The reason why it took this long to reply was I was up north for the weekend and typing on my phone was tedious enough. But I'm home now, and even if I went nuts on another Community Day as usual, I've yet to find a Deoxys raid as well.

You know, at first I thought you are back with this game again, but then what other idea would override that one than Pokemon Home ? So now that I'm back, I'll keep an eye for Deoxys that I will have an interest in raiding with an invite to you. The only problem is I'm on a new account so I'll PM you my code next time I'm out and roaming again.

In other words on the Pokemon subject, I have now all three Johto starters on Emerald as well as the three legendary Dogs. I'm sure you knew, but I caught a shiny (Doduo/Dodrio) ten years after my last one in Gen 3... And it was from the Safari Zone . Now I'm upping a party full of high-level postgame mains for Emerald while transferring from FR/LG before I take on the Frontier.

I seriously can't stop playing these games...

Nice one. I guess with those rates in these later games, it's easier to do the near-impossible when it comes to the older core series. I mean, as I continued to play Gen 3, I was always hopeful for when I encounter a shiny. But the last shiny I picked up in Emerald was at least ten years ago. At least it was a Ditto and you can guess what it was capable of, but I might have mentioned it before here.

As for my quest to complete the non-event living dex in Emerald, I've started the process of "trading" the whole living Hoenn dex to Ruby. And my god was that video I shared correct about the timing; that process of several will take at least a good four hours. But I will keep going because I feel the rest of the 100% I plan to tackle will be worth the time.

I also see you're playing Diamond now. I want to keep playing that game with Pearl, but without the other three Gen 4 games, I feel incomplete in my task to catch 'em all. There was a similar video which I mentioned which goes over Gen 4 collection. I remember you had to cheese Spiritomb by using two DS's, and doing some complicated gimmicks just to trigger it's encounter. Will I be ready to do that? ...heh.

By the way, the reason why I didn't respond earlier was because I didn't want to ramble further with my GO shenanigans. I guess we all have mixed feelings with the game at this point, but me, I just keep playing because I enjoy going for walks. I also enjoy talking about what I love. But I see it as something you've lost interest in so I will leave the subject.

One does not simply complete a shiny living dex. But can you tell me what the rates are like for Gen 8? I always thought they were much, much higher compared to the other core games.

Speaking of shinies, I caught a shiny Taillow on the way to work via GO as my tenth living shiny of my new account. Obviously, you can see I jumped back on GO these recent weeks . I was playing like crazy during the first two weeks (Starting at the weekend before the Weedle CD last month) but forced to make a new account. The reason why my others went obsolete was that the old one from last year was a crappy trainer club account, which I learned that the servers were awful. The other one last Winter I seemed to lost the credentials - That or for reasons even unclear to myself. But aside from the shinies, I already have a hell load of living entries and nearly reached level 30.

But the influx is dying for now, I'm still playing but not as much as I was a week ago. Instead, I was heavily enticed with Gen 3 considering I played way too much of it than any other gen. But I still played the first four gens at several points during this year and last. But when I have all versions of a generation, I stick to it. Because I'm going for a national living dex for my Emerald save. And it's pretty insane what I'm doing, but I'd do pretty much anything to satisfy my OCD I guess.

There's a video that goes over the whole thing which I shouldn't mention. Except the biggest obstacle is the collection of Johto starters. Seeing how I don't own a gamecube as a much easier option to get them, I'm doing it the hard way: Trade-backs that take four hours for each of two starters.. But dude, I've spent four hours on something even more dumb, which came from a game called The Stanley Parable.

[Link]

But after getting those Johto starters from living hoenn dex as top priority, I'll go for the rest of the national living dex, of course. And then work on contest progress, and especially battle frontier. Basically the activities that will grant me a golden trainer card.

What a long strange trip this will be (That's a WoW reference )

Lost Odyssey or Lost Schmodissey?

Hah, I guess you're not the only one getting rid of games from your backlog. I believe I have/have not (?) came to a conclusion to include a specific fraction of my games in a set collection. You've probably seen from my page note if you haven't already. Though I will say that feature, too, is ever-changing, the same as my usual backlog tricks.

But I will say that my backlog is smaller albeit still reset at all angles except the 1% I'm into at the moment. I'm basically leaving my personally fascinated portion of the games I have which includes (not limited to) most older N64 titles.

Hang on... Hate to bring up Pokemon again, 200 shinies in one core game? Are shiny rates the same as GO in SwSh? I only gotten three in my whole life playing Emerald! The latest one I got was about 12 years ago. It was a Ditto, which was fun to transform as a shiny counterpart despite mediocre base stats.

Say, did you get a "Square Shiny" as one of the shinies you caught? Do you even know what that is?

Sorry for the late response. Things have gotten ahold of me as usual that I keep forgetting to come back.

Thanks for your input on Ring Fit Adventure. Although counter-intuitive, I enjoy games that require extra movement to play through. Of course this is coming from someone who still plays Pump It Up and is planning to buy and set up VR equipment in several months! The weird thing is not many games under said mechs like RFA have a campaign stuck in them, so hopefully I'll choose to get the game when these virus issues subside. Because right now I'm isolating myself from most facilities and stores.

As for Pokemon GO. I have to agree with you. It occurred to me that I'm not playing as frequently as I am lately. I was going to try the living dex idea, but like you said, given how they worked the game in recent months, my interest continues to wither away even after a bounced back last December. The reason why I had a new account is Trainer Club ones are bs.

Prior to the postponing of current events in GO due to virus, back when raid days were off, actions suitable for staying home and catching at the same time, and even the community day Abra "Teleporting" away from COVID-19, it still was hazy in terms of better content. Too many Pokemon to catch, with most people, like me, more adjusted to the earlier generations (Like I missed when only one gen was catchable). But we have crappy Gen 5 Pokemon as even research breakthroughs, like Ferroseed (And I already have several) instead of good legendaries and such...

In case you haven't noticed, I really wanted to talk more about Pokemon than RFA here... heh. But really I was trying to link as much as I can on why you stopped playing. But as much as I love the idea of Pokemon Home, it's a shame I can't make a lot out of it using only one compatible game I haven't much interest in nowadays.

Oh how I miss the Summer of 2016...

How are you enjoying Ring Fit Adventure? I am aware it's similar to Wii Fit in a way that more articulation is involved, judging by half of that commercial I remember seeing on TV a while back. I was going to get that game for myself some time after this COVID-19 smoke clears out (Because nothing is open rip) if its affordable for me!

In other words, I'm sure you noticed I have resumed playing Pokemon GO ever since last December, new account and everything. And even though the cold season is transitioning away, I've got as much unique shinies as I had my abandoned account. You still playing that? You want to friend up again?

I noticed you have a ring so, happy backloggiversary!! 'u' /

I misread that as 'Children of Mario' and was v confused,,

Don't worry, I was joking around about feeling attacked.

The regular chapters are actually pretty easy compared to what Meat Boy starts throwing at you from ch. 3. (I got 106% in SMB, too.) Other than the later half of the post-game, Celeste isn't as difficult as SMB.

As for the bubbles; if your stick is neutral when you're about the be shot, the game sends you straight right or left, depending on where you were facing when entering the bubble. You're not supposed to time your input, you can hold the stick even before you enter the bubble. Maybe that's what you did wrong? I have no idea what you meant exactly. Sometimes I struggled shooting diagonally out of bubbles, but that's because I suck at doing diagonals with the stick.

I can play platformers both with stick and d-pad, I don't really care. I went for d-pad with SMB (on Switch) and stick for Celeste. Not like I had a different choice anyway; you know that the Pro's d-pad is fucked, and not only the Joy-Cons' "d-pad" makes my thumb sore super quickly, my Cons are even more fucked. (I murdered them by not using them in a year, somehow?) But fair on you if having to use the stick threw you off.

That's funny, I had the exact opposite experience with those moving platforms. Several times I was two or three pixels off and platform still didn't break, it just snapped back on track on its own. I also didn't have any problem accidentally climbing a platform at all, how'd that keep happening to you? Were you holding up-left or up-right? They weren't really the most exciting gimmick though, I agree. I presume you got as far as 4B before quitting - the clouds there actually broke me the first time. God damn I hated them so much.

As for the feather, yeah, that doesn't control very well with a d-pad. You can make it work, but it's a steeper learning curve than just about every other gimmick.

I feel... slightly attacked by that progress note.
Nah for real though, I'm curious to hear what you thought of Celeste. I saw you gave it 4 stars so I'm sure you must've liked it somewhat, but tell me more about it! Are you playing anything after chapter 7?

Oh no, I'm definitely not confusing anybody. I didn't even know you didn't register it on your backlog!

On the subject of what you were saying about your playtime a while ago, I can see where you were coming at in terms of the ultra rewards, whatever the heck they were supposed to be for. And it was a good thing I stopped playing, otherwise as a player after as much living dex as they could, it could be a nightmare.

I may have remembered reinstalling the game at least once, yet I occasionally get the error block. Not that I'm going to come back to this game anymore. Especially when Winter's coming (Insert rambling of cold weather sapping my phone battery away). But it's weird, because the years prior to my mass playing of the game last Summer, I got no errors. But then again, it's one of those apps that keep on updating.

Yeah, I'm really into the older Pokemon games. Before I went full genwunner, I was going nuts on Gen 3. That was really the highest generation I played back in the day. I did play a bit of Gen 6 by rolling all the way through Omega Ruby. As what you said about Gen 5, I heard many interesting things about it. ONE DAY, I will go further into the core series and try it out. One day...

Hey don't mind me, I have a thing about playing through most series in chronological order.

It occurred to me that both of us seem to not be playing Pokemon GO for a while. I don't know about you, but I don't see it on your playing list as I drop by again. I was wondering what was up with you avoiding that game all month.

I'll tell you my story of why I have actually chose to end playing the game: Mainly the fact that I keep having to relog in because of some bs-worthy "Network connection error" really knocked me over. I feel there was no purpose of such an error other than blocking me off and I'm pretty sure it happened 3-4 times the month prior to my give-up on the game.

But the straw that broke the elephant's back was during that legendary dog raid hour, where I went and bought extra raid passes using real world money. But when I used one into the waiting room, it eventually kicked me out because said error somehow struck me, and ate my pass/money... oof.

There was also an intro to the Unova Pokedex, which would be overwhelming for me given I am mainly into the first three generations of Pokemon. In fact, I have turned mainly into a genwunner thanks to the constant playing of Gen 1 ever since May 2018 (But I will come around to playing the other gens again). But still, I'm done. If you excuse me now, I will resume my living dex attempt on Yellow Version, followed by that of Crystal, Emerald, etc.

But what about yourself? I can't seem to locate the game on your backlog anymore, and you haven't had a mentioning about it around the time I've finished. Have you too moved on from that game?

aaaand no shiny to end the Rayquaza raid month, which sucks too because my long-time Rayquaza hat I wore for every raid hour and most other raids really hyped me up. I swear, the game doesn't care how far you go to try getting the extra loot - On this rainy evening where I live, I could say I could do it "come rain or SHINY", or just go ahead and complain "If I don't get that shiny tonight, I'd eat my Rayquaza hat"

I never tossed a penny in the game... yet, but I only buy my storage upgrades under the veins of gyms. And this month, I learned never to buy anything but storage upgrades if I'm living on gym-only change. Which was why specifically for the raid hours, I ended up getting extra passes using said allowance.

Also yeee @gift. The reason why I held off replying to now is I thought you would do it soon. Though, I haven't seen a gift from you all week. Are you too holding up the lucky egg on your side? I have my spare egg ready for a time when I know the bonus will occur.

Bruh, I got a shiny Suicune from the three-hour raid event today. Which is nice considering it was my first raid shiny. I mean, it wasn't regularly rated, to be fair. Also a kid next to me, out of all 40+ of the players around the lake park a block away from my house, got a back-to-back. So I'm questioning how shiny rates work for such events?

Have you partook in the event? I got three other Suicune aside from the shiny despite having neglected my opportunity to catch Entei last time, mainly because I was up north for its weekend so there wasn't many people around.

But I'll tell you this, I got too many items over-limit in my bag, and now's a good time for me to get some upgrades, and the Pokemon storage too. To be honest, I never paid a cent so far in the game since when I started last spring and was playing every day since early June. But if I want to, I might as well buy coins for stuff... Storage upgrades are a must, especially since I'm into living pokedex mayhem as you can see.

Wow, that's you in the video? That's impressive. I especially love the end bit . I only did about three FCs whenever I stepped up for PIU last Spring, and those weren't even the hardest modes. But I checked my local game store and turns out they don't have any bundles. I don't think I've ever seen a sign of TnT in any store except online, which is probably going to be my best bet if I am ready for it.

Even though I got two Rayquaza this week, I couldn't find anywhere good for the last raid hour considering how I was out and about all day for some errands. Little known fact which you have probably already known, Pokemon GO was the reason why I jumped back into Pokemon the day it came out.

Speaking of which, Turtwig is confirmed for next month's CD. Which is VERY interesting considering there is another community event going on Canada-wide - A community trail event to raise money for cancer, mid-day as well. My idea was to group up with others and catch Turtwig as we walk the trail.

Oh no, I didn't mean it at all how I'm less interested as you when it come to GO. I mean, it's a fantastic game. I play it every day like the Misha I am and even never paid a cent so far. And I agree how certain in-game scenarios can make good stories to tell. For instance, the first Armored Mewtwo I caught was first try, or perhaps how I caught two default-rate shinies in one place but at different times this Summer. It's great to talk to people like you about what I ran into. However I'm usually shy whenever I share my stories with people like you - I just don't want to flood the dialogue box or be too attention-oriented.

But on the subject of rhythm games, and I'll try to set an example of sharing interests here, I was intended to pick up TnT on Switch along with its respective drum peripheral. I'm actually wondering if I can try said drum on my computer via usb, and possibly a driver. I would going to ask you one day if it's good on Switch, or if the drum can work on my computer for use on an proper app.

The current rhythm game I'm currently up to right now is Pump It Up, that X-pad clone of DDR, both of which I haven't been touching for a while. I avoided going to the game center for PIU all Summer due to the fact that it's currently crowded, all the kids are out of school, and even summer camps invade the area (Also the game center only holds PIU cabs at the moment). The least I could do is assemble UCSs (User Custom Steps) for when I come back there next month. Or what I also could do is continue playing DDR via my laptop and softpads, which I've been wanting to do for a while actually. Or I could just play PIU on said pads in a non-upscale fashion since I know of a PIU emulator that does things a lot like the cab.

I could also ramble about on Pokemon, not just GO, but the fact that I have been replaying Gen 1 TOO MUCH since May last year. First I legit caught 'em all through actual GameBoy, then wanted to do the same on emulation because recently I don't know where my save files went for my new desktop here, then I will finish with a Yellow Version living dex before Gen 2. Because I can.

Heh, you like talking a lot about Pokemon GO, don't you? I will be sure to add your alternate account once I have offloaded everything from my weekend of camping.

Damn, what a story that was for the weekend. Who would've thought their wedding would be bombarded by a flock of GO players? I have still yet to even do a "Rayd" this month, if you will. Congrats on the shinies!

I am certain people notice me roaming around the nearby train station town a 15-minute drive away from the camper catching all the Ralts, with my casual Pikachu shirt, Instinct cap, and even a Ralts trading card hung on my backpack.

I have caught six shinies if I remember correctly. The last two were back-to-back, similar to Mudkip's CD. I was quite fortunate to have given a Sinnoh Stone the day prior via breakthrough, as well as having only one male shiny during the CD that followed. So now I have the whole Ralts family in shiny form.

I nicknamed my shiny Gardevoir "Rem"

I honestly didn't know about Muddy Water, unless I misheard my peers during the CD.

Nice job with those shinies as well! Though, even though I have walked 15km from yesterday morning, I still haven't found anything on Rockets. I did, however, find a Ditto yesterday. Which really gave me a boost in special research.

Oh, that makes sense. I completely missed the news that they are releasing Celeste physically, I thought it would stay digital-only forever. If you've waited this long, then I'm sure you can wait a little longer. What you know about the game so far is all you need, really. Actually, change "pretty good" to "really good" while we're at it.
Yeah, I'm doing fine! My backlog, not so much, because I've been addicted to racing games for a few months now. I'm done playing Mario Kart DS for now, I moved on to CTR. They're pretty similar games really, except MKDS makes my left thumb hurt because of the controls, while CTR doesn't. The harder I try, the more my thumb suffers; that's how the game works.
I haven't started the series, I'm actually finishing it. Played Explorers of Darkness (very similar to Sky, it's just missing lots of post-game and a bunch more improvements) and the 3DS games already. EoD was awesome, for all the reasons you mentioned and for the fantastic soundtrack. My favorite character was Grovyle, but yeah, Wigglytuff was so fucking hilarious that it's impossible not to like him! Really livened up the mood of the game. The first 3DS game (Gates to Infinity) is bad, I totally agree. The other one, Super, I honestly don't mind too much. It is inferior to the Explorers games in almost everything; I'd say the gameplay is a little better the few moments when the difficulty isn't too high or too low... So, very rarely. I'm going to replay it right after I finish Blue Rescue Team. After that, Explorers of Sky.