Category: Pokémon Design Questions

Anonymous asks:

Would you like to see a Mega Vileplume?

Yes and no… I mean, Vileplume is my favourite Pokémon so, like, if you want to give her cool stuff, go right ahead, but I don’t know if the pile of extra stats associated with mega evolution necessarily solves the problems that she has.  With the exception of Slowbro, Sableye and Aggron, most top-tier mega Pokémon are offensive powerhouses, and that’s not really what Vileplume is trying to do anyway.  I think her real problem is that her hidden ability (Effect Spore) is just bloody useless, and her regular ability (Chlorophyll) is amazing but completely mismatched to her role.  You could use mega evolution to cheat in a replacement ability, I suppose, but honestly I would much rather just add a second regular ability; most Pokémon have two, and giving Vileplume something a) really strong and b) different from what other Grass-type supporters have would, I think, just about do it.

Anonymous asks:

How would you make a Mega Luxray. Like stat changes, extra moves for Luxray next generation, ability change, type change, etc.

I’ve also received this question:
“How would you feel about a Mega Luxray that was an Electric/Dark type with Strong Jaw as an ability? To fit in with its ability, give it Poison Fang through breeding or move tutor, and Volt Tackle because there’s no reason for it to not have Volt Tackle. Then for its stats, lower its Special Attack and pour most of the stats into Attack with some going into Speed.”

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Anonymous asks:

I really like the Sinnoh starters, how their typings countered each other and how they all have mythological influences behind them! It helps set the atmosphere of D/P/Pt and shows that a lot of thought really go into the starters. Do you think Game Freak should do more of that kind of thing?

The Sinnoh starters are definitely my favourite trio, and the way Game Freak chose to play with their type combinations is certainly part of that.  It’s nice to have a bit of variety mixed in with the Grass/Water/Fire standard, and the way Torterra can beat Infernape with Ground attacks, Infernape can beat Empoleon with Fighting attacks, and Empoleon can beat Torterra with Ice attacks gives it all a pleasing symmetry.  As long as we have to keep Grass/Water/Fire, I’m glad there’s some scope to play with it.

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Anonymous asks:

I noticed that Tyranitar’s the only pseudo-legendary to not be used by a final boss in its introductory games; any guesses as to why they didn’t give Lance one in GSC/HGSS? It’s reasonably draconic-looking (hey, they made Tyrantrum a Dragon!) and it’s quite powerful and God knows Lance could do without one of his blasted cheating Dragonite and get some variety in his team! Similarly, any thoughts as to why they didn’t give Steven a Magneton, a strong Steel Pokémon that was available in RSE/ORAS?

You know, I’ve never thought about it… I think there are several plausible reasons, though.  First, in most generations, there’s someone new who fills that role, whereas Lance was an established character already and Dragonite was firmly set as his signature Pokémon before Gold and Silver happened.  And this was only the second generation, so it’s not like this was already a rule or convention by that point; in Red and Blue the final final boss was the rival character, not the guy with the Dragonite.  And maybe the very fact that they didn’t give Lance a Tyranitar, in contrast to the way they’ve behaved more recently, says something about what they think Tyranitar is supposed to be – that is, maybe there’s something about him that strikes Game Freak as particularly not draconic, possibly because he’s basically a dinosaur and therefore needs to be a Rock-type (yes, you can compare Tyrantrum, but that’s fifteen years later, and I don’t know if I’d expect 100% consistency over such a long period on something as vague as what the Dragon type is; they may have different ideas about it now).  I also kinda think maybe they had in mind for Larvitar and its evolutions to be almost like a “secret” Pokémon – Larvitar doesn’t show up until the very end of the game, at Mount Silver, and neither it nor its evolutions are ever used by any trainer prior to that. Misdreavus is the same.  I think that’s part of a deliberate choice, meant to emphasise the remoteness of Mount Silver – there are Pokémon there that you won’t even have heard of during a playthrough of Gold or Silver, and Larvitar, Pupitar and Tyranitar are part of creating that aesthetic.

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Anonymous asks:

Trend is a bit too strong a word, but I’ve noticed in your reviews of new Pokemon, specifically version-exclusive Pokemon, you tend to prefer one over the other. Cf Cottonee/Petilil, Solosis/Gothita, Clauncher/Skrelp. Would you care to talk about the implications of version exclusivity at all? (I mean, beyond the natural selling point of forcing people either to make new friends or buy two versions of the same game.)

Well, I talked a little about this here, and honestly I tried to think of some point to it beyond driving more sales, but didn’t come up with anything.  In gameplay terms I think that particular aspect of the paired-game concept is obsolete, because version-exclusive Pokémon are among the smallest obstacles to finishing a Pokédex today.  So is there anything else to it?  I suppose it would be something if you could argue that the sets of version-exclusive Pokémon say something about the character of the games they appear on – like if you could say, for instance, that Ekans, Vileplume, Primeape, Arcanine, Scyther and Electabuzz somehow thematically “go with” Red/Fire/Charizard in a way that Sandslash, Victreebel, Persian, Ninetales, Pinsir and Magmar do not.  And I think maybe you can almost say that for the Ruby and Sapphire sets, but you really have to stretch some of them to make it fit.  Or perhaps you could conjecture that the different versions represent different seasons, or something along those lines, so that Red version represents the experience of a trainer who started a journey in winter rather than summer (that doesn’t work for generation V, of course, which actually has a season mechanic), or something else along those lines.  In the end I really don’t think there’s much you can draw out of it.

Anonymous asks:

More than once, I’ve seen you complain about how gen 4 didn’t simply switch Sceptile’s physical and special attack stats. Are there any other pokemon who you think should be fixed simply by having some of their base stats changed or switched? That was never a solution you brought up in your Top 10 Worst Pokemon, and while I know it’s a bit of an uncreative solution, for several pokemon it’s the only plausible solution.

Hmm.  Well, I think the Pokémon on that list need a good deal more than that – most of them do actually have attack stats that match their movepools reasonably well, if memory serves; the problem is that both are awful.  I’m not sure I’ve every really thought that about any other Pokémon.  Sceptile is sort of a special case because there’s a flavour/aesthetic component to it.  Sceptile looks and feels like he should be a physical attacker, but he isn’t because the designers loaded him up with moves that push the limits of what makes sense in generation III mechanics – moves that, like Sceptile, look and feel physical but were actually special at the time because of their type, like Leaf Blade and Dragon Claw.  I don’t know if there’s any other Pokémon that had quite the same experience of that transition; the vast majority of them came out better off.  Sceptile is just weird because it seems like they deliberately statted him up to work with the quirks of the pre-generation IV mechanics that Pokémon like Absol, Feraligatr and Sneasel were stuck trying to work against.

Anonymous asks:

I don’t know if you’ve looked closely at the screenshots from Pokemon Sun and Moon, but if you have what are your thoughts on the bird Pokemon they show. Do you think it will be another generic starter bird? Maybe a starter?

Okay so something you should understand about me is that I am a terrible, awful wet blanket when it comes to pre-release speculation.  Like, pretty much anything that anyone says at this point, my reaction is “yeah but there is literally no way you can prove that so I don’t care.”  Case in point, with that half-finished wireframe model we saw for a few seconds, I’m not even 100% convinced it wasn’t a Skarmory.  I mean, it’s probably not because it looked like it had some kind of poofy headdress thing, but the first time I saw that trailer it honestly didn’t even occur to me that I might be looking at a new Pokémon at all.  And even once we get that far, I just have zero interest in using such incredibly scanty information to make vague and poorly informed guesses about something that we’re just going to be straight up told in a few months anyway.  I’m boring like that.

I much prefer making vague and poorly informed guesses about subjects that Game Freak is never going to give us more information about.  That way I can never be definitively proven wrong!  Muwhahahahaha!

Anonymous asks:

Would you ever consider dong reviews for Mega Evolutions like you did with the new Pokemon from Unoba and Kalos

Eh.  To be honest with you I’m not really interested in individual Mega Evolutions, because I tend to be most interested in the way Pokémon fit into the world/environment/society/etc as species, and in the case of Mega Evolved Pokémon, much of the point is that they resolutely just don’t.  As a general concept I think it’s worth rambling about at length – and I have – but at the moment something like that is not really on my radar at all.