#spersonal

Why.

Is one coming from Arizona and one from Texas. I am in Tennessee.

And, while I will admit that it outshines, like, every game since, like. Sun and Moon in terms of getting the hardware to do what they have in their vision... And I *am* enjoying playing it.

I miss the difficulty. Still.

The gameplay is designed with game mechanics in mind. It does this very well. They balanced it accordingly to their vision. But like.

Because battles are real-time and moves are on countdown timers instead of using PP and you can run your Pokémon out of danger at any time...

*Old woman voice* Back in my day, you had to use Fire Blast sparingly because it only had 5 uses, unless you gave an item to your Pokémon to increase the PP available for said move, which only increased it by one.

I have an Alpha Gardevoir that knows Icy Wind, Magical Leaf, Moonblast, and Psychic. It is the Dragon Killer. It is also the Ghost and Dark Killer. Because its speed stat makes most mons try to use Shadow Ball and my Gardevoir just goes, "Pokémon Asplode," and the enemy drops dead before it can get the move off.

And you would think that shouldn't be something to complain about. But it makes battles last a handful of seconds. And the experience gained, which goes to every Pokémon, means, if you are battling trainers every night, you are grossly overleveled if you stick with the same team all the time.

And I am an old fart who picks their favorite 6 and calls it a day, until the end of the game, where it then becomes Pokédex time.

Spend half the damn game intentionally using weaker Pokémon that aren't my main team just to make it interesting because, otherwise, it's like, "I see you have a creature weak to Grass. Go, Meganium! Giga Drain. And it's dead. Oh, you have a Ghost? Well. Go, Lopunny! Brutal Swing. See ya!"

And the game goes, "You know that the villagers will tend to the crops on their own so you can just focus on PROGRESSING THE STORY while raking in passive income to improve your gear so you can--"

And I go, "They can't keep my crops separated, so I turned that feature off. Because I'll be damned if you put cabbage with turnips with potatoes with strawberries with golden crops."

Y'know how kids will try to love bomb you? Because they think if they shower you with love and praise that you will let them do the thing they know you don't want them to do?

Yeah, he was suddenly very friendly, and petting me, and gave me a kiss on the elbow, and was like, "Love you~" And then tried to immediately go into my room. And I went, "No. You ain't goin' in there. You thought you'd be slick with it, but no. You ain't goin' in there." And he was like, "Why not?" To which I said, "Because I don't want you in there. It's as simple as that."

And y'know what? He left both door and me alone after that. As is his normal baseline. This kid USUALLY ignores me. So, like.

Anyhoo, the idiots I live with refuse to understand "feral" is not the same as "stray". And after manhandling this thing after I brought it in, it started to growl. And I warned the ADULT WOMAN, "It's gonna bite..." and she kept trying to grab it to smother it with love. So it ran into a hole in the kitchen counter, cuz the 4yo chased after it when it ran. Because she also doesn't understand, "Not every cat will love you immediately."

5 hours later, get the kitten out of the counter. Throw it in my room, where there are no handsy people or loud children. And also no holes. And then GROWN WOMAN gets pissed off because I won't let her "babysit" the kitten today while I am at work, "So it can get used to people." And she slammed my door when she left my room because I told her no and that it has to get used to its environment first.

This woman has raised no cats, btw. Feral or otherwise. She's only ever had grown.