The Pokémon XY talk was so fascinating because of the differences in experience there are between someone neck-deep in that **** like I am and someone who simply likes the games once every 2-3 entries. I don't mean in a "I understand this better than you" way either -- the way we look at the game is fundamentally different. You seem to play it as an enjoyably easy JRPG that becomes better with more streamline. I feel like I play these games as Pokémon journey simulators where immersion and challenge is key.

Because of this, I hate the EXP item because I don't even have the option to put it in my bag -- the game does it for me and I have to decide not to use it.  I like earning my Magikarp evolution and I like having to work for my fun and satisfaction to at least some extent in these games (which is, in itself, part of the fun and satisfaction) because it makes the game feel more like a proper journey. You could tell me that it's up to me to use the item and my fun is my responsibility, but forcing the option into my bag and forcing it so I have an easy button switch at my fingertips automatically destroys a lot of tension and immersion just by knowing it's there (regardless of whether I use it or not).

I think the proper solution to a lot of in-game easy buttons is to make it so optional that you have to search it out for yourself. For instance, let's say there's an EXP Station in the first town for trainers "just starting out." When you go there, you have the option to, upon agreeing, "set a no-cost frequency on your phone" or some **** to do the exact same effect as that EXP item, and when you want it gone, you can turn it off by going back to the "shop" and talking to the person at the counter. As in, make it so optional that it establishes that it's the casual option, forces you to go to a clearly marked building, and ultimately have to agree to make the game unnecessarily easier. This seems like the fairest option for everyone.

I'm glad you enjoy the item though.

No, Johnny, EXP. Share does not 'Divide', it gives 50% of what they would have earned for participation. they changed the EXP table. it USED to divide EXP in 5th generation and back, now it just gives full participation credit if you switch a pokemon out. This drastic change to how EXP is budgeted as well as the dirth of pokemon the game repeatedly feeds you makes this by far the easiest generation to Nuzlocke, and it also means that by the time you get to the elite four if you've stuck with one team and aren't actively avoiding all battles, you're going to be about 20 levels over leveled for the endgame stuff. My HM Slave, who NEVER personally saw the light of combat once during my initial playthrough was level 87 by the time my first run through of the game was finished. Also, O-powers are in the Pokemon Search System menu. it's meant for multiplayer use, although you can use O-powers on yourself for double the cost. *shrugs* there is a bit of hyperbole in the menu discussion. Also, Miltank is from Gold and Silver and is pretty awesome sauce. Miltank was why the Goldenrod Gym was kinda tricky in Johtoh.

James talking about Catherine was really keen. <3 It actually reminds me of a somewhat silly pic a friend of mine drew one time.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/3ba728db404d8813be2dca34646385ae/tumblr_mophhuj6l21s7ok3so3_500.jpg

If you don't like Exp. Share, just turn it off. I don't think Nintendo owes players anymore than the option of not using it. It's been a great thing for me, but if you don't want it, you can just pretend it doesn't exist. Everybody wins.


Are you two really so concerned about other people's Pokemon experiences that you don't trust them to decide for themselves whether to use such a feature?

Catherine: the game is unique because it revolves around not saving the world, but around real things people in 20-30 usually face.

SMB3: told you so, told you so, told you so. The star run levels where you need to be invincible all the time are not actually bad at all, but levels where you need to keep your momentum to stay alive are poorly designed because on even medium speed you start jumping too high, high enough to jump over the top screen border and disappear, and then you have to guess where exactly you will reappear and this disorients you even more coupled with extremely loose controls.

This challenge in NES Remix 2 is very deliberately built around exploiting this mechanical flaw:
http://www.nintendofuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/nes-remix-2_nintendofuse_screen_01-600x337.png
Lots of very high platforms mean that you WILL disappear from the screen and when you and your two clones will reappear that will mess up very bad.

Giving me the option to use it at literally any time already does irreversible damage to the immersion and challenge. By not using the casual button, I am effectively making the game pointlessly more difficult just because, and that knowledge is enough to kill any reality I like to put my head in when I play these (I don't think I'm quite alone either). By forcing casual mode on my game and not making its acquisition optional, Nintendo is dropping the base standard of difficulty and giving me an unnecessary responsibility to bring it to even minimal series standards. Nintendo gives me a choice to turn the item on, but they don't give me the choice to have the item in my bag to begin with. Without even thinking about anyone else's experience, not giving me that choice hurts my experience directly.

All I ask is that Nintendo makes it so you have to go a teensy tiny bit out of your way to intentionally activate casual mode and make it clear that this is what it is. No one misses the opportunity and I don't have to have the EXP Share in my sight. That's how everyone wins -- not through asking someone to pretend something doesn't exist when it clearly does.

Sorry if I came off that way. I understand and respect why people like Pokemon that way in the same way that I enjoy using Kirby as a fun way to decompress and not take on that great of a challenge. I think with these games that have some sort of form of super guide or whatever that they should have some sort of mark that denotes that they have taken this lax route to their game.

So, my proposal is a bit different than Alex Kulafi's; how about the EXP share provides Experience points without providing Effort Value?  the post game can have an Effort share item, but I think if you don't give enough of a shit to want to play a balanced JRPG, then you also shouldn't even give enough of a shit to understand the effort mechanic and won't notice that your pokemon are missing that extra edge  to their stats. it'd also make the EXP share a good tool for getting pokemon leveled without EVs.

I may be the one guilty of writing the long e-mail to you guys a week or two ago. I knew it was long (apologies!), but I thought I'd give it a shot. In the unlikely event of a listener mail drought sometime in the near future, feel free to dust it off, hack it up, and paraphrase!

As someone who buys one version of every Pokemon game, including remakes and 3rd versions, and as someone who has dabbled in competitive play and understands crap like EVs, base stat totals, and knows the difference between OU and Ubers, I think I can speak as a "hardcore Pokemon fan."

I'm with Jonny on this one. Pokemon Y has been my favorite Pokemon game to play through in recent years in no small part due to EXP share. I could have a full team of 6 pokemon of relatively equal strength without having to go through the tedious bullshit of switching them out or grinding. It's more fun for me this way because I prefer having a balanced team that covers all of the type bases rather than brute forcing fights where I'm at a type disadvantage, like I did in previous games.

Christ dude. No offense, but that sounds like a you problem. I fought nearly every trainer I could throughout the game and my event Blaziken (that gets faster EXP growth due to technically being "traded"), which I used frequently, barely broke level 70 by the time I beat the game. And that was with EXP share on the entire game.

Really? You're looking to a Pokemon game for challenge? Without EV training, my Sylveon swept the Elite Four of this game at level 40. The E4 and champion all have pokemon in the mid 60s. All it took was a good moveset and smart tactics. These games are easy as hell regardless of EXP share. If you want real challenge, play against other real people. And EXP share has absolutely no effect on that whatsoever.

I personally don't understand getting immersed in a Pokemon game either, as to me the appeal lies in a chess-like anticipation of the opponent and peeling away the layers of the complex systems of the game as opposed to the world and characters, which I find bland and one-dimensional. But I'm willing to concede that other people may feel differently in that regard.

I agree. Pokemon is an easy series on its own. When EXP Share gets added in, it becomes baby difficulty. Any challenge-based opportunity that may arise becomes eliminated.

Sorry for another long post, but I wanted to comment on the college gaming discussion as well, and wanted to separate this diatribe from the other one.

As a rising Junior in college, I have no idea what the crew was talking about when they said they had way more time to game in college. That is NOT my experience AT ALL. Granted, I'm an Engineering major, which is notorious for having lots of work, but I know that at least a few of the RFN crew majored in Engineering or Computer Science, so I don't quite understand why their experience was so different than mine.

I have way more work to do in college than I did in high school, and I was no slouch in high school. The majority of my high school schedule was honors and AP classes, all of which assigned ample work. Freshman year, I felt it was a step up in work, if only slightly. But Sophomore year the shit hit the fan. I had so much work to do this past year.

If a day went by where I didn't do an assignment for one class or another, it meant I forgot about something. And they weren't short assignments either. I remember several Signals and Systems assignments that took 8-12 hours to do. And I once had a Circuits Lab write up that took me 16 hours to do over the course of a week. Granted, those weren't assigned that often, but my Circuits professor used to assign a graded homework every class that would take 2-3 hours to do and sometimes required a PSPICE or MATLAB simulation of one of the problems.

Like Jonny said, there's a lot of self-study in college. But in my classes, I had graded homework assignments on top of that. Usually on a weekly basis, or in some classes, an assignment was due every class. In fact, for my Linear Algebra class last semester, I would often forgo the optional practice problems because I had a graded homework set or a MATLAB assignment to do, or probably a quiz to study for.

That's another big difference I've found is that in high school, I never studied for tests and still got straight As. In college, that's simply impossible. I spend HOURS studying for tests and probably even an hour or two studying for quizzes now. When I don't study enough, it'll be the difference between an A and a C.

Also... how the hell did you manage to have 5 day weekends or finish class by 10 am?! This upcoming semester is the first time in college that I've ever had a day completely off, and that's like a gift sent from heaven. I usually only have one day per week where I have only one or two classes, too. I've had Monday/Thursday schedules that start at 8:30 am and end at 7:00 pm with only a handful of breaks in between.

I definitely take college seriously though. I don't know many people who put more time into academics than I do. And it pays off for me, as I usually get high grades to show for all my hard work. But if I didn't put in all that work, I know my grades would be a lot worse.

This is not to scare Wilson, though. I still played games a lot Freshman year. Less so Sophomore year, but I'd still manage to fit it in occasionally. It was mostly social gaming though. I've played a LOT of Brawl and Mario Party these past few years, and my friends and I even played a bunch of single player games together Freshman year. I haven't really been able to play many new games during the semester though. I usually catch up on those during breaks.

I had the same fears as Wilson going into college, but despite having less time to game, these past 2 years have been the best years of my life. I don't want to leave. I definitely agree with the crew when they said that if you don't enjoy college, you're doing it wrong. Even if you have less time to game, you'll find other ways to have fun, especially if you find a great group of friends like I did. And you can still keep the hobby alive, like I did, it might just be a lesser part of your life.

So in short, if you're reading this Wilson, don't worry about having less gaming time in college. You probably will, but you probably won't really mind. You're still going to love the hell out of college. Good luck, take it seriously, and have the best years of your life.

... God DAMN I write a lot.

All right, you got me. I guess during my first playthrough my team saw a LOT of restructuring to accommodate for some of the things i got via Wonder Trade like Gale Wings Fletchling and Protean Froakie, so that might have added to my HM Hawlucha being a bit overleveled. that, and I was trying to regularly go back and do Battle Chateau, which builds levels and money with how many battles you have to do to make it to duke/duchess.

I suppose EXP share and the changes to the EXP table  are relatively small pickings compared to some of the more egregious things about Pokemon X and Y such as the frame rate that constantly shits itself, the wishy-washy use of the stereoscopic effect, the bizzare decision to have 4 characters performing the role that 1 well developed one used to do just fine, Whatever the fuck Lysander's plan was and the whole of Team Flare being stupid, the lack of new postgame areas besides Kiloude City and the really sly way that they tried to make it look like you were going to be able to ride your pokemon, but instead they just made 3 REALLY tedious gimmick routes where you have bizzare tank controls on a grid.

Not that they're bad games! Gamefreak are masters at their craft! the fun is still there, and everything they have on the bottom screen is AMAZING! if there are not at least equivalents to the PSS, Super Training, and Pokemon'amie in future games, they will have dropped the ball so hard. Especially the PSS and it's extreme ease of trade with things like Wonder Trade. Wonder Trade is especially amazing as it's motivated me for the first time ever to try and fill the pokedex. It also has me turning on my Pokemon X version every day, as having SO many pokemon with different Original Trainer IDs means that I pretty much get something from the lottery every day, which until this gen, I thought was a vestigial organ left over from GSC. There's also so many little time savers here and there that give people who naturally breed their pokemon a heck of a lot more of a chance competitively then those folks who just bought an R4 and saved themselves the trouble by save editing in a perfect team to play some multiplayer with.

How dare you point out any flaws in mario 3, the awkward difficulty spikes, cheap enemy placement, and general lack of friendliness to new players aren't flaws, they're features.

Git gud!

In a past RFN episode, Jon clearly established that New Super Mario Bros. Wii was a harder, more difficult game than Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts. So your dedicated fans want to know Jon: Do we have a new champ in Super Mario Bros. 3? Or does it hit the sweet spot between NSMB Wii and Super GnG?

As for World 8, maybe it is best if you don't play it. We don't want you getting old before your time. That series of levels already puts a few years on you when you're a kid. You may not be able to afford it at this juncture.

Thanks for the kind words Jonny I really think my NFC Mario All Stars idea has potential and is something SIMPLE to understand and grasp and different enough from Skylanders/Disney Infinity.


I really loved e-reader support for mario 3 back in the day and I would love to see seed of an idea fully be grown into something cool. Is sky landers and Disney infinity popular in Japan?

How many hours a day (on average) do you spend in class? I was doing 3 - 5 Monday through Thursday most semesters. If you include time to commute from school and time I spent waiting for my ride from the bus stop and time in school I'd say I was "in" high school about 9 hours a day, five days a week. Even with more complicated work to do at home, that's a big gain in hours.


Additionally, I didn't have to get up at 5:30 in order to catch my bus, which meant I didnt have to go to bed NEARLY as early, which freed up more time in the evening to play games.

My point was that my underleveled pokemon still managed to beat the Elite Four, so levels and thus experience gained, and thus EXP share had no (or at least very little) effect on the difficulty of the battle.

3-5 hours per day sounds about right for me as well in college. I don't disagree with the statement that you have less hours of class per day in college. The thing is though, those are spread out such that I only have an hour or two between my classes. Sure, that's enough time to play a game if I really wanted to, but I would more likely than not have to leave the game on while I went to class, or even show up late to class if the game wouldn't let me pause for some reason. That's not the way I like to play games. So effectively, my day may start at 10am and end at 5:30pm, even if only 4.5 of those hours were dedicated to in-class time.

My high school experience was pretty weird. My first 2 years I went to a school in a different state. I had an hour commute each way daily, and had to hang out at a friend's house after school until my parents could pick my up and take me home. So I was away from home for 12-13 hours daily. But the homework I had at that school was a joke and I'd usually just finish it in class. So I would get home at about 7pm and be able to play games for a solid 5ish hours until I went to bed, if I so desired.

My last 2 years of high school were more normal. I switched to my local public school and I drove myself to school by that point, so my commute was less than 10 minutes. Then I would spend about 7 hours in class per day. Then maybe I'd have an hour's worth of homework nightly. I just remember binge playing Demon's Souls senior year, playing hours per day for a few weeks straight. Which means I had plenty of gaming time on my hands.

Now in college, despite having less class hours, it's offset by the fact that I do, at a minimum, several hours of homework and studying per night. To be fair, I spend much of my free time socializing with friends, rather than playing games. I could use that time to play games if I wanted, but I enjoy my time spent with friends more. Which is why I repeatedly stated in my post that while you may have less time to game, it may be because you replaced it with other fun things.

Of course, everyone's experience will be different. Maybe Wilson won't have a problem squeezing in an hour's worth of gaming between 2 classes. If so, good on him. I just wanted to offer an opposing viewpoint so that if he DOES find he has less time to game, he won't feel blindsided.

Interesting to hear Jon's perspective on Mario 3 as someone who didn't play it growing up.  I heard myself agreeing with him in my head on the cheapness of the later worlds, but kept on thinking to myself "yeah, but here's this work-around" or "but you can use the warp whistles & P-Wings you accumulate through the game to get past this", but that thinking only works if you know where all the warp whistles/P-Wings/Good Power-ups are, and someone who hasn't spent extensive time playing the game wouldn't know that without looking these things up.
Same probably goes for Super Mario World, a game that I know like the back of my hand, but my wife can't get past the third level, despite having played Mario 1-3 without issue.

Using warp items is the same as going to cinema, then going to toilet in the middle of the film and spending most of the time there.
Do you want to play the game or not?
On the other hand subjecting yourself to persevere every single level like i did, will make you realize how much of the game is made of empty lanes of nothingness.
I don't even know what P-wings are.

For clarification, I don't use whistles anymore when going back to it…I used to when I was a kid.  They're there for a reason, and they seem to be a good tool for those like young me and Jon Lindemann.


Really, you don't know what a P-Wing is?


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VyIinh0mPYo/TpVofVDA1GI/AAAAAAAALxo/BeGQEyRZMok/s1600/1523545-pwing_thumb.png