Time for more unasked general ramble posts, mother’s favorites.
So we finally got that Pokemon Presents (AKA the Pokemon Direct) a few days ago, and alongside them bringing back a successor of sorts for Pokemon Stadium (might as well, since the NSO rerelease of the N64 games are just emulated versions that can’t connect to any active Pokemon system/software/archive-bank in order to substitute the original “Transfer Pak and Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow cartridge” method to import , hence are truncated experiences), the highlight was undoubtly the first actual trailer and gameplay footage for Legends Pokemon ZA, which will bring us back to Pokemon X & Y region, Kalos, now expanded and incorporating wild/unkempt areas for the wild Pokemon to roam about.
And count on the Pokemon fanbase to find what’s likely the new design for the Hex Maniac trainer class in a ridiculously tiny smidge on the Kalos map image they revealed.
Because, let’s be real, i feel that (and the flood of fan art it spawned) did more for the game than the trailer itself, as honestly it still looks very outdated in terms of looks and just looks to run about as well as Scarlet/Violet, but also i like the idea of the wild areas inside the cities and the “roof running” thingie, alongside the more real time oriented combat that feels like continuing on from Legends Arceus, and i feel will be the Legends subseries “thing” going forwards.
Also, Mega Evos are back, because they were introduced with X & Y, but i guess because its in “homo sapiens-phile jail” (remember the leak that happened some months ago?), no Cyndaquil or its evolutions, just the other two Gen 2 starters and.. Tepig. Why? I don’t get it.
But i also don’t get them giving “Dog Zygarde” a gleaming butthole or the new Kalos anti-homeless benches, so we’ll just have to see when it drops around the end of this year.
I saw the Shrek 5 teaser trailer (which is barely even that)… and i’ll keep it short, it doesn’t look bad per sè, at all, BUT this new stylization seems made to appeal to newer audiences, while it also wants the nostalgia factor, which if this trailer is any indication, it’s gonna get… in the worse way, because you’d wish they stuck with a design closer to the previous films, instead of this, which its fine in itself but looks way too clean.
It’s more the stylization more than the design itself (the aging looks fine), to be fair, and correct.
Also, it’s inevitably gonna make people ask why bother now, 15 years since the last film of the main series (ironically subtitled “Forever After”), you announce a new one and it look like someone had to touch up some of the results from feeding “Shrek 5” into a generative IA image software/slop machine, that’s not true but that’s also how it feels.
I dunno if we can (or should) do another “sonic live action film ” bullying-lamentation-backlash parade to have the studio fix it before it releases on Christmas 2026, because that involved a lot of backlash, but mostly a LOT of crunch and the people responsible for fixing that abomination got canned anyway…
At least we had The Wild Robot.
Regardless, it’s a teaser trailer, no point critizing what you’d think it’s gonna be in a movie that we know nothing of substance about, and most likely is not even half-way done, we’re gonna deal with that when more substantial material surfaces or when the movie itself it’s out.
This is mostly a nothing burger situation compared to Sonic’s first design for the first live action film, to be honest, but it did get me talking about it as well, so the teaser trailer did its job.
Lastly, it took me a bit to notice Warriors: Abyss, the new Warriors spin-off they shadowdropped, since i didn’t see the latest State Of Play, but i did, and while i would love to jump into that, i really don’t have 25 extra bucks to go around this month (the 80 bucks edition that’s just old – decades old – costumes DLC years old and already been resold many times….. it’s so Tecmo Koei), so don’t expect an EXPRESSO review of that anywhere in March.
I will instead do a full review for this year’s Musou May, i already had all the slots filled but i will squeeze in another full lenght review for Warriors Abyss, and maybe in the meantime they will keep adding characters (absurd it sounds for TK, yeap, they’re not even free DLC, they’re just gonna be added via software updates, starting with DW’s Jin faction characters soon enough) enough that we have all the Orochi specific warriors available.
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