News
0 CommentsPokémon Go update makes the most elusive gen two monster a little easier to catch
Togetic, one of Pokémon Go’s newest and toughest Pokémon to capture, should be a little bit easier to pin down with the game’s latest update. That’s good news for those who ran into it last week, when Togetic was almost impossible to catch.
Members of The Silph Road, the game’s biggest grassroots research community, dug into Pokémon Go’s recently updated master files to find a much-needed improvement to Togetic’s capture rate. The “Game Master” file shows that it now has a base capture rate of five percent — which, to be sure, is still extremely difficult.
Five percent puts Togetic on par with first-gen monsters Dragonite, Charizard, Blastoise and Venusaur, who each had a four percent catch rate around the game’s launch. But at an initial success rate of nearly zero, Togetic had all...
News
2 CommentsFire Emblem Heroes is giving out Orbs left and right this week
An event running in Fire Emblem Heroes this week is a serious must-play for fans in need of more Orbs. From today through Feb. 27, players who complete the special limited-time quests can collect up to six Orbs — on top of all the other free in-game currency doled out throughout the period.
The special quests are focused on weapon mastery, with swords, axes and lances each getting a category with their own missions. These quests require players to create teams that use the corresponding weapons, and completing particular goals will grant rewards — including up to two Orbs per category, for a total of six.
Also new this week is the third set of special maps celebrating the game’s launch. Completing this pair of battles will also net players an additional six Orbs.
Those 12 Orbs in total...
Cover Story
Issue
25
January 9, 2017
Final Fantasy 7: An oral history
30,000 words! 35 interviews! 4 videos! A trivia minigame! We take an in-depth look back at Square’s breakthrough role-playing game.
Read moreNews
6 CommentsPokémon Go players find the gen two Eeveelution trick
Among Pokémon Go’s 80 new, gen two monsters are two more evolutions of Eevee, one of the most beloved first-gen Pokémon. While Eevee naturally evolves into Espeon, Umbreon or its other three forms at random in the mobile game, players have found a way to force the Pokémon to evolve into their preference of the two second-generation forms.
The method stems from the Pokémon anime, making it an Easter egg for big fans of the entire Pokémon media franchise. Naming an Eevee after the owners of an Espeon and Umbreon in the anime will result in the corresponding evolution, according to reports from big Pokémon Go communities like The Silph Road and other Reddit sites.
Receiving reports that this Eeveelution name trick has been working, travelers! pic.twitter.com/pwGUIMh4g5— The Silph Road...
News
27 CommentsPokémon Go’s huge new update might bring you back to the game (update)
Pokémon Go is getting a gigantic update this week, developer Niantic has announced. A total of 80 new Pokémon from the second generation of games will begin to appear in the mobile game, along with several other new features.
Johto Pokémon, from the starter trio of Chikorita, Cyndaquil and Totodile and beyond, will now be available in the wild. To accompany the new Pokémon, Pokémon Go will also receive new evolutionary items and berries. The evolutionary items will help players complete their Johto collections, while the berries will make battles feel a little more challenging.
Niantic/The Pokémon Company
Pokémon Go’s wild Pokémon encounters just got more interesting.
The Nanab Berry and Pinap Berry are the two new berry items in trainers’ arsenals. The...
News
4 CommentsPokémon Go players are already asking for gen three
The Pokémon Go community is best defined by two things: its eternal dissatisfaction with the blockbuster mobile game, and its appreciation for a good joke. Following this week’s mega update, which adds 80 new Pokémon into the mix, players have pelted the game’s developer with a humorous request that highlights that latter trait.
Although Pokémon Go is only now getting the bulk of the second Pokémon generation, players are already asking for even more new Pokémon. A common refrain on Pokémon Go’s and the series’ social media accounts is now “gen 3” — as in, add in the third generation monsters already.
@PokemonGoApp gen 3 or riot— JordanGPG Pokèmon GO (@gormanboii) February 16, 2017
@Pokemon Please release gen 3— Jack (@jackseamour) February 15, 2017
@Pokemon give us gen...
News
5 CommentsPokémon Go update brings cheap storage upgrades for all
Pokémon Go’s getting 80 new monsters to catch this week, which means many players may need to upgrade their storage to accommodate them. Niantic, developer of the mobile game, is making this easier to do by discounting upgrades to Pokémon storage for the next two weeks.
From “afternoon PST” on Feb. 16 through Feb. 28, increasing the amount of storage players have will cost 50 percent fewer Poké Coins than usual. That makes the upgrade a 100 Poké Coin purchase, equivalent to 99 cents in human currency.
Niantic
The Pokémon Storage Upgrade, at the pre-discounted price of 200 Poké Coins
Each upgrade gives players 50 more slots in their bags. To reach maximum capacity, which is currently set to 1,000 Pokémon, players are looking at spending around $15.
By...
Opinion
15 CommentsIs Pokémon Go’s gen two update enough to win players back?
Pokémon Go’s biggest update since the game launched arrives this week. It’s something that’s been teased for quite some time: the addition of 80 new Pokémon, as well as some cosmetic features and new items.
More Pokémon to collect — particularly those from the franchise’s excellent second generation of monsters — is welcome. More the most part, fans have taken well to the announcement that there are plenty more Pokémon to hunt down.
I now have a reason to download Pokemon GO, because Johto pokes are being added.— ♡ Didi ♡ (@euphemiisms) February 15, 2017
I have a midterm in 2 hours but this Pokémon go announcement has got me too hyped to do any sort of revising — marshmallow (@Fifii_s) February 15, 2017
GEN 2 for Pokémon go this week fuck yes ! Let's go— ♛ ...
News
2 CommentsPokémon Go’s best new gen two monsters to keep an eye on
After easing its way into the second generation of monsters late last year, Pokémon Go is finally heading to Johto. Eighty new Pokémon will be found in the wild starting later this week, but those who never got around to Pokémon Gold and Silver may be completely unfamiliar with the new finds. That’s a shame, because gen two has some of the coolest Pokémon in the series.
We won’t run through all 80 of the new monsters, but here’s a sampling of what Pokémon Go players can expect to see crop up starting this week.
The starters
Every Pokémon generation has its trio of monsters that new trainers must choose from at the start of their journeys. In gen two, those are the grass-type Chikorita, fire-type Cyndaquil and water-type Totodile.
Players will have to find these guys roaming around the...
News
10 CommentsFire Emblem Heroes update shows Nintendo’s listening to fans
Fire Emblem Heroes received a substantial update this morning, with the addition of new characters to summon and the game’s first sidequests leading the charge. But just as exciting as more content is the announcement that energy costs for some popular features won’t be increasing as initially planned.
Buried in the news notification that accompanied today’s Fire Emblem Heroes update is a notice about several changes and tweaks to the game. These include an extension of the launch period bonus, which gives players two orbs just for logging in through March 14; upcoming rewards for the Training Tower, starting Feb. 20; and a change in experience gained when fighting lower level heroes, which comes in March.
The most important of the changes, however, is that the cost for Training Tower...
News
3 CommentsThis may be why Fire Emblem Heroes players are all named Kiran
Fire Emblem Heroes players may have noticed that a ton of their competitors have the same name: Kiran. While the game makes it easy for anyone to change their nickname from the start, it often seems as though most stick with the default “Kiran” option.
It turns out the reason for this may have to do with Heroes players’ known obsession with getting the best characters. Many fans intent on landing the highest quality characters use a method called rerolling, which involves deleting save data and restarting the game, capitalizing on the automatic free currency doled out at the beginning to keep summoning heroes until they get ones they like.
A program that expedites this process, called Nox, may account for the plethora of Kiran characters that show up on friends’ lists and in the...
News
13 CommentsHearthstone’s ranked ladder climb is about to get less tedious
After many months of complaints about how frustrating it is to climb up Hearthstone’s ranked ladder each month, Blizzard has announced today that it will finally implement changes to the game’s ranked system to ease player pain.
Blizzard’s specific solution to this problem is something it’s calling “floors.” Beginning with update 7.1, players climbing the ranked ladders in either Standard or Wild mode will hit “floors” at ranks 15, 10 and 5. Upon hitting these floors, they will no longer be able to de-rank with losses for the remainder of the month.
In Hearthstone’s ranked modes, players begin at rank 25 and must achieve consecutive wins to work from that point all the way up to rank 1, but losses can de-rank you, stifling progress. If players achieve enough wins at rank 1, they’ll...
News
0 CommentsThe Walking Dead season 3’s next episode coming in March
The third episode of A New Frontier, the third season of The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series, will be released in March, developer Telltale Games announced today.
The episode, “Above the Law,” will follow the arrival of a season pass disc version of A New Frontier. That collection will debut Feb. 28 in North America for $29.99, and will launch March 3 in Europe; it will be available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
“Above the Law” will arrive “later in March,” Telltale said in a news release, adding that it will provide further details on the episode soon. As such, the disc will include only the first two chapters of the five-episode season, which were released together as a two-part premiere in December. The package will grant access to downloads of the other three episodes as they are...
News
8 CommentsFire Emblem Heroes’ most popular legends have been crowned
Nintendo has revealed the results of its Fire Emblem Heroes election, which saw fans voting on their favorite characters from across the series. Based on the response to the poll, the company will introduce not just two special fan-voted characters as promised, but an additional pair as well.
Based on the final tally that the company tweeted last night, Ike from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Lyn from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade won by a landslide. Both heroes maintained their leads throughout the voting period, based on a midterm ranking Nintendo published last week.
The results are in! Thank you all for participating in the #FEChoose Your Legends event. pic.twitter.com/2WdijCv6Xn— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 9, 2017
Even with Ike’s multiple appearances...
News
14 CommentsSpending $1,000 in Fire Emblem Heroes still won’t guarantee you every character
In what may be a community first, a Fire Emblem Heroes player spent $1,000 to max out their barracks, hitting the 500-fighter limit in the process. While that sounds like an exorbitant amount of money to spend on Nintendo’s new free-to-play game, it turns out that dropping a grand on the grab bag still didn’t win Reddit user Kookoo22 every available character.
Kookoo22 posted their full collection in an “Ask Me Anything” thread on the Fire Emblem Heroes forum. Other players mostly asked about character stats (Takumi “is great,” obviously) and what kind of job the user must have to maintain that level of disposable income (“Chemical analyst/software developer”), but what’s most fascinating is how many characters they still doesn’t have. Even with 500 heroes in their arsenal, Kookoo22...
News
2 CommentsPokémon Go Valentine’s Day event is all about the candy
A Valentine’s Day event goes live in Pokémon Go this morning. From 11 a.m. PT today until 11 a.m. PT on Feb. 15, trainers can really get into the holiday spirit with plenty of candy, pink Pokémon and other special attractions.
During the campaign, players will receive double the candy for catching and transferring Pokémon, along with hatching Pokémon Eggs. Buddy Pokémon will also collect candy at an increased rate; they’ll pick up the good stuff twice as quickly during the event.
Candy aside, pink Pokémon will be in the spotlight. Expect to find Valentine’s Day-appropriate Pokémon like the lovely Chansey and Clefable — and Porygon, who’s predominantly pink — more often than usual over the weeklong campaign. Pokémon Eggs collected and hatched over Valentine’s Day will also increasingly...
News
21 CommentsFire Emblem Heroes players want the stamina costs to come down
Fire Emblem Heroes’ most obvious free-to-play conceit is its use of “stamina,” a finite amount of energy with a cooldown timer that can leave a player waiting a long time before they can get back into the game. That’s par for the course with mobile games, but what many Heroes players can’t stand is just how hefty these stamina costs are, even for the smallest activities.
Reddit user Selena_poketrainer summed up the “problem with stamina” in a top-rated post. According to them, the problem is threefold. First, the stamina costs are often too high; some late-stage story maps require more than 10 points to play, meaning a player wanting to regenerate their maximum store after a battle could be waiting around a while.
That’s the second problem, though: Regeneration is a lengthy process,...
News
6 CommentsFire Emblem Heroes Twitter campaign triples goal in 12 hours
Fire Emblem Heroes’ first Twitter campaign has already rocketed past its goal, guaranteeing all players a pretty appealing in-game reward. After hitting the required 10,000 retweets mark, everyone who plays the mobile game will receive 10,000 of the coveted Hero Feather item later this week.
All #FEHeroes players will receive 10,000 Hero Feathers if we reach 10,000 global RTs! Ends 6:59PM PT 2/7 (cc @FE_Heroes_JP @NintendoEurope) pic.twitter.com/2XgcyeVlBA— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 7, 2017
That’s a huge get for fans who want to maximize their fighters’ potential. Hero Feathers are used to upgrade the quality of individual heroes that have reached level 20. As grabbing the highest quality heroes — designated by five stars — from the game’s grab bag is tricky,...
News
18 CommentsFire Emblem Heroes’ best character is one players love to hate
It’s already become clear to hardcore Fire Emblem Heroes players which characters are the best to have on a team, and there’s one fighter in particular who towers above the rest. That would be Takumi, one of the strongest characters from Fire Emblem Fates, who’s gone on to be both beloved and reviled by the Heroes community.
Takumi’s a steely archer with an impressive set of skills, making him a tough opponent. The most notable of these is his passive skill, a counter that works from a short distance. That’s unlike other archers, whose attacks only work from a long range. Players learn how great Takumi’s skillset and stats are early on, facing him in a story mode map set in the World of Birthright. If players haven’t caught on to how integral he is to a good Fire Emblem Heroes team by...
News
4 CommentsIs Lost Secrets of Un’Goro the next Hearthstone expansion?
Judging by its regular schedule of add-on releases, Hearthstone is due for a new expansion announcement and release in the next couple of months. But thanks to an errant resume, we may have an early peek at the direction of the game’s next content drop.
According to this leak, the next Hearthstone expansion will be titled Lost Secrets of Un’Goro. Uncovered by a poster on the Hearthstone subreddit, this title comes via the resume of voice actress Lani Minella, who has done work in hundreds of video games, in addition to various cartoons and animated films.
Alongside the title Hearthstone: Lost Secrets of Un’Goro, Minella lists a number of characters she provided voice work for in the expansion. These include: Golakka Crawler, Pterodactyl, Anklesaur, Hydra and Brontosaurus. Assuming this...
Active Discussions
Anime, Cartoons, Comics! Plight Vol. 4 No. 10: An Alternative Memory
in Off-topic by Cobaltios
Polygon Weekly: February 20 - February 26, 2017
in Off-topic by James Elliott
Anime, Cartoons, Comics! Plight Vol 4. No. 9: Don't Watch Edition
in Off-topic by Woady
Pokégon Discussions - Alolan Form Shaaaade
in Pokémon Sun/Pokémon Moon by KajunBowser
Polygon Weekly: February 13 - February 19, 2017
in Off-topic by James Elliott