Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2018 i APC

For those who are puzzled about the hint of flames/saved- from-the-fire look to this month’s cover, rest assured that there is a link — and it’s all got to do with this being the 451st issue of our esteemed 38-year-old magazine. We couldn’t think of a more serendipitous time to cover VPNs (and other anti-region-restriction and censorship techniques) than in issue 451, with that number dovetailing nicely with Ray Bradbury’s sci-fi classic on the same themes, Fahrenheit 451. And a good VPN is pretty much a must-have in today’s computing climate — and that’s as much about defeating censorship and getting to geo-blocked content on streaming services like Netflix as it is about security and privacy. Since April last year, it’s been mandatory for all Australian ISPs to keep a…

“A software upgrade last year (iOS 10.2.1) does indeed detect a battery with degraded performance, and slow things down if power demand is too high.” Old iPhones can get slow, and the suspicion was always that Apple was deliberately throttling them to push upgrades. The iPhone 6 seemed particularly prone to this. Tempers shortened, forums filled with complaints, and rumours passed back and forth. At least four class action lawsuits were filed. Third-party testing revealed that the slowdown was real: old iPhone’s are having their processors slowed down by the OS. Apple finally admitted what it was up to. Apple issued a statement just before the New Year confirming that a software upgrade last year (iOS 10.2.1) does indeed detect a battery with degraded performance and slow things down if…

Artificial intelligence is very much in its infancy in 2018 — we’re nowhere near Terminator or Matrix- scale levels of intelligence yet, don’t worry. At this stage, the pros and cons of AI are still being debated, with notable persons such as Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking voicing caution. But while we are far from the realms of truly self-aware robots, the AI in use today has proven to be invaluable in many professions, with the future looking very bright indeed. Imagine automated cars ferrying disabled persons from A to B, providing them a level of independence they have not yet experienced. Imagine, too, a doctor using a specialised algorithm to help detect cancer. Then perhaps imagine monitoring stations identifying the climate to help predict severe weather and send early…

PC CASE TBC (~$120) | WWW.BITFENIX.COM There’s a facetious argument going around the tech industry that says RGB sells, therefore more RGB must be added to more products. The problem we have with that argument is that, if anything over 50% of the products out there feature RGB, then of course RGB is going to sell more. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s more popular, just that you have more RGB products than non-RGB. And as a consumer, if you’re left with just one choice, what other option is there? BitFenix’s Enso looks to capitalise on that growing ‘demand’ for all the red, green and blue, with what can only be described as the world’s most boisterously disorderly LED-lit chassis. Featuring four individual LED RGB strips baked into…

Yoink Give a boost to a key iOS feature. $4.49 | ETERNALSTORMS.AT Pad users around the world rejoiced when Apple announced drag and drop in iOS 11, but as with any new feature, there’s always room for improvement. Sure, we can finally copy items between different apps, but why not go a step further by adding the option to temporarily save items you’ll want to use again? That would be really handy. Thankfully, that’s the premise of Yoink, a virtual storage shelf that enhances iOS 11’s drag-and-drop functionality. It’s not a clipboard manager in the traditional sense — apps like Copied are still best suited to that particular task — but you can drag images, text clippings, web addresses and other files into the app, and then preview,…

Oh, Intel, you’ve done it again. Despite rumours that the 8th-gen Core CPUs would be compatible with the older Z270 chipset, once again buyers of new Intel chips also have to upgrade their motherboard. The new Z370 chipset is mandatory if you want to run Intel’s latest CPUs, which basically doubles the cost of upgrading to the new chips. Z370 still uses the Socket 1151 form factor, though, which means it’s at least compatible with existing Intel coolers. Despite being an identical-looking socket, it’s actually had more power delivered to the new chips, up from 128 VCC pins on the Z270 to 146. The Z370 still has 24 lanes from the chipset and 16 dedicated to graphics, delivering an identical 40 to the Z270. It likewise has the same number…

$269 | WWW.ASUS.COM/AU This eye-catching ‘board uses an all-black PCB with silver heatsinks and white I/O cover, putting it up there with the Taichi as one of the more attention grabbing units. It’s also got a feature that seems to increasingly becoming commonplace on all motherboards — an I/O plate that is permanently mounted. Considering how painful it could sometimes be to line up the mobo with the removable I/O plate in days of past, this is a welcome addition. There are a bunch of inputs; comprised of twin USB 3.1 Gen 2 (one type A, one type C), DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI, twin USB 2.0, Intel Ethernet, another two USB 3.1 Gen 1 and five 3.5mm minijacks. There’s also a single S/PDIF if you’re using an older amp.…

$259 | WWW.AORUS.COM One thing we haven’t pointed out about the Z370 chipset is that it seems to be able to handle remarkable memory overclocks, and this ‘board is no different. Most hit 4,000MHz, like this board, with a couple even claiming DDR-4,333MHz. You’ll have to spend a bucket-load to get compatible memory for a minimal performance increase, though. This is another motherboard that is festooned in bright lights, with a whopping eight different lighting zones capable of being programmed in one of 16.8 million colours. Twin Ethernet ports are included on the rear, as well as USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C and Type-A, as well as HDMI, DisplayPort and an old fashioned PS/2 connector for old-school keyboards and mice. There’s even five 3.5mm minijacks for really old…

On mobiles, you actually have access to all the same tools as on PC. You can modify your network DNS settings just like on a desktop. You can download your VPN provider’s app. You can use proxies in your browser, as well. On Android, you even can install and app called Orfox to access the Tor network. Other devices like smart TVs and consoles can be trickier. Your best option may be to not to try to modify the device at all — the best tool you have in this case is your router. With a few simple modifications, you can make it so that every device on your network will use Google DNS automatically. That way a single modification covers every device. CHANGING YOUR ROUTER’S DNS Configuring DNS services…

Twenty years ago, when PCs were universally beige, and APC’s staff had a lot more hair, we probably would have nodded in agreement if someone had told us that the desktop’s days were numbered. We’d used laptops, we’d heard about Moore’s law, we knew things didn’t get much better than Windows 95. It stood to reason that portable computers would take over, and that 17-inch CRT we could barely carry up the stairs would soon be on its way to the dump. That’s partly correct, as we thank any passing deity for flatscreens, but the desktop PC is still with us, and is really the only way to go if you want no-compromise computing power, be that for gaming, 3D content creation or 4K video editing. Laptops are fine, and…

One argument that can be drawn out of Hanson’s work is whether these brain emulations would be conscious. After all, if the Ems do all the work, and humans retire and live on the profits, isn’t there a word for that? As in Star Wars, where an army of apparently sentient droids obeys and are the property of the biological creatures, would we be condemning them to a nightmare of our own making? The question of whether computers will be conscious may never be answered. Hanson asserts there’s no way to tell: “If we mean it in the informal descriptive sense, of having some sense of self like humans do, that you can ask questions like: “What did you do yesterday?” or “How did you feel about that?” then most…

We strongly suggest you keep LineageOS support in mind next time you buy an Android device, so once the manufacturer feels it can drop your support like a tonne of bricked phones, you have the option of flashing an alternative OS that continues to be supported. LineageOS support tends to go to popular devices. Take a look at the official list at wiki.lineageos.org/devices to get a feel for what is popular: Google devices, Samsung Galaxy S, Note and Tab ranges, OnePlus, most Motorola Moto devices, LG, the HTC One and Sony Z ranges, among others. Another consideration is can you flash your device? Almost all manufacturers now offer a (legally required) process to unlock the device, but it varies from one manufacturer to another, and even between devices. Remember, unlocking…

We’re all familiar with the “voices too quiet, explosions too loud” problem when watching media at home. Film directors like people to have to listen intently as chiselled jawlines whisper sensitive yet plot-critical information, and they also like viewers to feel like they’re in the middle of an explosion, rather than a few blocks away. This is fine with a THX surround sound system in an acoustically engineered space where these noises can be reproduced accurately. However, your home setup may not be of this fidelity, and even if it was, all kinds of things can still happen to the audio before it hits your speakers. What comes out has likely been resampled (your sound card may, for example, prefer 48kHz to 44kHz), downmixed (there are many terrible ways of…

MPlayer can be a ‘bathtub of code’ sometimes, but it has some brilliantly quirky abilities. On the more conservative side, its -zoom and -loop options make MPlayer ideal for advertising displays and art installations (perhaps particularly effective when coupled with a Raspberry Pi?). Here is a video being upscaled and left on a permanent loop: For something quirky, it’s a cliché now, but you can output your videos into ASCII. It’s cheating a bit, but if you want things to look like The Matrix, you can change the video output to ‘matrixview’ with the -vo switch, like so: However, that’s not really ASCII, it’s a video filter! For true ASCII video (handy if you’re running without X), try the ‘caca’ video output: Speaking of the terminal, if you’re very lucky,…

PC, PS4, XO | $29.95 WWW.DESTINYTHEGAME.COM/HOME Getting the first batch of D2 DLC only a little over a month after initial release was great timing. A couple of weeks in and all but the most casual in the office were light-capped on at least one toon and even loading in to knock out Milestones on weekly reset felt laborious. Enter Curse of the Osiris and, hopefully, something to log in and grind for. Guardian level-cap has been upped to 25 with a light level raise as well. There’s a new zone — Mercury — where the Vex are doing... something... in the future. It’s typically bewildering but it’s vital we stop it. There are eight new story missions in total which probably took a little over two hours…

Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018 Adobe’s wallet-friendly image-editing app gets its regular yearly update. $149.95 | WWW.ADOBE.COM/AU Suitable for newcomers, the enthusiastic amateur photographer or even those pros who don’t care about things such as CMYK or 16-bit colour, Photoshop Elements is a photo editing program that punches above its weight. The package includes 90% of Photoshop’s most useful features for a single fixed price, rather than an annual subscription and is available as a standalone app or in a bundle with its video-editing brother Premiere Elements. The Elements interface basically remains unchanged since version 11, which was released back in 2012. So the Editor modes include the usual suspects: Quick, Guided, Expert and Camera Raw. As is often the case, the new features are mainly found in Quick…

Microsoft Edge Microsoft attempts to dethrone Chrome on Android. FREE | WWW.MICROSOFT.COM Why would anyone use Microsoft Edge on their phone? It’s a very good question. For anyone who’s recently set up a Windows 10 PC and tried to install Chrome, Microsoft’s modern internet browser seems a bit forlorn, a bit desperate to be given a go. Should we pity-use Microsoft Edge on our smartphones, then? There are some reasons why you might at least try it. If you happen to use Edge on your Windows machine, the ability to access your favourites/bookmarks and browsing history on phone is handy — though Chrome does this, too. If you’ve got the Fall Creators Update, you can click an icon, connect to a device, and have all tabs and content…

$239 | WWW.ASROCK.COM This is a considerably cheaper ‘board than the Taichi (right), so it’s to be expected that it won’t have nearly as many features. And yet, in one way it feels more rugged, perhaps due to the ATX PCB being thicker, though ASRock didn’t list this in the specs. This ATX ‘board comes with three PCIe x16 physical lanes, and another three x1 lanes. Two of the full length lanes are steel reinforced, which has become a feature found on pretty much every motherboard on the market. Twin M.2 slots both run at full speed, but neither has a heatshield, which is becoming more common on other ‘boards as M.2 SSDs are prone to throttling under heat. Unlike the Taichi, there’s no integrated Wi-Fi or twin…

$440 | WWW.ASUS.COM/AU This is the most expensive board in the roundup, yet it doesn’t pack that many more features than the rest. At around $440, we expected more, but it wasn’t to be. If there is one major difference, it’s the audio codec. ASUS has worked with Realtek to refine the ALC1220, using an improved version known as the S1220. As for the rest of the package, it’s business as usual. Six SATA 3 ports, twin M.2 and a single Gigabyte Ethernet port. At this price, we’d expect Wi-Fi but it isn’t to be. The layout is also the usual, with three 16x lanes and three 1x lanes, which is par for the course on much cheaper boards. ASUS is pushing the SLI capability of this motherboard,…

$299 | AU.MSI.COM The price on this motherboard has plummeted since its original release, down from an RRP of $349. We’re not sure why, as it’s an excellent product. In fact, it’s arguably our pick of the bunch. This ATX ‘board comes with three PCIe x16 lanes, along with another three x1, and two of the full length are steel reinforced. This stops GPUs from drooping, though 2018 will see many cases released with special vertical GPU mounts which also stops this issue. Steel reinforcement has also been used on the memory slots, which is a bit of a gimmick; it’s not as if a memory module weighs much. They’re nice and far away from the CPU socket unlike some boards, allowing for an extra large cooler. Twin…

Whether you want to work around online censorship and geoblocks, or just want to maximise your security and privacy, a VPN service can get the job done. The right service can give you access to media you can’t get Down Under, including the international libraries of Netflix, as well as protect your online activity from hackers and government snoops. Below, we’ve looked at some of the top VPN services available today. We’ve tried to focus on the largest and those that support Netflix in some fashion, though there are a number that we felt were noteworthy enough to include even though they can’t access Netflix. We set up and tested them all, but we should make the very important note that we’re only talking about our experience with the VPN.…

There’s a joke that circulates security circles: Android smartphones are really expensive abandoned Linux distributions. It hurts, but it’s true. Android is based on the Linux kernel, making Android (more or less) a form of Linux operating system, aka a distribution. Android smartphone manufacturers tend to bash out a device, build whatever the latest version of Android is, support it for the shortest amount of time they can get away with, then abandon the owners — vulnerable to whatever zero-day attack next raises its ugly head — running for the hills, waving their wads of cash. Take the OnePlus Two. A fine Android phone, but OnePlus dropped support two years after release, just as the Krack vulnerability struck. Tough luck, suckers! This is standard practice in the Android world. But…

We’ve mentioned that AOSP can’t include proprietary Google code; the ramifications of that is that a default install of LineageOS doesn’t offer Google Play services or any associated Google Android apps you might be familiar with, such as Maps, Keep, Hangouts, Gmail and so on. You do get open-source equivalents of some, such as Calendar and Contacts, but it’s not the same if you’re switching, and you’re going to want access to the Google Play Store. That gaping gap is filled by the Open Gapps project at opengapps.org. This provides a suite of downloads, from a minimal 125MB Pico install that’s the base Google Play services, to a full-fat Super package at 860MB, which includes every app ever shipped to a Google device. You need to choose the correct platform.…

“Make sure you use a passcode and set up a way to track yourWatch if you do happen to mislay it.” Set a passcode for Apple Watch 1 CHANGE YOUR PASSCODE There’s always a chance someone can look over your shoulder as you tap in your passcode, so it’s worthwhile changing your passcode every so often. 2 LONGER PASSCODE You can use a passcode longer than four digits, but in order to do this, you have to unlock the Watch with your iPhone and input the code on there. 3 UNLOCK WITH iPHONE For greater convenience, you could have your Watch unlock whenever you unlock your iPhone. If this is something you’d like, then just slide this to green. 4 SET A LIMIT Think about it: if someone stole your…

JACK (aka JACK Audio Connection Kit) has been serving hardcore Linux audiophiles since 2002. As its delightful recursive acronym (What happened to those? — Ed) suggests, it enables apps to plug into one another and for audio to be routed hither and yon, and in real-time, too. Like PulseAudio, JACK is a sound server that sits on top of ALSA (and many other hardware backends on many other platforms). It requires exclusive access to hardware, so can’t be used at the same time as PulseAudio, but that doesn’t mean the two can’t live side by side, cordially if not amicably. PulseAudio can be temporarily disabled, or routed through JACK while it’s in use, so there’s no need to uninstall it to try out JACK. Nor should you consider replacing PulseAudio…

We keep saying it because it’s true — Android smartphones are the ultimate personal computers. Multi-core chips, wireless capabilities and a pretty decent operating system allows these devices to do much more than make phone calls and play games. To prove it, this month we’ve rounded up our 10 best next-level hacks showcasing just how good phone hardware is — and best of all, there’s no ROM flashing or root-access required. TURN IT INTO A LINUX DESKTOP Android is built on Linux, as is Debian. So why not get some desktop Debian Linux on your Android device? Thanks to a couple of excellent free apps on Google Play — GNURoot Debian and XServer XSDL — you can download and install your own fresh copy of Debian Linux onto your Android…

APC is Australia’s oldest consumer technology magazine — having been consistently in print for over 35 years, since our first issue way back in May 1980 — and we take that heritage and responsibility very seriously. While our focus is obviously on the personal computer — it’s in our name, after all — the very definition of the PC has changed and shifted markedly since the early 1980s. As such, we touch on many other areas of tech too, from smartphones and apps to peripherals, accessories, online services and beyond. We have two main goals: to track down the best of modern tech and also to help our readers make the most of it. We’re also an open church in terms of platforms. We know most people aren’t wed to…

PC HEADSET $69 | WWW.LOGITECH.COM/AU Logitech has earned itself a legacy against which very few others in the PC peripherals market can compete. However, here we have a prime example of when things don’t go quite right. Simply put, we cannot recommend the G231 headset. Let’s start with the good: from a distance, it looks great. Now the bad! The G231 lacks any definition in the upper end of the treble. The muffled cries of artists feel hidden, almost smothered by the dominating thrum of overpowering bass notes. Definition of sound is lost for the sake of gaming prowess and awe, if you can call it that. As a whole, the design isn’t actually too bad and it follows Logitech’s somewhat meticulous styling. The problem is the materials…

Scrivener 3 Fall in love with writing all over again. $69.99 | LITERATUREANDLATTE.COM Scrivener is an app for writers who need to write big things — say, dissertations or novels. It’s not just a manuscript editor, although it’s a good one. It’s not just a publishing tool, although it’s good at that, too. And it’s not just a place to store your research, although it’s damn good at that, as well. It’s a writing companion that’s with you from the first spark of an idea to the final edit. We’d used Scrivener 2 to publish a novel, so decided to give Scrivener 3 something even more meaty: 107,422 words of non-fiction across 50 chapters, hundreds of footnotes and gigabytes of background, and a brand-new project that meant collating…

FLOffice A nicely organised free office suite. FREE | WWW.BIT.LY/2CA44PA When Linux users ask us to help with the choice of an office suite, it’s difficult for us to come up with a really intriguing offer, because everyone knows that it will still be LibreOffice. This is the most powerful and advanced set of office applications that proudly bears the banner of ‘open source’ around the world. However, no matter how developers optimise it, it still remains a big and resource-intensive package, which may not even work on old computers. Recently, small boxes like the Raspberry Pi have been gaining in popularity, and many people would like to be able to perform office tasks on these low-power devices. FLTK Office Suite, or FLOffice for short, doesn’t pretend to…

$339 | WWW.ASROCK.COM Amazingly, the price of this ‘board has jumped $50 over its RRP since it first came out, which is a first for motherboards. Luckily, it’s got more features than most of the others, though it doesn’t feel like the build quality is quite up to strength. One of its highlights is the beautiful design with cog motif. It’s a very individual looking ‘board, though ASRock has toned down the RGB lighting. There are three full-length PCIe x16 lanes, all of which are reinforced with steel, along with twin x1 lanes. Best of all, though, is the inclusion of three M.2 slots, more than any other ‘board in the roundup. However, only two run at the full speed of PCIe 3.0 x4, with the third running…

$249 | WWW.AORUS.COM Oh, dear... If you want your PC to look like a disco, this ‘board has you covered. Aorus has gone to town with the RGB lighting, with six different zones, each of which can be programmed to have a unique colour. It’s called ‘RGB Fusion’ and should work with the majority of other company’s RGB products so you can have one big flashy PC, mouse, keyboard and even monitor. It’s a standard ATX sized motherboard, and once again, we see three full-length x16 physical slots, all steel reinforced, with another three x1 slots. Each slot has a proprietary locking mechanism, which does actually hold the cards in more stably, while also being easier to unlock. The ‘board also features plenty of buttons for things like…

$249 | AU.MSI.COM By now, you’ve probably noticed a theme. All Z370 motherboards around the $260 mark are pretty much identical. And the MSI Z370 SLI Plus is no exception. It’s interesting that MSI has stuck ‘SLI’ in the product name, as Nvidia is no longer promoting SLI. We’re guessing MSI’s marketing team is simply leveraging the perception that SLI is faster. Once again, we see lots of RGB lighting in the form of MSI’s ‘Mystic’ system, which can be programmed via the easy-to-use desktop software. The layout of the board is identical to most of the others, with three x16 and three x1. Once more, we see twin M.2 slots, but there are no heatshields this time around, a surprising omission. Also, only one of these can…

1 CHANGING YOUR PC’S DNS If you’d just like to be able to access the sites that might be restricted by your ISP, the simplest thing to do is change your PC’s DNS server. All you need to do is find your computer’s DNS settings and enter a new DNS number. On Windows, just follow these steps: ■ Right click on the Start button and select ‘Network Connections’. ■ Click on ‘Change Adapter Options’. ■ Right click on your network adapter (whichever one you’re currently using, Ethernet or wireless) and select properties. ■ Find ‘Internet Protocol Version 4’ (TCP/IPv4) in the list and left click on it to select it. Then click Properties. ■ Switch the radio button to ‘Use the following DNS server addresses:’ and enter 8.8.8.8 in the…

1 BACK UP YOUR DEVICE If anything goes wrong, you’ll want an escape plan. 2 GET THE TOOLS AND DRIVERS 3 UNLOCK YOUR DEVICE This wipes everything. 4 INSTALL A NEW RECOVERY ROM Typically, this is TWRP. 5 COPY LINEAGEOS AND GAPPS TO THE DEVICE 6 WIPE THE CACHE, FLASH THE DEVICE, REBOOT 7 WAIT... That’s the power of open source — while one group might shut down development, another is free to pick things up and carry on where they left off. It took a few months through the start of 2017 for servers to be established, websites to spin up, and development to pick up, but as we start 2018, LineageOS officially supports almost 200 devices, with many more through unofficial development. See the boxout opposite on how…

 Proprietary software is pure evil, so some people say. It denies you ownership of something you’ve paid money for, hides the true nature of the software, and enables spying, backdoors and security holes to propagate without the user’s knowledge. While some of that is still possible with open source, the chances of it happening are much reduced. To try to bring open source to Android, a system was created called F-Droid, available from f-droid.org. “F-Droid offers an alternative source of Android software that you can trust.” You can install this on standard Android and LineageOS, as long as you enable ‘Unknown Source’ within the Security settings. Then download and install the APK from the website. F-Droid attempts to be an open-source repository, offering freed software to anyone willing to install…

All you wanted to do was stream that video, copy that file or try to view a few photos, but the Wi-Fi chooses that exact moment to play up. It’s a problem we’ve all encountered. How do you troubleshoot a wireless connection? With some basic radio frequency (RF) transmission theory knowledge, an understanding of the local environmental conditions and a few simple Raspberry Pi Linux applications, you’ll be better prepared to tackle Wi-Fi connection issues in the future and bedazzle fellow pub goers with your IEEE 802.11 knowledge, too! This tutorial make the assumption that you have some basic experience with a Raspberry Pi. What does that mean? It’s always a struggle to determine what to put into a tutorial verses what to leave out. Here, the assumption permits the…

Some of the most interesting Arduino projects I’ve seen are M&M sorters, gadgets that will automatically sort your M&Ms — or any other coloured lollies — by colour into separate containers. The mechanisms used to do the actual sorting are usually quite elaborate, either using 3D-printed swivel arms attached to a high-grade stepper motor or mechanical arms that pick up individual lollies and move them around. But no matter which sorting method they use, they all need to have at least one feature in common — and that’s being able to determine colour. COLOUR-TO-FREQUENCY You could try using a video camera for this — and it would probably work. But there is a simpler, more affordable technique called ‘light-to-frequency conversion’ inside a device called a ‘programmable colour light-to-frequency converter’. We’ll…

VIVE, PSVR | $39.95 WWW.DOOM.COM When Bethesda announced Doom VFR at E3 last year, it seemed a bit optimistic that a foot-to-the-floor, high- speed FPS could make a smooth transition to VR. But it’s better than expected, for two reasons: one, the game is a condensed, bespoke Doom game, not just a direct port of the 2015 title; and secondly, there’s no free locomotion. In other words, you’re warping around the map using your PS Move controllers (or the HTC Vive equivalent on PC). This works surprisingly well: moving around the map is fun and achieving glory kills is a matter of warping directly into ailing predators. Some will object to this dramatic departure from the FPS formula, but it’s the only way to avoid the motion sickness…

NINTENDO 3DS | $50 WWW.NINTENDO.COM.AU The seventh generation of Pokémon games are the last to come out for the 3DS system as the series shifts to the Switch, and as such, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon represent the final hurrah. For those that played Sun and Moon, much of the Ultra experience will be familiar to you as they aren’t true sequels (in the vein of Black and White 2), but are instead a refined twist on the original. This fine-tuning is certainly welcome, from the small improvements such as a clarified UI and menu system to more significant additions like entirely new Pokémon and mini-games. A lot of the more meaningful changes will show up much later in the game, particularly those that relate to plot, and…