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SALLY FORTH, BUG CATCHERS! Into season six, in Kalos, the noble land of beauty. We shall honor its simple elegance with our own, by having a season with no restrictions, baby! In Vaniville Town, meet Josh & Tanner’s new avatars for Pokémon X/Y—and their wildly successful mothers and supportive fathers (at least monetarily). Then, follow their journey to the first gym, during which they swoon o...

What is likely our longest season to date has finally drawn to a close, and what did we learn along the way? For one thing, nobody really likes it when you don’t like what is clearly everyone’s favorite Pokémon game for some reason. You learned that some of the side games are some of the most engaging Pokémon experiences out there. Maybe you learned that rereading complex and confusing rules for s...

King Boo’s immense vassalage is ascending! All praise The God-Emperor KING BOO! His glory be known from the lawless wastelands of his upbringing in the south, where only the transient warriors reside—whose fates shift with the tides of every battle. They cry his name in the midlands, where hopeful champions vie for a shot at an esteemed Perfect Link Pokémon partner. His name is heard as a pleading...

It only took King Boo and Joshua four weeks to finally figure out the game’s key mechanic and begin hunting down Perfect Links across the Ransei region, but please don’t let cancel culture get us for this glaring oversight. King Boo has definitely earned the Largest Army card this week, not that his army of weak-link-warriors can do him much good. But neither Joshua nor King Boo really struggled m...

King Boo: So anyways, I was standing there waiting to use the payphone. Joshua: Yeah, he was, seriously. King Boo: And this guy who was on the phone, turns around and tips his hat like this. And who do you think that guy was? Kenshin from Illusio kingdom. Joshua: The Mighty Gallade man himself, I swear to God, I was there. King Boo: Of course you were, you were the one who yelled the Psychic Typer...

King Boo and Joshua’s bloody conquest of the Ransei region continues this week, as they lay siege to Fortress Fontaine, known for its lovely fountains, which run red with the blood of the slain. That is where two roads diverged and Joshua took the one every walkthrough explicitly insisted you travel by, and that has made all the difference. Seriously, we had totally different experiences this week...

Welcome to a new interstitial season where the boys will be donning their traditional samurai armor and taking on the Ransei region in some pitched tactical RPG battles. But where to start? How about a deep exploration of the history and conception of Pokémon Conquest which, despite its appearances, is actually a spin-off game of a game mode in the popular hack-and-slash series Samurai Warriors. Y...

The boys—who are now the Unova region champs, by the way—bumped into Bad Josh/Mr. Wrong/Hugh in Undella Bay and picked up a little HM called Waterfall, so you know what’s going to happen in this episode. Loose ends are tied up, legendary Pokémon are hunted down and captured, and an entire quarter of the map is unlocked for our Pokémonning pleasure. Over on Mr. Right’s team, things are smooth saili...

Our time in the Unova region is drawing to a close, but there’s still plenty of time to get some truly punishing Kingslocke draws before we summit Victory Road and take on the Elite Four once again. Some of us even had to build and train entirely new teams on this, the final leg of the main game, which is just insulting frankly. And once we’re done taking on the Elite Four and the Champion of Unov...

Alex Bugg (@gottasnatchemal) is back for the penultimate leg of our second journey through the Unova region this week and his character Kindy has a whole gaggle of school-aged Pokémon ready to take on Marlon, Mr. Right, and Slaanesh. It’s a breezy trip through the Marine Tube before we all arrive in Humilau City where Marlon leads trainers on a not-so-wild goose chase around the docks. It didn’t t...

This week Mr. Right and Slaanesh catch a ride to Eastern Unova where they revisit sights from postgames' past. The first thing on their agenda? A spooky haunted house, of course. After that, the only scary thing about this leg is all the routes where they were required to draw cards for the Kingslocke ruleset they’re playing with, but despite Josh’s shockingly low levels this week, they both manag...

The boys slid into Pokémaniacal Chris’s DMs this week to call him out on his punishing Kingslocke rules, but he ended up being a really nice guy so they asked him to come on the show instead. Much like Philip LeMarchand created the Lament Configuration, a puzzle box that—when solved—plunges you into an experience beyond limits. Pain and pleasure, indivisible…. … our guest this week is also the cre...

The journey across Unova continues to be filled with familiar sights, lovable characters, and the return of some former enemies seeking redemption, but it’s far from a stroll down memory lane thanks to some interesting card pulls for the Kingslocke rules this week. Mr. Right and Slaanesh meet a sexy werewolf, take on a sexy heartbreaker, cross a sexy bridge, see some sexy Team Plasma holdouts, bat...

This week, Mr. Right’s path diverged from The Dark Prince of Pleasure’s path as they journeyed into Route 4. Mr. Right was met with crumbling ruins, tomb raiders, and villains who scavenged what they could under the oppressive heat of the bright desert sun. Slaanesh, on the other hand, found the accommodations on Route 4 quite lovely—in fact, with plenty of amenities and a vibrant community, they...

Mr. Right and Slaanesh have finally made it to the mainland, but to be honest, with all the clowns, undercover bosses, sewer dwellers, and stressed clerks, they probably wish they have stayed over in Western Unova. The bright lights of the big city are beckoning the boys in, but first, they’ll need to wade nipple-deep in human waste to track down the gym leader of Castelia Gym, because of course t...

The boys are joined by Drew Scheid ( Halloween, Fear Street Part Two: 1978) , who mercifully spared himself from the wrath of Kingslocke, and believe us, it was WRATHFUL this week. We head to Virbank City, our final destination in Western Unova and home to Pokéstar Studios and the punk rock gym leader Roxie. On the way, we’ll learn about a new friend named Dr. Ew then well face off in a three-way...

It’s a new game, a new season, some new characters, and a new ruleset—KINGSLOCKE—that’s so confusing that one of your two lovable hosts struggled to even understand them on this first leg. Welcome back to Unova! You may notice some new faces and places at the start of your journey, including Mr. Right and his band of elitist chosen ones and Slaanesh the Prince of Pleasure and her plague lords. It’...

Welp, Bug Rangers... it's time to hang up the ol' styler wands, because our time in Almia is, regretfully, coming to a close. But not before we plumb the depths of a Team Dim Sun oil rig and set in motion a series of events that ultimately lead to a man's onscreen death—and that wasn't even a sanctioned mission! Then we chase after some clown called Heath who turns out to be, you guessed it, a pri...

Our styler wands are starting to look a little worn down (as are the lower screens on our 3DS machines) but we're not done yet! For part three of our journey through the Almia region, we meet the hottest new corporate post-industrial-pop-punk quartet with three members to ever be featured in a Pokémon game. We also head north to take on the personification of Sonic the Hedgehog before going back t...

Gallass & Tokio Hotel keep the hits coming when they set out from Pueltown to find out what nefarious character made off with Barlow. They also take in the “beautiful” Drifloon migration, which aid them in traversing Boyleland’s volcano. In its deepest depths, they learn something surprising about one of their former teachers, and get summoned by the (definitely very healthy) Chairperson Erma, to...

We're back with a new interstitial season, playing through the second Pokémon Ranger game, Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia. Limber up, bugcatchers, cause you're gonna be drawing a lot of little circles if you're playing along. In a truly surprising bit of news, it turns out that there are people in the Pokémon universe who are NOT trainers. In fact, you can be anything you want to be on PokéEarth...

One of our longest journeys ever ends this week with part two of our Chasing Waterfalls season finale. David Sims of Blank Check (@blankcheckpod) joins us as we tie up all our loose ends in the Unova region before moving on to the next game, where we'll journey through... *checks notes* the Unova region. We tackle the East part of the region where we meet dancing Patrats, terrified villagers, and...

The postgame in Black & White is so dang robust that we're doing our first-ever Chasing Waterfalls two-parter. First up, we say hi to mom, and also mom's strange new friend, that old rascal Looker. He's hot on the trail of Team Plasma's Seven Sages, and he—as a member of Interpol, the international police, not the band—naturally needs a young child to do most of the hard work of hunting them d...

We're joined once again by Tony "Brian with an 'I'" Smith (@AnthonyBLSmith) and all of the rampant audio issues he brought with him this week. We journey to Victory Road and make our way to the Elite Four. Only two of the E4 seemed to give any of us any trouble before we took on N in his mighty underground castle. Then we talk about which villainous crime syndicate is the best so far. Spoiler: It...

With the Elder Juniper's blessing and the Freeze Badge in hand, Joshua & Mr. Keepsies ascend Dragonspiral Tower so that—surprise, surprise—they can hear Team Plasma explain all their plans again. The A-slamming doesn't stop there, though. From throwing new Sages (Giallo, the Italian one) at us to Opelucid City hosting a rally for Ghetsis to give an unhinged rant for hours, this leg is full of...