Author: pokemaniacchris

Anonymous asks:

So according to Bulbapedia, Blaziken may have various cultural allusions, ranging from the bird-headed sun deities Horus and Ra from Egyptian mythology, to the phoenix, to fire-breathing chickens and bird-headed humanoids of Japanese folklore. Do you think there’s any credibility to this? Personally I think Horus/Ra might be reaching but they might be on to something with the basan/karura.

Well, I’m super vague on some of those things, but I don’t think Blaziken needs to be all of them.  I think if there’s a fire chicken in Japanese folklore, and if we know that cockfighting is a real thing that makes the additional Fighting type appropriate, well, you’ve sort of got the whole design there; there’s not really any more mystery to what Blaziken is and does that we need to find explanations for.  Like, you can say “well, on top of all that it’s similar to Horus” but I think if the designers meant it, there would be some more specific call-out for us to pick up.

Anonymous asks:

In generations one/five/six/seven you were just kind of given your starter to go an a journey. In two you were originally loaned your starter to do a short errand before it was permanently given to you (the best introduction to starters, imo). And in three/four you took a starter from a bag to defend someone (the professor/yourself and your rival respectively). How would you do it? How’d you frame being given your starter Pokemon?

I’ve always had rather a fondness for IV, which I think is the most involved version.  It feels like it adds something to the relationship between you and your starter, to have you owe your Pokémon something like this, and for your partnership to begin with sheer chance (and the characterisation of the rival character Barry, through these events and your subsequent interaction with Professor Rowan, was interesting). Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Poplio, Brionne and Primarina

Poplio.
Poplio

Time for Alola starter number 3: the Water-types, Poplio, Brionne and Primarina.  I have something of a history of being distressingly lukewarm on Water-type starters, whom I’ve often put in the “fine” basket with little further comment, and for a while it looked like Poplio was going to go the same way, if not worse.  I know I’m not the only one who was less than enthusiastic about Alola’s Water-type starter initially.  After all, we’re onto our fourth pinniped Pokémon now (that’s seal, sea lion and walrus Pokémon, for the uncultured masses), they’re all Water-types, and this is even the second starter among them.  But even Poplio has design elements that show a different direction to Dewgong, Walrein and Samurott, which only continue to diverge through evolution, and this has turned out to be one of those Pokémon that feels weird to me at first, but makes more sense the longer I keep looking at it. Continue reading “Poplio, Brionne and Primarina” →

Anonymous asks:

Are you a superhero fan at all? Comics, movies, TV series, cartoons, games, anything?

Not particularly.  I’ve watched a fair bit of Arrow and The Flash, and some movies here and there (I really enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy, which… I don’t know, is that still a “superhero” movie because it’s Marvel, or is it sci-fi?  What are the boundaries there?) but I don’t go out of my way to engage with superhero stuff, and I wouldn’t have called myself a fan of the genre broadly.

Anonymous asks:

Someone commented on the weirdness of Burn Up on one of your posts. I think High Horsepower is more of a missed potential here. The attack animation uses the shape of a horseshoe so it’s implied to be a horse kick, right? That’s such a wonderful excuse to give it to Rapidash and Zebstrika! Those two could really use a good physical Ground move, and if Game Freak aren’t going to give them Earthquake then why not High Horsepower, right? (Girafarig should get it too, if only because it suits him).

Yeah, that would make a lot of sense, actually.  Plenty of room for a move tutor in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, or just outright giving the move to other horselike Pokémon in generation VIII, in case you’re listening, Game Freak!  Signature moves are great and all, and there’s something to be said for keeping them exclusive, but we’re not just handing it out so they can have a nice Ground attack; the point of High Horsepower is to say “this Pokémon is particularly horsey and has a nasty backwards kick,” so if there are other Pokémon this applies to, go ahead.

Anonymous asks:

You’ve been asked about the Pokémon that you think should be retyped. What about Pokémon that should be re….Abilitied? (???) Gens VI and especially VII have been switching up a lot of old Pokémon’s Abilities, so this seems a more feasible change to happen rather than retyping, no? So, with our hopes up, which Pokémon would YOU like to have one (or both) of their Abilities changed, and to what?

Well, honestly the possibility that leaps most immediately to mind for me is the one that’s probably least likely to happen – namely, giving all the starter Pokémon different abilities.  I understand as a design choice why we have Overgrow, Blaze and Torrent, because they’re abilities that, as a new player, you don’t have to think about very hard, if at all.  But gods they’re boring.  In the same vein, a lot of legendary Pokémon, particularly from the earlier generations, just have Pressure as a kind of default ability, which is actually really weird because, despite being an okay fit thematically, Pressure is a super-niche ability to actually use; most Pokémon don’t get very much out of having it.

Anonymous asks:

You know the little cemetery cutscene on Melemele, with the old woman on the Machamp? Her story about her late husband features a really interesting Pokémon – Poké Ball relationship. I am really curious as to what your thoughts are about it!

So the story, for the viewers at home, is as follows.  This old woman and her Machamp are visiting the grave of her husband, Machamp’s trainer.  He died in a car crash that likely would have claimed Machamp’s life as well, but he had the presence of mind to recall Machamp to its Pokéball at the last moment, protecting it.  Machamp subsequently threw away its own Pokéball and refused to use one again.

Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

Oddish is based on the mandrake plant, which is cool, but none of its evolutions seem to retain this cultural influence. Now I KNOW you like Vileplume, but suppose you were given a chance to redesign Oddish’s evolutions so that they keep to their mandrake influence, how would you do it?

Honestly, for a while I kind of thought Oddish wasn’t actually based on mandrakes at all, but just had some coincidental similarities, because other than being a plant that looks like it has legs underground, there’s not really anything there.  I did then run over this line from the Yellow version Pokédex though: “If you try to yank it out of the ground, it shrieks horribly.”  That hasn’t ever been repeated, and to be honest the Yellow Pokédex has a lot of weird $#!t in it, so I kinda would still be happy to think that Oddish is independent from mandrakes, and that someone noticed the similarities during production on Yellow.  I sort of want to just say “give it Perish Song”; I think that’s enough of a nod.