Pokkén Tournament DX - Crushing The Spirits of Little Girls

I know neither shame nor guilt

If you've grown up gaming on consoles somewhere between the NES and the original PlayStation, there's a fair chance that the beginning of online gaming was a bit of a bitch to you. Let me elaborate: Back when I was a kid I was better at videogames than anybody else I knew. I'd beat all friends, siblings, neighbours and anyone else I knew at Street Fighter. Until this day everyone I know refuses to play Steet Fighter against me, because they don't enjoy losing all the damn time. Somebody was stuck in a boss fight, couldn't beat a level or had some other problem with a game, they'd call me to take care of it. You probably know what I'm talking about, unless you're a little shit who started gaming on daddy's PS3

It's nice to think you're the best, but if we're being honest, it's not very hard when there's no internet. If you owned a console and your friends didn't, chances were you'd beat them simply because you had more opportunity to practice. Maybe you beat them at games they didn't have or simply didn't care about as much as you did. Even if you were genuinely better than all your friends and siblings, your circle of rivals probably wasn't any bigger than the amount of weekly recurring Batman villains.

Surprisingly, The Penguin really knows his Tetris.

When online gaming became a thing you'd fire up a game assuming you're the best at just about every game, ever, because that has been your reality up to that point. Aaaand then you'll learn that there are millions of people just like you everywhere around the world, who were all better than their moms, dads, siblings and aunts and it turns out that it doesn't mean shit. I can fire up an online match of Street Fighter and there's a decent chance I'll lose. I can still destroy my friends, but I had to learn that I'm not winning because I'm the best in the world. I'm mostly winning because I'm slightly less terrible at the game than they are. But there's a fix and it's Pokkén Tournament DX.

See, one cool side effect to my new job is that I suddenly have money. And like everyone with money, I attempt to fill the gaping void in my soul with a lot of materialistic shit I don't really want or need. So I went and bought the Pokémon brawler on the Switch, even though I think Pokémon are stupid. Yes, at some point I said that the Pokémon games on the 3DS are good and I stand by that. But Claire tried to get me into the tv show and it's all retarded horseshit. Now look, everyone is entitled to their opinions and it's okay if you like Pokémon. That's your opinion and you're free to have it. It also means your opinion is wrong, stupid and inferior, but you're still entitled to it.

Still not as annoying as MLP.

So Pokkén is a game where a bunch of Pokémon beat the shit out of each other. Well, I suppose that happens in every Pokémon game, but this time it's an actual 3D fighter with real-time button mashing and combos and shit. There's only 21 playable characters to choose from, so I picked the one I recognized from the DS game I played. It was this fox thing, which screams something that sounds like 'WHAT THE FAAAAWK'. In Pokkén it's easily the girliest playable character around, prancing around and farting rainbows and shit.

This is my fucking ultra combo.

I think I like this game better than Street Fighter V, because it had more fucking characters than SFV straight out of the box and IT ALSO HAS SOME FUCKING SINGLEPLAYER CONTENT! Yes, the story is as cringeworthy as in any other game about these furry fuckers, but I get several leagues and tournaments full of AI assholes to pound into the ground, whilst constantly unlocking new titles, costumes and other fluff. You know, the kind of shit Capcom sells for 4 Quid a pop in fucking Street Fighter these days. The cunts.

Still, it looks alright for a portable game, the fighting is relatively solid and it's piss-easy, so I've button-mashed my way through every single league and game mode within a day or two. Nothing left to do but ranked online matches. And it's fucking glorious! I have a win-rate of 98% and end matches in a double-perfect more often than not. Most of the people I played against had female avatars with rainbow-hair and star-shaped sunglasses and while I'm sure there's the occasional creep among them, I genuinely believe I've just spent a day murdering the characters of little children. IT WAS SO FUCKING COOL!

That's right, bitch, assume the position!

It's the sickest, most beautiful thing I've seen in a long time. There are these kids with their little girly avatars and their cute little pikachus, they're happily prancing around and then I show up with this equally girly, prancy furry fuck and rain fire and brimstone upon their singed corpses as half of them log off in despair before the match ends. I got a kid to turn off his game at the last second because he didn't want to see his pikachu getting his ass kicked. Welcome to online gaming, you little shit!

Sure, it's basically a fun torture simulator for anyone who hates children as much as I do, but it's also a pretty decent fighter. If you're looking for some good punchy fun on the go and don't mind the stupid avatars and the fact it's full of goddamn Pokémon, you may want to give this one a try. I feel it's seriously underrated.

Now I am become death, destroyer of kiddiewinks.

Still not getting into Mario. To me, every level feels like a random collection of minigames and jump puzzles and not like a proper videogame level. Here's some small thing you can do for a moon, here is another and there is some more. There is no structure. Judging by how absolutely everyone loves the absolute shit out of it, I'm clearly wrong and I don't understand what a good game is, so hey, more power to all you Mario fans out there. On the subject of being wrong, I actually quite enjoy Fifa 18 on the Switch, even though it's clearly the weakest version out there.

I don't care for Doom on the Switch, because it looks and runs like ass and if I really crave Doom on the go I can just play Brutal Doom with a mouse and keyboard on my GPD Win. I don't care for LA Noire or Skyrim on there, either, because there's no way in hell I'm paying AAA money for six year old games, which somehow look worse than they did back in the day. Again, I already have a fully modded Skyrim in my pocket and while LA Noire is tempting, it also eats up ALL of the Switch's internal memory and then some.

Do some scores, footie people!

I'm not the world's biggest football fan. I've maybe owned 3 or 4 Fifa games and I'm really not great at them. But even I can see the appeal of having Fifa on the go! So what if it doesn't have the story mode from the other versions? It has all the clubs and all the players and it's fun just dicking around with Notts County, because fuck yeah, Nottingham! Sure, it's not as pretty as the versions on the other platforms, but I wouldn't recognize most football players if they stood right in front of me in person. And bringing the Switch 'round for Xmas to hook it up on the big TV and have up to 4 people play Fifa for the heck of it? I'll pick that over going to church any day! Hail Satan!