RandomAccess asks:

There’s something I’ve been wondering about lately, and I want to get your opinion. Do you think the Flygon line are reptiles with an insect motiff, or insects with a reptillian edge? I myself lean toward the former, but I’m very much interested in your input.

Does it matter? Trapinch is basically an insect – it’s supposed to be an antlion or something – and Flygon looks basically like a reptilian western dragon, with Vibrava being somewhere in between (and, appropriately enough, a dragonfly). Since they’re in the Bug breeding group, I’m inclined to say that they’re biologically more like insects, despite Flygon’s appearance.

SkarmorySilver asks:

I see you liked my pitohui Pokemon, thanks! Which leads me to this question: I remember you said you were tired of bird Pokemon (among other generic templates) being repeated with each generation. That said, if you HAD to design a “common bird” (without any cop-outs like using a previous gen bird, for example), what would be the result? Would you have picked something different from a songbird, for example?

What have we had so far?

Pidgey isn’t so much a pigeon as a composite ‘generic bird,’ [EDIT: in fact it’s more probably a cedar waxwing, a medium-sized North American songbird] similarly Spearow is a composite ‘generic raptor’ and pretty clearly not a sparrow. Aside from those, we’ve had an owl, a swallow, a starling, an actual pigeon who eventually winds up as a pheasant, and a robin who winds up as a peregrine falcon. With the exception of Hoothoot and Noctowl, all fit into the same basic battle role as fast physical attackers (with… varying degrees of success). With the exception of Fletchinder and Talonflame, all are Normal/Flying. Now, if I understand the prompt you’re giving me, the requirement here is for an early-game Pokémon based on a bird without any particularly remarkable traits, initially Normal/Flying but not necessarily all the way?

I want a frickin’ ptarmigan.

Ptarmigans, for those unfamiliar with the name, are hardy little alpine- and tundra-adapted birds related to chickens, pheasants and quails. Probably their most interesting feature is that their feet and toes are covered in feathers, unusually for birds – part of their cold adaptation. Let’s play with that and have them evolve into Ice-types with ice crystal feathers on their feet, for performing a sort of ice-kick attack parallel to Blaze Kick (I’m sure some other Pokémon would love to share it). While real ptarmigans hibernate in burrows during the winter, these guys hibernate in summer and emerge when the weather starts to cool down again. They can fly, but aren’t great at it, and don’t generally like to travel long distances that way.

Wikipedia also informs me that the rock ptarmigan is known in Japan as the raichou – thunder bird (rai being the same word that appears in, e.g., Raichu and Raikou), which is a wonderful excuse to have it randomly learn a couple of Electric attacks as it levels and confuse everyone who isn’t in on the joke.

I kinda want the final form to be called Ptarmagnicant, but I’m worried that’s too long (2 letters longer than Fletchinder, who has the longest English name of any Pokémon), and I have no ideas on the smaller forms. Suggestions?

Anonymous asks:

Wow, really loving all your articles and posts! That’s awesome that you like the Grass type; they don’t get enough love. But I gotta know: what’s your opinion on the Ground type in general? For the longest time it’s been my favorite (but that might be nostalgia talking since I used to love Sandshrew when I was 8). Now that I’ve looked over some of your posts about Pokemon designs….I do notice Ground has a lot of rather generic looking desert animals with no particular extraordinary powers, lol

Ground… Ground is sort of odd because, aside from Normal, it’s the element with the fewest proper defining characteristics. Many of them are either subterranean or desert creatures – and let us note that these are two extremely different things, and that there is really no reason to clump them together while separating Rock. This seems to be the deal for most Ground-type attacks, but not all Ground Pokémon are anything like this. What, for instance, makes Marowak a Ground-type? What makes Garchomp a Ground-type, other than having the Sand Veil ability (which is shared by Cacturne)? What makes Nidoking and Nidoqueen Ground-types? You mention Sandshrew, and I think perhaps it is worth noting that, as of his introduction in Red and Blue, Sandshrew never actually learned any Ground attacks on his own – Sand Attack being considered a Normal-type attack at the time, which really makes you wonder why they labelled Sandshrew a Ground-type in the first place. In Gold and Silver, of course, Sand Attack became Ground-type, but the newly introduced Sandstorm was a Rock-type attack, and has been ever since. The first Sand Stream Pokémon, Tyranitar, was a Rock-type also. Sort of makes you wonder why other sand Pokémon, and the sand-based attacks introduced in Ruby and Sapphire, didn’t follow suit. The only thing I can think of that they all have in common is that they live on the ground, and even that goes out the window when you encounter bloody Gligar and his nonsensical Ground/Flying type. It might be instructive, furthermore, to question why Kangaskhan, Dunsparce and Stoutland, to name a few, are not Ground-types.

I’m honestly not sure Ground really needs to be a type at all. It has very little in the way of thematic unity or purpose, and if I had been doing this ten years ago I might have suggested eliminating it entirely and splitting all of its belongings between Rock and Normal (although this would happen at the price of making Normal even larger and more nebulous than it is already). You asked for my opinion on the Ground type, and I suppose I’ve given it… I don’t really ‘get’ it. This is not to say that individual Ground-type Pokémon are poorly designed; some of them are, of course, but others are amazing. It’s just that the type as a whole is such a vague and, frankly, poorly thought-out idea that they don’t really have anything in common as a group. Is it really necessary to have two ‘miscellaneous’ types?

Anonymous asks:

If you could change one thing about Garbodor- other than the fact he exists- that would make you like him more, what would you do? For example, give him more moves, better stats, and evolution…

I have one major problem with Garbodor.

Well, two major problems.

…okay, three major problems.

The easiest problem is that he’s honestly just a terrible Pokémon. Probably best fixed by adding some stuff to his movepool (probably support stuff, like Taunt and Slack Off – heck, maybe we could even get away with Thunder Wave? He already gets Thunderbolt, and Thunder Wave might actually be useful) and raising his HP a few points. I should note that the addition of Drain Punch to Garbodor’s movepool via the B2W2 move tutors makes him significantly less terrible than when I first looked at him in ‘11, though he’s still not exactly good.

The second problem is that he’s conceptually very similar to Muk. So similar, in fact, that I was never actually able to pick out any differences. This is one of my pet peeves. Now, this is where you probably want to look at Bogleech’s Garbodor article; he argues that Garbodor completes a land/sea/sky triad with Muk and Weezing, which… I don’t really believe, to be honest, or at least I don’t think that’s what the designers intended because, frankly, I think if that were the case Garbodor would have earth-related abilities (hey, that gives us an excuse to lump Earthquake on him). I think Garbodor was intended to replace Muk and Weezing in Black and White, not to complement them. That would certainly be a good place to start, though. Aside from giving Garbodor earth-related powers, you could take some time to associate him with Muk and Weezing in some way other than merely having them in the same global franchise – set them up as rivals or something? I’m of the opinion that if you really must copy an earlier idea to a t, you should at least reference the fact that this is what you’re doing.

The last problem I have with Garbodor is sort of a stylistic thing. See, I think the knee-jerk reaction a lot of people have with Garbodor is that he’s dumb because he’s made out of trash, and this is not why I dislike him at all. I don’t really have any issue with Muk, and I think Trubbish was actually surprisingly well done. It’s more the ‘lobotomised chimpanzee’ look that bothers me. Muk has an air of menace about him. Garbodor has an air of ‘durrr…’

…let me tell you a story.

When I first encountered Garbodor, my thought was “that isn’t a Pokémon. They would never create anything that stupid.” Now, you believe I am exaggerating. You believe that, obviously, when I met Garbodor in the game, the fact that he was in the game clearly must have proven to me, beyond doubt, that he really was a Pokémon and that Game Freak did create him, and that however much I disliked him I had to deal with him.

You would be wrong.

You would be wrong because the first place I ever encountered Garbodor was this cartoon.

Since this was before I had ever actually played Black version, I interpreted this as sheer exaggeration – “oh, look at the new Pokémon; they’re so dumb that even this piece of shit would fit in just fine.” It honestly never occurred to me that this might be a real 5th-generation Pokémon I was looking at (the cartoon reached me without any explanatory caption, so I was deprived of that information). When I actually met Garbodor in Black, my surprise and dismay were epic in their scope (and I am a classicist by training; ‘epic’ is not a word I use lightly).

Let me say this one more time.

When I first encountered Garbodor, I sincerely believed he was a parody created by Genwunners to mock recent Pokémon designs.

Let that sink in.

Is it really any wonder I have a problem with him?

Anonymous asks:

If the Creature Design department at Pokemon studios asked you to design a Pokemon, how would you proceed and what would your Pokemon be? Type(s), Attacks, Ability/Abilities, Bio, and maybe a picture or illustrative description?

Hmm.

Well, my usual position is that I wouldn’t.

I’m not against new Pokémon per se; I just think we have enough now that creating new Pokémon for the sake of having new Pokémon should no longer be a priority.

Still, you did ask…

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