My First Yu-Gi-Oh Regional

Hello, all 5 of you who clicked my link on Facebook to read this. Tonight I'm just gonna go over my experience with the Yu-Gi-Oh Regional Tournament that took place in Norcross, GA last night (Oct 13, 2013) at the Hilton Hotel. This was the first time I've ever attended a Tier 2 tournament, and I was lucky enough to be selected as a Floor Judge.

The day started with the deck list/registration line. I was on deck list checking and that was a long sit. I was sitting right next to the cashier so I was one of the first to hear when we were reaching capacity and when we, eventually, hit it and started essentially scraping the bottom of the barrel to find more registration booster packs to get some more people into the game. We sadly had to send some people home with nothing. I know it had to suck, but we broke the record for our regionals by over 90 people. The floor was packed with duelists, and we even ran out of table space for some duelists and had to make special accommodations for them.

We got into Round 1 and I was pleased to find out at that point that I would be on the floor for the duration of the event. This meant I could be on my feet and moving about, answering judge calls, and helping players along. I was surprised at how many judge calls I ended up getting early on. They had me positioned towards the lower tables, where people with lower scores gravitate. I ended up breaking out of that area more often than I thought I would and answered a ton of judge calls for rulings and, a lot more frequently, no shows. I really enjoyed this particular job and honestly doubt I'd want any other job at a tournament. A couple of judges gave me some praise throughout the early event (and more so later, explained below) so I felt pretty welcome. A good 4 rounds or so passed without any incident for me. Every time I got my ruling appealed the head judge ended up giving the same ruling as me, I didn't have to solve issues that would result in a penalty (aside from someone who had their Extra Deck sleeved differently).

It was either Round 5 or Round 6 that I discovered that one of the guys I rode with, as well as myself, had our belongings stolen from the trunk of the car. Yes, the trunk of the car. No cameras in the lot and no witnesses. Every Yu-Gi-Oh card I owned was in that trunk and is probably helping someone make a dirty profit as I type this now. To say the least I was absolutely livid that this had to happen at my first regional when I was enjoying myself so much. After boiling about it for a couple of minutes I went to my team lead and, after explaining what happened, told him that I'd like to at least keep up what I was doing before the incident. Naturally none of the judges had any problem with me continuing as a judge since we were, as I said earlier, at capacity. It was also around this time that me and my friend, in our infinite wisdom, didn't call the police or file a report (what are the odds of getting stolen cards back, after all).

At the end of Round 7, the guy who I was riding home with decided to drop since he was on the low end of the bracket. I let Richard (HJ) know and he dismissed me. I did receive my comp, despite not making it to the single elimination brackets (EDIT: Yeah, that doesn't happen now, I messed up here) but the booster packs didn't have much of anything beneficial to me, especially after having everything stolen and no collection to add it to. The judges were all really cool with me as was the TO at the end of the day. It's difficult to say that there was anything I disliked about the event itself aside from losing all my cards.

So what's next? Well I don't really have a means to rebuild from what I lost. Financially I'm just not capable of starting over with the collection I had. I'm a guy who is very specific about what he wants, and the cards that I had I had for a reason. The time, effort, and money required to get all of that back is just insane for me right now. I really would like to just continue judging and see how I feel about the game from that perspective. I still have DevPro to play when I'm at home, but I think that's as much as I can get.

Sadly, the Yu-Gi-Oh community is mostly filled with those who put profit over everything. Stealing, cheating, and ripping off the less experienced is something that happens all too often and is something that pays off for the malicious individuals more often than not. There's no way to crack down on this behavior without making the people who come into this with innocent intentions feel uncomfortable or bring what should be a fun game into an even more strict and more tedious chore for the players who want to compete. It's a lose-lose situation and, without inspecting every single person's belongings before they leave, there's just no way to prevent thieves from being thieves. Just doing so would make people not want to show up to begin with.

I do hope to judge more tier 2 tournaments in the future, and all I can say is that this was a huge and eventful day. Good or bad, it was a learning experience.

The anatomy of a playable Trading Card

Another round at Customizable Card Games, I decided to take an in-depth look at the actual cards this time around. The card games I've played include Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT (surprisingly it is its own game, but plays in a way that's mostly similar to DBZ), and Duel Masters. I won't really reference Duel Masters or GT due to how similar they are to other games, making them redundant examples.

With Customizable Card games constantly coming out with new content, as well as entire new games coming out and others completely dying, we see a lot of diversity in rules and communities. One thing I've noticed that sees less diversity is the actual card. Most games that are successful tend to have a set template that follows:

What it is, what it looks like, and what it does.

As seen above, these are 4 different games that all met success (though the Dragon Ball Z card game died as the anime reached its end in America) all use the same basic layout to show these 3 things. The name is at the top of the card, typically towards the left side. Below the name is a picture showing what the entity that the card represents is supposed to look like. Below the picture (sometimes below more identifying information such as type) is a text box that tells you what kind of effects or abilities the card has that can affect the game.

Well no shit. You really are talented at pointing out the obvious.

Sure maybe we've grown accustomed to it and maybe some people have picked up on the resemblances between games, but I assure you many out there just haven't taken this kind of thing into account. Most people don't bother noticing because when they do take on multiple customizable card games they're just so used to the one that they play that they just naturally are used to the placement and don't bother questioning it, or even worse, admiring it.

So what? How is it important?

Well the first thing about it is the ease of use for people who play multiple games. As I said people just become accustomed to the format of their cards so when they look at a card from another game, even without know the rules, they can usually identify very quickly what the card's name is, what the entity is supposed to look at, and where to read the ability/effect. What goes further is that this is a tried and true formula, dating back to the origin of the first CCG, Magic the Gathering.

Since the genre is categorized as a Collectible Card Game or Trading Card Game, it's natural that the first thing people need is the identity of the card. Anyone who has traded or bought a single card should appreciate this aspect as you typically don't ask for the card by its effect text or other attributes, you ask for the card by name. I'm not too knowledgeable on other languages around the world, but with English we're taught to read from left to right and top to bottom. With something that has text on it we'll look at the top left corner out of habit simply because it's how we receive text-based information. It's no coincidence that a game that seconds as a collecting and trading hobby has the main identity of the card be placed where you would first logically start reading.

But people often identify cards by their artwork? Why isn't that first?

Well I don't play Vanguard but I believe it actually does put the artwork before everything else on the card. That aside, I'd say the reason that the name is first is because it is the first way to identify the card. Sure, when you're looking for a card you want you'll know the artwork, but without the name what would you ask for, "That one card with the picture of a black robed man with a staff"? No, you'll ask by name. Those who might now know the picture will be looking for the card name that you asked for. Not only is it easier to ask for the card by name, but usually the name is easier to distinguish than like-pictured cards or cards with more than one piece of artwork with subsequent releases.

So if that's the case, why is artwork important at all?

As far as gameplay goes, the appearance of something usually isn't at all important. But I'm sure none of the CCGs that exist today would be as successful without the artwork that comes with the experience. It's an aesthetically pleasing aspect of the card that further identifies it. Some of the first video games were text-only games where the only thing you had on your screen was text explaining the situation that you as the player were in, and those days are thankfully behind us because it's not as fun without something that we can enjoy looking at. But if you insist on this point please feel free to tell me which successful CCG you play that is absent of artwork.

So why should the artwork be between the name and effect then? Since relaying information is supposedly so important shouldn't it be the other way around?

Not at all. The picture is still an important part of identifying the card and gives the players a buffer between the name and gameplay aspect of the card. Putting the picture on bottom would essentially put all of the text in one spot and while some people might find that to be more convenient or productive, it also serves as a way to jumble all of the information into one spot and take away from the experience by belittling the artwork and thought that went into the creative aspect of that card.

This also comes back to a point from earlier. Many people can identify a card by the picture and most people have an easier time recognizing an upside-down picture than reading upside-down text. If the card sees a lot of play and people have become accustomed to the artwork of specific cards, then they have an easier time identifying the card when it is played on the other side of the table because of it. Positioning the artwork closer to the top puts the image closer to the opponent even if it is only a couple of inches. They don't need to center their eyes passed the large text box to see the picture and instead can identify the card faster, making the game more streamlined and fun for everyone involved.

Well those 3 things aren't the only parts of the card. What do you have to say about them?

No they're not. Most CCGs also have a numeric and/or mathematics aspect to it. Like Dungeons and Dragons and various other D20 based games, many CCGs base strengths and weaknesses on various numeric values displayed on the card.

As we can see here, most of the numbers on these cards are aligned to the right side of the card. As a matter of fact, out of the cards above, the only time you see numbers that aren't aligned to the right are numbers that aren't relevant to the actual game at all, a weakness aspect to a specific card type, and a representation of which stage a card is at, the latter 2 being markers that help the identity of the card.

Mewtwo EX's weakness to Psychic is something of a character trait in the card game and while I personally believe that the aspects on the bottom of a Pokemon card should swap sides (Weakness, Resistance, and Retreat cost to the right, with the EX rule text on the left) it would likely alienate the existing players for the layout to be changed at this stage. For Krillin, the Number 3 displayed on the left side shows that he is a stage 3 card, meaning he cannot be played until the first 2 stages of Krillin have been played, which makes this number a method of identifying the card itself (example: Stage 3 Krillin).

The main similarity that we can see is that almost the entirety of combat-based numbers are aligned to the right. In Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh, the numbers in the bottom right corner represent their ability to perform in combat with the opposing player or creatures and are even put in a similar order (Power and Attack before Toughness and Defense). In Pokemon, the numbers on the right are all used for combat with the HP representing how much damage it can take and the numbers that correspond to the Attacks show how much damage they deal to the opponent. Dragon Ball Z (and similarly the Dragon Ball GT card game) show Power Levels on the right side. These, through conjunction with the rules and Scouter cards help players identify how much damage they can do to the opponent with Physical Attacks, and can increase or decrease in stages based on events that take place during the game.

So they're similar, but since you're such a smarty pants I want you to explain why it's the most logical layout.

I'll admit this one has me a bit stumped. My personal opinion would be that since Combat in most Customizable Card Games sets itself apart from other aspects of the game considerably, it makes sense to have the cards display combat-based mechanics in such a way that it stands out more. While I covered that we're naturally going to be reading from left to right, having something that starts on the right can also catch our eye when set apart from everything else there. It wouldn't be a leap to say that this was done in order to let the player know the significance of that aspect of the game specifically and helping to bring focus to that portion of the card when needed.

So now we've covered Names, Art, Effects, and Combat aspects of the cards. That's almost the entirety of every card and we can see here how almost every game follows a similar trend that not only communicated information to the player effectively, but does so in a way that is nearly uniform to other card games. The main thing I didn't cover here were aspects that are more unique to each game (methods of summoning cards, for example) which obviously don't always need to be uniform due to the drastic differences between rule sets.

So what did we learn here? Nothing? Then you wasted your time reading this. What I hope you walk away with is a higher appreciation for the layout of whatever card game you decide to play. If you play multiple CCGs I think that appreciation is well earned, and if you transitioned into a new CCG because of prior experience with another this also is something to be thankful for. While it is easy by a long shot to say that most of the CCGs followed the footsteps of Magic, that's definitely a GOOD thing. When Magic the Gathering was created, they were really on to something with the layout and it works like a charm.

Fun Facts: Star Trek (2009)

Well I can imagine it now. If someone actually reads this blog regularly (doubt it) they're probably going "WTF THIS ISN'T SONIC" and all that jazz. Well since it is my blog and nearly nobody reads it I'll just pour the shit I have in my brain onto this page and if you, the 1 person who actually contributes to my view count, will read it.... please.... for me....

Also spoiler alerts and such. Don't normally do them but whatever you're warned.

Anywho, if you're a Trek fan you might have missed a lot of what this movie did to reference the original series. A good little fun fact is Captain Pike being in the movie. You may not know this, but Captain Pike was the original captain of the Enterprise in the original pilot episode of the series. Kirk didn't exist in the pilot and there were numerous things that greatly contrast with what Star Trek ended up being, but there usage of Pike as the first captain of the Enterprise in the film roots all the way back to this pilot episode. While later changes to the story would include another captain predating Pike, this only appeared in the animated series. It's also noteworthy that Pike ended up getting strongly injured in the original series similar to the 2009 film, but with more severity including full body paralysis. Pike also happened to be captured when heading into a trap due to a distress signal.

When Kirk, Sulu, and that other guy left the ship to destroy the mining drill (or laser thing which happened to jam communications) the extra guy (considering he didn't have a main character name...) happened to be wearing red. As anyone who watched the original series might know, a non-main character who leaves the ship dressed in red typically don't end up surviving the trip. Another reference in this scene is Sulu saying that he has combat training in fencing. This references an episode of the original series where crewmen start acting fairly crazy (I forgot why and don't feel like looking it up) and Sulu's part was running around with a fencing sword and challenging people to duels.

The Klingon war never takes place in the universe based on this movie. In the scene where Kirk is hiding under the green girl's bed, Uhura reveals that the entire Klingon fleet was destroyed. This completely erases many possible events from taking place in the Star Trek universe. The fleet was destroyed by Nero's ship which was first revealed and described as "a lightning cloud in space". This is interesting since the first Star Trek film started with 3 Klingon vessels being destroyed by a similar anomaly. Even more interesting is both "lightning clouds" ended up being devices centered around time, the first being a relic from the distant past and the latter being a ship from the distant future.

Spock ends up teaching Scotty his own formula for transwarp beaming in order to get Kirk and Scotty to the Enterprise. Since this universe is already greatly out of sync with the previous one this doesn't actually cause a paradox. In Star Trek 4 Scotty ends up teaching someone from the past how to make transparent aluminum and suggests that he might have been the one to invent it. This possibility created what has been nicknamed a "bootstrap paradox" meaning that the item/theory in question has no origin apart from being brought back in time infinitely. Star Trek 4 also saw Spock witnessing Kirk selling his antique glasses in the past with the thought that those exact same glasses would be given back to him in the future.

When Spock and Kirk head to their final confrontation with Nero, Sulu is left in command. While he seems to find the Captain's chair comfortable he also manages to rush in, torpedoes blazing, at a crucial moment to save Kirk and Spock. This is actually quite similar to his role in the final space battle in Star Trek 6.

Apart from Spock, none of the characters in the series were in the original pilot episode of Star Trek. This particular point is grasping at straws especially considering that there is a flaw in the logic. Sulu, Uhura, Kirk, & Scotty were not meant to be on the Enterprise during the events of the film but still managed to make their way onto the ship and become crew members. The flaw in this logic is that Chekov and Bones were both stationed on the Enterprise during the film despite not being in the pilot. Numerous reasons could account for this but it's obvious that absence in the pilot episode didn't determine their presence in the film.

This last fun fact is actually the most obvious seeing as it's central to the plot of the film. The order of which the characters were brought onto the Enterprise all played pivotal roles in surviving the ambush that took place at Vulcan.

• The sequence of events started back when Pike convinced Kirk to enlist. 
• Fast forward a few years to when Uhura told her room mate about the attack on the Klingon fleet. Kirk overheard this but took no note of it until much later. 
• Fast forward to the Kobayashi Maru. Kirk decides to cheat the test by changing the protocols to create a more favorable outcome. This infuriates Spock, who happened to create the test. Spock then has Kirk court marshaled and suspended from duty pending another hearing. 
• Uhura uses her influence to convince Spock to move her from the Ferragut to the Enterprise. Had this not happened, she likely would have been killed as the Farragut was destroyed.
• McCoy (Bones) sneaks Kirk onto the Enterprise despite his suspension. It's possible that Kirk could have been assigned to a different ship had he not been suspended from duty.
• Sulu ends up replacing McKenna as helmsman and makes a mistake that delays the departure of the Enterprise.
• Pike orders Chekov to explain what is known of the situation via a video intercom.
• Kirk happens to be laying next to one of the monitors in Sick Bay, causing him to start putting everything together.
• Kirk confirms with Uhura that Romulans destroyed the Klingon armada then made it clear to Pike and Spock that they were heading into a trap.

Had any of these not taken place, the Enterprise likely would have been destroyed by Nero. Had Pike not recruited Kirk, Bones not sneaking him aboard and placing him next to a monitor, or Chekov not relaying the message explaining what little was known, Kirk wouldn't have been able to piece the situation together. Had Uhura not stumbled upon the messages confirming the destruction of the Klingon armada and talking about it in Kirk's presence then he wouldn't have known what they were heading into. Failing the Koayashi Maru and not getting court marshaled might have led him to getting put on another ship. Uhura being assigned to the Farragut would have lead to her death so she couldn't confirm Kirk's suspicions. Sulu not replacing McKenna could have had them go into warp sooner, meaning his mistake bought them the small amount of time that Kirk capitalized on by explaining their situation. This entire sequence of events was so key to the entire situation that you must actually admire how well written it was.

Sonic Adventure: The Fitting Finale

This blog is about Sonic Adventure as the last Sonic title to release. Why would I do this? For a few reasons. First is the decline of Sonic that came after, and many attribute this game as the start. Second is the story that came from it. The story is the main thing I'd like to talk about. If the Sonic games made a television series, this game would be the series finale. It did everything right to end the series and let Sonic fade away on an extremely high note. Let's analyze that for a bit. Keep in mind this will be a spoiler of the entire story so if you haven't crawled out from under that rock and played this amazing game I suggest you do so. Despite its age it plays pretty good compared to the newer games we have. This was originally posted on the Project AXSX forums and may reference other topics from there.

The Master Emerald was introduced in Sonic 3 as the main objective of Eggman. Being more powerful than the Chaos Emeralds, he could power an entire space station with it alone. Angel Island was held in the sky by the power of this emerald, and it was guarded by the echidna named Knuckles. Where Sonic 3 ends, though, is a huge load of mysteries for players to solve. Why was the Master Emerald on Angel Island, why was Knuckles the only one there to protect it, and what is an echidna (Goodle it, they're real)? Here's what I got out of it.

Sonic Adventure gave us the backstory of Knuckles and the Master Emerald. Apparently, he is the last of his kind and the Master Emerald turns out to not only be the most potent power source on the planet but also the prison of an ancient, vengeful creature. When the Echidnas of ancient times got greedy and seized the Master Emerald from the Chao and their guardian, Chaos, they were wiped out. Chaos became untrusting and vengeful of the echidnas and likely the world, so to stop his rage he was sealed inside the Master Emerald. Eggman learns this (to an extent) and breaks Chaos out. Angel island falls, Knuckles has failed to protect it, and the ancient evil is once again running loose.

Eggman's end of this story is also something to note. He is launching his biggest campaign (at the time) in this game. He has a mobile flying fortress called the Egg Carrier, the start of a robotic E-Series Army, an extremely angry and powerful being working for him (he believes), and multiple backup plans to try and ensure his victory. Egg Carrier crashes? He has a base on standby. Chaos is defeated? He has a nuke on standby to wipe out the town and make a clean getaway. Chaos defies him? He has a specially armed Egg Carrier on standby to take him out. Sure, none of these backups actually work, but that's a big step ahead of his norm up to this point. He actually shows real evil when he plans on nuking an entire city. Eggman was at his finest during the Adventure era.

So with Knuckles and Eggman taken care of, let's talk about how this wraps up the Sonic series (pretending it were the last game). Knuckles redeems himself by restoring the Master Emerald to its full form and returns Angel Island to the sky. He didn't need Sonic's help like he did in Sonic 3, proving he is good enough to get the job done on his own. Where his story goes from past this game is irrelevant (seriously, his contributions continue to minimize every game). The Master Emerald may still have all the power it had before when Chaos was still sealed, but he no longer had to worry about Chaos. The purpose behind him guarding it was completely gone and replaced with just taking up the mantle Chaos and the Echidna had left him as the Emerald's guardian.

Tails is broken away from Sonic for a while and finds himself in it alone. He deals with the separation anxiety and stress of having to rely on himself to save an entire city. Sonic isn't there to help or guide him, and Tails goes off on his own knowing that he has to be the hero. The gameplay of Tails further demonstrates this as the entire game long beating his levels means getting to the end BEFORE SONIC. Tails in the end manages to save the city of Station Square from Eggman without the assistance of Sonic.

In the end, Sonic is forced to transform using the positive energy of the emeralds (corny, cheesy, sappy, etc.) which is something only he can do (he seems to be the only one not influenced by negativity). He chooses to take the challenging road to fight Chaos and try to show him that there are still some left with a good heart. Chaos ultimately loses and sees that the Chao are still alive (the victims of the echidnas trying to steal the Master Emerald). Tikal, the one who sealed him, makes peace and they leave together. The ending of the game sees Sonic following Eggman out of the city.

So here it is in a nutshell. Tails overcame the fear of being a lone hero and made a name for himself. Eggman finally put his trust in a creature that was not of his own design and, when pulling out all the stops, still couldn't stop Sonic and friends. Knuckles discovered the roots to his culture and duties and also left the comfort of Angel Island on a successful mission to restore the Master Emerald and vindicate himself. Sonic settled a dispute between two ancient beings using his positive influence and brought them together as friends in the end. Yes it means we would have no Sonic games to play anymore or the less story-driven games we have today would have come sooner and characters like Shadow wouldn't exist, but from a story perspective it would have ended the series on a high note. Eggman wouldn't become a repeat offender of putting his faith in things he can't control and characters would stop showing up as one-offs.

I'm not hating on any Sonic games in this blog (I did plenty of that on gamefaqs when Generations came out) because the different games appeal to different people. I found Generations to be enjoyable to a point (much better than anything released since Heroes) and like I said before, I'm basing this off story elements.

Mixing up Pokemon's Formula

Oh the rage I could expect for this. Yes, I think Pokemon needs some changes. I'm sick of the same game. The best changes in Pokemon were made within the first 3 generations, now it's all the same stale experience to me. I don't speak for every Pokemon fan, hell I don't speak for a large portion of them. I just think there are quite a few fronts that Pokemon could improve on.

Improving Pokemon? That's blasphemy. It's Perfect!!!

No. It's not perfect in any way to be quite honest. Yes everyone's favorite Rock-Paper-Scissors RPG that instills amazing values, such as forcing pets to fight, sending 10-year olds into the world alone, and speaking to every stranger in sight to the children of today doesn't really need to change for the sake of sales. It will sell, that's the best part of being called "Pokemon". The name alone sells, much like Mario. But really think about it, has much changed to make the games more worth buying than before?

New Pokemon, better graphics, touch screen compatibility, wireless multiplayer, new continents, etc.

Cool, ya got me. There's a lot to each new game. But is it really new? New Pokemon? They're new in name and appearance, but their types and moves don't really have as big of a variation as you might want to think. Every generation you start with a Fire, Grass, or Water type. Every time (sans Yellow). From said 3 potential starters, you venture to find a small Normal-type animal (the Rattata of each gen), a small Normal/Flying-Type bird (the Pidgey), the Early-game Bug Pokemon (Weedle/Caterpie), etc. Tell me which main title game didn't feature this? Choosing the Grass starter usually feels underwhelming as grass Pokemon are also typically the first starter type you come across in the wild.

But they do have different moves, stats, characteristics, abilities, and appearances.

Different moves? Forgive me for not seeing much of a difference between generic normal moves or generic fire moves. Fact is, the differences in attacks are extremely minor when considering the levels the Pokemon learn them at. There's nothing special about them. Stats? Those can hardly play any real difference between generations unless considering tiers. There's a small combination of strong points and weaknesses in Pokemon and, unless you're playing against other competitive players, they're scarcely even noteworthy in the game. Characteristics and appearances are the biggest difference between generations, but offer no difference to gameplay. Lastly, abilities are most alike between generations but even the newer ones provide a minimal difference to the game.
The legendaries are different between generations, though.

They are, but if you take ANY Pokemon type, buff it up and give it a catchy name, it can be a legendary Pokemon. I admit that type differences between generations for legendary Pokemon can be refreshing, but they will run out of new combinations and continue to recycle the old ones.

The Gym Leaders and Elite 4 are different each game...

Yes, but about as different as the Pokemon. They use a different combination of the same thing. They all specialize into a type and usually those types are very abusable before the fight. The difficulty comes from unbalanced level differences (assuming no level grinding took place) and forced back-to-back battles without the use of a Pokemon Center. The difference in Gyms and the League really are just small variation. Gym Leader 1 will use low leveled X-type Pokemon and will have between 1 to 3 trainers to battle beforehand. Gym Leader 8 will use high levels X-Type Pokemon and will have a more puzzling gym with more trainers.

Okay so you're saying NOTHING good has come from newer generations?

No. Some additions were actually good. The held items in generation 2 were something that worked very well. The abilities and double battles were extremely well done in generation 3. From there on all they've done was improve graphics and try to use more features of the console they were from (touch screen for DS, wireless battles and trades, etc). But beyond generation 3 I can't find any good contributions that weren't directly linked to the features of the consoles. So why do people continue to buy them? Well for the name of the brand. Even if the features and Pokemon added aren't truly new, there's still a fresh feel to most of the players with each game. Team BadGuys are always going to be there, you will always have your rivals, your Professors are always going to be the start of your adventure, and you will still have these types of Pokemon that use these types of attack variants. The fact that they can still be as successful as they are while making these minimal changes is a credit to their procedures.
So if they don't need to change, why do you say they should?

It's a personal preference really. I, as a fan of single-player games, would like to see more done in these games to make them more challenging and add to the replay value. Let's assume that all Gym Leaders and Elite 4 were treated like their counterparts from the first Pokemon Stadium? By this I mean they automatically match your Party's highest level and it is given to all of their Pokemon. This dynamic could create different fights with different evolutions of Pokemon, and they could be taught different moves than if you'd faced them after level grinding. Adding a level minimum for each gym leader will give players incentive to face other trainers and wild Pokemon along the way.

What if they played closer to their counterparts in the television show (assuming they still do what they did in the first saga)? Let's say the gym leader says you can only use a specific number of your Pokemon? Instead of making you pre-select them, you can choose in the battle. Say your limit is 3, that means your first Pokemon and 2 others, but you can choose those 2 others when the time arises. Once you've sent out 3 active Pokemon, the rest of your party will lock out of the battle.
These two changes could change the entire flow of the game, changing the difficulty of the gyms and Elite 4. I find the concept of battling 4 people without a healing center in reach to be garbage since beating any one of them should prove you're "better" than that one, and the champion saying you need to beat the rest then beat the champ too just to be better than 1 trainer is garbage. They could also have difficulty modifiers in-game, with harder difficulties making the gym leaders have a fixed level ABOVE your party or limiting the usage of your party more.

Simple changes like this would give me reason to jump back into this series, but the fact of the matter is Nintendo and Game Freak are making their money without the need of implementing these changes and for that they're only losing 1 consumer. The changes I suggest could drive people away but unless they tried it we will never know. I'm not saying it's a bad series and that you shouldn't play it, I'm just saying that it isn't for me anymore because the difficulty just isn't there and without new changes I feel I could just play gen 3 and get the same feeling...

So my fellow g1s I ask you, what would YOU prefer in Pokemon? Should they add or take away anything? Should they change the concept entirely? Should they play it safe and keep everything the same? What's next for this franchise?

Why we needed Sonic 06

The title may have you a bit stumbled. Seeing as this is my first blog (though I've gone into a LOT of detail on the Project AXSX boards) I figured I'd bring to your attention the things Sonic got away with up until Sonic 06. Everyone remembers Sonic 06, though I'm sure most wish they didn't. It was an abomination of code that was meant to revive Sonic as a franchise and bring him back as a mainstay title. Irony is cruel when a game that had A LOT of potential got rushed to a release to end up being the worst in the series. Forgive me if I seem to ramble a lot in this article as it really is my first blog on the topic.

So, again, why the title? What do you mean "Why we needed Sonic 06"?

I'm referring to a series of rushed games and shortcuts taken by SEGA and Sonic Team to meet deadlines. Sonic 06 wasn't the first, just the most known due to how obvious of a rush job it was. If I named other titles that lost a lot of content over a rushed release date you might be surprised. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (aka the best selling Genesis/Mega Drive game), Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and even Sonic Adventure all had content cuts.

But those games were GOOD. What could possibly have been added to make them better?

Yes, a good point. Those games were all known for their good quality (yes that includes Adventure). That doesn't mean that they were what they were MEANT to be. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 suffered the loss of levels and even some story concepts. Concepts for the story ended up being used in Sonic CD (time travel) but the levels never saw the light of day with an official release. The most famous of the levels among the more knowledgeable fans is obviously Hidden Palace Zone.

Hidden Palace was in....

Is this the Hidden Palace you remember?

No. Not Sonic 3's version. And yes I'll get to that statement before you bite my head off with S&K. Hidden Palace Zone was actually more akin to Ice Cap Zone in appearance, being the first to feature the glowing bridges and the bright textures. The level looked a lot more like a ruin, and was shown off in magazine pictures and was one of the most anticipated levels to be played due to it's aesthetic appeal as well as dinosaur themed badniks. That level never made the final cut because of time constraints. Thanks to some of the prototypes that made their way onto the internet, it's possible to actually play this level to an extent. The level ends abruptly in the builds with an impossible hill leading to what might possibly have been the end of the level. What's interesting is the speculation that could be made from here. The hill was actually very similar to the hills you scale in Marble Garden Zone in Sonic 3, meaning it might have had a mountain climbing gimmick. Otherwise it would have likely had a moving platform. At the top was a water slide similar to Labyrinth Zone. I digress.

Our only official look at Dust Hill Zone

Other levels missing include Wood Zone, Genocide City Zone (yes, that's real), Dust Hill Zone, Winter Zone, and Rock Zone. Some names more original (and in Genocide City's case, disturbing) than others. Wood Zone was simple enough, a jungle themed level with some conveyors and hollowed out trees as well as some of its own unique enemies. Dust Hill was to be the first desert themed level in the main titles. Winter Zone was to be a palette swap of Dust Hill to make it, you guessed it, covered in snow. Rock Zone was meant to be mountainous and to be quite honest I have no idea what Genocide City was going to be. Now think about what it would have been like to have played those levels in the game, extending the difficulty and replayability? Fine, maybe you can't but I sure as hell could. 6 extra stages to an already nice and lengthy game would have been outstanding but the game still managed to be a huge hit. Thankfully some of the clever Sonic hacking community members have made their own versions of these levels, which can be found at Sonic Retro.

Flying Battery, Mushroom Valley,
and Sandopolis in Level Select

Sonic 3 wasn't as severe due to the fact that they eventually did release the game in its entirety.... kind of. Sonic 3 was originally supposed to be the combined game of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Due to, you guess it, time constraints, half the game was cut to meet deadlines. This made it a bit obvious in segments like Angel Island and Ice Cap where players can see pathways that can only be taken with debug mode. These were made for Knuckles, a character who wasn't playable. Accessing the sound test gave players access to music not used in the game (stage music from Sonic & Knuckles that never was taken out of the game) and even let them see the names of stages not in the game. The game was rushed for a Holiday release and ultimately they had to cut out half the intended game. They were then going to release a "Collector's Edition" but instead ended up with Sonic & Knuckles with its Lock-On technology.

The Dragon boss that was meant to
Appear in Sky Chase

Sonic Adventure saw some content withheld as well, but not nearly as well known as the above items due to the fact that a good bit of it was discovered after the game's release. 3 stages named didn't appear in the game at all, and many stages were so heavily edited that they almost didn't resemble what video montages from Sonic Team put out. Due to some nice glitches, you can find sections of levels that characters shouldn't have been able to reach. This is very apparent when Knuckles can access Sonic's portion of Lost World and find that some of the enemy spawns are different. There was even a two headed dragon boss that never made it into the final release, but was left in the coding to be found by the Sonic hacking community.It was also originally going to give players the option to manually transform into Super Sonic during stages. All in all, a highly successful game with features left out that would likely have added soooo much to the game.

The shield in the Instruction Booklet

Now that brings us to Sonic 06. While I don't excuse the lack of hit detection in some areas, a completely botched physics engine, the automated segments literally throwing you to your death, and the fact that Sonic runs at roughly half the speed of the DEMO of the game. Hell, did you know that if you read the booklet it talks about the typical Shield that appears in every game as a power up? Now think about that when you notice that there are NO shields in the game. Yes Sonic 06 had content left out (a LOT of it) and people like to complain about that at times, but what made this game truly horrid was the huge list of glitches and loading screens.

Now what does this have to do with the other games? We all know Sonic 06 was bad for how it played.

Well this is what brings us full circle to the title of my blog today. Sonic 06 was the game that got caught. SEGA was notorious for their reputation at rushing development. They even fully cancelled a Sonic game because it couldn't meet deadlines (Sonic X-Treme, and there's a huge story behind that too).They've made it more and more apparent that deadlines were more important than content and quality and because of that it finally reached a point where the consumers had to draw a line. Sure, the newer Sonic games haven't exactly been what many wanted (I don't like holding the Boost button and scarcely platforming), but they are refined and completed games. The only issues that appear these days for Sonic are in design and not through a rushed release date.

So, despite this being a huge rambling of thoughts bunched loosely under a single idea, Sonic 06 was a game necessary for the improvement of the franchise. Without the release and utter failure of this game, we'd still be seeing incomplete Sonic titles being released today. Fact is with each new title they're getting closer to pleasing the fanbase with a Sonic game that feels a little closer to home. I, for one, enjoyed a good bit of Sonic Generations for its progress with Modern Sonic gameplay (though I could rant at the horrid "Classic Sonic" gameplay). Sonic 06 was a painful, enduring, long loading screen experience but one that was necessary for the franchise. I'd like you all to remember this next time you decide to talk about it with your friends.