A Pocket-Sized Surprise, Part 5

 

Last time, on The Pokemon Black 2 Hardcore Nuzlocke Written Let’s Play Series Posted During The Month Of April 2026 On The Website www.genericide-blog.com...We almost died; Our Pokemon almost died; Our Pokemon actually died; The Team Plasma organization died; And none of the villains behind it died or suffered any on-screen punishment. Saturday morning cartoon consequences aside, the world was saved!...and we were immediately pushed back into our day job. After trekking to the Pokemon League a great training arc awaited me before I could face my final challenge, but fortunately there wasn’t anything in those many monotonous hours that bears repeating here.

Oh, except Fishif. Fishif died.

Rest in pescatarian.

Yeah, my bad or whatever. While scouring previous areas for every item in preparation, I stumbled into a trainer fight I’d missed before. They had a Darmanitan, who like half the Pokemon in this damn generation has a super min-maxed attack stat, so I didn’t want to risk switching in someone from my final team and them dying to a critical hit. So the humble Fishif, who I’d brought along purely for HM move traversal, got a secondary job of honorary meat shield. My cod-dolences to his fish family, for whom I will be leaving a conciliatory basket of flowers and tuna. Upon reflection, that last part may have been in bad taste. Eh, I already chucked the basket into the nearest body of water, so if and when it’s a problem I’m sure they’ll drift their lawyers upstream.

A Pocket-Sized Surprise, Part 4

Last time, on Shin Digimon Quest: Rancher Network 2: Black Version...We added an astounding amount of allies and three actually useful ones; this slightly outpaced the two we lost due to making stupid mistakes; and we got 90% through the part of the game where 90% of the story happens. To polish off that last 10% we’re faced with Ghetsis, the once and future leader of Team Plasma now that we’ve outsted his temporary stand-in Colress. After a week-long break, our ultimate battle can finally commence!

Or it would, but the plot convenience ninjas pop back in so Ghetsis just leaves.

It’s not a total loss though, because our rival Hugh comes in to question the ninjas. You may remember that Hugh’s backstory is Team Plasma stole his sister’s treasured pet Purrloin. His extremely clever plan to get it back has been to, all game, question every individual member of a large criminal organization if they personally stole a pet on the other side of the country five years ago. An organization specializing in pet-theft, and that pet, I can’t stress this enough, not even having a name.

Well...you know what they say about broken clocks.

It’s a good thing you were robbed by someone with a great memory.

A Pocket-Sized Surprise, Part 3

Last time, on the Pincurchin Power Hour: The amount of casualties went up by 2, the amount of badges went up by 3, and the amount of 4-shadowing went up beyond measure. In particular foreshadowing of a forward-facing shadow from the game’s opening. There be plot happenings ‘round these here parts, but not until we deal with the deadly dragon-themed difficulty of gym number seven. Speaking of gym seven, there’s a very subtle detail about the encounters in this section. Observe the table below, and see if your sharp analytical minds can detect this tiny discrepancy…

Please take your time, it’s very hard to spot.

If you’re the type of absolute dweeb to track the amount of new areas/party members across Pokemon games (hi, hello, nice to meet you), you’ll notice that there are less encounters in Black/White 2 than others. Yet over a quarter of all of them are seen right now, between these two gyms. Between a long stretch of adventuring and a plethora of optional areas, we’re presented with an absolute bumper crop of buddies to bulk up our battalion without a boss in sight to cut the numbers down...in theory. And so we begin the leg of our journey I like to call…

A Pocket-Sized Surprise, Part 2

Last time, on my surprise Pokemon Black 2 Nuzlocke: My limited critter inventory near-doubled by dipping my face in a sewer; bug boss Burgh demonstrated the finest art: jobbing; and no one died for good in the challenge where things die for good. I’d speculate that surely I’ll be able to keep that up as the game gets harder, but I don’t want to have to post the foreshadowing image again. Next on our trek through the U.S. inspired Unova region is the well-known desert just outside New York City. Here we battle a friendly scientist named Colress. He’s researching the best way to draw strength out of Pokemon, a highly innocent goal with zero possible oh wow I do this bit a lot don’t I?

Yes. You do.

In what shouldn’t be a surprising statement, there’s not much of note in the desert. But there are a couple optional areas to snag some new cannon-fodder-and-slash-or-treasured-family-select-appropriate. First we have Sambabmas the Maractus, a thoroughly forgettable Grass-type whose saving grace is already being fully evolved and matching up well into the next couple gyms. But even better for the upcoming Electric-type gym would be the Electric-immune, Ground-type Sandshrew. It could almost single-handedly solve our next boss fight, so of course we get the only other option, Gravevarg the Yamask.

A Pocket-Sized Surprise

Hello there, fellow Gamers™! Do you like to see numbers go up so much you don’t pay attention to what those numbers do? Do you have a lot of disposable income and a voracious appetite for things you’re told are cutting edge? Are you a major shareholder at a tech company who we’re actually advertising to? Then have I got great news for you! We’ve been developing revolutionary new technology which uses the magic of Generative AI. We mean that literally, because as they say: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And we know this tech is too advanced for your dumb asses, because we don’t even understand it!

So what are we using this literal, actual, genuine magic to do? We take the most artistically interesting, highly detailed video game graphics...and just paint new ones over them! That’s right, no longer will you have to worry if a game’s art style is good or bad, because we’ll just replace them all with the same art style! What’s more it...hang on a minute. I’m getting some feedback on this parody bit...mm-hm...uh-huh...I see. Well then.

It appears this has already been done.

A reminder this is meant to just upscale something to higher resolution.

Not only has this already been done, but it’s been critiqued and parodied so much that I wouldn’t even be able to preach to the choir, because they’ve already gone deaf. No problem, I can find something else to satirize this year, let’s just take a look back through some other recent controversies. Let’s see, we have some games getting complaints for replacing content with generative AI...some game review sites getting complaints for replacing content with generative AI...and complaints about how gaming hardware is getting more expensive due to very stupid policies...and generative AI.

A pattern emerges.

The Most Important Question in Zelda

Since the dawn of civilization, humankind has grappled with many poignant philosophical questions. Mainly the humankind rich enough to not be thinking of starvation instead, but the point stands. Deep, inescapable ponderings such as "What is our purpose in life?", "Why should we go on living?", and "Why do kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?" I don't pretend to have the answers to such questions. Except of course: Because there's cinnamon sugar swirls in every bite. That…is why we should go on living. But there is a far more important question that I'm here to answer today. And that question is…Which Link is the Stinkiest?

'Tis a question that has plagued The Legend of Zelda franchise, since the ancient days when Plato challenged Aristotle to beat his high score at Link's Crossbow Training. Adventuring is smelly work! You think the Hero of Time stopped by CVS to nab a stick of Cool Rush deodorant? No! That dude literally aged seven years without stopping to sleep! Or eat. But this isn't Which Link is the Most Malnourished, so let's stop stalling and settle the stench subject!

The Legend of Zelda

The first game doesn't have much in the way of odorous occurrences, but you can be swallowed by a Like-Like. These counter-intuitively named monstrosities are like short fat worms that digest your shield and spit you up like used chewing gum. But this isn't the only appearance of Like-Likes, and more importantly, getting caught by one isn't guaranteed. If a player was better at the game than you, Kevin, then you might complete your whole adventure with nary a single torturous tummy tour. This makes Like-Likes a Quantum Stink Event, and I'm not qualified to evaluate those until I complete my Master's. Doesn't count!

Plus, this is back when the Like-Likes look-looked like forbidden pancakes rather than an oozing intestine.

An Eye-OU for an Eye-OU

The readership of this blog is something I hold no illusions about, at least not since I killed the sorcerer who cursed me. The illusion I'm alluding to is that of active readership, which is to say, I have none. But that didn't stop me for 160 posts over the course of a decade, so as ever, I'd like to keep you all updated as though "you all" existed. I'd specifically like to address something I said last year, on my 2023 April Fool's day post. Or more accurately my very short April Fool's day post about why I didn't have an April Fool's day post. The quotes in question are:

 

"Sometime between now and April 1st, 2024, there will be another article on genericide-blog.com"

 

and…

 

"Unless I die. Would be tough to schedule around that one."

 

The good news, unless you're a clan of sorcerers out for revenge, is that I have not died. Nor do I plan to any time soon. Alas, I do need to prevent myself from dying, which it turns out is just as hard to schedule around. Yes, this is another post about why there aren't any posts, a hallmark of creators too lazy to create but too guilty to quit. But I do have a better reason than usual for being busy on April 1st. Specifically: I got cancer and will be in surgery having one of my eyes removed that day.

 

I have prepared an apology greeting card:

 

You would not believe how hard it was to find this card pre-written.

 

As alluded to above, this should prevent me from dying in the near future, the not-so-near future, and with any luck, all futures the distance of a normal human lifespan. I can't guarantee futures beyond a human lifespan until I reach an arrangement with a clan of sorcerers. Rest assured, I'll likely return to posting passable parody pieces and glib gaming grumbles before long. But before short, I have an upcoming crop of cyclopean circumstances to contemplate. I discovered my impending binocular bisection a couple months ago, and it's something I had to keep more than one eye on while I still could. And if there's one silver lining to cancer, it's that everyone feels too awkward to ask what you were doing with the 10 months of the year before you found out you had it.

 

In short: Blah blah cancer blah blah no blog posts for a while blah. If, against all evidence and good taste, you still want to hear more from me, I will point you to my game Small Favors, which has about 40 hours of content and a novel's worth of words. Yes I know I mentioned the same thing last year, but the game didn't go anywhere and it still has a thousand times the words of a blog post. It'll be a bit before I post again, but if it's any consolation, it's highly unlikely I'll have the same scheduling conflict in 2025.

 

If I do I suspect the sorcerers have found me.