Anonymous asks:

What are your thoughts on a potential Diamond and Pearl remake?

Eh. On the one hand, I sort of think there are better things Game Freak’s designers could spend their time on – the original Diamond and Pearl are basically fine, I feel. They hold up a lot better than the original Ruby and Sapphire did, anyway. On the other, I suppose I wouldn’t exactly be averse to seeing the writers tackle the cosmic Pokémon of generation IV again, take a fresh look at them, maybe play around a bit more with their roles in the Pokémon universe, and try to do something interesting with the way myths and legends work in shaping our understanding of their world. I guess that means I’m basically neutral on the idea.

Anonymous asks:

Now that Gen VI is over, which, in your opinion, has been the weakest/worst generation of the main series games so far? (Not counting VII) Conversely, which generation do you think was the best?

I’m not sure I do have an opinion on that. Like, obviously they’ve been improving over the course of the franchise’s lifetime, but just as obviously I’ll be lynched if I say that I and II were clearly the worst. Also they’re not uniformly better and worse at everything they do. Like, V in my opinion has the best story, but I was never wild about its Pokémon designs, IV made some really important changes to the game mechanics but does some kinda screwy things with the world-building, and III was basically decent all around but nothing really sticks out about it for me other than its unique musical style. It’s sort of difficult to say “right, this one was overall the best,” because how on earth do you compare things like that? VI was just pretty solid all around, I suppose, and I liked aspects of its general design philosophy, which makes me optimistic for when I check out VII.

Pokémon Generations: Episode 14

This episode of Generations features Team Plasma’s assault on Opelucid City from the second half of Black and White 2, in which the city is frozen by blasts from their flying ship’s Kyurem-powered cannons. It’s another one of those episodes that is basically showing us something we’ve already seen and know about, but manages to make it just that little bit more evocative through the cartoon medium than the games could originally manage.

Continue reading →

Ultimasheir asks:

You denied Bisharp’s right to exist back when just Black and White were out. Now it’s a defining metagame pokemon, with exceptionally powerful options in Knock Off and Sucker Punch, as well as Dark/Steel being excellent offensive typing due to the changes to Dark and Steel in Gen VI. Are you satisfied with the pokemon, now?

Sure, I suppose. I mean, most of the stuff I said at the time about Bisharp’s design (on which I was fairly equivocal) still applies. Rereading the entry, I feel like I could very easily have gone the other way on him if I’d found a little more to like in his flavour text or something – after all, I described him as “at least vaguely competent” in battle, which I still think is a perfectly fair assessment of Bisharp’s capabilities at that time (generation VI has been very kind to him). So there are definitely things about Bisharp that I still feel decidedly ‘meh’ towards; it’s just that he’s now so obviously strong that I’m sort of forced to overlook them.

Continue reading →

VikingBoyBilly asks:

In the episode Extreme Pokémon, the day care man gave ash a (teal? blue?) egg in a glass case and he said “when the pokémon hatches, use the pokéball on top of the case to hatch it with.” So… is that what’s happening when you receive eggs that already have a pokéball from the day care man? (incidentally, was that the larvitar egg, or is it another pokémon?)

(I don’t know the dialogue from that episode offhand, but I think you mean to say “use the Pokéball to catch it with,” not “hatch it with,” because if Pokémon actually cannot hatch without a Pokéball then we have some serious problems here)

I suppose it must work something like that? I mean, we can hatch eggs even if we have no Pokéballs in our inventory, and the baby Pokémon have Pokéballs automatically, so unless we envision Pokémon somehow hatching with Pokéballs, someone must be supplying free ones with every egg. You can probably read into this, if you choose, all kinds of sinister things about being born into slavery (which could certainly be a very interesting way to take it), but I don’t think you have to for it to make sense. If you think of the main functions of Pokéballs being protection and transport… well, no one wants the most vulnerable Pokémon on their team to be forced to walk everywhere and have nowhere to retreat to in case of danger or injury. And the alternative – just releasing an infant Pokémon into a potentially hostile environment with no caregiver because you happened not to have any Pokéballs at the time – is clearly lunacy. I mean, in practice we do that in the games all the time and in astonishing numbers, but you sort of have to give them points for trying…

(also I believe the egg you’re referring to is the one that eventually hatches into Ash’s Phanpy)

Anonymous asks:

Which of the current mega evolutions is your favorite or do you think is the best designed?

I’m very fond of Mega Sableye, personally. Mega Evolution is a process that creates a crazy-overpowered super battle mode, not something that’s meant to exist as a realistic creature – it turns Pokémon into exaggerated versions of themselves. I think Mega Sableye lugging around a massive jewel that it uses to reflect attacks (hence the Magic Bounce ability) is a fun, quirky way of doing that.

The Philosophical Sheep asks:

In the fan-made game Pokemon Legends of the Arena, instead of 8 gyms and a champion, you fight in a series of tournaments to win the championship. Each tournament is in a different town, allowing the pokemon journey feel to remain in effect. Now, the game isn’t exactly good, but how would you feel about GameFreak using a similar concept in the official games?

So the tournaments sort of take the place of Pokémon Gyms in terms of the games’ structure? Could be interesting, and personally I like the idea of tinkering with the formula. I think this kind of format would be quite neat if it allowed you to explore what the Pokémon League is, how it works, and who its leaders are a bit more. There’s a lot of worldbuilding stuff in that area where Game Freak has always just kinda let us fill in the blanks.

Anonymous asks:

What kind of music do you listen to?

I sort of don’t, really. I have a great big iTunes playlist of my favourite video game music (lots from Pokémon, lots from Civ V, lots from Undertale, lots from Homestuck which isn’t a video game but sort of acts like one, quite a bit from Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights, little bit from Starcraft, little bit from Final Fantasy), but I don’t follow any bands or performers, and to be honest couldn’t even name many, or describe them in terms of genre.