Category: Pokémon Design Questions

VikingBoyBilly asks:

Are there any unevolved pokémon that are so adorable you just don’t want to evolve it? My list is magby, teddiursa, munchlax, tirtouga, and phantump. (I am DETERMINED to make a kickass eviolite phantump. BTW, do you think phantump is a Tiyanak (Also see wikipedia)? Pretty disjointed comment but I can kill multiple questions in one stone with this)

Hmm.  Well, nothing really jumps to the forefront of my mind… I’m scrolling down Smogon’s Little Cup tier list (that being the only place I could think of that just lists all the unevolved Pokémon) looking for possibilities but I’m having difficulty.  I mean, I like the cute ones, don’t get me wrong, but in most cases I find that that’s outweighed by the sense of realisation of potential that comes with evolution.  I’m half with you on Magby, I suppose, in the sense that I do like Magmar but Magmortar looks pretty stupid.  Perhaps Glameow a little, because Purugly is just so grumpy and surly-looking.  Koffing, definitely, because it’s a shame that Koffing is so happy and Weezing so… lung-cancer-y.  Patrat, I guess, insofar as Watchog is that much more unspeakably nightmarish.  And… Ralts, but only to spare her from the ravages of Rule 34.  The internet is a dark and terrible place.

Regarding the tiyanak… hmm.  Well, the biggest objection I can see is that tiyanak normally do look like children.  In the absence of any strong, specific tip-off that this is what they mean (e.g. in the name), it seems plausible that there could be some other similar myth, closer to Japan, that I just plain don’t know about.  But it makes sense; I don’t think it can be ruled out.

Anonymous asks:

Slowbro or Slowking?

Probably Slowbro.  I like the notion of what they were doing with Slowking design-wise, but I think it needed more to make it mechanically distinct, because the differences in their skill-sets are extremely subtle, and to be honest I’m not sure what else could have been done, using generation II mechanics, to differentiate them, other than maybe push more extreme differences in stats.  Slowking winds up feeling a bit superfluous, which is a shame because turning Slowpoke’s evolution literally on its head was a cool starting point.

Anonymous asks:

Im going to try “your” crema di limoncello, seems to be good (im not the guy who asked that). Please make a quick review about feebas and Milotic, they are also some of my favorite pokemon. And im having so much fun reading your Moon chapters! So funny. Love your “impressions” of the new stuff, I also tried to play it avoiding the most spoilers possible; and your “flirting” with the hard grunt…

You probably want to follow some variation on these instructions.  Also, it’s very important to boil the milk; that stops it from curdling (and don’t worry about the milk going off – there’s enough alcohol in this stuff to kill most bacteria, so it keeps basically forever if you chill it).

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Anonymous asks:

What do you think is the logic behind Zubat’s Poison typing?

Well, for one thing, Game Freak seem to have disliked the idea of pure Flying-types up until generation V, when we got Tornadus, and it’s not really clear what else Zubat could possibly have been (no Dark type when he was introduced).  For another, vampire bats are technically venomous by some definitions, since their saliva has special properties that inhibit clotting and increase blood flow to the area of a bite.

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.

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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.

Anonymous asks:

If you had to pick your least favorite & favorite starters (Pikachu doesn’t count) which would you pick?

*sigh* Oh, Bulbasaur, I don’t care which regional Pokédex we’re looking at, you’ll always be #001 in my heart…

*ahem*

Totodile, on the other hand, is silly.

My thoughts on these and all the other starters in excruciating detail can be found here (the 5th and 6th generation starters as part of my general reviews of each generation, all the rest as part of a series I did on, well, starter Pokémon).