Anonymous asks:

What do you think of Pokemon obviously designed to be sexualized like Lopunny? I think it’s really creepy myself, and can’t stand playing with them in Pokemon amie because they keep giving me giggles, hip shakes, hair/ear flips, and generally acting like they’re trying to flirt with me. Not to mention in their first sprites, their elbows were deliberatly placed to make it look like they have breasts. It’s really screwed up, and feels like a desperate attempt to pander to “adult” demographics.

To be honest it’s not something that’s ever bothered me a great deal. I mean, I think it’s silly, and doesn’t make for interesting designs, but I’ve never had the kind of visceral discomfort with it that you seem to. Nor do I quite see what you mean about Lopunny’s fourth-generation sprites, although I suppose they could be taken that way. I will say it seems like a very odd choice to me, given the ‘family-friendly’ image that Nintendo has always tried to cultivate, and Game Freak’s obvious discomfort with saying anything explicit about how ‘breeding’ works. The disconnect leads me to suspect that there’s some level of cultural nuance here that that the Western audience just isn’t quite getting, and I don’t really know enough about the Japanese to probe the matter any further.

Anonymous asks:

Murkrow and Honchkrow vs. Misdreavous and Mismagius, purely on a design/concept level.

Well, I guess I would say that I think Misdreavus and Mismagius seem to hold together in a more coherent fashion. With Murkrow and Honchkrow there seems to be this weird disconnect, where Murkrow is all about witchcraft, superstition and misfortune, but then Honchkrow is… like, a mob boss for some reason? I can kind of see links there, don’t get me wrong – the Mafia are Italian, and Italians are a superstitious lot; Honchkrow apparently gets called “the Summoner of Night” for his role in leading groups of Murkrow, which sounds a lot more like a name you’d give to the master of a coven of witches than to a Mafia Don; Murkrow steals and hoards shiny things, so an association with criminality isn’t out of the question. But there just isn’t anything there, for me, that ties it all together. Honchkrow is just… odd, as an evolution from Murkrow. On the other hand, that same mix of different influences kind of makes them more interesting Pokémon to me than Misdreavus and Mismagius, somehow. There’s stuff about Murkrow and Honchkrow that demands explanation in a way that isn’t the case for Misdreavus and Mismagius; you can imagine weird stuff about their social structures, and their existence kind of suggests some odd overlap between organised crime and superstition or witchcraft in the Pokémon world, which is the sort of curious place that makes a good starting point for telling a story. So… “hmmmm…” is what it comes down to, more or less.

Anonymous asks:

How does Dwebble “melt holes in hard rocks with a liquid secreted from its mouth” without any acid based attacks?

…huh.

Y’know, that…

…huh.

Okay, well, I suppose my stance has to be that, If I Were In Charge, Dwebble would get Acid because it makes sense and there’s no compelling game balance reason for him not to, but given that he doesn’t… Upon closer inspection, the Pokédex never actually says “acid” or “acidic,” it just mentions a secretion from Dwebble’s mouth – so maybe it’s not an acidic solution at all, but a special enzyme in Dwebble’s saliva, designed to break down certain kinds of rock? It’s slow-acting, ineffective against all other materials, and therefore utterly useless in combat, but important for Dwebble’s way of life. I think that makes sense.

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.

Anonymous asks:

Design-wise, you’ve always seemed quite fond of magcargo. More than once you’ve praised it for having a unique and interesting design that diverges from the standard “animal on fire.” But I think we can all agree that in terms of usage, magcargo is absolute trash. Gen 2 screwed it over terribly with horrible typing and quite unimpressive stats, and the later generations did nothing at all to help it. So, if you were in charge, what exactly would you do to save magcargo?

Oh, Magcargo. I’m fond of him because the idea of a snail made of lava with a shell made of cooling rock just makes sense on a level that, say, a lizard with a fiery tail or a horse with a fiery mane doesn’t – it takes a snail’s pliable body and rigid shell, and applies that to the Fire element in a way that recalls the formation of a crust of solid rock on the surface of a lava flow. But yeah, Magcargo is terrible in so many ways. Double weaknesses to Ground and Water make it impossible for Magcargo to be a top-notch defensive Pokémon, and awful speed and average special attack make it impossible for him to be anything else. I think it would be thematically appropriate, and helpful, for Magcargo to have an ability that absorbs Water attacks and turns them into a physical defence bonus to represent the hardening of his lava skin into rock (instead of f#$%ing immunity to freezing, which is what he’s got now). That just makes Magcargo less obviously awful though. Without evolving to jack up those depressing stats there’s only so much we can do; at the moment he’s so slow even Shell Smash doesn’t make him a very good attacker. The nonexistence of special Rock attacks is also a big stumbling block. But Magcargo actually gets Yawn, Recover, Reflect and Light Screen, Will’o’Wisp, Stealth Rock… given halfway decent HP and special defence, and a strong ability, it seems like there would be plenty there for a more tanky-supporty role.

vikingboybilly asks:

I’m starting to think Eevee might be based on the common ancestor of dogs, cats, weasels, foxes, otters, etc. Sound cool? Maybe the bunny ears symbolizes it’s evolutionary leap from herbivore into a predator.

Well, the basal Carnivora probably looked something like this – much more distinctly cat-like than Eevee and probably tree-dwelling – so I think it’s highly unlikely Game Freak specifically had something like that in mind. I think conceptually they may have had ideas like common ancestors and adaptive radiation in mind – they did call her “the Evolution Pokémon,” after all. But we already knew that.

Anonymous asks:

Bunch of random thoughts on my favorite type, Poison? I think some simple tweaks, that also make logical sense, would make the type much more balanced: poison should be super effective on water(cause toxins affect aquatic animals more strongly), and the poison status effect should sharply lower special attack(analogous to burn). Maybe throw in effectiveness on bug and resistance to dark? Also, what do you think of the idea of a Poison/Fire legendary that creates oil spills and sets fire to them?

Poison, Poison, Poison…

Poison is underrated, I think. Like, everyone knows Poison attacks are terrible, but Poison as a type, defensively, is actually really good; just ask Weezing. Making all of those changes would make Poison much too strong, I think – but making it super-effective on Water types probably wouldn’t be too much, and it’s thematically appropriate. As for the poison status… well, thematically burns weaken your physical attacks because they make movement painful and make the affected parts of your body tender; I guess you might justify an equivalent special attack penalty from poison by claiming that the poison damages concentration or something? But I think thematically I would prefer just making all poison “toxic” to bump it up to the level of other status effects. For the attacks that currently cause that status (Toxic, Poison Fang, potentially Toxic Spikes), give them a head start on the damage ramping – start at 1/8 of the target’s HP on the first turn instead of 1/16. The legendary Pokémon could be interesting; I think I’d be inclined to see it as a sort of souped-up Muk, an avatar of industrial pollution, which potentially comes with some interesting territory to explore – if something is born out of toxic waste or oil spills, does that make it evil, or mean that it doesn’t have the same rights as other Pokémon? Does it spread pollution itself, or does it actually wipe out oil spills by burning them away, and what is its overall impact on the environment? Mechanically, what could also be neat there is a signature move along the lines of a Fire-type Venoshock – fire damage, with a bonus on poisoned targets (much stronger than Venoshock though, obviously).

vikingboybilly asks:

What is lickitung?

Lickitung is what you turn into if you’re making a face when the wind changes.

Anonymous asks:

What do you think of Clampearl/Huntail/Gorebyss? Beyond the weirdness of an oyster evolving into two fish…

I talked with Jim the Editor about the evolution thing, and he thinks Clamperl is actually an egg, of sorts, surrounded by an elaborate protective shell – Huntail and Gorebyss ‘hatch’ out of it. Also, weirdly, while it looks like Clamperl’s face is in its pearl, its Pokédex entries suggest that the pearl – the one pearl that it makes over the course of its life – is left behind when it evolves, so I’m not really sure what’s going on there.

Anyway. I don’t think either of them are spectacular. Huntail, I always felt, was somewhat lacking in personality, but I like the stark contrast between Gorebyss’ beautiful, elegant appearance and savage behaviour. I suppose if I have a problem with them, it’s that they’re not nearly as weird as they could be. Considering some of the bizarre stuff that lives in the deep ocean, a couple of eel-like Pokémon with mostly generic Water-type powers is… something of a let-down, to be honest.