One lunatic's love-hate relationship with the Pokémon franchise, and his addled musings on its rights, wrongs, ins and outs. Come one, come all, and indulge my delusions of grandeur as I inflict my opinions on anyone within shouting distance.
[Catch up on the story so far here!]
Last time, on A Pokémon Trainer Is You:
What do you want to investigate?
– Visit Lexa, then go looking for the Super Nerd
You decide that Mal and Ellie’s comments about a “weirdo” who hangs out at the mountain’s peak are the best thing to follow up, so you head over to the tent where they said their fossil conservator, Lexa, is busy working.
Continue reading “A Pokémon Trainer is You! XXXVI: Conservatively Speaking”I can see, definitely, how people might have gotten the idea that I am dead, and I’m not not dead. I had a lot of assignments that were all due all at once, because I’m doing a high school teaching diploma and our first school visits for observation were delayed due to a short COVID lockdown in March and then all the due dates for everything had to be pushed back until we ran out of time to push them back into, because we had to go on our first practicum assignment. So a whole bunch of stuff was due at once, and I did die for a short while because it was more convenient for me to work from Hell (you know how it is; they have some good research libraries and you can eat as much junk food as you want), and then the next day I had to immediately drop into a school and start teaching and getting to know the students, and the first two weeks of that were exhausting. I have been trying to write, but the school is, in some ways, y’know, physically located in Hell, in the Fifth Circle, which is obviously a bit of a commute from my preferred hangouts in the Seventh, so I am somewhat dead, but really only a little bit. I didn’t really intend to take an extended break like I have, but I did also become slightly unmoored from linear time and obviously that took… some indefinite length of subjective time to sort out.
Anyway I have an episode of A Pokémon Trainer Is You coming out tomorrow, and I have the next two weeks off so I should get something done in that time.
But more importantly (and you might have seen this if you follow my Twitter for some reason) I made a Parthenon cake over the last weekend for an online “Build Your Own Monument” competition! Everyone knows the Parthenon, right? This thing?
I thought anyone who’s still here might like some documentation of that, so here’s my process:
Continue reading “Reports of my death have been mildly exaggerated (also cake)”You mentioned that, in gens 1 through 4, all of the “archaeologists” in the Pokemon games were either glorified grave robbers or hobbyists (with the latter category being pretty much entirely represented by Cynthia and maybe Eusine). Has there been any improvement in the portrayal or archaeology since then?
I think so! I mean, a lot of the archaeologist-as-adventurer-and/or-grave-robber stereotypes are baked into pop culture in a way that it’s difficult to get away from, but I actually wrote an article about this for PokéJungle not long after Sword and Shield came out, which you can read here. I think Sonia’s storyline in those games presents an attitude to the past, and the study of the past, that is kind of unique in Pokémon so far and much more representative of what history and archaeology are actually like: a process of negotiating and reshaping our understanding of the past and our relationship with it. All Pokémon games since Gold and Silver have cared at least a little about the ancient past, but I think Sword and Shield really “get” it, more so than any of their predecessors have.
On a mechanical standpoint, do you think the gameplay would suffer if there were no chance involved with the pokeball successfully catching the pokemon (aka 100% capture rate for all pokeballs)?
Excluding legendaries from the discussion for the moment, the catch rate mechanic seems a unnecessary clunky relic. I liked how they simplified the TM/HM system and move deleter/rememberer in Sw/Sh and made managing teams and trying new combos much easier.
Not to mention from mid game onwards you usually have a surplus of pokeballs anyway, particularly Ultra and Quick balls, that when a capture fails it feels more like a waste of time than anything else.
Hmm.
So… not going to lie, my reaction to this suggestion was more or less:
“What? No, that’s obviously dumb.
…
…wait, hang on, is it?”
Continue reading “Chronos asks:”
[Catch up on the story so far here!]
Last time, on A Pokémon Trainer Is You:
What moves should Scallion focus on?
– Razor Leaf and Sleep Powder
What moves should Nancy keep?
– Thunder Wave and Helping Hand
Now that Scallion’s bigger and can’t lift his own weight on his Vine Whips, they’re not as useful; may as well go into Razor Leaf specialisation instead. He’ll still have the vines, obviously; they just won’t be as versatile or effective without continual practice. As for Sleep Powder, it’s not only great in battle, it’s so useful for pacifying wild Pokémon – or potentially even people, if you run into “Team Rocket” again – that you can hardly pass it up. Nancy, on the other hand, you think should stick to what she’s already good at. Thunder Wave is just a great disabling technique, and Helping Hand fits her cheerleader schtick too well to get rid of it. The other moves she could learn instead might be useful, but you don’t think she really has the temperament for trickery to master them.
Continue reading “A Pokémon Trainer is You! XXXV: Lunacy”Just what the title says. I’ve foolishly enrolled in a graduate diploma for high school teaching as long as I’m here in New Zealand not working on my PhD (and, uh… to be honest I’m less than enthusiastic about going back to the US in August for the start of the next academic year), and I’m a bit embroiled in course work at the moment, especially since I’m technically in seven different classes that are all responding independently to New Zealand’s third lockdown and we’ve all completely lost track of what we’re supposed to be doing. Hopefully there will be an episode next week, along with part 2 of this thing.
Soooooooo, how was everyone’s daaaaaay?
Yeah, yeah, I know, let’s talk about the thing
So, not counting the usual self-indulgent montage of Pokémon’s history, there’s three Things in this here broadcast:
The February 26 “Pokémon Presents” broadcast is, for me in New Zealand, at 4 o’clock on the morning of February 27, and frankly there is no force in heaven or earth that will get me out of bed that early just to listen to an announcement from the people who have STOLEN MY LIFE AND REFUSE TO JUST LET ME DIE IN PEACE
I’ll get to it when I get to it, whether it’s Diamond and Pearl remakes, or Let’s Go Johto, or a gritty live action reboot of the TV show, or a new mobile game based on the Celadon Game Corner where you play the slot machines with real money to win a .gif of a Porygon, or just 20 solid minutes of Junichi Masuda bawling his eyes out and knocking back bottles of sake like Gatorade after a marathon because all the Dexit tweets are starting to get to him
for the record, that last one is my official prediction and I am taking no additional questions until further notice
EDIT: actually though I will be streaming Final Fantasy X with Jim the Editor on his Youtube channel as we do every week at 9am NZ time (8pm UK and… I don’t fµ¢£ing know, some other time US) and I’ll probably watch/listen to the broadcast while we’re doing that, so if you want to hear my unstructured and profanity-laden first impressions to the backdrop of an angsty bleached-blonde teenager with daddy issues killing monsters with a Welsh sword… y’know, I’m sure that’ll be in some way worth listening to. I’ll tweet when we’re live or something.
As part of my eternal contract of service to the Dark Council of my highest-tier Patreon supporters (to whom special thanks, and a mighty tribute of souls and magic, are as always due), I regularly solicit topics from them to discuss in longer articles – and once again, that time has come. Today I’m supposed to be talking about the (so far) three generational flagship mechanics of the Pokémon games – X and Y’s Mega Evolution, Sun and Moon’s Z-Moves and Sword and Shield’s Dynamax – in all their aspects, both how they practically work in the game and how they influence the story and lore of their worlds. “Flagship mechanics” is my own term for these, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else say it, but I like it better than “gimmicks” because I think it’s a better reflection of what the developers seem to want them to be, so I’m gonna keep using it, and you all just have to deal with that because… it’s my blog, so shut up.
Let’s start with a summary for people who might not be familiar with one or more of the games that introduced and featured these mechanics:
Continue reading “Pokémon’s Generational “Flagship Mechanics””
[Catch up on the story so far here!]
Last time, on A Pokémon Trainer Is You:
Who do you want to spend time with?
– Magikarp
You really need to hurry to reach your destination and get on with that… mission… thingy… or whatever. I mean, not that I give a $#!t but it seemed important to you. The going’s going to be much slower now that you’re climbing the mountain and trekking through caves. Still, Mount Moon isn’t completely inhospitable. Yeah, the cave floors are pretty uneven – lots of stalagmites and unexpected potholes – and gravel and dust keep falling on your head in a very unsettling way. Your Pokédexes have GPS, but with so much rock over your heads they might as well be cardboard compasses. On the other hand, you and Blue both have torches (plus the glowing tail flame of Blue’s new Charmander) and Brock’s map shows the layout of the caves on your direct route in fairly high detail. There are even a couple of softly-glowing phosphor lanterns that must have been left by the dig team as waypoints. You more than once trip over an unruly Geodude, but Scallion and Aura both have Grass attacks that can quickly send them packing; with Blue’s Squirtle on your flank, they’re no trouble at all. There are also Zubat just… everywhere. You love all Pokémon, Professor Oak groomed you to be a paragon young trainer and scientist, but if there were ever a Pokémon that could stretch your patience to breaking point, it’d be the one constantly trying to perch on your shoulder and give you a quick anaesthetic bite so it can suck your blood unnoticed while you walk onward through the dark caves. Fortunately, Nancy the Negator isn’t having any of that bull$#!t. On top of everything else, you have this uncanny sensation of being watched by something just outside your torchlight. When you bring it up, the Pokémon just seem to think you’re being paranoid, but Blue bites his lip and mutters something about how it’s not paranoia if “they” really are out to get you.
Continue reading “A Pokémon Trainer is You! XXXIV: At the Mountains of Moonness”
Pokémaniacal 