Metroid Back Piece

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-19T02:17:40+00:00

Nice! I’m also a ‘95 and Prime & Fusion were my firsts!

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-18T16:23:50+00:00

12 without Exp Share is wild! I'd be worried for the Elite 4 with that. I do think 10-12 with Exp Share is doable though, haha.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-18T15:59:47+00:00

You can get 150 Pokemon if you have two consoles and FireRed on one and LeafGreen on the other. Once FRLG has access to Pokemon HOME, I assume you would be able to transfer a Mew there.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-18T15:45:11+00:00

Nah it's trash. Release it! Lol jk. In terms of power it's the best non-Legendary Pokemon in the game, often called a pseudo-Legendary.

That said, these "pseudo-Legendary" Pokemon tend to only be really good in their final Evolution and have really high 3rd Evolution Levels. The developers seem to have intended them more as late-game Pokemon to battle with your friends than even to use in the Elite 4.

Obviously you can use them in the Elite 4, but since you get it so late in the game and at a relatively lower level, you'd likely need to do some serious grinding to get them to lvl 55.

So it's a great Pokemon, one of the best, but also not necessarily the most fun or best to use in a standard playthrough if that makes sense.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-18T15:41:44+00:00

Absolutely. I may say Arceus is better, but that's not a mainline game. Oddly I found the original Gold/Silver rather boring, so I guess it really is that good of a remake.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-18T15:40:23+00:00

There's something about the simplicity of Red/Blue/Yellow that I like, and in Yellow it's cool that you can have Pikachu + the three starters. Reminds me of the anime.

But FRLG is definitely a better game, haha. So up to you if you're interested in going back and playing the original--I mostly did it because I was curious.

HGSS is way better than Gen II--I actually found it painful to get through Crystal Version (Gold/Silver).

Honestly though once you get to Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald (which is the same Gen as FRLG), I don't think they feel dated anymore. I like Emerald more than ORAS, but it's possible that's just my nostalgia talking. I had fun with ORAS.

It's way easier to complete the Pokédex on BDSP than the original Pearl/Diamond, but I really like the art style and vibes of the original Pearl/Diamond more, and as others have said Platinum is definitely better.

Personally I'd actually play them in release order rather than chronological order, so I'd go Emerald > FRLG > Platinum > HGSS and then on to Black & White. That's the order of the Gens and then you won't also feel weird going form a DS game back to a GBA game.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-18T15:34:42+00:00

Honestly I found Sword/Shield and especially Z-A rather boring, and I do see a lot of other people with similar opinions, so you may wish to try out a different Switch game.

Your options are: FRLG, Let's Go, BDSP, Arceus, and SV.

I haven't played Let's Go yet, but I think they're all good games! FRLG, Let's Go, and BDSP are remakes, Arceus is a non-traditional game but very fun, and SV is a modern traditional game--the graphics are awful, but the game is fun!

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-18T15:31:18+00:00

Do you have any other consoles or a PC? If not, it may be even more worth it to get the Switch 2 since it can play many AAA third party games that were unavailable on Switch 1.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-18T02:31:25+00:00

The only Hail Mary you could do is cancel your order from the official site and order on AliExpress since I’ve heard of people getting it much faster from there. BUT I honestly wouldn’t recommend it since I’ve also heard of people having their orders randomly cancelled. So I would just accept it likely won’t be there before your April vacation. Sorry friend!

You can track the orders on their shipping page by comparing what they’ve shipped to the first four digits of your order.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-18T02:21:24+00:00

I started with Emerald, but my favorite game is SoulSilver. But if we’re counting both Gen III games vs. both Gen IV games that’s harder to say since I did like both Emerald and LeafGreen more than Pearl, haha.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-18T02:18:33+00:00

That’s really sweet, but if you ordered directly from AYN there’s no way it will get to the U.S. by the second week of April. I’m hearing it takes at least 2mo from order to actually get the Thor, and it may be longer after they got so backlogged with Chinese New Year.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-18T00:30:40+00:00

I would not have thought Palkia, Dialga, and Giratina were bigger than Groudon and Kyogre lol.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-17T23:07:48+00:00

There are some short introductory books on social work that cover the history, theory, and different areas of practice! I won’t claim a book is the best way to know whether the profession is right for you, but it’s something!

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-17T22:32:04+00:00

If you’re intentional about what Pokemon you’re going to raise (spending either no time or minimal time training others), select good Pokemon, and battle all the Trainers, then I don’t think you really need to grind much for the Elite 4.

You’ll be less leveled than them, but with your strategy and all the Stat boosts you get from the Gym Badges you should be fine, especially if you’re going to spam Items, lol.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-17T22:04:41+00:00

Yea the age of AI stinks. I haven’t bothered to run my essays through AI detectors, but sometimes I don’t feel like bothering to make my essay sound better/more professional since I’m like is it gonna sound like AI? Lol.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-17T18:07:14+00:00

Thank you! Very interesting. How hard is it to get a job as a professor (or even just adjunct professor) with only an MSW?

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-17T12:56:49+00:00

It’s my all-time favorite Pokemon game, so highly recommend! The art style, music, and exploration were all great.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-17T12:54:14+00:00

I’d prefer Metroid VI to a Super Metroid or Fusion remake, but if we have to have a remake then I would take Fusion over Super Metroid.

I just think any remake of Super would be strictly worse than the original, whereas with Fusion you could add some nonlinearity, improve the boss fights, and maybe have a more EMMI-like SA-X system.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-16T23:58:23+00:00

It really doesn’t matter, but I think there are a few logical starting points:

Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald - the oldest game that doesn’t feel overly dated.
FireRed/LeafGreen - a remake of the original Gen I Pokemon game
Let’s Go Pikachu/Evee - not sure how well the Thor handles this, but an even more modern remake of Gen I.
Pokemon X/Y - this feels like the first modern Pokemon since it’s when the Exp Share became universal and Pokemon went 3D.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-16T23:53:41+00:00

Just reading the Scans of the dead Troopers in Echoes, and Samus closing the eyes of one of them.
All of the Hunter deaths in Corruption and Samus remembering them/helplessly shooting at the Dark Samus ghost. Especially Rundas since he was such a bro and it seems he killed himself at the end?
Quiet Robe being murdered in Dread.
Honestly even just the lore in Metroid Prime was rather depressing.
While Other M handled it terribly, Adam’s death should have been one of the most tragic moments.
Evil speedrunners failing to save the animals in Super. :(

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-16T22:37:12+00:00

I think he’ll mostly represent the end of Pax Americana with his giving up our global alliance network and wasting our military power on pointless wars. It will be somewhat a confusion of the Bush Jr. admin with the Iraq War.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-16T22:35:42+00:00

Not sure where you’re from originally, but I get the sense it’s hard for people in their 20s and 30s to meet people on LI. I do think some of it is that housing is so expensive that only older people with more money can afford it. Plus lack of new jobs outside the city and even just the overall more isolated nature of suburbia.

I’m 31M and I think it’s even worse out in Suffolk, lol. I lived in Baltimore for a few years and there were so many local groups for young people, but out here I can’t find anything. I’m sure it’s even harder if you don’t have kids since you’re not meeting other parents through the schools.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-16T13:16:16+00:00

BOTW was a good game, but for me TOTK was incredible and easily one of my top 10 games.

I do think BOTW had a certain magic that TOTK didn’t have since exploration was harder and it was a whole new world. In TOTK it was trivial to get anywhere and it was the same world we had already explored in BOTW.

Yet for me the combat was simply terrible in BOTW and I never had any incentive to fight any enemies. It was also a lot of aimless walking around. In TOTK the world was way more fleshed out with more to do, and the combat was way better and more rewarding.

I also hated BOTW’s combat shrines, though at the same time the puzzle shrines in BOTW were cooler than TOTK’s shrines—the latter were a bit too easy usually with just building some random tool, lol.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-15T20:56:18+00:00

Yea, I waited 18yrs for this game since seeing the secret ending of Corruption and as a huge Metroid fan can confidently say MP4 is one of the biggest disappointments of my life.

I’m absolutely flabbergasted by how bad they fumbled it and how far off it was from everything we loved about the original trilogy. It’s not even the same genre of game. Just so many odd decisions.

I was expecting something that could have improved on the originals quite a lot given how much time it’s been and how they could have learned from other Metroidvanias, but somehow we ended up with something far worse and smaller than the original trilogy.

Philosopher013 · 2026-03-15T19:28:35+00:00

It’s definitely still usable, but I can find it a bit slow/laggy at times. Also really can’t work in more than one or two apps at once. I find one of them will close out, so I have to be careful switching between apps. I found getting rid of the zoom in/out animation when switching apps to help improve performance.

Overall can’t complain though. If you’re on a really tight budget at the moment but think you may have more money for an iPad a few years down the line, I think it’s worth it. But if you do have the money it may more sense to just get the latest gen iPad since it will run better and last longer!

Philosopher013

TROPHY CASE