Author: pokemaniacchris

Anonymous asks:

If the Pokemon universe had an all out war between regions, which region(s) do you think will survive and which would fall? I’m not really talking about nuclear bombs and guns and stuff like that but the species of Pokemon in that region and how well they do against other Pokemon from other regions, the competency of the gym leaders, elite four, and champion, etc.

The thing about Pokémon trainers is they make terrible soldiers.  They all have wildly different capabilities, so it’s difficult to assign them tactical and operational roles.  They’re competitive and a lot of them have huge egos, so they tend to have poor discipline and unit cohesion.  Their individual battle styles and the different powers of their Pokémon will often work at cross-purposes if they haven’t been training together extensively. Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

I’ve got a challenge for you, if you have the time! Your hatred for Nosepass and Probopass is legendary around these parts of Tumblr (by which I mean your blog). How then would you ‘fix’ them to make them more interesting to you? So a challenge along the lines of your suggested improvements for the Top Ten Worst Pokémon! (don’t worry, we’ll do good ol’ Garbodor another day)

ohhhhhhhhhh goddddddddd

whyyyyyyyy

Okay, well… part of the problem is, the most interesting thing about Nosepass and Probopass is probably their link to the cardinal directions, but that link goes through the dumbest thing about Nosepass and Probopass – their giant red magnetic noses.  Also, it’s just bizarre to have a Pokémon that can only ever face directly north (how do they even fight like that?), and I kind of want some excuse to give them multiple faces, so that they “face” both north and south, or in all four cardinal directions, but then doing that would force us to abandon the cool moai inspiration. Continue reading “Anonymous asks:” →

Litten, Torracat and Incineroar

I have a little personal conjecture about how Incineroar was designed.

Litten
Litten

Game Freak deeply, sincerely, earnestly didn’t mean to make a fourth Fire/Fighting starter Pokémon.  They were just going to sit down and come up with some unique, entertaining and vaguely Hawaiian-inspired Fire-type.  But then Incineroar just rose up, unbidden, out of the primal mists of Game Freak’s collective id, embedded himself in their tortured psyches, and refused to leave.  Aware that they were making another Fire/Fighting starter Pokémon, but horrified by their inability to stop, they desperately called on Yveltal for help, and the vicious and cunning death god answered their prayers by corrupting Incineroar into a brutal Dark-type.

I mean, obviously some of that is speculative, but I think the general outline is close. Continue reading “Litten, Torracat and Incineroar” →

Anonymous

Now that you’re done with your play through, mind sharing your thoughts and theories on Anabel? I’m not asking for a formal review on her or anything as I know you have a lot of other things planned, but outside of the Epilogue bit you wrote, do you have anything to say on her appearance? Why they chose her, what it all means? It was a really unexpected appearance!

Anabel… I think she’s there at least partly because she isn’t in Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby, and they wanted to do something with her.  She’s sort of the unofficial leader of the Frontier Brains in Emerald, and does seem to have an affinity for legendary Pokémon, using more of them in the Battle Frontier than any of her colleagues except for Brandon.  They might also have felt it was important to include characters from Hoenn who could act as assurance that Mega Evolution isn’t gone for good (Anabel can use Mega Alakazam, Mega Lucario or Mega Latios in the Battle Tree).  She seems like she may be a Psychic-type specialist, so she sort of makes sense for the vaguely X-Files/Men In Black-ish Ultra Beast incursion plotline.  Could also be that the game designers have big plans for her in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.

Anonymous asks:

how broken would a grass/dragon mega serperior w contrary and draco meteor be?

Hmm.  Well, Serperior is pretty good now with just Contrary, Leaf Storm, and basically no other special movepool to speak of, and Grass has terrible type coverage.  The only other point of comparison is Malamar’s Superpower, which is a lot weaker for several reasons.  I don’t know if it’d quite be broken broken because un-STABed Draco Meteor isn’t going to be that much better than Leaf Storm a lot of the time, but it’d definitely be top tier.

EDIT: Derp, misread the question.  Eh, a Grass/Dragon mega evolution would be strong, but I don’t think *that* much more ridiculous than a bunch of other mega evolutions, and you get eaten alive by Ice Shard.  Also, would Serperior actually be able to learn Draco Meteor anyway?  Only Dragon-types can use the move tutor, and Ampharos can’t, despite having a Dragon-type mega evolution.

Rowlet, Dartrix and Decidueye

Rowlet
Rowlet

Bloody hell, if I don’t hurry this up they’re going to announce another damn generation before I’m done with this one; we’re already expecting whatever this bull$#!t is supposed to be and I’ve got eighty whole Pokémon to evaluate in the next couple of months, as well as talking about Team Skull and the Aether Foundation, and Hau, and maybe Lillie too, and whoever I decide counts as the Champion, not to mention answering the neverending tide of ridiculous banal questions that keep pouring out of my goddamn inbox (obviously, gentle reader, I’m not talking about any questions you might have submitted, which are of course consistently insightful and thought provoking; it’s all those other bastards that are the problem).

I’M FINE

Let’s talk about Rowlet. Continue reading “Rowlet, Dartrix and Decidueye” →

Anonymous asks:

The Gen I Fighting-types are all martial artists or athletes, but.. what the heck makes Primeape a Fighting-type? Can’t be its temper because hey, Gyarados ain’t a Fighting-type. If anything its temper should make it a Dark-type, along the lines of Tyranitar, Sharpedo, or Hydreigon.

Well, there was no Dark-type in generation I, and to be honest I think that’s probably the main reason Primeape isn’t Dark/Fighting or something (that’s probably what I would do with him).  Given that Primeape is humanoid in shape and has no particularly spectacular magical abilities, it makes sense that his fighting style would wind up having some resemblance to martial arts techniques, even though Primeape doesn’t appear to be influenced by an specific martial art like many other Fighting Pokémon are.