PokéBattles: Sandy Version

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

The complete destruction and resetting of the version required new characters. I'm not sure this was the best set of battles at doing that, but it definitely has some charm to it, and does a better job of it than Sandy did in the first three battles.


I do like opening Narrachu's reign with Narrachu forgetting to get its ducks in a row, and how different Narrachu's narration style is to most other Narrators I've written - at least red text Narrators.

...Wanting to spell no one as no-one is an issue I still have today, although it's apparently not wrong but an 'uncommon variant'. I also enjoy the banter between No-one and Narrachu, and the central conceit of the meat of the battle of no one fighting nothing is something I enjoy reading back, same with the string of puns that - while none are particularly strong - lends the battle a decent flow.

Nothing evolving into a Paradox when it becomes something is a really fun bit. As is the Paradox getting the win after running away. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the ending, but I did laugh rereading it, so apparently it works.


Battle 54

The recap as if it was going to resolve a cliffhanger before pulling the rug out and introducing something entirely new is a bit of a meta-gag I enjoy, as is the direct reference to the fact that the player of this is a riff on Red's Bob "That Guy" Smith.

...The fact that was apparently a setup for a joke about 'investing in a character maker' is lovely. The rest of the Battle gives John a distinct goal, has some very genre-aware jokes about Doompuff, the overuse of spleen jokes - Which were overused at the time - stock 'drumming is easy' gags, etc.

There's nothing remarkable here, but it feels like it was good execution for the time, and it continues the idea of the player mocking the way Narrachu ends the battle of 53.


Battle 55

I... Have no clue how this Battle would read for people who weren't involved in the PB community during the specific period when Red was slow on the update, and Kite was running the Network, because the amount of community references going on in the opening is off the chart.

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing - My target audience was 'people active in the PB community' and none of these gags are particularly weird or bad, but... Rereading it 22 years removed from that is... Odd. Outside of that, the Battle is fairly normal PB stuff, the only real comment I have about it is ending on a cliffhanger of JR's Ego DNA Digivolving with a Paradox bent on taking over the network is... Delightfully silly?

...And the dropping of the 'mocking Narrachu's endings' is a bit disappointing.