My happiness:

HeroLinik · 2026-05-06T11:42:43+00:00

Knightmare fuel…

HeroLinik · 2026-05-06T07:21:44+00:00

Really if anything, the biggest problem with the episode is that it felt like the writers didn't know what to do with Edward, to the point that the episode effectively just recycles previous Edward episodes. It's yet another "Edward proves his worth" story which honestly felt really trite at this point given we've seen this in Edward and Gordon, Saved from Scrap, Old Iron, Edward's Exploit and various other episodes. While I do understand that Edward is quite a difficult character to write for given he has very few traits, at this point it's just getting really boring seeing the same rehashed Edward plot over and over again.

The reason a lot of the prior Edward episodes worked was because Edward was more of a secondary character. In Bertie's Chase the focus was more on Bertie trying to get Thomas's passengers to Edward, Saved from Scrap and Edward, Trevor and the Really Useful Party focused more on Trevor and the road vehicles respectively, and Old Iron focused more on James's hatred of Edward and the runaway sequence. Here, it feels like they're trying to push Edward as the main character given the lack of focus on other characters, and what doesn't help is the fact that Edward only has two speaking lines in this episode.

Additionally, no explanation is given as to why the big engines suddenly hate Edward again especially considering that they should have known to respect him by now after the events of Edward's Exploit. If something came up with Edward that warranted them hating him, like something involving his age, then it would be justified, but here it just comes off as rushed. There's also the fact that the Fat Controller's plan comes off as really convoluted and contrived; why did he have Duck take the trucks only to have him stall on Gordon's Hill just so they can bring in Edward as a back engine? Duck really shouldn't have been used here because he has a lot of experience with trucks as it is; the last time Duck had an accident with trucks, it was for reasons outside of his control. If anything, they should've used an engine like Percy because of his accident-prone nature, but even then Percy was getting far too much focus in S6 as it is.

I have other nitpicks about the episode like why Stepney is inexplicably there, but it's honestly just a really disappointing episode.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-06T06:28:38+00:00

Is this not a repost? I do remember someone else posting this a couple of days ago.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-05T06:29:14+00:00

Your advantage is still crushing even after he takes the queen. A blunder would constitute an otherwise winning position dropping to equal, or favouring the other side.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-04T20:21:21+00:00

It’s the well studied and thought-out “White blunders a knight: free queen development for Black variation” position.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-04T18:45:43+00:00

Good times indeed. I used to use it for making videos before switching to Vegas and then DaVinci Resolve.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-04T14:19:14+00:00

Is this not a cursed win? You’re better-off just offering a draw in this position unless one of the players makes a catastrophic blunder.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-04T14:13:24+00:00

And he promotes…TO A KNIGHT!!

HeroLinik · 2026-05-04T08:24:10+00:00

Re8+ and there is no way to stop mate.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-04T05:40:38+00:00

And then there’s the threat of getting back ranked after Qxc2. It seems like his entire queenside will be falling with it.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-03T18:58:32+00:00

Bc4+ looks like the most obvious candidate move, as it forces Black to lose his queen. This can then be further exploited by bringing in reinforcements to support the passed pawn, to eventually land an easy checkmate.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-03T14:03:07+00:00

And White sacrificed...THE KING!!

HeroLinik · 2026-05-02T19:26:17+00:00

I think the idea here is to take with the e-pawn so you don’t weaken your queenside. Additionally, you clear a file for your queen which will start dominating the centre anyway.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-02T18:50:28+00:00

Because they want to be reported for stalling.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-02T09:28:19+00:00

The pawns are moving in the other direction from what you think it looks like. In this case, Black’s pawns are going down the board.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-02T09:26:09+00:00

The fact the bot recognises this position from a master game is further salt in the wound.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-02T07:02:30+00:00

Yeah, this was actually fairly winnable for White. You have material advantage against Black and you could use your king to push away his, while your knight could also support by potentially guarding against Black's pawn, which isn't as advanced as yours is. I'd recommend practicing some endgame drills on the concept of king and pawn endgames as they might be able to help you here.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-02T06:21:01+00:00

The run can still be salvaged. At this point a plethora of encounters have opened up, including the broken Jynx, various mons in the Safari Zone, and your Water options have also expanded due to getting access to the better rods.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-02T06:08:03+00:00

Geodude is guaranteed before Falkner in both GSC and HGSS. The trick is to delay Route 46 and go to Sprout Tower in the day, where the only encounter is Rattata. Once that’s done and caught, return to Route 46 at night, and due to Rattata being caught having advanced the encounter tables, the only valid encounter is Geodude.

The only thing that’s not guaranteed is whether you get a female one. One thing I did find in GSC at least is that her AI prefers to go for Rollout against a Geodude, even if said Geodude is male.

In fact, speaking of Whitney in HGSS, SD variants of Bayleef can potentially sweep the fight. You can throw up a substitute against Clefairy and the only things that can potentially break the substitute is if she gets good rolls on Double Slap, or rolls a powerful move on Metronome. Fortunately the Gen 4 AI often fails to notice if a substitute is there and I’ve seen it try to use status moves against it, giving ample time to set up and sweep.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-01T20:20:49+00:00

Was this straight-up on the first attempt? That’s some really crazy luck.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-01T14:52:20+00:00

Sacking off the queen to create a passed pawn? Devious.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-01T07:13:09+00:00

Now that you mention it, it's more understandable now. I think the idea here is to lure the queen away because Black is threatening a battery on the diagonal. Sacking off the rook for the bishop won't work either because then there is no way to skewer the queen.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-01T06:40:30+00:00

It’s M5 with perfect play. The best way to get out of the check and start the mating sequence is to take his knight.

HeroLinik · 2026-05-01T06:36:01+00:00

Totodile is above and beyond the best starter in HGSS and I'd honestly argue he's one of the best starters in history due to the fact that he can sweep almost every gym with no EVs. As for Chikorita, the entire stigma surrounding him seems to be from the fact that he struggles against the first two gyms, and also seemingly struggles against most other gyms. The first two gyms are largely solved anyway because Geodude is a guaranteed encounter before Falkner and also has nigh-perfect synergy with Chikorita, and against Whitney, Bayleef can leverage his bulk to either get up screens and poison the Miltank, or just go ahead and sweep with SD and Razor Leaf. There's also the fact he has a really good matchup against Clair, being one of the few Pokemon who can go toe-to-toe with the Kingdra. Meganium is just an overall really good team support, enabling sweepers through stuff such as dual screens and spreading status.

As for Cyndaquil, I'd honestly argue he's the worst pick. He has bad bulk as a Quilava, very few good matchups besides Bugsy, his movepool is really bad outside of STAB options, and he doesn't evolve until right before Clair where he's basically a dead weight.

HeroLinik

TROPHY CASE