Rynling R&D

My favorite generation of Pokémon games is Sword and Shield. Hands down. I didn't play those two games for as many hours as I played previous generations, but only because I am no longer an insane completionist.

After that, I really like Sun and Moon. This is probably because I was going back and forth to Hawai'i for work fairly often at around the time they came out, but it doesn't hurt that they're fun (and short!) games with an interesting set of themes and characters.

Sun and Moon are also the generation where you could start going wild with dressing up your character, and that is exactly what I did. At first, my character had a very "classic" and preppy look. Then one of the NPCs was like, "I'll give you a special item if you show me the most colorful outfit you have." Just for laughs, I put my trainer in the worst clothing I could find. The absolute worst. Everything was bold patterns in bright clashing colors. And you know what? It was amazing.

That was when I realized: I can dress like this in real life.

So every summer I make it my mission to be a walking OSHA-certified neon recycle bin. I usually go straight for flip-flops, but I have made a thrilling discovery.

Behold! Botanical-pattern boardwalk loafers:
https://www.heydude.com/products/wally-funk-oasis-blue
https://www.heydude.com/products/wally-h2o-sail-on-sailor
https://www.heydude.com/products/wally-tropical-light-blue

One of the things I will forever love about Final Fantasy XII is its sidequests. I love doing monster hunts for people in order to learn more of the game’s lore, and I enjoy the task of defeating a certain number of whatever monster to unlock more of its bestiary. I love this aspect of Hollow Knight, and I love this aspect of Hades, and this aspect of Breath of the Wild (such as it is) is the only reason I replay the game so often.

Pokémon Legends Arceus seems as though it would be the perfect game for me, but I’m not enjoying myself. Your job is basically to catch or kill a lot of pokémon species in an open-world map, but there’s no real overarching narrative or deep lore (outside of the standard Pokémon storyline) to make this worthwhile. Also, I hate to say this, but the game isn’t visually interesting. I was looking forward to seeing the Pokémon universe’s equivalent of the Meiji Period, but there’s not much there.

Idk, Pokémon Legends Arceus feels like a spin-off game that just doesn’t have the same level of charm and detail and originality as the main series.

Or? It could be that I recently played Pokémon Shield and Pokémon Shining Pearl, and that I’m a bit Pokémon-ed out at the moment. It could also be that I just haven’t gotten far enough in the game for it to have gotten interesting. I think it might also be the case that I usually get hyped up about the Pokémon games through the fandom, and Tumblr is all but dead while Twitter’s algorithm isn’t showing me anything I want to see right now.

Maybe I’ll come back to Pokémon Legends Arceus in the summer. Maybe. Meanwhile, now that Dark Souls is available on the Switch, maybe it’s finally time to give that series a shot...?

I started writing a story about Sonia from Pokémon Sword and Shield. I just think she's neat.

I was doing some research, and a lot of people think that the town you start out in, Postwick, is based on the town of Keswick in the Lake District. It's halfway between Edinburgh and Manchester, and about forty minutes north of where Beatrix Potter lived.

The village where Potter's farm was, Near Sawrey, borders on a woodland area called Grizedale Forest, which apparently contains the stone ruins of an abandoned estate, as well as a few installations of contemporary megalithic art. I think it's probably more likely that the Slumbering Weald next to Postwick is based on Sherwood Forest, but that's four hours south and in a different climate zone. But then again, none of this is real (except in my heart, where pokémon will always be real), so it doesn't matter except in terms finding of cool photo references.

Anyway, I'm generally not a fan of cutesy and twee art, but I actually love Beatrix Potter. I never knew about her until I went to an exhibition of her watercolor botanical illustrations in Tokyo, and her biography was the first book I read from cover to cover in Japanese. Potter was an absolute feral queen, and I respect and admire her so much. I would love to visit the Lake District myself and like, idk. Appreciate the sheep and paint some mushrooms.

I’ve spent the past two months replaying Pokémon games. What I enjoy about these games is that:

(a) They are very stupid,
(b) they are very cute, and
(c) they are absurdly fun to play.

I’m currently playing Pokémon Moon, which is about teenage lesbians in Hawai’i, and Pokémon Shield, which is about British football hooligans.

The metastories of these games are actually quite interesting. Pokémon Sun and Moon is about how the activities of scientists intent on “preserving natural heritage” without consulting native Hawai’ians are fucking up the environment, while Pokémon Sword and Shield offers a critical commentary on the extreme corporatization of sport. Sword and Shield also tackles issues of race and class from a British perspective and takes a nuanced approach that doesn’t designate heroes and villains or offer clear solutions.

I sort of want to write about this, but I know the response is going to be “why are you overanalyzing these cute and stupid games.” Which is fair.

I saw a Chandelure gijinka on Twitter, and damn.

https://twitter.com/cynphonium/status/1070873019416043520

This is so specific to my set of interests that I feel almost offended 1.6k other people liked it.

I started playing Pokémon Sword on December 4, and I beat the game last night. It took a little more than 42 hours, which is the result of me playing about half an hour a day for the past two and a half months.

I feel like I spent most of my time with Pokémon Sword goofing off in the Wild Area, dressing my character in ridiculous outfits, and figuring out to make truly bizarre unique league cards. I really enjoyed myself.

What I appreciate about this generation of Pokémon games is that, partially thanks to the open-world style Wild Area, the player can create a diverse and balanced team from the start, which means that you can set up your team within two or three hours and then not have to worry about level grinding or otherwise catching up under-leveled pokémon. All the creatures on my team were at level 70 at the end of the game, and they’d all been with me since the first gym battle. I caught 225 species of pokémon without really trying, but it was just for fun.

Compared to previous generations, Pokémon Sword and Shield don’t have much of an overarching story, but I love the location and the characters. I played about half of the game in handheld mode and the other half on my television. I’ve always wanted to play a Pokémon game in widescreen high definition, and this was everything I ever dreamed of. Each of the towns and cities is gorgeous, and the big stadium battles are phenomenal. The major characters have all sorts of interesting microexpressions and small animation flourishes that help you get a sense of their personalities, and their designs are attractive and eye-catching.

It will probably not surprise anyone that I have a crush on Chairman Rose, who tries very hard to be evil but comes off as goofy and adorable. Early on in the game, Rose shows up “incognito” to have lunch with your character at a fancy restaurant in one of the most fantastically Eurotrash outfits I have ever had the pleasure to behold. I was so inspired by his ridiculous combination of sportswear and beachwear that I spent the entire game hyper-focused on earning money so that I could buy clothes and achieve the same glorious antithesis of style.

By the time the player has their final showdown against Rose in the creepy ambient glow of shattered test tubes with a “One-Winged Angel” style choral piece as the BGM, my character was a complete and utter eyesore. I hope Rose was proud of me.

Aside from Rose, my favorite character is probably Kabu, who has a lot of good lines about supporting young people and how you’re never too old to improve your game or try new things. I’ve seen some interesting work from people who ship Kabu with Raihan, but I’m a fan of Leon/Raihan, which is a bit basic but more my speed and I may be writing fanfic.

I had a lot of fun with Pokémon Sword. I recently saw – on Twitter, I think? – someone say that there are three main genres of video games: Men With Guns, It’s About Depression, and Nintendo. I totally get that, and I appreciate that Pokémon Sword is a strong “Nintendo” game in the sense that it doesn’t take itself too seriously and allows you to play it in whatever way you like. I’m not super-invested in the DLC, but I think it might be nice to return to the Galar region when new content is available this summer.

There have been a lot of people criticizing the new Pokémon game coming out on Friday. I believe everything I've read, and I totally understand why people are upset.

But honestly, I don't care. I will buy the game and play it anyway, and I'll probably enjoy it.

At this particular moment in my life I don't need high art; plain old escapism will do me just fine.

I enjoyed Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! so much that I ended up returning to Pokémon Sun to play through the postgame content. It took me 45 hours to finish the game, and I think I did just about everything I can do after that (not counting the competitive battle systems), bringing me to a total of 53 hours.

I only caught 115 pokémon. I’m sure that I could spend many more hours filling my pokédex, but I think I’m good. Up until about five years ago I would log close to a hundred hours on each of these games, and never once did I ever complete a pokédex. You need a solid management strategy and an extended support system to do something like that, and that’s not why I play video games.

I don’t have anything new or interesting to say about the game. It’s still reasonably fun but needlessly complicated, and my cute team of cute animals is still very cute. The main characters are still loveable, the villains are still fantastic, and the teenage lesbian love story is A++++++ forever.

Also, the strategy guide for Pokémon Sun and Moon is really nice! I appreciate that the Pokémon Company (which publishes these guides directly) is putting effort into making handsome books that include character art, creator interviews, and peripherals like bookmarks and maps. I usually don’t go in for game merch – I don’t even have that many amiibos – but I think I’m probably going to order the shit out of a special edition guide if they release one for Pokémon Sword and Shield.

Speaking of which, I was planning on spending some time in the UK this summer, but I’m going to have to cancel everything if the assholes in charge of Brexit don’t figure out what they’re doing. If the next set of Pokémon games is the only way I’m going to be able to visit the UK for the next couple of years, then I might as well make the best of it. Even though the real world is terrible, I’m heartened by the fact that we’re at least capable of imagining what a functioning utopia would look like.

"Everyone's smiles shine so brightly. Those smiles led us to so many other people. And those meetings will lead us to a bright future. I'm so glad I got to meet everyone. I'm so glad I got to meet you."

- Lillie

Pokémon Sun is such a sweet and gentle game. It only took me about 45 hours to finish it, but I spread it out over ten months because the world of the game was a surefire source of happiness and joy. Breath of the Wild was a lot of fun, but Pokémon Sun healed me.

As I wrote when I started the game (link), Pokémon Sun is an unapologetically positive model of what a postcapitalist utopia might look like. Money isn't much more than a game token, everyone's needs are met, and there is no scarcity; jobs pay well, leisure is abundant, and volunteerism is common. There is a state, but it only exists to provide basic services. The villains in the game are aberrations that have to be tolerated as a byproduct of the functioning of the local market system, which is driven by individual interests. Basically, even in a postcapitalist system with no scarcity, some people will still insist on behaving according to capitalist ideology, and those people will create problems for everyone else if someone doesn't talk sense into them.

What I especially appreciate about Pokémon Sun is that it repeatedly emphasizes the message that everyone's talents are valuable. Success is achieved through cooperation and mutual support, and the goal is not to "get stronger" but to develop one's unique strengths. The character Lillie is a good example of this value system. She wants to get stronger at the beginning of the story, but gradually she finds the courage to resist the expectation (enforced by one of the game's villains, who happens to be her gorgeous and fascinating mother) that there is an absolute standard to which she should aspire. That being said, Lillie isn't content to "be herself," as she acknowledges that change isn't something to be afraid of, and she makes a firm decision to direct her own character evolution by setting her own challenges.

If you choose to play as the female protagonist, the relationship between this protagonist and Lillie is the most pure and perfect thing I have ever seen in a mainstream game. I'm actually really surprised that Nintendo allowed this, considering how gay it is.

The people who wrote the entries in the pokédex are complete savages, though. That shit is dark, and whoever is responsible for it needs to reflect on their life choices and think about what they've done.

That Pokeyman Thing is a twenty-minute browser game that was put together partially in response to an interview with Werner Herzog in which the dude totally does not understand Pokémon Go.

To me, as someone who is still keeping up with Pokémon Go, That Pokeyman Thing captures the experience of playing the game quite well - it's more than a little stupid, but it's actually kind of fun, and it does encourage you to leave the house and explore your neighborhood. I usually hate WASD games, but this one is well written and well programmed, and as an added bonus the music is super catchy.

I'm on Level 27 in Pokémon Go, if anyone cares. I have been on Level 27 for months.