Ep10 Pokemon Unite

Tox  0:06  
This week on MXPB tox and glitch, hop on their bikes to see Ariana Grande day.

Plus, we've got a full breakdown of Pokemon unite, don't go away and MXPB starts now.

Hello and welcome to the Morning xp boost, where your hosts Tox and Glitch, and we're here to give you the experience points you need to get through your week glitch, how are you this week.

Glitch  0:44  
Fantastic. How are you doing

Tox  0:47  
fantastic I'm doing really good. I got my minecraft XP farm running last night, and so I had sweet Sweet Dreams of infinite experience points and remind me of the podcast because her podcast is experienced points so short, I'm doing good.

Glitch  1:05  
And actually I just gained enough experience points last night to unlock and finish the fortnight Battle Pass though, they're with you

Tox  1:14  
experience points for everyone I love it. Alright so we're going to talk about some news so we're going to do a history as usual, and this week we're feature presentation is about Pokemon unite our first impressions, and some killer strats to get you going. So glitch you want to start us off with some news.

Glitch  1:35  
Sure things so just mentioning fortnight. There's a concert, that's getting ready to take place talks. Are you excited for this concert or should I give you the details first maybe

Tox  1:46  
you want to tease it first, maybe I'll get excited.

Glitch  1:50  
So fortnight is gonna have the it's called the rift tour concerts going to be featuring ariana grande de and going to be getting her own icon skin. The concert is going to take place from August 6 through the eighth fortnight is recommending that if you're going to show up to this concert arrive 90 minutes early. Oh, yeah, tox this concert isn't going to be like any other concert that fortnight has ever had saved for the Travis Scott concert. It was a big deal. Yeah. This concert is supposed to be even bigger. It's gonna have massive implications for the fortnight Island and the story. And Ariana Grande is going to be directly related to fortnight and it's the end how things are going to play out so I'm really excited. I can't wait to see where this takes us. If you're looking for more details you're interested in attending. Go to rift, tor.com, and they'll be able to give you more details, you'll be able to see when you'll be able to attend, based on your location, there's a new tab. Actually, in fortnight so if you play, you can actually go to this tab the riff tour tab, it'll show you, when all your friends are attending this concert. And you can actually select your attendance date and show all your friends when you're going to be there so fortnight's really really doing some great stuff there.

Tox  3:15  
Can you try to attend with your friends or at least at the same time if not on the same server.

Glitch  3:21  
Oh yeah, so that's, that's 100% Why fortnight went ahead and added this new tab, you'll be able to invite all your friends to a group and screen this concert together with your best buddies.

Tox  3:34  
Awesome. I wanna, I'm gonna do it. I'm excited. There you go, I got excited, I didn't, I wasn't sure but I got excited.

Glitch  3:41  
Yeah I know, I know I'll be attending. At least, at a minimum, Friday, which is August 6 Yeah, it's gonna be 6pm Eastern Standard Time on Friday, you better believe I'll be there.

Tox  3:57  
That's the first showing. That's,

Glitch  3:59  
yeah that is the first showing so guys

Tox  4:00  
space. I watched a little bit of the replay of the Travis Scott concert and it was really cool because it was kind of interactive and like the whole environment changed. I've been to a couple other you know fortnight, community events, and they have sort of like a main stage, and people jumping around and stuff. And, but that Travis Scott one ticket to a whole nother whole nother level and sounds like this Ariana Grande day one is going to level up even further. That's cool. Right. Well, this week I saw kind of an interesting short article flyby about an IRL Pokemon bike at the Pokemon company is giving away. In order to celebrate, reaching 1 million Twitter followers. The Pokemon Company, according to IGN and their Twitter account, which is in the language that they can't read so I will just trust, IGN, they're giving away a life size replica, and I assume a functioning bicycle based off of the generation one Pokemon games. It is, in celebration of 1 million Twitter followers, and if you have a really good memory, which I did not, but I had to be reminded by the article in the game, the bike costs 1 million poker dollars and you cannot actually get 1 million pokey dollars you can only get $999,999. And so in order to get the bike you need a special voucher. So, a really nice little reference call back to Generation One, the bike itself looks pretty awesome, it's got a green frame. Black tires, the tread on the tires are all different kinds of Pokeballs sort of inlaid on the tire tread around the rim of the wheel you have simplified minimalist etchings of Pokemon faces like Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle starters and of course Pikachu. And now it's just a really cool little thing and a nice celebration for the Pokemon Company.

Glitch  6:14  
Wonderful have to we have to wake up a Snorlax, in order to get your hands on it or

Tox  6:21  
are they, they're giving this bike away then you have to retweet a hashtag that is in Japanese, so I'm not sure if I could even, maybe I could copy and paste it, but you're on, They won't ship it internationally so you have to be within Japan to claim the prize.

Glitch  6:41  
Okay, wow. Yeah, I'm actually I'm taking a look at it right now it's. That is impressive.

Tox  6:47  
And apparently it has some way to play the the bike theme song from Generation One games. So, if it wasn't cool enough, now it is. Well, I think that wraps it up for our news fix. Let's move on to our history.

Glitch  7:09  
33 years ago, talks. That was a bit alive back then.

Tox  7:16  
No comment.

Glitch  7:20  
33 years ago 1988 Midway Games was founded in Chicago, Illinois. Before we talk about what games they're responsible for. They started off as a penny machine or arcade machine game manufacturer, and I think we talked a little bit about arcade games, and how much money we, we probably spent a couple episodes ago, didn't we,

Tox  7:46  
Oh yeah, arcade games. They're big deal.

Glitch  7:51  
And I'm sure we played a handful of Midway Games I know at least I did, especially with my sister, and she would get so mad because one of the games that we would play would be Mortal Kombat. It's Midway Games is responsible for. And, you know, we would put the, whatever it was 25 cents 50 cents into the machine, because you had to have quarters for yourself and then you had to have quarters or partner if you wanted to, to play against them with Mortal Kombat I don't know if you remember that.

Tox  8:23  
Oh yeah so many quarters

Glitch  8:26  
quarters. And then we would, we would duke it out on there. And then, typically it would result in duking it out in the car ride on the way home as

Tox  8:39  
your poor mom.

Glitch  8:41  
I know I know right, red heads, that's a terrible, that's a terrible combination right there.

Tox  8:47  
i That's energy right there.

Glitch  8:50  
So some other games that that Midway Games has, has come to be known for course Mortal Kombat legends. I first played that game on the Dreamcast, had an absolute blast. Did you play gauntlet legends stuff,

Tox  9:05  
I played it on the N 64 with my friends, we'd play, it was awesome because he could play four people at the same time, kind of, what do you call it hacking slash style game is the first game of that genre that I've ever played. And I just remember so many like of the audio cues from that game right like food is good. You know when you get food. Yeah, exactly. Oh,

Glitch  9:30  
I missed that. And then, um, I think, did have, I can't remember exactly but I think there was like a skill tree, so you could like level up different abilities and stuff like that, and unlock them. I really, actually, you know, thinking about color legends, it really makes me want to go back in and play it.

Tox  9:48  
I've said this to my friends on the Super server, multiple times in the last six months. So I definitely left a mark for me to

Glitch  9:57  
talk so we might have to. We might have to do a little gauntlet legends here eventually. But taze me bro, I will be 100%. They were also responsible for NBA Jam cruisin USA, which that's another one I spent way too much money on in the arcade trying to finish that level, especially, you remember Cruz in California.

Tox  10:19  
i There is a San Francisco one with the Golden Gate Bridge.

Glitch  10:23  
Yes, yeah, that's it. Yep. And I never could quite make it to the Golden Gate Bridge. That game was like really hard.

Tox  10:35  
You know I played all these games on consoles, even though all the ones that we've talked about are also in arcades, because midway has, like we said a strong arcade. Since historically and that's how they got their start. So I played cruisin USA on the end 64 And I played NBA Jam Tournament Edition, on the Super Nintendo, and I don't play a lot of sports games but NBA Jam, and there are other awesome kind of action arcade eSports game NFL Blitz play that went on 60 for both these games I played so much and you know I'm not a huge sports game fan, but these were particularly accessible because they just allowed you to do really ridiculous things that you could never physically do like an NFL Blitz, I think, you know you could leap forward to tackle someone, and you'd leap like 11 yards in the air and just totally crush them. You could spam. A and B and a direction, and your whole line would just bleep in the air, in that direction and you could just obliterate each other and and late hits and everything, and NBA Jam Tournament Edition, you know, you hit the hot spots you. You're on fire, you can catch the dead on fire with your ball and you can dunk from like half court or more than just do flips and stuff through the air the camera flashes go off. Just case are so much fun.

Glitch  12:02  
So I actually I was just doing a little bit of research here while we were on the mic. Warner Brothers actually acquired midway when midway declared bankruptcy, a couple years back. And there's a PlayStation four exclusive game. It's available also on PlayStation five. They renamed gauntlet legends gauntlet on both the PlayStation four and PlayStation five. So that might be a thing we ended up having to do there talks,

Tox  12:38  
you know two people on this podcast that have a PlayStation five so I think it has to happen.

Glitch  12:43  
I think you're right, I just hit download the console right now so.

Tox  12:48  
Alright, send me the link, I'll meet you there. Sounds good. That's awesome. What an iconic studio. Also this week 26 years ago, on August, 5 1995, the Japanese release of Super Mario World to Yoshis Island, hit the Super Nintendo platform, And I played this game, but I'm not gonna lie. Super Mario World to Yoshis Island was the follow on obviously to Super Mario World, but it took a really different sort of turn, it's still a platformer still sidescrolling still features Mario and Yoshi. But Mario was a baby, it's the first appearance of Baby Mario. And as Yoshi, you have to escort Baby Mario through all the levels, and you kind of get two hits first hit knocks Baby Mario off of Yoshi. And then, this is the first time that we see, you know, a character in a bubble so the Baby Mario gets trapped in this bubble, and starts floating around the screen and you have to go and retrieve Baby Mario, hit the bubble, get him back on your back, and now you've got two hits here and slightly less vulnerable and you've got Mario which you need for the end goal, and best slash worst feature of this game is whenever you lost Baby Mario Baby Mario would start to cry. And I can hear it in my head right now just remembering that crying noise, and now it's stressful enough that you took damage and now you have to go retrieve Baby Mario, but also it's crying in the background and you're just like, Baby Mario chill I'm coming for you. It's all right. Also, other firsts, believe first to feature red coins collected five red coins and something special happens which is sort of a staple for Mario games now, and he was the first Mario game that featured that sort of handcrafted art style, where things kind of look like paper really colorful, sort of like a collage that obviously persisted through all of the Yoshis Island, and Yoshi story, games, and clearly was a precursor to the art style in Paper Mario as well. Okay, so this week for our feature presentation, we're talking about Pokemon unite game is a free to play. Mobile style Pokemon game MOBA multiplayer online battle arena. Released on July 21 this year 2021, for the Nintendo Switch with a September release coming on mobile. So Pokemon unite brings that MOBA action to the Nintendo Switch, a simplified version of it, it if you played other mobile style games like Dota two for example, You have a little bit more limitations with the controller. So, it's been sort of widely praised as a, as a good mobile experience on the console with a controller. So I think they've done a good job there. It's five V five battles where you control the territory, level up your Pokemon and score goals to get the points that will ultimately win or lose the game. Their standard and ranked five V five matches, each match is 10 minutes long, and there are quick matches which are five minutes long, and either four v four or three V three on different maps as well.

Glitch  16:34  
So, based on your recommendation, I did go ahead and download Pokemon unite and Solenn talks talks talks. This game is super addictive. So you know like, my gaming style like I tend to play games like fortnight like moorlands Skyrim games, you know, The Witcher games like that. My experience with Mario, the Pokemon franchises is somewhat limited. This game is really addictive. They, it looks like they have kind of like the sort of a Battle Pass, which already started to unlock some of that stuff. And the big things that drew me is that while it is free to play you know, of course you can pay for, for things to kind of like boost your character and what does it purchase new Pokemon yet, but you can also unlock it just kind of over time. And there's a Pokemon that I want talks. When is that anger is younger, he's, I think he's 10,000 gold or whatever it is, the currency that they're using in the game. Yeah, and I think I'm at 4000 right now. So,

Tox  17:54  
okay, yeah, if you're playing, I think you'll get to 10,000 within a week or so of playing, if you've if you're playing an hour or so a day or so. So, yeah, definitely that first Pokemon is important choice again gar is a good one gank guard. Absolutely wrecks me every single time. However, there is an upcoming patch. I is going to sort of decrease some of the damage they can guard does for balanced purposes, but Ganga is still awesome. I think are can, like, kind of poison you, which I think is one of the only poison moves in the game. And it's, yeah, it's, it's super annoying, to say the least. To be on the other end of that poisoning.

Glitch  18:45  
Since I just started I haven't had a chance to, I haven't really played against I'm probably honestly I'm in probably bought bought lobbies at this point, If that's something that they've done. I think I'm basically just going up against absolutes and our Manders right now. Okay, my first choice was chars art so that's was my primary pick who did. Did you pick for your first Pokemon.

Tox  19:08  
I picked Talonflame, a lot of people will pay Charizard and I think we're disappointed because tears are dissolved a little bit weak in the current iteration, but by the time we send this podcast out there'll be a patch that makes chars ours stronger so it's I think this kind of picked up on the fact that lots of people love Charizard and probably tastes Charizard and we're disappointed in that pic Talonflame is good. It's really fast, and the fly move is super handy if you just need to like, get away from the action you fly up in the air while you're in the air you're invincible. It's one of your two special moves. So it recharges relatively quickly, and then it sort of gives you an area of effect damage. You get to choose your area for a couple seconds while you're in the air and invincible. And then he slammed down, and you do some damage and hopefully that's enough to get you where you need to go whether that is retreating back to your goal, or pressing on for some scoring. You mentioned that you hadn't played, you know, a bunch of Pokemon games recently. And that you like this one and it's addicting, and I just, you know, from my perspective, it is a, it's a different Pokemon game right mind Pokemon games or RPGs, you have, you collect many Pokemon, gotta catch them all. And you choose six for your team, yada yada. This is different right. You play as the Pokemon, you know, in the lobby, you're, You're still a trainer, you've got clothes for yourself cosmetics and whatever, but in the battles. The Pokemon do the battles, as usual but you pick one Pokemon, and you take that one Pokemon you play as that Pokemon in an action style setting which is kind of neat right it's not turn based, but it is a cool sort of merging of the turn based sort of pick your moves, choose, you know, a tree of moves and skills in a very limited sense. And then the action portion where you go and just kind of smash the button and try to aim properly, so it's got that action element to it which is not a lot of Pokemon games have you playing and controlling the Pokemon. And so I think that's a really cool perspective.

Glitch  21:31  
Yeah, I would agree and I think that's one of the draws for somebody like myself. i There's nothing against the Pokemon game Pokemon Yellow and especially the new sword and shield, I had an absolute blast playing those. Um, but this game offers like a lot of rewards, just through the gameplay that I'm really drawn to, like, don't have to level up your, your Pokemon, over the course of, you know, six years, like some of those Pokemon games, this one, you know, I can go from Charmander to chars ARD in one match in less than, like, you know, four minutes of just grinding out and getting the points so that you can, you know, win the match. And once I tell you what, once you evolve your Charmander to Charles Arden. He's pretty Opie I mean I know. Maybe there are some people that are upset about him being a little bit weaker than some of the other characters and I can see that but I think if you if you strategize, right, that he has the potential to do some damage.

Tox  22:42  
Yeah, I mean he's Chara sir. You can't escape that fact. It's interesting to see what sort of meta games and strategies and builds ever risen in the first two weeks of its official release. You know there aren't a lot of featuring Charizard right now. Some of the Opie characters in my opinion are Snorlax zero aura, which is a special promotional Pokemon you can get by signing into the Nintendo Switch version before August 31, so definitely do that if you haven't because you get basically the best Pokemon in the game right now. In addition to, sort of, like I mentioned Gangadhar I don't know if that's just a personal thing because I play Lucario who's sort of a melee character and gang guard is a little bit more ranged and so that's a tough matchup for Lucario. But yeah, some of those characters definitely are more popular, and particular builds for them as well are more popular. So just to round out the gameplay experience, you pick a Pokemon at the start, I pick Lucario, you play as that Pokemon you, you are on a map, there are wild Pokemon that you need to defeat in order to gain experience points and level up and evolve if your Pokemon evolves. And then you can meet the opposing team, you can obviously battle them and defeat them and get points for that. But more importantly, you need to defeat those wild Pokemon and collect these balls of energy, which are used to then score goals on the enemy goals and you have to in order to win score goals but also protect your own goal and strategically use the special Pokemon that pop up throughout the map.

Glitch  24:28  
And so I focus all my attention on those. And then, then I start going after the opposing team I've seen a couple of people in matches now that'll try to go straight over to the opposing team side, and they just get absolutely wrecked.

Tox  24:44  
It's tempting, it's tempting, you know, scoring four points early is not nearly as important as leveling up, because, you know, one thing I've noticed is that it's kind of hard to come from behind, there are some mechanics. In the last couple minutes, zap dose appears, and if your team defeat zap dose, you get a bunch of energy that you can go use to score you have to you have to get to the goal still after defeating Zapdos, so don't, you know, don't go all out and sort of get yourself knocked out in the process of defeating zap does because you still need to make it to the enemy's goal, but once you get there, with all your points from the feedings aptose You have sort of an instantaneous way to score. Normally, you have to sit at the goal enemy goal, and hold the X button and wait those painful few seconds, it's longer if you have more points to score, while your Pokemon scores and if you get attacked in the middle of that your score. Opportunity goes away. And so, you're pretty vulnerable for those few seconds but if you get zapped dose, you go to score, you get it right away. So that's, that's one thing that can turn the tide of a game. And at that point in the game, points are doubled. So there is some of that but if you don't level up early. You're not gonna be able to defeat zapped us, you know, you're not going to be able to hold off the opposing team while they're fighting you while you're fighting Zef does, you're not going to be able to get from Zeph dose to the enemy goals. If you don't have those levels, from early on gameplay

Glitch  26:26  
talks something else to about, once you start taking those goals away, there's a, there's another aspect of gameplay that that opposing team loses as well, they lose a spot to heal their characters and progress, proceed further into your territory. Oh, you know, like you were saying it's it's kind of difficult to come back if the other team is ahead. And I 100% get that especially if you've got a team that is taking those goals goal by goal, and pushing you back into your territory, it's really hard to be able to push into the opponent's territory, because you don't have that fallback area where you can get deals for your character. Yeah, and that, that definitely makes it more difficult. This is definitely a lot of strategy, definitely involved with this game. Um, I hope here in just a few minutes, maybe we can also talk about some opportunities. I've seen with this title that I think I think could really make this just an over the top success I think this is going to be a pretty solid game. I mean, we're just into what is it two weeks, that it's been out yet. I haven't had to sit and wait very long for lobby's, I mean it's a Pokemon game. We're gonna download it and play it, but I think this one has, has this. The, it's there, it can be successful. Definitely.

Tox  27:53  
Some important things, I think we should touch on. So, it's free to play. And as a free to play game, it has various currencies as way too many currencies in my opinion I think it needs only one but it has at least four. They are those, those coins in the Ayios region so everything is as his coins as tickets hollowware tickets, and as gems, and of those for the gems are a premium currency so this is where the money aspect comes in, you spend real money to buy gems, and then various things. There's also three different item shops, I don't know why there have to be three could just be one with different stuff, different things in them but there's three. And the gems will allows you to buy certain things and not others saying Ditto for the coins, and the tickets, and the most part, the vast majority of things you can buy are cosmetic. You can buy items and you can buy held items, and those will cost will set you back coins, which of course you can earn, earn coins, as well as tickets, you can earn tickets. You can also get those through buying a Battle Pass he gets some bonuses, but pretty much everything you can earn your way towards, there's no huge advantage, except there is one thing that everyone is kind of like, not so pleased with at least there's a large outcry about our item enhancers that you can use to level up your held items held items, you can carry up to three of them, they give you a passive boost throughout the game. And so if you have the right combination of held items on the right Pokemon, and they're leveled up to their max, you're in a really good position, you can have those same held items, same Pokemon, but not leveled up, and the matchup is the leveled up one will win every time. So, normally get item enhancers by spending tickets, which are an in game currency that you earn. However if you spend all of your tickets. No it doesn't show up as one of the listed currencies that you can use to purchase the item and answer with the game will prompt you, and ask if you want to use gems, the premium currency to buy more item enhancers and then you can buy as much as you want by emptying your bank account into those item enhancers.

Glitch  30:27  
Right now it sounds a little pay to win, if you purchase those enhancers.

Tox  30:31  
So everyone that that's the, that's the fear, and that's what's floating around is this pay to win aspect, and it's definitely a concern, I think, I think it's unnecessary right there's plenty of stuff to buy. I don't know why you have to buy the thing that gives you the actual tactical advantage. You know I was thinking one thing they could do so, they released a survey, and a bunch of people are taking it that I know and everyone that I know of is saying the same thing, get rid of the pay to win elements. They even have a specific survey question for like, what bothers you most about the game, and they have like, you know, unbalanced matchmaking, which, yes that bothers me pay to win elements. Yeah, that yeah that bothers me. So hopefully they get rid of that, even if they don't, I think they could update the matchmaking to take into account, they don't already do it better, the level of the hell the items that each participant is using, because then you pay to win you max out all your health items great you get matched with those people that did the same thing, it's a little bit more, even if you're not maxing out your health items or you're just getting started. You don't stand a chance against someone like that.

Glitch  31:49  
Oh, I would, I would group that under is of opportunity that I think Pokemon unite needs to work on so they, there's a pay to win aspect that I think look at fortnight, cosmetics, and if the cosmetics are giving you too much of a competitive advantage. I don't think in a game like this, um, cosmetics, aren't really going to impact your visibility and whatnot but, um, you know, if, if a cosmetic is giving a competitive advantage, I think, I think that needs to be looked at. Another thing that I would like to add, as far as, perhaps, a area of opportunity, or, or Pokemon unite would be the ability to communicate with those people in your match, you know, talks if you and I and other of our friends decided to jump in and do this play. A play a couple rounds together. It'd be really nice to be able to communicate with you. And, you know, formulate a strategy, you know, say hey, you know, all of us Let's attack the, the bass that's in the south, and let's take that one first, and then we can kind of keep pushing back, you know, we'll go south to north and south and north and keep taking these, these, the bases until they're pushed back. Right now I feel like it kind of lacks, that's that's kind of lacking right now. So,

Tox  33:20  
there is actually in game voice chat, but Oh, as, as is clear through your description is not easy to find and access is definitely that's an area of opportunity you can. For you start in the lobby, you can't. Another thing this game needs better explanations of what's going on because I didn't use out until I played for like 20 hours with other beta, but like, as you're in the lobby getting ready, press Z L, the left bumper, and you can, you know, modify certain things you can modify your held items, you can pick which moves to choose by default as you as you gain moves as you level up, you gain different moves and you have to make choices, you can ask it to make default ones for you so you can modify that. You can also set a path. So there's sort of three paths you can take at the beginning you can go top, bottom, or middle, also known as jungle. The jungle has no goals, but it has lots of strong wild Pokemon that give you lots of experience, so that's a good place someone always needs to go there on your team, make sure you're capitalizing and realizing all that experience points. You can tell your team, I'm going to do that, or you can tell them I'm going top or bottom, and then you're the rest of your teammate obviously can do the same thing. And you can see where everyone's going, if you're quick enough, that lobby only persists for like a minute, it's, you also have to choose your Pokemon which is a really painfully slow process because it lags as everyone chooses their own. So it's certainly not quite enough time, but you can at least. Choose your Pokemon Sam go on bottom, you know, look for a complimentary Pokemon that's going in the same route, and choose that route to be the first one and then someone will join up with you and split your team between top and bottom, there's sort of, as you progress, there's sort of ways that you're expected to kind of play. And I feel like that's sort of up to interpretation and everyone's preferences but choosing the paths, and letting your teammates know is definitely important and they could do a better job of that for sure.

Glitch  35:39  
Yeah. And, you know, just don't get me wrong, the game. The gameplay itself is very fun, but I definitely think that the UI itself. User interface needs to be a little more simplistic, honestly, you know, if I wasn't playing this for the podcast and I wasn't playing it because you recommended it. Be 100% Honest after downloading it and seeing just the initial menu screens and everything, I probably would have just deleted this game.

Tox  36:14  
It's frustrating, it's utterly. Sure,

Glitch  36:16  
yeah. So it's super simple right like, keep it simple. They could have one section that says, play one section that says, store, and one section that says training, nothing else that needs to be in that menu screen besides that, and you have to have. So, in order to access, oh and maybe one that says closet or something like that our character customization. And then of course settings. Outside of that, I mean, I have to look at like the top left, in order to navigate to one store, And it tells you like what buttons to press top or bottom left gives you a sandwich board that you can, I think you have to press X or something on the Nintendo Switch. That opens your closet. And it's not really clear that that's where you go to do that, there's I think there's just like a picture of your head, and then a sandwich board, and you kind of have to play around with the menu itself, and explore, to figure out how to do what you want to do. Granted you know it took me a little while to figure out, but, um, you know, I play video games regularly if this is somebody who's solely a Pokemon fan. They've only ever played, you know, red, yellow, sword and shield, they're going to be completely lost and confused by this layout.

Tox  37:41  
I'm still confused and I played it a lot. There's so many there's too many sub menus. Right,

Glitch  37:46  
yeah, it didn't mean I didn't know there was voice chat. So,

Tox  37:48  
exactly. You didn't know there's voice chat like where do you go to find your friends and invite new friends, you have to get through like four sub menus. It took me a week to figure out how to customize my profile because menus. Yeah, so the UI needs help. I definitely feel that it's designed to be mobile first, this games coming out mobile in September and that's going to be a huge audience. And so I get maybe sub menus are more necessary in mobile because you have less screen real estate. But I mean come on, you've watched this on the switch, and that when you look when you level up trainer levels Battle Pass levels, their daily achievements weekly achievements, seasonal achievements, their special promotional events like too many categories right just pick one, maybe two, right when you get something from one of those, you get an item, it goes fullscreen you're like alright I'm going to see what this item is full screen, but the item picture is still that tiny little icon, there's no text that's even says what the item is called let alone what it does. There is no larger picture, so you can't actually see it. It's just that same little icon and I'm like come on, even if I was on my phone, you could give me a better, bigger picture, or description, at least it's like, congratulations, you got red blob, you got green blob I'm like, What the heck is this thing.

Glitch  39:14  
I mean you're not, you're, you're not wrong, and you know I think back to a complicated game, you know, Skyrim is a pretty complicated game. Dragon Age. The Witcher, their menus, don't look anything like this. So, you know, it's, it's kind of funny the close comparison for me. There's there's another game out there that has confusing menus just like this and that's pub G pub G on mobile has been, it used to be really simple. When pub G first came out, pad your play button, you had your item shop, and you had your, your equipment screen where you could go in and, you know, change your cosmetics. And then, now there's honestly I deleted pub G off my phone I used to be an avid pub G mobile player I deleted it because it got too convoluted but simple. My message to the developers of mobile games, keep it simple,

Tox  
Keep it simple. Hopefully they hear that, and, and if you haven't taken that survey. Search it up and give them your own opinions,

Glitch 
fully. So, I think, to recap, this is a really great game. The gameplay is solid, it's addictive. I love being able to personally I like to be able to level up my character and see him go like, Oh, when you're playing Pokemon Red or sword and shield or any Pokemon game, you, you're spending hours of grinding to go from Squirtle to Wartortle to blast toys, you're going, you know, hours just to get from. What's another one gang gar gaslighting anger. Oh yeah, yeah. Ghastly to hold on. Is his evolution, he's one of my favorite characters.

Tox 
Haunter

Glitch 
ghastly Hunter and then Ganga right, you have that backwards. You got it, yeah. Yeah, but you know you know what I'm saying like that. He's one of my favorite characters. I love the color purple. The fact that he's a ghost type is pretty cool too. Um, how hours, and I can do this, you know, I can see this evolution process and get these really cool powers and stuff, unlocked in a matter of minutes. During this game. Um, the gameplay itself, a lot of fun, being able to take these little rings and preventing your enemies from being able to heal themselves is a lot of fun. Um, overall, they, they nailed the gameplay, I think, what do you think

Tox 
I agree it is really fun I have, you know, initially it took me some time to get over the controls. But as I understand it more, in and, like I said, mobile first, there are options to automatically target this or that, you need to kind of tweak those so that you're not surprised by where your attacks and movements are going but the gameplay itself is very fun, it, like you said you fast forward through all the classic Pokemon stuff leveling up involving choosing moves, and it throws in this area control element and the scoring aspect, it's awesome.

I'm sad to say I think it's that time we finished our feature presentation on Pokemon unite. I hope you enjoyed it if you like the show, please leave us a review and subscribe on your favorite podcast platforms. We are also on social media, you can probably guess that we are @morningxpboost. Thank you so much for listening and we can't wait to see you again next week.