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Today's image: So I guess Xerneas is in this game to some capacity? Either as a Pokéball or an X/Y stage maybe?

I added you, Hermie. Xerneas is really kicking my ass. After it gets a few Geomancies off, it becomes completely unstoppable. ...Oh, never mind. I caught it.

If they made both screens the same width and you played one of the many games that display double-tall cutscenes or what have you, it would look completely wrong.

Batman and X-Men.

I am so glad somebody mapped Lumiose City.

Sassy was intentional; "Somewhat vain" was a happy accident.

So I just found out that this is happening not very far north of where I am.

Nick: when I was a kid I sprained my ankle doing flips on the carpet after watching Power Rangers Jake: some of them smell; babies smell Sean: please give me your friend code; I have a Pokémon for you. ...I hope you appreciate how fucking long it took to get every variable of that right. (also, not to pressure you into picking a certain starter or anything, but Fennekin evolves into a Wizard)

I still want a Voltron-type game where four players each control a single limb of a giant robot using Kinect and are tasked with defeating a single monster. It would be like cooperative QWOP.

This has nothing to do with anything, but how come Chris's Halloween twitter handle is "Ghost Chris Remo" instead of the infinitely superior "Chris Screamo"?

Oh man, is anyone doing the berry farming thing? Trees yield enough berries to make it actually worthwhile for once, you can cross-breed berries, and you have a chance of encountering bugs attacking your crops. It's super neat.

I had no idea that The Drifting Classroom ever got a (very, very loose) movie adaptation, directed by the same guy who did Hausu and starring Troy Fucking Donahue for some goddamn reason. Apparently this was never released on DVD, but I must nonetheless make it my life's work to find it.

There's always a champion. I dunno' who it is for this gen yet, but I'm leaning toward the actress lady. Cynthia was probably my favourite Champion. Her team's type coverage is insane and I had to pull out all kinds of tricks to make it through that fight in Diamond.

I know I shouldn't have, but I made an amazon order for myself as a birthday gift. I ordered Kitaro and the Adventure Time: Marceline and the Scream Queens trade paperback.

So guys, what would you say your list of Treehouse of Horror episodes worth watching is?

Personally I turned off the EXP Share after a while. I'm turning it back on just now, because the Fairy Gym nearly totaled me.

Going through the Habitat List in Black 2 like a checklist was honestly one of my favourite parts of the game. I'm really excited to get into the postgame catching. So what Megas has everyone tried? I've used Mega Lucario, Mega Charizard X, and Mega Gengar now. I haven't evolved my Torchic yet. I'm actually trying to refrain from using Charizard at all right now because it's ridiculously strong, especially in its Mega form. Unrelated:

I've been returning to the Battle Chateau because prize money is always determined by Trainer Class. Since everyone there is a high society trainer and they spawn indefinitely, it's the easiest way to get money. Also, two things: 1) So you can catch starters in the Friend Safari thing, which I've yet to encounter. They also have a chance of having their hidden abilities if you catch them there. It turns out Greninja has a new ability that changes its type to whatever move it's about to use each turn, which is fucking insane. 2) It's crazy to me that You can catch Axew and Bagon really early and Gible a little bit later. Now I've got Goomy, which is just increasingly nuts. Related: I can breed Goomies now if anybody wants one.

Don't save in Lumiose City. There've been reports of a fatal crash bug. Also, I just got Pokérus from a friend if anyone wants it.

I tip 50%. It`s entirely there as a measure to keep me from just eating restaurants all the time.

I think you mean Dishonoured Thanksgiving. ...I am going to get Chinese food tomorrow, because I am a sad person.

Oh by the way, I can get anyone a Tyrunt or a Charmander if they want one. I'm looking for Y-exclusives and Chespin, but anything is fine in exchange.

The long and short of Pokémon breeding: -All Pokémon belong to either one or two Egg Groups, which determine what Pokémon it can breed with. Most of them can be intuited based on the shape of the Pokémon (ie: fish can usually breed with other fish, human-like Pokémon can usually breed with other human-like Pokémon, etc), though there are some weird cases that make no sense (Wailord can breed with Skitty, Seviper can breed with Zangoose, etc). If the man outside the day care says that your Pokémon prefer to play with other Pokémon and not with each other, it means that they belong to different egg groups and cannot breed. Otherwise, whatever he says is in indication of how likely it is that your Pokémon will produce an egg every time you take 255 steps, with a low of 20% and a high of 70%. Your best chance is through two Pokémon originally owned by two different trainers. If you see that the man is facing the path the next time you pass by the Day Care center, it means he has an egg for you. -The only Pokémon that cannot breed at all are Legendaries (one of a kind rare monsters like the ones on the front of the box), baby Pokémon (younger forms of a select few Pokémon with low stats, usually introduced in a generation after their adult form; ie: Pichu, Riolu, Azurill, etc), and -for some inexplicable reason- Nidorina and Nidoqueen. The only Pokémon that can otherwise breed with all Pokémon is Ditto, which is compatible with any gender (including genderless). Ditto cannot breed with another Ditto. -The species of the offspring is determined by the mother, and will always take the form of the lowest evolutionary step in the mother's evolutionary lines. The exceptions are few: Nidoran, Nidorino, or Nidoking can produce either a male or female Nidoran (despite the Nidoran♂ and Nidoran♀ lines technically being seperate species), Volbeat and Illumise can produce more of either, and Manaphy (the only breedable legendary) will always produce an egg for a Fione. In the case of Pokémon whose baby forms were introduced in a later generation, one of the parents will have to hold an incense in order to produce the baby form rather than the original lowest evolutionary step. Incenses are needed to produce Wynaut, Azurill, Budew, Chingling, Bonsly, Mime Jr., Happiny, Mantyke, or Munchlax. -Moves can be passed down in a few ways. If both parents know the same move and the baby would be capable of learning the same move, it will generally be born knowing that move already. The same goes for any move learned by the father via TM or HM that the baby could learn via the same. The most interesting are Egg Moves, which vary depending on the species. If the father knows a move that's on the baby's list of Egg Moves, it will be born knowing that move. This applies even if the baby normally couldn't learn the move at all otherwise. This can get you some super fun hilarious moves, like getting a Charmander with Outrage. A Pichu can also be born knowing its signature move Volt Tackle (which it can't learn otherwise) if its Pikachu or Raichu parent holds an item called a Light Ball when breeding. -Natures can be passed down by having one parent hold an Everstone. Natures help determine stat growth, so this is pretty important. You can also breed for Individual Values (a set of hidden variables that also determine stat growth), but I dunno nuthin' 'bout that. Abilities have a strong change of being passed down from mother to baby if the mother does not breed with a Ditto. The chance is 80% for a normal ability and 60% for a "Hidden Ability," crazy special abilities normally only available through the Pokémon Dream World website, giveaways, etc. The Torchic you can recieve through Wifi right now with Speed Boost is an example of a Pokémon with its Hidden Ability. Abilities correspond between evolutions even if the exact ability itself doesn't carry over when it evolves (ie: an Eevee with the hidden ability Anticipation will always evolve into something with its respective Hidden Ability rather than its normal ability). -Egg hatching is its own weird thing that you can minmax by counting your steps, but generally I prefer to just find a nice long path with no grass to bike back and forth on for a few minutes. If you have a Pokémon with the abilities Flame Body or Magma Armor in your party, the amount of steps it takes for an egg to hatch is effectively cut in half. Fletchling's evolutions can have Flame Body, so you can get a head start on hatching pretty early on that way. For more information, I recommend checking out this Bulbapedia page! Bulbapedia also has comprehensive pages on virtually every Pokémon available prior to this generation; so you can get a good estimate of what egg moves it can learn, what abilities it can have, etc. Super Training is there to manage Effort Values, another hidden variable that determines stat growth that's been there since day one but has only been made transparent in this generation. If you're not enjoying it, don't worry about it unless you decide to start doing competitive postgame stuff. I have no idea what Pokémon-Amie actually does but it's cute and I hear it's required to evolve Eevee into Sylveon.

LUCHADOR BIRD