Reviews & Favorites

I took a look at my favorite pet site designs, including Neopets, a while back. However, the pets themselves are often only a small fraction of the delicious graphical content to absorb in any one of these games. Neopets started the tradition of letting your pets… have pets.…

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Continuing my highlighting of favorite Pokémon from Generation 3, let’s take a look at my favorite Pokémon designs from Generation 4, Diamond/Pearl/Platinum.  Cricketune I love that this dapper little bug simultaneously looks like a musical instrument and an orchestra conductor.…

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Listen, I love dragons. I love all interpretations of dragons. I love tiny fuzzy dragons and enormous blob dragons, beautiful and elegant dragons and ugly wretch dragons. Part of the fun of the concept of dragons is that it’s so open-ended, and there’s no real-world basis for criticism or limits on what a dragon can be.…

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The How to Train Your Dragon franchise is just behind Game of Thrones for public media recognition of the word “dragon”. It’s exciting to see an entire world based around the existence of dragons of all shapes and sizes. Let’s take a look at some noteworthy dragon designs! Night Fury Might as well start with this series’ mascot, the Pikachu of HTTYD.…

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I’ve already reviewed the dragon species of the Flight Rising world, so let’s take a look at the familiars, the non-dragon companion critters (okay, let’s be real, they’re petpets). These vary greatly from fairly-normal animals to intelligent, sentient, clothing-wearing fantasy peoples.…

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Flight Rising is a browser-based game in which you raise, breed, and battle dragons. There are currently 14 16 species of dragons, with different art for the baby, male, and female versions. There are numerous patterns (“genes”) and colors for the body, wings, and all-over patterns.…

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Continuing from my post on Favorite Gen 1 and Favorite Gen 2 Pokémon, let’s look at my favorite creature designs from Generation 3 and explain a little bit about why I like them. Aron Nubs! This Pokémon’s name always made me snort because it just sounds like a normal human dude name.…

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Continuing from my post on Favorite Generation 1 Pokémon, here are my favorite creatures from Generation 2 and my review on their design elements. Crobat This furious little purple demon is the final form of the blind, obnoxious Zubat, though I always thought it looked more like an alternative to the huge-mouthed Golbat.…

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Warning: this contains minor spoilers for plot events! “Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King” is a PS2 game that I inherited a copy of from a family member with no context or prior knowledge of the series. I hadn’t even really played a JRPG before – I know, madness.…

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I love creature design, and few creatures are as famous and well-recognized as Pokémon. I played Pokémon Blue on an original black-and-white GameBoy when I was a kid, and transferred my creatures forward to Pokémon Silver when it came out. I was heartbroken to learn that Silver and Gold were notorious for losing all save data after a long period of inactivity (which, to my understanding, is what sparked the release of SoulSilver and HeartGold), which meant that my very first Pokémon, a Venosaur not-so-creatively named “Viney” was lost to me forever, along with a then-ultra-rare shiny Golbat.…

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