Topic: KB's Maps in Progress

[KeyBlade999]

Well. I THOUGHT I'd be able to get around to the Connection Orb, but my friend wanted Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon back. =/ Oh well, I've had it for over a month anyways. So I managed to get a bit of a head-start on mapping Final Fantasy VI for GameFAQs, which surprisingly has very few maps there, since I left my copy of EO2U at uni.

Now I managed to get back in my dorm and back into the swing of things. Just finished up 14F on the Labyrinth, which makes 16/35 maps complete. If you wanna look at it, it's below. I worked into the icier portions of the Yggdrasil Labyrinth, as you can see. Brr...

[KeyBlade999]

Agh, I FINALLY got past 15F in EO2U and the Frozen Stratum. I'm sick of the cold, I'm sick of this stratum because it echoes of nothing but bad memories for being delayed in completion for nearly a month. I'm particularly sick of icy puzzles, but ... agh, maybe I have a cold. >_>

In any case, 15F is complete and I'm officially past the halfway point after this weekend since I should finish up Ginnugagap B3F, 16F, maybe 17F (18~20/35 maps complete). Phew. 15F is below if anyone wants to check.

[KeyBlade999]

Phew...

Yet ANOTHER Pokemon game released and delayed me hard. In this case, it was Pokemon Picross on the 3DS; admittedly one of the better freebie 3DS Pokemon titles as of late. The game is huge, with some 700 puzzles. I would've probably just done image-style solutions of them, but it was recommended that I just fill up tables with them since the FAQ system doesn't easily handle hundreds of images at once. So it ended up looking like this -- http://www.gamefaqs.com/3ds/183130-pokemon-picross/faqs/72634. Hypothetically speaking, one could always just screenshot those solutions or something, but it'd be tedious. May be easier just to link to it, if at all.

So, what's new? After spending some 3 weeks on that, I managed to get back to Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold, and this time without any perceivable delays in the near future. I finished mapping B3F, B4F, and 16F and writing most of their walkthroughs. Kinda lacking motivation at the moment because I'm suffering from an overload of projects I want to do. Gah.

[JonLeung]

Gosh, I know what you mean about Pokémon Picross.  I finished the main world and completed all the missions, working on the Alt-World a bit slower now, not as motivated, but still handy when I know I need to sit somewhere waiting for something.  I play the main Pokémon series and generally don't bother with most of the spin-offs, but if they're puzzle games (like Trozei, Puzzle League, and Picross), I can't help myself.

[KeyBlade999]

Oh my God, Trozei... Pokemon Battle Trozei was practically my Game of the Year for 2014, it was ridiculously addictive. It's a shame they tried ruining it when they basically ripped it off for Shuffle.

Can't say the same for the main games, though; X/Y and OR/AS were pretty disappointing; at this point, I'm only really playing them because writing FAQs for them is fun and because I play competitively (so I basically beat the story in 60 hours and never look at it again - got me 1300+ hours on X and over 600 on OR). Maybe whatever they'll release next - I'm personally predicting a Pokemon Red/Green reremake or Pokemon Z game for the anniversary - will actually address the flaws people continually mention with them, like difficulty. (Sure, they're trying to appeal more to kids, but it's not like they can't implement difficulty modes, but Game Freak doesn't accept feedback, last I checked their Japanese site. =/)

I should stop before I go on a rant. Needless to say, though, Generation VI has only impressed me with the stuff on the side.

[KeyBlade999]

Semi-monthly update.

I've been grinding ever further on EO2U; my motivation is beginning to wane a bit because I keep encountering problems playing the game (namely having to redo floors every time my cart is suddenly left undetected mid-game >_<), but so far things have been going ... okay-ish, I suppose? Hard to say. It took me only a month to cover EOU, but now we're around 5.5 months in and only 2/3 done with EO2U, which is hardly more complex. Anyhow. I'll end up writing the walkthrough bit for my guide on 19F tonight, then I should be able to cover 20F by the weekend and finish off the 4th Stratum.

[KeyBlade999]

I recently mapped out 21F on EO2U, so yay. >_>

That aside, I learned of yet ANOTHER localization thing that'll impede my eventual Poke-mapping projects.

Turns that the Japanese release of Pokemon Emerald has a slightly different layout for at least one of the Trick House puzzles, so I'm now obligated, whenever I get around to that game (after Crystal and Ruby/Sapphire) to play two versions of it.

[KeyBlade999]

Irregularly-timed update ... uh, time. >_>

Finished up mapping 25F and B5F on EO2U, putting me at 30/35 completion (~86% completion). Kinda surprised I managed to clear the 5th Stratum THAT fast; it only took me about two weeks. I still have to write a walkthrough for B5F, though, but otherwise I should be able to start the 6th Stratum - the final five floors! - this weekend.

Thank God ... I'm like 50,000% DONE with this game. I mean, it's an awesome game and all, but writing an FAQ for it is beyond tedious this time around. I'm not sure if it's because of the transition to college life being hell on me or what, but unlike EOU and Persona Q, this game has taken significantly longer to cover with only similar levels of content. This is the sixth month since I've gotten it. By comparison, writing up the learnsets, EV yields, and all sorts of other anal crap for my Pokedex for Black/White 2 only took three months, and it's 4.5 MB of pure text. EO2U has single-handedly murdered much of my motivation for pretty much anything FAQ- or map-related. I can only hope I'll get done with this sometime soon...

[KeyBlade999]

Pokémon Sun & Moon just got announced a few hours ago, so I now should add that to by ever-growing backlog.

[JonLeung]

They were pretty much confirmed yesterday, only actually-officially today.  That Pokémon-focused Nintendo Direct was a little disappointing, I would have thought they could at least have mentioned Detective Pikachu, Pokkén Tournament, Pokémon Go, Pokémon Z (if it's coming at all), and whatever other Pokémon-related news like the release of Volcanion, or the new animated movie, or something.  Then again I had the sound off (I was watching it at work) but it could've added at least a few more seconds to flash some logos across the screen or something.  Felt like a missed opportunity.  And then for Pokémon Sun and Moon, not really much except for quick glimpses of people at work at the games and then the logos (which were already seen yesterday).  Almost felt like they just wanted to say something quick because tomorrow (though I guess it already is tomorrow in Japan) is the 20th anniversary.

Nice to see you will be willing to map it if at all possible, but we don't even know when it's coming out...

[KeyBlade999]

To be fair, logo and trademark leaks don't mean much. Pokemon Delta Emerald and Pokemon Grey were trademarked, as were stuff like Pokemon Amethyst and Pokemon Brown, so I was expecting another thing nothing would come of. Especially when a bunch of fake Twitter accounts disguised as the official Twitters for, example, Nintendo began spamming it around.

All we know is Holiday 2016 according to the US stream ("Late 2016" for the EU stream, "Winter 2016" in the Japanese stream) for the release, so I'm guessing just December outright.

But I didn't get anything I didn't expect. For six minutes, I was expecting a blurb about Pokemon RBGY (which I got - but did not expect the whole Bank thing, which means they probably patched the glitches which, while I understand, is still kinda mean because of how much a figure Missingno. is), and a blurb about a new game (was expecting Z, though). Detective Pikachu I'm honestly not sure if it'll make it to the US at this rate since the hype kinda died years ago, Pokken is pretty hyped already, as is Go, and Directs aren't usually used for the movies and stuff AFAIK. I am surprised to see Gen. VII (?) possibly introduced without a Pokemon Z or Delta Emerald, but Generation VI just didn't have enough realistic substance - particularly gameplay-wise - to appeal to me well, so I can't say I'm entirely upset to see Kalos go.

It's not like I'll be getting around to mapping them any time soon, though. I'm still stuck in the second Generation II because of this STUPID ETRIAN ODYSSEY GAME *smacks it with a bat*.

*sigh* At least the 6th Stratum in this game is SIGNIFICANTLY less of a chore. Because of how the navigation is handled, my walkthroughs for this will be mostly "look at the map I gave": there are almost no puzzles of any note!

[JonLeung]

I wasn't really expecting a Pokémon: Delta Emerald...  (That reminds me, I haven't touched Pokémon: Omega Ruby since seeing that creepy Delta logo or whatever at the end of the main story...should probably get back to that, and reconsolidating all my Pokémon into either that and/or Pokémon Y...)  Reason being that there wasn't ever a third version of the remakes - or a remake of the third version (ElectricYellow (or even WaterBlue), and no MindCrystal (or BodyCrystal?)).  Not to say patterns couldn't change, of course, since there was no expected "Grey Version" but rather "Black Version 2" and "White Version 2".  Wonder if there's going to be a Diamond/Pearl remake.  Would seem unnecessary given that 3DSes can play DS games, though if the NX is a portable, or whatever the next portable is, we might assume they have 3DS backwards compatibility (though again, maybe we shouldn't assume), though it'd be unsurprising to not have DS support.

But yes, the lack of "Pokémon Z" is surprising, especially since the latest anime season is called "XYZ" with a big green Z, and Zygarde is very obviously the next cover Pokémon after X's Xerneas and Y's Yvetal.

But with the constant rumours and speculation that the NX (if it is a console) is coming out this year instead of next (breaking the five-year pattern by having an "only" four-year life) - and I don't know if this is related to Nintendo having a new president or not, but I think anything Nintendo does moving forward could be different than what we'd typically expect.

[KeyBlade999]

Time for an irregularly-timed update.

STILL working on EO2U. I got caught up in a roleplaying game I'm hosting on GameFAQs, so it's been eating my time. I just finished my map for 29F, which means I have the  walkthrough for 29F (minor stuff) plus 30F's map and walkthrough and a few trivial details before I can consider myself done.

Finally... It's been seven long months and I can firmly say I am (probably) never making a guide for Etrian Odyssey ever again. I've clocked over 250 hours on ONE playthrough of this thus far and spent far too long in making it (nearly my entire freshman year of college). Longer than any other guide, and probably my most tedious, most involved project. But it looks like I might be able to finish it this weekend at long last. Which means you'll finally get some maps from me, Jon. Probably not my best work, but still an improvement over my Persona Q format.

...

So, what comes next...? That, I'm not sure. I was thinking Momotarou Densetsu Gaiden from the Famicom, writing a walkthrough and guide for it ... or maybe making maps of FFVI for GameFAQs that I already started ... or making maps for Pokemon Crystal Version. Hm...

[KeyBlade999]

So. New project decided: Pokemon Crystal Version (GBC).

Started it up tonight and got most  everything situated. Attached is my first map of ~110 for the game: New Bark Town. Also tried out the idea of implementing a wild-encounters table, which is there as well.

[JonLeung]

YES!  Something I've always said is lacking!

Before you get hugely far, can I suggest you try it with an image of the Pokémon, as well as the name?  It would be quicker to find stuff, maybe.  If it doesn't crowd it too much.  At least give it a shot, if you could.