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Animal Crossing: New Horizons Drops New Trailer Detailing Next Update and Event

By
Aletheia
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Without a doubt, one of the biggest, most popular titles of 2020 was Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Being a game that was released during the advent of COVID-19, it was the perfect title to play during lockdown and helped entertain and relieve stress despite the turbulent year.

The game brought in incredible sales for Nintendo, and it was so successful that it became one of the top sellers for the Nintendo Switch. Seeing as Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been out for quite a while now, many fans assumed that Nintendo would no longer be releasing updates for the game this 2021. However, the multinational company previously assured fans that this wouldn’t be the case.

True to its word, Nintendo recently announced the next free update that’s heading to the game. In fact, it will be launched within the next few days. The January update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons is set to release this January 28, and its new content will mostly revolve around preparaing for the Festivale event that will take place in February.

Specifically, February 15 will see New Horizons players and villagers celebrating the Festivale event with a new NPC—none other than Pave the Peacock. While Pave is a new character to New Horizons, the character has made an appearance in the previous Animal Crossing game for the 3DS, New Leaf.

Just like with previous events in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, players will be given a specific goal or task once Festivale goes into full swing. Multicolored feathers will start raining from the sky on February 15, and players will have to catch these feathers using their net and give them to Pave.

Once the event draws to a close, players will be seemingly given a chance to pose for a one-of-a-kind photo opportunity. So far, this is all the information we have on the upcoming Festivale event and the January update in general, and Nintendo has yet to reveal more details about what players can expect.

Of course, there’s a chance that the update will include more than just Festivale preparations, such as bug fixes and other quality of life adjustments. Previous New Horizons updates implemented a variety of improvements while still introducing new content, and as far as we can tell, there’s no indication that the upcoming January update will be any different.

That being said, Animal Crossing: New Horizons players can look forward to even more new and exciting updates this year. At the end of the trailer for the January update, Nintendo confirms that the next free update will take place some time in March. Also, this update will apparently have some kind of connection to the Super Mario franchise.

Although, this makes sense at the same time. March 2021 marks the first-year anniversary of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Meanwhile, the 35th anniversary celebration of Super Mario, which has been ongoing since September of last year, will come to a close on March. Given this information, it appears that these two franchises will be having some kind of joint celebration.

IO Interactive’s Upcoming James Bond Game Will Be A Standalone One

By
Aletheia
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Except for the fact that it was hit with several server issues upon launch, IO Interactive’s Hitman 3 was a massive success. With this third installment being the conclusion to “The World of Assassination Trilogy,” the developer previously confirmed that the series will be put on hold for a while as it works on its brand-new James Bond project.

While Project 007 won’t be released anytime soon, IO Interactive has already revealed a few details about it, including the fact that it’s going to be a standalone title. On November 19, 2020, IO Interactive revealed that it was working on a new 007 game. Fans have been gushing since then about how IO is the perfect developer to work on this kind of IP, especially given how it has done such a great job with the recent Hitman trilogy.

It goes without saying that IO Interactive is capable of designing games that revolve around stealth and discretion, so the video game community is beyond excited to see how the developer will put its own spin to the 007 franchise.

That being said, the upcoming title is still a long way away—in fact, the James Bond game is still in its early stages of development. IO Interactive previously said in an interview with TheGamer that it wants to expand its development team first before diving into Project 007.

Back in 2019, the Denmark-based studio established a new studio in Sweden. At the moment, there are only 200 employees who work under IO Interactive, but it’s looking to double its staff up to 400 just for the 007 game. Studio director Hakan Abrak said in the interview, “Today we [have] 200 employees and I expect that we will [have] over 400 employees over the next few years. So, there is no doubt that the Bond agreement means an insane amount to us.”

So far, the studio has done a good job at keeping the upcoming game as mysterious as possible, so we don’t really have any specifics about what the upcoming title will be all about. However, IO Interactive did share that Project 007 will be the studio’s original take on the popular spy.

In other words, the upcoming title won’t be based on any previous version of James Bond from past video games or movies. Not only that, IO Interactive will be utilizing a completely new actor to play the part.

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While the studio mentioned that Project 007 will be a completely standalone game, the team is open to the idea of developing a trilogy for it—possibly similar to the way it handled Hitman’s World of Assassination trilogy.

Seeing as MGM and EON Productions are known to be incredibly protective of the rights to James Bond, it’s safe to assume that whatever IO Interactive pitched to them must have been impressive, to say the least.

IO Interactive has come so far since it departed from Square Enix back in 2017, after the first Hitman title from 2016 didn’t reach sales expectations. Now, with Square Enix of its back, IO Interactive has the freedom to work with whoever it wants to—and so far, the studio is really making a name for itself.

RUMOR: Leaker Claims That Resident Evil 8 Will Feature Three Playable Characters

By
Aletheia
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0
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Ever since Capcom announced Resident Evil 8 (otherwise known as Resident Evil Village), it has always been made clear that the playable character in this iteration would be Ethan Winters, who long-time fans know from Resident Evil 7. As far as official announcements go, Capcom hasn’t given any sign that players will be able to control other characters in the upcoming game.

However, according to rumors that have been circulating recently, there’s a chance that Resident Evil 8 will not only have one, but three playable characters throughout its campaign.

This rumor was started by AestheticGamer aka Dusk Golem, a prominent leaker who was recently answering a couple of questions on Twitter about Resident Evil 8. AestheticGamer claims that at some point in the game, fans will be able to play as Chris Redfield. In terms of teasers and other promotional materials so far, Chris Redfield has been a heavily featured character, but there’s no indication that he would be a playable one.

That being said, if this rumor is true, then it wouldn’t be the first time that players get to play as Redfield. Redfield was a playable character in the Resident Evil 7 Not A Hero DLC, which gave fans a glimpse of what happened after the end of Resident Evil 7.

That particular DLC demonstrated that Redfield is more competent than Winters when it comes to combat, and this makes sense. That said, we’re definitely interested to see how Resident Evil 8 will display this kind of contrast, or if it will be present at all.

Now, the most intriguing part about this rumor is the alleged third playable character, who remains a mystery at this point in time. AestheticGamer claims that Resident Evil 8 will still feature the unknown playable female character. Although, they did admit that they’re not completely sure that this information is “a concrete fact.”

So far, it’s a complete mystery who this female character will be, and while there aren’t any clues that could help, there are multiple possibilities. The Resident Evil franchise itself has a plethora of female playable characters, so it’s possible that Resident Evil 8 will feature a familiar face or introduce a new one.

It’s worth mentioning that the recent “Maiden” demo for Resident Evil 8 seemed to feature a female playable character—not to mention the fact that the title “Maiden” itself already serves as a possible indication. Perhaps the person in the demo is the female playable character that has been rumored about. If this is the case though, the ending of the demo seems to indicate that they meet a rather gruesome demise.

That being said, there’s still a chance that Capcom might completely abandon this character and this concept entirely, given that the game is still in development and is subject to change at any time. As such, it’s best that fans don’t expect too much for now, especially since Capcom hasn’t officially revealed this information yet.

In any case, Resident Evil 8’s release date is looming closer and closer with each passing day. As such, players can expect even more details about the upcoming title between today and May 7, and hopefully, one of those announcements will be about these other playable characters.

New Pokemon Snap Introduces New In-Game Fruit

By
Aletheia
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0
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New Pokemon Snap is expected to launch within the next few months, and Nintendo has been doing a great job keeping up the hype by sharing tidbits of information about the upcoming game here and there. Although there’s a bunch of new features and content heading to New Pokemon Snap, such as a brand-new region and the inclusion of Pokemon that weren’t in the original Nintendo 64 game, some familiar mechanics will be returning as well.

For example, the photo grading system in the upcoming Nintendo Switch-exclusive title will work similarly to its forerunner, such as posing and other factors. Not only that, its core gameplay loop didn’t undergo major changes as well, so players can still unlock new areas just by taking gratifying photos of various Pokemon.

Recently, Nintendo also revealed one other mechanic that fans of the original Pokemon Snap will find familiar. Nintendo of America posted on Twitter that players will be able to make use of fruit if they want Pokemon to stay still for pictures—just like in the classic N64 game.

More specifically, New Pokemon Snap will be introducing a brand-new fruit called the Fluffruit, and players will find it tucked away in their photo-taking arsenal at some point during their playthrough. Although, it’s worth mentioning that this new fruit looks very similar to the old fruit from the first game.

That being said, the existence of the Fluffruit doesn’t really come as a surprise, especially for long-time fans of this particular series. It was already expected that Nintendo would put into place some kind of gameplay mechanic that would not only distract shy Pokemon, but would allow them to stay put long enough for the player to take a photo.

As a matter of fact, even the game’s trailer briefly features the Fluffruit, although fans didn’t know what it was called until on Tuesday. While the concept of the Fluffruit is great and would definitely serve players well, its existence and how it was introduced into New Pokemon Snap’s canon is quite strange.

As previously mentioned, the Fluffruit looks exactly like the original Pokemon Snap’s fruit, which was basically only called Pokemon Food (Apple). Now, when both fruits are compared to one another, they have the same color, shape, and stem of an apple.

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Not only that, apples already in existence within the Pokemon universe. For instance, Pokemon Sword and Shield have a food type called Sweet Apple Curry, which is mainly made from Fancy Apple. Pokemon Sword and Shield even have a Pokemon known as Applin, which can further evolve into a much-stronger Apple-like creature with the use of either a Sweet Apple or a Tart Apple.

The way Pokemon are named has been pretty obvious from the start, and most especially in the more recent entries in the franchise. Players could instantly know what kind of Pokemon or item is at hand just by its name. For instance, Rattata is basically a rat while Caterpie is a caterpillar. But Fluffruit, on the other hand, isn’t…fluffy. It’s just a fruit that looks very much like an apple.

Well anyway, we’re just being too particular and its name doesn’t really matter that much. According to Nintendo, the Fluffruit is a “tasty fruit” that can only be found in the Lental region, so it’s possible that this is the new region’s version of an apple. At the end of the day, what matters is that the Fluffruit does a great a great job at keeping Pokemon happy and relaxed.

Biomutant Finally Gets Official Release Date

By
Aletheia
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0
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Biomutant was first announced during Gamescom 2017, along with an impressive trailer that left interested players wanting more. For the unaware, Biomutant is an action-RPG with an open-world environment, and players get to play as an anthropomorphic animal that they can customize to their liking.

Many expected that the title would be released within a few years after its initial reveal, but this did not end up being the case. Fans kept waiting for either developer Experiment 101 or publisher THQ Nordic to announce Biomutant’s release date, and after how many years of waiting, we finally have it!

Now, it’s been confirmed that the highly awaited game will officially launch on May 25, 2021. This exciting news was announced on Biomutant’s Twitter account, with the post also confirming that the game will be available on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Sadly, it looks like a version of the game that’s suited for next-generation consoles won’t be available, despite the fact that both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X were launched last November 2020. That said, not all hope is lost—next-gen users will still be able to experience Biomutant on their respective consoles thanks to backwards compatibility.

We’re definitely interested to see if the game will be able to live up to everyone’s expectations, especially since it’s been hyped for so long. After all, Biomutant was once likened to the critically acclaimed Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and that’s really saying something.

In addition to that, the game is touted to have incredible and ambitious combat, as well as extensive customization options. These aspects of a game aren’t exactly that easy to pull off, but we’ll see how it does within the next few months.

Before the release date for Biomutant was officially revealed, fans were quite worried that the game was going through issues in its development. This was because developer Experiment 101 was incredibly silent about the game’s development for quite a long time, so much so that many began to wonder if the title was canceled.

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However, thanks to publisher THQ Nordic’s financial reports, fans were reassured that the game was still set to release, despite the prolonged silence. Although, the financial reports failed to mention the release date at that time.

In any case, now that Biomutant’s launch date is public information, we expect that more details about the game will be revealed going forward and at a faster pace than ever before. New teasers and trailers will probably be dropped between now and its release date, giving fans a closer look at its gameplay and its supposedly ambitious combat.

It’s actually surprising that this important Biomutant announcement didn’t come with a trailer of some kind, as this is almost always the case. Hopefully, Experiment 101 or THQ Nordic will drop something new soon to keep the fans’ hype ongoing.

On the other hand, there may be some who find the lack of trailer and the nonchalant way the announcement was made to be concerning. Some may even assume that the game is going through some trouble with regards to its development. However, these assumptions are unfounded for now, and we won’t know for sure until May 25.

How To Save Time and Cut Your Business Costs With a Virtual Receptionist

By
PVP Team
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0
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Alexandra_Koch (CC0), Pixabay

Virtual receptionist service is a perfect outsource solution for business owners that covers the majority of customer-related responsibilities. Although they are primarily known for their answering service, they are not limited to it.

You can delegate some other duties to your virtual receptionist, including replying to emails or communicating via your company’s on-site chat, scheduling appointments, and providing immediate response to customers’ problems and complaints.

Introducing helpful services to your company is always associated with additional expenses, which may not be suitable for small businesses. But below, you will find some examples of how a virtual receptionist can indeed save money and allocate time for expanding your business.

Price per Call

Virtual receptionist pricing may vary depending on your business needs. Still, as a rule, specialists are being paid for the number of handled phone calls, not hours, which makes them more cost-effective than hiring a full-time in-house receptionist.

You can also pay your virtual receptionist only for the hours you need them or, conversely, establish 24/7 customer service support with their help. It will allow you to manage your business hours even if your company has branches in different time zones.

Training Costs Excluded

If you decide to use a virtual receptionist service to hire one for your business, you will get more than just an answering service for your business. First of all, such services provide comprehensive onboarding processes alongside professional training for their employees, so as a result, you will get an experienced customer support specialist.

Most people who work in virtual receptionist positions, even on a freelance basis, have vast customer service experience or have worked in the call center, meaning they already know how to deal with customers of any sort.

Virtual Office

Virtual receptionists work remotely, so there is no need to expand your office space or, in the case of a small business, rent one. Also, concepts like virtual office allow you and your employees to keep remote work productive from the most convenient locations and minimize long-term lease overhead. Virtual offices are significantly less expensive than physical ones and provide you with other virtual assistance technology on-demand, including answering services.

You will also be able to cut costs of commuting and save time on driving to work. Small business owners and startup founders find operating a virtual office highly beneficial. They provide them with a physical address and office-related functions and software but eliminate any possible administrative tasks.

Virtual office services also enable you to increase employment opportunities, meaning you will not be limited to hiring people among the locals-only and can start looking for the right team members across the country. Such an approach allows you to grow your business and build a larger team without gradually increasing office rental costs alongside.

Work-Life Balance

Virtual receptionist’s purpose is to take on all the mundane tasks to free up some time and mind space for you to develop your creativity and focus on new projects. Running a business on your own or even with a limited number of team members frequently results in getting stuck in answering customers’ emails and phone calls routine without an ability to move forward.

At that point, it is crucial to determine which tasks are the most time-consuming and to start delegating them! It will indeed help your business grow in different directions, exploring new approaches to your target audience, setting new, higher business goals, and reduce time spent on repetitive duties.

Moreover, many business owners, especially in the early stages of running a business, experience increased stress and anxiety levels and lack of sleep, not to mention quality time with friends and family. The presence of a virtual receptionist will allow you to allocate some time and money on your personal achievements, not necessarily connected with work.

Conclusion

Using a virtual receptionist service can bring different benefits to your company – from improved employee productivity and employment opportunities to high-quality customer support, which, as a rule, leads to an increase in sales. Besides, it has a positive effect on exhaustible resources, such as time and money, that are priceless for small businesses.

Virtual receptionists become responsible for day-to-day duties, freeing up more space for you to work on improving your company’s product or offer, and eliminating expenses on commuting or renting an office or training new employees. Thus, you can reduce unnecessary costs for small businesses as well as expand your team and company without being linked to a strict, physical location and maintain a remote but comprehensive functioning.

The main advantage of a virtual receptionist service is the amount of free time that it allocates for you. Just make sure to use it wisely!

First NASCAR Game For Nintendo Switch Coming Soon

By
Christian Allen Tandoc
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0
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Motorsports Games has worked on several official NASCAR racing games over the past years, including the NASCAR Heat series. However, Nintendo Switch has not received any NASCAR titles in the four-year life of the Japanese hybrid console, but this seems to be changing soon enough.

Talking to Motorsports.com’s Dmitry Kozko, CEO of Motorsports Games, talked about the company’s plans for 2021 and the foreseeable future. Multiple NASCAR titles are scheduled to be launched or developed this year, he confirmed, but on top of that, the team is eagerly developing and bringing a NASCAR game to the Nintendo Switch.

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Particularly, the CEO mentioned that he is excited to be launching the first NASCAR title on the Nintendo Switch for various reasons. Among them is the fact the Switch typically reaches a younger audience. Since some of the game’s targets are younger as well, reaching that Venn diagram may prove helpful for the development team. Among Us sold more than three million copies in less than a month on the Nintendo Switch, so the right game can surely post big numbers.

As far as Nintendo Switch racing games are concerned, there are a few choices, but the platform might always use more. What the particular game will be on the Switch is yet to be seen, though it might be the next installment of NASCAR Heat, which will possibly be NASCAR Heat 6.

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There is also the possibility that an entirely new and unique title on the Nintendo Switch, as sometimes development teams can make Nintendo-exclusive games. Although the interview mostly covered plans for this year, it was not confirmed whether or not the new NASCAR Switch game will be ready for release this year.

Immortals Fenyx Rising DLC Introduces New God, Abilities and Gear

By
Christian Allen Tandoc
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0
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After a few teases about the upcoming arrival of Immortals Fenyx Rising’s first expansion, A New God, Ubisoft has finally unveiled that the new content will land on January 28 and add new characters, gear, and other new content. Similar to other games published by Ubisoft, news about Immortals Fenyx Rising’s post-release content hit the internet in the days leading up to the open-world games’ December 2020 release.

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Sometime after the A New God DLC arrives, the second expansion, Myths of the Eastern Realm, will be available with a unique playable character in tow. The second chunk of content should take fans away from Ancient Greece to turn their heads on a brand new realm focused on Chinese mythology. In the meantime, the third and last expansion, The Lost Gods, will take players back to Greece, though, it will also introduce a brand new character for players to take the role of.

In a recent post on the official website of Ubisoft, the company confirmed that A New God will arrive on all platforms this Thursday, January 28. The forthcoming content will force Fenyx to overcome the Trials of the Olympians, all created by the Gods themselves.

While taking on these challenges, players will get the chance to explore the Olympos Palace and an entire myriad of new gameplay features. Players can expect to unlock four extra ability upgrades as well as a new armor set. Supposedly, the latter will grant amazing perks such as one that lets Fenyx pull off more jumps.

In spite of standing out as one of 2020’s biggest surprises, Immortals Fenyx Rising didn’t make much of a scene in the market. Hopefully, the inevitable launch of new content will result in the game getting another chance at stealing the spotlight.

 

Sand Tunneling Back In Fortnite After New Update

By
Christian Allen Tandoc
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0
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Sand tunneling is apparently back in Epic Game’s battle royale. The developer launched a new update a few days ago along with several improvements and bug fixes as well as the return of a problematic feature back in Fortnite.

Sand tunneling was first added in the game at the start of Chapter 2 Season 5. Not long after the feature is added, it had to be removed as Fortnite fans encountered bugs and glitches while using it. While Epic Games initially stated it would be reminding players when the feature comes back again, it seems sand tunneling was silently added along with the January 20 update. The addition in the update meant that the feature was unusable for about an entire month.

After the patch notes on the Trello board of Epic Games revealed that Fortnite fans can anticipate the feature back, fans such as Twitter user CreamDollar posted videos showing his team using sand tunneling again. Whether or not Epic Games has fixed all of the issues that have caused the feature to be removed a few times since its inclusion is uncertain, as sand tunneling has only been back for a couple of days.

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Fortnite has been consistently adding skins and new features since the start of Season 5. Alongside these updates, the game has encountered issues here and there. Having to temporarily remove a newly added feature to the game after glitches are encountered is not new in Fortnite, as the game gets a few new updates every month and has a rather massive player base.

Players tend to bring up that while the developers have their fair share of funny and harmless bugs, there’s a difference in the game between flying cars and hacks that allow certain players to gain an unfair advantage.

Because of the bugs revolving around sand tunneling, some experienced players were able to take advantage of the feature in various ways that were supposedly never meant to be present in the game. That seems to be the main reason why Epic Games removed sand tunneling for some time.

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Sand tunneling, when done correctly, is regarded as a fast way to move around parts of the map that contain a desert area. The feature can also be utilized to hide from opponents, as long as the person using sand tunneling doesn’t move an inch.

Sand tunneling can be activated by standing still on a sandy region of the map for three or four seconds. When it is activated, the sand tunneling player will start sinking into the ground, though the sinking can be interrupted if the character moves.

Pokemon With Highest Maximum Damage Revealed

By
Christian Allen Tandoc
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0
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One resourceful Redditor has done the math and was able to calculate the Pokemon that can deal the highest maximum damage in the Pokemon franchise. The Japanese gaming giant has remained constantly famous since its creation in 1995. It has fans of all generations who usually express their love for the universe through posts evaluating the series and its variety of Pokemon.

For the past years, there have been talks about which Pokemon has the highest maximum damage. Because of multiple various variables, it can be difficult to calculate. However, one Reddit user has solved the answer, and it’s possibly going to surprise long time Pokemon fans.

According to a post by Mx_Toniy_4869, the humble Shuckle has the capability to dish more than 500 million damage in the game. However, it is near impossible for players to meet a Shuckle dealing half-billion damage inside the game, because getting this Pokemon requires a lot of specific conditions, items, and transferring the Pokemon between games.

Obscure Pokémon Fact Day 36: Max Damage from pokemon

The player has to have a Shuckle at level 100, use Mimic to steal the move Ice Ball from a level 1 Noibat, and then use it against them. The move Ice Ball applies damage over five turns, with its damage increasing on every consecutive hit unless disrupted, but the skill’s damage is also doubled if the user previously used the move Defense Curl. Both Mimic and Defense Curl can be learned by Shuckle via a Move Tutor in Pokemon games from Gen 3 like Pokemon Emerald, Pokemon FireRed, and Pokemon LeafGreen.

However, one problem to overcome is that players can’t have this powered-up Shuckle encounter a Noibat, since the Pokemon wasn’t added in the games until Gen 6. Thus, to get the Pokemon with the max damage, players would have to transfer the powered-up Shuckle to Pokemon X, Y, Omega Ruby, or Alpha Sapphire to set up the battle. This can be done after the Move Tutor teaches Mimic and Defense Curl since the Move Tutors in the Gen 6 games cannot teach Shuckle these moves.

After leveling Shuckle to level 100 in the Pokemon Gen 6 title they want, the player will still need very specific conditions met to get 500 million damage dealt on a Pokemon. The Reddit post discloses that to power up Shuckle’s Ice Ball damage, the player is required to find a triple battle, with Shuckle and his allies holding particular items, use two Skill Swaps after using Screech and Defense Curl, and having two Cherrim’s use Helping Hand on Shuckle while his Ice Ball is ramping up. However, even with all these conditions met, the player would still have to get fortunate enough for the fifth hit to result in a critical hit and a max damage roll.

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