What Games Are You Playing 2013?

[Nitori]

Disgaea D2: Nice outfit, Flonne

[AndrewRogue]

WoW:

Naxx 10: Arachnid Quarter finished, Plague Quarter finished. Died twice to Patchwerk (once because I went Ret, the second because I think I somehow trigger his enrage and frenzy simultaneously, which was hitting for 13K through Ardent and Guardian and caught me off-guard. Beat him the attempt after that though. Gluth, however, is proving insurmountable solo. My DPS just isn't high enough to chunk through his health before the Mortal Strike debuff gets me killed.

[Lady Door]

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

If this was Facebook, I'd have liked this post.

[hinode]

Pokemon X: Opted for a mono-Fairy team, first go around. Without the usual BST/move info available for team planning and with the revised exp share making it very easy to constantly reshuffle your Pokemon roster, I figured it was a good time to try a gimmick run, plus I wanted to try out the new shiny typing. When Pokemon Bank gets released in December I can upload everything and start a new, more conventional file, but now was the time for experimenting.

Azurill is the only Fairy type available pre-gym 1 and it's not doing much of anything with Bubble/Water Gun for offense at first, so the run effectively started on route 4 with Ralts and Flabebe available. At first, Fairy was practically a neutral typing, with actual Poison moves rare and Fighting/Dark/Dragon/Steel all pretty much nonexistant. Midgame the Fighting and Dark types started showing up and Fairy's awesomeness as a defensive typing started becoming relevant; I think I've seen more Bites from enemy Pokemon than every Poison and Steel attack combined.

On the other hand, Fairy move progression has been a pretty serious problem. Offensive Fairy moves are rare this generation, especially good ones. None of my dual types even got a Fairy move for a long time, aside Mawile's Fairy Wind running off the wrong attack stat aside. Even the mono-Fairies were often stuck with a weak Fairy Wind for way too long in many cases.

[Captain K.]

Pokémon seXY:  Got my hair styled and shot a fabulous PR video.  Apparently there is something to do with battling pokemon and becoming a master trainer in this game, but I am way too busy for that!

Elemental Kingdoms:  Iphone tcg.  Apparently it's a complete ripoff of another tcg but that one isn't available in America so...  Anyway pretty entertaining, movement accrues at a reasonable pace so you don't feel obligated to buy more turns.

[VySaika]

Pokemon X - So I got a female Aerodactyl after awhile of trying, will be hatching a bunch of eggs for more. Anyone else playing want to swap friend codes and grab one?

Actually, do we have a friend code topic here? I vaguely remember there being one....

[Fudozukushi]

ToX: Not that it's too surprising, but getting hit for 12K from Gaius' Mystic Arte is still an eye-popping experience.  Now, what is surprising is learning that all the red and the giant explosion mask the fact that it's actually Light-element.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

WoW:

Naxx 10: Arachnid Quarter finished, Plague Quarter finished. Died twice to Patchwerk (once because I went Ret, the second because I think I somehow trigger his enrage and frenzy simultaneously, which was hitting for 13K through Ardent and Guardian and caught me off-guard. Beat him the attempt after that though. Gluth, however, is proving insurmountable solo. My DPS just isn't high enough to chunk through his health before the Mortal Strike debuff gets me killed.

Step 1:  Get your ass to the Timeless Isle.
Step 2:  Get kitted out in 496 gear.
Step 3:  Never die in content less difficult than Cataclysm again.

[NotMiki]

Demon's Souls - hey guys this game is hard!  Anyway, rescued sage Freke, beat Fool's Idol (1 death), Flamelurker (1 death, because the first time it handed me my ass I resolved only to come back with All The Flame Resist), Dragon God (like 10 deaths, and would have been more if not for All The Flame Resist), and PENETRATORRRR who did not kill me because Power of Friendship.  Current things impeding my progress: the red mindflayer dude on the stairs up to the boss in 3-2 two red mindflayer dudes on the stairs up to the boss in 3-3 what the fuck game; the big dude with the club on the small island in 5-2; the fact that every time I go to 4-1 I get so many souls I don't want to risk them fighting a boss; work; sleep.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Suikoden 3 semi-challenge playthrough - Water Dragon down!

This was by far the hardest required, must-win fight so far on the playthrough, nothing else comes close. This despite the fact that I allowed myself to use Level 9 weapons (fear) once I obtained the Silver Hammer, mostly to flatten out the curve of who starts with good/bad weapons. The Water Dragon fights with six ice pillars, and against my defence they do between 100 (Chris) and 200 (light armour types) damage per hit, every round! Sometimes 2-3 of them use unites for GT ice magic instead but yeah they still overwhelm pretty fast. After a few failed attempts, I settled on the following setup:

Chris (True Fire)
Percival (Water)
-
Aila
Nei (Jongleur + Water)
-
Emily (Skunk)
Leo (Wall)

Note the final pair, as it's crucial to the strategy. Skunk Rune prevents Emily from being directly targetted by the ice pillars, although the boss ignores it. UNIRONIC WALL RUNE USE YES on Leo doubles his already high def to insane levels, and he takes less than 20 damage per hit from the ice pillars. Since the ice pillars like to target those who are close to them, with only the Emily/Leo pair far forward, they'll target exlcusively Leo. I used Nei to boost Emily's damage, but was at a bit of a loss for who to pair her with, since Song of Madness turns even normally defensive allies into aggressive ones. But an aggressive archer is perfectly fine since she won't pull Nei forward, and Aila has the benefit both of having two swings and of having Freeze, which does in fact work on the ice pillars.

It's not a perfect strategy because song of madness (or even just using Water Magic with Percival) makes the Chris/Percival pair run forward, and they do die sooner or later since "high" defence isn't good enough when I'm using New-tier equipment (chapter 2 stuff, roughly). Ironically would have been easier with another FC since I could have made them a water rune user and stuck them with a second archer. But it worked out pretty well.

And again, unironic wall rune use!


FE12 - Defeated James Hardin. Well that plot was dumb. This time I am actually getting the real ending, hooray. Current team is Marth, Palla, Catria, Caeda, Luke, Maris, Malicia, Etzel, Minerva, Feena, Chris, and someone who varies (Julian, Tiki, Sirius, Darros, etc.).

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Pokémon Y - The skates are pretty much the best invention ever. Moving fast and easy through a Pokémon environment is amazing.

Also, the variety in choices for Pokémon even early is nothing short of overwhelming. You get interesting typings, monsters and skillset choices nearly from the get-go, it's kinda nuts. Running so far a Frogadier/Bulbasaur/Fletchinder/Pancham/Inksay/Pikachu team. I kinda wish I had a different Electric, but that'll do. Bulbasaur remains hugely valuable as a status whore even five gens later.

[Pyro]

Final Fantasy 4 (SNES ver): Played through and beat on a whim and to satisfy nostalgia.

Generally a competent enough game. Reminded me of Rosa's role as quintessential healer and Rydia's Glass Cannon. Also found it easiest to leave Kain a frothing madman for most of his time in the party. Charge times were a bigger thing than I remembered them being. Barely ever threw stuff with Edge because it cost too much.

It's FF4. Still can't see why there are so many remakes.

[hinode]

Pokemon X: Xerneas caught now, which means my final roster is pretty much set. Some thoughts now on the Fairy types that I've either dropped, or never used in the first place:

Flabebe/Floette: First mono-Fairy type and first source of actual Fairy damage, making it an important Pokemon. For all of route 4 it was actually my strongest Pokemon, its competition being Ralts and a physical-less Azurill. Unfortunately, that was never going to last, due to the line's awful in-game movepool: no STAB upgrade at all from the 40 base Fairy Wind until either gym 6 or Floette hits level 46, whichever comes first. Instead, it gets a steady progression of marginally improved Grass attacks, mostly physical, none of which help it damage Fire or Poison types.

Florges' endgame stats are pretty good and it can eventually scrape together a respectable Moonblast/Calm Mind/Psychic/grass attack moveset, but the lateblooming nature and heavy redundancy with so many other Fairies that I was using led to it being dropped at L34 to make room for... either Sylveon or Dedenne, I forget.

Spritzee: Version exclusive to the game with no Fairy Deer God, ruling it out as a practical matter. Even if I had traded for one early on, the item to trade evolve it is ALSO version exclusive so seriously raising one was out of the question.

Snubbull/Granbull: Would've been much better as Normal/Fairy than pure Fairy. STAB Strength/Return would've made it a lock for endgame, but instead it apparantly gets no physical STAB at all until the 40s, ugh. It sat in my party for a while but never saw any actual combat.

Dedenne: Yet another scrubby single-stage Pikaclone, to nobody's surprise. ~81 SpAtk/~101 Speed means it at least has usable values in the two key stats, so I was seriously prepared to use one throughout the game... until I beat gym 6 and realized it is the only special attacking Fairy who can't learn Dazzling Gleam, somehow. >_< It gets no special Fairy attacks by level either, just the physical Play Rough. That earned it a seat on the bench at L47.

Mr Mime: By the time it showed up in the wild, I had a L35 Gardevoir. The wild Mr. Mimes were ~22 by comparison.

Carbink: Both attacks stats are around 50 base. That's more suited for a Pokeniu-style challenge run than what I am currently attempting.

Mawile: A real pain in the ass to actually encounter, but the Poison immunity was highly valued on a team that's otherwise almost entirely Poison-weak, and the other Steel resists don't hurt either Alas, the Mega-evo item is postgame only, and regular Mawile's stats are usable but still pretty weak. No physical STAB at all until the move relearner (which comes between gyms 6 and 7, sadly) meant it got most of its levels from Exp Share, mainly getting pulled out when its resists were called out. My last drop at L57 to make room for Xerneas itself,

Jigglypuff: Listing this here even though I haven't actually seen one yet, because it apparantly only shows up around gym 8. Seriously, what the hell is the point of leaving Jigglypuff that late? That makes the line completely worthless, even with Wigglytuff getting +10 SpAtk. It should've shown up around the same time as Swirlix and Spritzee, not well after Xerneas.

In non-Fairy type thoughts, trainer customization is really nice and will hopefully be a series staple from hereon out. I find myself hardly ever using the bike in favor of either skates or running shoes. Horde battles are amusing, but I have not had a single sky battle yet thanks to the absence of any flying/levitating Fairies in the main game, somehow.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Not knowing what your current roster is, apart from Xerneas and presumably a Ralts evo, makes it hard to follow your whole post.

[Niu]

Sen no Kiseki - Finally done with my first cycle of the game at 90 hours.... such a long game....

[Shale]

DmC: Picked this up on the Capcom sale Steam had last weekend, beat the first playthrough last night. Even after playing the demo, the game still surprised me by being as good as it was. The Angel/Demon weapon system works really well and the visual design is just great - the chaos of Limbo feels like a real, cohesive setting (cohesive as walls made of insanity can be, anyway) and the They Live writing on the walls was a great touch. The story doesn't suck either, which is kind of a shock. I mean, it's not exactly Shakespeare, but it's also not garbage, which is nice because it does take itself about a billion times more seriously than DMC3.

I didn't even miss lock-on in the heat of combat, and that was the thing I was most dubious about. My main negative is the sameness of combos - every weapon has one move you do by mashing attack, and another move you do by tapping attack twice, pausing, and then mashing it. Even when the moves they execute are very different, it makes combat feel samey when your thumb is doing the same thing in every fight. Also, the bosses are jokes. Even Vergil (spoiler warning you fight Vergil it is totally unexpected and nobody saw it coming), who is slow and telegraphed and lame which is all the more annoying because that's the exact opposite of his DMC3 versions, even though he's using a lot of the same moves.

Overall it's about an 8/10 game, pending the DLC and a run at Son of Sparda/Dante Must Die.

[Sierra]

Demon's Souls - hey guys this game is hard!  Anyway, rescued sage Freke, beat Fool's Idol (1 death), Flamelurker (1 death, because the first time it handed me my ass I resolved only to come back with All The Flame Resist), Dragon God (like 10 deaths, and would have been more if not for All The Flame Resist), and PENETRATORRRR who did not kill me because Power of Friendship.  Current things impeding my progress: the red mindflayer dude on the stairs up to the boss in 3-2 two red mindflayer dudes on the stairs up to the boss in 3-3 what the fuck game; the big dude with the club on the small island in 5-2; the fact that every time I go to 4-1 I get so many souls I don't want to risk them fighting a boss; work; sleep.

Let me just note my amazement that you had more trouble getting to the boss of 3-2 than beating the boss of 3-2 (which I found by far the most troublesome fight in the game).

~

SR4: Finally got off my lazy butt and finished this. Jane Austen ending acquired! I look forward to her loyalty mission in SR5. Appreciate the extra lighting options for the simulation but wish they'd been available earlier (I got real sick of the simulation's perpetual twilight or whatever).

The villain was plainly having so much fun throughout the game that it was honestly a shame to kill him.

[Fudozukushi]

ToX: I admit it, I am the consumerism whore and bought costume DLC. /negative man

[hinode]

Not knowing what your current roster is, apart from Xerneas and presumably a Ralts evo, makes it hard to follow your whole post.

Azumarill, Gardevoir, Slurpluff, Sylveon, Klefki, Xerneas; I'm saving thoughts on them until I beat the E4. Also looking back, that post was kinda a mess. If it helps, my team composition went roughly like this, using the guide to doublecheck names:

pre-Gym 1: Exp leech Azurill, Chespin/Farfetch'd do all the actual work
Route 4: Azurill, Ralts, Flabebe
Route 7: + Swirlix
Glittering Cave: + Mawile
Route 10: Catch Snubbull and Eevee, bench either Snubbull or Floette (forget which)
(Gym 2, dominated by underlevelled Mawile and Sylveon)
Route 11: Catch Dedenne, bench the remaining one of Snubbull/Floette
Glittering Cave: Catch Mr. Mime and Mime Jr, neither of which I ever used
(Turn off Exp Share around gym 5 when I realize Azumarill is L50 already and Mawile/Sylveon/Dedenne are mostly caught up)
Post gym 6: Catch Klefki, drop Dedenne out of disgust
TEAM FLARE PLOT: Catch Xerneas, drop Mawile

Don't remember where everything evolved besides Sylveon (after only one level-up) and Swirlix (trade item found in the second gym town), don't think they really matter much.

I actually forgot Carbink even existed until a Hiker used one late in the game and had to go back to get it. <_< I only used Repel near the end on my first trip through Glittering Cave, so either the encounter rate for it is really bad or I had awful luck. Incidentally, Mawile and Dedenne both took forever to show up, with the former being worse due to how Glittering Cave encounters work. Kinda sucks to spend so much time hunting down what turned out to be two temps, but c'est la vie.

My original tentative plan was Azumarill/Gardevoir/Dedenne/one of the two Steel types/Xerneas/open slot for whatever worked best, but Dedenne ended up failing to meet my lowish initial expectations and I didn't actually make a decision on Mawile vs Klefki until I actually caught the latter. The mono-Fairies I had no plans for at all when I started playing, I ended up deciding who to keep and who to drop there based on a mixture of in-game experience and the initially tentative move sets compiled by Smogon/Serebii.

[NotMiki]

Demon's Souls - hey guys this game is hard!  Anyway, rescued sage Freke, beat Fool's Idol (1 death), Flamelurker (1 death, because the first time it handed me my ass I resolved only to come back with All The Flame Resist), Dragon God (like 10 deaths, and would have been more if not for All The Flame Resist), and PENETRATORRRR who did not kill me because Power of Friendship.  Current things impeding my progress: the red mindflayer dude on the stairs up to the boss in 3-2 two red mindflayer dudes on the stairs up to the boss in 3-3 what the fuck game; the big dude with the club on the small island in 5-2; the fact that every time I go to 4-1 I get so many souls I don't want to risk them fighting a boss; work; sleep.

Let me just note my amazement that you had more trouble getting to the boss of 3-2 than beating the boss of 3-2 (which I found by far the most troublesome fight in the game).

~

Go fig.  I'm using a magic/shield/1h katana build, and magicing that boss to death was easy.  Boss was practically designed to be blasted to death at mid range.  I'm not sure if there's a timer or whatnot but I was able to kill the first one just about the time the second one showed up.  On the other hand, the mindflayer dudes I lacked the close-range damage output to rush down, and long range their magic attacks ripped me a new one.

[Cmdr_King]

Pokémon Y- Beat the champion.

Best Pokémon game?  Unlike Gen 5, this really does feel like a big leap in user friendliness and overall design.  You're given LOADS of good solid pokémon options every time you advance, wild pokes are rarely significantly below expected levels, TMs are readily available, and there's a great number of event pokémon to use if catching isn't really your bag.  The biggest knock I can really give it is that it's ridonkulously easy at points, but that's because the new EXP Share is, as snow would put it, degenerate.  Oh wait if you want something a little more respectable you can turn the thing off.  Done and done.

E4 Team

Greninja (71 Water/Dark, Torrent, Jolly, Extrasensory/Waterfall/Surf/Night Slash)- Aside from Night slash being ridiculously late, and thus making the Dark typing an added liability (albeit a minor one) 99% of the time, real good at what he does.  Water Shiruken is pretty lame honestly, but waterfall exists so what the hell ever.  Glad the Gen 6 starters don't suffer from what made all the gen 5 ones kinda suck: out of type movepool is quite reasonable here.

Yveltal (64 Dark/Flying, Dark Aura, Hardy, Foul Play/Oblivion Wing/Dragon Rush/Psychic)- So, HP and offense uber?  Pretty cool.  I am a sucker for great draining moves, spam Oblivion Wing all day every day.  Is an uber, does uber things.

Gourgeist (65 Grass/Ghost, Pickup, Mild, Seed Bomb/Leech Seed/Shadow Ball/Phantom Force)- Not really that great.  It's really the mid-game when you want that grass typing I found, and by the time he got into the party there just wasn't a lot left.  Ghost didn't fill any real niches for me admittedly, and I felt like EVERYTHING was packing Crunch for some damn reason so.

Blaziken (62 Kickchicken, Speed Boost, Brave, Sky Uppercut/Bulk Up/Brick Break/Blaze Kick)- Sweet jesus.  Not balanced.  I didn't get Victini in Gen 5, so I dunno how that performed, but good lord if I'd used this guy as anything but a trump card in the before the endgame I dunno what the game would have done.  Came damn close to soloing two different E4 members.  Kicker is that it counts as a trade, so 50% bonus experience on top of the already experience heavy new systems.  If you're looking for the game to fight back, bench.

Sylveon (71 Fairy, Cute Charm, Lax, Dazzling Gem/Moonblast/Calm Mind/Misty Terrain)- Really limited movepool.  I used Calm Mind all of once, Misty Terrain (a team variant on Safeguard) never, and Dazzling Charm is just Moonblast with less power but MT and more importantly a PP stash for longer dungeons.  Basically tanks, smites foes with the POWER OF THE MOON, goes from there.  Fairy tends to be reasonably neutral except when it's effective, since the types that resist it are ALSO its weaknesses anyway.  I had to backtrack severely to get the eevee for this, so it was underlevelled... and still ended up with my highest levels because, well, it's a special tank with a reasonably neutral typing, good leadoff that likes to OHKO things.  Well and because, due to the nature of its evo, it gets a 25% exp boost.

Aurorus (65 Rock/Ice, Refridgerate, Modest, Ice Beam/Light Screen/Hyper Beam/Thunderbolt)- Look at that typing.  It's trying to be an HP tank.  AND YET.  It's just a neat poke.  As many things as it has to run screaming from, you can depend on it to go out and win slugging matches a weird amount, although in fairness it was helped a bit because I wasn't using anything else that could learn Tbolt.

Others (in order dropped)

Charizard (65 OG, Blaze, Mild, Cut/Fly/Strength/Flamethrower)- HM whore!  Except.  I'm playing Pokémon Y, so it gets its Y Mega Evo.  Mega Charizard Y jacks its SAtk and replaces Blaze with Drought.  So basically if I ran across something my bad overall type coverage couldn't handle (I swapped 'zard for kickchicken in the E4 basically), a mega-form flamethrower basically OHKOed anything and everything with neutral resist to fire.

Vivillon (58 Bug/Flying, Compound Eyes, Lax, Bug Buzz/Quiver Dance/Stun Spore/Hurricane)- The bug has a pretty useful moveset at basically every stage of the game; I even found myself missing bug buzz at points after dropping him.  ultimately the stats just aren't going to keep up, the usual "why do they keep making Bug/Flying" question comes up, but... yeah.  For in-game usefulness really really high, clear MVP until the point I dropped him for my cover legend.

Lucario (48 badass, Steadfast, Hasty, Calm Mind/Swords dance/Aura Sphere/Strength)- Not really great in gen 6?  I didn't use him too long though.  I considered it for a while (hence Strength) but really didn't want to mess around after a point.  Admittedly I used Lucario heavily in BW2 and plat in recent memory so other, more unique options were more appealing.

Snorlax (28 lazybum, THick Fat, Naive, Strength/Body Slam/Rest/Yawn)- Basically a good placeholder while I found cooler pokémon.  He's really very early, something like L15 and I believe before gym 2, maaaaybe 3.  Nothing exciting but at the time I was holding out for later options so hey why not.

I also considred trying out the slug dragon, but forgot it needed to be raining to hit final evo (I caught one like three short of evo or something, but I dno't know rain dance on anything and the areas with auto-rain are really low level).  Since it stops learning moves at its final evo level until evolution, stuffed it back in the box (because I mean I already blew the one Heart Scale I found on Sylveon, nuts to hunting more).  if I run across rain dance I might pull it back out to play around, assuming I stick with the aftergame.

so uh yeah.  Pokeymanz.  I'm honestly feeling 8/10, wasn't expecting this to pull so far ahead of the pack but here we are.

[Fudozukushi]

ToX: Y'know, I expect Gaius to pull off a OHKO effortlessly, but I didn't expect the Chapter 3 end boss to do so.  Huh.

[dude789]

Beat Pokemon X and Y this weekend and immediately started up a new file to do a Rock type challenge run (with a bonus Vivillion because they seem cool). Final team on the first run was Gardevoir, Greninja, Snorlax, Florges, Pangoro, and an Avalugg that I got really early on from Wonder Trade as a level 1 Burmite. They were all over-leveled due to Exp Share (especially Avalugg) so I tried to do a no healing run of the E4 until I got to the Steel guy who wrecked my team pretty bad. Overall, it's easily the best pokemon game to date. There's just so much stuff to do both for casual players (character customization, pokemon amie) and more hard core competitive players (super training and breeding changes). There may not be as many new pokemon, but the new ones are well designed and almost all of them are usable in some way.

The plot is the usual dumb pokemon fair, but the game is really pretty. In particular I love how ridiculous the E4 is and there's a huge variety in the environments. Overall the visual design blows the other pokemon games out of the water. The online stuff is pretty cool too. Wonder trade is a great feature and great to see what you can get. Sometimes you only get a Pikachu or Weedle, and sometimes you get a starter that someone was breeding that didn't have the exact nature they wanted. Just really good stuff overall.

[Lord Ephraim]

Pokeymans Why - Completed.  Due to the exp share, I shifted a group of 9 main pokemon to use.  The 6th slot was usually HM Slave Lapras or some random thing with Fly.

The strongest trainer in the game was Team Flare's boss and his Mega Gyarados.  Got nearly swept until I landed a crit Sucker Punch.  My Yveltal had complete ass stats and the worst nature (-spatk +spdef).  While you're given a large variety of pokemon to use, electric types are not one of them.  You had Pikachu (bad), Plusie/Minun (lol), Heliolisk (requires Sunstone, never found one), Dedenne (really lol).  I had a Magneton but everything and their mom packs Earthquake endgame.  Looking back I think Jolteon is your best bet.  Thankfully, I got Zapdos as my legendary bird for postgame.

Overall team:

Starter - Delphox (Flamethrower, Psyshock, Grass Knot, Shadow Ball) - reminds me of Alakazam only with fire STAB and a rather shallow movepool (what you see is pretty much what you want 90% of the time).  It kind of sucks in the midgame where its only good move is Ember if you decide to focus on developing its special attack. 

Butterfree: Hey, buffed Spatk!  Otherwise I used it for status junk and Infestation cause that move sounds cool (it's not). I kept it around until level 37 when it's stats were not cutting it anymore.  I still used it to steal infinite heart scales from Luvdiscs.

(Mega) Venusaur (Petal Dance, Substitute, Leech Seed, Synthesis): My token tank of the group.  When I saw it's -spatk nature, I decided to train it to tank things with Leech seed.  Mega Venusaur loses its ice/fire weakness so it can tank even more.  I had a lot of things to destroy grass types so it was designed to take out everything else.

Talonflame (Acrobatics, Flare Blitz, Swords Dance, Steel Wing): Baby Ho'oh.  Really fast and if it survives after one swords dance it was able to sweep everything except ground types (that always seem to have Stone Edge, go figure).  This and Butterfree were used to fight in sky battles. 

Toxicroak (Sucker Punch, Brick Break, Poison Jab, Bulk Up): How do you beat a Disco Ninja Frog? (Greninja) With a Poizn Karate Frog.  Dry skin and dark resistance made Callum's starter cry.  Fairy types show up often and this filled out my Fighting/Poison requirement well.  Was the MVP for taking out the mega gyarados with hax.

Aegislash (Iron Head, Kings Shield, Sacred Sword, Shadow Claw):  Probably the most interesting pokemon ever developed.  It can swap to 150 attack or 150 defense forms at will, has a strong defensive typing (I'm pretty sure the nerfs to steel resisting ghost and dark was because of this pokemon) and decent movepool.  Even though the Dusk stone is pretty late in the game,  Eviloile makes its second evolution still pretty tanky and still has a solid 100 base attack.

Krookodile (Earthquake, Crunch, Rock Slide, Outrage):  STAB Earthquake and Crunch, Intimidate helps its shaky defense and it's still a crocodile that wears shades.

Tyrantrum (Earthquake, Head Smash, Crunch, Dragon Claw):  Really unimpressive for something that's a giant rocky T-rex.  It's special ability lets it get STAB bonuses on bite attacks like crunch, thunder fang etc but its still really slow, low special defense and still weak to the overpowered Earthquake.

Sylveon (Shadow Ball, Moonblast, Calm Mind, Draining Kiss):  Has a movepool that rivals Flareon, but draining kiss with a big root gave it some solid lasting power.  Completely dies to any physical damage though.

Azumarill (Aqua Tail, Play Rough, Surf, Strength): Kind of a semi-HM slave.  I used it because it's new fairy typing made the name "SAAAge" more appropriate.

---

Now that Gamefreak finally made a giant step in improving the aesthetics of the series, I'm interested in seeing their third version how it can further improve techical aspects or see if they can add a challenge mode similar to BW2 only make it available from the start.  The Elite Four should be using 6 pokemon and gym leaders 4-6. 

Team Fenrir is no Team Meeple but they still have a lot of swag.  I heard their objectives are different in X but in Y they didn't seem to do anything extremely silly (RAISE THE LAND).  The thing with the giant guy was dramatically out of place for a pokemon game and an excuse to add cutscenes omg.  The one thing that will blow your fucking mind is that in the ice sliding puzzles you can slide DIAGONALLY.  That's almost blew my mind as much has Stick Farfetch'd will now crit 100% of the time with moves like Slash.  Time for ubers.