a no! Never will be a yes either. If you can accept that we can be friends! If you can’t .. i’ll be angry!

Shouting, Punching and Breaking Legs: Weird NES Controllers

Hello Island Guests, if I would be a Pokemon I would be a fossil Pokemon. So I guess I’d be a Fairy Rock type. Why? Because I constantly keep being stuck in the past. My first console was an NES, a very simple game console that got released on the Dutch markets  in the fall season of 1987. A year after I was born.

Five years later or so I had one! A very simple system with a D-pad  and four buttons (Start and select count). I love this controller, so many memories! Yet even back then Nintendo always was trying to discover new ways to play.. so worked better than others.

The Konami Laser Scope

By now it should be no secret that I hate children, they are loud, obnoxious they tend to hurt me, they think they know it all , they are helpless and unpredictable. I would describe kindergarten as like a trashcan for dead baby jokes that have gone to waste. Now of course this is a exaggeration of how I actually feel I am very anxious around children. Mostly their loudness can freak me out.. or if they play their games at full volume on their phones.  Back in my days children would have to play games in the living room though, so the noise would be very difficult if you were reading a magazine or on the phone.. which back then had cords on them that were connected to the wall. So a kid gaming was even more of a plague.

Luckily Konami came up with their Solution. The Konami Laser Scope! A huge headset children could put on.. shielding you from the bloops and bleeps of space fighting games and classics like Top Gun. It was advertised this way so it seemed great. Little did parents know! This game does a good job at muting out the game soundtrack and those sound effects. It is a fairly sound proof headphone. The problem.. this controller has no A and B button, you play this controller by yelling “Fire”…. Or anything else for  that matter. So instead of the Duckhunt theme and sound effects you hear your child yell Fire Fire Fire all the time!  Unadopt!

Design wise it seems like a sort of combination of an eye exam device, a saiyan scouter with some rad but cheap danger looking stickers added to it so kids would feel cool when wearing it. The truth? Yes with things you look completely cool!  If cool was spelled D-O-R-K that is. Yet the Laser Scope wasn’t just a controller. You can remove the head visor thing and fold back the microphone thingy and wear it as a actual headphone for your walkman! Now that .. in comparison makes the full controller look really cool!

The Power Pad

In 1988 the whole marketing department of Nintendo collectively forgot all worlds in human existence except for one word. Power! .. They could add words before it like Horse and Nintendo and sometimes even words behind Power.. like this one time they tried something with a piece of clothing for your hands?! What was that all about?! One of the Power Guys suddenly said “Body Power” and everyone clapped. So it was time to develop a controller around Body Power…how do we do that?! Well simple!  We make a sheet  with 12 balls depicted on it.. because twister is kinda popular as well.. and then make kids run and jump as a controller.  A very early DDR pad if you will… just weird.

Nintendo always wanted us to stay fit.. like nearly every generation of their consoles had some fitness equipment. There is the Balance Board for Wii and Wii U, that Ring for Nintendo Switch, A fitness Bike for SNES, the Gamecube had a handle.. so you could take it out to run outside and the NES had this thing. Twelve numbered orbs on a grey mat.  Player one usually takes  the blue numbers, player two plays on red. Which baffles me because , well  number 1 and 2 are blue, 3 and 4 are red. Then 5 and 6 are blue again and 7 and 8 are red.  I mean it makes sense on the mats design, you count the numbers and all.. but  since this thing is meant for multiplayer mostly… WHY would you do it like this?!

The game works best on button mashing games like those Olympic or running games. Player 1 runs on 5 and 6 while Player 2 runs with 7 and 8. By jumping you somehow actually jump. Fun.. but you just did a 100 meter hurdle jump thing. On an 8 bit console, it isn’t exactly thrilling. It supported a few other games but it came with the game World Class Track Meet. Why would I want to run?! I mean nowadays I get it with the whole fitness idea, but back then we played video games because we did NOT want to play outside and run. But this is coming from me, I lived in a small town where there was plenty of space and safety to do it better than a power pad could. Maybe it’s different for city folk.

Other games that came for the pad are kind kind of weird. There is for example Eggsplode and Short Order, a twin packed game that allows you to break bombs and prevent chicken murder or play simon says with hamburger parts to fatten up animals. They are solid mini games but not really something to justify getting a mat like this out, relocating your NES and sliding away the coffee table.   Technically this mat is about as big as six children standing in double file so that is a rather hefty chunk of living room. Just setting this thing up takes you longer as how long these games are actually fun so all in all.. it gets you moving.. but it is a bit odd. 

The U-Force

Now things begin to really get odd. The U-Force I would describe as weird predecessor of  the kinects. Yet.. it looks more like a monolith in a plastic case. Like those screens look like how evil computers looked like back in the 80’s. It isn’t immediately obvious how you use this. I’d say it is part Kinect, Part theremin part ??? with mostly the latter being true. The U -force has several settings depending on what game you play.  New games would tell you what U-Force setting they need in the manual older games should be able to find in the setting which can be very different between each game.

Some games require it to be a fully flat surface and you play games like a theremin, another game could require a mirror like set up, while a third game requires that same mirror like set up but requires a flight stick peripheral. The weirdest thing.. this peripheral is just a piece of plastic with buttons that is not connected  to the system in any way yet it fairly flawlessly mimics your actions and button presses. In Punch Out I think you can actually punch towards the screen and for some driving games you like swipe left and right to steer left and right and tilt your hand  to accelerate or decelerate. It is an odd contraption which works differently each time.. but what’s weirder..  It really really works. 

Playing Mario on U-Force is kinda fun it doesn’t work as clean as an actual controller but I do feel like I could beat a stage or two, unlike with my next two entries. Punch out allows me to beat Glass Joe at least, and Top Gun.. well I never really liked that game but I should really give it a try sometime. It is a gimmick and it doesn’t make things easier or better, it just is another way to play.  In that way it is like the theremin again. I would not call it like an actual controller, it’s a neat thingamajig that can be fun but quite puzzling why it was made in the first place.

The Roll’n Rocker

Now this is a controller which was distributed by LJN.This company has gained notoriety because of the AVGN, claiming there is no pot of gold but a pot of shit and the end of this rainbow.  When it comes to this controller though, that might be underselling it. This thing is broken and non functional at all. What is it? It’s basically a D-Pad you can stand on and by shifting your weight you use the directional controls. It works about just  as well as using an actual D-Pad after your hand got hit by a rainstorm of bricks. Even then depending on how much of your hand is crushed, you still have a better chance with your mangled hand as with this controller. 

The design is super retro. It’s how Back to the Future would imagine us using controllers in the future. It is a grey piece of plastic filled with stubs to make it less slippery with bright blue center with three  side bits  with Roll’n Rocker written in a tubular or gnarly font. Because of the three blue prongs you already lose your direction a bit making this finicky controller even harder to use. Since this totally Rad desgined thing does not have any buttons it has a socket where you can plug in an NES controller..so you can still use the A and B button. So much like R.O.B.  This controller still requires the original controller but unlike ROB which was a gadget to use your controller,  this IS a controller still.. so already it is so dysfunctional that you still need the thing you try to replace it with.

Now this could be fun for games like Skate or Die ,  Back to the Future or  Menace Beach. Games that are  have you skateboarding for a bit part of their gameplay. Now what these games all have in common is that they are bad games that all at least have featured in a AVGN episode.. as a testament that other people think this as well. So when you add a non functional controller  things get even worse.  Back to the Future should work for several reasons.. It doesn’t need buttons, it utilizes  controls in all directions an it is part of the LJN line-up. If you distribute a controller you best make sure it works with the games you put out as well. Why would you stand up on wobbly thing to play these games in the first place anyway it made me nauseous when I tried it out at first and anxious.. definitely a miss and a head-scratcher.

This one did not have any advert or commercial so I had to make due

The Power Glove

Another Power Item.. where The Power Pad required Body Power the Power Glove feeds on your sanity. Very few controllers are as dysfunctional as this item. Yet the marketing of this controller was SO freaking cool. It was used in a movie called the Wizard, which was basically a big NES commercial and showed us the first footage of Super Mario 3 we ever saw. Back then bad was a word we used for good! The main character’s rival used the power glove and said it was so bad! We thought he meant it was cool… but no this time bad actually meant bad. Yet just looking at the commercials we all wanted the Power.

The controller needed to be programmed for each game, except for the two games which were made for the Power Glove.  Super Glove Ball and Bad Street Brawler. While both games can be played with regular controllers they have extra moves and options when playing on the power glove. One of these games.. actually works with the power glove. Bad Street Brawler… not so much.  The latter is a great game to play though. It has your beat up self launching midgets and  Gorillas as the punk rocking guy Duke Davis. Super Glove Ball is like tennis with a hand.. and it actually works with a power glove. You wave your hand and the hand actually moves to where you want it. It’s kinda fun.

When it comes to how easy it is to actual game.. this catchphrase is right!

Mario however doesn’t work, Castlevania.. works okay..but when you need to move up or down a stairs.. it doesn’t work anymore.. so  at least the first three enemies are fun. Rad Racer more or less works but it teaches you super unsafe driving methods and at irregular intervals does teach you what will happen if you drive like that..Bam!  The Power Gloves does offer a unique gaming experience though, it will make you question your sanity?! I am such a bad gamer that I can not do this or is this thing really this broken?!  Do you want to feel hopeless like a baby chicken tossed in the tub?! Then the Power Glove is something you should definitely try out. The Power Glove arrived at the end of 1989 and it would take Nintendo 17 more years to make this concept functional.. that is how broken this is?! Why 17 years you say? That is when the Wii came out!

Pinkie’s Guilty Pleasures: Birdemic Shock and Terror

Hello Island Guests,  what originally began as a spotlight for movies which do not get not enough love has since turned in me discussing the weirdest shows, campiest movies and discussing some notoriously bad movies! The content-cocktail of today features the latter. Join me on a wonderful trip as we discuss. Birdemic Shock and Terror.

This post has lots of YouTube Clips so it is best viewed on the site instead of WordPress-Reader.

In 1963 Alfred Hitchcock made the movies “The Birds” a claustrophobic horror movie about killer birds. We haven’t seen a lot of that since.. of course there was a sequel but the scenario of evil avians has otherwise gone relatively unexplored. However in 2010 James Nguyen thought, what Alfred can do so can I! That old movie did not feature aggressive enough birds! What about if we give them acid spit! Let them explode on impact and give them airplane sound effects?! What if this is a movie about ecological changes, with heavy themes on how we mess up nature.. and big forests fires,beach scenes and of course this only should happen in the second half of the movie! The first half.. we’ll just do some random dating and social life stuff for our characters.

This movie is absolutely bonkers and I love it! This movie is SO bad.. that it’s on YouTube in its entirety. Several Times! It has been so for years as well. The oldest version I found stems from 2013. So for the very first time ever you can watch the entire movie on Pinkie’s Paradise if you wish.. at the end of this post! While I will also show you some amazing scenes from the movie! So if you want to be surprised and want to spend 90 minutes in shock and terror, although for the wrong reasons! Go below first and then come back to me! Now that the spoiler warning has been given it is time cringe!

This movie was clearly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s great film and it happily pays tribute to it. Alan Bagh plays Rod (he has no last name) the main character of this movie. A guy that walks so stiff he might be a terminator. Rod  though  is also the name of the male lead actor Rod Taylor who played Mitch Brenner in The Birds.  The best friend character in Hitchcock flick is played by a woman named Suzanne and in this movie the female friend character is named Susan. The music on the title crawl seems like something from Hitchcock’s time rather than a 2010 movie and of course Tippi Hedren is in both movies. She plays the lead in the 1963 movie and in this movie, archive footage of her is used on a tv while female character Nat is getting naked.  That same Nat is being portrayed by  Whitney Moore, who will voice Navi in something called “The Zelda Project: The Final Battle”. She also played Jeanette Voerman.. the sexiest female voice I ever heard say the word duckling! And she is in this .. piece of trash!

The voice who plays Jeanette and Tippi Hedren on the screen! Miss Tippi Hedren people!

Now this movie basically IS The Birds.. but a modern retelling of it, done by a mad man, who may be a genius! It mimics the classic, pays tribute and even uses some names involved in the original, yet it never escapes the level of college student film and that is at it’s best moments. It is as if you read Moby Dick and we now hear it trough the bird. Instead of Call Me Ishmael we get “WARK!”  Ishmael! Yes wark! All parrots are classic Chocobo. The beauty of this movie though is that we get that sensation as well “Hitchcock through the eyes of a madman”. I wouldn’t call James insane.. but this is hitchcock fan fiction turned into a movie.

The movie starts with some Oboe or Clarinet music. We see a car drive on a road while the credits scroll by. Aside from the actors James Nguyen did just about everything else. Which is always a good sign when you are looking for a bad movie. After just about forever we see the first character shot. Rod is walking on the streets like he just duked his dungarees before he enters a diner. A blond girl says Hi to him.. and at this time (4:40 in) we know that this movie is nothing like we have seen before. The audio quality of this opening scene is WORSE than who Killed Captain Alex. The girl has been dubbed over in post without adding room tone or background noice and she spikes the mic as well as it had to be turned up because we hear an enormous amount of static. Rod talks back to her in the original audio roll though so suddenly the background noise drops.  In a barely audible accents she hands him the menu and tells him she will be right with him.. yet everything seems off in this scene.Everything! Do not believe me?! Well here’s the scene!

Rod sees Natalie in the diner and apparently he knows her from being in highschool together with her and he falls in love seeing how pretty she has become. After some extremely weird dialogue where they don’t exchange names and don’t really seem to remember each other anyway.. they tell each other where they are from..which makes little sense since they were in school together? They talk about what they do now..and apparently Nathalie is a model.. and to be fair she is pretty. She has a job though so they exchange business cards as they leave.  Rod does the poo walk again watching some tv where clearly the sound is coming from another location as it talks about dead birds and sea ice melting killing the polar bears. Eight minutes in the first foreshadowing of birds happen and only 36 minutes left to the first action scene.



This first half really meanders on with Rod and Nathalie going about their daily lives. Rod plays basketball where at random intervals there is street noise and sometimes there is not. Nathalie models which in the same scene sometimes is a montage and sometimes it is not.  They go eat in a restaurant with a scene that is so painfully overlit from one angle and so studio lit on the other that it feels as if it’s a green screen and directions make no sense. Even though at times we see it shot at location.. it feels very fake.. which is quite amazing.  Rod has great character traits such as liking football and working out. Nathalie is deep.. liking movies and going to the club with her friends. Oh and both are great at their jobs! Not long after they stroll the street together and we get to see how the birds in this movie will look like.

I think they are parots.. the green things!

These are the BEST looking birds you will encounter in the movie  the others look worse. Also sorry for the bad screenshot this was my best take out of 8 . There is something very uncapturable about it.  After this though there is 25 more minutes of dating left before this movie gets anywhere. They go see an Inconvenient Truth in the theather and  all decide to go eco friendly. Now so much seems wrong with this. First the movie is set in 2008 or 2009 I think .. so the movie would not run in theaters and why would you take your date to that movie! A friend of Nathalie who runs a company whose logo is just Inner Peace.. printed on a sheet of A4 paper and her shirt gets turned on by the movie and wants to uncage another form of bird. All again with the horrible audio of background noise fading in and out of dialogue.  When Rod talks you might here the road in the background. When Nathalie talks there is nothing, sound spiking all the time.. and then when we finally reach the 45 minute mark after some very tame scenes and weird audio it all gets a lot worse.

After the sex scene between Rod and Nathalie suddenly we get a completely different movie.  With the sound of fighting planes birds begin to kamikaze attack humans. Some are big enough to explodify an entire neighborhood, others are tiny birds who just set the metal of a fuel pump on fire. No gas explodes.. just a part of the metal while that catches fire. The pair fresh from their lovely night together and sleeping in a motel for no real reason it seems, decide to barricade themselves in because suddenly the birds can no longer explode and they just make a sound that sounds like a seagull swallowed a chew-toy. They have gained the power to aimlessly flutter like a helicopter now.. as they menacingly screech on. Magically Rod and Nathalie get dressed while their bed is still shielding explosive birds ..that won’t explode from entering to their front door. Obviously they would not bother with the other windows etc.

The pair wonders why the birds attacked and why they stopped attacking, a metaphor for this elusive and deep plot! Why does it happen?!  Why does it stop? There are no answers in live so there are no answers in this movie. The pair flees from their confines to randomly knock on only one door.. the one door that holds other people! Rod lost his car keys.. for no reason! Did the birds take it? No they weren’t there when all the sex began.. did he just lose them?! He had an expensive looking car.. maybe it got stolen? No he says he just lost the keys?! Oh well!  They meet Becky and Ramsey a couple that also spend the night there.. they have a minivan the group has to reach but the birds can be back any minute.. so they need to take some weapons along.  Some flimsey coathangers will have to do.. and while they race to the minivan and get attacked we get to see the BEST scene of this movie.

Horrible Cinematography, overly lit, poorly mixed audio, bad dialogue, weird sound effects, atrocious cgi.. it is all here in its full glory! This is Birdemic. This is so poorly done it must have been done intentionally so.  Even I can genuinely do  a better job than this and my filmmaking knowledge is very limited. Yet somehow there’s something so sincere in this seen. It’s not the acting .. but it’s as if the actors are trying to sell this stuff.  There are no.. “oh Arceus why did I sign up for this” faces they do give it their all… sure they are more bland than Jeremy Irons Cereal but they do their job without complaint as a result this scene is just mesmerizing. An eternal enigma.. how could this come to be.

It only gets weirder as apparently once inside the van Ramsey and Becky have a pistol and an assault rifle laying in there. With near infinite ammo to boot! Rod is fine with that and takes a gun without complaining. I know they are being attacked by eagles and all but one would wonder why would leave somebody leave a fully loaded assault rifle under their front seat and are they good people?! Well like anything in this movie it seems unlikely. Of course they find some children surviving .. crying for their mommy for about 12 seconds before playing on a PSP and complaining they are hungry. These children are the WORST child actors I have ever seen so that results into something amazing.

I am not sure these even are childeren.. they might be aliens!

What follows is a slew of hilariously bad moments as now this movie is catching steam. Becky dies while taking a poop, a bird flies into her and within two seconds she is dead. Ramsey saves a bunch of people on a English tourbus before he gets covered in some kind of acid these birds can throw up. The camera shows his dead body in three separate positions while already dead and unmoved. There is even a show where we focus on a woman’s corpse.. which is paused footage by the way because obviously they could not hold their breath with their mouth opens and eyes opened for 3 seconds.. which shows the camera man’s feet in the shot. Epic!

They then decide to Picnic at the beach because the  children are hungry…. before talking to a science guy who frowns upon human ecological behavior. The whole world is empty or supposed to be.. hiding in fear of the birds but we can see people walking their dog of flying a kite in the background. This also happens several times when they are on the road.. we see cars pass by regularly as they fight for their lives and birds allegedly killed everything! Top Tier Immersion!

Stores are open hmmm I could go for a dog with let’s risk our lives for one!

The political messages in this movie are also hilarious. Apparently Ramsey was just a good guy.. he was a veteran in Iraq who just wanted peace more so he quite.. that’s why he has the rifle… They get robbed by a Texan man in a gas guzzling pick up truck, who gets his comeuppance a mere minute after his crime and we see a hippie living safely in a forest until it catches fire for no reason at all. This basically feels like an elementary-schooler’s take on nature and pollution. It is so in your face and vexing that it would be a hilarious drinking game. Each time they can descent you or are all super mega eco-friendly.. take a shot.. you’ll be vomiting acid before this movie is over. Each time you see a continuity error take a sip.. you might be hospitalized because there honestly are more shots which have something wrong with them than not. 

Somehow even the hippie looks fake

The best part is the ending… there is non… well they get their happily ever after until part two but for no reason at all the birds just leave. There is no big trigger there is no resolve. They just go to another beach, which is the exact same beach of course, and they see the birds fly away. The movie ends because it wants to end. There is no end of the journey, no lesson learned and no strong new bonds formed. Nathalie and Rod now just stand on a beach after hearing a lot of eco babble with their freshly adopted kids. Who make Rod’s poo walk seem like a cool trait. The Danger Will Robinson robot or Betty White would have been able to play more believable children than these two soulless abominations.

Even Rod’s neck looks fake..and those kids like maniacs

There is not a single good thing in this movie.. but it is tremendously fun to make your own stories. Ramsey and Becky are actually serial killers. The boy was found in a trunk so he was actually a kidnapping victim. The girl is possessed by a satanic force that’s why she sounds so weird. No matter what you imagine it will make this movie better! And that makes this such a hilarious mess to watch! Now if you haven’t had enough or skipped ahead to avoid spoilers I shall present you with the entire movie! You can thank me in the comments! If this post gets enough likes I might review the sequel as well. As for me I will go take a walk in the woods! But with animals becoming more bold while we hid away I better take a coathanger!

Final Score

Pinkie’s Saturday Anime Adventure (Week 5)

It’s time to for cereal and series again.. that would have been such a good name for this section.  Five Shows five reviews ONE post! Last week we had a bit of a dip in quality how will this week fair?! Like saturday morning cartoons no pausing is allowed.. I get a five minute break at the 11 minute mark of each anime.. playing some commercials to do everything else that needed to be done! Lets enjoy our saturday morning.

BNA
Episode 5

I have but one gripe with this episode but it is one with rather big implications. In this episode Michiru wants to play Basketball but since that is not being played there she is forced to turn to baseball instead. Something that has turned into a bit of a blood sport with killing being allowed for the sake of massive bets.  Okay.. these people are animals.. a bit of a forced metaphor but sure.. then Shirou is tasked to investigate the sudden increase in baseball gambling by the major?! Seriously guys! Again! That is SUCH lazy writing to connect to stories YET AGAIN. Let Michiru do her own thing for once, heck let Shirou go see her matches and discover the gambling?!  He cares for her so obviously he’d go see her matches at least once. This worries me for the quality for the show going on in the future. These analogies of people being animals is being taken a bit far as well. This society is just a bit TOO dystopian and stupid at times.

That said this episode was incredibly cute! So heartwarming to see Michiru play for a team called the bears. It sucks that one is called Winnie the Pooh , but at the same time it is amazing. Their catcher looks like something that can live in the world of Animal Crossing which is a great boon! He is adorable.. I have no idea on what he is called but I want to collect him.  Honestly there isn’t anything all that special about episode if you ever saw a sports anime or a sports movie you have seen this episode.  

Team sucks and is down on their luck , but a new ringer appears and suddenly luck turns around.. but due to some corruption in the sport their chances of victory seem to dwindle. When things are at their darkest the ringer unites the team through sheer passion and they lose the final match but can do so proudly! It’s nothing special.. yet it worked very well.. it made Michiru a stronger character, even though she should not use her powers she does because she cares about something. She has her passions and that makes her feel like real person. A tomboy sure.. but it all seemed right. Just a fun heartfelt episode with nice fun action and a bit of that same enigma I saw in other episodes.

It’s a really great episode to me but for the wrong reasons. I notice how much I like Michiru doing mundane things like going to a party and playing sports. I also noticed how I barely could care less about Shirou’s stuff. The way the show is building up to things means I will have a point where I will start to dislike it as all the elements being set up come into play.
I love this mundane beastman stuff with a bit of action to spruce it up.  I like Michiru adapting to her new life and making new friends.  I know her human friend who turned into a beastman will come into play.. well I assume so .. she is so heavily teased she can’t NOT be into this.. but at the pace Michiru is making friends I now think she will be granted an antagonistic role. Our tanuki is starting to have a life here.. friends here.. she isn’t dependent on her friend that much more..so by all rules of writing the only way her old friend will add is in a villainous role… I am not sure if I am ready for the show to turn into that. So all in all a weirdly got episode.. that makes me realise I will probably not like the entire series?!

Let’s judge it as a single episode though!

Yu-Gi-Oh Sevens
Episode 5

Another mixed bag episode for me! Yet kinda in the other way around. While I really did not particularly care for this episode I really like the style and grander choices they make here. Giving me faith that this series COULD go into more. We return to the story arc of Rush Duels disappearing from social media and even anime google. This means they have to find publicity through other ways. I do like the whole idea of rising to fame and promoting a ruleset as a storytelling crutch. It offers so much new scenarios we haven’t explored with Yu-gi-oh before themes that are relevant. Konami wants us to buy these new types of cards and by doing a story that is all about promoting the game.. it feels less jarring as a commercial because it’s actually part of the plot. 

However the episode itself is quite bad. The school newspaper writes an article about them and it says that Rush Duels are simplistic and for kids.. which is an opinion.. so it’s fair game to write! They have misquoted people so I get why the group would want it redacted.. but that isn’t really the issue they object. It is that their game is getting a negative review. Everyone in the school papers reads it and beliefs it.. so Romin distances herself from the group.. but only for a scene. Of course the dispute over whether or not this article should get a redaction is settled with a duel. To my pleasant surprise they decided to let Rook fight this duel instead of Yuga, which was great. The duel itself however might be the worse one yet.

The editor of the newspaper has a deck that is completely centered about journalism, the card art looked incredibly tacky and if this is not made specifically for this duel I think this is a horrible set. Every single card he plays feels catered to him and feels like it has a narrative flow as well. First he plays a scoop.. than live from the scene of the accident and then he plays a printing press.  It might seem clever but in duels .. it feels quite stale. Like if someone always goes 1–>2–>3–>4–>5 .. it is a logical chain of events that tells a tale.. but it takes away the tension of a duel.. this is always the order the cards are played in so their effect.. are just what the situation needs. That really was felt throughout the duel. If the game is not really being played there is no tension.

Comedy wise this episode was decent with Yuga’s promo bot becoming increasingly broken as he modifies it.. now chasing after girls constantly and some subtle shots of them disabling it now that Rook can’t use his Pauli Effect since he is dueling, yet that can not save this show. It feels like a very solidly constructed railroad with a bullet train that moves faster than ever before. The direction and the tech is solid.. but the stops this train makes are at Snooze-Town,  Forced-Ville, Fillage and some random places that just hold nothing to do. Where BNA feels like a great show that will falter in pay off , this feels like it COULD get a nice pay off but with  bad episodes. This week I seemingly caught up with the series. If it has been delayed by Corona and I need to replace the timeslot I will not be returning to it, if it goes on I shall give it next until next week’s episode to convince me.. after next week I will have to change my line up anyway.

Bofuri
Episode 9 and 10

With the end of Bofuri in sight we get two episodes I really enjoyed, from today on I will discuss double episodes in the same column to save us some time. Which easily works this these episodes because they handle the same event. The start of the guild competition, which I am pretty sure it will end on as well with maybe some minor epilogue. Both episodes did a great job in bringing this event to life in their own way. I was so invested that I nearly forgot to take my breaks. Yet I managed to sneak them in.. although a bit late.

The first episode mostly sets up preparations for the game, it will be a capture the flag game but with orbs. Obviously Maple is charged with defending Maple Tree’s Orb giving her May and Yui as back up in their defence.  Our beloved Rubiks Cube boy stays behind as well. Or at least that is the plan. First they go prepare, which is mostly a montage. They also visit a beach with tubes that have their own paterns on.. which is super cute. When Yui and May splash water they create huge tidal waves which was funny and charming. It all has become part of Bofuri’s charm to me. But we quickly move to the highlight of that episode to me. Sally’s fight with Frederica. Scouting for their rival guild Frederica wishes to get information from Sally who then challenges her to a fight..seeming equally matched Frederica gives up after Sally reveals her best techniques.. or does she?! It turns out Sally faked skills to give out false information to hide her incredible gaming reflexes I love these kind of mind games.


Other than that the first episode is fairly uneventful with people just doing their jobs and mostly taking on some lower tier guilds.  Iz finds a new robe that allows for on the go crafting somewhere but all in all it as all low key. There is some scouting here and there and some encounters but it is all set up for the much more exciting tenth episode! Still I really like the gamer feel this game really has to it.. much better done than Sword Art Online in my opinion, these characters have much more a gaming mindset. Which is amplified by Maple lacking this. The tenth episode is about big encounters with the two biggest guilds. We see Sally be overzealous and be cornered by Frederica.. about to die.  She has claimed a lot of Orbs which her team will then lose so the chances of their tiny guild getting a top ranking seem to go out the window. Which leads to my favorite moment of the 10th episode. Maple coming in to save Sally. Risking it all saying she will never allow Sally to die in game was quite touching. In a game we all think very lightly of death.. but Maple will never abandon her friends if she can stop it. 

However.. directly after May and Yui are left alone to defend the orb and they get killed after putting up a fair fight against Dread. Just before he can steal their orb though Maple returns and finishes off the already damaged Dread. It feels a bit conflicting with the message the show was telling earlier that Maple will never allow her friends to die.. but does highlight the reality of games. I kind of hoped Maple would save them all. By now we already established that this isn’t about fair fights. This show is about Maple being the most cute badass we have ever seen. Seeing how far she can push being so broken so I really wish she could have backed up those words she just uttered, or at least felt some consequence of not being able to do it. So the resolve with Dread was my least favorite moment.  Sally is super tired and can not go out anymore so now it is time for Maple to go on the offence. The episode ends with her facing the Flame Emperors. So I am pretty sure next two episodes she will be tangling with the top 2 guilds. 

Bofuri to me has become a show that I like for its simplicity and it’s lightheartedness. It’s a show that consistently makes me smile despite it clearly having it’s flaws. With these episodes I could really ignore those flaws, this is Bofuri.. I could wish for more but this is more than enough. I would not be able to remember these episodes if I would try to think back about it a few months from now but I do not need to.. it’s not that type of show.  Bofuri exists for the casual smiles and giggles and with very few exceptions it has consistently done so for me.

Hikaru no Go
Episode 5

Each time I begin to doubt if this show is for me, it pulls me back in with a very strong episode. We see Hikaru lose TWICE in this episode which are bold choices and we see Tetsuo , the popular Shogi kid re-embrace the magic of Go. Hikaru loses the Tetsuo which means he would have to jump in an Ice-cold pool.. but given how close he got to winning still Tetsuo decides to force him into something else instead a Go Team Tournament. Because of how things are set up.. if Hikaru’s teammates win he now is able to lose..so he wants to play for himself, a nice set up for an episode about putting coloured stones on a wooden grid if I have ever seen one. 

It’s just GO! Hikaru!

For the second time in this show we are introduced to a glimpse of brilliance Hikaru might have concerning Go as soon as he is able to step by step recreate a game.. after a guy fumbled some stones of the board. This pleases Sai , who for one of the first times I found a more welcome addition than an obnoxious mentor. The fact that Hikaru can render him obsolete one day is a nice promise. With Yugi the final duel against Atem felt somewhat unearned because we never saw  tiny Yugi duel instead of the pharaoh except for some mystical reasons. Hikaru is a much more fully fledged character and this stroke of brilliance makes me belief Sai can at one point even be taken out of the equation in this show. Great long time set up and very solid character building.

Immediately after we see him proceed to play Go, trough visuals he imagines building entire galaxies and star systems.. is this another sign of how genius he can be as a go player? The way it is framed certainly builds up to Hikaru discovering some latent abilities deep within him, of him beginning to enjoy the game for himself… but he totally washes out and loses badly. Getting called out by Tetsuo for it. Speaking of the latter, he dominates his match even if now he gets being bullied for a Shogi player. What a weird world… I guess  we do the same thing though… oooh you play PUBG instead of Fortnite.. poser! Well not me persé because I  think Fortnite sucks but you know. Still I would think members of unpopular clubs would stick together a bit more. If you play Shogi you might enjoy a game of Go as well but well let’s be honest none of these people should ever get laid..at least in reality.. so perhaps there is a lot of build up tension. Just something I will keep finding weird.

Best episode of the line up. My favorite moment was the Galaxy building scene that ends in Hikaru’s defeat.. there was no derpy music playing at the end.. it was all just subtle. It was a perfect illustration of a boy trying to learn the game, having a fun time with it. .but with a realistic result. Very good. My least favorite moment happened when Akiri’s moment with Hikaru was totally skipped. She just kinda vanished. She deserves better.

Round Up

Throughout the line up we had much better episodes than last week. Even Sevens improved though that only applied to the framework of the episode rather than the meat on the bones itself. Next week I might need to replace it from my programming anyway so please leave a suggestion for me to watch in its stead! Next week I will regretfully wrap up Bofuri as well which just might also get a series review from me but I am still undecided about that!

I had another great Saturday morning and I hope your weekends are all amazing next well!
Love you all!

Anime Over Explained: Pinkie Tries to Make Sense of Anime

Hey Island Guests, did you know anime could be weird? I know! Surprising right?! Most things anime characters do we can justify trough weird explanations , divine powers , a demon hiding inside a character, an altered world or just plain old aliens. So to an extend we can still believe Soda Can’s fighting each other to proof which can is the strongest… yet there are some things in anime we should not look to far into. Today we will be doing exactly that last thing?! Why? Because it seemed like fun.

The Toast Run

Ah yes, grabbing a slice of toast and covering it with jam, then shoving it into your mouth and eat it as you run. If this happened in real life our streets would be littered with jam covered bread because so many of us arrive late at things. I bet there would be plenty of ants too with all the jam on the sidewalks.  First of all when you bite on toast like that eventually it will get soggy and break off. Why not just hold the toast as you run?! I mean sure you need your arms to sling your backpack on… but after that they just keep running with the toast in the mouth. Technically I guess they are less wind resistant this way?  But not really! Instead of holding it “vertically” allowing the toast to be a windblade it is hold horizontally.. as a windshield.. catching a lot of wind..slowing  you down.

Exhibit 1

Let’s also not forget that you should not run for a while after eating, you might explode or something! Holding the toast in your mouth means you fully have to breath through your nose and will running way more exhausting reducing the chance of you ever making it in time drastically. A yoghurt breaker would make a lot more sense as your item of choice. Now of course yoghurt isn’t as popular in Japan but neither is toast. In fact they rarely have breakfast with bread right? So why do they all suddenly have bread on the shelf? I bet it is kinda stale and that’s why they have to toast it, but why would they all have red jam.. doesn’t anyone ever put peanut butter on it or apricot jam? The ultimate run food I would say is a banana. It kinda curves like a sword and we so loads of anime characters be super fast with swords.  Also it could provide some fan service for those who want it and it’s so much healthier… and faster.

Purrfect fruit for running

So here is my biggest gripe with this trope. It’s toast!  Usually a character finds out they overslept and that they are late and they rush out of the house with a piece of toast in their mouth.. how did that bread get toasted? Do they toast it the night before?  Just in case they are late? Or will they actually wait for the toaster to produce their crisped up slice of bread. Neither make sense, people don’t assume they are going to be late, even though they always are and usually characters are SO late there really is no room for toast making. The only way I can imagine this making sense is if they sell individually wrapped toast slices in Japan.. like as in how Oreos are packaged they have jam toast sandwiches. That kind of sounds gross and we never see them buy such things when doing grocery shopping. Please explain in the comments if you DO understand what is going on because I can not wrap my head around this.

I need this now!

Anime Boobs

Being as innocent and grey-sexual as I am I was always puzzled by the drawn boobs and their appeal to people. Surrogates I guess? Yet girls are really weird about their boobs in Japan.. it is a subject that they discuss regularly. Why? If I known a girl for three years now I would never say stuff like “Oh I forgot how big Senpai’s boobs are” Most anime girls who fawn over each others “rack” have known each other for a long time. So that makes no sense to me?! Did any of you girl readers do that in high school?  I mean maybe once I could get, not that I find it particularly interesting (and I am into women) but sure I can believe Cup-Envy would be a thing.

I spent to much time on these things again.

For some reasons these fleshly assets are the talk of the town in anime. I think I talked more about tits (the bird)  than I talked about tits (the boobs)  simply on account that there is more to tell about. Yet what really doesn’t make sense to me is the scaling of these things. Like you think Power Scaling in Dragon Ball is off.. man the size girls attribute to their chest is way worse. I have seen Keijo characters with boobs so huge, that when these characters are grandma they will   look like quadrupeds,  which they call C cups. If a woman has a D-cup there is not a single shirt in the entire country of japan that fits them anymore and if they ever would have an E-Cup Luke Skywalker would mistake them for moons, only to be corrected by Obi Wan.

These two fit together nicely! Kinda like a pair ..of …something?!

So here is the weird thing, clearly those cup sizes they know are all wrong. What they call a C is definitely not that.. so how in a country/world so obsessed by boobs they size them wrong?! How are there so many big chested characters, but no shirts or bras to support them. Clearly they are unaware of the problems large chested women can endure dooming all young teen girls to chronic back problems later in their life. Except for a few rare occasions mother characters also never have big  chests.. so where is the genetic sense in this?! Do all anime girls inherit chest size from their fathers family trees? Clearly they lack the science and it seems very weird that in worlds like this.. no one would study them.

Oh they do that too..not so great scientists then!

Naming Your Attacks

Now this is a trope that to a certain level I CAN understand. People do name their rifle as well. Just if I take out my gun and kill an assailant I do not yell out “Go Popcorn shoot them dead”  Obviously because they know what I would be doing but also because it would be very distracting to my focus. What is even weirder that the trope in its current form isn’t even an anime thing. It’s a Street Fighter II thing. While Goku and Kenshiro did name their finishing moves, it mainly was used on a finisher or at least big attack. They don’t yell ki blast.  Yet nowadays every attack has a name. Just look at Naruto.  If someone yelled Sexy No Jutsu in my ear.. I’d probably realise it was a trick!  It was Tiger Uppercut, Sonic Boom and Tatsumaki Sempukyaku that set the standard for this. Yes yes.. I know I left the most popular two of the franchise out,  but you can point them out in the comments if you can!

 

So now we have an anime trope that isn’t even really an anime trope. For full disclosure this trope to me does not apply to magic. Some spells need verbal components I get that I am talking techniques that would not actually require it. Like anything in Naruto really, or Goku’s Kamehameha. The first time he uses this technique in the sub he doesn’t yell out the attack he just grunts to gather energy and releases it with a Haaaa. Showing verbal is in fact not needed.  Frieza’s Emperor’s death beam also proves you do not need to shout attacks. Even if shouting a technique name is needed.. why not name it Poq or Wuv that would be a LOT faster and you would be unbeatable. Sure it doesn’t have the ring to it that Makankōsappō has to it but you’d be dead before you could kankosappo  so I wouldn’t even know your attacks have cooler names. Poq is OP!

Then again Maybe Staz is right.. though he kinda proved my point

Speaking of names, what’s up with those. Galick Gun?! It’s literally named after Garlic? Why!Garlick already was a thing in Dragon Ball. Why name your attack after some legendary surfing dude? Blue Kill Thing.. or Pink Death Ray are way more descriptive.  Luckily Piccolo did it right naming his attack Demon’s Penetrating Killing Light Gun. That was pretty descriptive. Stil would be defeated by my Poq attack though. Naruto fares a bit better. Rasengan means something like Spiraling Sphere and Chidori also had a naming story for it’s sound and such. Since these attacks have to be delivered to their opponent.. they would probably be prepared for your attack anyway, especially if they can read seals but I’d imagine “I’m gonna blow your head off” would be more satisfying to say then Spiral Sage Sphere.

My gun Popcorn! Shoot them dead! (I do not actually have a gun)

Being Popular for Weird reasons

A very common trait in anime can be , being popular for very weird reasons. As if the writers have some deep trauma they have to compensate and make their old club cool. In an anime about Go , they make Shogi a popular game?!  Really playing Shogi makes you cool?! This trope is often placed on the Student Council President as well. While I will admit some charisma is needed for the part these are usually the biggest overachievers in school, at least the ones that dare to open their mouth. Have you ever found that guy who does extra work for school credit cool?! Obviously their ambition can be attractive but how would a sixteen year old schoolgirl be into an uptight boy who loves rules and regulations?! One I can get ..but usually the entire school flocks out for these type of fellows.

If this was anime he’d be sexy!

Harem anime often do this even worse. Yuki Rito is good example. While this may sound bitter, nice people finish last in love. While you can KEEP a girl or boy by being nice to them, realistically that is NOT the way to get them. You have to be bold , cheeky or fun.  Being nice is not a realistic hook, it CAN happen but not on the scale it happens in anime. Yuki is a former soccer player that now helps with the creation of Manga and he is very good and horticulture. That should NOT get you a Harem at least it would not in this world.

If this image was anime..it would be sexy!

Anime Schoolgirl seem hardwired to  fall hard for positive traits. Jotaro is the delinquent and Kakyoin is the more studious boy and the latter would be more popular in the anime. In our world Jojo would be swimming in girls. Funnily enough Naruto is the one series that deals with this quite well again. Sakura falls for the bad apple and keeps doing so despite Naruto’s effort.. the geeky girl goes for him. Still most anime girls seem to be so goody good  that they all want someone extremely respectable. That might be a cultural thing yet still to me it is weird and somewhat surreal.

In this case I’d say anime makes more sense then reality though because obviously it is way easier to see a future with a respectable person than with Fonzie. I would have so become a band geek if it had gotten me a girl! But alas! Perhaps if I turn Tsundere I will have more luck in this world! They are popular in both worlds.. even though being mistreated would not seem sexy to me.  But with that said! Subscribe and like if you haven’t already! You BAKA! Oh yeah.. I am gonna hook up tonight!

If I was Anime.. I would be sexy!

Pinkie’s Who Would Win: Yuno VS Junko

Welcome to the second ever installment of Pinkie’s Who Would Win. It has been a while since the first episode so let me explain what makes this different from other versus simulators like Death Battle… well first and foremost. There is NO Death Battle. All competitors play a simple versus board- or video game against each other.

Today we pit two of the greatest crazy woman ever against each other! I would marry them both.. if they weren’t dead! In the Blue Corner we have THE Yandere, the YUUUKI-KUN of YouTube Memes! Winner of the Universe 1 survival game! Yuno Gasai! And in the Red corner the MASTERMIND of Danganronpa, the queen of killer teddy bears herself. The Ultimate Despair! Junko Enshima! Now Let’s get ready to NONE VIOLENTLY RUMBLE! With a board game called gloom!

The Challenge

Gloom is a storytelling game centered around up to four eccentric families. Each player takes control of a weird, twisted victorian type family, such as a failing circus, a sinning rich family and a bunch of weird scientists.. who put their brains in a box or animate their teddy bears. It’s been around since 2004 and in 2005 was elected the best traditional card game of the year. It’s art style is based on the old classic picture books, from the olden days. The artwork is absolutely amazing though sparingly present. It’s a game set in victorian times and features a bit of “traditional” english which can make some words a bit tricky for non native english speakers. Yet underneath lies a game that is truly amazing.

The goal in Gloom is to make sure your own family has as much negative self worth as possible, one can finalise a negative score by killing off characters with untimely death cards. When the first family has died out the scores will be tallied up and the family who was the most miserable at THAT time, regardless if they have any living members wins. So it’s a game about murdering your family and close ones and causing despair.. jeesz.. I wonder why I picked Yuno and Junko again?!

Each player in Gloom has two actions per turn and always has give cards in hand, unaltered. However Gloom works in harsh ways.. there more miserable you make your family the more miserable play will get for you as well. If you play a card worth lots of negative self worth .. you have to decrease your hand size, or discard all your cards and NOT draw any new cards next turn, while positive cards can increase your hand size or even give you an extra turn.  So there is tactics involved in this game.  You can also force another player to give up their hand because you can play misery over ANY character that is living in the game. Deaths can only be played as your first action never as your second and only miserable characters can die.  

Each card describes an event of misfortune both players tell a joined narrative of a town housing these families and as a card is played you explain what happens to  your characters. For example the Dark’s Den of Deformities has a clown named Giggles. You can play the card “Mauled by Manatees” on him by telling “It was a gloomy sunday morning that Giggles dropped his favorite honking horn of the cliff and when he finally made the hike there.. he saw a large animal sitting near his horn. Bravely he fought that day until the beach coloured red with his blood as he was mauled by the manatees. The card’s effect than kick in and you become a bit more miserable yourself. There are also some event cards that really tell you how to play them itself.. but now that you know how to play the game let’s start our versus.

The Set-Up 

Our game would begin with Junko forcing herself to pick first. Yuno would allow this as she is still pretending to be rather friendly at this time smiling, looking forward to play a game. Junko would choose the red cards. Castle Slogar is the family name.  This family is all about weird experiments. Junko knows a thing or two about weird experiments, but the real reason she chooses it is because it has a card named Grogar. A animated Teddy bear who was made by Lady Slogar from the brain of a dead person to create the perfect groom for the daughter character. The daughters character flavor text reads, It’s a shame when a child dies at such a tender age, however in some cases it is a shame if it doesn’t . The Teddy bear and little girl relation really appeal to her I would say.

Yuno would then choose the purple family. Hemlock Hall. This is a family run by Lord Wellington-Smyte a man who looks nothing like his two children, nothing at all , however after his wife passed he become absolute fond of his children. A loving father is something Yuno would really desire. The family has also a set of twins that are possessed by demons. Yuno remembers she had a twin…sort of…once.. and she kinda met demons that made her do these things.  So it seems like a great fit. Yuno also sees the butler.. tagline, no matter what happened he did it! She rubs her hands as she already has a perfect scapegoat.

Next the order of play is determined. In Gloom the player who had the most horrible day up today, can start the game. Now this would mean that almost 100% of the time Yuno would take the first turn. Junko likes feeling despair, it is her favorite emotion, so if she had a bad day she would tell it very happily, if she had a good day she would be very bored but in this case I believe she would never win  the first turn because of her personality. Besides that, talking to your parents severed heads to tell them about how your day was and how that boy you like might sorta.. but not really like you back a bit seems more miserable than pretending to be a Teddy Bear. 

The First Half

Yuno comes out aggressively, we have seen her flip the switch several times, as soon as the chances opens up her behaviour can alter dramatically in mere moments. She would play some Misery onto Junko first. To cripple her as soon as possible so she could finish her off when at her own convenience.  Despair scores come in three slots, Upper middle and lower, and each card.. at the end is  the entire score that is visible counts. (Cards are translucent otherwise.) So for example if you play a card with -20 on a upper slot and a -10 on the lower slot, followed by a card that deals -30 to the lower slot.. that character now is worth -50, while only taking the effect of the last card played (if permanent some effects are upon play only). Yuno would force Junko to give up her entire hand, while punishing her own Nanny with a hand penalty.  Junko has to skip a turn and Yuno follows up by sealing Junko’s draw for the next turn by causing even more misery to her family. Both girls laugh as Junko is kept in a stunlock.

In Gloom you fill up your hand to the maximum of your hand size at the end of each turn, so disallowing Junko from play allowed Yuno to set up a solid base for her own field. However by doing so she has put Junko at the score lead.. she will fix that later on she thinks playing the long con. While both girls are capable of such thoughts Yuno is more level headed when it comes to accounting for the actions of another. Throughout the first half of this game, resources are still plenty, allowing her to go in aggressively. Since cards are translucent and event and untimely death cards have a symbol in the middle you can tell who is holding one of those more powerful cards and who isn’t. Yuno would attempt to gather deaths as quickly as possible lowering the chances for Junko to draw them.

Eventually Junko would get her turn though. She would have a very different playstyle as Yuno. Mostly inflicting despair upon herself. Happiness cards, she would never play even not on her opponent. She refuses to play them, turning any happy card in her hand into a dead card. She would notice this and adapt her strategy to clear her and and the board of any happiness. This strategy while giving out a lot of points, means Yunko skips a lot of turns or has to burn her hand through other means oftenly, so while she has bigger gains her playstyle is a lot more crippled than Yuno’s resulting in a tie around the halfway point.

Yuno’s stories mostly feature a young dashing rougish man named Yuki who loves is princess who has commanded him to do these certain tasks, which usually trigger the misery for the family. She identifies as one of the twin characters saying the young boy is very in love with the oldest one. Almost as if she is telling a tale of love.. set in a world where everything just falls apart. Junko’s story telling is much more vicious, when a character is “stung by bees” she would prefer to tell  the victim was stung in the eyeball and it swelled up so much that it popped out. Even things as food poisoning she tries to give permanent and dreadful consequences. Like when she gives Yuno’s maid food poisoning, lowering her negative score, she still tells a tale on how te Nanny due to her food poisoning was to slow to stop the little transgender kid from being beaten to death by a bully called Mondo. 

The Second Half

An average game last for about 45 minutes. Yuno has the strategic advantage and if play continues as is er way of dealing with things will definitely give her the victory.  She makes Junko just makes herself so miserable that her hand size is so small that she can barely take any turns. She also doesn’t have any untimely death cards in her hand because of how much she decreases her own hand size. Now all Yuno has to do is play a card to lower that score of her opponent and kill of her family. The first target she strikes happens to be the bear. She notices how Yunko favors it and wants to take it out of the equation to unbalance her  opponent. 

Junko blinks as suddenly her eyes go all swirly and her tongue goes snakelike. You do not mess with her beloved toy. She is out for revenge. As soon as she gets her first death card she immediately goes for Yuno’s father figure. While Miss Enoshima clearly is more deranged and even less lucid than Miss Gassai she is a better judge of character. She has studied characters of all sorts of dispositions, especially the larger than life ones with aggravated aspects, such as Yuno.  The Ultimate Fashionista is a much better judge of character than her opponent, who usually just deludes people into being treats and much sees characters much more one dimensionally. Junko is all about pressing where it hurts. While the 78th class member functions well when pressured her opponent who one the universe 1 survival game comes apart at the seams when facing these kind of things.

Yuno’s storytelling turns much more vicious as she remorselessly goes to hunt down every member of Junko’s family. Making them miserable and killing them off. No one hurts her father but herself. When the smoke clears .. Yuno has made herself lose the game. Her delusions pushing her into a blind rage. Junko thoroughly enjoying the ride she was on, in the end was much more able to keep her mindset stable. She likes despair either way the game goes, Monokumas have been destroyed before. The character is so insane she doesn’t break down she relishes the pain both as a giver and a receiver. Yuno was never good at dealing with pain herself. Which ends up costing her the game.

The Winner: Junko Enoshima

When the game is over Yuno realises it was just a game and normalises again. Given that Gloom is a storytelling game that lasts fairly long if you play it with any tactics , you get to know your opponent quite a bit during a game, which Junko could take use off.  After the game Yuno ends up crying for the loss off her new father.. Junko then does something she normally doesn’t she steps up to the girl and comforts her.

“I got an idea, I happen to know a lot of parents who lost their children, how about we let them participate in a death game, the winners get to live and adopt you as their daughter.. that way they will approve of the true you”. Yuno stops crying. “They would not be my real parents” Junko thinks and smiles. “I saw you carrying those heads.. we could sew the faces on the winners than they would be your real parents” The two girls look at each other with nothing but madness in their eyes as we zoom out.

The final shot would be that of a table of Gloom like cards. But there other face depicted on them. A few untimely death cards would rest on Danganronpa character like Sakura, Chihiro and Leon.  A monitor shows a silhouette of a man put a gun against another man’s head. As the trigger is pulled a female hand puts an untimely death card on a greyed man named Takaaki Ishimaru, there are a fair bit of misery points on the man. “You are not going to win this time” a girly voice says. Some screams on the monitors cut trough two girls sitting at a table giggling.

In the end since Gloom is a fairly lengthy game, in my opinion would Junko gains the upper hand in the final part. Where Yuno is much more sane and strategical she would dominate the game.. but once she loses control.. everything has to suffer and die.. and that is not best mindset to play this game. Yuno would create delusions for herself and since we tell stories about these, Junko will be able to exploit these and bring out unstable Yuno, but that is just my opinion!

Have you played Gloom? Who do you think would win? Let me know and if you visit this blog without being subscribed please do! I am very close to my next mile stone! Thank you and see you next time! Love you you all!

Pokémon Top 5: Favorite Bug-Types

Super effective against  the psychic type we discussed last week are the creepy crawlies. The bug type! A typing that oftenly is considered the weakest type, which in actuality is the ice type.  While the Bug knows quite a few lackluster Pokémon , probably the lowest base stat across the board there are a few great ones in the mix.
Here are my favorite five. 

Rules and Honorable Mentions

To keep this list diverse , a pokémon mentioned in one list can not qualify for my favorite in another list. Otherwise I could rank so many pokémon on double spots which would take the fun and the diversity away, these post are made to showcase different pokémon after all. Luckily  there is no such bug in my top five. Orbeetle came close in both psychic and bug category but there are just to many pokémon greater than it. By the same logic for diversity I am also only allowed to name one Pokemon per evolution line. If I like a prevolution but it is not viable to use in any way.. the next line will be held against it. These are my favorites in general not just my favorite looking once. As such Snom did not make the list. He is a sort of meme now he is adorable but he is completely unusable for anything besides his looks.

A Pokémon also has to feel like it belongs to the typing I discuss. If I do not identify the pokémon as a bug it will obviously not be my favorite bug type. While the bug type is probably the type I most consistently agree with.. pokémon belong to said type there is one exception and that is Pineco. The pinecone pokémon. I am not a biologist but I am pretty sure a pine cone is not really a bug. Nor is it’s evolution that is like a nut! Both should be grass type instead.  Now I know it said it’s a bagworm..but no it’s not Wormadam is a bag worm. I love Pineco though.. so it does get an honourable mention

A final honorable mention goes to Kricketune, this pokémon has the best pokémon cry in the game and that is basically someone that everyone will agree with me on. 

Bug Type Number 5
Yanmega

While Heracross and Pinsir are bugs I hold close to my heart, I never really liked their movesets.  Henry the Yanma was a companion during one of my first adventures in pokémon Gold. It was such a happy little fellow and he performed quite well for a bug. I loved Henry, but I had to give him up just before the pokémon league  to stand a better change. I wished it was just a bit better. Gen IV answered my prayers. Henry II evolved into a mean green fighting machine. It is one of the most awesomely designed bugs, though bug types are very well designed in general. Surprisingly so.  Would this list have been about design I would have had a much harder time. I guess it makes sense since pokémon started as a bug catching game idea.

When I said it was mean and green I am not kidding either. Yanmega fighting style is described as biting apart foes while flying at high speeds. Being able to flap it wings so hard that it can also cause critical internal injuries.  That is pretty scary, the shiny is even scarier. It’s a sickly blue with bright pink dots. It looks like it’s about to bite you apart.. but don’t worry you won’t even know it did. Apparently it is so fast that it can quarter you in an instant. A full restore isn’t going to fix that one. Nor would a revive I think.

Yanmega in combat is a bit of a tricky one to use. It is a bug so it’s frail.  It can come with the ability Speed Boost and honestly that is always the ability you want to use on this dragonfly.  It is a really good ability. This mon can be good with some rock, flying and bug moves at it’s disposal. It covers most of its weaknesses and has a immunity and two quad-resistances. (Damage is only 25% of what it would be on a normally effective pokemon). Yanma evolves into Yanmega when learning ancient power. When Ancient Power is used has a chance to boost all stats of Yanmega with one tier.  While the move has low base power we often see this attack come into play with this pokémon. Not because it’s effective but because it’s fun.

If Yanmega is set up enough and gets lucky enough it can sweep trough teams but there is always a chance it doesn’t get there.  Having Speed Boost means usually one slot of your moves is spend for protect. To guarantee you can outspeed anyone. Usually I run it with air slash, bug buzz and ancient power, but I have made variations of the set.  As an item I tend to give it a kings rock.. just for fun and flinch chances. Weakening berries are also a good option for it to use.

Bug Type Number 4
Shuckle

Here Pinkie goes again, putting another useless pokémon in her top 5’s. Shuckle is NOT a good pocket monster!? Wrong.. Shuckle is terrifying.Shuckle is the most defensive pokémon in the entire game. It can get so high defence that is is ny immortal. I have battled with shuckle hearing people cry in agony over how broken the little thing is. I deeply hope that one day it will get an evolution…just a slip of their mind.  Not because I really want to use A Shuckler , but so I can break the defences of the worm in a rock even harder. It would be unbreakable. That is pretty neat.

On first glance you’d say that Shuckle looks rather weak and that would be true it has the lowest attacking stats there are in the game.  A total of 20 (10 in each)  for attacks make it the weakest offensive pokémon in the game. While Chansey’s physical attack is lower than Shuckle’s it’s special attack is higher.  Happiny ties with it.  Yet Shuckle has the highest defence stat of any pokémon. Shuckles BASE unboosted defence is 230  his special defence is as well. This means that a Shuckle is tougher than a MEGA-Steelix and MEGA-Aggron. While both have 230 points in one stat shuckle has it in both.  Now to make things worse Shuckle get access to Shell Smash and can have the hidden abillity Contrary.. in which stat upgrades become downgrades and downgrades become upgrades.  This means that Shuckle can fairly easily boost it’s defences to 1120 without applying EV’s .

If you are patient Shuckle can win by doing absolutely nothing. If you do not get toxic, IOW if you can get your own Shuckle Paralysed, it can use toxic and infestation to out-stall your opponent in pure despair. Friends gave up on battles with me just because they forgot to bring a counter for my Shuckle.. or I kill the counters for Shuckle before they can use them against the little creature. There is no real set to run on it. You always run it with Toxic, Infestation, Shell Smash and usually Protect, though I prefer Sand storm. There is no real other way around it..but people sleep on this pokémon so much that in all it’s cuteness it can seem like an Eldritch Being.. So it earns a place on my list.

Bug Type Number 3
Volcarona

My middle of the list Pokémon is actually a Semi-Pseudo Legendary. What does this mean?  Well A Pseudo-Legendary pokémon is something that is NOT a legendary but has over 600 base stats. A semi-pseudo legendary has only a smidge less but the pokémon are usually so rare or hard to obtain/work with they are often mistaken to be part of the elusive group. It still means this pokémon will be pretty powerful! Also it can die from a slightly bouncy pebble on the side of the road so be careful when you use it. Probably that is the reason why it is not an actual Pseudo Legendary right?! But let’s take a dip into its lore. 

Volcarona replaces the sun when it’s light is blocked out by Volcanic ashes. When it fights it sets the sky ablaze with the tiny embers that fall when it falls from its wings. Because of how scary a burning sky looked ancient civilisations fear this creature thinking it was some harbinger of the apocalypse as it displayed the rage of the sun. Historical tales tell how it was born from a flaming cocoon to save people and pokémon that were starving from the cold. Now I can see how people reading the pokédex would attribute some legendary qualities to it. The way it is often found will only heighten that idea and the fact that you need to train a Larvesta up to level 59! To get it to evolve makes it even more elusive and special feeling. That is also the reason why this pokemon doesn’t take the top spot for me… because honestly.. you’ll never really end up using this sun god bug in playthroughs.

Competitively , the fact that is four times weak to rock and that makes it a bit hard to use.  It is in theory a more reliable variant of Yanmega. It does the same thing only instead of flying type moves it attacks with fire.. which is cooler already a bug tossing fire is more interesting than  a bug flapping its wings. It’s signature move Fiery dance has a 50% chance to boost it’s best stat, special attack by one stage. That stat is 135.. for this pokémon.. meaning this pokémon can burn and buzz as hard if not slightly harder than a Machamp can punch.  Mewtwo has a special attack of 154.. so this pokémon in terms of offence almost equals Mewtwo.. Mew and Celebi for example only have 100 in these stats so it has them beat. If you teach this Pokémon Silver Wind.. which is basically the same move as Ancient Power but as a bug type move along side Fiery Dance it becomes a self buffing maniac that lives up to his semi-pseudo legendary status. 

Bug Type Number 2
Galvantula

How shocking! My second favorite pokémon is the six legged spider Galvantula. Now this spot is sometimes swapped with Ariados depending on my mood. However since my number 1 spot shares it’s typing with Ariados Galvantula usually ends up on top. It’s a nice Pokémon to use even if this one has the worst stats yes of any pokémon on this list. Why is it so high? Why because I adore Joltik..it’s so super cute that I love carrying it with me, when it transforms into an okay Pokémon that is enough for me!  It gets saved by it’s main ability which make it quite useful and it looks darn good. It’s shiny is subtle but impressive and while it’s six legs might make it not a spider.. it is still a great creature to have on my squad.

Bug and Electric are usually staples I do not oftenly run on my team. Electric is something I’d rather play the Ice Type for, and  I usually have something to cover the things bug beats already as well. However when combined it is a really effective type combo that usually fits rather well in my time and that I can have fun building a theme around. It has no real interesting pokédex lore though.. most of it mentioning it has electric webs that paralyses it’s pray while it eats it leisurely.  Kind of what we would expect from an electric spider though. On my first playthrough of Unova (Black and White) I had a Joltik/Galvantula named Lemon. I think I chosen Snivy as a Starter and ended up replacing it with Lemon as my squad leader.. because I liked it more. 

In combat Galvantula is good because of its ability Compound eyes, which boosts accuracy of moves by 30% This means Thunder is suddenly very reliable.  Teach it Sticky Web as an entry hazard (which lowers enemy speed) and it can take big chucks of health away from whoever faces it. Teach it Electro Web to give your other team members a speed advantage as well, teach it Bug Buzz to lower special defence.. Galvantula is there to make you help you drop your opponents stats . Which kind of feels it make a bit like a real spider. Not that a real  spider really lowers your speed but once you are caught in its web you are big trouble. Since it only has six legs I am also not as freaked out as I see it.. I think it’s cute! Which is weird what another set of legs can do.  Speaking of legs.. are those mouth legs feelers or legs .. could it be it only has 4? It usually seems to rest on them so maybe they are both?!

Bug Type Number 1
Scolipede

Stat-wise this Pokémon is almost a physical counterpart to it’s generation friend  Galvantula. (Gen V had really good bugs) With a speed stat of 112 and a attack stat of 100 it does seem “average” in the bigger sea of Pokémon. However I REALLY prefer this thing. A pokémon I could only describe as a Centipede War horse from hell. It is called the Megapede Pokémon and if you google the word you find out this is indeed a very correct way to describe it. This horse from hell also gets the Speed Boost ability which means it’s super fast. There is no running away from a thing that can gallop so fast.

Scolipede chases after it’s target and then grabs them by their neck using its claws. Keeping tight.. as soon as your resistance begins to weaken and you begin to pass out it injects you with a deadly poison to finish you off. If you try to run it will maul you with it’s horn and it will keep horn until it prevails. Resistance is futile you will be murdered. This pokémon is also a perfect pokémon for the evil team to use. It does feel menacingly and evil and rather than someone sending in a Raticate.. this feels at least somewhat scary. It’s evolution line tells a story and it is based on Kaiju there is a lot of planning that went into this pokémon. It’s shiny is a bit lackluster, just brighter red and a more sickly detail colour it doesn’t really do anything for me the original is way better. Purple venom feels more poisonous than blue turquoise poison. Don’t ask me why but it is! Well Actually Turquoise seems painful.. purple more deadly.

In combat there are sets that are so broken it had to be banned with special rules. Using the Move Sword Dance, this Pokémon can use it’s speed up ability to boost two super important stats two stages at the same time. It then can pass those stat boosts on to better pokémon using the move Batton Pass. A big no no in the competitive scene , especially since this pokémon can deal some massive damage itself as well. It can just burn itself out till it’s near death then switch all those stats onto the next pokemon.  Mega Horn and Poison Jab are usually the moves you want to use on this beast and when it has at least one Sword Dance up that makes this beast a proper sledgehammer of a bug. It is one of the bugs that uses the strongest bug type move and if it could ever learn the new Leech Life it will be truly something to fear and it already scares me quite a bit…which is good since it’s a bug type! It should!

Who is your favorite Bug-Type? Which bug deserves a shout-out?! Would you like to have any of these as your pocket monster? Don’t be a fly on the wall! Crawl into the comments and bee part of this. Ant don’t forget to leave a like! Bugs like some sugar!

The Power of Me: My Voice on My Blog

Hello Island Guests today I am talking about a topic that is very important to me. A motivator a life goal yet something on the internet that is both trickier and easier than in real life. Being  yourself. Today I want to talk to you about some lessons I learned while blogging, that I apply. Chosen routes that lead to distress and choices I made I am happy about. Like Mario said… let’s go.

My Moe Voice

The first thing you need to do to be yourself is pick out a style that works for yourself.  These will be a framework for your posts but will be able to tell you when you are a bit off track. For example I think I have a fairly light hearted style where I cute things up a bit. Yet originally I tried that a bit to much, like I was writing as a character, and while Pinkie still is an exaggerated version of my truest self for entertainment purposes she isn’t anything I am not.. except for pink haired or donned with twin spirals.  Personalities work to draw in readers quicker, as people like flamboyant characters  more in general take a look at YouTube. However all YouTubers who do personas regularly burn out and I noticed on WordPress this is much the same. 

When I originally started this blog I dreamed of YouTube fame, but my lack of vocal control and my friends help of time to support led into me going to WordPress, however I took those same expectations with me. My gimmick on YouTube would not work on WordPress so I deluded myself into dreams of grandeur.. I threw my voice to reach that and burned out.
While that cutesie thing is a part of me, I am actually not an anime character so I can not constantly write like one. I wanted to be genuine.. and I think that inspiration is important to be on WordPress. Blogging unlike YouTube I think works best if you are yourself. If we want to simply be entertained, I’d imagine we all go to YouTube.. WordPress is more about community, so while I have my natural Moe elements, I really should not exaggerate it Desu Nee Nyan!?

Talking to Myself

The second thing I noticed was that I should not write my blog for my followers. It’s impossible for me to understand you all and even rude to think that I could do so. It is very easy to follow like patterns and base my blog on that. Talks like these usually get a lot of likes, I should do them more?! Anime stuff gets more like than gaming stuff, I should drop gaming and just focus more on anime right? No! When I want to play a game, I do not want to watch anime instead just because 5 people in america pressed a button more than on that gaming post.  With all due respect to you all you would not be worth that. In fact I dare say we all ignored these type of pleas in the past, when we became geeks and people told us cartoons are for children.  We should play outside instead of inside. We stayed ourselves then.. yet when anonymous people like your post it suddenly is harder?


I discovered my blog is something I do for me! I do not want to crush anyone’s dreams here but if you wish to go pro, I am not sure WordPress is the way. Commercial writing usually means writing without a voice. Write based on numbers and statistics, catering to the market. It  means following a set of rules which would break my heart and spirit to do. Irina wrote about those. That blogging bloke said some things I really did not like or support. As it wasn’t something I could do I had to make a choice. I could attempt to make the best of it and prove them wrong and make it big my own way, which is just a delusion and set-up to disappointment, quit blogging as what I wanted to reach and how I wanted to reach it was not meant to fit together or I could write just for the heck of it. I chose the latter. I write because I want to, write about what I want to and you follow because you like me doing that.

Talking to my Followers

A good follower doesn’t follow you because you share their opinion on Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, a good follower doesn’t follow you just because you made three anime posts and now he expects a fourth. A good follower follows, because they like your voice. Everyone who comments here and interacts with me stuck with me since I just blogged about Pokémon. Most of you aren’t even that on Pokémon. No one stopped following me after I changed my style and my comment section is the liveliest it has ever been. Sure my game reviews and fan fiction perform a lot less than my talks about anime or movies, but I like what they add to the blog in their own right. Each day I can write something diverse, explore new things on the internet and that makes me happy!  After my most recent mental spell in which I really had to cut back blogging I came back for me. My likes have dropped a bit but I have never been happier.

I honestly do hope you have a great time with my writing but honestly, I think the healthy way of blogging is to see your appreciation as a side effect. I see it more as a fun puzzle. What jokes can I put in there to make people smile? How can I phrase this as me! How do I put myself on paper as a brand but still get my point across. I do not always succeed but what you see is me. I try to leave something of myself behind, I wanted to meet people through this blog and I have made some awesome connections. Maybe a bit more silent as I thought but bonds nonetheless.  Would I love internet fame? Sure! Yet I shifted perspective.. I do not want to be famous because I CAN appeal to to the masses. If I happen to be so charming and pink that eventually I gather an army and riches than I happily welcome it. I call it the zero expectations plan. When I write for you all, I can set myself up for failing. You could dislike a post I made for you. When I write for me I am more in  control?! Is the article good? Nah! Did I have fun writing it, yes! I still win. 

So I guess the true way to  draw people in is make them actual fans. You’ll gain a lot less of them but I know there are people out there who genuinely care.  Who genuinely enjoy reading my work because it’s my work and it has my voice. Those are the followers I want to write for and those are the followers I do not need to write for because I am already doing that by writing for myself.  Foovay is perhaps the biggest example that comes to mind, she has been so supportive and sweet for so long now. I known Senpai spends a lot of time on my blog as well and my friend the Holy Mailman even made an account so he can interact more. Yet there are plenty of you out there that I very much appreciate. Everyone commenting and  plenty who like as well. The blessing of a small community!

Speaking from the Heart

I am not as much into anime as the most of you, I watch it weekly rather than daily, sometimes several times a week.. but hey I think my average anime episodes a week is far below PAR here. For a while I thought that would make me an outcast.  There is so much I can not talk about. I chose to let it make me alien and alone. I felt adrift. Trapped in between worlds. I saw it as a weakness. Yet recently I began seeing it as a strength.  That is who I am, I am different. Same goes for gaming, I care not for most recent games , I hate Fortnite with a passion, I am not likely to get hyped about the new Assassins Creed, I don’t even like Kingdom Hearts all that much. I like retro stuff more.  I do not care about romantic comedies much, I mostly like geeky movies, yet on occasion I really enjoy the first as well and would still like to talk about it.  At times I might be alone and I am easily misunderstood, yet at the same time that is what makes me interesting. 

Because of how the internet reacts to things it can be easy to believe you can only form bonds with those who share your opinion. If I proclaim that I dislike Lelouche on Twitter for example people would threaten me with death or bow to me like I am preaching the gospel of a new god. It is hard to flip that switch, but just because I disagree with some bloggers out there, or you disagree with me doesn’t mean we can not bond. I was afraid of that. Friendships are often formed by being the same but what makes friendship nice is being different.

Imagine this scenario. You have two friends Bob and Rob, you are now called Gus btw… say you say “I could go for a burger” Bob says “me too” Rob Says “I’d rather have a pizza” , two votes win so you get your burger.. point for Bob!  “I want to go to the Drunken Donkey” you say next “Me too” goes Bob  “I’d rather go to the Pissed Pig” Rob says. At the Drunken Donkey you and Bob order the same drink, dig the same girl and Rob drinks another sort of beer.. a special one.. how pedantic.  Now you begin to talk about how much you liked Steins Gate..  Bob says “Me To” 

Rob disagrees and talks about the pacing issues in the first episode. Which of the two is a more interesting friend to talk to? With Bob you would always talk about the same thing, drink the same drink, stare at the same girl and talk about anime you both like. With Rob you go places where you have never gone before you might argue more ..but  you might try a new beer, you might discover anime you didn’t know about. I want to be friends with Rob’s rather than Bob’s and I rather would be a Rob than a Bob as well. 

No one is 100% the same if Bob says Me too all the time, and believe me I know Bob.. he does,  he is not being genuine with you. Well unless he is your clone of course.. but why would Gus name his clone Bob. Wow I really got of track there. Point is don’t be like Bob. If people really like Animal Crossing and you don’t do not write a post in which you love it. Yes you might get more views and more likes but your true followers will know this is not you. Do it to often and maybe even those loyal followers will just stop following you, thinking you are not genuine.

I’d rather have 1 Irina or Foovay as 50 people who like I post because I did a popular thing. If I could trade you guys in for 50 followers each as long as I write about popular stuff, I’d honestly choose you guys. Well unless one those 50 tips 1000 dollars on kofi each week.. then I’d sell out. Still I rather have one follower who follows me because they like my voice rather than a group following me for what i once said.  If you read this I already count you to the better category. By being me without compromise I also hope to only gain people like you!..Well plus that 1000 dollar guy… 

And the Rest is Silence

Now this means I will be a much more rogue element in the future. I will change things when I want to them to change. I might promise you to write about one thing and then write about another. Feel free to remind me in my comments I probably had an idea when I came up with said topic.. but for now I embrace the chaos in my head.  Pinkie’s Paradise is an island in my grey matter  and I should use that habitat to make it the best it can be.  Where happy unicorns can float by and weird analogies are plenty.  My wisdoms might be different from the more studious under you and I might write less analogies that I could publish to universities, I might not win a Pulitzer  either..  how do those even look? I somehow imagine it to be Eiffel-Towerey. I used to care.. because I wanted to be acknowledged..  I wanted people to remember me, should I one day be gone.. I just focussed on the remembering part to much while I should have focussed on the me part.

Now I am much happier. Regardless of message, popularity and electronic stats, what I leave behind is me. Geek Girl Joy noticed my love for ducks from my posts, Holy Mailman might commission one of my Pinkie  gets anime powers  stories because he really liked it.  That is the true beauty of blogging. Someone saw me through my posts, another was really happy with something I came up with. I know my blog-tag did fairly well and I have another new one coming up soon a rather unique one that is bound to fail, but by Arceus will I have fun with it. So while I might sound like a selfish brat,  that is something I can be , because you allow me to. This blog isn’t for you.. it is because of you!  Because of you blogging becomes even more fun than it would be without you. You are my Fire Flower, and at times my Invincibility Star. You are my mushrooms! Yet I am Mario. You might help me on my adventure..but it is I who has to hit the flag post! Now that I realise that everything seems easier!  I follow my voice, I follow my heart and I hope you guys will follow me as well, but that one is optional.

A BIT of Nostalgia: Ducktales

Look at the past, my darling Island Guests!
Game are and Strange and Vast, Filled with wonders and tests.
Face each old game with eyes clear and true!
Today will be awesome..as I play Ducktales Woooohoo.

Pinkie is going to piss some people of with these opinions

Incredible respect for those who were able to sing that opening rather than reading it! We are kindred spirits. Today I re-review what is possibly a contender for my most favorite game ever. Along with Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger this game means so much to me. So I will already tell you it might receive a high score!  I wanted to see if my treasured gem still could stand the face of time. It sure did.  While it’s length is very short in this day and age, that applied to many other games. What it still gives is an amazing unique mechanical platform experience.  A game that heavily inspired Crankey’s Moveset in the later Donkey Kong games and of course the noble Shovel Knight. This without a shadow of doubt in my mind is the single best licensed game ever made. Beating Turtles in Time, Epic Mickey , Kingdom Hearts and even GoldenEye.

The reason it’s better than those last two, DuckTales hasn’t aged as poorly. It’s controls are still butter smooth in its simplicity, the enemy attack patterns still work and challenge you, the hunt for the best ending is not that hard because the game lasts about an hour  or so if you  are a bit thorough but well versed in it. Maybe a bit less even. Despite of it being easy there is a sense of joy in hunting these treasures and playing these stages which all are quite diverse. We have a jungle theme level, a horror themed level, an underground one, a snow and ice themed one and of course the moon. Home to my most beautiful memory and my favorite song ever..probably. Every stage has just a bit of a different feeling and some secrets to unlock. Mind you.. there is not much secrets.. but is just a great joy to boot this game up a few times and just play through these great stages. GoldenEye’s controls now deeply disappointed and Kingdom Hearts gameplay really shows its age when it comes to collecting and progress.

She is totally being genuine though she really loves this game!

The graphics are vibrant for NES all sprites are very recognisable for what they should be. Even the tribal guys I can still very distinctly tie to when they encountered similar character in the series.  Yet for some weird reason Dewey wears green look Louis.. why?!  It’s a quirk I always wandered about and one the excellent remakes fixes, yet now that I played the original I can say I vastly prefer it over the remake. The speed of which you can run through this game is what makes it so timeless. The Remake added some extra exploratory requirements to all stages, that are much more in your face.  You need to do so.. in the original .. you COULD do that if you want. If you want the good ending it is probably wise. You can also make things very hard for yourself and try to get the bad ending (which is extremely hard to do.. without hacking nigh impossible) It’s that type of game that isn’t very challenging but you make your own challenge for.. We can do that to old games but Ducktales lends itself even better for such things than Mario because of its  unique jumping system (at the time).

This whole game is build around the pogo jump! A bouncy but deadly way of attacking using a cane. I guess if Dr Jekyll tried this out he might have not had such a sucky NES game.  The pogo stick is unique to Ducktales even though it later got mimicked.. this was the main gimmick of the game and boy was it used well. In a way Mario stole from ducktales when they came  up with the spin jump as it basically does everything the pogo jump does. It allows you to bounce of spiky objects or in mario’s case spike enemies. It can break blocks and it destroyed enemies.  When Mario steals from you when it comes to platforming you know you are on the right track. The life system is also nicely done in Ducktales. Lives are finite and a single game over makes you start all over but you can spend  money for extra lives as well as find extra lives and health upgrades across the stages. This means that you always have to balance exploring and clearing with each other. Getting sidetracked may drain your life..but you might gain life as well. Even if there is not you can buy lifes using your overworld score make sure you reach the end.. but without having the best ending.  Balanced!

Seriously if this game was an anime girl she would waifu it!

Ducktales is not hard to beat, not even on the harder difficulties , it’s fairly forgiving and any mistakes you make are your fault, there is little cheap enemies here or impossible to dodge attacks.  You just need to learn…or remember by heart because you played this game so much. Yet Ducktales would have been made for younger kids most likely so it makes sense they get a game of this difficulty. When I was a kid it had the perfect difficulty for me and now.. now I just need to expand my challenges from time to time.  Back in the 80’s and early 90’s this was a common practice in gaming.  “I challenge you to beat Mario 1-1 without collecting a  single coin’  ‘Beat Glass Joe without taking a single hit’  we used to egg each other on for extra challenges. In fact Nintendo even made a few retro collection games around this concept.

Ducktales is very cleverly designed in a way that this game can be used in such a way. We have a money score we can use for high-scores, there is a timer we can race with, there is several routes and additional tricky obstacles and several methods of traversing obstacles that making challenge each other or yourself  is super fun. While maybe not especially designed around it back than that was possible. Nowadays games hold your hand to much or offer you so much freedom that a choice of playstyle is irrelevant.  Playing a  game alternatively now doesn’t work because either a game tells you to finish this boss with X or there are 20.994 ways to defeat a boss and your chosen options is just.. one.

While the Ducktales game could use some more iconic bosses the whole world building still feels like a part of it’s world.  Of course we have the boss from the African Mines which directly links to the show and the Magica Despell fight in Transilvania , a moon rat and and an amazone statue feel a bit meh. Why not Glomgold or Mother Beagle? Yet I do feel the statue and the moon rat really make sense at the same time.. like they are supposed to be there.   Where most video game enemies can feel forced in, I never had that much with Ducktales.. except for some Beagle Boys underneath the surface of the moon. Effort went into building this world and back then.. Capcom basically was the only one to really do that.. at least in such a diverse setting. It is simple but it works and thus it becomes timeless.

Yep she is gonna talk about THAT again! Crazy Fangirl Alert

Of course Ducktales biggest charm is it’s presentation. All the characters  except for Dewey look like their series counterpart. You can tell everything apart. Purple was a colour that could not be implemented in the game so Magica Despell and Miss Beakley have some weird moments, but they are in there, you know who they are without reading a manual and they do what you expect.

Everything does what you expect..well maybe not Turbo because he doesn’t crash but can actually fly! Still despite of it’s limited graphics I never had trouble imagining how it would look like, plenty of iconic characters are hidden throughout the game. There is just a lot of love for the series and gaming in general in this little cartridge and it shows…. and  is audible
Yes time to gush about the moon theme as well. One of the most iconic video game music pieces of all time. Yet also the opening theme using the actual series theme was great, the sound when you climb up a vine or rope, the theme in the amazon.. the sound your pogos-tick makes. It’s all fantastic. 

I seriously spend about two minutes in the amazon just climbing up and down on the first rope just to hear those sounds again..searched for the hidden  room in Transylvania so I had to do a lot of mini pogo bounces. It all is just perfect for a platformer. This is what my childhood sounds like.  Wiggu Wiggu Wiggu and the Moon Theme. This music still leads a life to this day..making its way into official new products, becoming cannon in ducktales lore. Capcom where the masters of video game soundtracks and this one is amazing once again.

2:50 for some good Wiggu Wiggu Wiggu Action

I could stretch this post out and pretend like I care about the minor flaws like how it was not needed to press down to activate the pogo, or how the mine carts have a bit of a sticky control scheme making them needlessly tricky.  I could tell you about a scene where Scrooge actually tosses his cousins off a cliff with a minecart he is riding and telling you they could have done that differently. No.. that all doesn’t matter. Nowadays we think a 10/10 game should have no flaws and we should remorselessly point out everything that is wrong with it. That is not right. A 10/10 game to me is a game that is so fun to play that despite its flaws you will boot it up again. Each time you play, regardless if it crashes regardless if controls can glitch a bit or some elements seem wrong, you smile. 

Ducktales is a game I love so sooo much that whatever flaws are in there.. don’t matter to me. It has no impact on my experience with the game. Each time I beat this game and I think I have beaten it (across both version) well over 30 times now (if not closer to 50) and each I keep on smiling. Each playthrough as fun as it was my first. Ducktales was the first game I loved.. so in a way this is my Number 1 Dime.. this is what made me a gamer and when I play it today I still feel.. this is why I am a gamer.  No matter if listen to the soundtrack, play a single stage or complete the game, when I play Ducktales I feel like the richest person/duck in the world.