Author: pokemaniacchris

So, things are happening

Okay, I know this is not an ideal time for something like this, just when I’m on a roll with the ‘if I were in charge’ thing, but my life is going to be pretty hectic over the next couple of weeks.  This is because I am fleeing the country.  In just over a week, I am leaving New Zealand, pretty much for the foreseeable future, and going to Ohio to start my PhD.  I am doing this because the Americans possess ludicrous sums of money, which they have offered to share with me if I will do their bidding for six years.  Obviously this is going to cut down just a little bit on my blog writing time.  I am hoping to get one more entry up before I leave, but, well, we’ll see.  The last two in that series, and any retrospective which I may or may not do, will have to wait.  Beyond that… well, I certainly have no plans at the moment to give this up, but… y’know, PhD, presumably a lot of work; things are probably going to get slower rather than faster.  Just a heads up.

If I Were In Charge: Come with me; the time is right – there’s no better team

When you jump into a new Pokémon game, your first point of contact is invariably your starter Pokémon – often, in fact, before you even play the game; the starters always get a lot of publicity before the games themselves are released, and plenty of people choose their starters well in advance of the release date (as for me, my permanent love affair with the Grass type makes Chespin pretty much non-negotiable for when I first play X or Y).  For many of us, the starters are what defines a game’s character; on-and-off fans may decide whether or not to buy a game based on the designs of the starters, some players go so far as to use only their starters for battle with a couple of utility Pokémon on the side, and Charizard’s flame still sparks nostalgia in people who last played Pokémon in the 1990’s.  This makes them very powerful ideas, and Game Freak, bless their little hearts, know that, which is why the starters have for a long time now been some of the most intensely scrutinised Pokémon of the lot during the pre-release design process, second only to plot-relevant legendary Pokémon.  I spent a great deal of time early last year discussing the starter Pokémon of the past and present; I will refer you in particular to the last entry in that series, which discussed many of the concepts I’ll continue to play with now, though hopefully I’ll pin down something a bit more concrete today, given the nature of this series.  Now, without further ado – how would I handle starter Pokémon in this hypothetical game I imagine myself directing?

Continue reading “If I Were In Charge: Come with me; the time is right – there’s no better team” →

Do you think rapid spin should be stronger, have its strength increase when it blows away an entry hazard, and be learnable by almost every flying type? (Yes, this is my idea to try to counter the over-use of stealth rock in competitive play)

Well, this would aim to weaken entry hazards in general, and it’s not really entry hazards that are the problem.  I don’t think anyone really believes that Spikes or Toxic Spikes are over the top; it’s only Stealth Rock that’s particularly controversial, partly because it takes only one turn to set up, partly because it so dramatically tips the odds against any Pokémon vulnerable to Rock attacks (that is, Flying-, Bug-, Ice- and Fire-types).  Honestly, I think the best fix (assuming that straight up eliminating Stealth Rock is out of the question, which I suspect it is) would be to add more entry hazards, with different elemental properties, which cannot be used in conjunction with Stealth Rock (the attack just fails if there’s a set in place already).  Add, for instance, Grass- and Fire-type versions (let’s call them, say, Vine Trap and Burst Mine) – with three alternatives in play, the impact of each individual one will be lessened, and instead of four types being victimised, there will be nine that have to watch their backs.  Of course, anything dealing with type dynamics is difficult to go into in detail, when we know we’re going to have a new type thrust upon us soon…

Do you have any personal opinions on how the Pokemon anime shall end?

Shall or should?

Quite honestly, I don’t think they have any plans for it to ever end.  As long as they keep making new Pokémon, they’ll need to introduce them in the anime, and continuing to make new Pokémon is pretty much the heart of Game Freak’s business model.  They’ve shown that they don’t care about Ash being in a state of general stasis with regards to his personal development (not to mention his age), and they certainly don’t care about recycling plots (compare, for instance, the Johto episode All That Glitters with the more recent Dancing With the Ducklett Trio, or Charmander’s backstory with Tepig’s), although, to be fair, the newer versions are often improvements.

If the anime ever ends, it will be because they ran out of money.  We can only pray that someone will have the presence of mind to write some sort of conclusion for the last few episodes.

I know that your a collage student and on a completely random but have you ever read the Percy Jackson books, I only ask because you seem to love mythology and it does a decent job combining modern life with mythology.

The Percy Jackson series is something of a guilty pleasure of mine.  I know it’s sort of supposed to be for children and teenagers, but- wait a minute, this is my Pokémon blog; I don’t have to justify myself on this.  I love the author’s exhaustive use of just about every mythological figure in all of classical literature, and his often hilarious interpretations thereof.  As a classicist, reading those books is pretty much one big long stream of “I see what you did there.“

Do you normally nickname Pokemon?

I do, usually.  Lots of Greek- and Roman-sounding names, generally. I have two Volcarona, for instance, both female; one is Helia (from helios, the ancient Greek word for the sun), the other is Invicta (from the Roman sun god Sol Invictus – “the unconquerable sun").  Other times I go with a theme – on White 2 my Pokemon were all named after characters from A Song of Ice and Fire.

If you could live anywhere in the Pokemon world, where would it be and why?

I’m going to be a hipster on this one and pick Six Island, in the Sevii archipelago.  It has ruins to study, but it’s not quite as much of a hick town as Seven Island (the people are quite spread out – there are really two towns – but they are there).  I also like island climates, having lived in New Zealand all my life.  Continental towns are too changeable for my taste.

Okay, now, what is your least favourite Pokemon from each generation? (Apologies if you’re getting sick of this favourite/least favourite nonsense.)

Hrm.  Tricky.

1. I think I’m probably going to go with Pinsir, although he might be less ‘least favourite’ and more ‘most forgettable,’ partly because Heracross exists.

2. Snubbull.  I never quite ‘got’ the whole “pink fairy bulldog" thing.

3. Nosepass.  Yes, I know it’s based on a moai statue.  Yes, I know that’s exactly the kind of cultural allusion I normally like.  Whatever you wish to point out to me in Nosepass’s defence, YES, I KNOW!  No, I still think the idea of a Pokemon that uses its enormous magnetic nose to keep itself pointed north is dumb.

4. Probopass.  I hated Nosepass so much, and then they went and evolved him, made his nose bigger, gave him a moustache, and attached three ‘mini-noses’ to him, thus winning him the dubious honour of being the stupidest Pokémon of the generation for two generations running, something I hadn’t even thought possible.

5. Garbodor.  I don’t particularly want to open the whole argument again, so I’ll just give you the link.

If I Were In Charge: I will battle every day to claim my rightful place

The strange thing about Pokémon is that not all of us are playing the same game.

There’s the game put in front of us by Game Freak and Nintendo, where we accumulate a team of six Pokémon and wander around a region fighting AI trainers, getting stronger, gaining levels, learning more powerful moves and evolving our partners… and then there’s the game of our own making, the world of competitive Pokémon, where the only worthwhile opponents are other players, all Pokémon are assumed to be at their maximum level with their optimum movesets before you ever use them, and effort training is considered essential, breeding to get good genes highly advisable, and using a poor nature suicidal.  Moderately interesting, you might think, but what makes this a problem that needs to be addressed by an ‘If I Were In Charge’ rant?  Well, call me crazy, but I actually believe that a lot of arguments and misplaced vitriol in the Pokémon community stem from the fact that the people on opposite sides of those arguments are playing two different games, and that one or both parties are unwilling or unable to recognise that.  Possibly the greatest part of these problems relate to which Pokémon are ‘good’ or ‘usable’ and which ones are not, which is not what I plan to address today – that gets another rant all of its own – what I want to address now is what defines these ‘two games,’ what makes them so different, why I feel the gap should be narrowed, and how that can best be done.

Continue reading “If I Were In Charge: I will battle every day to claim my rightful place” →