The Damned

Ayyy! We're getting Magearna early December! And not some bullshit code or anything. It's a QR code that you can scan with your 3DS and game,and it runs from December 5th to March 5th, 2017. That's four months to get one! http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/get-magearna-in-pokemon-sun-and-pokemon-moon/

Ahhh, poor guy. Don't feel bad, because you're the only one that draw anything fro the Volcanion card! WINNER WINNER FARFETCH'D DINNER.

I hadn't heard until today, as I've been trying to avoid spoilers. Though, I guess that's not really a spoiler at all.

Compute = false. ERROR ERROR ERROR. Your reasoning is wrong, but you're also the closest. I choose 17. GENESECT CODE GET!

There is one good thing that came out of the leaks. Did you know that HMs are completely gone? Fly, Surf and Waterfall are the only HMs that survived the change. Cut, Strength, all the other ones made over the years... gone. Which means certain pokémon, namely Bidoof, are out of jobs and will see even less use on teams now. Let's have a moment of silence for all our HM mules.

I have no method to determine sarcasm without a really very sarcastic tone to it. This had let to some unfortunate times in my life. "I thought you were being serious, Your Honor..." ... Slightly generic backgrounds during battles?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto Come on guys. Happy Nintendo64th birthday, Shiggy!

Wow. That was kind of.. harsh. EDIT: I GET SARCASM. HAA HAA HAA HAA

Well, it's been two days and only two people have done anything, so I'm calling them the winners. Congrats, Gario and TillyFun. Codes will be in your PM box right away.

Midnight release dates and locations for Sun and moon: http://bulbanews.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokémon_Sun_and_Moon_Midnight_Launch_Events Just find you country, find your state/province/whatever, and check the store's website or details. Between the three EBGames within two miles of me, the Best Buy down the road, and the multiple Wal-Marts in each direction, I don't think I'm going to have a hard time finding a copy. Also... anyone here pre-download the game? Which version are you getting? Any particular reason why you want the version?

The cards expire at the end of January and February. You have about three months to get them.

Any order. Go for it!

http://www.pokemon-sunmoon.com/en-us/pokemon/magearna/ Ever wondered how we're supposed to get Magearna, the first gen 7 pokémon revealed, in Sun and Moon? Well, stop wondering. Remember that little QR Code function that was revealed months ago? It looks like it will be used to unlock Magearna and place it in your game. Also, holy crap, only 3 and a half more days! Also also, go check out the Genesect Code giveaway I'm doing!

I think I can translate. IV means Individual Values, which are part of the stat system that Pokémon uses to create the massive range of stats that you see, even in the same species of pokémon. Think of them as genes. Something with a high Attack IV would have the best possible Attack stat for that species. EV means Effort Values, which are little bonuses that are applied to each stat. An individual pokémon can gain these either by using items like HP Up, or they can selectively fight and defeat certain pokémon in battle. Each pokémon gives specific EVs when defeated. So if you fought, say, 10 Ratattas in a row, you would gain 10 Speed EVs. Basically, he bred a pokémon so it has good IVs that gave it better stats, and then gave it items/fought certain other pokémon so that it gained even more increases in those specific stats. He trained it to highly defensive so it could withstand attacks from other pokémon in battle. He applied 252 EVs (those little bonuses) in Health, 128 in Defense, and 124 in Special Defense. This means it can withstand both physical and non-physical attacks. Given that Shuckle already has really high Defense and Special Defense stats, Gario has ensured that his Shuckle can brush off pretty much anything that is thrown at him. A specific set of moves his Shuckle uses to not directly inflict damage to its opponents. Toxic is a move that doubles the damage it induced after every turn of battle. So it will do 10, then 20, then 40, then 80, etc.. Rest is a move that puts Shuckle to sleep in exchange for removing any status ailments and restoring all its health. Stealth Rock is a move that injures an opponent the instant it enters battle, and will continue to do so for any entering opponent until the "rocks" are removed by another move. Shell Smash is a move that will drop Shuckles defenses at by one level, but increase attack, Special Attack and Speed by two levels, so it can boost those stats. Combine that with Shuckle's ability, Contrary, reverses the effects of any move that changes a stat, so it would actually drop Attack, Special Attack and Speed, while boosting Defense and Special Defense EVEN MORE. These four moves allow Shuckle to poison them, wait for them to die, and shrug off anything they throw at it until everyone else is a twitching pileof purple pus, pooling on the ground before it. Powerful pokémon, but you have to know how to use them. They would have had a hard time inflicting enough damage at once to defeat Shuckle without some very good luck.

Only 6th gen, so X and Y and Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby.

The Damned's Genesect (and Volcanion)Code GIVEAWAY! And with that... the contest is over. Six cards, six codes, six "winners". I use the term loosely, because Genesect is actually terrible in every way. Also, Volcanion is mid-tier, at best. Sure, they have really good stats, movesets, fun skills and can be used to wipe entire teams by themselves if use right... but they ain't no Luvdisc! The Volcanion card: Red Shadow wins! Though I should disqualify you for hating anything about Gen 3. Also, Luvdisc just wanted to let you know that the water around those parts would be bad fro your Rock-type. The 1st Genesect card: Gario wins! By default. The two sweetest words in the English language. The 2nd Genesect card: MindWanderer wins. Because I said so. The 3rd Genesect card: Red Shadow wins. I guess. Sure, why not? The 4th Genesect card: jnWake wins. He was only off by 4 (I chose 17), and the second of two people that actually guessed. The 5th Genesect card: TillyFun wins. A short haiku about a silly cat giving away stuff. I can't help but feel it's actually about me.

I'm not a maniacal fan of Chrono Cross, but it does have some fine tunes that need some remixing. You got my (completely non-musical) support!

Yeah, the demo is... finicky when it comes to the clock. It was made that way so you couldn't just change the date to get to certain events immediately. After all, the demo is scheduled with the international (well, North America and Japan, really) release date. But then all that info was extracted from the ROM and we knew about everything the demo had to offer in less than a day. Nice try, Game Freak. But the fans know no boundaries.

OK, working out a little thing with Liontamer for you poor bastards here that don't have access to... let's say... certain on-goings. Hope to have it running any day now!

I'm going to recommend taking FTL off that list. Whoooooa, there, everyone. I'm saying this as someone that has about 900 hours in the game. FTL is not something you can just play for two hours, mainly because of its inherent difficulty. Easy mode, with the best ship you can use at the start, with good luck, isn't going to give you a good time. It's not Dark Souls hard, but it is still difficult. Some people play it for five hours and give it up because they can't quite figure out the "plan" (how to keep ahead of thef fleet, when and where to pick a fight, hat kind of items to keep and sell, etc.), or they had bad runs with enemy ships rocking multiple missile launchers (which you will not be able to defend against without some serious Drone support, which you can't get that early without shitloads of luck and maybe a few Scrap Recovery Arms), or even just didn't get the interface. Yeah, purely anecdotal, but still... It can be super frustrating for new players and might end up being hated simply because it's not a two-hour, quick play kind of game. Again, I love the game and play it a lot, but I don't think 2 hours a week is a fair playthrough, and it's doing a big disservice.

Minor addendum to my list: Plush Substitute doll from Pokémon. Just putting that out there. Maybe a plush Claptrap? Do those exist? I don't know.

Singing up.

Weird little trivia for those of you in the US: If you go to a GameStop for a Genesect card, and they tell you they don't have any yet, ask them to print up a receipt with the code " 131094 ". This is the internal GameStop system's method for generating a code when there are no cards. Sadly, this does not work in Canada at EBGames... Guess it's back to cards for me.

Don't look at me. all my local stores say they haven't gotten them yet.

Oh, turns out that everyone can now pre-purchase and pre-load Sun and Moon now. http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/pokemon-sun-3ds Obviously, you can't pre-load it and then set your 3DS clock to November 18th. And yes, people have tried it already, and it doesn't work.