Why is M.I.L.F. so hard?

(never in my life did I ever think I would need to type this out unironically. For reference it's from Friday Night Funkin')

Ordered a Switch. Hoping to be playing by this weekend. I got Breath of the Wild, Link's Awakening, Mario Odyssey & Octopath Traveler. Don't know which one I'll start with. Almost got Pokemon Sword, but I had already dropped enough coin. I'm sure I'll get it or Shield at some point.

Until then, I'll be finishing up the Hearts of Stone expansion for The Witcher 3.

Just mapped 30F in Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold, which is the final floor in the game. Well, not all of it as the last room contains the boss of the stratum, the Ur-Child, and I'm nowhere near set-up to fight that abomination yet. Especially not the DLC 31st floor with its F.O.E.s with their insta-kill attacks and that boss of the said floor, the Ur-Devil, aka Ur-Child on steroids. Yeah, I looked up that last bit on the wiki. What's worse is that said F.O.E.s are erratic enough that not fighting one is next to impossible and they all respawn as soon as you leave the floor, so you pretty much have to beat them all in one go. Only after that can you unlock the shortcut that links the floor entrance to where the Ur-Devil is. And yeah, Ur-Devil is just bragging rights as it only drops an item upon defeat if you beat it on Expert difficulty, by which point you don't even need said item as you're just beaten the hardest thing the game has to offer.

Anyways I beat the other two elemental dragons and thus can now level up to 99. I've unlocked the best class-exclusive armors for the whole story-mode party... save for the one for the Sovereign class. To get that armor, you'll need the conditional drop for the Dinogator, which you get by beating the Dinogator with a stab attack.

The thing is that the Dinogator is a rare enemy on the 30th floor that only has a small chance of appearing via the forced encounters you trigger via opening doors. There is one place that's guaranteed to spawn it, but getting to said place is no picnic as it's not straightforward. To get to this place, you'd have to use a chain of warp points. One way to do that is go through all the different warp points you've encountered on the floor in one big loop, but I've learned that it's an easier way to unlock this place (there's a shortcut you can unlock there once you arrive, that way you can make return trips much easier). There's exactly one point in the floor where two warp points are lined up in such a way that you can do a short loop just by continuously moving forward. It's by doing exactly that in which I was able to unlock this hidden area.

However, finding the Dinogator isn't the only problem with it. The other is that it's an utter monster in battle. In the other Etrian Odyssey games the Dinogator is a F.O.E., but in Etrian Odyssey 2 and Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold it's instead a regular encounter via the doors. This means there's a chance that you'd have to put up with two of these monsters in a fight, and this enemy has the stats and abilities of a F.O.E. But don't worry, it gets worse! There's a type of monster called a rare breed, golden versions of enemies where their strength and speed has a power boost and beating them nets you better experience points, but said rare breeds can also run from battle. However in forced encounters such as against F.O.E.s (who also can have rare breeds) and the door fights, said rare breeds don't run from battle. The door that always sics Dinogators on you doesn't unleash the regular versions, but a rare breed. On my first encounter with this door, it sicced two of these monsters on me! Wasn't able to do the conditional drop, but even on picnic these things were just plain gnarly to fight! I won, but two of my teammates were knocked out by the end. Good thing you can revive them at the inn...

And just got the conditional drop for the Dinogator and promptly went over to the shop to get the Sovereign armor from it. Didn't actually have to fight a rare breed this time as I stumbled upon the regular one by chance even though I wasn't looking for it. Very much a notable change in difficulty as unlike the rare breed version I didn't have much difficulty with it, though I was still on the defense to be on the safe side as even then its Frolic attack can still deal a bunch of damage. Was pitted against two of them this time. I say "this time" and not "like last time" as I challenged the rare breed door a second time for said last time and it pitted me against only one of those things.

Anyways I'm now going to try to unlock the conditional drops for all the other monsters, as some of said drops unlock very useful items. Easier said than done for some of the monsters, as not only do some monster abilities make that hard but quite a few of the bosses have conditional drops too (the bosses with said drops respawn if enough time passes). For example, the conditional drop for the elemental dragons is to take them out with their respective element, but as they're immune to their own element you'd have to use an attack that uses all of the elements.

Found out that you can get more skill points for your characters in Etrian Odyssey by retiring/training them. For classic mode characters retiring means that they leave the team in exchange for an apprentice taking their place, which is no big deal as the classic mode characters are just blank slate characters that you can have multiples of. As story mode characters can't be replaced even in classic mode, they instead have the training option which does the same thing as retiring: they exchange their high levels for a stat boost and extra skill points, with the limit they're lowered down to is level 30. Naturally, you get the best deal if you go all the way to level 99 and then retire/train. You also must make sure your inventory has plenty of space as retiring/training puts the equipment they had on into your inventory, otherwise you can't retire/train them. Don't know how many times you're allowed to do this for a single character/apprentice chain, but I'll find out soon enough. Yeah, you need all the skill points you can get knowing that by the highest level you about enough skill points to fulfill half or so of the available skill point slots.

Don't intend on taking on classic mode in Untold 2 until I've beaten the Ur-Child as it's the only story boss left. I have a feeling I'd have better chances against the Ur-Devil and its F.O.E.s in classic mode as then you have access to all the other classes in the game.

I booted up Minecraft recently. I hadn't played it for a year. I quite enjoyed it

de blob

I defeated all of LOZ A link to the past. So many chickens.

Now I am working On the original Metroid.

Fallout 76, it's not terrible, it's a bit confusing but it's definitely a fallout game at its core

Paperboy

Paperboy 2

Good news, dad's phone has a gyroscope and I tested the game on it, the AR is actually functional this time. Took this long not only due to work works, but because there was an apparent issue with downloading the app. But in the end it all worked out. So now all that's left is to catch Shiny Celebi! ...though maybe I should practice first as I've never caught anything in AR before.

EDIT: After trying it out on a regular Pokemon just to get the hang of it, I then challenged Celebi. Was actually quite easy for me to get, though that's maybe because of my experience with curveballs and the fact I've caught enough Grass and Psychic-type Pokemon that I've gotten a big catch boost for Celebi.

Well, time to transfer it to Pokemon HOME! Since I just confirmed for myself the Pokemon you catch are linked to your account and not the app, I can just log out of this phone and go back to my phone as that's the phone with HOME.

And transferred the Shiny Celebi to Pokemon HOME. Turns out a freshly-caught Shiny Celebi is level 15. Unfortunately, seems like it's going to be stuck in HOME for a while as it's not compatible with Sword/Shield... which is odd as regular Celebi is. I'm guessing that's a leftover from when Celebi was shiny-locked (meaning Shiny ones would be naturally from hackers), as this Pokemon has never been legitimately Shiny until recently (Pokemon GO isn't the first one, the Pokemon Crystal Virtual Console re-release had Celebi be a wild encounter with the usual chance of it being shiny).

Hopefully if the rumors are true that a new main Pokemon game is coming (remake or otherwise), Shiny Celebi will be compatible.

And to top that all off the characteristic of this particular Celebi wasn't my favored type (i.e. high HP). Still happy with it though.

I've been playing Hylics for the first time. so far I'm loving it.

ayy, butcher is a great game.

Looked it up, and it seems that the issue isn't actually that, but that I simply didn't register the regular Celebi on HOME beforehand. Luckily I already have more than one of those, so I'll try transferring one of them soon.

And it turned out that was indeed the case. But it wasn't an issue with HOME but with Sword/Shield, I just had to put regular Celebi on the game before I can put the Shiny one in. As for which regular Celebi I used, I used the one I got way back in HeartGold/SoulSilver.

Anyways there's another big event in GO coming that requires a ticket... and if you complete the Ditto research in that limited time period you'll unlock a special research you can do at your leisure in which you can get a Shiny Mew. Hopefully I'll be able to catch this event in time...

Turns out said event was today. Luckily I managed to buy a ticket in time as the window was from 9 am to 9 pm. You could enjoy the event without a ticket, but as the ticket has much more perks I had to get it, plus I think the special research is tied to the ticket. Turns out the Kanto spawns and Kanto trainers were just today it seems, but the Pokemon collection events and special research are still going, so I have about 8 days left it appears to finish this limited-time special research. Also should mention the Ditto you get at the end of this special research is a Shiny Ditto. As this event unlocks the Shiny Mew research I have to wonder if that's a nod to the fan theory that Ditto is a failed Mew clone, as the two have similar colors for the regular and shiny versions and both can use Transform.

For those who bought the ticket, you'd have to pick between green or red versions, so I picked green. Also, apparently there seems to be technical issues with the event and so they're going to do a make-up event for everyone who's bought a ticket.

Anyways speaking of Shiny Pokemon, I caught two new ones and both I know are compatible with Sword/Shield. The first is a Shiny Nidoran (male). For those who don't play Pokemon, Gen 1 was from before all Pokemon had their genders listed, so that's why male and female Nidoran aren't categorized as a single species (this also explains why a Mr. Mime can be female). The other Shiny I got is a Shiny Koffing, whose shiny colors bring to mind a zombie. Yeah, odd timing to catch a Pokemon with zombie colors in the middle of a real-life pandemic. But what makes this Shiny Koffing notable is that I now have a choice of evolving it into a standard Weezing via GO or transferring it to Sword/Shield and evolving it into a Galarian Weezing. Thinking of doing the latter as Galarian Weezing looks cooler to me.

crash of the titans

I recently bought SiN Gold on steam and it took me a while to realize that JC is a reference to John Carmack. Either than that, I've been enjoying it so far.

now im playing bakugan and the emulation is making everyone look like a monkey and now i cant stop laughing

In the middle of the limited-time special research, and one of the objectives is to trade 3 Pokemon with a friend. The problem is that trading requires being a certain distance from a friend (i.e. be in your area) and I have no friends near me. I don't think they were thinking too far ahead when they made this event as that doesn't sound pandemic-friendly...

And the solution was in front of me the whole time, but thought it was unlikely until one of them agreed to it last night. Namely, getting one of my parents to play Pokemon GO with me. Yeah that sounds cheesy but since we're living in a pandemic there's not much options, plus we need all the chances we can get to bond with our loved ones anyways in depressing times like these. I know they're not gonna be as big of a Pokemon player as I am, but it's gonna be nice to spend some quality time with them.

Replaying Hollow Knight, and got the speedrun achievement for getting to 100% completion in under 20 hours by mistake. Although, to be fair, it's a lot easier than it used to be, as in vanilla that actually meant doing absolutely everything, whereas with the DLC the game now caps at 112%, and so you can get away with not doing the really time consuming things like collecting every single hidden grub or finding every charm by beating some of the DLC bosses instead.

Godhome next, then. I gave up on Pantheon of Hallownest, the ridiculous 35 fight long boss rush, on both of my previous run throughs. Feel extremely strong after beating Path of Pain in like half an hour when it took me a fucking day originally, so this time I'm battering Absolute Radiance for sure.

Song of Horror

It plays a lot like Resident Evil or Silent Hill... without the enemies. all puzzle solving!

And I can't trade with dad until he's at level 10. As I'm the more fit out of the two of us and I'm strapped for time thanks to this limited time special research, looks like it's up to me to do the walking for now, at least until I help him reach level 10. Also as the Shiny Celebi event hasn't ended yet, I now have the chance to get a second one via dad. Hopefully this second one will have the high HP characteristic I seek.

Didn't exactly feel like going out as winter temperatures are quite icky for going out and about, so I used an incense and Lucky Egg combo from the comfort of my home. That did the trick as I reached level 11. But when that was done found that dad's asleep and don't think it's a good idea to wake him up just to trade Pokemon, so I'll just wait until dinnertime as that'll arrive here soon enough. At least I caught some Pokemon I actually want to trade for.

And just my luck that the Meowth balloon spawned and I had no Pokemon good enough to take Jesse and James on!

I defeated Metroid 100%. Now I am working on an old school Classic, Donkey Kong.

After looking up how to register the "battle in a raid" task for Pokemon GO yesterday, I learned why I didn't register the mega raid battle I attempted weeks ago. For the raid battle task to be registered, you must either defeat the Pokemon... or just simply have the timer run out. As beating raid bosses by yourself is a fool's errand unless they're low-tier thanks to this pandemic, doing the latter option is much more reasonable. Anyways I just did one raid, so two more to go for the Kanto special research.

On a different note, going to try to get Bowser's Fury today. It helps that there's a Pokemon distribution happening near where I can get a copy of the game. Namely, a Shiny Toxtricity.

And completed the battle raid task. Only had to do 3 raids and I was lucky enough to have that same amount in remote raid passes. The second raid I attempted was a tier-3 one against Lapras, but as this one was much harder than the tier-1 raid I beat (to be fair, the tier-1 was a Magikarp) I just opted to let the timer run out. Funny enough, the Pokemon you can catch as an award for completing this stage of the special research turned out to be a Lapras, so in the end it didn't matter if I managed to beat the raid Lapras. Looking at the list of tasks I have to do for this final part of the Kanto special research, I can tell I'll complete it today.

Yesterday I did look up the Mew Masterwork Research just to see what I'll be getting myself into. No wonder it's something you can do at your leisure and was stuck behind a $12 price tag (via the ticket for the Kanto event), it's worth every penny as it's very much not for beginners. It's not something you can complete in a month or so, but at the very least a year or more as with the tasks it has it expects your to master the game. The tasks I remember seeing is getting the platinum medal for Kanto Pokemon as part of the first part of the research, and the second part requires you to catch 30 of each type of Pokemon!

And the GameStop I went to didn't have the codes for said distribution yet. Well at least I still have plenty of time left for this distribution as it ends March 19. So I can just come back later in a few days to see if said codes are in stock.

And of course, bought Bowser's Fury at that same GameStop. However as much as I want to, not going to start with Bowser's Fury mode as I think starting with 3D World would be better so I can get used to the game mechanics. But I'm not going to even open this game yet as it occurred to me I have yet to finish 3D Land, so I'm going to get back to playing that first. As for what part of the game I was stuck on, it's one of the Pom-Pom battles and the room is a bunch of platforms surrounded by flames. Not as much of a difficult boss fight as it is an annoying one.

And caught the Shiny Ditto and thus completed the Kanto special research. This also means I've now unlocked the Mew Masterwork Research for Shiny Mew. The tasks for the first stage of this are (probably not the exact words as this is from memory):

Obtain Kanto Dex Platinum medal

Send 151 gifts to friends

Throw 151 great catches

So yeah, definitely not something you can do quickly. I have yet to obtain the other two Kanto dex medals but I'm guessing the platinum medal is the one for collecting all 151 original Pokemon... which mean I'll have to complete the special research quest for regular Mew. This also means I'll have to obtain Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, and Mewtwo via raids... which I doubt I'll do anytime soon thanks to this pandemic. Currently, I have about only half of the Kanto dex.

Anyways I just started up Super Mario 3D Land. Been so long since I last played the game I forgot exactly the name of the level I was stuck on. It's World 6 Airship.

EDIT: Finally beat that level after all these years. What cost me a bunch of lives back then was doing the mistake of jumping all over the place as Pom-Pom would catch up with you. The trick was to stick to a platform and just move to the side whenever Pom-Pom is after you.

Hopefully I won't get as stuck in this game later as that level did to me. Well, besides the Special World levels as I know those would kick my ass, which is why I don't seek to do them.