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Gaming Diary: Pokemon Pearl and Randomizer Races

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ALTTP randomizer racesThanks to Awesome Games Done Quick 2018, I’ve gotten back into watching speedrun races on SpeedGaming‘s various Twitch channels. Every day last week I watched some A Link to the Past randomizer race or Legend of Zelda randomizer race. When I first got into watching these randomizer races, there was only one version of a randomizer. Now ALTTP has four versions, and LoZ has a couple. They are fascinating to watch.

SpeedGaming has daily races for ALTTP each day, and they aren’t all the same version. There is still the original one, but now they have these three:

  • Open World randomizer – Starts players in random locations (instead of at the beginning of the game) and the world is their oyster.
  • Enemizer – Also starts players in random locations, but now they have no idea which enemies (including bosses) will show up where.
  • Keysanity – Again, players start in random locations, but chests now have specific keys for specific dungeons. These races really test runners’ mettle, knowledge of the dungeons, and routing techniques. These races also take the longest.

I’m not a huge fan of the Enemizer seeds, but I really enjoy the other three. Keysanity makes me want to rage quit on behalf of the players at times. I usually get a bigger kick out of seeing where items will show up instead, but Keysanity is still a good time.

During these races, I’m either working or I’m playing Pokemon Pearl. I’m nearly done with the game—on Victory Road now—and it’s the last Pokemon title I have in my arsenal. I have two strategy guides for this game that I picked up at a Half Price Books, and I think I’m going to do a comparison video of them. The differences between them are rather astounding, and yet, neither has all of the information I need.

I’d also LOVE to finish Star Ocean: Last Hope this week. I have so many other PS4 games that need my attention last month!

The Corner of Randomness: AGDQ 2018 Update

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I had no idea what to write about today, but then it hit me that I always seem to do AGDQ/SGDQ event updates. Thus I’ll stick with tradition and give an AGDQ 2018 update. I mean, I’d hate to break from tradition!

Last week I didn’t think I’d have a lot of time to watch AGDQ 2018 due to working on the house. Well, while visiting Wisconsin I acquired a lovely cold that was going around. It pretty much put me down and out for the week. Thankfully, it happened this week so I could actually enjoy way more of AGDQ 2018 than I had originally planned.

I started by watching the Pre-Show. I did this while in Wisconsin. My wife even sat next to me while I streamed it on my iPad. I was really hoping we’d hear why Super Metroid wasn’t being run, but there was absolutely no mention of it. The Pre-Show was all I watched on Sunday due to other obligations.

I got home on Monday and was able to catch most of the Sonic block, all of the Mega Man block, and most of the Metal Gear block. The rest of the week has been pretty sporadic. I catch a bit of the event over morning coffee, some at lunch, and I try to catch a lot at night. Yet medicine and sleep have kept me from seeing some of the runs I really wanted to see, such as the Resident Evil 7 Biohazard run. Thank goodness for VODs!

Looking back so far, the more memorable runs I got to watch have been Superman 64 (donation incentive), Enviro-Bear 2000 (EAT THE FISH!), Athena (oh such a bad game), Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (what a crazy good race), and Hyper Light Drifter (PET THE DOG!). There are still two days of watching games getting broken to go. I’m so ready to see this Mega Man 1-3 Relay Race later today, and also the Link to the Past Randomizer run on Saturday.

As of the time I started this, $820,010 has been raised. I’m hopeful that the million dollar mark will be hit today, I do question if they can break the two million mark like they did last year. I know Saturday will be a crazy day of big donations coming in, so maybe there is hope to get hyped. For now, I’m going back to watch this Super Mario Galaxy run!

Gaming Diary – From Xenoblades to Pokemons

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After I finished Pokemon Alpha Sapphire, I thought it might be best to put down the Pokeymans for some of my other unfinished 3DS games. Since Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is out, maybe it’s the best time to finally play Xenoblade Chronicles 3D. After playing it for about 8 hours, I have the following thoughts:

  • WOOF the graphics are bad. Like they’re so pixelated, it’s really hard to distinguish faces and enemies from backgrounds. I never played this game when it released on the Wii, but I have a very hard time believing it looked this bad on the big screen. Final Fantasy VII has outdated graphics, but at least the faces and enemies are discernible on the small screen. During an early boss fight with a spider, I gave up figuring out what to hit and just swung madly at the purple blob on my screen.
  • Why are there zero interesting side quests? Thus far, it’s only fetch quests as far as the eye can see. And when I do complete a fetch quest, would it have killed the devs to include map markers for the quest givers? It’s not a joy running around the town over and over again trying to find this one boy.
  • This is an action-RPG, but I want to use that term loosely. It’s an action-RPG/turn-based RPG hybrid. You can move around on the screen and aim for specific places to hit like an action-RPG. However, the characters and enemies on the screen attack in some sort of an ATB system. Either make it an ATB system or don’t.
  • Are you telling me this is yet another post-apocalyptic setting in a neverending war between man and machine? Wow. That’s totally NEVER been done before.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3D

Part of me wants to push through a little further, but another part of me is all, NOPE, nobody got time for that. I’m going to research the sequel a bit more before moving on. If the combat is exactly like this one, then it will get a hard pass. I’ll just go back to Xenoblade Chronicles X, because that game was fun.

After feeling defeated with Xenoblade Chronicles 3D, I decided to pick up a game that has a completely original idea and game format: Pokemon Pearl. (If your sarcasm senses aren’t tingling, please slap yourself.) Even though the Pokemon games are literally all the same, I still have fun playing them. They’re easy to pick up and play, and it’s a bit of an RPG-lite, which is nice for a handheld.

Is anyone watching Awesome Games Done Quick? It’s a blast as always, although it was a little disheartening to see a runner blaze through Splatoon 2 in the same amount of time it took me to beat one level.

The Corner of Randomness: Hello AGDQ 2018

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Just a quick bit of babbling about AGDQ 2018 today as I am about to head to Wisconsin.again. It’s almost like I should just move there. Seriously, this back and forth stuff is really getting old.

Anyway, AGDQ 2018 starts on Sunday (01/07/2018) and I am both excited and sad. I’m excited as this is always a great week of streaming. There are plenty of staples for the event, a few new games, and even a Link to the Past randomizer run. While I will be busy working on my house, this will be nice to just stream for background noise, and the occasional break from reality.

I am sad, however, for two reasons. First, I won’t be able to just be glued to my screen watching games getting destroyed. Sure, I can catch some VODs and I do plan to stream most of it for background noise. Yet, drills and saws make noise. So I am sure I’ll be missing something here and there. Also this is the first time I can’t just sit and watch and chat with Keri all at the same time. Maybe SGDQ will allow me that opportunity once again!

The second reason for sadness is that it appears the traditional Super Metroid run/race isn’t happening this year. I’ve looked over the schedule and it’s just not there. In fact, the only Metroid games being run are Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and the original Metroid. So no save/kill animals incentive, which seems really odd as that was a huge money maker for the event. I’ve read that some think it’s because the same game type has been run three years in a row. I’ve also read that the less than thrilling race from AGDQ 2016 is the reason why it’s not happening this year. Still, why not throw a randomizer race in to freshen things up? Hopefully they have some sort of incentive to help draw donations, but it just won’t be the same without the constant battle for animal lives.

Well, that’s it for me. Time to load up the vehicle and hit the road. Weee.

The Corner of Randomness: Winding Down the Year

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This will most likely be my last post for 2017 as I’ll be on the road to see family and friends for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I have no intention of bringing a computer with me as I’m traveling fairly light. Though, I will have to pack my PS4 so I can game it up with my brother in Wisconsin.

I don’t have much to say on the gaming front as I haven’t really been playing anything lately. I’ve been pretty well occupied with fixing up the house to get it ready for sale, traveling to and from Wisconsin, and dealing with a cold. Never a dull moment here.

I did manage to catch the last day of the Capcom Cup. It was cool to see someone climb through the loser bracket to win the event. I am still watching various randomizer events, mainly when I crawl into bed for the night. What caught me by surprise was that during one of the streams they mentioned that most of the various randomizer/speed gaming stuff would come to a halt for a bit as people were getting ready for AGDQ 2018. Wow, that really snuck up on me, but boy am I stoked for a week of games getting crushed in stupid short amounts of time.

So that’s about it from me. If I don’t manage to get another article out, I hope everyone enjoys the last bit of 2017. Hopefully Santa can treat ya well, but if not, enjoy time with family and friends. Maybe, even keep off your phone/tablet and just enjoy some time being disconnected from the craziness that is the world.

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