Defaze

So the conclusion was about as underwhelming as I expected. The entirety of Wyndon is aesthetically great... but there's nothing to do? You can't enter any of the houses, the hotel serves no purpose, the footpaths contain precisely 0 NPCs and you can't even buy anything from the stalls outside the stadium. The final boss 'dungeon' consisting of a single elevator going upwards was a bit of a scream. It's honestly just grim. Did they run out of development time?? As for the championship, I actually experienced some difficulty with Leon, but that's probably due to my self-imposed no items rules and my team being hot trash (and largely underleveled). Speaking of, hall of fame team: Mortimer the Thievul [66] - Basically my makeshift starter since none of them appeal to me in the slightest. He's weak as shit, but he's shiny and his colouration is awesome. Poison the Tsareena [58] - I put her on the team purely because of her chase animation. Iconic. Bjorn the Beartic [59] - I... have no idea why I used this? His design is tragic, but Hail/Slush Rush shenanigans was fun to abuse I guess. Decibel the Noivern [60] - Amazing design but using Noibat until level 48 is honestly torturous, and the pay-off really isn't worth it. He's fast but not much else, and Draco Meteor/Hurricane aren't the most reliable STABs (Air Slash/Dragon Pulse did pitiful damage). Flubber the Reuniclus [58] - Would've been a whole lot more useful if Trick Room wasn't post-game. She was powerful and bulky enough though, and my switch in to most incoming attacks (I was playing on Set mode). Tex the Pincurchin [58] - See above re Trick Room. Still a whole lot of fun with Electric Surge though. He has surpisingly decent stats. I was originally planning on using EV-reducing berries and retraining them (and fixing their IVs using caps) like all my other playthroughs, but I honestly think they're beyond salvation. :lol: I'd probably get annihilated if I tried Battle Spot. Eiscue is objectively horrific and I was legitimately offended when it was revealed, but I think its gimmick meshes well with how awful it looks. :lol: Seems like a lot of fun to use at least (especially with Belly Drum). Cinderace is probably the best of the starters, but I figured I'd stop forcing myself to use designs I wasn't keen on simply because they're starters. The last one I actually legitimately liked from a design standpoint was Serperior. Every starter since has been leaning far too heavily into the anthropomorphic trend imo. They just look unnatural and... icky.

'Outside' and 'I Need Your Love' are both iconic, so I'm very here for this. (Also the Matoma/Notorious B.I.G. song of the same name is a massive bop, questionable lyrics aside, so I hope this is as good).

I've not battled Raihan yet but I kinda' suspected it'd be equally as uneventful. Spikemuth just left a bad taste in my mouth because I LOVED the theme of the town, it reminded me of the old Sega side-scrolling brawler games like Streets of Rage. It was just such wasted potential, which seems to be a recurring theme with Pokemon this era. Your last comment is so on-point. I genuinely enjoyed the first half of my run more than any official Pokemon in a long time, but they dropped the ball hard in the latter half. There's so many great things but just about everything lacks polish. Imagine a game that incorporated the open-world/co-op aspect of the Wild Area for the entirety of the playthrough? It's a bit embarrassing that that seems like such a pipe dream in 2019, but hey ho. I'm at least slightly optimistic going forward, because they did seem to make some strides towards bringing Pokemon into the modern era. Like you said, they really ought to stop with the yearly release cycle and especially with the cash-grab 'sequels' that are effectively the same game repackaged with a few cosmetic/mechanical alterations, because SwSh could've been legitimately fantastic with more development time (and a full dex).

Nahhh, what we're not going to do is start this misogynistic f***ing tripe. The fact you're still allowed to post on this site truly dumbfounds me.

Why does the quality of these games fall off a cliff after the fourth gym? YIKES. The run of gym 5-7 is wayyy too uneventful. Spikemuth in particular has an amazing aesthetic but my God, it's actually barren. They very easily could've made the interiors accessible and turned them into a pseudo-maze for the gym puzzle. The storyline is truly horrific even by Pokemon standards. It's just... such a snoozefest. Those two major gripes asides, it's a serviceable enough game. The QoL changes are great and the Wild Area is an amazing addition. My team is a bit of a shitshow though. I'm only using two new mons and they're Pincurchin and Thievul :lol: (both shiny tho, and the former has its HA so it's actually really potent). The rest have mostly grown on me but not enough to actually compel me to use them over old favourites.

Just popping in to say that I low-key experienced a spiritual enlightenment in response to this at pre-drinks the other night. An ANTHEM.

This is actually a really good point. For what it's worth, Mabel missed the top 100 with her offering, and she's probably a bigger name at the minute.

Admittedly not the best result, but bit premature in your 'celebration' surely? I think a lot of us were wildly off in anticipating how receptive the public would be to new LM material after 'Bounce Back', let alone a niche Xmas song in November. (Sidenote, but imagine being so devoid of anything worthwhile in your life that your first reaction is to gloat in a prediction thread. That's sad, huh?)

Does ITV even have any worthwhile promo spots nowadays? The X Factor viewing figures are appalling. BBC at least has Strictly and Graham Norton -- the latter is probably the best TV promo out there at the minute.

Okay but that lineup is iconic. It's also surreal to see them go from covering Kesha on X Factor, to having her open for them all these years later.

Glad to hear it's picking up airplay from Radio 2, but they really ought to get this on the relevant Xmas playlists. I can't see it doing a whole lot otherwise. ''''THISSSS'''' Besides, it's... a Christmas song. Even if it 'smashes' it isn't going to do a whole lot for them since it'll chart for 4 weeks maximum. I don't think they're in a particularly favourable position right now career-wise, but this single's performance is hardly going to impact that either way.

I'm a bit dubious of the source, but a fantastic milestone if true. They're not even with Syco anymore.

HP_bGeZn2yU Lyric video is up!

Oh come off it. There's valid criticism that no one takes exception to (the frosty reception to 'Bounce Back' around here is testament to that) and then there's whatever cacophony of shit that that user relentlessly spouts. It's so overblown and obviously posted only to be provocative, so spare us with this weird-ass take. On another note, this is rather lovely. I sometimes find their ballads a bit lacking in the melody department (SLS/Towers/Monster In Me aside), but the chorus is stuck in my head after only a few listens. it doesn't quite reach the heights of Underneath the Tree/One More Sleep for me, but will still make a nice change of pace from the usual Xmas tracks.

I genuinely forgot all about Cozy Little Christmas. :lol: Definitely serves as a good omen for this then.

Ah, it sounds so cute. :wub: Perfect for this time of year.

So what do we reckon? I'm having a hard time calling it. There haven't been many recent Christmas songs that have smashed out of the gate, with the exception of 'One More Sleep', and even that was in the pre-streaming era. All the classics being on ACR will definitely help its cause, but imo its success is going to be very heavily reliant on whether or not it manages to feature on the relevant Xmas Spotify playlists. I'm going to go for a top 40 debut and an eventual top 15 peak. Probably a bit conservative, but it's still a bit early for a festive track, and 'Bounce Back' hardly set the charts alight.

So unbelievably pumped for this after that snippet! Jade sounds lush.

Oo, I've wanting an Xmas single from them for years!! Really hope it's an original -- imagine something as iconic as Underneath the Tree or One More Sleep.

Okay these games aren't nearly as awful as I was expecting. I've clocked almost 15 hours before the first gym just breeding and exploring the Wild Area ooops. The dex cut is still unforgiveable and the new Pokemon designs are still largely awful, but it's a million million miles ahead of Sun and Moon. (Hop can get so far to f*** tho -- what is this recent trend of having the rivals being as excruciatingly annoying as possible?!). (OH, and f*** the automatic Exp Share too. This is probably my biggest gripe with the game, since it's SO easily remedied by just letting us turn the bloody thing off. Absolutely absurd decision on GF's part).

At the risk of sounding approx 10000 years old, it took me so long to 'get' her. I was only really a fan of 'Ocean Eyes' and 'Bellyache' from her previous singles, but this has got me fully on board. Just a gorgeous song; melody, lyrics, vocals -- everything! Here for this smashing over the Winter period.

They quite obviously would've made it a single if they had any means to do so. They literally can't release it.

Yeah, I had it firmly mid-tier up until the Jesy documentary. Now I'd probably rank only 'Wasabi', FYN and 'Monster In Me' ahead of it. It would've made an incredible winter single.

Ah, the PLT advert is incredible. They look UNREAL. Plus get that promo 'Wasabi'!

The vast majority of these designs... Words fail me. The leaked 'mon is so abhorrent that it actually makes me cackle, so it gets a pass. The rest vary from 'meh' to downright atrocious. Guess this'll be third consecutive gen where I only like a handful of mons and loathe the rest. I know this is an unpopular opinion, but the designs peaked with gen 5 imo (obvious exceptions aside) and have been increasingly awful with each passing gen. Even the new cross-gen evos make me shudder. Also...