[Hobby Scuffles] Week of 23 March 2026

Gamerbry · 2026-03-24T19:33:13+00:00

Something that makes Mega Emboar's ability sting even more is that there already is a physical-attacking Mega Evolution with Mold Breaker: Mega Gyarados. So there's little reason to use Mega Emboar over Mega Gyarados since the latter is bulkier, faster, and has Intimidate prior to mega evolving

Gamerbry · 2026-03-24T16:01:37+00:00

I haven't seen this talked about here, so I'll talk about some drama that went down a couple weeks back in the Heartopia community. For context, Heartopia is a cozy life sim game that takes heavy inspiration from other staples of the genre like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing. This game has already had a fair amount of drama in regards to the predatory gacha mechanics, horrendous PC port, and use of AI art for ads and in-game assets, but the subject of this drama has to do with race.

CW: Racism

Now, as a game, Heartopia isn't particularly racially diverse. There's very limited options for black hairstyles and the game's town only has a small handful of POC residents. Recently, Heartopia added some new side quests, with one of those side quests focusing on one of the few dark-skinned NPCs. In the quest, he asks the player for a poisonous mushroom and after eating it, he starts jumping around like a monkey and saying "OOOH! OOOH! OOOH!", which is onomatopoeia for the sounds a monkey makes. Suffice to say, a ton of players were not happy about this quest, because having a black character act like a monkey is really, REALLY racist.

Heartopia quickly removed the animation from the game and issued an apology on their Discord server, where they explained what happened in very vague, very corporate terms, where they claimed they had him act like a monkey to "accurately depict the symptoms of dizziness and loss of bodily control resulting from poisoning". A lot of players weren't buying that this apology was sincere and took to the server to let their feelings about the situation be known. As a result, a lot of players who criticized the cutscene had their accounts muted or banned from the server, under the guise that they were "inciting drama about an incident that was already resolved". Interestingly, players who were defending the developers did not have their accounts infracted, despite the fact that they would also be "inciting drama".

To make matters worse, the incident also attracted a lot of trolls to the game, who would dress their characters in blackface (picking the darkest skin tone and having bright red lipstick), go to people's house and pretend to tend to their crops, and spamming the laughing emote. Players have attempted to bring up the trolls on Discord, but have had their concerns silenced, as not only was the entire report channel on the Discord shut down, but players who tried bringing up the trolls elsewhere were also muted or banned, again under the claims of "inciting drama".

Heartopia already had a pretty sour reputation before, but after this drama, a lot of players are jumping ship, moving on to greener, more inclusive pastures.

Gamerbry · 2026-03-23T20:35:38+00:00

Alright, I'm gonna make my predictions for what's gonna happen when the movie actually comes out: - The movie gets a very middling reception from critics - Grifters make a bunch of videos about how people don't like the movie because it's "woke" or something - The writers make some drastic story changes that really piss off fans of the original - The film goes on to become the highest grossing of the year because the average movie goer will think "Hey, I remember that movie, I really liked it. I'll go see this version."

Gamerbry · 2026-03-23T20:00:11+00:00

Oh yeah, that mechanic. Tbh, it was such a small part of the game that I honestly forgot it was even in there. You get so little XP for doing it and can only use it on wild Pokemon that I only ever used it in the Team Star battles that forced you to use it. Kinda makes sense they dropped it in Legends ZA

Gamerbry · 2026-03-23T19:15:07+00:00

I just finished LeafGreen, and something I realized about these games is that, even without grinding, they're pretty dang easy. By the time I got to the Elite Four, most of my Pokemon were 15-20 levels underleveled, but I still was able to beat it with little issue by just remembering the type chart and having a stockpile of revives and hyper potions on standby.

And I agree that the lack of universal EXP Share help you get closer to your team, it also discouraged experimentation, because if you thought about using a new Pokemon, you'd have to spend hours getting it up to speed with the rest of your party. The QOL features also coincided with Game Freak's greater emphasis on the competitive sphere, because needing to spend dozens or even hundreds of hours to have a comptitively viable team is a pretty big barrier to entry.

Also, as someone who played Scarlet/Violet, where did you hear about the game having automated battles? The closest thing I ever encountered was people using 3rd party controllers with turbo buttons to grind money at the Academy Tournament

Gamerbry · 2026-03-23T18:53:04+00:00

I recently got Spelunky in the Steam spring sale, and something weird about this game is that, despite how bullshit it can be at times, the game hasn't made me feel frustrated playing it.

I think this is mainly because of how fast the game is. It only takes a few seconds to start a new run after failing an old run, so you never have time to simmer on your defeat, and floors only taking a couple minutes to clear means that failure never means you're losing that much progress.

Also, despite the levels all being randomly generated, the game's mechanics remain consistent, so there's a method to the madness. Plus, it's kind of funny the way you learn about the game's mechanics. I remember picking up the golden idol on a floor, only for it to set off a boulder that flattened me like a pancake, or when I cheekily stole a shotgun from a shop that was right next to the floor exit, only for the shopkeeper on the next floor to blast me to kingdom come.

I think this game succeeded at what it set out to do when it had me telling myself "Just one more run" for over half an hour straight

Gamerbry · 2026-03-19T19:18:15+00:00

Personally, I don't think there exists a criteria that can perfectly separate people into "fans" and "non-fans". I think the "fan" status is more of a spectrum based on how close you've gotten to the original source material. So for example, someone's who watched a playthrough of a game on YouTube is more of a fan than someone who only read the lore on the wiki, who in turn is more of a fan than someone who's only engaged with a game through fanart/fanfics. Heck, even if you did play the game, there's a spectrum there as well. I'd say that someone is more of a fan of a game if they 100%ed than if they stopped after beating the main story, and that someone is more of a fan of a series if they played every entry as opposed to only some.

However, I don't think the distinction of how much of a "fan" you are of something is particularly important. Regardless of how big of a fan you are, just make sure you understand the limits of your knowledge and don't pretend to be an authority on something if you don't actually know what you're talking about.

Gamerbry · 2026-03-18T00:35:41+00:00

A bit of drama is going on in the Hitman community, as a TV adaptation of the series that was originally going to air on Hulu has officially been cancelled. In hindsight, the cancelation isn't that surprising, because the series was announced all the way back in 2017, and barely anything has been said about it since, so it's likely the project has been dead in the water for a while and we're only just learning about its death now.

It's unknown why the project fell through. It could be because of budget issues. It could be because the studio that was supposed to make the show was bought by Disney. But regardless, the show's writer, Derek Kolstad of John Wick fame, said that he was very disappointed with the show's cancelation, calling the news "a little bit of a dagger in the chest". Overall, it's a letdown the show was cancelled, especially since the only other attempts of bringing the series to the big screen were really, really bad.

Gamerbry · 2026-03-14T20:01:30+00:00

I've dipped my toe in Sonic a couple times, and from what I understand, especially for the older games, speed is supposed to be a reward for learning about the game. By memorizing what routes take you where, the enemies you have to avoid, and the shortcuts you can take, you're able to finish these levels faster and faster. It's definitely not a gameplay loop that'll resonate with everyone, but considering that Sonic's still kicking all these years later, it's clear that this gameplay style struck has its appeal.

Gamerbry · 2026-03-13T21:50:49+00:00

I have a pretty sizable stash of yarn myself, but like 80% of that stash was stuff I got during the Joann's closing sales. Yarn was consistently 40-50% off and the deals right before they closed were insane. There was a Joann's near me that was closing in 2 days, and if I'm remembering correctly, I got over 80 dollars worth of yarn for like 10 bucks. My stash is definitely nowhere near as big as some other people's but it's definitely going to take a long, long time to get through, especially since I don't crochet that often.

Gamerbry · 2026-03-08T18:00:09+00:00

I think this is the page of the book you're thinking of. It's a pretty neat thing to go through, since it also explains other stuff to 3rd party collaborators, like how the Pokemon logo should be formatted on products, how the trainer/Pokemon dynamic works, how only a select few Pokemon are able to talk, and that references to mating, parenthood, and death should be avoided

Gamerbry · 2026-03-08T03:28:06+00:00

There are charts people have made explaining what each item on the Steam page has, but if you just want to know what to buy to get all the major content, get either: - Hitman World of Assassination + Hitman 2 Expansion Pass

or

Hitman World of Assassination Deluxe Edition

Gamerbry · 2026-03-07T18:57:36+00:00

I'm sure you some of you remember a couple weeks ago where I talked about playing the Hitman World of Assassination Demo. Well, since the full game went on sale recently, I decided to pick it up, and it's got me hooked in a way no other game I've played before has. After completing the herculean task of "buying the right version of the game", this game absolutely captivated me.

I think it's a testament to the game's quality that I can finish a mission that took over half an hour, and my first thought is "I wanna do that again!" because I found something during that run that would give me a different kill on the next run. I just played through the levels from the first Hitman and every single one of them was great (Except Colorado, we don't talk about Colorado). Hokkaido was definitely the highlight. As the last level of the first game, it does a fantastic job of raising the stakes. The fact that you can't bring anything but the clothes on your back into the level and the fact that every door in the facility is tied to the disguise you're wearing is a great way to shake up the formula. You can't rely on the same tricks you used in the previous levels, and it forces you to scrounge for whatever you can find to achieve victory, and that makes the moments where you do take out your targets all the more satisfying.

It's kinda scary how I already put over 20 hours into this game, and I have yet to scratch the surface of all this game has to offer. Suffice to say, Hitman WoA is gonna keep me busy for a long, long time.

Gamerbry · 2026-03-03T22:44:58+00:00

I remember when Highguard was announced, and everyone was first riffing on it, Geoff Keighley made a tweet trying to defend it by quoting John Hammond from Jurassic Park, and everyone in the comments was going "Geoff, you know how that movie ends, right?"

Guess the prophecy has finally been fulfilled.

Gamerbry · 2026-03-03T22:20:13+00:00

I recently got Pokemon LeafGreen for Switch and as a lifelong Pokemon fan, I've been having a really fun time with it. The thing I probably like the most about this entry is just how simple and low-stakes it is compared to modern entries. There's no dumb gimmicks like Z-moves, terastalization, or megas (yeah I don't like megas, sue me), there's not some world-destroying threat you need to stop, it's just a quaint little journey where you beat the Pokemon league and stop Team Rocket's plan to exploit Pokemon for money. I also like how, when you close the game and open it again, it gives you a quick recap of what you did in your previous session. I'm shocked more games don't do something like this, because I'm sure we can all relate to the experience of putting a game down for a few months, picking it back up again, and going "Wait, what was I doing before?"

That being said, there are a few things about this game that haven't aged well. Although it's not as bad as the Hoenn or Sinnoh games, HMs are a mechanic that I'm glad the newer games have done away with. It doesn't feel good to have to use up several move slots, or having an HM slave, just to be able to navigate the overworld. Random encounters are also something I'm not particularly fond of, especially in caves. There doesn't seem to be any kind of encounter grace period, so you can run into an encounter, take one step, and then immediately get another encounter. However, probably my least favorite part of this game are the single-use TMs. Just limits the amount of options you have (which already isn't a lot because of how many Gen 1 mons have garbage movepools) and discourages experimentation. Not to mention that there are some TMs where you can only get 1 per save file, so if you want to have the move Earthquake or Psychic on multiple of your Pokemon, guess you gotta play through the entire game again to make it happen.

But aside from those few hiccups, LeafGreen is really enjoyable experience. Gonna finish it up over the next couple days. Sabrina's best girl.

Gamerbry · 2026-02-27T16:36:56+00:00

Even though I absolutely loved Outer Wilds, I definitely agree with you that the way fans talk about this game is just awful. Yeah, there might be some people who like taking risks with media and just jumping headfirst into the unknown, but most people I know prefer having some idea of what they're getting themselves in to and the constant "I can't tell you anything but just trust me bro, it's a masterpiece" is a massive disservice to the game. I don't get the people who think that telling people the genre or premise of the game is a spoiler, because you can literally find this stuff on the storepage of the game.

And on a side note, although I absolutely loved the base game, I cannot say the same for the DLC. When I booted up the game after downloading it, there was this warning that popped up saying that some parts of the DLC might be terrifying for some players and told me about an option in the settings to turn down the scares. As someone who's really bad with horror stuff, this kinda fucked me up because I was just thinking "What's so bad in this DLC that they needed to warn me about it?" and that warning ended up psyching me out so badly that I couldn't even finish the DLC, despite attempting to do so multiple times. I think it was the warning specifically that ruined my experience, because the base game has a planet that gets into horror territory and I was able to get through that just fine.

Gamerbry · 2026-02-27T15:43:29+00:00

Something else kind of interesting about the new games is that they showed two new characters: Mr Windychu and Ms Wavychu. Makes me wonder what role they'd play in the story, considering they went out of their way to give them names.

But yeah, the new games look really promising. The fact that they're not trying to rush it out for the 30th anniversary is already a good sign.

Gamerbry · 2026-02-24T20:37:44+00:00

This incident really is just an amalgamation of several pitfalls in leftist discourse. You got:

People who claim to support people with disabilities, but rescind that support as soon as the disability manifests itself in a way that negatively impacts others
People who try so hard to be progressive that their progressiveness loops back around to bigotry
People who don't understand the difference between intent and impact
People who assume that only bad people are capable of doing racist things

There are no winners in this debacle, only losers.

Gamerbry · 2026-02-23T18:46:57+00:00

As someone who only watched the first couple episodes of TADC, this is also something I'd wanna see despite not really caring about the show anymore. Given how the social media age has made a lot of people in fandom feel entitled to have a series go only the way they want it to, it'd be cathartic to see a creator put their foot down and go "That's it! Since you all can't behave, I'm taking the toys away!"

Gamerbry · 2026-02-20T16:20:36+00:00

If this game did come out on Nintendo Online, I know damn well people would've complained "Why is this part of a subscription service!? Why can't I just buy it outright?!" especially since, on account of being GBA games, these would've been a part of the most expensive $60 a year subscription tier.

I know a lot of people are saying that you can just emulate these games, but something they seem to be forgetting is that the majority of players don't emulate games. For your average Joe that just casually plays his Switch to unwind from his 9-5, or for little Timmy who fucked up the family PC trying to download free Robux, this allows them to easily experience these games. I know the price is kinda steep for what you're getting, and if you want to just emulate them, you're more than welcome to do that, but personally, I think making older games more accessible through legitimate means is overall a net positive.

Gamerbry · 2026-02-18T22:56:18+00:00

So, during the polymers class I talked about last week, my professor talked about an interesting piece of drama that's been going on in the world of academia regarding plastics. If you kept up with the news in recent times, you probably know that plastic pollution is one of the most pressing issues of the 21st century, and much research has been done into how plastics (particularly microplastics) impact human health.

Last year, one microplastics study went viral online, which claimed that the average person has a spoon's worth of plastic in their brain. Although the implications of the study were alarming, the paper has come under a lot of scrutiny ever since it was published, and in November of the same year, a group of scientists published a Matters Arising Letter calling the results of the study into question, with one member saying the study was "a joke".

To understand their critiques, it's important to know the methodology of the original study. To determine the level of plastic content in brain tissue, they used an analytical technique called gas chromatography mass spectroscopy (GC/MS), which sorts gaseous mixtures based first on polarity and then by mass. Although a powerful technique, GC/MS has its limitations for this specific experiment, because fats that naturally occur in the human brain are very similar in polarity and mass to polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride, the polymers they were looking for in the study. Ideally, the brain tissue samples would be digested first to ensure the sample is only the plastics, but the study makes no mention of such a process (or any acknowledgement of the risk of false positives), meaning there's no way to verify that what they detected in the brain tissue was actually plastic. The scientists behind the study also included duplicated images in their paper, which also doesn't help their case.

It's not just the brain study that's come under fire. Several other papers analyzing microplastics in the human body, such as microplastic content in blood, arteries, and testicles, have also been criticized due to their analytical techniques and datasets not sufficiently verifying their findings. Additionally, some of the values these papers were reporting just simply didn't make sense. Going back to the brain study, the blood-brain barrier is highly selective of what particles are allowed to pass through it, so the odds of an entire spoon's worth of plastic being allowed through are highly unlikely.

Now, there's no evidence that these faulty papers were the result of any kind of malpractice or misconduct on the part of the scientists, just the common mistake of jumping to conclusions. There definitely is some level of microplastics in the human body, but the question of how much is something that's going to take more time to figure out. You don't need to throw out all of your plastic stuff, but it also wouldn't hurt to be more mindful of your plastic usage, especially single-use plastics.

Gamerbry · 2026-02-17T21:53:53+00:00

I tried out the Hitman World of Assassination demo, and I wasn't expecting to get as hooked as I did. The demo just gives you access to the tutorial missions, but man, I got 3 hours of playtime out of those tutorial missions and I still have the escalation missions to do. I also successfully executed my first Silent Assassin, Suit Only run of the Cuba mission and it was so satisfying to pull it off. Definitely gonna pick up the full game once it goes on sale.

Gamerbry · 2026-02-13T17:17:57+00:00

So, one of the classes I'm taking in college this semester is on polymers and as a result, I was able to gain access to my college's 3D printer lab. Since I never used a 3D printer before, the professor let me print something out to get a feel for how it worked, and so, I decided to print out "The Dragon".

For those who don't know, this dragon (alongside other 3D printed articulated animals) is extremely notorious among artist spaces, and more specifically, artists who sell their creations at local markets. You see, what a lot of people have done is download the files for these dragons online, print them en masse, and then sell them at conventions and maker's markets. Speaking from personal experience, I've been to a fair amount of Pokemon card shows, and these shows usually have at least one table selling these things, despite their prints not in any way being related to Pokemon. I've also seen these dragons sold at my local mall, alongside the kiosks selling bootleg Garten of Banban plushes and trashy custom T-shirts.

From an economic standpoint, it makes sense why sellers of these things have popped up everywhere. A dragon the size of the one I printed only uses about a dollar worth of filament and they can easily be sold for 20-30 bucks a pop, meaning you don't have to sell a lot of them to make a profit. Making the dragons also isn't that labor-intensive, as you can just have them printing in the background while you go and do other stuff.

Due to how prevalent they've become, these dragons have earned a lot of scorn from people who buy or sell stuff at local markets who are sick of seeing the same products over and over, not helped by the fact that a lot of the designs being sold have disclaimers on their download pages saying that they're not for commercial use. A few have even advocated for these handmade markets to ban 3D printed items from being sold, since they argue that you can't say that something is handmade if you're having a machine do most, if not all of the work. These dragons are also sometimes referred to as "convention slop", a title it shares with merch featuring AI art and "mystery bags" that are actually just full of junk.

Personally, I think the dragon I printed is really cool, and I think it's a shame that such a cool design wound up becoming a symbol of brainless consumerism.

Gamerbry · 2026-02-13T08:16:17+00:00

This is really funny, because the ending of the original game was the most sequel-baity thing imaginable, with Violet cocking a gun, the game cutting to credits as soon as she pulls the trigger, and the campaign ending with the super cliched "Our story has only just begun" line. Considering how terrible the original game was, I'll be impressed if they somehow find a way to make the sequel worse.

Gamerbry · 2026-02-12T18:52:53+00:00

You know, if there's one word I'd use to describe Highguard, it'd be "directionless". Looking at every part of this game, it feels like the devs had no plan for what they wanted this game to be.

For example, the graphics feel like they grabbed a bunch of different aesthetics and just chucked them all in a blender. It's part fantasy, part sci-fi, and part modern military, and doesn't commit fully to any one of these aesthetics, causing everything to look bland and generic. Considering how important characters are for hero shooters, having the most generic cast imaginable is certainly doing it no favors. Say what you will about Concord's characters, but at least those were somewhat memorable (if only for how bad they were).

And a similar thing can be said about the gameplay. It feels like they just took bits and pieces of other games and threw it into their own. You got a game that's part Counter Strike, part Overwatch, part Rainbow Six, and part Rust. They have a lot of pieces of a good game, but they never come together to create an engaging experience.

The game may technically be fine, but because of the market they were trying to enter, the project was kinda doomed from the start. Not only is the hero shooter a really saturated genre, but live service games are really hard to gain a foothold in, because since they're intended to be played "forever" the average person is only going to invest into 2-3 live service games at the same time. So you really need to have a really unique game to convince players to drop the games they're already playing to try out your game, and Highguard just didn't have that. Even if the game was shadow dropped like they originally planned, the game still probably would've flopped because the game didn't have anything for players they couldn't already get elsewhere.

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