Ever since Super Mario Run was released last year, it’s gotten a fair few regular updates. Nothing major (like new levels), but enough event items and Kingdom Builder additions to keep anyone busy. Like say, the Golden Goomba events run in February. Or the one off Christmas events that kickstarted the game in the first place.
And today, another one has been released! However, this is no ordinary update. Oh no, this update does quite a few things. Like fixing one issue that’s been causing player’s trouble right from the get go.
Yep, it removes the 9999 Toad limit. This is a freaking godsend for the game.
Why? Because as any player knows, you need thousands of Toads to get the more expensive objects.
And that presents a major problem. Because at only 9999 Toads maximum, you literally couldn’t ever afford to buy the objects without deliberately losing Toads to change your ‘balance’. You simply wouldn’t have any red Toads to buy the 8 Bit Mario statue or enough green Toads for the Luigi one.
Changing the cap to 99,999 fixes this immediately. Now you can always get an item for your kingdom without worrying at all about hitting the cap and not having enough Toads to make it available. Best of all, even the new items don’t seem to break this! Yeah, they cost more money and require more Toads, but even the most expensive one now only needs 15,000 red Toads and a few thousand of the other colours. So completionists can rest happy knowing they can afford anything the game throws at them.
As for other additions? Well there are some here. For example, now the game lets you use your Mii from Miitomo as you icon, if showing off your fancy outfits is something you care about. And Game Centre achievements have been added in too. So the game now works fine with Apple’s achievement system.
Either way, it’s a much needed update, and one that will make the game much more enjoyable to play for those still involved in the whole thing. Kudos to Nintendo for the fixes and improvements.
It’s been out for iOS devices since December 2016, but now the plumber’s first smartphone adventure is available on Android too. Yes, a few days ahead of schedule, Nintendo has released the game on Google Play for Android users to install. This can be seen on the official page right here:
Super Mario Run on Google Play
Along with a few of the standard app pictures as seen below:
However, that’s not all there is to it. Oh no, Nintendo have also released the update for the game today too. This 2.0 update adds in such things as:
- New Yoshi colours for characters
- The ability to play level 1-4 for free (in addition to the first 3 available already)
- And more varieties of Toads that free players can collect in Toad Rally. This in turn means extra playable characters and houses are now available in Kingdom Builder without buying the full game.
So yeah, go ahead and download it if you want. It’s a tad late given how long ago the iOS one was released, but at least you can now play it on Android devices too. Better late than never I suppose!
Source:
Super Mario Run on Google Play
TEST TEST
It’s been on the cards for a while, and we’ve hinted about it in the past already. But now, it’s finally happened. Gaming Reinvented and Gaming Latest have now merged.
So what does this mean for you as a user?
Well, a few things really. Firstly, the forums will now entirely reside on the Gaming Latest domain rather than the Gaming Reinvented one. They’ll still have the same content and many of the same staff (like myself), but the domain and hosting will be under Demon Skeith’s control instead of mine.
And there’s a good reason I’ve done that. Namely, I don’t have the time and energy to keep running a large gaming forum.
I mean sure, I can run a smaller one. Something like Wario Forums where the amount of daily effort needed for generating content and keeping out troublemakers is greatly reduced. That’s well within my capabilities at the moment.
But for a big, nearly big board level community with hundreds of thousands of posts and many thousands of members, that’s just a bit too much for me at the moment. I’ve got a startup to get going, events to attend, news to post on this site and marketing to do on social media. Adding ‘large community management’ to the list is just too much stress.
So I’ve decided that we can now focus on what we do best instead. I can worry how to run a great news site, whereas Demon Skeith can worry about the general forum management aspect. It’s a simple deal really.
As well as one that will help the site immensely. Why?
Because now Gaming Reinvented is the official news site for Gaming Latest too. It’s where members are encouraged to submit gaming content in the form of articles, it’s going to have various articles posted to the forums via RSS, etc. This will bring more attention to our platform, and allow for fun contests like this one.
Where you’re rewarded with eShop/Steam/Xbox Live credits for writing the best articles for the site.
So yeah, the merge is now active. However, that’s not the only thing that is here.
Oh no, we’ve also been working on improving another feature. What is it?
The comments system.
Yeah, as you can tell, we’re now running a new comments system with far better features than before. This system (called wpDiscuz) basically acts like a self hosted version of Disqus.
Except you know, without the annoying forced ads. Or recommended articles shoved at the end.
And it has tons of cool features. For example, you can now upvote and downvote comments like on Reddit:
Subscribe to comments on a per article basis, with replies sent through email.
As well as other additions we’ll be adding on soon. Like the ability to use @ tags like on Twitter, or the ability to post videos and other media directly in the comments section. It’s much more stylish and useful than the bland old WordPress default, and will hopefully make commenting less of a chore in general.
So enjoy the site everyone! It’s now aligned with a new gaming community, has a new comments system and will have numerous other neat features in future as well.
CM30 on February 17, 2017
It’s finally here. Niantic Labs has finally made generation 2 Pokemon available to catch in Pokemon GO. Here’s their announcement on the matter from their Twitter account:
But how does it work you may wonder? How are generation 2 Pokemon available in Pokemon GO now?
Well, wonder no more! Because like with the Pokemon Bank update, we’ve prepared a short, hopefully useful FAQ to get you started with generation 2 in Pokemon GO. So without further ado, let’s get on with the bloody questions!
The Pokemon GO Generation 2 FAQ
Starting with one about the Pokemon available. What new Pokemon are available in this update?
Excluding the legendaries (of which 6 new ones have been added in generation 2), there are now 94 new Pokemon you can encounter in Pokemon GO.
And how about eggs? Any new ones to worry about?
Yeah, quite a few actually. Generation 2 has brought with it 46 new evolutionary lines, excluding the ones added during the recent baby Pokemon update. Here’s a (not quite complete) look at what generation 2 Pokemon hatch from what type of egg courtesy of Pokemon GO Hub.
How about Unown? Are they present now?
Yes they are. Unown can be encountered in the wild now. Based on preliminary reports, they spawn in the United States and Singapore at the moment, though other regions are likely as well.
Any legendaries?
Not as far as we know. So the three legendary beasts, two new legendary birds and Celebi haven’t been seen in Pokemon GO yet.
Okay, I get it. How common are new Pokemon?
There’s no ‘official’ data yet, but based on this survey on the Silph Road subreddit, it seems like the new Pokemon are about as common as the generation 1 ones. So that means common stuff like Sentret and Ledyba will appear as often as Rattata and Pidgey, whereas rarer ones like Larvitar and Skarmony will be seen far less.
Moving onto evolutions now. How do cross generation evolutions work?
Well, it all depends really. Some (like Golbat to Crobat) merely involve the standard ‘give lots of candy’ evolution method. So if you want a Crobat, you’ll need to give 100 Zubat Candy to its previous form.
However for other Pokemon, you’ll need a special evolutionary item. These can be gotten at Pokestops across the world, and have to be used alongside a certain number of Candies in order to evolve the Pokemon to its next form. Here are the cross generation evos and what items are required:
- Golbat to Crobat – No item required (just 100 Zubat candies)
- Gloom to Bellossom – 100 Oddish candies and a Sun Stone
- Poliwhirl to Politoed – 100 Poliwag candies and a King’s Rock
- Slowpoke to Slowking – 50 Slowpoke candies and a King’s Rock
- Onix to Steelix – 50 Onix candies and a Metal Coat
- Chansey to Blissey – No item required ( just 50 Chansey candies)
- Seadra to Kingdra – 100 Horsea Candies and a Dragon Scale
- Scyther to Scizor – 50 Scyther candies and a Metal Coat
- Eevee to Umbreon – 25 Eevee candies, should be nicknamed Tamao for 100% chance
- Eeevee to Espeon – 25 Eevee candies, should be nicknamed Sakura for 100% chance
- Porygon to Porygon2: 50 Porygon candies and an Up-Grade
Is that it?
Actually, no. You can also evolve an Eevee into an Umbreon by walking it as your buddy for 10KM at night, and do the same in the day for Espeon. So in a sense, the ‘happiness’ evolution method is now in Pokemon GO too.
Also, Pokemon who’ve gained extra evolutions (like Zubat) now require less candy to evolve them into their intermediate form. So if you want a Golbat, it now only costs 25 candy itself of 50. Same with Horsea and Seadra.
Huh, interesting then. So is it only new Pokemon that have been added in this update?
No. In addition to new Pokemon, various existing Pokemon have also seen their movesets changed or tweaked in some way.
This is good in some cases (like with Gengar and Hex). In other cases it’s bad (like with Snorlax losing Body Slam and Lapras losing Ice Shard).
So go and look at the changes if you haven’t already. Cause a lot of them will shake up the gym meta on a drastic level.
Oh, okay. Still, they didn’t change the Pokemon’s CP, right?
Err, bad news I’m afraid. They did.
As a result, your Lapras’ CP has likely decreased since the update. So not only does it have a worse moveset, but it’s also physically weaker than it previously was.
Damn, that sucks. Anything else?
Well, critical catches have been implemented too. This is a special animation that makes your Poke Ball more likely to catch the wild Pokemon, sort of like an ‘excellent’ throw in the older versions of app. You can tell if it’s occurred by the ball immediately dropping to the ground and 4 rays of light leaving upwards diagonally.
You’ll also see Pokemon dodging your throws in new ways, get a catch bonus if you catch the Pokemon in one throw (missing counts as a fail here) and can use berries to make things easier.
However, the berries are limited to one per Pokemon, so be smart about which ones you use people!
Any new medals?
Yeah, the Johto medal and Delinquent medal have been added. The first one is for catching a certain number of generation 2 Pokemon, the latter for catching a certain number of Dark type Pokemon.
Finally, where are the new customisation options?
You can buy additional clothes in the avatar customisation screen.
And that’s it. Now you know all about Pokemon GO and how generation 2 works, go out and there and catch some new Pokemon again!
CM30 on February 15, 2017
Generation 2 in Pokemon GO has been a topic for quite a while now. It’s been rumoured sometime last year. We’ve had datamines showing unused Pokemon slots and moves pointing to it. And well, with baby Pokemon released in an event last year, it’s become quite clear that Niantic was readying the playerbase for the generation’s imminent release.
And now it’s finally happened. Niantic have finally announced that generation 2 will be coming to Pokemon GO later this week!
So what’s in store for the players here? What do you, as potential Pokemon GO player have to gain from this update?
Well, quite a few interesting things actually! Like say, the 80 new Pokemon we’ll be seeing brought to the game as a result. This list will include everything from the gen 2 starters (like Cyndaquil and Totodile) to the new common Pokemon and pseudo legendaries alike.
And this will have an obvious effect on the encounter rate. Whereas before you had lots of Pidgeys and Rattatas (and often little else), it’s likely that generation 2 will make its own common Pokemon equally common spawns in game as well.
In other words? Get used to Sentrets, Hoothoots, Ledybas and Spinaraks appearing on a regular basis too. Presumably in roughly the same quantities as the existing common Pokemon.
It also means that your existing Pokemon might well become more useful too. Why?
Because as has been mentioned before, lots of Pokemon from generation 1 actually have new evolution in generation 2. So you’ll be able to evolve your Onix into Steelix, your Golbat into Crobat and your Chansey into Blissey among many others.
That should at least make them more worthwhile to catch, shouldn’t it?
Yeah, I think so too. Interestingly, it seems items will actually be necessary there, given how Niantic Labs talks about ‘evolutionary items’ being dropped at Pokestops now. So yeah, better hope you get a Metal Coat or King’s Rock sometime soon. Presumably before you have more Onix and Scyther to know what to do with.
Also affected will likely be the gym system. Why? Because as anyone who checked a ‘predicted CP’ list knows, quite a few later generation Pokemon will be massively usable in the competitive metagame here. Like say, Tyranitar, who’s stats will probably rival Dragonite when it’s released later this week.
So if you’re holding a gym, you’d better hope someone deposits one there pronto. Otherwise some of these generation 2 species will let the attackers just bulldoze straight through your teams.
Yet it’s not just new Pokemon that are included here. Nope, it seems Niantic have some other interesting additions too.
Like say, two new types of berries. One of these (the Nanab Berry) slows a Pokemon’s movements, which makes it easier to catch. Meanwhile the other one (aka the Pinap Berry) gives you double EXP if your next catch succeeds.
And based on the encounter changes they mention (like Pokemon having new ways to react to Poke Balls)… it seems like these berries might be a tad more necessary than they were before. Good job the interface will let you use them without entering the menu, right?
Finally, new customisation options are being added. This means there will be more clothing options for your avatar, as well new looks for your character in general. So yeah, maybe we’ll see something closer to the gen 6/7 clothing system this time around.
Either way, that’s the new Pokemon GO update for you. Will it be enough to get you playing the game again? Or do you think the novelty of this title has long since passed already?
Source:
Our World is Expanding (Niantic Labs Johto Announcement)
