I got laid off 2 years ago and have been doing freelance work and applying for jobs like a madman ever since. On Tuesday, I’ll finally start a new job. The pay is half of what I was making before, but at least it’s a 10 min walk from my apartment.
While I loved the game as a whole, the minigames made me seriously consider giving up on this one. I spent nearly 5 hours working on the sit-ups challenge for the final trophy.
Favorite character was Red, hands down. Him dressing up in a soldier uniform and doing Michael Jackson moves to pass as a human to play a card game was so stupid and I loved it.
For the 4th game in my genlocke, I played Luminescent Platinum. It's a BDSP romhack based on Renegade Platinum that also included a few popular mods for BDSP (60 fps, HG/SS style following pokemon, etc.). This was the hardest game I've played, hands down. Many pokemon have new movesets, abilities, or typing changes (e.g., Lopunny is now Normal/Fighting) that made them more powerful. Even pokemon I would normally overlook (like Ambipom) became genuine threats later in the game. In addition, Rivals, gym leaders, etc. have 4 potential teams of 6 EV-trained pokemon with perfect IVs for the computer to select from.
Needless to say, this ended up being a bloodbath. I found that my most effective strategy when going into a major fight was to either lead with something expendable to figure out which team the computer was using, or to keep a random pokemon on-hand that I could sacrifice to ensure a safe switch-in. Or, when in doubt, take a pokemon I don't mind sacrificing and teach it Explosion. This leg also saw the loss of 2 pokemon that had been with me from the very first game: Hyamer 4th the Alakazam and Avantica 4th the Lapras. Both losses sucked, but Rosa the Gliscor and Medusa the Gyarados were huge helps with the elite 4.
That being said, this game was so much fun and I loved my final team. I only took 6 pokemon into the elite 4, but I decided to carry over the 2 shiny pokemon I found (Logan the Weavile and Patches the Gengar) because shinies are awesome. I don't know if I'll use them, but that's a problem for future me to worry about.
For the championship team, I had
Rosa really surprised me. I had never used a gliscor before, but toxic heal gliscor was a great bulky sweeper and nearly soloed Aaron. Meanwhile, Rorik the Venusaur was a huge help throughout the run as he was able to easily take out any fair type other than Mawile. Hobb the Snorlax was less helpful though, outside of several gym and elite 4 battles, so I'm not sure if he'll make it through to the end of Unova.
This leg of the run was a lot of fun! Ruby was my favorite game as a kid, so getting to return to Hoenn meant a lot to me. Because of how much I loved Hoenn, I also decided to take on a lot of optional content, such as the contests and even took a stab at the Battle Frontier.
For this leg, I played Modern Emerald, which added some QOL fixes, but also some increased difficulty by raising trainer levels and some trainers having slightly changed teams. It also gave some of pokemon their later gen movesets or type changes, making some much more viable than they would have been in gen 3.
For those who haven't read my previous posts, I'm calling this a starterlocke because, in addition to the standard hardcore nuzlocke rules, I also must do the following:
However, I also decided to slightly alter pokemon I'm carrying to another game. Going forward, I'm going to allow myself to change their ability, nature, or a single IV for any pokemon on the champion team. I figure that this won't make a huge difference from a difficulty perspective, but will make me more attached to them.
As for the run itself, almost all of my losses came from critical hits while I was above 50%. Juan in particular managed to do 3 crits in a row, taking out Lanturn, Manetric, and Banette. Of the champions, Heracross and Lapras saw a lot of use. Alakazam less so, especially since the Aqua and Magma members almost always had either Poochyena or Mightyena and didn't really have a good way to hit them until it learned Focus Blast around level 54. Ross the Metagross was a huge help against Steven. I had originally switched to him expecting to sacrifice him against Aggron, but he managed to dodged the EQ, dropped Aggron with a crit EQ, and then took out Steven's Armaldo, Cradily, and Metagross.
My wife and I have lived at Avalon Bear Hill for three years and genuinely enjoyed it, until our renewal. This year our rent jumped ~15% (nearly $600/month) despite no upgrades to our unit beyond a water heater replacement.
When we called to negotiate, we pointed out that the vacant unit next door (same layout, ~20% larger) was listed at roughly what we're now paying. That unit is available now, during the busy season, while ours won't be until mid-October at the earliest.
And we're not alone. Multiple neighbors have shared similar stories with us since the Avalon merger. If you're considering Bear Hill, just know that the experience may be great right up buy you may get priced out once your lease is up.
My parents and in-laws are coming up to celebrate my wife and I’s birthdays and we’re looking for a good lunch spot. Our go-to spots aren’t really good options as my parents are pretty picky, while my wife and I are more adventurous eaters.
Anyone have any recommendations for a nice lunch spot that will have some kind of Cobb, garden, or chef salad?