Category: Reader Questions

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.

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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.

Anonymous asks:

I hate asking anything non-Pokémon here (assuming you even answer another, I know this is a Pokémon blog-thing) but in response to that previous Star Wars question, you mentioned the many Bothans who died – wasn’t that to get the plans to the OTHER Death Star? I thought I distinctly remember that being the other Death Star, which was why they weren’t in the movie…

see this is why I’m a Pokémon nerd and not a Star Wars nerd

Anonymous:

If you were to make a themed team for Cynthia, what would you give her? Feel free to interpret any particular theme you feel is appropriate for her, and you can use Pokémon from any region you want, but you MUST keep her Garchomp.

Ehhhhhhmmmmm.  Cynthia likes mythical things and ancient mysteries and such.  Garchomp probably isn’t a Pokémon I would have chosen for that theme, given the option, but it is a big dragon, and dragons are magic, so close enough.  A lot of her other Pokémon already do have an appropriately mystic feel – Spiritomb, Lucario, Milotic… Roserade doesn’t fit; the Gastrodon she uses on Diamond and Pearl certainly doesn’t fit, though the Togekiss she replaces it with on Platinum is a bit better.  I would in principle want to replace them both with Pokémon that exist in Sinnoh.  I rather like Bronzong, which has the disadvantage of being Lucian’s signature Pokémon in Diamond and Pearl, but is workable if we just switch it out for Gallade on Lucian’s team (which is actually what happens in Platinum).  I’m tempted to go with a second Ghost- or Dark-type for the final slot… maybe Froslass, or Absol.

Anonymous asks:

What do you think of a region dedicated solely to Dragon type Pokemon? Where everything is/evolves into a Dragon type?

Iiiiiii kinda think that’s a very iffy idea from a gameplay perspective.  I mean, almost everything is super-effective against almost everything else, so the strategy gets much shallower.  And you’re limiting the possible design space needlessly with a requirement that everything be a dragon.  I don’t think we need a hundred new Dragon Pokémon.  What would even be the benefit of a single-type region, anyway?

Anonymous asks:

Is it me, or does it seem like the Kanto-Johto superregion hold a lot of influence over the rest of the Pokémon world? Like, Poké Balls started in Johto, then modernized, industrialized, and commercialized by Silph Co. in Kanto (who also made the Master Ball). The Kanto and Johto Professors created the Pokédex and discovered Pokémon Eggs, respectively. The PC system was first invented by a Johto guy who also works in Kanto. What’s going on here, from an in-universe perspective?

I’m hesitant to assign too much importance to something that has a really obvious real-world explanation – i.e. those regions were first, and in Pokémon’s early days there was no certainty that there ever would be other regions, so we find explanations for a lot of important core concepts there.  Also, like, Bill gets a lot of the credit, but every other region has a tech expert who’s supposed to have worked on the PC storage system with him.  Pokéballs… well, there are regions that still don’t use them, right?  Like Fiore, and Almia.  And Pokémon training predates Pokéballs, probably by quite a bit.  Wherever the first ones were used (which I agree is probably Johto, though I don’t think that’s ever actually been confirmed officially), the convenience of the new technology probably caused it to spread very quickly, with little deliberate drive from the creators, and the lifestyles and ways of Pokémon training associated with the technology would have spread too.  Pokémon trainers of the world might have been a much more diverse bunch before Pokéballs were introduced.

Anonymous asks:

What would you say are the pros and cons of each set of remakes? Which set is your favorite?

Well, mostly I just think they’ve gotten better over time.  Fire Red and Leaf Green were almost just Red and Blue with better graphics and third generation mechanics; the Sevii stuff is nice but doesn’t feel like it adds anything fundamentally new.  Heart Gold and Soul Silver add a little bit of characterisation to Team Rocket (though not quite enough, in my opinion) and a couple of cool new features, most prominently the walking Pokémon.  And Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby are just really neat games in their own right; some areas are completely reimagined, the plot and main characters are a lot more compelling than the in the original games, and they even improve on X and Y with things like the Eon Flute and the ability to sneak up on wild Pokémon.  Which… well, makes sense, since the designers have more experience and are building off their previous work.