Games of the Week (18th-24th September)

New Games
Probably won’t normally be this many, been a busy week.

Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire
I finished the main story a few hours ago, my biggest regret was how little time I had to play it Friday/Saturday, very jelous of the people who have already finished the collections for the final mount. I shall probably make a post about this at some point when I’ve had time to truly explore it but needless to say I have had a great time with it so far, I have enjoyed it much more than I did Heart of Thorns at launch.

Metroid Samus Returns
So far I’m enjoying it, I did get stuck for a while because I didn’t realise lightning armour let me spiderball through spikey bits but otherwise it’s been pretty smooth sailing. I’m up to area 3 so I still have a way to go. Definitely already the best Metroid since Zero Mission for me.

Pokémon Silver
Came out the same day as Path of Fire, so far I’ve made it back with the secret egg and caught a Jigglypuff. I’m going to try and not use my usual gen 2 Pokémon (other than the starter) so no Smeargle, Forretress, Politoed, Crobat, Ampharos, I’ll spare myself Delibird being as I only really started to pick him up in the remakes.

Divinity: Original Sin 2
Similar to DnD if you’ve never heard of it, just over a week ago I hadn’t heard of it but a friend got it for his birthday and then I followed suit and some other friends which does mean I think I have now played the intro and a bit a total of five times. Escaping Fort Joy seems an impossible task. It seems fun but I’m not that far into it yet but having found at least three maybe four ways into the prison I am enjoying all the options and paths you can take in the game.

Old Games
Just a couple this week.

World of Warcraft
Slow week, I did get the ram Brewfest mount though. Also after raising six followers to item level 925 through rare missions I almost immediately afterwards have to raise them to 950 through rare missions. I have this thing where playing WoW makes me want to play GW2 and playing GW2 makes me want to play WoW, though with all the time gating and grinding I am never sure why.

Stellaris
Despite having played 95 hours this week marks the first time my friends and I have ever won a multiplayer game, it was a strange game where the galaxy pretty much formed two federations and war never quite happened, usually what happens is we end up in a cycle of never ending wars and get close to a victory when the end game crisis happens when we are severely depleted, we did beat the crisis a couple of times in the past but with different people being around different nights they never ended up being finished.

World of Warcraft – Looking forward

Note I will mention the leaks at some point incase that is something you’re trying to avoid.

Blizzcon isn’t far away and I think we can all be pretty sure that the next expansion will be announced. Exciting for a lot of reasons and also we might finally find out some answers e.g. what happens to our artifact weapon? I thought I would take the time to say what I would like from the next expansion. I think the general consensus is that we’ll be getting a race, if you’re reading this you are probably already aware that only one expansion didn’t add a new race or class and we have just had a new class hence why race seems most likely.

There are lots of possible races the question is who will they choose. WoW also already has a large number of races and there is an idea that they could add sub-races which would give us more customisation options e.g. A Forsaken Elf and potentially a few new class/race combos. While some new customisation would be nice without maybe some new starting areas to explain the sub-race faction joining the alliance/horde I would feel dissapointed. Though it would add the issue of post starting area being dropped back in time to the cataclysm – though is that a big deal? We still time travel for Outland and Northrend.

If we are to get a whole new playable race the candidates that strike me as more likely are either some of the races we’ve helped/worked with this expansion e.g. the Nightbourne who could easily become a neutral race and open up Demon Hunter slightly. We could also get a new Suramar starting zone where we see the city post our insurrection. Presumably like the pandaran they would end up at the capitols to join up like the pandaren did and then play through the old content. I’ve seen Vrykul mentioned which could work but I don’t think we’ve invested in them as much, though it would give horde players who don’t like being more monstrous another option. Then there are the non-legion felguard race – do they have a name? The ones we have met on Argus.

Other options could be based more on what the expansion is, it seems pretty much certain that we are getting an old god expansion with probably Queen Azshara and N’Zoth, whether or not we’ll make it directly to the void lords seems unlikely to me – I feel that could easily fill a whole expanion, then again people said the same of Argus. Queen Azshara seems far more likely to be the initial antagonist of the expansion even if like Guldan we don’t finally deal with her until the second major raid. Given this if Naga were ever going to be introduced this feels like the time, people always cite with Naga the issues with no legs for gear and mounts but they could easily have alternate mount poses or less desirably only use certain mounts. Moving onto gear as with Tauren I don’t get to see my boots and it doesn’t bother me, the issue might be worse with Naga as it would probably also be leg armour and you would have less transmog options but if you want to play a Naga then I don’t think it’s an unnaceptable trade off that you can’t see legs or boots. Given the potential watery setting there is also maybe a chance of Murlocs which would be my absolute favourite of potential races they could add. If we are to advance to the Void lords then there is always the Ethereals who I would be happy to play. For the record I would also be quite happy with Arakkoa but am in no way expecting them.

As for other features I would love from the expansion it’s worth reviewing what Legion brought us. One of the biggest things and something I pray they continue with and potentially expand is the new level scalling. I really hope they go and apply it to the core game, even if it was just the 1-60 content that would still be awesome, I like to level alts via questing and slowly tick off zones for lore master and with heirlooms etc you always out level the zones you are in before you get to wrap up the storylines in the zone. With level scaling this would be gone, you could just head wherever you want and quest. When leveling alts the current biggest disconnect is when you hit 60 and head to Outland, not only would it be confusing to new players I imagine suddenly travelling back in time but also the experience is worse for example you are doing a quest collecting drops from enemy corpses and you know how when you hover over an enemy it tells you if it’s involved with a quest of yours, in Outland the enemy won’t list the quest unless it’s a kill that enemy, if it’s a collect x from y then it won’t show up and with the seemingly lower drop rates of the quest items I have several times gone and checked that I am actually hunting the correct enemy. One way to solve this would be to make the scaling core game perhaps go 1-70 or 1-80 and make Outland and Northred optional – hopefully not too controversial. As for the later expansions I’d be happy if they scaled within their level range, though all none-current expansions scalling 1-110 would be awesome.

I’m not expecting a class but with order halls there is now potentially a problem with adding non-hero classes but why wouldn’t they just make hero classes now? They could also add new specs (which unlock at 110 – to avoid class hall issues) which could be fun e.g. Warlock or Hunter who minion/pet could tank, or perhaps a time magic spec for Mage which maybe could rewind your injures to heal or something. If we’re getting a new class soon a Tinkerer class might be fun, hopefully without too much of an overlap with engineering. I’ve seen people mention Necromancer but with Death Knight and Warlock the only thing not really covered is blood magic, I could possibly imagine a two spec Necro with blood magic and something else, would also be the first ranged caster they’ve added. Also potentially we could get something new perhaps Void themed but that would fit in better when we are going against the void lords more directly. Part of me feels like a new class should wear mail to even the armour spread out. One other possibility could be to add a hero race/class combo e.g. adding Forsaken paladin which doesn’t currently fit in with the lore but with a strong story like the demon hunter’s starting story could work.

I guess we shall find out within two months, the expansion might even be coming sooner than expected if they can keep up the eleven week schedule they’ve been pushing. I’m crossing my fingers for level scaling and playable Murlocs, until then back to levelling alts, just finished Nagrand Slam (outland nagrand lore master) and it was the worst lore master achievement so far by a lot, I am hoping that was the worst one.

Pokkén Tournament DX

So Nintendo keep e-mailing me to advertise Pokkén to me (even though it’s already pre-ordered with them), I do have the Wii U version but my switch library is pretty small and I think I might enjoy Pokkén more as a portable title. I think we know the full roster which is all the originals plus Darkrai, Scizor, Croagunk, Empoleon and Decidueye. Only Decidueye is truly new as they had released the other four for the arcade machines, though had they released them as DLC would I have upgraded to the switch version? Probably not.

Anyway I ended up thinking about who I would include if hypothetically there was future dlc or a sequel. I probably wouldn’t my favourite two pokémon as they either add nothing new (Gallade) or would have to be compromised in design (Smeargle). The game already has 2 (3? with Shadow Mewtwo) psychic pokemon and Mega Mewtwo X is the exact same type combination as Gallade and would probably have a very similar fighting style, plus the other psychic type is Gardevoir and I was remember being dissapointed orginally that in a roster of 16 fighters two were different versions of other fights (even if they do play differently). Smeargle if you’re not familiar with him can learn every attack via sketch his signature move. This would open up to him feeling watered down if he couldn’t use some mechanic based on this e.g. his moveset varying based on who you fight. Ultimately I don’t think something along those lines would be fun as if you want random you would pick random. So who would I choose?

I looked at the roster and feel there are some big gaps particularly generation 2, 5, 6 and 7 don’t feel that well represented. Also no playable normal or rock types. Breaking it down we get:

Generation 1	5 to 7 (if you include Pikachu Libre and Shadow Mewtwo)
Generation 2	2
Generation 3	3
Generation 4	6 (up from 3, Gen 4 remakes incoming?)
Generation 5	1
Generation 6	1 to 2 (if you include Pikachu Libre)
Generation 7	1

By type:

Nomral	0
Fighting	4 to 6 (Mega Charizard X and Mega Mewtwo X)
Flying	1
Poison	2
Ground	1
Rock	0
Bug	1
Ghost	3
Steel	2
Fire	4
Water	2
Grass	2
Electric	2 (but both are Pikachu)
Psychic	3 (but two are Mewtwo)
Ice	1
Dragon	1 to 2 (Mega Sceptile)
Dark	2
Fairy	1

Despite normal and rock not appearing at all I would also feel a bit sorry for flying, ground, electric, ice, dragon and fairy. If I was going to include any generation 1 pokémon I would choose Onix (ground and rock covered and we would get some snake like gameplay) or Omanyte/Omastar being as it would cover rock and we’re not oversaturated in water types, additionally there are no fossil pokémon in the roster and Omanyte is arguably the most popular since twitch plays pokémon – might as well cash in. As for generation four Rotom in one of his forms could have been quite cool but it’s already well represented.

Generation 2 contenders
This and gen five are the only generations without a starter pokémon playable, we have plenty of fire and grass starters so Totodile, Croconaw or Feraligatr. None really strike me as offering anything new to the roster and with 33.33…% (didn’t include Pikachu Libre) of the roster being starters maybe not every generation needs a starter to represent them, though Bayleef/Meganium or Quilava could have offered some different gameplay. So currently gen two is represented by Suicune and Scizor. The ones that jump out at me which might offer some fun gameplay are; Ariados, Sudowoodo, Shuckle, Delibird (some fun flying and “delivering” presents) and Donphan.
Honourable mention: Wobbuffet (who wouldn’t want a pokemon that could only taunt and counter/mirror coat your opponent?)

Generation 3 contenders
Already reasonably well presented but I would consider Flygon, Serviper or Milotic.

Generation 5 contenders
Lots to choose from but I would be interested in seeing; Samurott despite it being a starter though it could end up too similar to Suicune, Drilbur or Excadrill who could tunnel around for their moves, Crustle who I know in the anime can fight without its shell (the powered up version maybe), Archeops, Galvantula who could probably do all Ariados could do and more.

Generation 6 contenders
I loved gen 1 and 2 (which is probably my favourite) generation 6 and 7 have been the best generations for me since gen 2 (probably all the nostalgia they threw in) so I did find it a shame there were so few entries from the recent games in the roster. I’m considering; Diggersby, Vivillon (who would be cool online to have the different patterns depending on who you were fighting and where they were in the world), Sylveon who not only would bring fairy but also an eeveelution (odds on getting the final missing special type Dragon in the next gen?), Goodra who always seemed so much fun in the main series.

Generation 7 contenders
While this generation added so few pokémon it also brought us a load of new forms and although they are all generation one pokémon it would be a shame not to show at least one off. I am thinking of choosing from; Raticate, Sandshrew/Sandslash, Vulpix/Ninetales, Lycanroc (was he getting a new form? could be fun to choose that one, thought I like his moon form better, sun perhaps would allow for a fresher fighting style), Golisopod, Nihilego a poison/rock jellyfish what could be more fun? Buzzwole or Pheromosa, probably Pheromosa as she would be less similar to Scizor.

After narrowing it down a bit I then tried to reduce it down to five and failed as I cut all the normal type. So seven pokémon who I thought would best represent what was missing and also potentially add some interesting playstyles. Here’s who I picked and why.

	Delibird I really do think there could be a lot of fun utilising present in his moves also he is a flying/ice type which could use more coverage. It looks like Decidueye is going to use his more bird like figure as part of his style, I would like to imagine Delibird could do the same.
	Donphan Picked mostly for the possible gameplay, Donphan is usually potrayed as slow except when he rolls and then he is extremely fast.
	Galvantula While I’m not a fan of spider or electric pokémon (in general), I think Galvantula could bring a very unique style of gameplay, lay webs to trap/slow your opponent and then also if they are trapped having the ability to shock them even worse than normal.
	Sylveon The lack of eeveelutions coupled with the fairy type which was only represented by a retconned Gardevoir made this a pick for me. Though it’d probably be a fairy version of Suicune in gameplay, which wouldn’t be too bad as we have very few non-bipedal pokémon.
	Goodra I feel like Goodra’s slime like nature could easily be exploited for a different style of play though perhaps I would have been better picking Goodra’s previous evolution to show it off better but with Goodra’s size maybe it could be utilised more?
	Raticate Finding a normal type proved my hardest struggle as all the really prolific ones I would have liked to choose were from generation 1, in particular Chansey or Porygon (who would have been nice as we have no pokémon from a three stage evolution line who are in their base stage). Also I was keen for an alolan form.
	Nihilego Not sure how well this counts as the rock type I picked as it’s designed to be weird and I could see it lending itself to some less convential gameplay like Chandelure, which was why I picked it over Lycanroc.

Amazed how few of my favourites slipped in (just Delibird). I shall look forward to Pokkén and trying out the new pokémon, who knows maybe this time we will get some dlc when they add fighters to the arcade machines?

Obligatory first post

So I’ve been struck by an urge to do some blogging again after nearly five years, I’ll probably be blogging about games mostly. Anyway I’m glad that’s the end of this post.