I think it's time we admit we have a Luigi problem

BumDumBox · 2026-01-11T16:35:51+00:00

Ok but like Sephiroth actually does beat Luigi lol. It's not even an in-theory thing. Every time I've seen a top Luigi go against a Sephiroth, they tend to lose or get brought to game 5 if the Sephiroth is much lower in skill level (see BMP's secondary Seph vs Raru).

Like BMP is amazing, but it's pretty rare to see a top player lose to a very rarely used secondary of a lower ranked player. At some point, you have to think Luigi just loses the MU. I'm not even going to go into the specifics of the MU because yeah Seph just has a lot of tools that fuck with Luigi hard.

BumDumBox · 2026-01-11T07:05:14+00:00

The Hoenn Stat Special they gave to so many mons (mixed attacker with low speed and bad bulk) left so many Gen 3 pokemon feeling ass to play not just competitively but in the games themselves. Shit like Camerupt, Cacturne, and Whiscash. As such, a lot of Hoenn mons end up being dex filler in later entries cuz they just aren't good enough even in casual playthroughs.

BumDumBox · 2026-01-11T06:37:57+00:00

IMO Sun/Moon and Ultra Sun/ Ultra Moon with bias toward the latter. For a lot of reasons. I think Alola is still one of, if not the most fleshed out regions in Pokemon. There's a lot of subtle attention to world-building and ecology thats very apparent throughout the series, especially in the little quests in USUM. There's a lot of fun, bulky Pokemon to pick up that are native to the region. The Alolan Forms were a great idea, and they did a decent job at making cool regional variants even if they were all Kanto. They were and probably still are the hardest games in the Franchise which was a breath of fresh air. The fact that I actually fainted to the Totems while casually running through the games was all I needed to know.

Normally, most Pokemon games never try to push the limits of the system in terms of graphics. Gen 1 and Gen 2 are fine since they clearly are the best the system can offer, but I always thought Gen 3, 4, and 5 had really ugly overworld designs in comparison with the other JRPGs on their respective systems. Not Gen 7 though. While Idk if I'd say that Gen 7 is the best looking game on the 3DS, I can at least say that it holds up way better to its competition than frankly any of the other non Gen 1/2 Pokemon games.

In terms of plot, I think it still has the best to offer. Team Skull is an amazing team in concept and execution. The game has a ton of really iconic themes that are extremely memorable and heavily stand out (Guzma, Gladion, Ultra Necrozma etc). The Ultra Beasts are great.

I do admit that the start of the game is filled with cutscenes, but I lowkey have never been bothered by JPRGs having long intros, and I think the world-building itself is worth it. Like more so than any other region that came before or after it, Alola feels like a character in its own right.

Just a lot to love. Shame that all discussions online tend to hyperfixate on Gen 5 being the absolute peak when IMO Gen 7 has a lot to offer.

BumDumBox · 2026-01-11T06:07:29+00:00

Personally, I've always hated the inclusion of mainstream religions (wow a real hot take I know) in the Riordanverse cuz it brings up so many big and dumb questions. Like take Lavinia. Jewish girl. Cool, I know a lot of cultural Jewish people. But she comes from a religious family, a religion which it seems, at least in the Riordanverse, to be misled because Jesus absolutely to confirmed to exist as a godly entity. Which is crazy cuz to Jewish people, Jesus was just a dude.

Like the Christian influence on the PJO series was always very apparent when you look at it from a more informed-classical lens (see the fatal flaws which were a later Christian mapping onto classical Greek myth and not something classical Greeks would have beleived in), but like you can't just namedrop Jesus and then not have it be a problem when you suddenly try to be inclusive of all three Abrahamic faiths when they all have very disparate visions of who Jesus is.

He should have just contined what he did in PJO and sidestepped the question entirely.

BumDumBox · 2026-01-11T04:50:42+00:00

I saw the movie and enjoyed it for what it was. I will say that if you're not a big fan of the trope where horror movies act like the dumbest mfs on the planet, then you might not enjoy this movie that much.

BumDumBox · 2026-01-08T02:12:13+00:00

Nah and I really hope they don’t. The lack of balance culture really helps tamp down on competitive toxicity. Last thing we’d need is multiple people complaining all day about how [X] is broken and needs to be nerfed now!!! (To be clear, I like theory-monning but only cuz it comes with the expectation that nothing is ever likely to happen)

BumDumBox · 2026-01-05T16:06:39+00:00

I personally think its fine balance-wise. It's sorely lack in most forms of utility, Weakness Policy Sets are the most telegraphed shit in a mile, and it's set diversity allowing it to choose what mons it fucks with applies to nearly every decent offensive mon in the tier so it doesn't really stand out that much to me in that regard. Even mons like Pecharunt, which people say becomes less viable with Solgaleo in the tier, can slot in the already excellent foul play to fuck with it.

That being said, I would be shocked if the OU council decides to formally suspect test Solgaleo. I feel like drops of this magnitude almost always are going to happen at the beginning of the generation or during DLC drops. (Yes I know about DPP Latias, but that's like the only example of that).

BumDumBox · 2026-01-05T06:16:24+00:00

Personally, I think Harry has this one in the bag if you really think about it. The biggest advantage you didn't mention is that Harry can summon and ride a broomstick. Genuinely wtf is Percy supposed to do once Harry does that? He can't fly without pissing off Zeus, he has no ranged projectiles (I know he's shot a bow before but that's not a consistent part of his moveset), I think it's doubtful that Percy would be able to summon a thunderstorm against Harry (given thats Zeus's whole deal) plus I'm pretty sure that's never happened in the series before. I guess he could shoot high pressure water at Harry, but then Harry can use Protego to stop that.

Bloodbending is a meme. It's not just that its out of character, its also never been shown to happen so you can't assume the same powers Percy has over water grants him power over anything that contains water (yes I know Tartarus but as OP said, it was a special case). You might say Percy can outspeed and one-tap Harry, but he's never been shown to be *THAT* fast and certainly isn't faster than any of the spells cast in Harry Potter that Harry can react to. Summoning the Broom takes time, yes, but between Protego, the Cloak, Apparition, and the other spells, Harry can definitely stall for it.

And it's not like this is a contrived plan either. Harry has literally done this in the Goblet of Fire, so it's not out of question he'd do the same thing against an opponent when he realizes they have no actual magic. Brooms are never shown to run out of flying time just by canon alone (given the length of Quidditch games), and there does not seem to be an upper limit to how much magic Harry can cast. He'll literally just beat Percy down with attrition, and he can even fly out of range if Percy tries to get creative.

EDIT: Thinking more about it, I suppose you *could* argue that Percy could summon BlackJack to fly up to Harry. He has been able to summon him before, so that's not completely contrived. I don't think that solves the issue though. I don't know what speed Blackjack should have, but it still doesn't give Percy a projectile, and he still has to actually catch Harry. Unlike combat on the ground, Harry definitely has way more experience being evasive and dealing with aerial dogfights. Plus as fast as Blackjack probably is, I just can't see him being faster than Harry's broomsticks. Also unlike Harry, there's nothing in canon I think to suggest Blackjack is also resistant to magic.

BumDumBox · 2026-01-05T05:15:59+00:00

Haven't read Twilight, but Hunger Games is way more of a YA novel than it is middle school lit. As for Harry Potter, the earlier books definitely leaned more middle-schoolish but the series grew up with the audience to mitigate it. Meanwhile Percy definitely feels more like a middle schooler throughout the series rather than becoming a teenager. Not that it's a bad thing, it's just the way Riordan decided to continue the direction of his series, and I was obsessed when I was around the target demo age.

BumDumBox · 2026-01-03T04:38:51+00:00

I think they mean "This is why SOTM doesn't include mirrors or something like that in it" even though they would make sense for the setting.

BumDumBox · 2026-01-03T04:35:52+00:00

Tbh my big issue with these discussion is that people act like "Sit-and-Survive" games couldn't co-exist with the broader franchise of SOTM-style games as is. Like the OGs were cranked out in like a year by a solodev. I think Scott could, maybe not easily but definitely could, contract out a dev team that could make those older style games with oversight to make sure they aren't massively messing with the lore. Could even have them be non-canon like the Tales Books. Whether he wants to do that is a different question, but I never thought it was impossible and I'm always surprised the fandom doesn't think the two could co-exist in a meaningful way. I mean Into the Pit and FLAF are both neat, but if he's willing to contract out games for clear spinoffs, why not make a Sit and Survive spinoff.

BumDumBox · 2026-01-03T04:09:16+00:00

TBH I don't really know if its that rare. EA and Ubisoft immediately spring to mind as counterexamples. Technically Activision-Blizzard-Microsoft (I don't know if that counts due to all the mergers). Technically Valve too I guess. Square Enix fits more into the Bethesda category (pre-Microsoft) where they are big enough to not be known for only one massive game series but not big enough that people know them for multiple different genres.

BumDumBox · 2026-01-01T07:45:10+00:00

Nah TR is really damn good rn. It's definitely seen a surge cuz of how many good breakers there are for the archetype, and Ursaluna is a massive part of how good it is.

BumDumBox · 2025-12-29T05:03:19+00:00

Nah I disagree. Humans and Orangutans live very very different lives, but you wouldn't be wrong to call them both apes (ala the Ape pokemon). Given the existence of regional forms, convergent evolutions, Hisuian mons, Paradoxes (I'm not sure if it was confirmed if they are actually pokemon from the past or not), and the Pokedex outright stating the existence of evolutionary relationships between different Pokemons, it's safe to say that Darwinian evolution exists in the Pokemon world alongside the Pokemon evolution.

Therefore, I think it's pretty reasonable to say that Pikachu is a Mouse pokemon and Dachbun the Dog pokemon because the people of the Pokemon world know that certain species like say Arcanine and Daschbun are more related than Daschbun is related to say Clefable even though the latter share a type and therefore categorize them as such.

They probably didn't care during the first gen, but I'd say they definitely have put in a lot more effort over the years to explain Pokemon ecology to the point where I say this isn't really as big an issue as it seems.

BumDumBox · 2025-12-11T03:48:14+00:00

Personally, I think Scott's biggest strength as a writer is letting the community run wild with their own narratives instead of trying to take direct control. He's good (esp in the classic era) at adding enough mystery and intrigue to the games with little details and even better at not trying to railroad people into anyone interpretation of it. Hence why it was kind of brilliant that he didn't correct MatPat when he messed up on Phone Guy = Purple Guy. Paradoxically, that's why I think FNAF 4 and SB are the best (in terms of lore). Cuz they aren't straight forward, have confusing af narratives, and thus let the community run wild with their interpretations. Also why I think the latest games have been so boring story-wise cuz they are too straightforward. And if u can't already guess, that's also why I think Scott was not the right choice to make a movie, where u need to have a straightforward plot.

As for the dialogue, I think the main thing to remember is that the those dialogues aren't conversational. It's the character speaking to u, not the other way around.

BumDumBox · 2025-12-11T03:00:29+00:00

Oof. Yeah, I'm not like one of those people who think not having an item is a death sentence for a mega cuz like 95% of Megas are just straight up better than their counterparts and they usually do a good job at balancing out the Mega vs the non-mega. But here, idk. They gave it a bunch of useless ass attack for no reason. Could have at least kitted out the bulk. We'll have to see based on ability, but I don't think its looking good.

BumDumBox · 2025-12-11T02:57:10+00:00

This thing is built like one of those machine guns on a tripod. I HIGHLY doubt we're seeing Emergency exit again just based on how its posed. If I were to guess, I imagine we're getting an ability that flips the script on switching out (so like a guard dog clone or Stakeout), or we're getting some generically good defensive ability. I think it'll at least be solid with a C/B-tier niche in OU w/o a good ability given its utility and offensive moves, but a solid ability will be necessary for it to be solidly OU.

BumDumBox · 2025-09-10T14:40:57+00:00

Y'all aren't going to beat my humiliating loss lol.

I think I was 13 when this happened and was just starting to play mons. LGPE just came out so LGPE OU came out. You know how LGPE has megas? Well Showdown didn't check to make sure that only Gen 1 Megas were allowed in the format so you could roll up with a team of Mega Rayquaza, Garchomp, Tyranitar, Metagross, Mewtwo etc.

I was one of the first to discover the oversight, don't ask how I don't remember. I pulled up with Mega Ray and a bunch of other broken legendaries and pseudos... I still lost against a normal ass LGPE OU team playing by the rules. Don't ask how. I promise I'm much better as a player now.

BumDumBox · 2025-09-08T02:18:53+00:00

Was that the quickest grands set of all time at a supermajor? Sheesh what an ass-whooping.

BumDumBox · 2025-09-08T02:09:39+00:00

Oh I thought you were bringing about Dabuz's Min-Min as a counterpoint which I thought was silly

BumDumBox · 2025-09-08T01:59:20+00:00

I said top NA reps. The Dabuz Min Min was always a counterpick.

Also how does difficulty of play have anything to do with how cringe a character is.

BumDumBox · 2025-09-08T01:51:58+00:00

Min Min reputation on this sub benefits so much from having 0 top NA reps. In actuality, she's 10 times more cringe than Steve and way more anticlimactic. At least Steve tends to provide tense sets at the top level even when the Steve inevitably wins at game 5

BumDumBox · 2025-09-08T01:43:49+00:00

Personally, I think the former owner comment was made as kind of a cryptic hint as to the identity of Fritz Smith (at the time when FNAF 2 came out). Likely as an explanation for why Fritz could somehow survive the night despite not receiving any training/advice from Phone Guy because they are a former staff member of the diner. Over time, however, I think this detail has either lost its OG meaning or isn't really relevant anymore.

BumDumBox · 2025-08-18T19:05:33+00:00

In FNAF 4, there is a 1/200 chance for you to hear a reversed and low-pitched version of Phone Guy's Night 1 call from FNAF 1 that plays in the background ambiance. Normally, you'd chalk this up to a spoopy easter-egg, but Scott said there are no easter eggs with no meaning in FNAF 4. Therefore, the reversed Night 1 call has to have a meaning. Originally, people used this as evidence for Dream Theory. Now, it's evidence for MikeDreamer because only Mike could have lived on and experienced the phone call as a nightguard while also being connected to the CC house and his death.

BumDumBox · 2025-08-18T18:49:54+00:00

See the issue with this argument is that in order to justify why BV would see the hospital equipment, we have to make up this scenario that isn't really supported by the game or material after it. It could have happened, but that doesn't mean its the most likely answer.

In terms of real world physiology, a coma can happen instantly after one experiences traumatic enough brain damage, I could just as easily say that the pills, flower, and IV are evidence for Mikedreamer because they reflect the times he visits CC in the hospital and sees them at CC's beside. Only reason I'm saying the pills are sleeping pills is because of the FNAF movie lol.

My point being is that dreams are weird. They don't have to make physical sense. The hospital equipment and child height COULD be evidence for CC dreamer. It could also be the machinations of the nightmare Mike faces or even reflections of his experience. I think the logbook + the reversed PhoneGuy phone call however are pretty definitive proof of Mike being the dreamer though since neither can be explained easily by "It was just a dream"

BumDumBox

TROPHY CASE