Category: Game Design Questions

vikingboybilly asks:

I heard that farfetch’d was put in the game to teach players a ‘lesson’ about trading a spearow that could evolve into a fearow for something that will only have limited usefulness (because fearow is so godly, right?), just like magikarp is there to be a lesson. You know what I did with magikarp? I put it in the daycare until the end of the game. It was at level 31 by that time and evolved into gyarados with no effort. Isn’t that what everyone did? Their lesson was lost.

Everyone?  I beg to differ.  Personally I’ve never done anything of the kind.  And I think the point is there all the same – you evolved your Magikarp with no effort, but waited until the end of the game for it to reach a high enough level on its own, so you certainly had to exercise patience.  Even if you catch a Magikarp at level 19 and use a Rare Candy to evolve it immediately, Magikarp still expresses one of Pokémon’s central themes, that something small and weak can grow into something great and powerful with the right kind of care.  I don’t think we have to interpret Magikarp in such a narrow way.  The lesson is “lost” if you choose to ignore it, but that’s always been the case for everything.

As for Farfetch’d… well, yes and no.  It makes sense with Farfetch’d’s… wait, that doesn’t look right.  Farfetch’ds?  Farfetchd’s?  Farfetch’s’d?

Continue reading “vikingboybilly asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

Why do you think there haven’t been any Gym Leaders who specialize in the Dark-type, despite there being multiple Elite Four Dark-type specialists?

Difficult to say.  In Gold and Silver it was likely because there were so few Dark Pokémon and all of them except for Umbreon were very late-game, but that excuse is really gone by the third generation.  I suppose you could suggest that, because Dark is the ‘evil’ type and Dark techniques focus on, basically, fighting dirty, while Gym Leaders are supposed to be educators and pillars of the community, they just don’t want Gym Leaders who focus on Dark-types; they want trainers to have more experience before they start playing around with that stuff.  But that’s just me making stuff up; I don’t have any particular support for that interpretation.

Anonymous asks:

What would you say are the Pokémon that best exemplify the five Contest categories?

Mmmm… tricky…

Well, beauty has to be Milotic, right?  ‘cause originally Milotic’s very evolution was tied to the beauty stat, and no other Pokémon has that kind of connection.

I reckon cleverness and toughness are probably Alakazam and Machamp respectively, since in the original games they sort of form an opposed pair of brain and brawn.

Coolness is hard because it’s something that you know when you see it but is hard to define; if you look at the moves associated with it, they tend to be either flashy, dynamic and powerful or quick and accurate, so there are kind of two aesthetics blended in there.  I think I can probably appeal to popular authority, though, and say without fear of contradiction that the coolest Pokémon of all time is Charizard.

Cuteness is downright impossible because there are so many Pokémon you quite justifiably could pick.  Also I happen to think Dunsparce is the cutest Pokémon ever but I suspect this is a minority view on my part.  I might have picked Pikachu for this because of his universal popularity, but Cosplay Pikachu firmly establishes him as being linked with all five categories.  The best I think I can do is narrow it down to two – Eevee or Togepi – because I think the concept of ‘cuteness’ implies the potential for growth, and those are both Pokémon for whom that’s a really important design element.

Onethousandrbirds asks:

if you could rewrite or redirect the plot of any of the games (main series or spin-off) which would you pick?

Hmm… until last year I would have said Emerald, but Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby did a pretty solid job of that with Delta Episode, I think.  Black and White are tempting because I think a more nuanced way of looking at their central conflict could have resulted in something absolutely amazing, but the fact is, their story is really good as it stands.  I’d probably go with Diamond, Pearl and Platinum, because their flippancy with the whole cosmology has never sat well with me – call me crazy, but I think if you’re going to give the player control of Pokémon that are capable of literally unmaking the universe, you need to be just a little bit more explicit than they were about why that is okay.  

Continue reading “Onethousandrbirds asks:” →

brick3621 asks:

Are there any particular features from previous Pokémon games (like walking Pokémon or mid-battle dialogue) that aren’t in Gen VI that you miss?

Well, to be perfectly honest, I have trouble thinking of any features like that at all – which I suppose means that I don’t miss them, whatever they are.  It would be nice to bring back the walking Pokémon from Heart Gold and Soul Silver, now that you mention it; they were a nice touch.  I can imagine it being a bit of a drain on the graphic designers’ time and energy in the 3D world of generation VI, though.  The hilarious glitches from Red and Blue give the games a certain je ne sais quoi…

brick3621 asks:

I just got a shamelessly hacked Eevee (shiny with perfect IVs; hatched on Kalos Route 7 but has a Sinnoh Champion Ribbon) via Wonder Trade and face either the prospect of breeding it for semi-legit Pokémon or just releasing it and never looking back. Either way, I feel like my very game cartridge has been irreversibly tainted by some plague, because I’m of the opinion that the ability to simply obtain whatever Pokémon you want on a whim spoils a significant part of the game and mocks the efforts of honest breeders and trainers who spend hours achieving objectively less impressive results using only the in-game methods that Game Freak provide them, methods that have been made easier over the generations in part, I believe, to discourage would-be hackers.

Do you think that Game Freak should spend more effort cracking down on illegitimate Pokémon and penalize players for using and distributing them? Do you have any idea if they even have the means to do this?


Well, in answer to the last question, no, I haven’t the faintest idea.

I don’t have particularly strong opinions on this, maybe because I’ve never been willing to devote the necessary time to the kind of repetitive tasks involved in breeding for perfect IVs.  I suppose my default would be a sort of laissez faire attitude, though I suspect my reasons for that will provoke… disagreement.

Continue reading “brick3621 asks:” →

Frezgle asks:

Hey!!! Did you see the a trailer for Pokemon Go? What do you think? I’m pretty psyched, since Ingress was awesome and it’s made by the same people.

I have indeed.  It’s actually kind of funny to me, because I have a friend back home who works in the mobile games industry and has been working towards a pitch for basically this exact game for years, and now they’ve gone and done it first, the bastards.  Anyway, I don’t actually know anything about Ingress, but yeah, I’m excited!  Pokémon was always supposed to be about exploring the world around you, and I think this is a fantastic way of building on that theme.  I’m particularly interested in the segment from the trailer that depicts a massive battle against Mewtwo – legendary Pokémon finally getting the respect they deserve, as huge challenges that take as many as a dozen Pokémon working in unison to take down.  I wonder whether you’ll be able to see different Pokémon in different parts of the world, or whether the game will be able to choose species that are appropriate to the real world environment?  Lots of interesting decisions they could make here.

VikingBoyBilly asks:

Do you feel pokemon has ever jumped the shark? Granted, jumping the shark does not automatically mean “became bad,” it just means hitting a drastic turning point it can never return from. For me that’s gen 3, because [long list of reasons].

Well, I would take issue with your understanding of the term “jumping the shark,” because I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a single use of it that hasn’t been negative – TvTropes says “it’s reached its peak, it’ll never be the same again, and from now on it’s all downhill,” while Wikipedia says “the moment in the evolution of a television show when it begins a decline in quality.”  But whatever; drastic turning points it is.

Continue reading “VikingBoyBilly asks:” →

Anonymous asks:

So where would you like to see a region based on? Greece? Italy? Pre-columbian America? (or have you already answered this in your “if i was in charge” stuff?)

You know, I think it came up in the Disqus comments to… something… once… somewhere… which I really can’t be bothered looking for…

I think as a classicist I’m “supposed” to say, like, “ancient Greece!” or “the Aegean!” or “the Mediterranean!” which, you know, don’t get me wrong, I would enjoy and all, and I know a lot of people are really positive about the idea of doing something along those lines, but to be honest, meh?  Do we really need Pokémon to pander to “the West” and its collective fangasm over classical Greek and Roman civilisation like that?  Actually, if I could pick the next Pokémon region, I would almost certainly go for something based on India.  India has a distinctive, recognisable culture, an ancient and glorious history, and an important place in the economy and politics of the modern world, which plays into what I’ve taken to calling Pokémon’s “international spirit.”  The huge variety of climates and terrain types – deserts, mountains, jungles, plains, rivers, swamps, you name it – is the icing on the cake; you can fit almost any damn Pokémon you like in there.  I think an Indian Pokémon region could turn out really cool.