PokéBattles: Sandy Version

It is the 90s 20s and there is time for Klax PokéBattles

I overall like the pacing of this set of Battles. The arc probably could have used one or two more Battles under the control of Narratra to help set the stakes more, but it doesn't drag things out with too much filler, there's a 'real world' battle which Sandy both then and now barely ever does, and it doesn't drag itself out too much.


Battle 26

A quick gamut of puns most of which feel like they work to open, a cute gag about the Narrator not being able to learn more than infinity moves (not sure why I was using the ordinal symbol rather than the infinity symbol there) with a Pokemon style move relearn thing for the narrator learning to be omnipresent.

And then SVWebmaster (et al) starts fighting a manifestation of myself for the very reasonable of subjecting SVWebmaster to Detcher. Conflict might have been resolved too easily, and it has my first gag about the Narrator disliking being given the silent treatment, which I'd completely forgotten about when I used that schtick as the central concept of a Battle in the modern incarnation.


Battle 27

This Battle is based on real events (and, yes, the other people involved... Well, they at least knew about Sandy Version, and I think some of them read it?). Well, the dropped cola is (...Pretty sure it really did look like a cross between a werewolf and a vampire). Thankfully the potty humour isn't.


Battle 28

Wish the portal back to Sandy Version was faster, but the central conceit that anything with a Sandy record would go back, even if it wasn't originally from Sandy, adds a cute complication. I also don't hate that the Narrator runs roughshod over any conflict that might have caused the group since that is entirely in character for the Narrator.

The rest of the battle is a cute preamble to the next battle, with a prolonged save gag that... I want to criticize for not getting to the point faster, but I don't think it would work if it was shorter than the entire sequence for saving in FF9. I probably wouldn't have made that reference in that way today, but if you're going to make that reference in that way, I don't think you can shrink it.


Battle 29

I didn't often do Battle Music in Classic Sandy, and don't do it at all in Modern Sandy. And with a name like Last_Battle.mid, I have zero clue what game it's from.

The mortals having unanimously voted to stay out of the way of the battle is a cute bit. Through instead of throw is a painful writing error, but aside from that this is a rapid fire avalanche of puns and forced attack errors, which is exactly what you want from a Narrator fighting a Narrator.

The ending is a bit of an anti-climax, Narratra using rage bit could have likely been more interesting, but SVWebmaster losing their powers is a nice bit of consequence for the arc, fundamentally changing the status quo.


Battle 30

It's quite cute that SVWebmaster is at this point providing colour commentary from the sidelines. And it says a lot about my reputation for spelling that I felt the need to put a SIC clarification on PQkémon in the Battle's title.

A couple of small gags in the opening wall of red text to set the battle up, but this probably needed to get to the point quicker. The meat of the battle is... Fine... PokéBattles is hardly fine art, but I was probably going for the base humour a bit too much here, and the handbag gag is a reference to lingo for a game that the majority of the audience wouldn't be playing.

One thing that does work here is resolving the battle with something that had been established and built on earlier, although I think it would be better if the joke came before the resolution to make it less of an after the fact explanation for why the Narrator acted the way it does.

...And then immediately into a fight with the bed which... Feels like it just adds unneeded length, and IRC community references, to proceedings. The stuff in the second battle isn't worse than the preceding stuff, but I think the battle would have been stronger overall had it ended earlier.


Battle 31

Ah, Writer's Block. The PokéBattles staple. Also, seemingly a deliberate attempt to not be a battle in which the Narrator just straight up tortures the player. Aside from that, pure filler with not much to say about it.