games

18 years of fandom – my Pokemon scrapbook

November 14, 2016 by Yumeka 4 Comments

2016 is the 20th anniversary of my most influential franchises, one that has continually brought me joy for over half of my life and still shows no sign of letting up. The Pokemon Company has been celebrating “#Pokemon20” since the beginning of the year with various game promotions, special events, and exclusive store merchandise as fans celebrate the nostalgic days of Pokemon while also getting hyped for the next generation of games with Sun/Moon. Being the Pokemon fan that I am, and with Sun/Moon just a few days away, I couldn’t resist doing something special to celebrate my fandom on a personal level. So I put together a scrapbook of all the Pokemon paper goods I’ve collected over the years – pamphlets, stickers, flyers, postcards, bookmarks, CD booklets, VHS covers, TCG badge booklets, and anything else that could fit in a scrapbook…

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Posted in Anime Products, Pokemon
Tagged games, me, Pokemon

Yo-kai Watch review: is it the next Pokemon?

November 29, 2015 by Yumeka 7 Comments

Art by このかりん on pixiv

I’m off for four days this Thanksgiving weekend and didn’t have much planned, so why not finally have a new blog post after so long? XD As I explained in my anniversary post from last month, I haven’t been watching much new anime, but I’ll still be writing about something related today – the recent US release of the Japanese hit game series, Youkai Watch (localized as “Yo-kai Watch”). The game has been a big hit in Japan since its release in 2013 (followed by an anime series and sequel game) and was just released in the US earlier this month. I heard that it has a similar premise as Pokemon and is being hailed as the “next Pokemon” with how popular it became in Japan. Being the Pokemon fan that I am, I was really curious and decided to give the game a try once it was released in English. As of now, I’ve played about 30 hours of it (finished the main storyline and some side quests). So do I feel the series deserves the popularity it’s been getting, and will it really be the next Pokemon?…

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Posted in Pokemon, Video Games
Tagged games, Pokemon, Youkai Watch

Why the Pokemon anime hasn’t “evolved”

April 26, 2015 by Yumeka 34 Comments

Art by 密原诺诺 on pixiv

It never ceases to amaze me how practically everyone I’ve encountered from my generation who’s into anime, video games, or other branches of so-called “nerd” culture have, or at least did at one point, an affinity for Pokemon. It usually wasn’t just the Game Boy games that were a part of their childhood, but the Pokemon anime as well. A lot of them have played all the main series Pokemon games that have come out over the years, perhaps missing one or two due to temporary waning interest, but the Pokemon games have a way of bringing people back with new updates and features they add to each generation of games. But unfortunately the same cannot be said for the Pokemon anime series. Unlike the games that get more innovative while maintaining the same beloved premise, the Pokemon anime has stagnated over the years with the same unchanging characters, the same episodic style, and the same formulaic stories. While it has gotten a bit better recently, it still pales in comparison to other long-running kids anime in terms of storytelling quality. So why has the Pokemon anime remained so resistant to change, which has infuriated adult Pokemon players who want a decent show to go along with the games they love? Today I want to examine the reasons behind this…

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Posted in Editorials and Ramblings, Pokemon
Tagged editorials, games, Pokemon

Yumeka’s top 10 (non-Pokemon) video games

March 11, 2015 by Yumeka 7 Comments

Even though it’s not my main hobby, I do enjoy playing video games now and then. As some of you are aware of, I’m much more of a video game connoisseur than what you’d call a “gamer” – there’s a handful of games and game series I enjoy, but I only pick up a new one once in a while and I certainly don’t play all of the very popular games. Pokemon has been my main game of choice for years, and I play it so much more than other video games that I consider it its own separate hobby. But there have been many other games that have made an impression on me over the years, and surprisingly I never really thought about which ones have been my all time favorites. So now it’s time to do that!…

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Posted in Anime Lists, Video Games
Tagged games, me, my favorites, Okami, Sonic the Hedgehog

Even more anime lateral thinking puzzles

February 12, 2015 by Yumeka 5 Comments

This is the third installment of a series of posts where I come up with anime-themed lateral thinking puzzles for you guys to solve – well, technically I don’t come up with them myself as much as take already existing puzzles and give them an anime twist ;) I wrote the first post in 2011 and the second in 2013, so it seems like they’re becoming a two-year tradition! But anyway, for those who aren’t familiar with them, lateral thinking puzzles are basically riddles where you have to use critical thinking and logic in order to solve them. I’ve always enjoyed these kinds of things, so what better way to present them than in anime-style!

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Posted in Miscellaneous
Tagged games

A beginner’s guide to competitive Pokemon battling

February 4, 2015 by Yumeka 13 Comments

Like many Pokemon players, I started playing the games as a kid in the late 90s, before the competitive metagame existed. I first started taking note of things like EV training and IVs in the Diamond and Pearl era, but when I looked up information about the competitive side of Pokemon, I got scared away by all the mathematical equations and fan-made jargon I’d find on sites like Bulbapedia, Smogon, and Serebii. It wasn’t until Black 2 and White 2 came out in 2012 that I really wanted to give competitive Pokemon battling a try…and it turned out to be easier than I thought! As of now I’ve put in almost 600 hours of gameplay on my copy of Pokemon X, and 150 hours on my Omega Ruby, breeding competitive pokemon and trying them out on the Battle Spot and local tournaments. It does take a lot of time and experience to get good at it, but you don’t have to do any complicated math or spend hours and hours of tedious grinding in order to put together a decently competitive pokemon team, especially in the current 6th generation of Pokemon games that have made breeding and training the right pokemon much easier. So I wanted to put together this very beginner-friendly guide for any Pokemon players that are interested in trying their hand at the competitive side of the games…

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Posted in Pokemon, Video Games
Tagged games, Pokemon

Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire review

December 18, 2014 by Yumeka 9 Comments

It’s been a blog tradition of mine to review all of the main series Pokemon games, starting with Diamond and Pearl in 2006. And now I’ve played enough of my copy of Omega Ruby to review these new games as well =)…

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Posted in Pokemon, Video Games
Tagged games, Pokemon

Happy Halloween – horror anime, games, and overcoming my fears

October 31, 2014 by Yumeka 10 Comments

Kaneki

I’ve always had an ambivalent relationship with the macabre – even as a kid, scary stories and creepy urban legends fascinated me, but come bedtime, they would haunt my mind and make sleep impossible. Not much changed when I grew up, as I still am both insatiably curious about, and have an aversion to, any kind of nightmare-fuel. But over the past few months, I’ve been working on getting over my fears, and it’s been successful =D So this Halloween, I wanted to delve into the horror anime, scary games, creepy stories, and other things I’ve come across on my journey to conquer my fears!…

My 12 moments of anime for 2013

December 20, 2013 by Yumeka 17 Comments

As I’ve been doing since 2009, I’m once again participating in the anime blogsphere’s “12 Moments of Anime” project where we post our personal twelve biggest anime-related moments of the year throughout the month of December. As always due to lack of time, I’ll be posting my 12 moments all on one post here…

Pokemon X and Y review

November 1, 2013 by Yumeka 13 Comments

Now that I’ve completed the main storyline on my copy of Pokemon X, as well as explored a number of the post-game quests and new features, it’s time for me to continue my now 7-year tradition of reviewing the main series Pokemon games here on the blog…

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Posted in Pokemon, Video Games
Tagged games, Pokemon