A New Pokemon Journey Begins

Good afternoon everybody,

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday...

Last night stream featured Pokemon Shining Pearl, and needless to say, there is something about it that bugs me and that is the apparent day / night dynamic that may prevent me from putting together a well rounded team of Pokemon... which also is making me regret picking Piplup as the starter, as a water type, because I have read that fire types are few and far between in this game. I've also noticed some weird balance issues where the game will make the final Pokemon of major encounters a lot tougher than it probably should be to deal with.

I think one of the most divisive things I've read about Pokemon Shining Pearl (and it's counterpart Brilliant Diamond) is the art style is the chibi format for mostly everything except battles and major cut scenes. I get why this is the case, as it resembles the original release... but when you look at Pokemon Shield and Let's Go Eevee where there was an uniformed look from world to cut scenes to battles, the Chibi art style can look very jarring 

That said, I am intrigued by what the hell Team Galactic is up too of capturing Pokemon, creating energy and having their sights set on the stars and on ruling the world (or region). Of the 43 Pokemon I've seen, I've caught about 22 of them, the biggest missed opportunity was an Abra. But I did discover that since I've played both Pokemon Shield and Let's Go Eevee, I was able to get two Pokemon, them being Mew and Jirachi, which means having two Psychic type early could make things a lot more straight forward.

Also leveling up a low level Pokemon is a lot more accommodating in Shining Pearl than it was  in both Shield and Eevee, once I had Mew and Jirachi, I put Mew in the party, and it didn't take too long to get it caught up to the rest of my squad... where as in Shield it would take a while to get a new Pokemon caught up and in Eevee it was just better to catch a higher level version of something that fit into the party.

How fare did we get in the first night? Well we cleared the first two gyms as well as had the first two major encounters with Team Galactic... and I believe my usual approach to Pokemon games of over level every one to compensate for match-up difficulties should be able to carry me through to the end of the game... which means a lot of grinding in terms of battling wild Pokemon in addition to trainer battles on the way to the next gym. Which I suspect would be around level 30... and my team at the moment is like 20-25. 

Now when will Pokemon Shining Pearl be featured, well at the moment I believe it will settle in to the Friday night slot starting next week. So that will shake out the rest of the week like this.... Saturday for Final Fantasy XIV... Sunday Night with Overwatch... Monday & Tuesday for Shadow of the Tomb Raider... Wednesday split between Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2 & Gears of War 4... Thursday for Jump Force. Seems like a logical lineup!

Anyway, following the stream we sent he fun over to Hawleigh who was playing Kingdom Hearts III over at twitch.tv/hawleigh! 

Twitch Clip Links

1. We win the rematch!
2. Let's Hope It Stays In The Ball 
3. It's Super Effective! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hook Combo #1, Waist Shape Focus Combo and Block Combo for a duration of 31 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of479 kcal.

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise EX Achievements

1. Unparalleled Stamper: Acquire 350 Stamps
   

As indicated the Unparalleled Stamper achievement is apart of the EX set in Fitness Boxing 2, which becomes available once you unlock all of the normal achievements within the game. It does bring forward a new achievement to chase, which is Honored Stamper, which is to  Acquire 400 stamps.

My Final Fantasy XIV adventures following last night's stream was focused on the Manderville quests... and without question, it was the most gentlemanly adventure within Final Fantasy XIV. With it's own unique trials and a hilarious mystery that involves revenges, sisters and zombies, it certainly is worth checking out. But now I find out there are two more quests lines associated with the most gentlemanly of investigators for both Heavansward and Stormblood... I'm eager to track those down!

Grabbed a few things on-sale for Black Friday: Garfield Kart Racing, Fight Night Champions, The Witcher 2 & 3. Figure we can pair up the first two games on a special double header to look at, while The Witcher games would be for larger campaigns.

For tonight's stream, well we're going to try and make it a Jump Force stream to continue it's story, if it gets bogged down with the issues from Tuesday then we'll do some random stuff! 

Either way see ya over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!